The elimination of singular terms

The central concern of this essay is to present a critical examination of the basic notions, terms and distinctions that Quine uses in expounding his thesis of the elimination of singular terms. There are two important aspects to such an examination. First, it must be undertaken in the light of the professed aims of Quine's thesis; simplification of theory and clarification of our conceptual scheme. These two considerations are discussed in the opening chapter. Second, these basic notions, terms and distinctions must be seen in the perspective of Quine's general philosophical framework, and an important part of Quine's framework is another significant thesis - the thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. A thorough investigation of the indeterminacy thesis is beyond the scope of the present essay, however, I shall be concerned to ensure that the indeterminacy thesis is not forgotten in a discussion of Quine's programme for eliminating singular terms. Quine's thesis of the elimination of singular terms has provoked a wealth of critical discussion concerning (i) the question of whether certain types of singular terms (for example, proper names and demonstratives) can be eliminated, and, (ii) the question of whether it is theoretically possible to have a language which does not contain (and never did contain) singular terms. Important though these questions be, I do not treat them as central to this essay, for any satisfactory resolution to these questions can only be reached via an exploration 0f the fundamental notions of the kind offered in Chapters 1, 11 and 111. Accordingly, I have devoted the two brief concluding chapters to these two important, but much-discussed issues