In his discussion of linguistic reference in Chapter 4 of Metaphysics, Reference, and Language (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1966), James W. Cornman examines a variety of traditional answers to the questions (Q1)
What does the linguistic expression 'p' refer to? (Q2) How can we find what 'p' refers to?
One sort of answer to these questions -which he extracts from A.J. Ayer's The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1955) -is described as follows:
Ayer suggests that [in order to answer (Q2)] we should examine how 'p' is used; by so doing we will find the designation rule for that expression, and this is all we need to answer [(Q1)] in any given case. (Cornman, op. cir., p. 123)
Cornman's principal objection to this suggestion is that the 'designation rules' in question, even if discoverable by examination of the use of 'p', do not suffice to answer (Q1) because they fail to connect linguistic expressions with the requisite extra-linguistic items. For, he claims, ...designation rules of the form of:
(I) 'p' (in L) refers to q and sentences of the form of:
(I1) 'p' (in L) refers to what 'q' in this language, i.e. the language I am now using, refers to are logically equivalent and therefore ... designation rules merely relate 'p' to another expression 'q'. (Ibid., p. 127) In defense of this claim, Cornman offers an independent proof of the aileged equivalence and uses elements of his proof to rebut certain stock objections. My aim in this paper is to show that Cornman's attack on Ayer's 'designation rules' is completely unsuccessful. First, I outline Cornman's