How Do Names Work? (Bertrand Russell) - Philosophy Tube

We use names all the time, but what are they? Specifically, are they abbreviated descriptions, as Bertrand Russell said?

Our comment music this week is 'No You Girls' by Franz Ferdinand.

Clip from 'Jurassic Park'.

[disorderJAPAN]

As a trans person who got to name himself, He thought about names a lot. The philosophy behind names is quite interesting. What properties align with the name, is this really me? It was really hard to find a fitting name, as I wasn't a blank sheet anymore that's influenced by his name but rather the other way round.

[uhoh]

Like all of Abis videos, this one feels odd now.

[garymalarkey]

"Tom Hanks" is shorthand for "the person whose name is Tom Hanks."  A label itself is a property.  One that we ascribe arbitrarily (or, if you like, within the framework a complex set of social guidelines) perhaps, but a property none the less.

Also, saying "what if he'd been a butcher" is pointless because we can all agree that he is not a butcher.  Asking "what if" does not invalidate the properties that he actually has.  We are not referencing the name of a hypothetical person but an actual person.

[Skullringer]

Ik your gamn now Abigail. But damn are you a good actress. Bravo.

[iamjimgroth]

As a programmer I'm used to thinking of names as easier to remember identifiers of one specifying place in memory.

Names are literally pointers to an identity. We do give multiple people the same name but the given name is really just a part of someone's identifier. Most also have a personal id number, social security or similar. In the end it is just a short way of referring to an identity.

[mrtveenstra]

Here's what you've got me thinking about: when I think of a sex sybol, I think Marilyn Monroe, but not Norma Jeane Mortensen. That's odd, because they are the same person.Do names mean a person or a persona?
Also I'd love to hear about the philosophy of vegetarianism.

[matiasraski]

Olly, I love your videos, but this one seems childish to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but here's the argument you present, as I see it: because a given individual might have been different in an alternate universe, we have no grounds to equate their name to descriptions of them that are indeed true and correct in this universe. Tom Hanks played Forrest Gump is a true statement in this universe (as far as we can tell, and everyone seems to agree). Jeff Goldblum played Forrest Gump is a false one (again, to the best of our very scrupulously gathered knowledge). Therefore, we can equate "Tom Hanks" with "the guy that played Forrest Gump" without issue of worrying that we're actually equating either with Jeff Goldblum! If the situation were different in another universe, people in that universe would be making descriptions and equations of descriptions that fit the nature of that different universe, but these sorts of imagined possibilities pertain in no meaningful way to descriptions and equations of descriptions we make in this universe! This seems very trivial!

[InnovumTechnology]

Tom Hanks is any individual who answers to the name "Tom Hanks."

[morgengabe]

I think can get behind Russell's definition of the name. Though I don't read it the way you have here Olly. I think that the essential properties which are being simplified in description by a persons name come about as a consequence of what Kant said it means to be a person (an individual whose actions can be imputed to him). That is to say that by using a person's name, we are saving ourselves from having to describe all of the actions which are imputable to the person.
Moreover, I think that when a person's actions change, the name still applies, but the meaning is different. So Tom hanks would still be Tom Hanks even if he had never been in Forrest Gump and Jeff Goldblum had been, it's just that the Tom Hanks we are referring to under these circumstances is a different Tom Hanks to the one we would be referring to in 'real' circumstances. More generally; just that the object to whom we refer with a proper noun, itself, is different.

[monev]

The problem with defining Tom Hanks by the movies he has been in, is that Tom Hanks was Tom Hanks before Forest Gump was definable. Forest Gump is defined as a movie starring Tom Hanks, not a movie starring the guy who stars in Forest Gump. Sure it may be true, but it doesn't identify shit. Things can only be sensibly defined in terms of things that are already defined independent of the identity in question.

Names given to people are basically arbitrary save for a few agreed upon conventions, ( hence Penn Jillette's daughter: Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette) Once a person is given a name it's the things they interact with that become defined by their involvement, not them being defined from the things that came after them.

[TheAyeAye]

Hume and miracles seems pretty interesting, I'll go for that.

Another issue with saying names are a description of someone is also that when a parent gives the newborn a name, they have no idea what will be the baby's defining characteristics. So, when Tom Hanks was a newborn baby, Tom Hanks' name would have to be an abbreviated description of...a newborn baby, born at x time at exactly x place. Would that then mean that all names are just abbreviated  descriptions of when we're newborn babies, or are names something other than Bertrand Russel's definition of names (for animate objects, at least)?

