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Empty nouns are proper nouns without a reference, causing problems in philosophy of language. Some believe they are meaningless, but others propose separating meaning from reference. The issue is finding a theory that fits practical use, as phrases like “Prometheus does not exist” make no sense if the name is meaningless. Separating meaning from reference can also lead to false meanings being assigned to real names in sentences.
An empty noun is a proper noun, such as a person’s name or the name of a particular building, vacation, or other unique entity, that doesn’t actually refer to anything. It is a word without a reference or a particular object to which the word itself refers. The empty name is a problem in the field of philosophy of language, as such names have understood the meaning despite not actually referring to anything. “Prometheus”, for example, is an empty name, as such a figure “exists” only in mythology and has no real reference in reality. Despite this, people understand “Prometheus” to refer to the titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind.
Some philosophers of language believe that an empty name is inherently meaningless. This raises problems, since such names can be understood whether or not they actually refer to anything. Furthermore, the phrase “Prometheus does not exist,” which is known to be true based on the understood meaning of Prometheus, would be utterly meaningless if the name “Prometheus” had no meaning. This conception of the empty name as meaningless is part of the theory of direct reference, which states that words and expressions derive meaning from what they correspond to in the world.
One proposed solution to the empty name problem is that “meaning” and “reference” can be separated. In many cases, as with objects in the real world, they probably match in most cases. A name may, however, convey a meaning separate from a real reference, even if no real reference actually exists. This contrasts with direct reference theory, as that theory only allows for meaning derived from real-world reference. The idea that meaning and reference are separable is part of the “description theory” of names.
The problems with the empty noun concept are generally related to the difficulties of finding a theory that fits the practical use of the noun in a sentence. It is reasonable to say that a noun, like “Prometheus”, without a referent is devoid of any intrinsic meaning. A phrase like “Prometheus does not exist,” however, makes no sense if it is true that “Prometheus” is meaningless. Similarly, by separating meaning from reference, false meanings can be assigned to real names in sentences. Saying, for example, that “Abraham Lincoln was never the president of the United States” is contradictory as “president of the United States” is part of the “meaning” of the name “Abraham Lincoln”.
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