This paper aims to provide support for the view that individual concepts are basic to natural language semantics. First, the use of constant individual concepts allows us to maintain Kripke’s view of proper names as nondescriptional rigid designators in the face of problems created by so-called “empty names.” And second, the distinction between constant and variable individual concepts can func...

Saul Kripke’s thesis that ordinary proper names are rigid designators is supported by widely shared intuitions about the occurrence of names in ordinary modal contexts. By those intuitions names are scopeless with respect to the modal expressions. That is, sentences in a pair like (a) Aristotle might have been fond of dogs (b) Concerning Aristotle, it is true that he might have been fond of dog...