This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
of C supervalid if it is true in every interpretation of C and valid if it is true in every (QS5=)-model (that is, if it is (QS5=)-valid)?2 We now make the following conjecture: The logical truths of the language [. of metaphysical necessity are precisely those sentences of [. that are supervalid.
Adapting an argument due to Kreisel (1969), we can prove that supervalidity coincides with validity for the language C. The argument goes as follows: Since Kripke (QS5=)-models are interpretations, we have: (I)
if rp is supervalid, then
rp is valid.
The completeness theorem for the system (QS5=) yields: (2)
if rp is valid, then rp is (QS5=)-provable.
However, the system (QS5=) is intuitively sound with respect to supervalidity. That is the axioms are easily seen to be supervalid and the only rule of inference, modus ponens, preserves supervalidity. Hence: (3)
if rp is (QS5=)-provable, then
rp is supervalid.
(2) together with (3) yield: (4)
if rp is valid, then
rp is supervalid.
Hence, the notions of validity and supervalidity are co extensional for the language C. From this together with the conjecture, we conclude that (QS5=) is the first-order logic of metaphysical necessity.23 7.2. Logical necessity
An (interpreted) sentence 1> is metaphysically necessary if it is true in every possible world. It is logically necessary if it is true for every domain and every interpretation of its non-logical symbols. Given a certain conception of modal reality, I have argued that Kripke's (1963a) semantics for quantified S5 adequately captures the logic of metaphysical necessity. This means that the logic of metaphysical necessity is relatively meager. Although there are, on the Kripkean metaphysical picture, a wealth of metaphysically necessary truths, only a few of them are also logically necessary. For example, if the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory are true, they are presumably true in all possible worlds, and hence metaphysically necessary. But they are not truths of logic, not even of the logic of metaphysical necessity.
230
STEN LINDSTROM
Consider now the sentences saying that there are at least n(n ?: 1) individuals: (n)
i- X2 /\ ... /\ Xl i- Xn /\ X2 i- X3 /\ ... i- Xn /\ ... /\ Xn-l i- Xn).
:JXl .•• :JXn (Xl . .. /\ X2
Each of these sentences is presumably metaphysically necessary. So for each positive n, the following is a truth of metaphysics: (1M] n)
i- X2 /\ ... /\ XI i- Xn /\ X2 i- X3 /\ ... i- Xn /\ ... /\ Xn-I i- xn).
1M] :JXl ... :JXn(Xl . .. /\ X2
It is, of course, not a logical truth. We do not have for any n ?: 1,24
F (QS5=) 1M] :JXl •.. :JXn(Xl i- x2 /\ ... /\ XI i- xn /\ x2 i- x3 /\ ... /\ X2
i- xn /\ ... /\ xn-I i- xn).
Nor do we have for any n,
F (QS5=) /\ X2
~:JXI ... :Jxn (XI i- x2 /\ ... /\ Xl i- Xn /\ X2 i- X3 /\ ... i- Xn /\ ... /\ Xn-I i- Xn).
In sharp contrast to this, Kanger's semantics for logical necessity validates every instance of
F ¢:JXI ... :JXn(XI i- X2/\···/\ XI i- Xn /\ X2 i- X3/\··· /\ X2
i- Xn /\ ... /\ Xn-l i- xn).
This is as I think it should be. It is a logical truth that it is logically possible that there are at least n objects. When comparing Kanger's semantics for modal logic with Kripke's we come to the conclusion that the former (at least in its class-domain version) is adequate for the notion oflogical necessity, while the latter adequately captures a form of metaphysical necessity. Neither semantics can handle adequately the notion that is captured by the other. To devise a semantics that can treat both notions is a challenge that still remains to be met. As we have seen, Kanger's model-theoretic semantics for quantified modal logic differs in many respects from modern possible worlds semantics. However, it raises sufficiently many questions both of a technical and of a philosophical kind to motivate an interest that is not merely historical. Department of Philosophy Umea University
KANGER'S EARLY SEMANTICS FOR MODAL LOGIC
231
NOTES At the 9th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. See F Iilllesdal (1994). 2 Actually Carnap's state descriptions are sets of literals (i.e., either atomic sentences or negated atomic sentences) that contain for each atomic sentence either it or its negation. However, for our purposes we may identify a state description with the set of atomic sentences that it contains. Also, in order to make things simple, I am not discussing here Carnap's treatment of identity statements. 3 On p. 39 in (1957a) Kanger makes an explicit reference to Jonsson and Tarski (1951). 4 Montague (1960) writes: "The present paper was delivered before the Annual Spring Conference in Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, in May, 1955. It contains no results of any great technical interest; I therefore did not initially plan to publish it. But some closely analogous, though not identical, ideas have recently been announced by Kanger [(I 957b)], [(l957c)] and by Kripke in [(1959)]. In view of this fact, together with the possibility of stimulating further research, it now seems not wholly inappropriate to publish my early contribution." 5 We are not going to consider languages that contain function symbols. 6 Here we ignore the possibility of D not being a set but a proper class and I not assigning sets but proper classes as extensions to the predicate symbols of C. If this were the case, then the intended interpretation of C would not be a model in the formal sense of model theory. Of course, there are interpreted first-order languages whose intended interpretations are not models in the formal sense, the first-order language of set theory, with the proper class V of all sets as its domain and the proper class {< x, y >: x is member of y} as the interpretation of 'E'. This opens up the possibility for a sentence of an interpreted formal language of being true although it may be false in all models in the sense of model theory. This possibility is precluded for first-order languages, by the LowenheimSkolem theorem: the truth of implies its consistency (by the intuitive soundness of first-order logic), which in turn, by the Lowenheim-Skolem theorem, implies having a (countable) model. But for formal languages that are able to express such notions as 'there is a proper class of x's such that ' the implication: (I)
if is true, then is true in some model (which is built up from sets).
fails. Let, for example, be the sentence "there is a proper class of x's such that x = x". This example is due to McGee (1992). 7 Cf. Kripke (1959, 1963) and Hintikka (1957a, 1957b, 1961). 8 For the standard-non-standard distinction, see also Cocchiarella (1975). 9 See, for example, Hintikka (1969). 10 We leave it open, for the time being, exactly what is meant by a (semantic) interpretation. II Kanger (1970), p. 49. 12 Kanger (1957b), p. 4. Cf. also Kanger (1970), p. 50. 13 Kanger uses the notation T(D, v, f= [g] and he speaks of the operation Twhich, for every domain D, every primary valuation v and every sentence , assigns one of the truth-values 0 or I to as the secondary valuation for C. 14 Actually he uses valuations here, but since the assignment of values to the variables is immaterial in this context it is more natural to work with interpretations. 15 Cf. Kanger (l957b), p. 4. 16 Kanger (1957b) uses the terminology "standard usage of C" instead of "intended interpretation ofe". 17 Here our terminology differs slightly from Kanger's. Our ontological operators correspond to what Kanger calls purely ontological operators. Cf. Kanger (1957a) p. 34. 18 In his definitions Kanger speaks of "classes' rather than "sets", but this terminological difference is inessential, since he does not make any distinctions within the category of all classes but rather treats all classes that he speaks of as genuine objects that can be members of other classes. 19 I have taken the quantifier (3 a bsinfX) from McGee (1992), where he uses it to show that there are interpreted formal languages for which the equivalence: (M) is logically true iff is true in every model (in the standard model-theoretic sense of "model" according to which models are sets).
232
STEN LINDSTROM
fails. He considers the language of set-theory with (:labs infX) added to it. The sentence (:labsinfX)(X = x) is then an example of a true sentence which is not true in any model (whose domain is a set). So if (M) were correct then ,(:labs infX) (x = X) would be an example of a false but logically true sentence. But there are of course no such sentences, so the equivalence (M) cannot hold in general. 20 If we are considering languages that are sufficiently strong in expressive power, then Kripke's model-theoretic semantics is not sufficient to capture the notions of metaphysical necessity and possibility. Consider, for example, the sentence: (*)
IMI (:labs infX)(X = X)
This sentence is presumably true in the intended interpretation. However, there is no Kripke model structure where it is true. 21 To be exact, we let QS5= by the system of free (i.e., 'free' of existential assumptions) modal predicate logic which is defined as follows. Axioms: (I) Any substitution instance of a theorem of propositional S5. (2) 'Ix¢! 1\ :ly(t = y) - t ¢!(t/x), provided that t is an individual constant or a variable that is free for x in ¢!. (3) Vx(¢! -t,p) - t ('Ix¢! - t Vx,p). (4) 'Ix¢! ¢!, provided x is not free in ¢!. (5) Vx:ly(y = x). (6) t = t. (7) t = tf - t (eb(t/x) - t ¢!(t' Ix)~, provided that t is an individual constant or a variable that is free for x in ¢!. Deduction rules: (MP) If ~ eb and ~ ¢! - t ,p, then ~,p. (Nec) If ~ ¢!, then ~ D¢!. (UG) If ~ eb, then ~ 'Ix¢!. Cf. Garson (1984) and Hughes and Cresswell (1996), chap. 16-17, where the this and similar systems are formulated and proved to be complete with respect to Kripke's (l963a) semantics (these are the systems that Garson refer to as
gIR).
The term "supervalidity" is due to Boolos (1985). The concept itself goes back to Kreisel (I 969). Here, we have, of course, presupposed Kripke's picture of metaphysical reality. Given another picture, for example that of Lewis (1985), we get a different logic of metaphysical necessity (but still a form of quantified S5). 24 Kripke's (1963) semantics allows the domains of quantification to be empty. 2
23
REFERENCES Barcan, (Marcus), R.: 1946a, 'A Functional Calculus of First Order Based on Strict Implication', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 11, 1-16. Barcan, (Marcus), R.: 1946b, 'The Deduction Theorem in a Functional Calculus of First Order Based on Strict Implication', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 11,115-118. Barcan, (Marcus), R.: 1947, 'The Identity of Individuals in a Strict Functional Calculus of Second Order', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12, 12-15. Boolos, G.: 1985, 'Nominalist Platonism', The Philosophical Review, XCIV(3), 327-344. Carnap, R.: 1946, 'Modalities and Quantification', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 11, 33-64. Carnap, R.: 1947, Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Second edition with supplements, 1956. Cocchiarella, N.: 1975, 'On the Primary and Secondary Semantics of Logical Necessity', Journal of Philosophical Logic, 4, 13-27. Etchemendy, 1.: 1990, The Concept of Logical Consequence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Follesdal, D.: 1994, 'Stig Kanger in Memoriam', in D. Prawitz and Westerstilhl, D. (eds), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, IX, 885-888. Elsevier, Amsterdam. Garson, 1.w.: 1984, 'Quantification in Modal Logic', in D. Gabbay and Guenthener, F. (eds), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, II, 249-307. D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Hintikka,1.: 1957a, 'Quantifiers in Deontic Logic', Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Commentationes humanarium lifterarum, 23(4). Hintikka, 1.: I 957b, 'Modality as Referential Multiplicity', Ajatus, 20, 49-64. Hintikka, 1.: 1961, 'Modality and Quantification', Theoria, 27, 110-128. Hintikka, 1.: 1969, 'Semantics for Propositional Attitudes', in 1.W. Davies et al. (eds), Philosophical Logic, 21-45. D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Reprinted in 1. Hintikka, Modelsfor Modalities. D. Reidel,
KANGER'S EARLY SEMANTICS FOR MODAL LOGIC
233
Dordrecht, 1969; and in L. Linsky (ed), Reference and Modality. Oxford University Press, London, 1971. Hintikka, J.: 1980, 'Standard vs. Nonstandard Logic: Higher-Order, Modal, and First-Order Logics', in E. Agazzi (ed), Modern Logic - A Survey. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 283-296. Hintikka, 1.: 1989, 'Is Alethic Modal Logic Possible?', in 1. Hintikka and M.B. Hintikka (eds), The Logic of Epistemology and the Epistemology of Logic. Kluwer, Dordrecht. Hughes, G.E. and M.1. Cresswell.: 1996, A New Introduction to Modal Logic. Routledge, London and New York. Jonsson, B. and A. Tarski.: 1951, 'Boolean Algebras with Operators', American Journal of Mathematics, 73, 891-939; 74, 127-162. Kanger, S.: 1957a, Provability in Logic, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Stockholm Studies in Philosophy 1, Almqvist and Wiksell, Stockholm. Kanger, S.: 1957b, 'The Morning Star Paradox', Theoria, 23, 1-11. Kanger, S.: 1957c, 'A Note on Quantification and Modalities', Theoria, 23,133-134. Kanger, S.: 1957d, 'On the Characterization of Modalities', Theoria, 23,152-155. Kanger, S.: 1970, New Foundationsfor Ethical Theory, in Hilpinen (ed.), Deontic Logic: Introductory and Systematic Readings, Reidel, 36-58. Earlier mimeographed version: New Foundations for Ethical Theory, Part 1, Stockholm, 1957. Kanger, S.: 19972, 'Law and Logic', Theoria, 38, 105-132. Kaplan, D.: 1986, 'Opacity', in Hahn and Schilpp (eds), The Philosophy of wv. Quine, The Library of Living Philosophers, Vol. XVIII, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois. Kleene, S.c.: 1967, Mathematical Logic, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York. Kreisel, G.: 1969, 'Informal Rigour and Completeness Proofs', in I. Lakatos (ed), Problems in the Philosophy of Mathematics. North-Holland, Amsterdam. Kripke, S.: 1959, 'A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24, 114. Kripke, S.: 1963a, 'Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic', Acta Philosophica Fennica, fasc. 16, Helsinki, 83-94. Kripke, S.: 1963b, 'Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic I, Normal Propositional Calculi', Zeitschriftfur Mathematische Logic und Grundlagen der Mathematik, 9, 67-96. Kripke, S.: 1965, 'Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic II, Non-Normal Propositional Calculi', in I.W. Addison, L. Henkin and A. Tarski (eds), The Theory of Models. North Holland, Amsterdam, 206-220. Kripke, S.: 1980, Naming and Necessity. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Lewis, D.: 1985, On the Plurality of Worlds. Basil Blackwell, Oxford. Lindstrom, S.: 1996, 'Modality Without Worlds: Kanger's Early Semantics for Modal Logic', in Odds and Ends, Philosophical Essays Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz on the Occasion of His Fiftieth Birthday, Uppsala Philosophical Studies, 45, Department of Philosophy, Uppsala University. McGee, V.: 1992, 'Two Problems with Tarski's Theory of Consequence', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, new series, 92, 273-292. Montague, R.: 1960, 'Logical Necessity, Physical Necessity, Ethics and Quantifiers', Inquiry, 4, 259269. Reprinted in R. Thomason (ed), Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1974. Quine, W. Y.: 1947, 'The Problem of Interpreting Modal Logic', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12, 43-48. Tarski, A.: 1936, 'Uber den Begriff der logischen Folgerung', Actes du Congres International de Philosophie Scientifique, 7, I-II. (English translation: 'On the Concept of Logical Consequence', 409--420 in Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, second edition, Hackett Indianapolis, 1983).
QUENTIN SMITH
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE
1. INTRODUCTION
This essay continues the effort of some previous essays to present a more accurate history of the origins of the New Theory of Reference. The "New Theory of Reference" is typically used by philosophers in different ways; for example, sometimes it is used to refer to a theory that essentially includes the historical chain theory of reference. But the consequence of this is that Kaplan, Perry, Salmon, Marcus, Wettstein, Almog and many others commonly identified with this theory are excluded. The "New Theory of Reference", which is used as a name or referentially used definite description, can be used to refer to many different ideas and in this essay I use it in the following narrow and broad senses. If the New Theory of Reference is defined in a narrow sense so that it includes all or virtually all of the philosophers who are standardly associated with this theory, then we may say someone is a New Theorist of Reference if and only if he or she presented an argument against the Frege-Russellian descriptivism that was the orthodox theory in the 1950s and early 1960s and replaced this descriptivism by a historical chain or direct reference theory (and perhaps an associated doctrine of singular propositions). There are many other ideas commonly associated with the New Theory of Reference, even though all of the New Theorists in the narrow sense do not subscribe to all of these ideas. These ideas include the notions of rigid designation, a posteriori necessity and metaphysical necessity, as well as other ideas. In this paper, I shall study contributions to the "New Theory of Reference" in the broad sense that includes these associated ideas. Someone contributes to or in some respect is a New Theorist of Reference in the broad sense if and only if she or he rejected some of the "Frege-Russell tradition" that was orthodoxy in the 1950s and early 1960s and argued for two or more of the following positions: (i) the idea that names are not disguised, contingent definite descriptions but are directly referential or refer by means of a historical chain, (ii) the idea that names are rigid designators and contingent definite descriptions are nonrigid designators, (iii) the distinction between logical and metaphysical necessity and (iv) the distinction between the necessary / contingent contrast and the a priori/a posteriori contrast.
