Simon Kreutz
Ruhr Universität Bochum
Although contemporary philosophy of language and formal semantics both have their roots in formal logic, nowadays they operate largely independently of each other. In view of this close connection between language and philosophy, however, the question arises as to what impact semantic theorizing might have on philosophical considerations, particularly within the branch of ontology. The paper is as such situated in the emerging field of natural language ontology.
In this context, the paper examines both philosophical and type-theoretical treatments (extensional only) of proper names and offers a comparative analysis, with proper names being a representative topic in both fields. In doing so, both philosophical and semantic theories are first presented and explained, with the focus on giving a formal analysis of proper names using semantic type-theory. In detail, the philosophical theories of referentialism, descriptivism and predicativism are compared to their respective semantic typologies (e, <, t> and ) and it is highlighted that the philosophical theories and their semantic counterparts correspond to each other (as they are historically linked). This alignment then offered the ability to draw ontological conclusions based on this equivalence.
Ultimately, it is argued that the adoption of different types for proper names leads to a complex network of ontological consequences, especially with regard to the existence of concrete and abstract objects. On the one hand, referentialism suggests the existence of concrete objects in the form of name bearers while descriptivism and predicativism, on the other hand, suggest the existence of abstract objects in the form of sets and properties. The former, then, prompts a few different questions concerning the nature of concrete objects (e.g., material constitution), and likely hints at physicalism. The latter raises questions about the nature of abstract objects, and how these types conceive of constituent objects (e.g., bundle theories). Both also have implications for persistence and other temporal concepts (e.g., endurantism and presentism for referentialism and perdurantism and eternalism for descriptivism/predicativism). Furthermore, it is also possible to claim that descriptivism and predicativism suggest the existence of other ontological entities such as events (i.e. time-slices) or truth values (i.e. propositions).
Additionally, this analysis found that there is no ontological difference between descriptivist (<, t>) and predicativist () theories of proper names, thereby creating an ontological divide between referentialism and descriptivism/predicativism.
In sum, this paper provides insights into the interplay between formal semantics, philosophy, and ontology by examining the treatment of proper names from both philosophical and type-theoretical perspectives, which revealed a web of ontological implications arising from their typological distinctions. The goal of this paper was to provide an overview over the ontological implications that arise from this distinction. Further research could build on this divide and work out the ontological commitments in more detail.
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SOPhiA 2026 