A Study On Kripke’s Theory Of Empty Proper Names

In the theories about meaning of names, there exist two mainstream views, the traditional description theory and the direct reference theory, which are held in opposition. Since Kripke put forward the Three Critiques against the traditional description theory, many scholars gave up the original view of the description theory one after another and swung to Kripke’s direct reference theory in academia. The heart of the direct reference theory is that proper names are rigid designators without connotation but reference. Empty names in the actual world have no physical individuals as their referents and in this sense, they threaten the heart of the direct reference theory. Therefore, what the problem we want to solve is to eliminate the threat and defend for the direct reference theory.Currently, there are two opposite attitudes in academia about how to solve the problem of empty names using the direct reference theory. They either defend for it or criticize it. Through analyzing the representatives’ main ideas of the above two opposite attitudes, we deem that they hold the same starting point-- in a general sense, regarding the direct reference theory as a tool to explain the problems of empty proper names, which is just what we question. Kripke is the greatest supporter of the direct reference theory. The innovation of the paper reflects in that through interpreting the literature, the paper will try its best to study Kripke’s opinions on the problems of empty names systematically, hoping to eliminate the threat on the direct reference theory. We got conclusions as follows: Firstly, Kripke proposed the Pretense Principle with general applicability, and illustrated that the reference of a empty name is the pretended reference. Under the circumstance of pretended reference, the writer created the referent of a empty name-- fictional character. Secondly, the viewpoint of broad realism divides the existence into three layers: real entities,fictional entities,fictional fictional entities. The latter pair’s existence depends on the former’s existence, and the three layers’ referents are all real entities in the real world. Therefore, in the usual sense the “empty” of empty names actually refers to the absence of the first layer’s referents. On the basis of the Pretense Principle and the broad realism, the direct reference theory applies to all proper names.