Empty names: An essay on the semantics, pragmatics, metaphysics, and epistemology of empty names and other directly referential expressions

In the nineteenth century, Jacques Babinet thought there was a planet between Mercury and the Sun. He introduced ‘Vulcan’ as a name for such a planet; but, unfortunately for him, there was and is no such planet. ‘Vulcan’ is an empty name: it's a name that doesn't refer to anything. Ever since the time of Parmenides, empty names have been giving philosophers lots of headaches.; There is a longstanding dispute in the philosophy of language about what the content of a name is, where the content of an expression is what it contributes to the propositions expressed by sentences that contain it. On the one hand, direct reference theorists say that the content of a name is the object that it refers to. On the other hand, Fregeans say that the content of a name is a sense, which presents the object that the name refers to. Empty names don't refer to anything. So, on the direct reference theory, they have no content. As a result, empty names pose a host of problems for the direct reference theory. By contrast, on the Fregean theory, empty names can still have contents (provided that some senses don't present any object). As a result, empty names don't pose nearly as many problems for the Fregean theory.; The problems that empty names pose for the direct reference theory have been taken to provide reasons for rejecting that theory in favor of its Fregean rival. But it would be a mistake to reject the direct reference theory on those grounds. Why? Because, by appropriating Fregean resources, direct reference theorists can offer solutions to the problems that empty names pose. Or so I argue in this dissertation. The main lesson that emerges is that the dispute between direct reference theorists and Fregeans, properly understood, isn't a dispute about whether there are senses so much as it is a dispute about where there are senses. Both direct reference theorists and Fregeans can appeal to senses, but only Fregeans think that senses are in the propositions expressed by sentences that contain names.