A singular term is a paradigmatic referring device in a language. Singular terms are of philosophical importance for

philosophers of language A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek t ...

, because they ''refer'' to things in the world, and the ability of words to refer calls for scrutiny.

Overview

Singular terms are defined as expressions that purport to denote or designate particular individual people, places, or other objects. They contrast with ''general terms'' (such as "car" or "chair") which can apply to more than one thing. There are various kinds of singular terms: proper names (e.g. "Matthew"),

definite description In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or o ...

s (e.g. "the second fisherman in the boat"), singular

personal pronoun Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...

s (e.g. "she"), demonstrative pronouns (e.g. "this"), etc. Historically, various definitions for "singular term" have been offered: # A term that tells us which individual is being talked about. ( John Stuart Mill,

Arthur Prior Arthur Norman Prior (4 December 1914 – 6 October 1969), usually cited as A. N. Prior, was a New Zealand–born logician and philosopher. Prior (1957) founded tense logic, now also known as temporal logic, and made important contributi ...

, P. F. Strawson) # A term that is grammatically singular, i.e. a proper name (''proprium nomen''), a demonstrative pronoun (''pronomen demonstrativum'') or a demonstrative pronoun with a common name (''cum termino communi''). (

William of Ockham William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small vi ...

) # A term that is inherently ''about'' the object to which it applies or refers. (

Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic ph ...

) # A term that is true "in the same sense" of only one object. (

Peter of Spain __NOTOC__ Peter of Hispania ( la, Petrus Hispanus; Portuguese and es, Pedro Hispano; century) was the author of the ', later known as the ', an important medieval university textbook on Aristotelian logic. As the Latin ''Hispania'' was conside ...

)Peter of Spain 1947

References

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Works cited

*Frege, G. (1892) "On Sense and Reference", originally published as " Über Sinn und Bedeutung" in ''Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik'', vol. 100, pp. 25–50. Transl. Geach & Black 56–78. *Mill, J. S., ''A System of Logic'', London 1908 (8th edition). *

''Summulae Logicales'', ed. I. M. Bochenski (Turin, 1947) – also quoted in Prior 1976. *Prior, A. N. ''The Doctrine of Propositions & Terms'' London 1976. *Strawson, P. F. "On Referring", ''Mind'' 1950 pp. 320–44. *William of Ockham, '' Summa logicae'', Paris 1448, Bologna 1498, Venice 1508, Oxford 1675. Concepts in logic Grammar Names Semantics Philosophy of language