Rigidity and Wide Scope

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Ghalbi, Faraz | 2014

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Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
Language: Farsi
Document No: 45913 (42)
University: Sharif University of Technology
Department: Philosophy of Science
Advisor(s): Mousavian, Nasrollah
Abstract:
In this dissertation, we are considering the following question: can the Rigidity Thesis (RT) be reduced to the Wide Scope Thesis (WT). According to the RT, proper names of natural language are rigid designators and most of the definite descriptions of natural language are not rigid designators. Thus, the Descriptive Theory of Proper Names (DTPN), according to which the semantic content of a proper name is a (set of) definite description(s), is false. According to WT, the semantic content of a sentence containing a proper name is given by a (set of) definite description(s) with wide scope (over intensional operators, modal operators included). Such a semantic content can explain the intuition of rigidity of proper names. Thus, so far as the rigidity of proper names is at stake, DTPN is not false
Keywords:
Rigidity ; Definite Description ; Kripke ; Proper Name ; Wide Scope ; Modal Argument

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