Jessica Pepp Dissertation Final Draft

UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Locating Semantic Reference Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3z15t80z Author Pepp, Jessica Alden Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Locating Semantic Reference A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by Jessica Pepp 2012 ⓒ Copyright by Jessica Pepp 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Locating Semantic Reference by Jessica Pepp Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Joseph Almog, Chair The dissertation studies a question of longstanding interest in the philosophy of language, which I call the “Reference Determination Question.” The question is: what determines that a linguistic expression (such as a name, indexical, demonstrative, or description) refers to a particular thing? In one way or another, the question seeks a reduction of reference in terms of other features of speakers, words, and the things to which they refer. Until the work of Saul Kripke and Keith Donnellan in the 1960s and 1970s, such a reduction seemed available. According to what I call the “Condition View,” the reference of a linguistic expression is whatever, if anything, uniquely satisfies the conditions that the user of the expression associates with it. I show how this view fits within a broader picture of language, which I call the “Capture Picture.” The Capture Picture envisions linguistic reference as a speaker’s reaching out from her interior experience to capture a particular thing in the world outside that experience. Kripke’s and Donnellan’s criticisms of the Condition View led to its widespread rejection, but not, I argue, to radical revision of the Capture Picture. I press the same form of argument that they ii employed against the Condition View against replacements for it that remain within the Capture Picture. I suggest that this expansion of the Kripke-Donnellan critique has not been pursued because of Kripke’s influential distinction between “speaker’s reference” and “semantic reference,” and I explain why this distinction does not in fact track a substantive difference, and does not block my arguments. My criticism of alternative views within the Capture Picture reveals a parallel between linguistic reference and sensory perception: both are ways of experiencing things that are present in one’s sensory or cognitive environment. I defend this parallel, and show how it makes available a replacement for the Capture Picture that I call “Referential Direct Realism.” Referential Direct Realism is the counterpart, for referential experience, of the position usually called “Direct Realism” or “Naïve Realism” about perceptual experience. It holds that linguistic referring experience is direct cognitive contact with the objects to which one refers. On this view of linguistic referring experience, the Reference Determination Question does not arise. For there is no gulf to be bridged between what is inside the speaker’s experience (the linguistic expression) and what is outside (the object). I argue for Referential Direct Realism and show how it points the philosophical study of linguistic reference, and language in general, in a different direction from those that traditionally have been followed. iii The dissertation of Jessica Pepp is approved. David B. Kaplan Donald A. Martin Howard Wettstein Edward L. Keenan Joseph Almog, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv Dedicated to the memories of my grandmothers, Bertha Pepp and Rose Alden. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix VITA x INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: PICTURING THE REFERENCE OF PROPER NAMES 11 1.1 Introduction 11 1.2 The Reference Determination Question 12 1.3 Levels of inquiry: theory versus picture 15 1.4 The Capture Picture 20 1.5 The Condition View 21 1.6 Empirical counterexamples to the Condition View 25 1.7 Hard cases, bad law? 27 1.8 Challenging the Capture Picture 31 1.9 An alternative picture? 33 1.9.1 The Capture-and-Save Picture: a conservative revision 34 1.9.2 A more radical revision? 38 CHAPTER TWO: TOWARD A MORE RADICAL REVISION OF THE PICTURE OF PROPER NAME REFERENCE 43 2.1 Introduction 43 2.2 Pictures and views 44 2.3 A pattern of argument 48 2.4 Counterexamples to the Baptism View and the File View 50 2.5 Speaker’s reference and semantic reference 55 2.6 Donnellan’s referential-attributive distinction 58 2.7 Fitting Donnellan’s argument into the pattern 64 2.8 Kripke’s response to Donnellan questioned 68 vi 2.9 Inadequacy of the Save Picture 71 Conclusion 74 CHAPTER THREE: WHAT TO MAKE OF THE REFERENCE DETERMINATION QUESTION? 