Quote: suppose someone only knows that Thales was a Greek philosopher but Aristotle actually used 'Thales' for a well digger; 'Thales' still wouldn't be the well digger

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Suppose that all that a certain speaker knows … all is water. … Furthermore, suppose there was a hermit who never … "Thales" we are plainly not referring to that … [even though the Thales of Aristotle and Herodotus was actually a well digger who said, "I wish all were water so I wouldn't have to dig these damned wells". [Donnellan's counter-example against descriptivism] [p. 341] The reason we are not tempted to allow the … the Background.   Google-1   Google-2

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Topic: causal theory of names (21 items)