[madlord]

I'm going to say go with the Hume and miracles choice.  Also, I think we can look at the name conundrum in terms of general definitions.  For example, when we think of a triangle, we imagine a specific triangle like an obtuse or right triangle.  Similarly, in the case of Tom Hanks, when we think of him, we may think of him in a specific movie or role.  So, in a sense, names are symbolic, in which they encompass all true aspects of the thing it is describing.

[Nathouuuutheone]

I really dislike the whole "What if he..."
Because it changes Tom Hanks' properties. His properties are based on his past, his factual past. Changing his past changes the Universe in which we ask the question and changes the properties applied to his name.
Asking "What if he didn't play Forest (amI missing an r?) Gump" doesn't change the fact that the Tom Hanks we know DID play that character. Any Tom Hanks who did not play that is irrelevant because they are not real.

The only answer to "What if he..." is "Well it would simply change his definition. You're just asking about what would happen if what makes Tom Hanks Tom Hanks would be different, and the answer is the premise, your question makes no sense."

What if cats had five legs?
Then the definition of cats would include that fact.
There's nothing more to it.
Language defines things based on what they are, not "what if"s.

Also, with all your descriptions of Tom Hanks, you missed the part where a necessary part of him is his existence, sentience, memory, body and overall past. I don't define Tom Hanks based on what movie he played in, Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks, and Tom Hanks played in movies. Him being him makes him him, the inifinity of details in his past is what defines him, not some hypotetical notion of changing the past. You're talking about alternative universes, not about the definition of a name.

[XnohbodyX]

The argument of "what if" holds no ground because the event lies in the past, and unless we create a wormhole, cannot and never will be any different. If it was different, it would no longer be our universe, but a separate one in which a different meaning would apply to the name (if people still referred to Tom hanks as the guy from forest gump, they would be incorrect.)

[BueCadet]

I feel like you might be mixing a few things together here that are making this a harder problem than it is. Are we talking only about 1) the names of people, names of quite similar things which happen to be different individuals? Like, say, two identical twins named "Fred" & "George"? Or, 2) are we talking about names in the sense of nouns (or any piece of language in general), so that we could also be arguing over the "name" for this thing you sit on (in English: "chair", in Spanish "silla", etc)?
If we're talking about Fred & George (or Tom Hanks), then I think the matter's actually pretty simple because we can always just point to the real thing in the world which has been arbitrarily labeled with their given name when someone asks "who is that?" and that thing/person you point to will necessarily have the right traits because they are the actual named person. There's no opportunity for confusion there. I would think that the name isn't a short-hand for a description of that particular person, but rather just an arbitrary designation for the REAL PERSON as an entity. A name is just a linguistic device, arbitrarily selected, which only has meaning if we already know WHO the name refers to.
But, if we're thinking in the second sense, then we get into the issues you were bringing up about definitions, essential/incidental characteristics, etc. And that will apply to all nouns (and perhaps even verbs and other pieces of language), but most especially to general nouns, like "human" or "chair". When we start defining human (as you did when defining Tom Hanks), we run into some problems. Perhaps we'll say a human has two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth, can think, can run, etc. But then... is a human still a human if it only has one ear? This is a trickier problem, but I think it has more to do with the difficulty of definitions rather than the difficulty of names. 

[TheEdu]

If tom hanks hadn't been an actor, he wouldn't have been the same guy, because experiences and history shape the identity and personality of an individual.
Also, if tom hanks hadn't been the leading actor in Forrest Gump, it would have been a completely different movie. Not the same

[BeCL]

I think that the answer to this question is quite simple. A name is simple a word or words that identifies someone or something. We use it because it's much easier to call out a person with a name rather than describing his/her traits. Names are used to identify an individual, and he/she may be certain traits. The individual is described by his/her traits and he/she is identified by a name. 

[ShadaOfAllThings]

I feel like there is something that is missing in this description of names as a description: A name as a description is describing the person by whatever they actually did, not that they have a name that has to be a thing to be that name

There is no "True Names" without Plato's Realm of Ideals or Fae Bullshit and I'm rather skeptical of both of those

[pcdm]

Not to sound dismissive, but a name is an identifier, plain-&-simple. You need to tell one person from another, and names serve that function. You can use words to describe essential features of Tom Hanks or Jeff Goldblum, but you wouldn't say "tom Hanks is Jeff Goldblum." They're two distinct, identifiable people. Hell, even twins have different first names, in order to distinguish them. I don't know what Bertrand Russell meant about the whole "names are descriptions" thing, but I think we can call this mystery solved.


Anyway, I still dig your channel. All the best, my friend.

[klop]

Names are, possibly, just a description of the person. The description changes as the person's properties change. The his birth, Tom Hanks was "that baby who was just born", but as he did things, he started to aquire properties, such as being "the guy from Forrest Gump" and so on and so forth.