Vivid designator

Concept in the philosophy of language

In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a vivid designator is a term which is believed to designate the same thing in all possible worlds[1] and nothing else where such an object does not exist in a possible world. It is the analogue, in the sense of believing, of a rigid designator,[2] which is (refers to) the same in all possible worlds, rather than is just believed to be so.

## Willard Van Orman Quine

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Willard Van Orman Quine credits David Kaplan (who in turn credits Montgomery Furth) for the term "vivid designator" in his 1977 paper "Intensions Revisited". He examines the separation between de re and de dicto and does away with de re statements, because de re statements can only work for names that are used referentially.[3] In fact, both rigid designators and vivid designators are similarly dependent on context and empty otherwise. The same is true of the whole quantified modal logic of necessity because it collapses if essence is withdrawn.[4]

## See also

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* Naming and Necessity
* Rigid designator
* Non-rigid designator
* Scientific essentialism

## References

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1. ^ Quine, W.V.O., Quintessence: Intensions Revisited, 2004, pp. 356–357
2. ^ D. Kaplan, Quantifying In, 1969
3. ^ Andrea Bonomi, On Quine: Transparency and Specificity in Intentional Contexts, 1995, p. 183.
4. ^ Quine, W.V.O., Quintessence: Intensions Revisited, 2004, pp. 356–357.

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Formal semantics (natural language)

Central concepts|

* Compositionality
* Denotation
* Entailment
* Extension
* Generalized quantifier
* Intension
* Logical form
* Presupposition
* Proposition
* Reference
* Scope
* Speech act
* Syntax–semantics interface
* Truth conditions

Topics|

| Areas|

* Anaphora
* Ambiguity
* Binding
* Conditionals
* Definiteness
* Disjunction
* Evidentiality
* Focus
* Indexicality
* Lexical semantics
* Modality
* Negation
* Propositional attitudes
* Tense–aspect–mood
* Quantification
* Vagueness

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Phenomena|

* Antecedent-contained deletion
* Cataphora
* Coercion
* Conservativity
* Counterfactuals
* Crossover effects
* Cumulativity
* De dicto and de re
* De se
* Deontic modality
* Discourse relations
* Donkey anaphora
* Epistemic modality
* Exhaustivity
* Faultless disagreement
* Free choice inferences
* Givenness
* Homogeneity (linguistics)
* Hurford disjunction
* Inalienable possession
* Intersective modification
* Logophoricity
* Mirativity
* Modal subordination
* Opaque contexts
* Performatives
* Polarity items
* Privative adjectives
* Quantificational variability effect
* Responsive predicate
* Rising declaratives
* Scalar implicature
* Sloppy identity
* Subsective modification
* Subtrigging
* Telicity
* Temperature paradox
* Veridicality

Formalism|

| Formal systems|

* Alternative semantics
* Categorial grammar
* Combinatory categorial grammar
* Discourse representation theory (DRT)
* Dynamic semantics
* Generative grammar
* Glue semantics
* Inquisitive semantics
* Intensional logic
* Lambda calculus
* Mereology
* Montague grammar
* Segmented discourse representation theory (SDRT)
* Situation semantics
* Supervaluationism
* Type theory
* TTR

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Concepts|

* Autonomy of syntax
* Context set
* Continuation
* Conversational scoreboard
* Downward entailing
* Existential closure
* Function application
* Meaning postulate
* Monads
* Plural quantification
* Possible world
* Quantifier raising
* Quantization
* Question under discussion
* Semantic parsing
* Squiggle operator
* Strawson entailment
* Strict conditional
* Type shifter
* Universal grinder

See also|

* Cognitive semantics
* Computational semantics
* Distributional semantics
* Formal grammar
* Inferentialism
* Logic translation
* Linguistics wars
* Philosophy of language
* Pragmatics
* Semantics of logic

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