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Page 209
most antipragmatic sort of semantics. As a result, we have witnessed Montague's attempt to extend the truth-conditional approach to a formal language containing indexical terms.
The pragmatic dimension cannot even be ignored by the recent theory of rigid designation, which must be ranked under the headings of a theory (iii) because it links the conditions of use of a proper name to the original indexical relationship between that name and an individual specimen of a natural kind. Insofar as the theory of rigid designation assumes that names are directly linked to the essence of the natural kinds they label, and insofar as it takes such an essence as a solid core of ontological properties that survive any counterfactual menace, it seems adamantly to exclude any sort of contextual knowledge. Nevertheless, in order to use these names properly, a cultural chain is needed, a chain of word-of-mouth information (rather obscurely described by the theory) by virtue of which we are guaranteed that our way of using a name is still the one established during the original baptismal ceremony. The only way to make a theory of rigid designation understandableat least as a coherent storyis to take the pragmatic dimension for granted. But in order to solve its semantic problem, the theory should, on the contrary, guarantee a theoretical foundation of the pragmatic dimension. If the theory had previously said what the transmitted essence is, it could ignore the process by which it is transmitted. But since the essential definition is identified only as the one which survives during the process of transmission, the theory should at least tentatively describe this process. The circle being irremediably vicious, the theory is neither semantic nor pragmatic and remains, as I suspect, a fascinating mythical tale about the origins of language.
The causal theory of proper names could work only if one (i) takes for granted that it is possible to teach and to learn the name of an object x by direct ostension and (ii) the ostension takes place in face of an object that is able to survive its namer. Thus it is possible to imagine a person who, in face of Mount Everest, tells a person b I decide to name this Everest. Then the person b tells a person c this is Everest, and c transmits the information to d, and so on through the centuries. . . . Even in this case, the necessity of using indexical features and the fact that both the sender and the addressee must be in the circumstance of directly facing the mountain introduce pragmatic elements into the process. Moreover, such an explanation excludes the cases in which a traveler reports having seen or having heard about Everest. Nevertheless, it would still be possible to say that there is a causal link which determines the transmission of the name. But what happens when one names a hu-

 
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