Beyond Rigidity

"In his work, Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke undermined descriptive analyses of names by showing that they are rigid designators. He thereby told us what their meanings are not, but not what they are. In Beyond Rigidity, Scott Soames fills this gap." "Using a new conception of how the meaning of a sentence relates to the information asserted and conveyed by utterances, Soames argues that the meaning of a linguistically simple name is its referent and that the meaning of a (linguistically complex) partially descriptive name is a compound that includes both a referent and a partial description. Though not, strictly speaking, rigid designators, partially descriptive names are nearly so in that they always designate the same object, when they designate anything at all." "Beyond Rigidity distills, modifies, and extends some of the most important ideas in the philosopby of language in the last thirty years. Its impact will be far-reaching."--Jacket.