He is famous and he is dead. Hence, according to Bill, he has the properties being famous and being dead, these being the properties expressed by the predicates 'is famous' and 'is dead'. But do these predicates express properties? Being famous is at best a Cambridge property. 'Frege is famous' tells us about the knowledge of people living now rather than something of the man himself when alive. Of course, people become famous because of something they did or an event in which they took part which becomes widely known. But one can become famous vicariously and postumously---perhaps something strange happened at one's funeral.
We have discussed 'is dead' before, in relation to Tom Petty, if I recall. To understand 'is dead' first we have to appreciate the process by which living things come into existence and pass out of existence. Second we must understand how, in general, a predicate expressing a property applies to a thing only while the thing is extant. This is the force behind Bill's premise (1). But this is not to beg the question. I suggest that the relatively rare terms like 'is dead' and 'is unborn' are alienating. They are saying, of the living thing, that it has ceased living or has yet to live. That is, they deny, of the living thing, that it lives. They are special cases that follow the grammar of property attribution but do not attribute a property. I can say,
In 1847, Gottlob Frege was as yet unborn.
We understand what this means, but that is not by virtue of its attributing to Frege the property of 'being unborn'.
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