Thought-Contents: On the Ontology of Belief and the Semantics of Belief Attribution (Philosophical Studies Series)

THOUGHT-CONTENTS: ON THE ONTOLOGY OF BELIEF AND THE SEMANTICS OF BELIEF ATTRIBUTION

Philosophical Studies Series VOLUME 104

Founded by Wilfrid S. Sellars and Keith Lehrer Editor Keith Lehrer, University of Arizona, Tucson Associate Editor Stewart Cohen, Arizona State University, Tempe Board of Consulting Editors Lynne Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Radu Bogdan, Tulane Universtiy, New Orleans Marian David, University of Notre Dame Allan Gibbard, University of Michigan Denise Meyerson, Macquarie University François Recanati, Institut Jean-Nicod, EHESS, Paris Stuart Silvers, Clemson University Barry Smith, State University of New York at Buffalo Nicholas D. Smith, Lewis & Clark College

The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

Thought-Contents On the Ontology of Belief and the Semantics of Belief Attribution

STEVEN E. BOËR Department of Philosophy The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, USA

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For Ann and Leah

CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction

xi xiii

PART I: PRELIMINARIES 1.

2.

Terms of the Art 1.1. Some types of intentionality 1.2. The substitutional approach and its problems 1.3. Non-Actualism 1.3.1. The being-existence distinction: a proposal 1.3.2. The non-actualist approach to existence-independence and concept-dependence 1.4. Intensionality and extensionality 1.5. Hyper-intensionality 1.6. Opacity and transparency 1.7. De re / de dicto / de se

3 3 9 12 12 15 21 27 32 34

Adequacy Conditions and Failed Theories 2.1. Some general adequacy conditions 2.2. Frege’s theory of thoughts 2.3. Russell’s propositional and multiple-relation theories 2.4. Chisholm’s property-attribution theory

39 39 45 54 65

PART II: ONTOLOGY 3.

Logical Forms and Mental Representations: The Lesson of Russell’s Multiple Relation Theory of Judgment 3.1. Adequacy conditions on the reduction 3.2. The formalities of MRTJ 3.2.1. The base language and underlying logic 3.2.2. Some primitive vocabulary and axioms of MRTJ 3.2.3. Truth in MRTJ

vii

81 82 83 83 84 89

viii

Contents

3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7. 4.

5.

The theory
The bridge principles and reduction of MRTJ to
+ Vindication and the adequacy conditions Implications of the reduction of MRTJ for our wider project The shape of things to come

Thought-Contents, Senses, and the Belief Relation: The Proto-Theory 4.1. Overview 4.2. The underlying theory of abstract objects 4.2.1. Zalta’s System ILAO 4.2.2. Departures from ILAO 4.3. TC: The proto-theory 4.3.1. Senses as A-objects; thought-contents as senses 4.3.2. Valuation relations and canonical λ-profiles 4.3.3. Thought-contents with specified objects as constituents 4.3.4. Interpreting canonical names of atomic thought-contents 4.3.5. Mentalese denotation; the constituents and canonical objects of n-ary atomic thought-contents 4.3.6. Entertaining and believing thought-contents 4.3.7. Application to belief de re 4.3.8. Senses as constituents of thought-contents: translucent and opaque senses 4.3.9. Belief de dicto, belief de se, and substitutional opacity 4.3.10. Transparent senses and Soames’s problem Thought-Contents, Senses, and the Belief Relation: The Full Theory 5.1. Revisions to the proto-theory 5.2. Application to higher-order belief 5.3. Generalizing key definitions, principles, and theorems 5.4. Doing without empty senses Appendix to Chapter 5: The formal theory TC A.1. Metalinguistic conventions A.2. Special vocabulary of TC A.3. Formation rules for special terms of TC A.4. Definitions in TC A.5. Axioms of TC

92 96 104 109 111 121 121 124 124 125 127 127 129 133 135 138 141 144 145 154 157 169 169 179 183 188 190 190 191 192 192 197

PART III: SEMANTICS 6.

Belief Reports and Compositional Semantics 6.1. The theory TC as a semantical metalanguage 6.2. The target language L1

205 206 213

Contents

ix

6.3. STC : A TC-based sense-reference semantics for L0 and L1 6.4. Semantics for mentalese—or: speak for yourself! 6.5. Prospects for naturalization

216 224 229

7.

Meeting the Semantical Adequacy Conditions 7.1. De dicto / de re / de se 7.2. Iterated belief reports 7.3. A problem about reflexivity 7.4. Saul Kripke’s original puzzle 7.5. Kripke’s puzzle and iterated belief reports 7.6. David Austin’s ‘Two Tubes’ puzzle 7.7. Pragmatics versus semantics 7.8. Mark Richard’s puzzle

235 235 242 244 246 250 253 255 258

8.

