Beyond Rigidity

Introducing a conception of the relationship between linguistic meaning and assertion made by utterances, this book looks at the meanings of proper names and natural-kind predicates. It also explains their use in attitude ascriptions, and demonstrates the limitation of rigid designation.

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In this fascinating work, Scott Soames offers a new conception of the relationship between linguistic meaning and assertions made by utterances. He gives meanings of proper names and natural kind predicates and explains their use in attitude ascriptions. He also demonstrates the irrelevance of rigid designation in understanding why theoretical identities containing such predicates are necessary, if true.