235
P. W. Humphreys et al. (eds.), The New Theory of Reference © Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998
236
QUENTIN SMITH
This system of classification enables us to consider the highly relevant ideas of philosophers who sometimes are not associated with the New Theory of Reference, such as Plantinga, the early Hintikka, Cocchiarella, F011esdal and others. A large number of later contributors may also be included, such as Graeme Forbes [1985; 1989] and Stephen Yablo [1992], and most of the philosophers of religion who write in the Plantingian tradition. Indeed, this classification would imply (correctly) that the New Theory of Reference is so widespread that a large number, if not most, analytic philosophers in the 1990s can be considered as contributing or belonging in some respects to this philosophical tradition. The use of this broad sense of "New Theory of Reference" is combined with talk of someone contributing to the New Theory or being in some respect a New Theorist of Reference, as distinct from the unqualified statement that someone is a New Theorist of Reference. For example, a philosopher may argue there are a posteriori necessities and metaphysical necessities and yet hold that names are disguised, contingent descriptions. It would be natural to say that such a philosopher is not a New Theorist of Reference in the narrow sense, but nonetheless made some contributions to the New Theory of Reference understood in the broader sense. The basic problem with the standard history of the New Theory of Reference (in the broad sense I am discussing in this essay) is the failure to make an adequate distinction between originators and developers of the basic ideas. The first wave of developers (mainly Kaplan, Donnellan, Kripke and Putnam) are mistakenly thought to be the originators of the ideas, who in fact include mainly Marcus, F0llesdal, Hintikka, Plantinga and Geach. These two groups need to be distinguished from the second wave of developers, who include Michael Devitt, Nathan Salmon, Howard Wettstein, John Perry, Joseph Almog, and many others. In previous essays, I largely concentrated on two of the originators (Marcus and Geach) and three of the members of the first wave of developers (Kripke, Donnellan and Kaplan), but in the present essay I will discuss more or less equally several philosophers who belong to the class of originators - Marcus, Plantinga, Hintikka, Geach, F0llesdal and some others. I will also discuss Kripke's main unknown contribution, his 1962 theory of descriptionally rigid proper names, and Cocchiarella's contribution to the logical/metaphysical distinction. But first we need to understand what it means to "originate" an idea in the New Theory of Reference. 2. DIRECT REFERENCE, SINGULAR PROPOSITIONS, A POSTERIORI NECESSITY, ETC., IN MOORE'S 1899 ESSAY "THE NATURE OF JUDGMENT"
One might say that British analytic philosophy began in August 1898 in a letter that Moore wrote to Desmond MacCarthy, in which Moore announced: "I have arrived at a perfectly staggering doctrine ...". [Moore, 1898]. This (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
237
staggering doctrine was an early version of some of the basic ideas in the New Theory of Reference that emerged in the late 1950s, 1960s and has been widely prevalent since the 1970s. This doctrine was first published in Moore's 1899 essay, "The Nature of Judgement", the first bona fide publication of British analytic philosophy, in which he laid out his theory of direct reference, singular propositions that include concrete objects as parts, a posteriori necessities, and other ideas that (in one version or another) later formed the foundation of the New Theory of Reference. The fact that the first publication in AngloAmerican analytic philosophy included an early version of many ideas in the New Theory of Reference is not widely known and it is worth explaining some of Moore's basic notions. Moore considers reality to be composed of (mind-independent) concepts; Moore uses "concept" to mean a universal; he holds a bundle theory of objects and that we directly refer to these objects (bundles of concepts) and their parts in our language. The concrete universe of stones, flowers and humans is made up of concepts and nothing more. Some sentences express propositions that consist of these concepts; these propositions are the analogues of what we today call "singular propositions" or "de re propositions". Two main aims of Moore's article is to reject the descriptivist theory of reference of Bradley and others and replace it with a theory of direct reference and singular propositions, and to reject the Kantian tradition that held all logical necessities are a priori and to replace this with a theory that some logical necessities are a posteriori. Some passages convey Moore's theory of direct reference and singular propositions: "When, therefore, I say 'This rose is red', I am not attributing part of the content of my idea to the rose, nor yet attributing part of the content of my ideas of rose and red together to some third subject. What I am asserting is a specific connexion of certain concepts forming the total concept [the concrete thing] 'rose' with the concepts 'this' and 'now' and 'red'; and the judgment is true if such a connexion is existent ... If the judgment is false, that is not because my ideas do not correspond to reality, but because such a conjunction of concepts is not to be found among existents ... A proposition is composed not of words, nor yet of thoughts, but of concepts ... All that exists is thus composed of concepts ... It seems necessary, then, to regard the world as formed of concepts" [1899: 179-182]. Moore also has a theory of a posteriori logical necessities. Moore considers existential propositions, e.g., Red exists, to be a posteriori and yet necessary. He argues that they are not a priori but nonetheless have the essential mark that Kant assigned to a priori propositions, namely, necessity. An existential and empirical proposition asserts that a simple concept exists in time. These propositions are a posteriori and "perception is to be regarded philosophically as the cognition of an existential proposition" [1899: 183]. Furthermore, "a simple concept cannot be known as one which could exist in time, except on the ground that it has so existed, is existing, or will exist. But we have now to point (eds.),
238
QUENTIN SMITH
out that even existential propositions have the essential mark which Kant assigns to a priori propositions - that they are absolutely necessity". [1899: 189, my italics]. If I assert that Red exists, I mean Red exists now, and "this connexion of red and existence with the moment of time I mean by 'now', would seem to be as necessary as any other connexion whatever. If it is true [which is discoverable by sense perception], it is necessarily true, and if false, necessarily false. If it is true, its contradictory is as fully impossible as the contradictory of2 + 2 = 4". [1899: 190, my emphases]. Accordingly, in the case of some propositions "there would seem no doubt that we mean by it [the proposition] to assert an absolute necessity; but between what precise concepts the necessary relation, of which we are certain, holds, we must leave to experience to discover". [1899: 188]. Since a theory of direct reference, singular propositions and a posteriori necessities appeared in the very first publication of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, the "excitement" expressed by some philosophers over the apparent novelty of ideas of this sort when they become popular in the 1970s may seem to some historians of philosophy to be a trifle ironic or misplaced. The specific versions of the 1960s-1990s theories of direct reference, singular propositions, a posteriori necessities, etc., differed from Moore's [1899], but the general ideas are significantly similar. Some philosophers correctly trace the general idea of directly referential ordinary names and singular propositions back to Russell's [1903], where a somewhat different and considerably more developed account is given than in Moore's [1899]; but the first statement of ideas of this general sort appears in Moore's earlier work, whose influence Russell acknowledged [1903: xviii]. However, in Russell's [1903] we already see the eclipse of some of Moore's anticipations of the New Theory of Reference, such as Moore's theory that there are a posteriori necessities, and in this respect as well Moore's [1899] may be seen as the most important precursor to the later works of the New Theorists of Reference. In 1903 Moore expanded on these ideas to include the distinction among physical necessity, metaphysical necessity and logical necessity. In Moore's [1903: 29] he says the existence of a natural part is a necessary condition for the existence of the good which is constituted by the whole. It is not "merely a natural or causal necessity" [1903: 29]. And yet the relation is synthetic, not analytic, and hence is not a logical necessity [1903: 7, 33]. The synthetic necessities are about what can or "cannot conceivably exist" [1903: 29]; they are metaphysical necessities, and the word "conceivably" is used in Kripke's [1959], Plantinga's [1970], Putnam's [1975] and Yablo's [1992] sense, as a less misleading term than "modal intuitions", which achieved a widespread use in the 1970s. This early appearance of ideas that would be revived in various forms in the late 1950s and 1960s was soon overshadowed by the appearance of Russell's 1905 article "On Denoting". This article initiated the eventual downfall of the "early" or "Moorian" version of the New Theory of Reference and its (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
239
replacement by (i) a descriptional theory of ordinary names, (ii) a restriction of directly referential names to demonstrative words in my private language for my sense data (foreshadowed in the second paragraph of "On Denoting"), (iii) an equation of necessity with the linguistically analytic and a priori, (iv) the theory that general rather than singular propositions are stated by sentences with ordinary names, (v) and the elimination of a "metaphysical necessity" that was broader than logical necessity and narrower than physical necessity. All or most of these ideas (or some variant upon them) became the orthodox theory up until the 1960s. This orthodoxy is often referred to as "the Frege-Russell tradition", which is an acceptable practice as long as this phrase is used as a name or referentially used definite description. (It needs to be kept in mind that Frege and Russell did not both hold all these doctrines and Frege's and Russell's theories are incompatible on some major points.) An early exception to this orthodoxy is Wittgenstein's [1922]. Wittgenstein [1922] anticipated the New Theory of Reference to a more significant extent than other logical atomists. He held that names directly refer to objects, that elementary sentences express singular propositions, and that names are rigid designators in that they refer to an object as it exists in each possible world (or state of affairs). Wittgenstein argued that these semantic facts are implied by the underlying structure of any logically possible language (disguised by what is used as "ordinary language"). The above considerations suggest that a point needs to be made about what "introducing an idea into the New Theory of Reference" means. This does not imply being original in the absolute sense, i.e., being the first person to discover or entertain or believe or write about the idea. It has been repeated many times since the early 1970s that the direct reference theory of proper names can be traced back to Mill, although it is rarely noted that this theory can also be found in Hume, Ockham, Plato and Parmenides, to name but a few others. Likewise, the nonequivalence of the a priori/a posteriori and the necessity/ contingent distinction is no more "new" than is the direct reference theory. This distinction was widespread in the scholastic period, with Aquinas and others arguing that some necessary truths (e.g., that God exists) are a posteriori. Some of Aristotle's metaphysical necessities, statements about natural kinds, are a posteriori and Plato argued that certain necessary relations between Forms are a posteriori. Virtually none of the main ideas in the New Theory of Reference are "original" in this absolute sense. Being "original" in the relative sense of introducing an idea or argument into the New Theory of Reference means this: being the first to put forth an argument against the "Frege-Russell orthodoxy" that remained predominant up until at least the 1950s and replacing a part of this tradition with one of the ideas or arguments that are associated with the New Theory of Reference (even if the idea or argument was previously presented by Parmenides, Aristotle, Locke, Aquinas, or others). Accordingly, the question we are addressing in the history of philosophy is this: What ideas and arguments were put forth that led (eds.),
240
QUENTIN SMITH
to the demise of the Frege-Russell tradition and the emergence of the New Theory of Reference in the late 1950s and 1960s (which then led to the New Theory's elaboration and wide acceptance in the 1970s)? 3. QUANTIFYING INTO MODAL CONTEXTS: 1918-1960
The New Theory of Reference is a theory about natural language, but an account of its origins requires us to discuss theories of logical languages, specifically, the languages used in interpretations of quantified modal logic. A syntactics for propositional modal logic appeared in c.l. Lewis' [1918] and a syntactics for quantified modal logic first appeared in 1946 with Marcus' [1946] and (two months later) in Carnap's [1946]. An interpretation or semantics for modal logic first appeared in Carnap's [1946] and [1947]. The key idea of Carnap's semantics is that the interpretation of "OA" was based on the Leibnizian idea that necessary truth is truth in all possible worlds (what Carnap called "state descriptions'); thus "OA" means A is true in all possible worlds (in all state descriptions). A state description is a maximally consistent set of atomic sentences. It is a logically consistent set W of sentences, such that for each atomic sentence S, either S is a member of the set W or the negation of S is a member of the set W. The route from logical languages to natural language followed a path started by Quine in 1941, in a footnote to an article he contributed to Schilpp's The Philosophy of Whitehead. Here Quine first stated his famous "paradox" about quantified modal logic. It is not widely known that Quine first started this paradox in 1941, four years before modal logic was first quantified by Marcus. This paradox is often traced back to a later writing of Quine, his [1947] or sometimes his [1943]. The paradox as it originally appears in Quine's [1941: 142, n. 26] comprises two sentences offootnote 26: "c.1. Lewis and C.H. Langford (Symbolic Logic, New York, 1932), e.g., use a non-truth-functional operator '~' to express logical possibility. Thus the statements: ~
(the number of planets in the solar system < 7)
~
(9
< 7)
would be judged as true and false respectively, despite the fact that they are interconvertible by interchanging the terms '9' and 'the number of planets in the solar system', both of which designate the same object."
If it were not for this footnote (which led to Quine's later restatements of the paradox) and the responses to this paradox, it is doubtful that the New Theory of Reference would have been developed. The traditional form of the paradox in virtually all later discussions is taken from Quine's [1947: 47] formulation, where "C" means congruence (which may be the relation of identity, but Quine does not wish to prejudge that):
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
241
"Morning Star C Evening Star· D (Morning Star C Morning Star).
Therefore, according to (ii) ['An existential quantification holds if there is a constant whose substitution for the variable of quantification would render the matrix true']: (I) (:Jx) (x C Evening Star· D (x C Morning Star)).
But also: Evening Star C Evening Star . ~ D (Evening Star C Morning Star),
so that, by (ii) (2) (:Jx) (x C Evening Star . ~ D (x C Morning Star))."
Since (1) and (2) are mutual contraries, we have a paradox. Before we consider the first relevant response, Smullyan's in 1947, one other idea needs to be introduced which proved crucial for the New Theory of Reference. In his [1943] Quine discusses but rejects a principle of universal intersubstitutivity: "Given a true statement of identity, one of its two terms may be substituted for the other in any true statement and the result will be true". [1943: 113]. This statement may appear to be natural or plausible, given the indiscernability of identicals. If two individuals x and yare identical, they are indiscernible; this may suggest the idea that singular terms for x and y should be intersubstitutable in any context, including modal, temporal, deontic, epistemic and other intensional contexts. But Quine argues that singular terms are not intersubstitutable in modal and epistemic contexts. The idea that singular terms, most notably names, are always "purely designative" was associated with this universal intersubstitutivity thesis. Quine also rejects this idea: "Failure of substitutivity [in modal and epistemic contexts] reveals merely that the occurrence to be supplanted is not purely designative, and that the statement depends not only upon the object but on the form of the name". [1943: 114] Quine holds that names have a meaning ("criterion of application") in addition to their designative feature, and that the meaning, not just the designation, is relevant to modal and epistemic contexts. By rejecting the universal intersubstitutivity thesis and the associated thesis that names do not have a meaning but instead are purely designative, Quine has to mention these theses and make an issue about whether they are plausible, and his discussion of these theses was a motivating factor in the future discussions that led to the New Theory of Reference. (The impression should not be given that the conception of the universal intersubstitutivity thesis is "original" with Quine. This thesis has been regularly propounded or discussed throughout the history of philosophy, and can be traced at least as far back as Aristotle's Topics vii, I. The point is that Quine drew attention to it in a way that proved influential. The association of an intersubstitutivity thesis with the "purely designative" thesis became a central element of the New Theory of Reference that was not present in Moore's early theory.) (eds.),
242
QUENTIN SMITH
The theory Quine rejected (or rather, one largely similar to it) is also mentioned and rejected four years later, in Carnap's Meaning and Necessity; Carnap calls the theory "the name-relation method". Carnap writes [1947: 98] that the name-relation method is based on three principles (the numbers in brackets are my insertions) and is meant to apply to an artificial or logical language: " [I] Every expression used as a name (in a certain context) is the name of exactly one entity; we call it the nominatum of the expression ... [2] A sentence is about (deals with. includes in its subject matter) the nominata of the names occurring in it. [3] The principle of interchangeability (or substitutivity). This principle occurs in either of two forms: [3a] If two expressions name the same entity ... the two expressions are interchangeable (everywhere). [3b] If an identity sentence ['... is identical with - - -'] is true, then the two argument expressions ' .. .' and' - - -' are interchangeable (everywhere)."
Carnap rejects this name-relation method for several reasons, including the reason that expressions that name the same entity are not always intersubstitutable in modal contexts. The second relevant event in 1947 is Smullyan's innovative use of the "purely designative" and "substitutivity" theses in modal contexts to respond to Quine's paradox. Smullyan is responding to Quine's [1947], in which Quine's point is that "when modal logic is extended (as by Miss Barcan) to include quantification theory ... serious obstacles to interpretation are encountered". [Quine, 1947: 43-48]. Smullyan suggests two ways for interpreting quantified modal logic, each of which is able to resolve Quine's paradox; but only the first way is pertinent to the New Theory of Reference. This solution appears in the third sentence in this passage: "It is possible that by 'constant' is meant what is commonly understood by 'proper name'. Under this interpretation it appears evident to this reviewer that the principle of existential generalization is true. However, we observe that if 'Evening Star' and 'Morning Star' proper-name the same individual they are synonymous and therefore B is false." [Smullyan, 1947: 140]
B is the premise: Evening Star is congruent with Evening Star . rv D Evening Star is congruent with Morning Star. Smullyan's theory has been subjected to many mis-interpretations in recent years, including one of my previous discussions of his theory,l and consequently it is worth quoting enough material from his brief review (which is two and one-half pages in length) to provide sufficient textual evidence for a correct interpretation. In the abovequoted phrase, "what is commonly understood by 'proper name"', Smullyan is not referring to ordinary proper names, but to what philosophers of logic of that time commonly understood as proper names, i.e., proper names in Russell's sense (Russell's logically proper names, "this" and "that", which directly refer to my sense data). Smullyan characterizes his response to Quine's charge of contradiction as a response that employs Russell's theory of descriptions and proper names: "We have seen that in terms of Russell's theory ofdescriptions and proper names this contradiction can be avoided". [1947: 141;
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
243
my italics]. Smullyan's employment of Russell's theory of logically proper names (as distinct from Mill's theory of ordinary proper names) in his first response to Quine was later noted by Prior [1967: 10-11] and others. Smullyan's second and preferred way of responding to Quine, in terms of Russell's theory of descriptions, is that the necessity of identity thesis for individuals is false, which is an implication of the following sentence, the crux of his second response: "For if it is not necessary that the morning star exists then it is not necessary that the morning star is self-congruent" [1947: 140]. This is a rejection of one of the premises of Quine's paradox, viz., "0 (Morning Star is congruent with Morning Star)". Smullyan is talking about artificial (formal or logical) languages (specifically, about artificial languages suitable for interpreting quantified modal logic), rather than natural or ordinary language. For this reason, Russell's argument that in ordinary language, expressions such as "Evening Star" or "Hesperus" are not proper names but truncated descriptions is not pertinent to the discussion. In his artificial language, Smullyan is not required to use words in the way they are ordinarily used. But Smullyan does remark that the treatment of "Evening Star" or "Hesperus" as a logically proper name in modal contexts does not accord with ordinary language and therefore that this particular solution to Quine's paradox is disadvantaged relative to his second solution. He prefers the solution in terms of Russell's theory of the primary and secondary occurrences of definite descriptions, which accords more with ordinary language. Thus, Smullyan concludes his review by saying: "In the judgment of the reviewer, the complications to which Carnap and Church resort underscore certain advantages obtained by retaining Russell's treatment of descriptions with its associated doctrine concerning the primary and secondary occurrence of descriptive phases. This doctrine, as Carnap admits [1947: 140), has the advantage of being in close accord with ordinary usage. It also permits a logical theory which unifies the theory of quantification with that of modality in a manner which Quine believes impossible. However, in defense of Quine's skepticism, in the reviewer's opinion, there is not a scintilla of evidence." [1947: 141).
At the risk of belaboring this point, Smullyan is noting that one of his ways of resolving Quine's paradox in an artificial language has, as an added advantage to its logical validity, the feature of "being in close accord with ordinary use". Being in accordance with ordinary language is not a necessary condition o((but merely an added advantage for) a solution to Quine's paradox, since Smullyan takes the discussion to be about logical language used in an interpretation of quantified modal logic, not about ordinary language. Smullyan is also saying that this added advantage belongs to the resolution in terms of primary and secondary occurrences of descriptive phases, not to the resolution in terms of logically proper names, which reflects Smullyan's belief that names in ordinary languages are not directly referential. (Smullyan reaffirms his preference for a descriptional theory in his [1948]). Here we are still a long way from the Millian theory of ordinary proper names, the necessity of identity for Millian names, the intersubstitutivity of Millian names in modal contexts, the rigidity of (eds.),
244
QUENTIN SMITH
Millian names, etc., that first appear in Marcus' [1961]. The next pertinent year in the route to the New Theory of Reference is 1949, which features Frederick Fitch's "The Paradox of the Morning Star and Evening Star". Fitch, like Smullyan, is talking about a logical language; his aim is to show that "the modal logician is free to deal directly with actual individuals and to employ the relation of identity between them". [1949: 138]. Fitch is criticizing Quine's argument that if we are to use quantified modal logic we must follow Carnap and let our variables range over individual concepts. (Quine rejected individual concepts, but had argued the modal logician is committed to them.) Fitch restates Smullyan's two arguments, including the argument employing Russellian logically proper names, to solve Quine's paradox. Fitch adds a third argument, based on using Marcus' 1946 theorem of the necessity of identity and considerations of scope differences for descriptive phrases. Although this third argument is the main point of the article, the significance of the article for "the route to the New Theory of Reference" is that we find a second person (Marcus' dissertation advisor) endorsing the validity of using Russellian proper names in modal contexts in an artificial language to respond to Quine's paradox. Fitch's 1950 article on "Attribute and Class" is more important since we find him going beyond Smullyan and mentioning the full universal intersubstitutivity thesis that Quine and Carnap discussed and rejected. (Smullyan mentioned only intersubstitutivity in modal contexts.) Fitch first writes about the import of Marcus' 1947 article on "The Identity of Individuals in a Strict Functional Calculus of First Order" for the identity of entities: "the system of modal logic developed by Ruth Barcan suggests that the simplest view is that no identities should be regarded as merely contingent and that identified entities should be everywhere intersubstitutable. (Indeed, no entity is correctly identifiable with any entity but itself, so permission of substitution of this sort is trivial anyway". [1950: 552]. Fitch mixes ontological with semantic theses in these two sentences, but proceeds to formulate a specifically semantic thesis: "Furthermore, if entities X and Y have been identified with each other, it seems reasonable to suppose that the names of X and Y should also be everywhere intersubstitutable". [1950: 552]. Fitch, however, no more endorses this view that Smullyan endorses the thesis about Russellian names in modal contexts. Fitch immediately adds: "According to Church's view, on the other hand, two names of the same thing might differ in sense and so not be intersubstitutable". [1950: 552]. Fitch later mentions Carnap's view, and Smullyan's two responses to Quine's paradox in terms of Russellian proper names and descriptions, but Fitch does not commit himself to anyone of these views (the universal intersubstitutivity thesis, Smullyan's two responses to Quine, Church's view, and Carnap's view.) Fitch's general point is the same point made in his [1949] and in Smullyan's [1947] and [1948], namely, that there are many ways to respond to Quine's paradox about quantified logic and to construct a valid logic of this sort. (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
245
As least three steps need to be made to get from Smullyan's and Fitch's papers to the New Theory of Reference. First, somebody needs to endorse, and not merely mention as one of the many possible solutions to Quine's paradox, the thesis that names are directly referential and intersubstitutable in modal contexts. Second, somebody must start talking about natural language and ordinary names, and not merely about names in an artificial language used for purposes of interpreting quantified modal logic. Third, the names need to be conceived as Millian names (in the broad and familiar contemporary sense) rather than as Russellian logically proper names. The first step (endorsing the direct reference and substitutivity thesis) is taken in 1960 in an article by Marcus, "Extensionality" [1960] and at greater length by F0llesdal in his 1961 Harvard dissertation on Referential Opacity and Modal Logic. (For my chronology to be accurate, I should point out that between Fitch's [1950] and Marcus' [1960] there appeared Kanger's [1957b] and Hintikka's [1957a; 1957b], which contained more extensive and logically original solutions to Quine's paradox than Smullyan's and Fitch's relatively brief responses. I shall discuss Kanger's and Hintikka's work separately when I discuss the origination of the concept of a metaphysical [as distinct from logical] semantics for modal logic.) In Marcus' [1960], she continues in the tradition of talking about artificial or logical languages that are suitable for interpreting quantified modal logic. She sums up her paper as follows: "I have tried in this brief paper, to characterize the theory of extensionality, and to show that logical systems are more or less extensional" [1960: 62]. In a footnote [1960: 61, n. 2] Marcus sees herself as continuing in the Fitch (and thus Smullyan) tradition of stating that one of the ways to resolve Quine's paradox is to treat the relevant expressions as proper names, in which case there is intersubstitutivity. She writes about the sentence "It is necessary that the evening star is the evening star" and she says that if it "involves proper names of individuals then 'the evening star' may replace 'the morning star' without paradox ..." [1960: 61]. In Marcus' [1960], we do not see the reservations expressed by Smullyan and Fitch about the response to Quine that involves treating "evening star" as a proper name, and we do not find here any sympathy with Smullyan's and Fitch's suggestion that a solution in terms of definite descriptions may be preferable because of greater conformity with ordinary usage. Marcus views the "proper name" solution as provably valid, given her theorems about identity, indiscernability, weaker equivalences, and about the intersubstitutivity of expressions; she argues that the "proper name" solution follows from her theorems. But Marcus in this article has her attention only on the interpretation of logical systems, and is not concerned to make any claims about ordinary usage. Further, we have as yet no indication that she has in mind Millian names as distinct from the Russellian names that Fitch and Smullyan used, although the reference to Fitch suggests that she does not at this time see herself as departing from the theory of names employed in Fitch's and (eds.),
246
QUENTIN SMITH
Smullyan's articles. The "Big Leap" into the New Theory of Reference is made next year, in her "Modalities and Intensional Languages" [1961]. But first we will consider Dagfinn F011esdal's 1961 theory, which is the most fully developed formal analogue (a theory of the language used in interpretations of quantified modal logic) to the theory of natural language in the New Theory of Reference. 4. F0LLESDAL'S 1961 THEORY OF DIRECTLY REFERENTIAL RIGID DESIGNATORS
Smullyan [1947], Fitch [1949; 1950] and Marcus [1960] discussed some formal analogues in the language of quantified modal logic to the natural language counterparts in the New Theory of Reference. By 1961, the philosopher who presented the most extensive formal analogue to the New Theory of Reference was Dagfinn F011esdal in his 1961 Harvard doctoral dissertation, Referential Opacity and Modal Logic. This was later privately published with minor additions in [F011esdal, 1966]. F0llesdal originates or develops the theory that genuine singular terms are rigid, the universal intersubstitutivity thesis, the necessity of identity thesis, the difference between rigid names and nonrigid definite descriptions, the difference between rigid definite descriptions and rigid, non-descriptional names, the modally oriented characterization of proper names in terms of the notion of possible worlds, the notion of a weak rigid designator, the endorsement of essentialism, and other theses that place him squarely in the conceptual context of the New Theory of Reference rather than of that of the Frege-Russell tradition that circumscribed the limits of Smullyan's and Fitch's discussion. F011esdal's original solution to Quine'S paradox is to reject the assumption that singular and general terms have the same semantics and to argue that genuine singular terms are characterized by the fact that they exhibit rigidity. F011esdal's "genuine singular terms" include variables, pronouns, and "genuine names" in the broad sense, which include both proper names and necessary descriptions. Genuine singular terms are defined as having a stable or rigid reference in terms of the notions of the referential transparency and extensional opacity of a construction. Constructions are referentially transparent in that whatever is said to be true of an object is true of the object regardless of how it is referred to. They are extensionally opaque in that we cannot substitute coextensional general terms or sentences for one another in modal contexts. In modal contexts, genuine singular terms refer to the same object in each possible world (or each possible world in which the object exists) and are intersubstitutable. F0llesdal presents three possible solutions to Quine's paradox, depending on which terms in our language are rigid, only variables and pronouns, or also genuine names. The solution involving "genuine names" includes both rigid definite descriptions and rigid names that have no descriptive context. (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
247
F011esdal defends at greater length than previous writers (specifically Marcus [1960)) the universal intersubstitutivity thesis and the strong identity thesis.
