Proper Names as Quantifiers: A Neo-Fregean Account of the Sense of Names

量限化的專名

楊金穆(Syraya Chin-Mu Yang)

《歐美研究》 37卷2期 (2007/06) Pp. 183-225

摘要

The main burden of this paper is to present a quantificational treatment of names, by construing the sense of a name in a sentence as indicating a special type of quantification (in fact, a constant quantification) in character, which is supposed to impinge upon the scope of application of the associated predicate(s). In brief, a name occurring in a sentence will be treated as a constant quantifier. That is, to treat the standard formula of the form 〞Fa〞 (where 〞F〞 is a predicate and 〞a〞 a proper name) as 〞a_xFx〞 (where a is a constant quantifier, to which an object a in the given domain will be assigned as its reference, if there is any), and the variable x always takes the object a, if there is any, as its semantic value whenever it is bounded by the constant quantifier a. This account substantially follows Frege's guidelines for his semantic theory in general, which he lays out at the very beginning of The Foundations of Arithmetic. I shall start with a brief analysis of how his guidelines would carry greater weight with an adequate account of the sense of names. Then I propose that the sense of a name in a sentence should be construed as a special type of quantification (in fact, a constant quantification) in character. I shall further justify the formal adequacy of this quantificational treatment of names by constructing a first order language, in which the symbols ordinarily used as name letters or individual constants will be treated as constant quantifiers, together with appropriate semantic rules for these constant quantifiers. Finally, I show how this treatment could help us to deal with some persisting problems that the use of names may give rise to.

關鍵字

proper names ； quantification ； the Context Principle ； the sense of names

並列摘要

本文主要目的在於利用量限（quantificational）的概念來說明專名的意含，我將論證：當一個專名出現在一個語句中（用以表達一思想的語句），其意含可理解為是用以指示一種特殊的量限功能（事實上是一種常元式的量限詞，用來限定所連結的述詞應用到某一特定且固定的對象上）。因此在標準的述詞邏輯語言中語句「Fa」（“F＂指一述詞，“a＂指一專名）應理解為“a_xFx＂（在此a係指一常元量限詞），而在既予的論域當中，該常元量限詞將會有至多一個對象a如果有的話，作為其指稱項。而每當變項x出現在被a所羇限的範圍內，x將以a之指稱項作為其語意值。這個進路基本上是遵循弗列格在其《數學基礎》一書當中所揭示的語意理論之綱要，我將首先分析弗列格在語意學上的基本綱要對於專名意含之理論有何影響，並進而把標準的一階（述詞）語言改造成具有常元式的量限詞但沒有專名的一階語言及其語意學。

並列關鍵字

專名 ； 量限詞 ； 脈絡原則 ； 專名的意含

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