76 3.1 Introduction 76 3.2 The aim of the Reference Determination Question 78 3.3 A parallel with perception 82 3.4 A stronger parallel between reference and perception 88 3.5 Defending the parallel between reference and perception 89 3.6 Referring is experiencing 98 Conclusion 105 CHAPTER FOUR: REFERENTIAL DIRECT REALISM AND THE FOCUS PICTURE OF LINGUISTIC REFERENCE 107 4.1 Introduction 107 4.2 Motivating Referential Direct Realism 108 4.3 The Picture 116 4.3.1 Picture vs. theory, again 116 4.3.2 Review of views 117 4.3.3 The Focus Picture 119 4.4 Three levels of the analogy with perception 121 4.4.1 Perception and having in mind 121 4.4.2 Vision (as an example) and language 123 4.4.3 Lenses and names 129 4.5 Communication of reference 135 4.5.1 Communicative experience: the transmission of having-in-mind 136 4.5.2 Transmission and names 140 Conclusion 149 vii CHAPTER FIVE: PROBLEMS OF REFERRING EXPERIENCE 150 5.1 Introduction 150 5.2 Reference failure and information loss 151 5.3 The problem of perceptual experience 158 5.4 The problem of referential experience 166 5.5 Referential Direct Realism, direct reference, and reference puzzles 168 5.5.1 Frege’s puzzle of informative identity statements 170 5.5.2 Significant statements involving reference failure 173 Conclusion 175 CONCLUSION 176 BIBLIOGRAPHY 182 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation has benefited from the insight and diligence of many teachers and colleagues. I wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee for their support and for comments and advice that have deepened and improved this work. It has been a great privilege to learn from David Kaplan, without whom the entire field in which my own work is situated would not exist in its present form. I am grateful to Howard Wettstein for his open-mindedness in pursuing and helping to develop ideas that are far from his sympathies. Tony Martin taught me the logic that got me interested in the philosophy of language in the first place, and his perspicuous comments have guided my thinking at critical junctures. I thank Ed Keenan for research suggestions early on that helped me find my way in this project. A special debt of gratitude is due to the Chair of my committee, Joseph Almog, who challenged me to eschew intellectual safety and to think for myself. While I owe him much for specific suggestions and conversations, I owe him more for this challenge, which has been central to the completion of this dissertation. In addition to my committee, many other faculty members and graduate students in the UCLA Philosophy Department and in other departments have helped me to develop this work. I wish to thank them all, but especially Antonio Capuano, John Carriero, Louis deRosset, Brendan Gillon, and Eliot Michaelson for extensive comments or conversations over the years. The sound advice of Barbara Herman has been indispensable. The Department of Philosophy at University College London gave me my start in academic philosophy by accepting me to read for my M.Phil. without prior philosophical education. I am grateful to them for this opportunity, and especially to Tim Crane, whose ideas continue to influence my own. I could not have navigated the administrative side of the doctoral process without the unfailingly competent guidance of Kristin Olson, who has my deep appreciation. Finally, I thank my partner, Andrew Reisner, for collegial and personal support well beyond the call of duty. ix VITA 1997 A.B., Government Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts 1997-1999 Corporate Banking Associate Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. New York, New York 1999-2001 Venture Strategy Associate Spencer Trask and Co. New York, New York 2003 M.Phil. in Philosophy University College London London, United Kingdom Thesis: “A Dissolution of the Problem of the Explanatory Gap.” Supervised by Tim Crane. 2005 M.A. in Philosophy University of California, Los Angeles 2007 C.Phil. in Philosophy University of California, Los Angeles 2010-2011 Faculty Lecturer McGill University Montreal, Canada Publications “Reference and Referring: A Framework,” in W. Kabasenche, M. O’Rourke, and M. Slater, eds., Reference and Referring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. “Semantic Reference Not By Convention?” Abstracta – Linguagem, Mente e Ação. Volume 5 Number 2, 2009. “Two Conceptions of Semantic Reference,” Proceedings of ILCLI International Workshop on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Rhetoric, The University of the Basque Country Press (EHU Press), 2009. x Presentations “Reference, Semantic Reference, and Determination” Northwest Philosophy Conference, Salem, Oregon, October 2010. “Reference: by truth or by cognition?” Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference: Reference and Referring, Moscow, ID and Pullman, WA, April 2010. “Two Conceptions of Semantic Reference” · ILCLI International Workshop on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Rhetoric, Donostia (San Sebastian), Spain, May 2009. · University of Iowa, Graduate Philosophical Society, Spring Conference, Iowa City, IA, April 2009. · Second European Graduate School: Philosophy of Language, Mind and Science, Bochum, Germany, March 2009. “Reference and Convention” Language Workshop, University of California, Los Angeles, February 2009.

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