F011esdal holds that the identity sign cannot be flanked by a contingent description but only by a genuine singular term (a rigid designator). F011esdal sees the universal intersubstitutivity thesis as belonging to the meaning of identity and as a necessary premise in the derivation of the necessity of identity. [1966: 111-112]. (As I mentioned, F011esdal privately reprinted his 1961 dissertation in [1966] with an added preface and small additions to sections with which I am not here discussing or quoting; I quote and refer to only the parts of his [1966] that are unchanged from his [1961)). F011esdal is also the first to present a defense of the universal substitutivity thesis in both epistemic and modal contexts. (For example, Marcus endorsed the universal substitutivity thesis, but defended it only against objections pertaining to modal contexts in her [1960], [1961] and [1963].) F011esdal argues that the unrestricted substitutivity of identity in modal contexts amounts to essentialism: "if an attribute is necessary of an object, it is necessary of an object regardless of the way in which the object is referred to". [1966: 120]. F011esdal here is referring to Quine'S idea that an attribute is necessary of an object only relative to a certain way of describing it, and that denying this is tantamount to affirming essentialism. At the time of this dissertation (1961), the discussions by Marcus [1961; 1967; 1971], Parsons [1969] and others of the distinctions between trivial and nontrivial essentialism had not yet been published and F 011esdal has in mind only nontrivial essentialism in his dissertation. F011esdal characterized proper names in his 1961 Harvard dissertation as follows: "This solution [the second solution to Quine's paradox] leads us to regard a word as a proper name of an object only if it refers to this one and the same object in all possible worlds". [1966: 96-97]. F011esdallater discusses the problem of possible worlds in which the object does not exist and introduced what later became called [Kripke, 1972] "weak rigid designators". F011esdal formulates the notion of a weak rigid designator in [1966: 124-134]. In this discussion, F011esdal becomes the first to propose a theory ofa varying domain semantics combined with a theory that names are rigid designators, which is the first time the conceptual distinction between strong and weak rigid designation is made. A weak rigid designator designates the same object in every world in which that object exists, and designates nothing in worlds in which that object does not exist. A strong rigid designator designates the same object in every world and the object exists in every world. But note that F011esdal's distinction is made in the context of discussing the language of quantified modal logic, and Kripke's distinction is instead made in the context of analyzing ordinary usage [Kripke, 1971; 1972]. Quine was F011esdal's dissertation advisor and was a professor at Harvard University when F011esdal was a graduate student and Kripke an undergraduate student at this university. Quine has maintained that F011esdal's (eds.),
248
QUENTIN SMITH
concept of genuine names in the broad sense is the same as Kripke's concept of rigid designators, even as late as [1994]. Quine writes in [1981: 118] about Kripke's rigid designators and F0llesdal's genuine names and genuine singular terms: "a term thus qualified is what F0llesdal called a genuine name and Kripke has called a rigid designator. It is a term such that (Ex)D(x = a), that is, something is necessarily, where 'a' stands for the term .... A rigid designator differs from others in that it picks out its object by its essential traits". In Quine's [1994: 148] he writes: " ... Hence Dagfinn FeJllesdal's genuine singular terms, or Saul Kripke's rigid designators. These are the terms that obey substitutivity of identity even in modal contexts ... As we might say in a modal spirit, these are the terms that name their objects necessarily". Quine appears to be basically correct in his characterization. For example, Kripke [1971: 145] writes: "What do I mean by 'rigid designator'? I mean a term that designates the same object in all possible worlds". F0llesdal says the same of his genuine singular terms. For example, he writes in 1961 of some of his genuine singular terms, proper names, that we "regard a word as a proper name of an object only if it refers to this one and the same object in all possible worlds. This does not seem unnatural'. [F011esdal, 1966: 97]. Although F011esdal's statements (e.g., "this does not seem unnatural") suggest that he believes his theory also applies to ordinary language, he does not engage in the ordinary language analysis of Kripke's [1971; 1972] and has his attention on the language of quantified modal logic. This is the most important difference between the two theories that Quine does not mention. Furthermore, Quine is mistaken in believing that Kripke's rigid designators and F011esdal's genuine singular terms always refer in a descriptional way, i.e., that such an expression always "picks out its objects by its essential traits". As is well-known, Kripke held that proper names are not descriptionally rigid in his [1971] and [1972]. And F011esdal writes in his 1961 dissertation that if a name-like word is nonrigid, it is descriptional, and that proper names do not contain descriptional elements: we regard "a word as a proper name of an object only if it refers to this one and the same object in all possible worlds. This does not seem unnatural. Neither does it seem preposterous to assume as we just did, that if a name-like word does not stick to one and the same object in all possible worlds, the word contains some descriptive element'. [1966: 97]. F011esdal's and Kripke's proper names refer nondescriptivally to the same object in all possible worlds. They differ in that F011esdal does not subscribe to the historical chain theory of reference [Geach, 1969], whereas Kripke does subscribe to this theory, which is the main difference between the two theories if they are both taken to characterize natural language. The idea of directly referential rigid names appears again in F011esdal's [1967] recapitulation of some of the basic ideas in his 1961 dissertation, and he writes about epistemically possible worlds that: "The fact that the expressions 'the man who comes towards me' and 'Coriscus' change their reference from world to world in this manner, should perhaps be taken as evidence that they (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
249
contain some descriptive element, and that they should therefore not be regarded as genuine names. The only descriptions that should be regarded as genuine names are those which keep the same descriptum in every epistemically possible world". [1967: 11-12]. In 1961, F011esdal regards "a word as a proper name of an object only if it refers to this one and the same object in all possible worlds". [F011esdal, 1966: 96-96]. F 011esdal regards this as a necessary condition of a proper name, not as a sufficient condition, since the word in addition needs to be directly referential. A proper name does "not assign a property" to its referent and serves "merely and solely to name it" [1966: 97]. If "a name-like word does not stick to one and the same object in all possible worlds, the word contains some descriptive element" [1966: 97] and thus is not a proper name. According to Almog [1986] and Marcus [1993: 212, 248, n. 19], Kripke [1971; 1972] regards F011esdal's necessary condition ("refers to this one and the same object in all possible worlds") as a sufficient condition to be a proper name. Both Almog and Marcus criticize this approach since it fails to distinguish directly referential names from rigid definite descriptions. (Almog and Marcus only refer to Kripke in their discussion, not to F011esdal.) However, it seems Almog and Marcus are not correct on this matter, since Kripke held that names are connected to their referents by an historical chain and that they do not refer to the object descriptively; these two criteria distinguish names from rigid descriptions. According to Kripke, the condition ("refers to this one and the same object in all possible worlds") is merely a necessary condition to be a proper name. F011esdal interacted with the other philosophers who at this early time were discussing rigidity - Kripke, Marcus, Hintikka and others - but the lines of influence are not easy to trace. We do know that F011esdal [1961] and Marcus [1960] refer to the Smullyan and Fitch responses to Quine as their background material; F011esdal [1961] also expresses indebtedness to Hintikka's [1957a; 1957b] and extensively discusses Marcus' 1940 writings on quantified modal logic and the necessity of identity, as well as Carnap's [1946; 1947], and Quine's [1941; 1943; 1947]. Hintikka [1963: 71-72] refers to his earlier [1962: 138-158], F01lesdal [1961] and Quine's writings as the background for Hintikka's discussion of rigid names/nonrigid descriptions [1963], presented at a conference in August, 1962 at Helsinki attended by Marcus, Kripke and others [Marcus, 1993: 89]. F011esdal indicated [1966: 43, n. 1] he was indebted to conversations with Kripke (his fellow student at Harvard in the early 1960s) for Kripke's explanation to him (in Spring 1961) of Kripke's theory of iterated modalities. Kripke and F011esdal had extensive discussions in 1960 and 1961 (see [F011esdal, 1966: pp. v and 43, n. 1; 1994: 888, n. 7]); in their discussions, Kripke did not communicate to F011esdal (in 1961 or earlier) any ideas about the distinctions among directly referential names that were weak rigid designators, nonrigid definite descriptions, rigid definite descriptions or the idea about the necessity of identity between directly referential rigid names (Kripke (eds.),
250
QUENTIN SMITH
[1980: 3-5]; FlIlllesdal [1966: pp. v, and 43, n. 1]). Kripke at this time (19601961) had not developed and did not endorse a theory of the directly referential, rigid name/nonrigid description contrast or the necessity of identity between rigid names (see [Kripke, 1980: 3-5]. According to Kripke's account of his influences, it may appear that FlIlllesdal's 1961 theory, Marcus' 1961 theory, and the earlier writings of Fitch and Smullyan had no influence on his development in 1963-64 of the rigid name/nonrigid definite description theory, the direct reference theory, the theory of the necessity of identity between names, and related theories (see Kripke [1980: 3-5] and [1972: 342343, n. 2]. FlIlllesdal, Fitch and Smullyan are not mentioned in [Kripke, 1971; 1972]. This account may be natural inasmuch as [Kripke, 1971; 1972] is only about ordinary usage and FlIlllesdal, Fitch and Smullyan are concerned primarily with the language used in an interpretation of quantified modal logic; by comparison, in Kripke's work on quantified modal logic (e.g., [1963b, n. 1] he refers to Hintikka's influence and similar views. Marcus [1961] is in significant part about ordinary usage and her theory of ordinary language is mentioned in Kripke [1971; 1972], but Marcus is said to have had no influence (see Kripke's remark quoted in [Holt, 1996: 36]; also see an alternative hypothesis formulated in [Smith, 1995a; 1995b]). Only Rogers Albritton is specifically named in [Kripke, 1972: 342, n. 2] as having an influence on Kripke's [1972]: "Albritton called the problems of necessity and a prioricity in natural kinds to my attention ..." [1972: 342, n. 2]. Another sentence, "I also recall the influence of early conversations with Albritton and with Peter Geach on the essentiality of origins", is added to the footnote in [1980: 23, n. 2]. Putnam, Donnellan, Chastain, Slote and some "philosophers mentioned in the text" [1972: 342, n. 2] are mentioned as "independently" [1972: 342, n. 2] expressing some similar views. There are also the following two sentences in the footnote [1972: 342, n. 2]: "The apology in the text still stands; I am aware that the list in this footnote is far from comprehensive. I make no attempt to enumerate those friends and students whose stimulating conversations have helped me". As this section indicates, FlIlllesdal made a number of largely unrecognized contributions to the New Theory of Reference in [1961]. To summarize a few, he integrates the universal intersubstitutivity thesis and the thesis of the necessity of identity, holds that only rigid designators flank the identity sign, holds that proper names are weak rigid designators and are not disguised descriptions, and defends the universal intersubstitutivity thesis against objections based on both epistemic and modal contexts. Earlier [Marcus, 1960] and independently [Marcus, 1960; 1961], Marcus made some partly similar points (and additional points). F0llesdal had extensively studied Marcus' 1940s writings, but not her [1960; 1961] before finishing his dissertation [F0llesdal, 1961: 54-59]. Marcus did not read F011esdal's dissertation until after it was privately printed in 1966 [Marcus, 1993: 231]. One of the crucial differences (among many) between Marcus (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
251
[1961] and F01lesdal [1961] is that Marcus explicitly intends her theory to be about ordinary usage. F011esdal remains in the tradition of Smullyan, Fitch and Marcus [1960] of centering his discussion on the language of quantified modal logic. If F011esdal's theory had been explicitly developed as a description of ordinary language in his [1961], then he and Marcus would have both (independently) made the breakthrough to the New Theory of Reference in 1961. 5. THE BREAKTHROUGH TO THE NEW THEORY OF REFERENCE: MARCUS, 1961
The striking feature about Marcus' [1961] is that she restates the "proper name" solution to Quine's modal paradox and then proceeds to show its conformity to ordinary language and that the relevant "proper names" are ordinary names in the Millian sense and exhibit necessity of identity. She further argues that Millian names are stable in modal contexts and are rigid designators. She later in the article provides a possible world semantics for quantified S4, which includes rigid individual constants, and thereby provides a formal backing to her theory of rigid names in natural language. The New Theory of Reference makes its first appearance in this article. In addition to the ideas mentioned, other ideas belonging to the New Theory of Reference also first appear in her [1961]. The relevant quotes and discussion appear in my [1998a; 1995b; 1995a] and I refer the reader to these three essays. There is a historical and logical connection between the theses discussed by Quine and Carnap in the 1940s and Marcus' first statement of the New Theory of Reference. Marcus applies to natural language something analogous to Quine'S "universal intersubstitutivity thesis" and the idea that names are always "purely designative", and also something relevantly analogous to Carnap's "name-relation method". Quine and Carnap rejected this position for both natural and artificial languages, but Marcus adopts a version of this position for both logical and natural languages. We have seen how these theses were discussed by Quine, Carnap, Smullyan, Fitch, F011esdal and Marcus [1960] in the interpretation of quantified modal logic; Marcus' [1961] stands out by virtue of her arguments that these theses apply to ordinary language. In her [1961] Marcus only addresses the objections to intersubstitutivity in modal contexts in natural and artificial languages. She did not address the objections to intersubstitutivity in epistemic contexts and does not develop a theory of epistemic contexts, although her direct reference theory of names would seem to imply the sort of theory of epistemic contexts that was later developed by New Theorists (including herself) in the 1980s. More importantly, F011esdal developed a relevant theory of epistemic contexts in his [1961; 1967] in which he defended the universal intersubstitutivity thesis for both modal and epistemic logic.
(eds.),
252
QUENTIN SMITH
Marcus discusses F"lllesdal's [1966] in an April 1988 talk at Washington University in St. Louis (see Marcus [1993: 215-232]. She characterizes F0llesdal's "second solution" to Quine's paradox as follows: "The second solution seems to accommodate what Kripke [1971] later called 'rigid designators', which include proper names as well as some descriptions." [1993: 231]. Thus, both Marcus and Quine [1981; 1994] believe F0llesdal's "genuine singular terms" express the same concept as Kripke's "rigid designators". I have discussed the merits of this belief in the earlier section on F0llesdaI. Marcus also believes F0llesdal [1966] did not hold the theory that proper names are directly referential and she refers to F011esdal's [1986] as F011esdal's endorsement of the direct reference theory. Marcus is correct inasmuch as the directly referential character of proper names is only very briefly discussed in F011esda1 [1966] and is not the focus of his discussion, as it is in Marcus' [1961]. But F011esdal does hold proper names are directly referential in [1966: 96-97], with the only caveat being that F0llesdal did not present his theory as an analysis of ordinary language but as a theory of quantified modal logic. 6. KRIPKE'S 1962 THEORY OF DESCRIPTIONALLY RIGID NAMES
After Marcus' [1961], the next relevant development in the theory of ordinary names appeared in the February, 1962 discussion of Marcus' [1961] among Kripke, F01lesdal, Quine, Marcus and others. Kripke did not have a theory of rigid names in 1961 (see Kripke [1980: 3-5], but we can see sketches ofa theory of descriptionally rigid names in Kripke's 1962 remarks in [Marcus et aI., 1962]. This counts as one of Kripke's original and important contributions to the New Theory of Reference, for Marcus [1961] and F011esdal [1961] held that rigid proper names (in ordinary or logical language) are directly referential. The theory of descriptionally rigid proper names is standardly said to be originated by Linsky in [1977] and Plantinga in [1978], but I think the following texts show that Kripke has priority in this regard. On February 7, 1962, we see some relevant ideas discussed by Quine, Kripke, F01lesdal, Marcus and others at the Discussion following Marcus' talk [Marcus et aI., 1962]. At this time, Kripke held a Fregean-Russellian descriptional theory of proper names and he appears to have misunderstood Marcus' theory in a fruitful way by trying to assimilate it to this paradigm. First, we should note how Kripke (in 1980) described the theory he held in 1962. He recounts that: "the ideas in Naming and Necessity evolved in the early sixties - most of the views were formulated in about 1963-64 .... Eventually I came to realize - this realization inaugurated the aforementioned work of 1963--64 - that the received presuppositions against the necessity of identities between ordinary names were incorrect, that the natural intuition that the names of ordinary language are rigid designators can in fact be upheld .... Thus at this stage I rejected the conventional description theory as an account of meaning.... Let me not pay inadequate tribute to the power of the then prevailing complex of ideas, emanating from Frege and from Russell, that I then abandoned ....
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
253
Although I, with others, always felt some strain in this edifice ["the description theory of proper names"), it took some time to get free of its seductive power." [1980: 3-5).
As Kripke indicates, he "abandoned" the Frege-Russell "description theory of proper names" in 1963-64. This account accords well with his remarks on February 7, 1962, which reveal him trying to understand Marcus' theory of proper names in terms of the descriptional theory of proper names he then held. I will quote the entire, continuous text [Marcus et aI., pp. 142-143] that is relevant to his theory. (The printed transcript is a heavily edited version of the original remarks; all the discussants approved of the edited version prior to its publication.) I will put the quoted passages in italics, to separate them clearly from my extensive interpolations regarding Kripke's and Quine's remarks. My interpolations are placed in brackets. We begin with Marcus' "dictionary remark": "Presumably, if a single object had more than one tag, there would be a way of finding out such as having recourse to a dictionary or some analogous inquiry, which would resolve the question as to whether the two tags denote the same thing. If "Evening Star" and "Morning Star" are considered to be two proper names for Venus, then finding out that they name the same thing as "Venus' names is different from finding out what is Venus' mass, or its orbit. It is perhaps admirably flexible, but also very confusing to obliterate the distinction between such linguistic and properly empirical procedures."
