Ep 16: Descriptivist Theory of Names - The Howie Mandel Effect

This is our second show about how proper names work (check out episode 10 for part one). It’s an important topic because much of philosophy is built around the concept of assigning truth values to sentences such as “Socrates is mortal.” And we can’t know if that sentence is true or false unless we know what “Socrates” means. In this episode we look at how Bertrand Russell developed his Descriptivist theory of names, and how that theory came to dominate the philosophy of language for much of the 20th century. Along the way we speculate on the outcomes of hypothetical professional wrestling matches, including Frege vs. Mill and Zappa vs. Hogan. We get yet another dose of Mark’s research on weird names and learn about the books that Bertrand Russell while serving hard time in a British prison.