Well, Santa Claus, clearly had no referent. Think about the sentence, "It is raining". The "it" in that sentence stands in as a dummy referent. Now, think analogously to empty names that are "entities" or semantically have content due to their descriptions.
Simple. — Wallows
So, what's the referent for "Harry Potter"? — Wallows
Surely, you've seen pictures of Harry Potter. — creativesoul
Yeah, but the descriptions, and semantic content was arrived at by J.K Rowling's books on him... — Wallows
The referent is the entity picked out by the name. If that counts as being an "empty name", what on earth counts as not being empty? — creativesoul
Harry Potter or Santa Claus, or Pegasus are all empty names by definition of not having a referent. — Wallows
...your basically assuming that there are no such things as empty names at all? — Wallows
What are those names empty of? They are meaningful because those who use them have drawn a correlation between the name and the imaginary entity, the referent, the thing being picked out. — creativesoul
I've never heard of talking like this so please explain this process. — Wallows
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.