[Kripke responds:] "That seems to me like a perfectly valid point of view': [Here Kripke is agreeing with what he takes to be Marcus' theory. Kripke continues:] "It seems to me the only thing Professor Quine would be able to say and therefore what he must say, I hope, is that the assumption of a distinction between tags and empirical descriptions, such that the truth-values of identity statements between tags (but not between descriptions) are ascertainable merely by recourse to a dictionary, amounts to essentialism itself'. Here Kripke misinterprets what Marcus just said; Marcus said recourse to a dictionary is an example of a way of finding out if two names are co-referring, and Kripke mis-states this as saying that the truth-values of identity statements between tags are always ascertainable "merely by recourse to a dictionary". In his [1971: 142-143] and [1972: 305] Kripke quoted or restated his own remark here about a dictionary, stated that he had in mind "ideal dictionaries", attributed this remark to Marcus, and thereby mistook Marcus to be saying that identity statements between names are a priori. This is the theory of Kripke held in February 1962 (as we shall see), but it is not Marcus'. A second point to make about this sentence of Kripke's (the last italicized sentence I quoted) is that it reveals the Frege-Russellian descriptional theory of proper names he held in February 1962; he regards the theory arrived at via his (mis)- interpretation of Marcus as a "perfectly valid point of view" that implies that identity statements between names are known a priori merely by recourse to a (an ideal) dictionary. The reason he thinks this implies essentialism is stated in his next sentence:] "The tags are the 'essential' denoting phrases for individuals, but empirical descriptions are not, and thus we look to statements containing 'tags; not descriptions, to ascertain the essential properties of indivi(eds.),
254
QUENTIN SMITH
duals. Thus the assumption of a distinction between 'names' and 'descriptions' is equivalent to essentialism':
[Marcus (see [Marcus, 1993: 142]) and my first essay on this topic [Smith, 1995a], contain a misinterpretation of this sentence. Marcus' interpretation of this sentence (which I endorsed in my [1995aD is that it implies that an individual, say Socrates, has the essential property of being named "Socrates". But this is not what Kripke is saying. Rather, Kripke is saying here what Quine and F011esdal- participants in this 1962 discussion - took Kripke to be saying. Consider this later remark by Quine: " ... Hence Dagfinn F",J1esdal's genuine singular terms, or Saul Kripke's rigid designators. These are the terms that obey substitutivity of identity even in modal contexts. These are the terms, also, that support inferences by existential generalization, even in modal contexts: other terms do not. As we might say in a modal spirit, these are the terms that name their objects necessarily. They name them on the score of essential traits, not accidental ones." [Quine, 1994: 148].
Here "name their objects necessarily" does not mean the objects have the same name in each possible world (contra Marcus [1993: 142]) and contra my earlier self [Smith, 1995a: 187]. It means what Quine explains it to mean in his next sentence: "They name them on the score of essential traits, not accidental ones". [Quine, 1994: 148]. The phrase "naming or referring to an object necessarily or essentially" was the sort of language used in the early 1960s to talk about rigid designation. Thus in Hintikka's August, 1962 talk at a conference with Marcus and Kripke, he presents his theory of rigid designators in these terms; he writes of a singular term: "But referring to it [the object] in all these alternatives ["possible worlds"] is tantamount to referring to it necessarily". [1963: 73]. Kripke's remark (the last sentence in italics I quoted) shows his assimilation of Marcus' theory of the distinction between proper names and contingent descriptions to his own Frege-Russell descriptional theory of names. Kripke believes that Marcus' distinction implies that names refer to objects rigidly via identifying them in terms of their essential properties. Using Frege's language (which is not Kripke's), Kripke's theory is that the sense of names includes the essential properties of the object referred to. Using Russell's language (which is not Kripke's), Kripke's theory is that names are truncated definite descriptions that describe objects in terms of their essential properties. Let us continue with Quine's response to Kripke in the 1962 discussion, which is a rejection of Kripke's theory: "Professor Quine: My answer is that this kind of consideration is not relevant to the problem of essentialism because one doesn't ever need descriptions or proper names. If you have notations consisting of simply propositional functions (that is to say predicates) and quantifiable variables and truth functions, the whole problem remains. The distinction between proper names and descriptions is a red-herring. So are the tags. (Marcus: Oh, no.)"
[Here Quine seems to be getting at the point that if we interpret quantification objectually, we do not need to phrase the problem of essentialism in terms of a special class of rigid singular terms, proper names. It can be phrased in (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
255
terms of quantifiable variables, propositional functions and truth functions. F011esdal [1961] argued that quantifiable variables are rigid singular terms and F011esdal might agree that the "problem" of essentialism remains even without considering Marcus' distinction between proper names and descriptions. Quine continues:] "All it is a question of open sentences which uniquely determine. We can get this trouble every time as I proved with my completely general argument of p in conjunction with ¢x where x can be as finely discriminated an intension as one pleases - and in this there's no singular term at all except the quantifiable variables or pronouns themselves. This was my answer to Smullyan years ago, and it seems to me the answer now. Mr Kripke: Yes, but you have to allow the writer what she herselfsays, you see, rather than arguingfrom the point of view ofyour own interpretation of the quantifiers." [Kripke here is saying that for purposes of evaluation of Marcus' talk we should allow Marcus' substitutional interpretation of quantification, and not assume Quine's objectual interpretation ("the quantificational sense of quantification", as Quine puts it).] "Professor Quine: But that changes the subject, doesn't it? I think there are many ways you can interpret modal logic. I think it's been done. Prior has tried it in terms of time and one thing and another. I think any consistent system can be found an intelligible interpretation. What I've been talking about is quantifying, in the quantificational sense of quantification, into modal contexts in a modal sense of modality. Mr Kripke: Suppose the assumption in question is right - that every object is associated with a tag, which is either unique or unique up to the fact that substituting one for the other does not change necessities - is that correct? Now then granted this, why not read 'there exists an x such that necessarily p ofx'as (put in an ontological way ifyou like) 'there exists an object x with a name a such thatp ofa is analytic: Once we have this notion of a name, it seems unexceptionable. Professor Quine: It's not very far from the thing I was urging about certain ways of specifying these objects being by essential attributes and that's the role that you're making your attributes play. Mr Kripke: So, as I was saying, such an assumption of names is equivalent to essentialism." [Kripke is reaffirming his position that names denote objects by way of specifying their essences and that 'a is p' is analytic if "a' is a name and p an essence of a. At this point he is prepared to accept the conventionally accepted equivalence between the analytic, the a priori, the necessary and the essential. He does not appreciate Marcus' point that "the kind of uses to which logical modalities are put have nothing to do with essential properties in the old ontological sense. The introduction of physical modalities would bring us closer to this sort of essentialism". (Marcus et aI., p. 141). At this time, only Marcus distinguishes between non-trivial essential attributions (e.g., 'Cantor is a mathematician') and what is logical and analytic.] "Professor Cohen: I think this is a goodfriendly note on which to stop."
The transcript of the discl,lssion ends here. All of the italicized sentences form a continuous text in [Marcus et aI., 1962, pp. 142-143]. Kripke maintains that if we assume Marcus' tag theory of names, then we have esentialism since her tags (allegedly) involve designating objects in terms of their essential attributes. Kripke misinterprets Marcus' naming relations to objects as ways of specifying these objects by essential attributes and Kripke holds that sentences with names and essential predicates are analytic. Quine rejects this theory but Kripke finds it to be "a perfectly valid point of view" and holds that "once we have this notion of a name, it seems unexceptional". (eds.),
256
QUENTIN SMITH
[Marcus et aI., pp. 142-143]. F0llesdal, who had developed his own theory of modally stable and non-descriptional proper names a year earlier, did not misunderstand Marcus. See [F0llesdal, 1986: 105]. It seems that Kripke was under the influence or "seductive power" (as Kripke later put it [1980: 5]) of the then prevalent descriptional theory of names and thereby did not fully comprehend Marcus' theory that names pick out their objects non-descriptionally. More important than this misunderstanding is the positive theory that resulted, namely, Kripke's origination of the theory that names are de scriptionally rigid. Kripke's remarks in this 1962 discussion suggest that his 1980 recollection of when he first came to believe that rigid names are directly referential is better supported by the textual evidence than his 1996 recollection. In [1980: 5] Kripke says "the ideas in Naming and Necessity evolved in the early sixties most of the views were formulated in about 1963-64 .... Eventually I came to realize - this realization inaugurated the aforementioned work of 1963-64 that the received presuppositions against the necessity of identities between ordinary names were incorrect, that the natural intuition that the names of ordinary language are rigid designators can in fact be upheld. Part of the effort to make this clear involved the distinction between using a description to give a meaning and using it to fix a reference. Thus at this stage [in 1963-64] I rejected the conventional description theory as an account of meaning .... Let me not pay inadequate tribute to the power of the then prevailing complex of ideas, emanating from Frege and from Russell, that I then [in 1963-64] abandoned .... Although I, with others, always felt some strain in this edifice ["the description theory of proper names"], it took some time to get free of its seductive power". [1980: 3-5]. Over fifteen years later (see Holt, 1996: 36] Kripke seems to recollect that he was already in grasp of Marcus' "direct reference" theory of rigidity before Marcus' February 1962 talk: "Ruth [Marcus] said in her 1962 talk that proper names were not synonymous with descriptions. A subset of the ideas I later developed were present there in a sketchy way, but there was a real paucity of argumentation on natural language. Almost everything she was saying was already familiar to me at the time. I knew about Mill's theory of names and Russell's theory of logically proper names, and I hope that, having worked on the semantics of modal logic, I could have seen the consequences of such a position for modal logic myself". As Kripke acknowledges, it is hard to remember exactly what beliefs one held thirty years ago, and I think is safer to rely on textual evidence. I have argued that the 1980 recollection (in which Kripke says he first realized the Millian consequences of modal logic for ordinary names in 1963-64) is confirmed by the 1962 text I quoted and thus that an historical account of this period should accord with the 1980 recollection in this respect. If Kripke's 1980 recollection is correct and my interpretation of the 1962 discussion among him, Quine, F0llesdal and Marcus is correct, then Marcus' (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
257
later interpretation [1993: 226-27] of Kripke's 1962 remarks is mistaken. We should instead conclude that in 1962 Kripke held the theory that names are descriptionally rigid. In at least one respect, this reverses the standard history of the New Theory of Reference; the standard history attributes the origin of the descriptionally rigid theory of names to Plantinga and the origin of the argument for the nonequivalence of the necessary/contingent and a priori/a posteriori distinction to Kripke. In fact, Kripke originated (at least in a sketchy form) the theory of names as descriptionally rigid and Plantinga originated the argument for the nonequivalence of the necessary/contingent and a priori/a posteriori distinction (see section 9). But there are still more ways in which the standard histories of contemporary philosophy need to be re-examined. 7. METAPHYSICAL POSSIBILITY IN HINTIKKA: 1957-63
The New Theory of Reference is a theory of natural language that includes the ideas that expressions in natural languages are informal analogues to certain terms in a semantics for quantified modal logic. The ideas of a rigid designator, of a statement that is true in all possible worlds, and of the distinction between logical and metaphysical possibility, belong to the New Theory of Reference and are analogues of certain notions in modal logic. What is metaphysical possibility? In this section, I understand this notion to include two ideas, one being the idea of what really might have been the case and the second being the idea of a material or nonformal component that belongs to the possibility operator (; in modal logic. The first idea involved in the notion of metaphysical possibility or necessity is that what might exist or what must exist is a distinct notion from what is logically possible or logically necessary. The primitive metaphysical notions of what might have been or could have existed (de re possibility) or what might have been true (de dicto possibility) are distinct notions from the notion of what does not involve a logical contradiction. Likewise, the ideas of what must be or what must be true are distinct ideas from the idea of something whose negation or denial involves a logical contradiction. If "real possibility", possibility in the sense of what might have been the case, is divorced from logical possibility, how are we to reason about it? What theory of axioms, rules of inference, etc., will capture its patterns of reasoning? The answer that many New Theorists of Reference adopt is that we employ the semantics for metaphysical necessity in one of the systems S5, S4, M, etc., of modal logic. This metaphysical semantics is based on the idea that the necessity and possibility operators in modal logic have a material or nonformal content, and in this respect differ from the formal modal operators in the semantics for logical necessity and possibility. There is an essential connection between the semantics of metaphysical necessity and the theory of rigid designators in natural language. A crucial question for the New Theory of Reference is: what sort of semantics for modal (eds.),
258
QUENTIN SMITH
logic is "the right one" for the individual constants that are the formal counterparts of rigid names in natural language? This semantics cannot be a semantics for logical necessity, such as Carnap's [1946; 1947]; the semantics of logical modalities cannot accomodate the notion that some singular terms are rigid designators. Suppose for purposes of reductio that a name is the natural language counterpart of an individual constant in a semantics for logical modalities. Consider the use of "Socrates" as a name of the Greek philosopher, Socrates; we may consider "Socrates" in this usage as a hononym. If names are counterparts of individual constants in a semantics for logical modalities, then the hononym "Socrates" would refer to Socrates as he exists in all logically possible worlds, and in many of these worlds he is a typewriter or a number or the color red, and such worlds are not the right sort of worlds for rigid designators in natural languages. For example, the sentence "Socrates might have been the color red" is inconsistent with the rules of use of names in natural languages (given that "Socrates" is the hononym I mentioned). If "Socrates" is a different hononym and is used by fabric sellers as a name of a special shade of red, then the sentence is consistent with the rules of use of names in natural languages. Names in natural languages are related to metaphysically possible worlds. The reason is that rigid designators go hand in hand with the notion of non-trivial essences (even if the designators are directly referential). When we refer to the Greek philosopher Socrates by the rigid name "Socrates", we refer to Socrates in each possible world in which he exists, but this means each metaphysically possible world, for we restrict the worlds at which "Socrates" has a referent to the worlds in which Socrates has his non-trivial essences, such as being human. A rule of use of "Socrates" and each other ordinary name is that it is used to refer to an object only insofar as it exists in metaphysically possible worlds. Hintikka's [1957a; 1957b; 1961; 1963] first offered the conceptual materials to formulate (but he himself did not formulate) this rule of use of names in terms of a semantics for modal logic, for he introduced metaphysically possible worlds as the relevant worlds for rigid designators. Hintikka introduced the idea that the possibility and necessity operators have a nonformal content in the semantics for modal logic, but did not explicitly relate this content to nontrivial essences. (It is worth emphasizing that the theory of rigid ordinary names, metaphysically necessary worlds, non-trivial essences, the necessity of identity, and other ideas that constitute the New Theory of Reference is different than the theory that Hintikka concentrated on developing, especially in his later writings. For references and a criticism of the Marcus~Kripke version of the New Theory of Reference, see Hintikka and Sandu [1995]. I shall here concentrate on Hintikka's 1957~1963 writings on the semantics for metaphysically possibility and necessity.) It is now known by some logicians that Kanger's [1957] is the first publication introducing into modal logic the idea that features of the alternativeness relation (also called the "accessibility" or "relative possibility" rei a(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
259
tion), features such as reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity, can give us semantics for different modal logics, e.g., S4, S5 and Fey's calculus T [Kanger, 1957: 40; the relevant discussion begins on page 33]. Montague [1960] also gave an early and independent presentation of some partly similar ideas about S5. Montague presented his ideas in a May, 1955 conference at the University of California at Los Angeles [Montague, 1974: 71] and Kanger presented his ideas in Spring 1955 in a course on logic at the University of Stockholm (see [F011esdal, 1994: 886]). Hintikka independently introduced the accessibility or alternativeness relation in the same year as Kanger's publication (Hintikka, 1957a; 1957b]; Hintikka first introduced the idea of metaphysical necessity in [1957a; 1957b] and Hintikka was the first to develop (in a manuscript written prior to his 1957 articles; see [Hintikka, 1957a: 10] and the first to publish (in [1961]) a metaphysical semantics for modal logic in terms of the reflexive, transitive, etc., features of the alternativeness relation. The metaphysical alternativeness relation was introduced in Hintikka's [1957a; 1957b] and its features of reflexivity, transitivity, etc., were used to develop semantics for the systems M, S4, S5, etc., in [1961]. In his 1957 essay on "Quantifiers in Deontic Logic", which is the earliest system of quantified deontic logic, Hintikka writes: "My treatment [of deontic logic] derives from an earlier treatment of quantification theory along the same lines as well as from a similar (unpublished) theory of modal logic. Most of the formal considerations will turn out to be special cases of this new general theory of modal logic I have developed'. [1957a: 10]. (Presumably, Hintikka's unpublished theory of modal logic is the theory published in his [1961; 1963.) Hintikka first introduces in [1957a] the modal metaphysical notion of alternativeness and its deontic counterpart, copermissability. The metaphysical notion of alternativeness involves the idea that states of affairs or possible worlds are not possible absolutely (as Carnap [1946] and others assumed) but are possible relative to a certain world W, such that Wand the worlds possible relative to W constitute a subset of the set of all logically possible worlds. Necessary truth is not truth in all logically possible worlds (as Carnap [1946] held), but is truth in a world Wand in all the alternatives to W, such that Wand the alternative worlds are members of a subset of the set of all logically possible worlds. 2 (The subset may be an improper subset, in which case it would be the set of all logically possible worlds; but this is not required by the meaning of the possibility and necessity operators.) This introduces content into the (otherwise formal) interpretations of the box and diamond. The content enables a subset of the set of all the formally (logically) possible worlds to be demarcated from other subsets of the set of all formally possible worlds. What is necessarily true is not determined by what is true by virtue of its form, but what is true by virtue of a certain content. Other logicians had discussed relevantly similar nonlogical necessities, such as physical necessity, but they did not develop a semantics for these nonlogical necessities but characterized them in terms of logical necessity (eds.),
260
QUENTIN SMITH
and a conjunction of physical laws or (laws of some other sort). The characterization of "metaphysical necessity" in terms of logical necessity and a conjunction of laws of some sort is (at least implicitly) the sense in which Moore [1903] and Wittgenstein [1922] had the concept of "metaphysical necessity". Hintikka's second 1957 article, "Modality as Referential Modality", outlines the second system presented of quantified epistemic logic (later more fully given in [Hintikka, 1962]), the first being Von Wright's [1951]). But this article is also in large part about non-epistemic modal logic. One way the idea of a semantics for metaphysical modalities appears in Hintikka's [1957b] involves his explanation of how proofs can be carried out in modal logic. In the following passages, he makes some suggestions about the alternativeness relation in (non-epistemic) modal logic. He has indicated [Hintikka, 1955] how the notion of a model can be replaced by the notion of a model set of logical formulae, and Hintikka adds the idea: "It turns out that an intuitive and powerful theory of modal logic can be based on these notions [of a model or a model set of logical formulae]. The main novelty is that we have to consider several interrelated models (or model sets). They correspond to the different situations we want to consider in modal logic, and they are interconnected, in the first place, by a rule saying (roughly) that whatever is necessarily true in the actual state of affairs must be (simply) true in all the alternative states of affairs. It turns out that it suffices, for the interpretation of each given proof carried out by means of modal logic, to consider only a finite number of alternative models (model sets). Of course, no finite number wiJI suffice for the interpretation ofal1 the proofs" [1957b: 61-62].
