This essay considers the proposition that it is possible to have proper names that do more than denote and refer but it concludes that this denotation and inference is not contained within the name itself nor, in the first instance, is it contained in that to which it refers. Accordingly it ignores or by-passes propositions which in themselves pre-suppose prior knowledge or which could distort or confuse the logical structural arguments propounded to support the contentions of this work. The acceptance of statements by and through familiarity, or as Hume might say because they are sequential and contiguous before the mind, is avoided. Accordingly no familiar names are used in the analysis of logical structures and variables and general propositions are accorded unfamiliar symbolic representation.
The following arguments are specific to Mill’s fundamental proposition which appears to be universally adhered to (and seems unquestioned by subsequent logicians including Russell and Frege) namely that ‘A class is the indefinite multitude of individuals denoted by a general name’. The contention of this essay is that this proposition is invalid and has led to a system of logic based upon a rigid symbolic representation of predicated nouns utilising descriptive analysis of how one ‘thing’ may be descriptively individuated from another.
The first great division of names made by Mill in his system of logic is that between general names and individual or singular names. By the word ‘name’ Mill implies a symbol or label by which we may bring before our minds ‘a thought like some thought we had before’. Names have, for him, intentionality and they refer to objects with the intention of conveying information.