Sun Apr 9

Lewis Powell

Some of the claims made about titles of artwork in the Title paper I recently stumbled across on JSTOR are:

1) Titles, unlike names, are parts of the things they title.
2) Titles, unlike names, are essential to the things they title.
3) TItles, unlike names, have descriptive content (or at least, something that functions as a guide to interpretation, and thus does more than just denote).
4) Titles can only be given by the author of the work.

I'm inclined to think that (1) is true, and (3) is plausible, though the words that make up the title can also be used simply to refer to the artwork.

(2) seems like it would be the first step towards some sort of view wherein every aspect of a piece of art is essential, which I don't know would be very plausible, and I'd like to see an argument for four. I didn't see one in the paper, but I was skimming parts of it and so I might have missed it.

What do other people think about these claims, and how close names are to titles.

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