Let us see exactly how this notion of metaphysical necessity differs from the notion of logical necessity given in Kanger's [1957] and Carnap [1946; 1947]. Kanger discusses models rather than model sets or state descriptions. In general terms, a model consists of a domain D of individuals and an interpretation of a language L in terms of that domain. Individual variables in L are assigned to individuals in D and predicates in L are assigned to n-tuples of individuals in D. By contrast, a model set is a set of logical formulae that partially describe a possible world; in this respect, model sets are somewhat analogous to Carnap's [1946; 1947] state descriptions, which Carnap says are complete descriptions of a possible world. In Kanger's version of a model-theoretic semantics for logical modalities, < D, V> is a system where D is a domain of individuals and V a primary valuation for a language L of quantified modal logic. V is a function which for every domain D' assigns an extension in D' to each individual variable, individual constant and predicate constant in the language L. Logical necessity is characterized as follows: Dp is true in the system S if and only if p is true in every system S' (where each system is an alternative to each other system). (See [Lindstrom, 1998] for a more detailed discussion of Kanger's theory.) This differs from Carnap's [1946; 1947] theory of logical necessity in that Carnap discussed state descriptions rather than models and said a statement is logically necessary if and only if it is true in all state descriptions; Carnap did not have (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
261
the notion of accessibility or alternativeness and thus did not specify that logical necessity requires each state description to be an alternative to each other state description. It is easy to see how Hintikka's metaphysical theory differs from Kanger's and Carnap's theories of logical necessity. For Hintikka in [1957a; 1957b], a model set is a set of logical formulae that partially describe a possible world. Necessity is truth in a model set, such that Op is true in the model set M if and only if p is true in M and in every model set that is a real alternative to M. But not every model set need be a real alternative to M and thus 0 is not required to quantify over all model sets. Op requires merely that p is true in a subset of the set of all logically possible model sets. This imports material content into 0 and thus 0 now means a non formal, metaphysical necessity. The second appearance of metaphysical necessity is in Kripke's [1959a], where Kripke uses models rather than model sets. Kripke uses a metaphysical semantics to provide a completeness proof for quantified S5 and this proof requires a metaphysical rather than logical semantics. (This requirement was first demonstrated by Cocchiarella [1975b]; in this work Cocchiarella also first demonstrated that the logical ["primary"] semantics for quantified modal logic is incomplete ~ an issue left unresolved in Carnap [1946].) Kanger [1957] introduced models into theories of modal logic but Kripke [1959a] is the first to use metaphysical models. In Kripke's [1959a], he mentions a complete assignment for any formula A in a domain D of individuals. A is any formula that contains free individual variables, propositional variables and n-adic predicate variables. A model of A in the domain D is a pair (G, K), where G is a complete assignment for A in D and K is a set of complete assignments for A in D, such that G is a member of K and all members of K differ from G only in the assignments for the propositional and predicate variables in A. In Kripke's semantics for necessity, necessity is characterized in terms of some set K of complete assignments, where K is not required to be the one and only set C of all complete assignments. This implies that necessary truth does not mean truth in all logically possible worlds, but truth in all the members of some subset of the set of all logically possible worlds. (The subset may be an improper subset of the set C of all complete assignments, i.e., C itself, but the characterization of necessity does not require that the subset be this improper subset.) The first step in the metaphysical semantics for modal logic occurred in 1957 with Hintikka's [1957a; 1957b] and the second in Kripke's [1959a]. The next significant step is Hintikka's 1961 article on "Modality and Quantification". This 1961 article was the first article to present a metaphysical theory of possible worlds characterized in terms of the reflexive, transitive, symmetrical, equivalence and connected features that can be possessed by the alternativeness relation. Tn other words, Hintikka [1961] provided the first metaphysical semantics for standard systems of modal logic, e.g., the systems M, S4 and S5, that used the reflexive, transitive or symmetrical properties that can be (eds.),
262
QUENTIN SMITH
possessed by the alternativeness relation. (Kanger's [1957] semantics for several systems was a logical semantics and Kripke's metaphysical semantics for these and other systems appeared in [1963b], but with a [l959b] abstract.) Hintikka proceeds by "saying that a model set is the formal counterpart to a partial description of a possible state of affairs (of a 'possible world'). It is, however, large enough a description to make sure that the state of affairs in question is really possible. For it is natural to say that a set of sentences is satisfiable if and only if it can be imbedded in a (partial or exhaustive) description of a possible state of affairs; and this is just what we demonstrated if model sets are interpreted as such descriptions" [1961: 122]. In modal logic, we do not consider just one model set at a time (e.g., one partially describing the actual world), but a set of model sets. Hintikka calls such sets of sets model systems. More fully, a model system < U, R > is a couple where U is a set of model sets each of which satisfies a condition (stated informally) that if necessarily p is true in a model set (partial description of a possible world), then p is true in that model set. The relation R of alternativeness satisfies the condition that if possibly p is true in a model set U that belongs to a model system S, there is an alternative set v in S in which p is true. The relation of alternativeness also satisfies the condition that if necessarily p is true in a model set u that belongs to the model system S, then p is true in every model set in S that is an alternative to u. (These last two conditions are also satisfied by the model system S.) But not every model set in the model system S to which u belongs need be an alternative to u. Given these conditions, we have a metaphysical modal semantics for the Von Wright system of modal logic M. If we add that the relation of alternativeness is transitive, we have a metaphysical modal semantics for S4, and if symmetry is also added, we have a semantics for S5. But in each of these cases the model system, in which is included each alternative to a given model set, is not required to include all logically possible model sets. The necessity of a formula p is p's truth in all the alternative model sets in a model system, and thus necessity is not characterized as a logical necessity. Further or different conditions need to be used to characterize the necessity of a formula if we adopt a varying domain semantics. In this case, if an individual exists in the actual world and necessarily has a property F, it does not follow that the individual exists in every alternative world and has F in these worlds. Rather, it follows that if the individual exists in some alternative world, then the individual possesses F in that world. This requires the following condition be added to the characterization of metaphysical necessity. In Hintikka's logic, the presence of a free variable in a formula p that belongs to a model set u is the formal counterpart to the existence of its value in the possible world partially described by u. Accordingly, if Dp, it does not follow that p is true in every model set that is an alternative to u. We cannot transfer a formula p from a model set u to an alternative model set v unless the values of the variables in p exist in the possible world partially described by v. If Dp, (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
263
then p is true only in alternative model sets where the free individual variables in p are contained in formulae in these alternative model sets. See {CN. *} in Hintikka [1961: 125]. How does this notion of metaphysical necessity connect with the notion of a rigid designator? The theory of nonrigid singular terms (typically, contingent definite descriptions) and rigid individual constants or names is developed in Hintikka's most well-known early article on modal logic, his "The Modes of Modality" [1963] presented at an August 1962 conference in Helsinki in which Marcus, Kripke, Montague, Prior and Geach participated (see Marcus [1993: 89]). It is worth quoting the passage in which the "rigid individual constant or name versus nonrigid definition description" distinction is made, since this is the most explicit appearance of this distinction after Marcus' February, 1962 talk. This distinction appears in Hintikka's example of the contingent description "the number of planets" as contrasted with the modally stable name "9". Hintikka refers to his [1962: 138-158], F011esdal [1961] and Quine's many writings on the topic as background material. Hintikka writes: "Why do some terms fail in modal contexts to have the kind of unique reference which is a prerequisite for being a substitution-value of a bound variable? An answer is implicit in our method of dealing with modal logic. Why does the term "the number of planets" in (i) ["the number of planets is nine but it is possible that it should be larger than ten"] fail to specify a well-defined individual? Obviously, because in the different states of affairs which we consider possible when we assert (i) it will refer to different numbers. (In the actual state of affairs it refers to 9, but we are also implicitly considering other states of affairs in which it refers to larger numbers.) This at once suggests an answer to the question as to when a singular term (say a) really specifies a well-defined individual and therefore qualifies as an admissable substitution-value of the bound variables. It does so ifand only ifit refers to one and the same individual not only in the actual world (or, more generally, in whatever possible worlds we are considering) but also in all the alternative worlds which could have been realized instead of it; in other words, if and only if there is an individual to which it refers in all the alternative worlds as well. But referring to it in all these alternatives is tantamount to referring to it necessarily. Hence (Ex)N(x = a) formulates a necessary and sufficient condition for the term a to refer to a well-defined individual in the sense that critics of quantified modal logic have been driving at, exactly as I suggested."
(Ex)N(x = a) is the material mode definition of a rigid designator. Note the two ways of using "a". In "the term a" it refers to a rigid designator and in "(Ex)N(x = a)" it refers to the individual that is the rigid designatum of the term. This dual usage has become standard in discussions of modal logic. Well-defined reference is a stable reference. It is a broader category than (non-epistemic) modally stable reference, for Hintikka notes that well-defined reference breaks down for "even proper names" [1963: 73] in epistemic contexts. (Unlike Marcus' [1961] and F011esdal's [1961] theories, Hintikka's theory rejects the universal intersubstitutivity thesis.) Hintikka's point is that an individual constant or proper name may have a stable reference in modal contexts (and thus be a "rigid designator") but fail to have a stable reference in epistemic contexts. Contingent definite descriptions, by contrast, are always unstable in modal contexts. The above history of the metaphysical semantics for modal logic ill accords (eds.),
264
QUENTIN SMITH
with the standard history of metaphysical semantics and some defence is needed. According to the standard history, a modal semantics for logical necessity was originally developed by Carnap in 1946 and 1946 (which is true), and the modal semantics for metaphysical necessity was first developed in Kripke's 1963 work on modal logic (which is false). One of the most precise and best statements of the standard history of metaphysical necessity appears in Joseph Almog's [1986]. He writes: "But where did metaphysical possibility and necessity come from? It came from Kripke's 1963 paper" [1986: 217]. Almog's argument for this is that in Kripke's [1963a: 69], he characterizes worlds as primitive "points" that "may include a world, a time, an agent, a spatial location, or what have you" [Almog, 1986: 218], and does not characterize them in terms of complete noncontradictory assignments of extensions to a given language. (According to Almog, Kripke [1963b] introduced into modal logic the idea of varying domains; but varying domains are present in Hintikka [1957a; 1957b; 1961; 1963] and Kanger [1957].) Almog writes about Carnap's "... logically possible worlds. Really, they were 'state descriptions' or, later, models, but still language-bound, i.e., complete assignments of extensions to a given language. On this conception, possibility obeys a maximum principle: any noncontradictory assignment is possible. This view was not confined to Carnap. It was also the view of Stig Kanger, Jaakko Hintikka, Richard Montague (of that period) - and the 1959 Kripke. Indeed, Kripke had at that time nothing more than 'complete assignments' and the modality he worked with was definitely logical possibility". [Almog, 1986: 217]. I shall confine myself to some of the mis-interpretations of Hintikka and Kripke that appear in this passage. First, Hintikka was the first person to introduce, in [1957a; 1957b; 1961; 1963], the idea that possibility does not obey a maximum principle, i.e., it is not the case that any noncontradictory assignment is possible. Hintikka's notion of possibility requires merely that, for any given world, only some noncontradictory assignments are possible (relative to that world). More precisely (and using Hintikka's terminology), a model system is a set of model sets and a model system need not include all model sets. If a formula is possibly true in a model set U, this requires only that the formula is true in another model set v that both belongs to the same model system as U and that is an alternative to u. For example, if we suppose u partially describes the actual world, we (as members of the actual world) may say that tnere are many noncontradictory formulae that are not possible, since these formulae either are not (i) elements in any maximal model set in which u is embedded and that maximally describes the actual world, or are not (ii) elements. of a, model set that is an alternative to u and that belongs to the same modef system as u. This characterization of possibility is based on Hintikka's condition (C.M.*) in [1961: 123] and [1963: 67]. As Hintikka intuitively puts it, "we have assumed that not every possible world (say P) is really an alternative to a given possible world (say Q) in the sense that P could have been realized instead of Q". [1963: 67]. Thus, Hintikka (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
265
rejects the Carnapian idea that possibility obeys a maximum principle. A second respect in which Almog's interpretation of Hintikka is mistaken is that Almog thinks that Hintikka's possible worlds are linguistic items, i.e., are descriptions. This is not so. Hintikka's linguistic items are descriptions of a possible world, they are not the possible worlds themselves. A model set (m.s.) is a description: a "m. s. may be thought of as a partial description of a possible state of affairs or a possible course of events (,possible world'). Although partial, these descriptions are large enough to show that the described state of affairs are really possible ..." [1963: 66]. Also see [1961: 122]. Each model set can be embedded in a maximal model set and "each maximal model set is an extended state-description" [1961: 121]; it is not the possible world described by the extended state-description. A third respect in which Almog's interpretation is inaccurate is that Hintikka does not work with models, but with model sets. A fourth respect in which Almog's theory is problematic is that the definition of a world as a "primitive point", rather than as a model (or as what is described by a maximal model set), is a sufficient but unnecessary condition for the possibility and necessary operators to have nonformal, metaphysical content. Another sufficient condition for this nonformal content is that the box or necessity operator be interpreted in terms of all the members of a set of logically possible worlds, rather in terms of all the members of the one and only set of all logically possible worlds. In the specifics of Hintikka's logic, this nonformal content appears (among other places) in the condition (C.N+) [1961: 123; 1963: 67], which says that if a formula is necessarily true in a model set U, then the formula is true in each model set that is an alternative to U in a model system to which u belongs. Kripke first published the notion of metaphysical necessity in [1959a], not (as Almog maintains) in 1963. In the specifics of Kripke's semantics [1959a], the necessity operator is interpreted in terms of a set K of complete assignments, not the one and only set C of all complete assignments. Kripke [1959a] gave a metaphysical semantics for Lewis' quantified S5 but not based on the alternativeness relation. Kripke's metaphysical semantics that was based on features of the alternativeness relation appeared in Kripke [1963a; 1963b]. Kripke had developed the basic ideas of his 1963 semantics at least as early as Spring 1961 (see [F011esdal, 1966: vD. He also developed a metaphysical semantics for S2 and S3 at least as early as 1961 (see Hintikka, 1961: 124). Kripke's [1959b] abstract for his [1963b] may plausibly be read as implying the metaphysical alternativeness relation with its reflexive, etc., features, but it is too brief to draw definite conclusions about its implications. Kripke says in the first footnote to his [1963b] that Hintikka's and Kanger's theories have the closest points of contact with his own theory and that his treatment of quantification draws some inspiration from Hintikka's and Prior's methods. But Kripke's idea of a metaphysical alternativeness relation plausibly seems to have been formulated independently. F011esdal mentioned to Kripke in 1961 that Hintik(eds.),
266
QUENTIN SMITH
ka [1957a; 1957b] and Kanger [1957] contained the notion of the a1ternativeness relation (private communication from F011esda1, April 23, 1997). Kripke read [Kanger, 1957], which contained the notion of a logical alternativeness relation, after January 1958 and before the end of 1960; there is a letter from Kripke to Kanger, dated January 24, 1958, in which Kripke asks Kanger for a copy of his [1957] (see [F011esdal, 1994: 887-888, n. 61], and Kripke reported to F011esdal in 1960 that he studied Kanger but that his study of Kanger was not "thorough" (see [F011esdal, 1994: 888, n. 7]). The alternativeness relation does not appear in Kripke's paper [1959a], but may plausibly be read as implied by his abstract [1959b]. The paper [1959a] was received by The Journal of Symbolic Logic in August, 1958 and the abstract [1959b] was received by this journal in October, 1959. This may suggest that in August, 1958 Kripke did not have the notion of the alternativeness relation, but in October 1959, almost two years after his letter requesting Kanger's [1957], Kripke was in possession of this notion. In his abstract [1959b] Kripke does not mention Kanger but does mention similar work by Hintikka: "(For systems based on 84, 85, and M, similar work has been done independently and at an earlier date by K.J.J. Hintikka.)" [Kripke, 1958b: 324]. Given all of the above-mentioned facts, it may be conjectured that Kripke acquired the notion of the alternativeness relation some time after the summer of 1958 (when he submitted his [1959a]) and before the fall of 1959 (when he submitted his [1959b]). If Kripke's notion of the alternativeness relation was acquired from earlier work, it seems more likely it was acquired from Hintikka's than Kanger's work. This is suggested by the fact that neither Hintikka nor Kanger are mentioned in [Kripke, 1959a] and only Hintikka is mentioned in [1959b] and is said to have done similar work. However, there is no good reason to think that Kripke did not acquire this notion independently. F011esdal, who had extensive discussions with his fellow student Kripke in 1960-1961, is in a position to reliably report that "Saul Kripke got the idea [of the alternativeness relation] independently [of Kanger and Hintikka] and extended it (in 1959) so as to make it applicable to the Lewis systems S2 and S3. (Cf. his "8emantical analysis of modal logic (abstract) [1959] ..." [F011esdal, 1966: 43, n. 1]. Given all of this evidence, the most probable hypothesis is that Kripke and Hintikka came up with the idea of a metaphysical alternativeness relation independently, but that Hintikka developed the theory first (prior to his 1957 publications) and published it first [Hintikka 1957a; 1957b]. Kanger [1957] and Montague [1960], independently of each other, came up with the idea of a logical, but not metaphysical, alternativeness relation, which they originated in 1955. 8. COCCHIARELLA AND THE SECONDARY SEMANTICS FOR LOGICAL NECESSITY
The notion of metaphysical necessity includes two ideas, the primitive idea of what must be and the idea that the necessity operator is nonformal or includes (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
267
a material content. The idea of a nonformal necessity and possibility that is present in Kripke's writings on modal logic was first demonstrated to be different from the notion of logical necessity and possibility in Nino Cocchiarella's 1973 talk at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (published as [1975a]). 3 Especially see Cocchiarella [1975b], and also see Hintikka's 1977 talk in Rome [Hintikka, 1980] and Hintikka's [1982]. This demonstration was made in terms of models, rather than model sets, and involved showing the equivalence of some early writings on modal logic to a primary semantics for logical necessity and the equivalence of some other writings to a secondary semantics for logical necessity. Note that it is not requisite to demonstrate this difference within one's modal logic in order to present a metaphysical or logical semantics. Some authors in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s worked with logical modalities (e.g., Carnap [1946], Kanger [1957], Montague [1960], Beth [1960], Kaplan [1964]; but Montague [1963] and Kaplan [1978a; 1978b; 1989a] later used metaphysical modalities). Other writings on modal logic worked instead with metaphysical modalities (Hintikka [1957a; 1957b; 1961; 1963] and Kripke [1959a; 1963a; 1963b]; but in [Hintikka, 1980; 1982] and later works Hintikka discusses logical modalities). As I indicated, Nino Cocchiarella [1975a; 1975b] was the first to show that metaphysically possible worlds defined in terms of models relate to the distinction between the secondary semantics for logical necessity and the primary semantics for logical necessity. Cocchiarella argued this distinction involves the notion of a model (e.g., as in Kripke's [1959a)) and Cocchiarella did not discuss model sets or model systems (the notions Hintikka used). (Hintikka also discussed his related distinction, between standard and nonstandard logics, in terms of models rather than model sets [Hintikka, 1980; 1982].) Cocchiarella showed that Kripke's [1959a] is equivalent to a secondary semantics for logical necessity and thereby is a semantics for metaphysical necessity. Roughly speaking, this means that "all possible worlds" in Kripke's semantics are a subset of the set of all logically possible worlds and thus that we permit "modal operators to range (in their semantic clauses) over arbitrary non-empty subsets of the set of all the possible worlds (models) based upon the given universe of objects and the set of predicates in question ... the exclusion of some of the worlds (models) ofa logical space, imports material conditions into the semantics of modal operators". [Cocchiarella, 1975b: 13]. Cocchiarella points out that Carnap [1946], Kanger [1957] and Montague [1960] developed a primary semantics for logical necessity, but that since the early 1960s most modal logicians concentrated on the secondary semantics. (But this is not to say these logicians were aware of this primary/secondary distinction; Cocchiarella was the first to note this distinction in 1973 and this distinction is not often noted today.) Cocchiarella does not say that there is a primitive idea of what must be that is included in the notion of metaphysical necessity and in this respect (among others) his account differs from the one T am presenting. One significant (eds.),
268
QUENTIN SMITH
difference is that Cocchiarella made his metaphysical/logical distinction in terms of models and thus his distinction does not correspond to the metaphysical/logical distinction I made, where it is indifferent whether models or model sets are used. A model set is a set of logical formulae but a model is a structure such as < D, R >, where D is a non-empty set (a domain of objects) and R an interpretation of the relevant terms in the language with respect to D. This difference can be explained more exactly in Cocchiarella's terms. Cocchiarella's primary semantics includes a satisfaction clause for necessity that covers all the models for a domain D. Cocchiarella calls them L-models in [1984: 311], where L = the set of predicate constants that are provided an interpretation for the language in question. An L-model is a structure of the form < D, R >, where the domain D is a set of objects and R is an interpretation of the predicate constants in the language. For each predicate F in L, R(F) is a set of n-tuples of members of D. Accordingly, the clause for the necessity operator interprets this operator as ranging over all the L-models having D as their domain, such that the predicates in the language are assigned all possible reinterpretations (extensions) drawn from the domain D. (See clause 6 in Cocchiarella's [1984: 312] for a more technical formulation. His primary semantics can also be applied to a varying domain [1984: 321-323]. Cocchiarella's secondary semantics includes a satisfaction clause for necessity that is "cut-down" so as to cover, not all the L-models having D as their domain, but all the L-models in a set K of L-models having D as their domain, where K need not include all the L-models based on the domain D. Since the meaning of the satisfaction clause for necessity does not include all the Lmodels for D, the necessity is not a logical necessity but a necessity with some nonformal content, a metaphysical necessity. (The satisfaction clause is stated in [1984: 315]). Cocchiarella argues that this secondary semantics is equivalent to the semantics in Kripke [1959a]. Hintikka's notion of a model set does not allow the contrast Cocchiarella made between the primary and secondary semantics for logical necessity. This contrast is most naturally seen in a theory of models, and for this reason Hintikka's later discussion [1980; 1982] of Kripke's and others' metaphysical semantics in terms of the primary/secondary semantics distinction used the notion ofa model. However, I believe Hintikka's early semantics (1957-1963) was a secondary semantics and that one may formulate the primary/secondary distinction using only the concepts in Hintikka's early writings. Each model set can be embedded in a maximal model set and a maximal model set is an extended state description [1961: 121]. Although Hintikka does not say this, I think we can take all the maximal model sets with respect to a language Land characterize logical necessity in terms of the set of all the maximal model sets with respect to L. This would pertain to the primary semantics for logical necessity and the secondary semantics for logical necessity would be a "cut down" in the sense that necessity is instead analyzed in terms of all the members of a subset of the set of all the maximal model sets with respect to L. (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
