Names at the Tip of the Nose

Abstract

The problem of naming is not just any philosophical problem, but rather one that is central to classical ontology, the latter depending on the notion of names (onomata) as latching onto things (pragmata) in their essential being. As such, the name has traditionally been tied to the concept of truth as adequatio or correspondence between knowledge and being, intellect and thing, or proposition and reality. Accordingly, the problem of naming lies at the core of the issues of objectivity (truth) and fiction, as addressed in this issue of Filozofski vestnik. Probing and circumventing the double trap of “transcendentalism” and “new materialism,” I propose to cast a side-glance at this massive philosophical problem, approaching it from the singular point of view of smells and their striking relationship to language.