However, the scientific grounds of the doctrine that proper names are
non-connotative, are these: The peculiarities that distinguish an
individual person or thing are admitted to be infinite, and anything
less than a complete enumeration of these peculiarities may fail to
distinguish and identify the individual. For, short of a complete
enumeration of them, the description may be satisfied by two or more
individuals; and in that case the term denoting them, if limited by such
a description, is not a proper but a general name, since it is
applicable to two or more in the same sense. The existence of other
individuals to whom it applies may be highly improbable; but, if it be
logically possible, that is enough. On the other hand, the enumeration
of infinite peculiarities is certainly impossible. Therefore proper
names have no assignable connotation. The only escape from this
reasoning lies in falling back upon time and place, the principles of
individuation, as constituting the connotation of proper names. Two
things cannot be at the same time in the same place: hence 'the man who
was at a certain spot on the bridge of Lodi at a certain instant in a
certain year' suffices to identify Napoleon Buonaparte for that instant.
Supposing no one else to have borne the name, then, is this its
connotation? No one has ever thought so. And, at any rate, time and
place are only extrinsic determinations (suitable indeed to events like
the battle of Lodi, or to places themselves like London); whereas the
connotation of a general term, such as 'sheep,' consists of intrinsic
qualities. Hence, then, the scholastic doctrine 'that individuals have
no essence' (see chap. xxii. § 9), and Hamilton's dictum 'that every
concept is inadequate [sic] to the individual,' are justified.
General names, when used as proper names, lose their connotation, as
Euxine or Newfoundland.
Singular terms, other than Proper, have connotation; either in
themselves, like the singular pronouns 'he,' 'she,' 'it,' which are
general in their applicability, though singular in application; or,
derivatively, from the general names that combine to form them, as in
'the first Emperor of the French' or the 'Capital of the British
Empire.'
§ 3. Whether Abstract Terms have any connotation is another disputed
question. We have seen that they denote a quality or qualities of
something, and that is precisely what general terms connote: 'honesty'
denotes a quality of some men; 'honest' connotes the same quality,
whilst denoting the men who have it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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