269
But we must not think that the distinction between the primary and secondary semantics must be formulated within Hintikka's modal logic in order for it to be the case that his semantics for modal logic is a secondary semantics. Even if Hintikka's early modal logic (1957-1963) does not permit the formulation of a primary semantics for logical necessity, it is still the case that his early modal logic is a secondary semantics. More generally, we must not think that his semantics must be a secondary semantics (if a secondary semantics is held to essentially involve models) in order for his semantics to be a metaphysical semantics. It suffices that the necessary operator in his modal logic is not analyzed in terms of the one and only set of all logical possibilities, and we have seen in our above discussion that the necessary operator in his semantics does not quantify over all logical possibilities but a subset of them. Modal logicians in the 1950s and 1960s were not aware of such metaphysical/logical distinctions. At this time, neither Hintikka nor Kripke noted this distinction (even though their semantics were metaphysical rather than logical semantics). The main element in this distinction (insofar as it pertains to a primary and secondary semantics involving models) was first noted by Cocchiarella in 1973, as I indicated above. Cocchiarella's dissertation [1966], which was finished in 1965, discussed the problem of the nature of the material content in secondary semantics. In his dissertation, he showed how this content can be explained if we adopt a temporal interpretation of modality, where the alternativeness relation is interpreted in terms of temporal relations, such as a causal signalling relation between different local times (as part of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity). (A.N. Prior discussed a temporal interpretation of modal notions, but not in terms of the primary/secondary semantics distinction.) Cocchiarella subsequently developed a logic of natural kinds with the view in mind of interpreting the material content in terms of essences (see Cocchiarella [1987] for references). Hintikka first discussed the primary/secondary semantics distinction (or rather, a relevantly similar "standard/nonstandard" distinction) in a 1977 talk in Rome, later published as his [1980]. (For the reference to the Rome talk, see Hintikka's [1982: 89]. Note that the "early Hintikka semantics" I analyzed is different than Hintikka's later semantics. In Hintikka's later writings on modal logic, e.g., his [1980; 1982; 1986], one of his aims is to show that the secondary or "nonstandard" semantics for logical modalities is not the proper semantics for logical modalities. Hintikka has also raised serious doubts about whether an adequate semantics for logical modalities can be developed (e.g., [Hintikka, 1982]). Furthermore, Hintikka now rejects the notion of a metaphysical necessity inasmuch as this is understood as something narrower than logical necessity and broader than physical necessity [Hintikka and Sandu, 1995]. Contrary to what many writers say, Kripke has evinced no awareness of a logical/metaphysical distinction in his writings. Even Cocchiarella [1984: 317] is not strictly accurate when he writes: "Kripke himself, it should be noted, (eds.),
270
QUENTIN SMITH
speaks of the necessity of his semantics not as a formal or logical necessity, but as a metaphysical necessity (cp. Kripke [1971: ISO]". It is true that Kripke speaks of his necessity as a metaphysical necessity. However, Kripke explicitly and emphatically identified logical with metaphysical necessity, as I demonstrated at length in my [1998a] with extensive quotations from Kripke's [1971] and [1972]. I think Cocchiarella's demonstration that Kripke's semantics is not a semantics for logical necessity is sound, but Kripke at no time has expressed an awareness of the distinction or an affirmation that his semantics is a secondary semantics for logical necessity. I have suggested that the nonformal element in the interpretation of the box and diamond should be understood in terms of the non-trivial essences of objects. Many New Theorists of Reference, however, are in a position similar to Kripke in not taking a stance about (or mentioning) the primary and secondary semantics for logical necessity and its relation to non-trivial essentialism. Marcus [1961; 1967; 1971] has argued that neither a Carnapian semantics nor a Kripkean semantics for modal logic includes any non-trivial essential attributions among its theorems (but without mentioning a primary/ secondary semantics distinction). At the opposite end, Plantinga [1974: 241-S1] has argued that the semantics for modal logic (what Plantinga calls "applied semantics") that Marcus considers as well as Kripke's semantics include nontrivial essential attributions among their theorems (but without mentioning a primary/secondary semantics distinction). Notwithstanding this difference, both Marcus [1961; 1967; 1971] and Plantinga [1967; 1969; 1970; 1974] believe objects have non-trivial essences. What this goes to show is the fundamental importance of Cocchiarella's [197Sa; 1975b] for the New Theory of Reference, for in these publications we see for the first time the recognition and argument that systems of modal logic that include non-trivial essentialism (or more precisely, a nonformal content in the systems using models) in their semantic characterizations of possibility and necessity are secondary semantics oflogical necessity. It also shows that we can interpret the New Theorists of Reference in this way but this does not imply that this is how all (or even most) New Theorists of Reference interpret their own work. It is not requisite for New Theorists to interpret their own work in this way in order for this interpretation to be true. (The evaluation of Marcus' theory that neither Carnapian nor Kripkean semantics include non-trivial essential attributions as theorems, and the evaluation of Plantinga's theory that the "applied semantics" of both Marcusian and Kripkean semantics include non-trivial essential attributions, is too large a task to undertake here. It suffices to note that there is no uniform agreement of New Theorists of Reference about the relation of non-trivial essentialism to modal logic.) Cocchiarella himself writes of the secondary semantics for logical necessity that there is a difficulty or unsolved problem with its "objective, as opposed to its merely formal, significance" [1984: 310]. This is tantamount to the problem of the meaning or truth of non-trivial essentialism. (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
271
Cocchiarella [1984] believes that the introduction of a secondary semantics for logical necessity, which he believes was first made in Kripke's 1[959a], provided the semantical framework for the later theory that some "logical necessities" (in the sense of the secondary semantics) are knowable a posteriori. Cocchiarella shares with others the belief that the theory of a posteriori necessities was first published in [Kripke, 1971; 1972]. I shall now leave the issue of the primary/secondary semantics distinction, a topic in modal logic, and turn to the issue of the distinction between necessity and a prioricity, which is a topic in the disciplines of "epistemology" and "metaphysics". 9. PLANTINGA'S DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE EPISTEMIC NOTIONS OF A PRIORI/A POSTERIORI AND THE METAPHYSICAL NOTIONS OF NECESSITY ICONTINGENCY
Who first made (in the context of the New Theory of Reference) the explicit distinction between the epistemic notion of a priori and the metaphysical notion of necessity? (This distinction is logically implied by Marcus [1961; 1963], as I argue in [Smith 1995a; 1995b; 1998a] but we are here interested in the first explicit statement of this distinction.) It is a "commonplace" that this explicit distinction was first published in Kripke's [1971] and [1972]. This distinction is now even called "Kripke's Thesis" by some and an a posteriori necessity is called by some a "Kripkean necessity". For example, D.M. Armstrong talks as follows about a question involving a necessary a posteriori truth: "it may be a question to be decided a posteriori to the extent that it can be decided. But it is not a contingent matter. It is what might be called a Kripkean necessity". [Armstrong, 1989: 67]. Are these commonplaces about the history of contemporary analytic philosophy accurate? Would it be more accurate to call an a posteriori necessity a Plantingean necessity, and the relevant thesis Plantinga's Thesis, if one is interested in attributing an idea to its originator? (This concerns the context of the New Theory of Reference; the theory is already present in Moore [1899] and can be traced back to Aristotle and Plato. Perhaps we should call the thesis "Moore's thesis" or "Plato's thesis".) First let us quote from Kripke's [1971]; Kripke said we should "distinguish between the notions of a posteriori and a priori truth on the one hand, and contingent and necessary truth on the other hand" [1971: 152-53]. Kripke wrote in a well-known passage that "Hesperus is Phosphorus" is both empirical and necessary: "I thus agree with Quine, that 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' is (or can be) an empirical discovery; with Marcus, that it is necessary. Both Quine and Marcus, according to the present standpoint, err in identifying the epistemological and metaphysical issues" (1971: 154, n. 13). Kripke's [1971] and [1972] are held by some to have "astonished" the philosophical community with the discovery of this distinction, but what is astonishing, however, is not this alleged discovery but the pervasiveness of the (eds.),
272
QUENTIN SMITH
oversight that Plantinga earlier published this same distinction in an article that was hard to miss ("World and Essence", in the October, 1970 issue of The Philosophical Review).
Kripke presented his lectures on "Naming and Necessity" at Princeton University in January 1970 and Plantinga presented his paper (in final draft form) on "World and Essence" in October 1969 at Cornell University. The ideas in the final draft were worked out by Plantinga in 1968~69, when he was a fellow in the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto.4 Here is Plantinga's statement (the third sentence, "And hence ..." states the traditional view he is refuting): "Consider the well-known facts that Cicero is identical with Tully and that Hesperus is the very same thing as Phosphorus. Do not these facts respectively represent (for many of us, at least) historical and astronomical discoveries? And hence are not the counterfactuals Hesperus and Phosphorus are entities distinct and Tully is diverse from Cicero, though counterfacts indeed, contingently counterfactual? [Plantinga says the answer to this last question should be NO; they are necessarily false. He says the traditional thesis that they are contingently counterfactual is false, for the following reason (in this passage, "Kronos" is the name of the actual world):] "The argument here implicit [that if a truth is a posteriori, it is contingent] takes for granted that the discovery of necessary truth is not the proper business of the historian and astronomer. But this is at best dubious. I discover that Ephialtes was a traiter; I know that it is Kronos that is actual; accordingly, I also discover that Kronos includes the state of affairs consisting in Ephialtes' being a traitor. This last, of course, is necessarily true; but couldn't a historian (qua, as they say, historian) discover it, too? It is hard to believe that historians and astronomers are subject to a general prohibition against the discovery of necessary truth. Their views, if properly come by, are a posteriori; that they are also contingent does not follow." ]1970: 480-481].
Plantinga proceeds to discuss a posteriori necessary identities, such as Hesperus is Phosphorus. "Exactly what was it that the ancient Babylonians discovered? Was it that the planet Hesperus has the property of being identical with Phosphorus? ... [Before the discovery] the Babylonians probably believed what can be expressed by pointing in the evening to the western sky, to Venus, and saying 'This is not identical with' (long pause) 'that' (pointing to the eastern sky, to Venus, the following morning). If so, then they believed of Hesperus and Phosphorus-identity that the latter does not characterize the former; since Phosphorus-identity is the same property as Hesperus-identity, they believed of Hesperus-identity that it does not characterize Hesperus. ... The quality of their intellectual life was improved by the Discovery in that they no longer believed of Hesperus that it lacked the property of Hesperus-identity.... Still, this is at best a partial account of what they discovered. For they also believed that there is a heavenly body that appears first in the evening, and another, distinct from the first, that disappears last in the morning. This is a contingent proposition; and part of what they discovered is that it is false .... And of course this is a contingent fact; there are possible worlds in which the thing [Venus] that in fact has the distinction of satisfying both sets of criteria [appearing first in the evening and disappearing last in the morning] satisifes only one or neither." [1970: 481-482].
Plantinga includes identities as well as nontrivial essential attributions to be among the necessities that are a posteriori. It is perhaps symbolic of the neglect of Plantinga's original contributions to the New Theory of Reference that his own later [1974: 81~87l account of a (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
273
posteriori necessities is widely regarded as a restatement and defense of "Kripke's Thesis" (e.g., Wong [1996: 53]. "Kripke's Thesis" is that identity statements such as "Hesperus is Phosphorus" are necessary a posteriori. Wong notes "Plantinga makes the same claim as Kripke about the modal status of 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' " [1996: n. 24]. But Wong is not aware that Plantinga made this claim prior to Kripke in Plantinga's "World and Essence"; Wong regards Plantinga's claim (later stated in [Plantinga, 1974: 81-87] as a defence of Kripke's statement of this Thesis [Kripke, 1972], which is supposed to be where Plantinga and everybody else got the Thesis. Thus Wong says "I will now outline a fairly common way of defending Kripke's [sic] Thesis, as suggested by Alvin Plantinga [1974: 81-87]" [Wong, 1996: see his discussion of his sentence numbered (6)]. Plantinga's [1970] appears nowhere in Wong's very extensive bibliography. The virtually universal belief that Plantinga's statement of the Thesis in [1970] does not exist and that the Thesis was first stated in Kripke [1971, 1972] is one of the main beliefs that needs to be changed if an accurate account of the genesis of the ideas associated with the New Theory of Reference is to replace the "standard account" that remains prevalent in some quarters. Plantinga's original presentation of the theory of a posteriori necessities takes place in the context of a theory of metaphysical necessity. Plantinga has in mind metaphysically necessary truth when he says that in some cases people can make an empirical "discovery of necessary truth. Their views, if properly come by, are a posteriori; that they are also contingent does not follow". [1970: 481]. To see this, note first of all Plantinga's discussion of nontrivial essential properties. Plantinga writes: "Are there any nontrivial essential properties? Certainly; the number six has the properties of being an integer, being a number, and being an abundant number". [1970: 465]. Socrates "also has essentially some properties not had by everything: being a non-number and being possibly conscious are examples". [1970: 473]. Further, the correct way of explaining Socrates' trivial and nontrivial essences' is "to explain Socrates' essence and essential properties by means of properties he has in every world in which he exists" [1970: 477]. Plantinga is here talking about metaphysically possible worlds ("metaphysical possibility" is here used interchangeably with "broadly logical possibility"; by the time of his [1974], Plantinga uses almost exclusively the latter phrase). Here is the first mention of metaphysical possibilities in the articles or books published in the 1970s: "Recall that a possible world is a state of affairs that could have obtained if it does not. Here 'could have' expresses, broadly speaking, logical or metaphysical possibility.... If a state of affairs S is possible in at least one world W, then S is possible in every world. This principle may be false where it is causal or natural possibility that is at stake; for logical or metaphysical possibility, it seems clearly true." [1970: 475).
There is another and related feature of Plantinga's philosophy of language (eds.),
274
QUENTIN SMITH
and metaphysics that is worth noting; Plantinga's [1967] was the first publication after Marcus' [1961] and [Marcus et aI., 1962] to argue that ordinary names are rigid designators and (contingent) definite descriptions are nonrigid designators. (Hintikka [1963] and F0llesdal [1961; 1967] were talking only tangentially about ordinary names.) In "De Re Et De Dicto", Plantinga says [1969: 257]: "Perhaps the notion ofa proper name itself involves essentialism; perhaps an analysis or philosophical account of the nature of proper names essentially involves essentialist ideas". What Plantinga means here appears on pages 176ff. of his God and Other Minds, published in 1967; the relevant section of this book was written in 1965 and the ideas were presented in seminars at Wayne State University between 1963 and 1967 (after Planting a left Wayne State University for Calvin College).4 Planting a asks us to consider: "( 1) An object x has a property P essentially if and only if x has P and the statement x lacks P is necessarily false." [1967: 176].
Plantinga notes problems will arise if we substitute definite descriptions for the individual variable, but will not arise in the case of names: "Difficulties arise if we generalize to (1); but the instantiation of (1) for Socrates may seem harmless enough, as it will in any case where a proper name replaces the variable 'x' in (1)." [1967: 177]. Plantinga adds that we need rigid designators of properties (e.g., "whiteness") and not non-rigid designators of properties (e.g., "the property I am thinking of') if (1) is to be satisfactory. (Here again I am using the terminology, "rigid/nonrigid' that has become an established part of philosophical vocabulary, and whose meaning is not tied to the details of anyone philosopher's theory. I think a more accurate phrase is "modally stable signifier" but it facilitates communication to stay with established terminology.) Plantinga notes an analogy between rigid/nonrigid designators of properties and rigid/nonrigid designators of individuals: "Still, expressions like 'whiteness', 'masculinity', 'mean temperedness', and the like, differ from expressions like 'Socrates' least important property', 'the property I am thinking of, 'the property mentioned on page 37', and so on, in pretty much the way that proper names of individuals differ from definite descriptions of them". [1967: 178]. P1antinga already holds at this time the theory of nontrivial essences and he uses his theory of essences to indicate how names are rigid designators but definite descriptions are not. Given the rigidity of names for individuals and properties, then (1) is satisfactory. This requirement is embodied in Plantinga's conditions involving rigid names and nonrigid descriptions: "(3) x has P necessarily if and only if x has P and the proposition x lacks P is necessarily false (where the domain of the variable 'x' is unlimited but its substituend set contains only proper names, and
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
275
where the domain of the variable 'P' is the set of properties and its substituend set contains no definite descriptions or expressions definitionally equivalent to definite descriptions)" [1967: 179].
The idea is that (to use my example) "Scott lacks rationality" is necessarily false since the reference of the name "Scott" is rigid in modal contexts. But the definite description, "the biped discussed most frequently by Russell" is nonrigid in modal contexts. Thus, we cannot substitute the definite description of Scott for the variable x in (3) if we want to determine whether Scott has rationality necessarily; it is possible that the biped discussed most frequently by Russell is not Scott. Plantinga extends his criticism of the traditional descriptivist theory of names in his October 1969 talk at Cornell University, "World and Essence". This talk, published as [1970], contains a lengthy criticism of the modal thesis that belongs to the descriptivist theory of names, in particular, Searle's cluster theory, which is also the main target of Kripke's attack in Kripke's January 1970 talk, "Naming and Necessity", published as [1972]. Plantinga argued at length that it is false that "if x exists, x has most of the properties commonly attributed to it". Kripke quotes Searle on page 287 of [Kripke, 1972]: "it is a necessary fact that Aristotle has the logical sum, inclusive disjunction, of properties commonly attributed to him". Kripke comments: "This is what is not so. It just is not, in any intuitive sense of necessity, a necessary truth that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him". [1972: 287]. Plantinga's earlier criticism of Searle's theory is similar. For instance, Plantinga writes such things as: "Searle is wrong, I believe, in thinking the disjunction of the Sj [the properties commonly attributed to Socrates, is] essential to Socrates". [1970: 473]. "Socrates could have been born ten years earlier and in Thebas, let us say, instead of Athens. Furthermore, he could have been a carpenter all his life instead of a philosopher. He could have lived in Macedonia and never even visited Athens." [1970: 473]. In this paper, Plantinga distinguishes two uses of proper names, one in which they are rigid and one in which they are not; he here differs from his [1967], which suggests that names only have a rigid use. Plantinga made several other early contributions to the New Theory of Reference that are not included in the standard history, e.g., there is an explicitly descriptional theory of rigidity Inonrigidity in Plantinga's 1969 article "De Re Et De Dicto"; this paper which was given in a seminar at the University of Michigan in Fall, 1967 and later in a summer 1968 conference that was mentioned in Quine's brief autobiographical sketch in Schilpp's [1986: 37]. The ideas were worked out in a series of seminars given at Wayne State University in 1963-67. 4 By a descriptional theory of rigidity I do not mean a theory that simply notes that some definite descriptions, such as "the number that immediately follows number two" are rigid designators. Rather, Plantinga developed a theory of rigid descriptions that (arguably) could account for all cases of rigidity, even proper names, so that an appeal to direct reference is otiose. In Plantinga's 1969 article, he makes a distinction between definite (eds.),
276
QUENTIN SMITH
descriptions that are used de re or de dicto. Plantinga considers the definite description (using his numbering): (32) It is possible that the number of apostles should have been prime.
Plantinga writes: "Now (32) can be read de dicto, in which case we may put it more explicitly as (32a) The proposition, the number of apostles is prime, is possible;
It may also be read de re, that is, as (32b) The number that numbers the apostles (that is, the number that as things in fact stand numbers the apostles) could have been prime." [1969: 244]
Plantinga's "de re reading" of the description involves the description designating rigidly by virtue of its descriptive conditions. Plantinga uses the phrase "as things in fact stand" to express a rigid descriptive condition that belongs to the "de re reading" of the description "the number of apostles'. This descriptive condition is that "the number of apostles" refers to whatever number is the number of the apostles in the actual world. The description condition is a world-indexed condition that picks out a certain possible world, the actual world. The standard history of the New Theory of Reference has Plantinga making an appearance merely in his [1978], as a "co-originator" of the rigid descriptional theory of names, along with Linsky [1977]. I mistakenly endorsed this part of the standard history in my [1995a] and [l995b]. As I briefly suggested earlier, the standard history has some of the contributions of Kripke and Plantinga reversed. The theory of rigid descriptional names is first sketched in part by Kripke in 1962, but Plantinga had published before Kripke's [1971] and [1972] the distinction between rigid names and nonrigid descriptions, the extensive modal argument against Searle's "cluster of descriptions" theory of reference, and the theory that the necessary/contingent distinction is a metaphysical distinction and is nonequivalent to the epistemological distinction between the a priori and the a posteriori. 10. GEACH, DONNELLAN, KRIPKE AND THE "HISTORICAL CHAIN" THEORY OF REFERENCE
The reason why Peter Geach [1969] is not recognized or credited for originally publishing the "historical chain" theory of reference is one of the most perplexing mysteries of the standard history of contemporary analytic philosophy. A review of the literature suggests the nearly universal consensus of opinion is that Donnellan [1970] or Kripke [1972] developed the theory and that Geach's presentation of the theory does not exist. There is no debatable question about textual interpretation, since Geach's presentation of the theory [1969] is virtually identical with Kripke's presentation [1972] and to a slightly lesser extent with Donnellan's presentation [1970]. Both Kripke [1972: 769] and (eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
277
Donnellan [1970: 357] refer to each other's presentation of the theory, but neither refer to Geach's presentation and Geach is absent from subsequent discussions of the theory and accounts of its origin. (Kripke added a sentence to footnote 2 of his [1972] in [1980: 23, n. 2], reading: "I also recall the influence of early conversations with Albritton and with Peter Geach on the essentiality of origins". The "essentiality of origins" is a different topic than the historical chain theory of reference.) In this section, I need only quote the parallel presentations. Geach writes: [1969: 288-89] "I do indeed think that for the use of a word as a proper name there must be in the first instance be someone acquainted with the object named. But language is an institution, a tradition; and the use of a given name for a given object, like other features of language, can be handed on from one generation to another; the acquaintance required for the use of a proper name may be mediate, not immediate. Plato knew Socrates, and Aristotle knew Plato, and Theophrastus knew Aristotle, and so on in apostolic succession down to our own times; that is why we can legitimately use 'Socrates' as a name the way we do. It is not our knowledge of this chain that validates our use, but the existence of such a chain; just as according to Catholic doctrine a man is a true bishop if there is in fact a chain of consecrations going back to the Apostles, not if we know that there is. When a serious doubt arises (as happens for a well-known use of the word 'Arthur') whether the chain does reach right up to the object named, our right to use the name is questionable, just on that account. But a right may obtain even when it is open to question .... I introduced the use of the proper name 'Pauline' by way of the definite description 'the one and only girl Geach dreamed of on N-Night'; this might give rise to the idea that the name is an abbreviation for the description. This would be wrong."
