[lit-ideas] What's in a name? (Geary's Lectures)
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 19:07:26 EDT
In a message dated 4/20/2004 4:44:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes in an angry reply to Omar Kusturica,
> A cat is not a 'name.'
What? You may be sure I meant the term 'cat' is a name of the object cat? Is
this not true? Why?
---
Oh we discussed this before. And I happen to keep my lectures, "On what names
are not", given by J. M. Geary in the Old School of Scholasticism, in
Washington State, USA.
In Lecture XXI, Geary discussed that 'God' is _not_ a name, but a definite
description -- in Kripke's sense -- a 'rigid designator' -- 'The God'.
In Lecture XXIV, Geary argues that "Christ" is a _name_ -- not a description,
but can be used descriptively ("The Passion of _the_ Christ", but he did not
mention that).
In Lecture CV, he said that while you can call your cat, 'Cat', _cat_ is
generally not a 'name' but a 'noun' (pronounced NAOWN). This distinction,
between
name and noun, Geary said, "was lost by the Greeks -- and the Romans -- but
not the English".
There is a concluding lecture where he goes on to symbolise all that above,
but is not in ASCII.
Cheers,
JL
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