These are suggestions only; you are not restricted to them.  But if you have a different topic you'd like to try, you must discuss it with me in advance.

    1.  In the handout "The Referential Theory," I gave that theory of meaning very short shrift.  Can more be said in its favor?  Can you come up with a version of the Referential theory that finesses the merely suggestive critical points I made?

    2.  Conduct your own assessment of Russell's Theory of Descriptions.  (i)  Is the Theory credible in its own right?  To what extent does the Theory correctly predict and explain the use of `the' in English?   Or, (ii) does the Theory in fact solve the Problem of Apparent Reference to Nonexistents, whether or not the solution is satisfactory?  Or, (iii) does it solve one or more of Russell's other four puzzles?   Or, (iv) granting that the Theory does solve one or more of the five puzzles, are Russell's solution(s) satisfactory, or are there more plausible solutions?   (I said "Or," "Or" and "Or" because, here as elsewhere, I'd prefer that you go into detail on a small number of points, rather than taking a larger number of superficial potshots.)

    3.  Examine Russell's “Name Claim,” that ordinary proper names abbreviate definite descriptions.  What objections can be made against that doctrine?  How might Russell reply in his own defense?  Do you think Russell is right?  If not, do you have a better way of understanding proper names?

    4.  If you're interested in Frege, compare and contrast his solutions to puzzles about singular terms with Russell's, and adjudicate.

    5.  Pursue the Russell-Strawson dispute, or as much of it as you can in the space allotted.  Choose one or two of Strawson's criticisms  (briefly restated in the handout, "A Few Words on Strawson on Russell") and, for each:  Briefly state the claim or assumption of Russell's that Strawson is disputing; set out Strawson's argument as clearly and convincingly as you can; then evaluate the argument, and do what you can towards adjudicating the issue.  (Here again, avoid a shotgun approach and go for depth rather than scatter.)

    6.  On pp. 232-233 Strawson offers, "in the barest essentials," a solution to Frege's puzzle.  Try to clothe those essentials and state the solution more articulately than Strawson does.  Then briefly evaluate.

    7.  Pursue Andrea A.'s very interesting point:  What will or should Strawson say about negative existentials?

    8.  Is there a precise "referential"/"attributive" distinction?  Try to refine the intuitive contrast with which Donnellan begins.  You may do this either by reconstructing a more precise distinction from what Donnellan says, or by importing new notions of your own.

    9.  Dispute or defend any of Donnellan's interesting intuitive judgments about "actual referents" in particular hypothetical speech situations.  Then comment on the significance of your own position on such a case, for Donnellan's program.

    10.  Donnellan regards his article as (more or less) definitively settling the Russell-Strawson issue.  But he does not say much in the article about the five "puzzles about reference" with which that whole issue began.  Does his theory, as you construe it, solve any or all of the four puzzles?  Show exactly how, or why not.

    11.  State Searle's theory of proper names as clearly and sympathetically as you can.  (Try to do this in a way that does not obviously leave Searle wide open to the rough criticisms presented in class.)  Now, criticize the theory yourself, and/or defend it against criticisms already presented.

    12.  Searle says, in his last paragraph, that the solution to Frege's puzzle in effect falls right out of his theory of names.  Does it?  How?  Or doesn't it?  Why not?  (Never mind for the moment whether the solution is plausible.)  Now, if you have figured out what the solution is, is it plausible?

    13.  Advance the project begun in the handout, "On the Question of the 'Actual' Referent."

    14.  Defend Russell, or Searle, against one or more of Kripke's objections to the Name Claim.

    15.  Our newish edition of Martinich contains a paper by Searle (“Proper Names and Intentionality,” originally a book chapter) that replies to Kripkean objections.  If you've read the paper, expound and assess what you take to be Searle's most effective replies.