Geach's theses can be compared with Kripke's [1972: 298-300]: "Someone, let's say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends. Other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as ifby a chain .... A certain passage of communication reaching ultimately to the man himself [Richard Feynman] does reach the speaker. He is then referring to Feynman even though he can't identify him uniquely.... So he doesn't have to know these things [descriptions]. but, instead a chain of communication going back to Feynman himself has been established, by virtue of his membership in a community which passed the name on from link to link .... On our view, it is not how the speaker thinks he got the reference, but the actual chain of communication, which is relevant. ... Obviously the name is passed on from link to link. But of course not every sort of causal chain reaching from me to a certain man will do for me to make a reference. There may be a causal chain from our use of the term 'Santa Claus' to a certain historical saint. but still the children, when they use this, by this time probably do not refer to that saint."
Kripke's theory is more similar to Geach's than is Donnellan's, but the basic ideas are also present in Donnellan [1970]. Donnellan writes [1970: 352-353] "In general, our use of proper names for persons in history (and also those we are not personally acquainted with) is parasitic on uses of the names of other people - in conversation, written records, etc.... The history behind the use of a name may not be known to the individual using it. ... Yet, in such cases the history is of central importance to the question of whether a name in a particular use has a referent and, if so, what it is. The words of others, in conversations, books and documents can ... distort our view of what we are naming. But at the same time it can, to one who knows the facts, provide the means of uncovering the referent, if there is one.
(eds.),
278
QUENTIN SMITH
The role of this history leading up to a present use of a name has almost always been neglected by those who accept the principle of identifying descriptions . ... That is, if we neglect the fact that there is a history behind our use of the name 'Thales' or 'Aristotle' and concentrate only upon the descriptions we would supply about their life, their works and deeds, it is possible that our descriptions are substantially wrong without the consequence being that we have not been referring to any existent person."
Despite these virtually identical passages, the historical chain theory of names has been attributed almost universally to Donnellan and Kripke for the past 25 years or so, with Geach being eclipsed from the scene. I I. CONCLUSION
The basic ideas of the New Theory of Reference had been published or presented in lectures before 1970, mainly by Marcus, F0llesdal, Hintikka, Plantinga and Geach. What remained was to develop and extend the concepts formulated by these five thinkers. The development had two waves: the first involving Kaplan (who extended the ideas to indexicals, among other contributions), Kripke and Putnam (who extended the ideas to natural kind terms, among other contributions), and Donnellan (who concentrated mostly on the causal theory of reference, but also made other contributions). Kaplan, Kripke, Donnellan and Putnam (who appear in the standard history as the four main originators of the New Theory of Reference) are in fact four of the main figures in the first wave of developers of this theory. There is a fifth figure in the first wave of developers who does not appear in the standard history, namely, Nino Cocchiarella, whose explanation of the distinction between metaphysical and logical necessity in terms of primary/secondary semantics is crucial to understanding the New Theory of Reference but has gone unrecognized by most New Theorists. The second wave of developers, headed by such philosophers as Michael Devitt and Nathan Salmon, covers a large number, if not most, of contemporary philosophers. What is know by the referentially used description, "The New Theory of Reference", has already become one of the major movements in the history of analytic philosophy, comparable to logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. Given the extent and importance of this movement, it is not unreasonable to think that the time is ripe for more philosophers to engage in the research necessary to construct a complete history of the origins and development of this movement. 5 Philosophy Department Western Michigan University
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
279
NOTES My mis-interpretation appears in [Smith, 1995b]. My mistake lay in not realizing that Smullyan was talking about an artificial language and in not realizing that his first solution to Quine's paradox involved using a Russellian theory of logically proper names. I am not aware of any other recent publications in which Smullyan's theory is interpreted accurately. 2 I am aware of the problems with the idea that there is a set of all possible worlds, but will continue to talk of sets since this is the language used in the 1950s and 1960s. 3 I thank Nino Cocchiarella for providing me with the information about the origin of his ~1975a].
I am grateful to Alvin Plantinga for answering my questions about the background of some of his publications. Plantinga indicates that (according to his best recollection) some of these ideas were circulating around Wayne State University before he left in 1963 (in discussions that included, besides Plantinga, Robert Sleigh, Ed Gettier, Richard Cartwright, Hector-Neri Castaneda, George Nakhnikan and [a bit later] Keith Lehrer) and Plantinga emphasized that these other named philosophers deserve as much credit as he for the general gist of the ideas I am attributing to Plantinga. 5 I thank two referees for their helpful criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper, which enabled improvements to be made. My main intellectual debt is to the writings by, and private communications with, Nino Cocchiarella, whose responses to my questions about his theory of the primary/secondary semantics for logical necessity has proved helpful in my account of the history of modal logic. My interpretation of Kripke's [1959a] derives from Cocchiarella's interpretation and is similar on most points. I have also been influenced by Lindstrom's [1998] and Hintikka's [1980; 1982]. I differ from these three authors on a number of points but my main difference from them is my interpretation of Hintikka's 1957-1963 writings and the particular way in which I have formulated the metaphysicalliogical distinction (but my basic idea of a nonformallformal interpretation of the box and diamond comes from Cocchiarella). I thank Alvin Plantinga for providing me with background information about the genesis and dates of origin of some of his publications (see footnote 4). I also thank Dagfinn F0llesdal for clarifying some of his ideas for me, but he is not aware of all the particulars of my interpretation of his ideas and I am not sure if he would agree with all of them. REFERENCES
Almog, Joseph: 1986, 'Naming Without Necessity', The Journal of Philosophy, 83, 210-242. Armstrong, D.M.: 1989, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bealer, George: 1987, 'The Limits of Scientific Essentialism', Philosophical Perspectives I: Metaphysics, J. Tomberlin, ed. Ridgeview Publishing Co., Atascadero, California, pp. 289-365. Beth, E.W.: 1960, 'Extension and Intension', Synthese, 12, 375-379. Burge, Tyler: 1992, 'Philosophy of Language and Mind: 1950-1990', The Philosophical Review, 101, 3-51. Carnap, Rudolph: 1963, Reply to Critics, in P. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of RudolfCarnap. Open Court Press, La Salle. Carnap, Rudolph: 1947, Meaning and Necessity. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Carnap, Rudolph: 1946, 'Modalities and Quantification', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 11, 33-64. Church, A.: 1946, 'A Formulation of the Logic of Sense and Denotation' (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, 11, 31. Church, A.: 1943, 'Review of Quine', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 8, 45-47. Cocchiarella, Nino: 1987, Logical Studies in Early Analytic Philosophy. Ohio State University Press, Columbus. Cocchiarella, Nino: 1984, 'Philosophical Perspectives on Quantification in Tense and Modal Logic', in Gabby, D. and Guenther, F., eds. Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Volume Two: Extensions of Classical Logic. D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, pp. 309-353.
(eds.),
280
QUENTIN SMITH
Cocchiarella, Nino: 1975a, 'Logical Atomism, Nominalism, and Modal Logic', Synthese, 31, 23-62. Cocchiarella, Nino: 1975b, 'On the Primary and Secondary Semantics of Logical Necessity', Journal of Philosophical Logic, 4, 13-27. Cocchiarella, Nino: 1966, Tense Logic: A Study of Temporal Reference. UCLA Dissertation. Devitt, Michael: (forthcoming). 'Reference', in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge, London. Devitt, Michael: 1989, 'Against Direct Reference', in P. French et aI., eds., MidWest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XIV: Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language II. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, pp. 206-240. Devitt, Michael: 1981, Designation. Oxford University Press, New York. Devitt, Michael: 1974, 'Singular Terms', Journal of Philosophy, 71, 183-205. Devitt, Michael: 1972, The Semantics of Proper Names: A Causal Theory. PhD Thesis, Harvard. Donnellan, Keith: 1974, 'Speaking of Nothing', The Philosophical Review, 83, 3-32. Donnellan, Keith: 1972, 'Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions' (reprint of [1970], in Davidson, D. and Harman, G., eds., Semantics of Natural Language. D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Donnellan, Keith: 1970, 'Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions', Synthese, 21(3-4), 335-358. Donnellan, Keith: 1966, 'Reference and Definite Descriptions', The Philosophical Review, 75, 281304. Fitch, Frederick: 1950, 'Attribute and Class', in Marvin Farber, ed., Philosophical Thought in France and the United States. University of Buffalo Publications in Philosophy, Buffalo. Fitch, Frederick: 1949, 'The Problem of the Morning Star and the Evening Star', Philosophy of Science, 16, 137-141. Fl1lllesdal, Dagfinn: 1994, 'Stig Kanger in Memorial', in D. Prawitz et aI., eds., Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science IX. Elsevier Science B.V. Fl1lllesdal, Dagfinn: 1986, 'Essentialism and Reference', in Hahan and Schilpp, eds., The Philosophy of wv. Quine. Open Court, La Salle. Fl1lllesdal, Dagfinn: 1967, 'Knowledge, Identity, and Existence', Theoria, 33, 1-27. Fl1lllesdal, Dagfinn: 1966, Referential Opacity and Modal Logic (a private printing and minor revision of Fl1lllesdal's [1961]). Fl1lllesdal, Dagfinn: 1961, Referential Opacity and Modal Logic. Harvard University dissertation, unpublished. Forbes, Graeme: 1989, Languages of Possibility. Basil Blackwell Inc., Oxford. Forbes, Graeme: 1985, The Metaphysics of Modality. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Geach, P.T.: 1969, 'The Perils of Pauline', Review of Metaphysics, 23, 287-300. Grice, H.P.: 1969, 'Vacuous Names' in Donald Davidson and Iaakko Hintikka, eds., Words and Objections. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 118-145. Hintikka, Iaakko: 1986, 'Who's Who' in Hahan and Schilpp, eds., The Philosophy of wv. Quine. Open Court, La Salle. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1982, 'Is Alethic Modal Logic Possible?', Acta Philosophica Fennica, 35, 89-105. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1980, 'Standard vs. Nonstandard Logic: Higher Order, Modal, and First-Order Logics', in E. Agazzi, ed., Modern Logic: A Survey. D. Reidel, Dordrecht. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1963, 'The Modes of Modality', Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16, 65-79. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1962, Knowledge and Belief Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1961, 'Modality and Quantification', Theoria, 27,119-128. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1957a, 'Quantifiers in Deontic Logic', Societa Scientariarum Fennica, Commentationes Human Litterarum, 23, 3-23. Hintikka,Iaakko: 1957b, 'Modality as Referential Multiplicity', Ajatus, 20, 49-64. Hintikka, laakko: 1955, 'Form and Content in Quantification Theory', Acta Philosophica Fennica, 8,7-55. Hintikka, laakko and Sandu, Gabriel: 1995, 'The Fallacies of the New Theory of Reference', Synthese, 104, 245-283. Kaplan, David: 1989a, 'Demonstratives', in 1. Almog, ed., Themesfrom Kaplan. Oxford University Press, New York.
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
281
Kaplan, David: 1989b, 'Afterthoughts' in 1. Almog et aI., eds., Themes from Kaplan. Oxford University Press, New York. Kaplan, David: 1986, 'Opacity' in E. Hahn and P. Schilpp, eds., The Philosophy of wv. 0. Quine. Open Court Publishers, La Salle, Illinois. Kaplan, David: 1978a, 'Dthat', in Peter Cole, ed., Syntax and Semantics, Volume 9. Academic Press, New York, pp. 221-253. Kaplan, David: 1978b, 'On the Logic of Demonstratives', Journal of Philosophical Logic, 8, 81-98. Kaplan, David: 1974, UCLA dissertation (unpublished). Holt, Jim: 1996, 'Whose Idea is it, Anyway?', Lingua Franca, February 1996 issue, pp. 29-39. Kanger, Stig: 1957, Provability in Logic. Stockholm. Kanger, Stig: 1957a: 'The Morning Star Paradox', Theoria, 27, I-II. Kripke, Saul: 1980, Naming and Necessity. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. Kripke, Saul: 1977, 'Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference', in P. French et aI., eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. Reprinted in Martinich, ed., The Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press, New York, 1985. Kripke, Saul: 1972, 'Naming and Necessity', in D. Davidson and G. Harman, eds., Semantics of Natural Language. D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 253-355. Kripke, Saul: 1971, 'Identity and Necessity', in M. Munitz, ed., Identity and Individuation. New York University Press, New York. Kripke, Saul: 1963a, 'Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic I: Normal Propositional Calculi', Zeitschriftfur Mathematische Logik, 9, 67-96. Kripke, Saul: 1963b, 'Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic', Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16, 93-94. Kripke, Saul: 1959a, 'A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24, 114. Kripke, Saul: 1959b, 'Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic' (abstract), Journal of Symbolic Logic, 24,323-324 Lewis, C.I.: 1918, A Survey of Symbolic Logic. University of California Press. Linsky, Leonard: 1977, Names and Descriptions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Lindstrom, Sten: 1998, 'An Exposition and Development of Kanger's Early Semantics for Modal Logic', this volume. Marcus, Ruth Barcan: 1993, Modalities. Oxford University Press, New York. Marcus, Ruth Barcan: 1981, 'A Proposed Solution to a Puzzle About Belief', Midwest Studies in Philosophy. French et aI., eds. Vol. 6, 501-510. Marcus, Ruth Barcan: 1971, 'Essential Attribution', Journal of Philosophy, 7, 187-202. Marcus, Ruth Barcan: 1967, 'Essentialism in Modal Logic', Nous, 1, 90-97. Marcus, Ruth Barcan: 1963, 'Classes and Attributes in Extended Modal Systems', Proceedings of a Colloquium on Modal and Many-Valued Logic. Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16, 123-136. Marcus, Ruth Barcan: 1961, 'Modalities in Intensional Language', Synthese, 13, 303-322. [Marcus] Barcan, R.: 1947, 'The Identity of Individuals in a Strict Functional Calculus of First Order', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12, 12-15. [Marcus] Barcan, R.: 1946, 'A Functional Calculus of First Order Based on Strict Implication', Journal of Symbolic Logic, 11,1-16. Marcus, Ruth Barcan et al.: 1962, 'Discussion of the Paper of Ruth B. Marcus', Synthese, 14, 132143. Martinich, A.: 1985, The Philosophy of Language. Oxford University Press, New York. Montague, Richard: 1974, Formal Philosophy. Yale University Press, New Haven. Montague, Richard: 1963, 'Syntactical Treatments of Modality, with Corollaries on Reflexion Principles and Finite Axiomatizability', Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16,153-167. Montague, Richard: 1960, 'Logical Necessity, Physical Necessity, Ethics and Quantifiers', Inquiry,
4,259-269. Moore, G.E.: 1903, Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
(eds.),
282
QUENTIN SMITH
Moore, G.E.: 1899, 'The Nature of Judgement', Mind,8, 176-193. Moore, G.E.: 1898, Letter to Desmond McCarthy; quoted from Thomas Baldwin's 'Moore's Rejection of Idealism', in Richard Rorty, lB. Schneedwind and Quentin Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Parsons, Terence: 1969, 'Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic', The Philosophical Review, 78, 35-52. Plantinga, Alvin: 1978, 'The Boethian Compromise', American Philosophical Quarterly, 15, 129138. Plantinga, Alvin: 1974, The Nature of Necessity. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Plantinga, Alvin: 1970, 'World and Essence', The Philosophical Review, 79, 461-492. Plantinga, Alvin: 1969, 'De Re Et De Dicto', Nous, 3, pp. 235-258. Plantinga, Alvin: 1967, God and Other Minds. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Prior, A.N.: 1967, 'Modal Logic' in Paul Edwards, ed., Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volumes 5 and 6. Macmillan Publishing Co., New York. Putnam, Hilary: 1975, 'The Meaning of 'Meaning", in H Putnam Collected Papers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Quine, W.V.O.: 1994, 'Promoting Extensionality', Synthese, 98, 143-151. Quine, W.V.O.: 1981, Theories and Things, Harvard University Press, Cambridge. Quine, w.v.o.: 1947, 'The Problem of Interpreting Modal Logic', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12, 43-48. Quine, W.v.o.: 1943, 'Notes on Existence and Necessity', The Journal of Philosophy, 40, 113-127. Quine, W.v.O.: 1941, 'Whitehead and Modern Logic', in P. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Tudor Publishing Co., New York. Quine, W.v.O.: 1939, 'Designation and Existence', The Journal of Philosophy, 36, 701-709. Russell, Bertrand: 1919, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London. Russell, Bertrand: 1918, 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism' in R. Marsh, ed., Logic and Knowledge. Capricorn Books, New York, 1971. Russell, Bertrand: 1905, 'On Denoting', in R. Marsh, ed., Logic and Knowledge. Capricorn Books, New York, 1971. Russell, Bertrand: 1903, Principles of Mathematics. The Norton Library, New York. Salmon, Nathan: 1989, 'The Logic of What Might Have Been', The Philosophical Review, 98,3-34. Salmon, Nathan: 1986, Frege's Puzzle. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. Salmon, Nathan: 1981, Reference and Essence. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Smith, Quentin: 1998a, 'Direct, Rigid Designation and A Posteriori Necessity: A History of Critique', this volume. Smith, Quentin: 1997, Ethical and Religious Thought in Analytic Philosophy of Language. Yale University Press, New Haven. Smith, Quentin: 1995a, 'Marcus, Kripke, and the Origin of the New Theory of Reference', Synthese, 104, 179-189. Smith, Quentin: 1995b, 'Marcus and the New Theory of Reference: A Reply to Scott Soames', Synthese, 104, 217-244. Smith, Quentin: 1994, 'Temporal Indexicals', in L. Nathan Oaklander and Quentin Smith, eds., The New Theory of Time. Yale University Press, New Haven. Smith, Quentin: 1993, Language and Time. Oxford University Press, New York. Smith, Quentin: 1991, 'The New Theory of Reference Entails Absolute Time and Space', Philosophy of Science, 58, 411-16. Smith, Quentin: 1989, 'The Multiple Uses oflndexicals', Synthese, 78, 167-91. Smith, Quentin: 1988, 'Tensed States of Affairs and Possible Worlds', Grazer Philosophische Studien, 31,225-35. Smith, Quentin: 1986, The Felt Meanings of the World: A Metaphysics of Feeling. Purdue University Press, West Lafeyette. Smith, Quentin and Oaklander, L. Nathan: 1995, Time, Change and Freedom. Routledge, London.
(eds.),
A MORE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY
283
Smith, Quentin and Craig, William Lane: 1993, Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Smullyan, Arthur: 1948, 'Modality and Description', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 13, 31-37. Smullyan, Arthur: 1947, Review of Quine's 'The Problem of Interpreting Modal Logic', The Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12, 139-141. Wettstein, Howard: 1991, Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake and Other Essays. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Wettstein, Howard: 1986, 'Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake?', The Journal of Philosophy, 83, 185-209. Von Wright, Richard: 1951, An Essay in Modal Logic. North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam. Wittgenstein, Ludwig: 1922, Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus. Translated by D. Pears and B. McGuiness. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., London, 1961. Wong, Kai-Yee: 1996, 'Sentence-Relativity and the Necessary A Posteriori', Philosophical Studies, 83, 53-91. Yablo, Stephen: 1993, 'Is Conceivability a Guide to Possibility?" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 53, 1-42.
