Stage-theoretical semantics for proper names

According to the stage view, ordinary objects are instantaneous stages, which "persist" by being counterpart-related to stages that exist at other times. In this paper, I consider the respective merits of current proposals for a stage-theoretical semantics of proper names of ordinary objects and sketch what I argue is a better alternative. On any stage-theoretical account, names of ordinary objects refer to stages. I argue that names should be understood as temporally flexible, referring indeterminately over stages that constitute an object's history, and sketch a stagetheoretical semantics for names of ordinary objects that yields the intuitively correct results for reference and counting in both ordinary cases and extraordinary puzzle cases of fission.