PLIN 3002 PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE 5 December 2006
Lecture 9: Proper names – from descriptivism to direct reference
The problems faced by Mill’s theory of proper names:
Co-referring names Empty names
Meaning Hesperus is Hesperus Vulcan is larger than earth Hesperus is Phosphorus
Truth Bert believes that Hesperus is a planet Vulcan doesn’t exist Bert believes that Phosphorus is a planet
Descriptivism – Frege (a reminder) [Every meaningful expression has a sense and most of them have a reference]
1. George W. Bush was in Baghdad for Thanksgiving
2. The president of the USA was in Baghdad for Thanksgiving
Descriptivism – Russell’s version
Russell’s starting place: Any particular expression has only one kind of meaning; it is either a referring expression or a denoting expression. Which class do names fall into?
Knowledge by acquaintance vs. knowledge by description To grasp the meaning of a genuine referring expression you have to be in an epistemic relation of acquaintance with the thing it refers to. Russell’s claim: We can never be in that kind of relation with other individuals.
So proper names are in fact denoting expressions rather than referring expressions. Proper names are a sort of shorthand for definite descriptions.
3. There is one and only one president of the USA and whoever is president of the USA was in Baghdad for Thanksgiving.
Russellian (and Fregean) descriptivism solves the problems with Mill:
4. Hesperus is Hesperus. 5. Hesperus is Phosphorus.
6. There is one and only one evening star and there is one and only one evening star and they are the same.
7. There is one and only one evening star and there is one and only one morning star and they are the same. 8. Vulcan doesn’t exist. 9. The planet between the sun and Mercury doesn’t exist.
Saul Kripke: the problems with descriptivism (Kripke (1972) Naming and Necessity)
Prediction 1 – if an individual satisfies the description that I associate with a proper name, then that individual is the referent of my use of the name.
Problem 1 – ‘Christopher Columbus’ ‘The man who discovered America’ The description picks out the individual who (actually) discovered America, whoever that may be, while the name ‘Christopher Columbus’ still refers to the man Christopher Columbus.
Prediction 2 – if no individual satisfies the description that I associate with a proper name, then my use of the name doesn’t refer to anyone
Problem 2 – ‘Jackson Pollock’ ‘The painter of The She-Wolf’ But even if no-one painted The She-Wolf (say, it was the result of a freak accident), my use of the name ‘Jackson Pollock’ still refers to Jackson Pollock.
Prediction 3 – if the only information I associate with a particular proper name isn’t uniquely identifying, then my use of the name shouldn’t refer.
Problem 3 – ‘Tintoretto’ ‘Italian painter of the renaissance’
10. Tintoretto was born later than Giotto.
Necessary and a priori versus contingent and a posteriori
11. The scientist who discovered gravity was the scientist who discovered gravity.
The sentence in (11) is a necessary truth and is something we know a priori
12. Isaac Newton was the scientist who discovered gravity.
The sentence in (12) is a contingent truth and is something we know (discover) a posteriori
Proper names and rigidity
Consider the truth conditions of the following two sentences. What do we need to look at in order to know whether these sentences are true or false?
13. The current president of the USA is six feet tall
14. George W. Bush is six feet tall
As well as considering the actual state of affairs, consider now hypothetical states of affairs (counterfactual situations, possible ways the world could have been). An expression is a rigid designator if and only if it picks out the same object in every possible world (that is, in the actual world and all counterfactual situations).
Kripke: Names are rigid designators; descriptions are not rigid designators. The ‘direct reference’ view of names: names contribute nothing to propositions, or to truth conditions, other than their referents. [Compare Mill.]
Dead end?? Big problems with descriptivist view of names (as above) Big problems with referential view of names (co-referring names, empty names)
Recent theories of proper names 1 – neo-descriptivism
The nominal description view: ‘Isaac Newton’ is semantically equivalent to the description ‘the person called Isaac Newton’. (Bach, K. 1987. Thought and Reference. Oxford UP)
15. Isaac Newton was a genius.
16. ‘Aloysius Murgatroyd’ = ‘the person called Aloysius Murgatroyd’
The obvious problem with neo-descriptivism: Counterfactual circumstance: He is a mathematician but instead of calling him ‘Isaac’ his parents had called him ‘Jerome’ and someone else, the local baker, was called ‘Isaac Newton’.
17. Isaac Newton was a mathematician.
18. The person called Isaac Newton was a mathematician.
Bach’s proposed solution: All utterances of (17) express the object-independent (descriptive) proposition in (18) and the rigidity of names is captured at the level of Gricean implicature.
Recent theories of proper names 2 – neo-Millianism (the direct reference view)
The co-reference puzzles also arise for words that clearly have the same meaning:
19. Ketchup is catsup 20. Ketchup is ketchup
21. Bert believes that ketchup is only made by Heinz 22. Bert believes that catsup is only made by Heinz
So we need a different solution altogether (Gricean implicature again):
23. Allen Konigsberg is Woody Allen. Proposition expressed: Woody Allen is identical to Woody Allen Implicature: The tallest kid in 3B is the director of Annie Hall.