(eds.),
NAME INDEX
Albritton, Rogers 143-4, 250, 277 Almog, Joseph 3, 4, 11, 51, 141, 169, 235-6, 249,264-5 Aquinas, St Thomas 239 Aristotle 145, 199,239,241,271 Armstrong, David 144,271 Augustine 174 Ayer, Alfred Jules 149, 152 Bacon, John 95, 102 Bayart, 186 Bemays, Paul 189 Beth, E.w. 267 Black, Max 90 Boolos, George 232 Bradley, F.H. 237 Braun, David 4 Brouwer, L.E.J. 184,200,201 Burge, Tyler 138, 141, 142, 146, 174 Burgess, John x, 65, 85-87, 144, 149, 150,151, 153-155, 157-163, 173-175 Cantor, G. 226 Camap, Rudolf 98, 106, 107, 110, 165, 167, 168,175,181,182,184,186,187,194,2045, 209-11, 215, 231, 240, 242-4, 249, 251, 258-61, 264-5, 267, 270 Cartwright, Richard 175,279 Casteneda, Hector-Neri 175, 279 Chastain, Charles 250 Church, Alonzo 15, 17, 19, 39, 69, 100, 196, 243-4 Cocchiarella, Nino 97, 105, 175,236, 261, 26771,278-9 Cohen, Robert S. ix, xii Craig, William Lane 56 Creswell, Max 232 De Finetti, Bruno 38 Devitt, Michael 141-42, 148-49, 153, 175,236, 278 Donnellan, Keith xii, 3-5, 8,11,14,41,90,137145, 147-48, 158, 160, 174, 175,236,250, 277-8
285
Dretske, Fred 144 Etchemendy, John 215 Falk, Arthur 60 Feys, 182,201,259 Fitch, Frederick 15, 17, 19,21, 23, 28, 38-40, 42,45, 60, 67-73, 75, 77, 81, 82, 100, 126, 132, 174, 191, 194,201,244-6,250-1 Fitzgerald, Paul 40, 174 Fogelin, Robert xii, 60-61 Follesdal, Dagfinn x, xii, xiii, 89, 97, 99, 122, 138, 146, 175, 203, 236, 245, 246-52, 254-7, 263,266,274,278-9 Forbes, Graeme 236 Fraenkel, A.A. 201 Frege, Gottlob 4, 5, 90, 92-94, 102, 105, 107, 137, 140, 147, 148, 187, 195,235,239,2524,256 Garson, James W. 86, 232 Geach, Peter 90, 93, 137, 138, 142-146, 174, 236,248,250,263,277-8 Gentzen, G. 203 Gettier, Edmund 175,279 Godel, Kurt 182, 184, 185, 199,203 Grice, H. Paul 143-4 Gurlank, David 156 Herodotus 145 Hilbert, David 189 Hintikka, Jaakko x, xii, 146, 148, 153, 167,203, 207, 210-11, 213, 236, 245, 249-50, 254, 258-69,274,278-9 Holt, James 250, 256 Hughes, G.E. 232 Hume, David 57, 239 Jonsson, B. 207, 231 Kanger, Stig x-xi, 47, 165, 203-233, 245, 25962, 264, 266-7 Kant, Immanuel 237-8 Kaplan, David 3-5, 11, 14, 16,87, 89, 90, 137, 138, 141-43, 146-49, 149, 153, 158, 160, 165,168-73,175,224,235-6,267,278 Kneale, William 90, 93
286
NAME INDEX
Kreisel, Georg 229,232 Kripke, Saul passim, but see especially vii-xiii, 3-12,13-35,37-61,66,72,73,76,77,80,82, 89-123, 125-135, 137, 138, 140-78,203-233, 236,238,247-50,252-7,261-79 Langford, C.H. 201, 240 Lehrer, Keith 279 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 47, 95, 100, 153, 166,192,194,204-5,240 Lewis, David 232 Lewis, Clarence Irving 7, 98, 107, 110, 152, 165,182,201,240,265 Lindstrom, Sten x-xi, 279 Linsky, Leonard 7,8,40,43,44, 50, 86, 99, 252, 276 Locke, John 239 MacCarthy, Desmond 236 Malebranche, 57 Marcus, Ruth Barcanpassim, but see especially vii-xiii, 3-12, 13-35, 37-61, 65-87, 89-123, 125-135,137-39,141,144,146-78,186,191, 194, 197,201,204,224,235-6,240,244-7, 249-57,263,270-2,274,278 McCracken, C.l 57 McDowell, John 11 McGee, Van 231 Mill, John Stuart 28, 40, 50, 67, 90, 92-95, 97, 104, 108, 118, 126, 129, 132, 158, 160, 163, 169,174,239,243,245,251,256 Montague, Richard x, 146, 203, 207-11, 231, 259,263-4,266-7 Moore, George Edward 236-8,241,260,271 Nagel, Ernest 90 Nakhnikan, George 279 Nerlich, Graham 170 Ockham, William 174, 239 Parmenides 239 Parsons, Terence 247 Pears, David 90 Peirce, Charles Saunders 174 Perry, John 3, 4, 5, 235-6 Plantinga, Alvin 7, 8,40, 43, 44, 50, 138, 146, 153,156,157,161,175,236,238,252,257, 270-6, 278-9 Plato 174,239,271 P10tinus 5 Prior, Arthur 67,69,96,97, 100, 112, 127, 146, 243,255,263,266,269
Putnam, Hilary xii, 3,4,5,52,53,90, 104, 141, 158,236,238,250,278 Quine, Willard van Orman viii-xiii, 3, 14, 15, 17,18,23,38,39,45,56,67-73,75,85,86, 89,90,97-102,105, 107-1l0, 114, 116, 1l9122, 132, 134, 164, 165, 187, 191, 197-199, 201,221,240-9,251-7,263,271,276 Ramsey, Frank Plumpton 38, 96, 97, 127 Recanati, F. 4 Richard, Mark 16 Russell, Bertrand 5, 67, 72, 79, 86, 90, 95-97, 99,101-103,105,107,112,114, 1l8, 126, 127, 131, 137, 140, 148, 158-160, 163, 184, 188,190,235,238-9,242-5,252-4,256 Salmon, Nathan 3, 4, 6, 9,11,41,44,141,142, 145, 160, 235, 236, 278 Sandu, Gabriel 148, 153,258,270 Schopenhauer, Arthur 129 Searle, John 90, 94, 97, 275-6 Shapiro, S. 99 Sidelle, Alan 170 Sleigh, Robert 175, 279 Siote, Michael 250 Smith, Quentin vii-xiii, 13-35,48,51,56,65-87, 123, 125-135, 137 Smullyan, Arthur 15, 17-19,21,23,28,38-40, 42,45,60,67-73,77,81,82,85,86,97,99, 100, Ill, 118, 126, 132, 160, 174, 191-94, 241-2,243-6,249-51,255,279 Soames, Scott vii-xiii, 3, 4, 37-61, 90,106, 123, 125, 129, 132, 150, 151, 153-155, 157, 163, 174,175 Strawson, Peter 90, 94 Tarski, Alfred 204,206,207-9,231 Thales 145 Tooley, Michael 144 Vallicella, William 60 Von Wright, Georg Henrik 260, 262 Wedberg, Anders 203 Wettstein, Howard 3, 4, 5, 11, 141, 160, 235-6 Whitehead, Alfred North 160 Wilson, Neil x, 191, 192,201 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 60, 96, 97, 174,205, 239, 260 Wong, Kai-Yee 273 Yablo, Stephen 236, 238 Zabludowski, A. 85 Ziff, Paul 90, 94, 126, 132, 174
SUBJECT INDEX
a posteriori 7, 49-50, 51, 131-2, 155-7,235, 239. See also necessity a posteriori a priori 7, 8, 26, 27, 49, 52, 101, 109, 111-2, 127,130-2,134,153-7,160-2,235,237,239, 253, 271. See also contingent a priori absolutely infinite 226 abstracts 187 accessibility relation 206-8,211-12,217,225, 259. See also alternativeness relation accidental vs essential. See essential properties acquaintance 142 aliases, problem of 98 alternativeness relation 259-60, 262, 265-6, 269. See also accessibility relation American Philosophical Association vii, xi analytic truth 8, 18,25,52,72,79,81,86,95, 98, 101, 109, 110, 127, 130-2, 134, 152-3, 213-5,217,220 anonymity, problem of 98 arbitrariness, problem of 98 assignment 212, 216-8,222,225,228 assignment operator, constant 223-4 Barcan formula 30, 87, 205, 209-10, 213 belief statements, see knowledge statements Brouwer's axiom 184,201 capitalization 94 Carnap frame 210 causal theory ofreference vii, 6, 9, 20, 103-4, 115, 125, 127, 137-8, 141-5, 173-4,235,248, 277-8 Church's theorem 206 classes, identity condition for 184 class abstracts 39, 184, 186, 188-90, 193 closed formula 98 coextensiveness 197-8, 200 coincidence relation 219, 221 common nouns 103-4 completeness theorem, Godel's 203, 206 completeness theorems for modal logics 181, 195,211,228 concept 237
concept, individual 168, 187,219-21,244 congruent 6, 39,42,240 constant, individua147, 86, 89, 143, 155, 166-7, 169,258 constant domain (in model theory) 97, 170 context 6, 107-8, 111-2, 127. See also modal context contingent. See necessity, necessary truth contingent a priori vii, 28, 105 contingent vs empirica125, 49,51 counterfactual argument (against descriptive theory) 93,103,104-7. See also modal argument Cornell University 157, 272, 275 counterfactual contexts 77, 108 counterfactual situation 154 counterfactual stability 105-7. See also necessity, metaphysical definition 93 definition, contextual 187-8 demonstrative pronouns 103, 239 descriptions passim, but see especially 7, 38, 90, 94,96,99, 100, 101, 106, 122, 130-2, 138, 142, 144, 181, 182, 184, 186, 189-91, 199-200 description, attributively used 8,41, 137-41 description, contingent 8, 43, 44, 46, 80, 156, 236 descriptions, disguised 3,5,6,38-40,67, 189 description, empirical 10 description, Fregean 16 description, identifying 4 description, modally stable 8 description, necessary 7 description, reference-fixing 6, 41,52, 143-4 description, referentially used 8, 41, 137-41 description, rigidified 86 description, rigid 122, 276 descriptions, Russell's theory of 99, 184, 191, 242-3 description, singular 5, 45, 150-1 description, unique 5, 40 descriptive meaning 92
287
288
SUBJECT INDEX
descriptive sense, contingent (of names) 6 descriptive theory of names 92, 93, 95,101, 102, 103,275 designator, non-rigid 8, 48, 105,274 designator, rigid. See rigid designator dictionary. See also lexicon, encyclopedia 10, 19,54-5,92,110,115-7,119-20,133-4,1557, 175,253 dictionary, biographical 10 direct reference vii, xii, 3-12, 19,35,38-9,42, 43,50,68,81,92,115,121,126-7,137,139, 141,143,168,173,235,237-9,245,256 discovery, non-empirical 112 domain 47,206-8,208-9,214,216,217-8,222-6 empirical, see a priori encyclopedia, encyclopedic dictionary entry. See also dictionary, lexicon 10, 92, 110, 113, 115-7,132-3,135 epistemic contexts, see knowledge statement, context epistemological argument (against descriptive theory) 7, 24, 27-8, 37,43-4,48-50,93, 1034, 146 equivalence, strict 6-7 essence 162-4, 258, 270 essential properties 10, 98,121-2,153,163-4, 254-5, 270, 273 essentialism vii, x, 3-4,10,14,17,34,119-21, 143,153, 199,247,253-5,270-71 equivalence relation 6 existential generalization 73-5, 86, 191-2,221 extensional opacity 246 extensional vs intensional, see intensional extensions 187,206,212,228 fact. See state of affairs fact, empirical 7-8, 24, 25, 26, 49-50, 56,96, 100, 109 fact, contingent 25, 49, 51 Gentzen's Haupstatz 203 genus 8, 129-30, 139-40 historical chain theory. See causal theory of reference identity vii, 6-7, 48, 58, 70,100,106,111-3, 131, 134, 152, 181-2, 190-1, 194-5,200,213, 219-221,223,253 identity, necessity of 3,7,9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18,19,22-23,28,29-31,38,43-6,54,59,60, 69,70,72,73-77,78-9,80,87,95,105,116,
126-7,156,163-4,213,224,243,250,256, 272-3 identity of extension 186, 194 identity of intension 184 identity statement 99,101,102,105-7,110, 118-20, 152, 158-9, 160 identity, transworld 3 incompleteness, semantic 195 indexicals 8, 44,146-7,188 indiscernibility 6, 13 Indiscernibility ofIdenticals 95, 100, 192,213, 220,223 intensional entities 187, 197,204 intensional 18, 39, 74-5, 112, 197,204. See also context intensional arithmetic 99 interpretation 207-9, 216-8, 225, 228-9 interpretation, metalinguistic 214 interpretational semantics 215 inventory 91, 102 K-validity 212 Kanger model 217, 223-6 Kanger semantics 204,208,214-15,218,223-6, 230. See also semantics, set domain; semantics, class domain Kanger-Kripke semantics 203 knowledge statement 18, 66, 107, 108, 111-4, 251,264 Kripke models 207, 212 Kripke semantics 203, 230, 232 language, formal with modalities 105 language, ordinary vs artificial 14, 150-1, 2425, 248, 250-1, 279 Leibniz' Law. See Indiscernibility of Identicals lexicography 92 lexicon, lexical dictionary entry, see also dictionary, encyclopedia 91, 92, 110,113, 1167, 132-3, 135, 155-6 linguistic vs empirical. See analytic truth, a priori logical atomism 95,96,97, 114 logical consequence 204, 215, 217, 225 logical truth 72, 98, 101, 152, 154, 161,204-6, 208-11,214-15,217,219-20,227-8,230 logicaUy proper names 14-15, 17,27,67,69,72, 97, 101-2, 107, 112, 118, 158-60,242-3. See also tag, names in an ideal sense, proper name Lowenheim-Skolem theorem 203, 231 meaning postulates 135
SUBJECT INDEX modal argument 6-7, 21-22, 28, 33, 37,42-4, 46,57-80,77-81, 146,276. See also counterfactual argument modal context 3, 6, 8, 16, 17, 18,23,38,40,42, 44,59,66,77,107, 111, 114, 147, 159, 196-8, 210,218,224,255 modal distinctions, collapse of 182, 184-6, 199200
modal logic x, 9, 38, 89, 91, 95, 97, 109, 118, 203-4, 206-7 modal logic, quantified 13, 17, 152, 158, 181, 195-8,200,203-4,206,211-13,216,221-2, 240, 242-3, 246 modal logic, semantically complete 181 modal operator 47-8,75, 166,205-7,210,2137,225, 227-8, 267-8 modal paradoxes 39 modal system, Godel's 182, 184-5 modal system, QS5= 213, 227-9 modal system SI 182 modal system S2 70,186-7,266 modal systems S4, QS4 7, 13,22,29,70,87, 152,158,160,182,184-5,204,207 modal system S5 152, 181, 182, 184-5, 194,204 modal test 7 modalities, iterated 187, 201 modality, de dicto 34, 98, 120-2, 164, 257 modality, de re 34,51-2,98,99, 120-2, 164, 257 modality, epistemic 190 modality, logical 190, 255 modality, metaphysicaL See necessity, metaphysical model 47, 105, 154, 159, 166-7,209,211-12, 217,231,260-1,265,267-8 model sets 211, 260-5, 267-9 model structures 211-12, 228 model theory 23,47,97, 105-6, 166,203 Morning Star paradox 220, 223. See also identity, substitutivity names, naming passim, but see especially xi, 311, 13-35,37-61,73-137, 155, 159, 165-6, 181, 189-90,195,199,239 names, coreferential 157 names, in an ideal sense 91, 1l0, 126, 128. See also tag, logically proper names names, logically proper. See logically proper names names, proxy 148 name-relation method 241 natural kind 3, 8, 9 natural kind terms vii necessary truth 9, 109, 110, 159, 161,204,214, 259
289
necessity 98-99,101,106-7,110,112,130-1, 152,154,205,214,235,239,271 necessity, a posteriori 3, 8, 11,24-8,50-56, 1056,113,130,157,162,164,235,236-9,271-3 necessity, analytic 213,215,217,220-1 necessity, de dicto. See modality, de dicto necessity, de reo See modality, de re necessity, logical xi, 72, 75, 107, 152-3, 161-3, 204-9,214-17,224,229-30,257-8,260-1, 264,267-70 necessity, metaphysical, see also counterfactual stability xi, 72, 75, 81,107,130,161-3,213, 215,227,229-30,232,235,238,257-63,26470,273-4 necessity, metaphysical feature of facts 109 necessity, senses of (metaphysical vs other) 107, III, 127, 158,238 necessity, synthetic 9, 11 necessity of origins thesis 9, 162 New York University 172 New Theory of Reference passim but see especially 3-11,14-15,37-61,90,92,103-4,1256,137,148,160,235-283 nonlexical, see dictionary ontological operator 216-7, 225 ontology, intensionaL See intensional entities opaque construction 15-17 open formulas or sentences 98 ostension 93, 144, 155 possibilia 204, 212,215,227-8 possibility. See necessity possible world 8, 47-8,153-4,159,164; 166-7, 181,193-4,203-5,211-13,215-6,227-8,240, 259,265 primary valuation 206, 214, 216, 224-5 Princeton University vii, 146-7,272 procedure, empirical 19, 55-6 procedure, linguistic 55-6 proper name x, 3-8, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19,38-9,43, 45,46-7,59-60,66,68,76,81,82,137,139, 142, 147, 149-50, 163, 182, 187,200,201, 242-3, 247-9, 253. See also logically proper name; tag; names, in an ideal sense property, modally indexed 44 proposition 112-3,217 proposition, de re 237 proposition, general 170, 239 propositional attitude 66 purely designative occurrence 15-16 quantification theory 182,191,199-200,208, 218-19,222 quantifier, general 226
290
SUBJECT INDEX
quantifiers, substitutional interpretation of 96, 255 quantifying in. See modal context quantification, objectual16, 23, 31, 255 reference, causal theory of or historical chain theory. See causal theory of reference referential transparency 246 reflection principle 214 regimentation 102 representation theorems 207 representational semantics 215 rigid designation, complete concept 165 rigid designation, direct reference definition 137,168,171-3 rigid designation, world definition 137, 170-3 rigid designator vi, x, 3-4, 8, 10, 17,22,23,28, 33,43,47-8,60,68,75, 105, 115, 122, 137-8, 146-9,163,167-70,212,235,239,248,252, 254,258,263,274,276 rigid designator, obstinate 168 rigid designator, strong 47,171-3,247 rigid designator, weak 47, 171-3,247 rigid names, descriptionally 252, 257, 276 rigid singular terms 170, 255, 263 rigidity 4,35, 104-6, 108, 154, 165, 168,249, 256 rigidity argument 106 scope (of description) 188, 191-3 semantic argument (for direct reference) 28, 44, 145-6 semantic content 7, 77-8, 81, 141,145 semantic value 207 semantics 4, 41, 140-1 semantics, class domain 224, 226-7. See also Kanger semantics semantics, modal x-xi, 166-7,218,240,259 semantics, model-theoretic 48, 203-4, 206-7, 230,260 semantics, possible world 9,204,210-11,215, 230 semantics, primary 261, 267-9 semantics, secondary 267-71 semantics, set domain 224-7. See also Kanger semantics sense 7, 143, 169, 187 sense, descriptive 3, 7 sense, Fregean 4 sense, modally stable 7-8, 26, 43, 50 singular proposition 3-4, 169-70, 237-8
singular term 16, 45, 60, 181, 188, 190-1, 193, 196-200,246-8,252 singular term, purely designative 16, 17 species vs genus, see genus speech act 140 standard interpretation (of modal logic) 211 Stanford University 138, 146-7 state descriptions 204-5,209-11,215,231,240, 260 state of affairs I 08-II 0, 112-3 substitutability salva veritate, universal intersubstitutability of co-referential names 6-8, 14,17,18,22,26,28,38,43-4,48,54,59,66, 70-71,73,78-80,100,106,107,111-2,114, 118,122,127,134,152,158,168,185,190-1, 194-6, 199,241-2,244-5,247,251,263 substitutivity of concretion 184, 186 substitutivity, of description for description 189 substitutivity, of description for singular term 189 supervalidity 229 synonymy, of names 17,40,42,66,68,80,86 synthetic vs analytic. See analytic truth synthetic a posteriori 9, 131 system 206-8,211,216-9,225 tag, identifying 5, 6,10,19,21,32,54,58-9,69, 79-80,82-83,90,94,96, 101, 110, 119-22, 130,133,139,148-51,154,163,169-70,2535. See also logically proper name, names, in an ideal sense tautology, tautological truth 18, 25, 52, 72, 789,81,95,96, 107, 109, 114, 118, 127, 130-1, 152, 158, 160-1 truncated description. See descriptive theory of names truth, analytic. See analytic truth truth in a mode1204, 207-8 truth, in various senses 203-233 truth, logically necessary. See logical truth universal substitutivity thesis. See substitutivity universal instantiation 73-4, 189, 191, 220 universal truth 211 University of Michigan 276 use vs mention 108-9 validity 98,109,114,152,217,225-6,229 variable, individual 16, 23, 28, 46, 47, 95 Wayne State University 146, 175,276 well-formedness (of sentences) 189-90 world-indexed sense 40