ABSTRACT
From a logical or philosophical point of view, names quickly give rise to paradox. For example, logical analysis may appear to show that the names of ordinary language never do any referential work, so that the names of ordinary language are not really names at all. But it may equally seem, upon philosophical reflection, that most linguistic symbols—if not all—are really names. Both of these possibilities give rise to a number of paradoxes that are difficult to resolve. But epistemic progress is often made by first finding something paradoxical and later discovering it to be true. In fact, there is a good amount of truth in both of these alternatives. This chapter explains, first, how these extreme points of view may come to be attractive, and how they came to be adopted in the seminal works of Frege and Russell; it then shows how to resolve the relevant paradoxes, while preserving the lessons from Frege and Russell and further combining them with ones from Kripke’s Naming and Necessity and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. The essay shows that Kripke and Wittgenstein are largely in agreement on all essential points, including rigid designation and what constitutes meaning and reference—so that the standard historical narrative, according to which Wittgenstein tried to kill metaphysics and Kripke revived it, becomes at the very least questionable.