Objections and Replies 8.1. Specific objections to our semantical theory 8.1.1. Belief reports and valid arguments 8.1.2. The problem of translating our semantical metalanguage 8.1.3. Twin Earth semantics 8.2. Generic objections to ‘Fregean’ semantics 8.2.1. Stephen Schiffer’s critique 8.2.2. The problem of negative existential generalization 8.2.3. Saying, meaning, and believing

265 265 265 269 272 276 276 284 288

PART IV: REAR-GUARD ACTION 9.

The Case for Object-Dependent Thoughts 9.1. The central theses 9.2. Gareth Evans’ first argument for (ODT-1) 9.3. Critique and defense of Evans’ first argument 9.4. Evans’ second argument for (ODT-1) 9.5. Critique and defense of Evans’ second argument 9.6. The problem of negative existentials involving empty singular terms 9.7. The problem of attitude-ascriptions with ‘that’-clauses containing empty terms 9.8. A problem about certain conditionals 9.9. An argument for (ODT-2) yielding (ODT-1) as a corollary

10. A Critique of Rival Accounts of Singular Thoughts 10.1. Kent Bach’s theory of ‘de re beliefs’

297 297 300 303 308 309 313 317 320 322 329 329

x

Contents

10.2. Harold Noonan’s theory of demonstrative thoughts 10.3. The narrow content objection 10.4. Object-dependence and the senses of general terms

339 346 352

References Index

357 363

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has three primary aims. The first is to articulate the theory TC, a formal ontology of belief as a dyadic relation to a special kind of property (a ‘thoughtcontent’). The second is to wield TC in the construction of STC , a semantics for attributions of belief which treats substitutional opacity in belief reports as a genuine semantic datum. And the third is to defend the resulting account at length by showing how it solves standard puzzles, avoids a variety of objections that have been raised against rival views, and satisfies an array of ontological and semantical adequacy conditions not fulfilled by traditional theories. Along the way, two secondary tasks are undertaken: one is to clarify and defend the Neo-Fregean conception of ‘object-dependent senses’ that TC incorporates in its account of thought-contents; and the other is to show how adoption of the language of thought hypothesis aids in understanding the obscure doctrine of ‘logical forms’ in Bertrand Russell’s infamous Multiple Relation theory of belief in a way that not only vindicates it as an account of de re belief but also reveals these logical forms as precursors of the thought-contents that figure in TC’s account of belief in general. The proffered ontology incorporates three key theses: (i) belief is a relation of self-ascription obtaining between an agent and a property (not a proposition); (ii) this property is not the belief’s truth condition—i.e., the intuitively self-ascribed property which the agent must exemplify for the belief to be true—but is instead a certain non-actual ‘abstract’ property (a thought-content) which contains a way of thinking of that truth condition; (iii) to have a belief about such-and-such items one must possess a language of thought (one’s ‘Mentalese’) and be disposed as one who inwardly affirms therein a sentence containing terms that denote those items. Thesis (i), of course, derives from the work of Roderick Chisholm and David Lewis, and Thesis (iii) is familiar from the work of Jerry Fodor and others. A distinctive feature of this book is Thesis (ii) and the way in which TC explains it and integrates it with the others, using a modified and extended version of Edward Zalta’s system of intensional logic for abstract objects to locate thought-contents within a typed hierarchy of ‘senses’ and the ‘modes of presentation’ they contain. Another distinctive feature of this book is the way in which the resulting apparatus is used to provide a quasi-Fregean sense-reference semantics STC for belief attributions xi

xii

Preface and Acknowledgements

which (a) is finitely axiomatizable, (b) accommodates context-dependent terms, (c) respects compositionality, (d) smoothly handles belief ascriptions with arbitrarily complex ‘that’-clauses (in particular those embedding further belief attributions), (e) sensibly adjudicates various controversies while solving alleged puzzles regarding such attributions, and (f) avoids the difficulties encountered by most if not all extant accounts that take opacity as a semantic datum. I am grateful to my colleagues at OSU for helpful discussion, to Edward Zalta for his comments on ancestral fragments of the present work, and to my wife and daughter for tolerating my retreat into the Cave of Solitude while completing the manuscript. Some material from earlier publications of mine has found its way into the Chapters indicated below. Chapter 2: [1] Chisholm on Intentionality, Thought, and Reference. In: Bogdan R (ed) Profiles: Roderick Chisholm. D. Reidel, Dordrecht (1986), pp. 81-111. Chapter 3: [2] On the Multiple Relation Theory of Judgment. Erkenntnis 56 (2002): 181-214. Chapters 4-5: [3] Thought-Contents and the Formal Ontology of Sense. Journal of Philosophical Logic 32 (2003): 1-79. Chapters 6-8: [4] Propositional Attitudes and Compositional Semantics. In: Tomberlin J E (ed) Philosophical Perspectives, 9: AI, Connectionism, and Philosophical Psychology. Ridgeview Publishing Co., Atascadero (1995), pp. 341-80. Chapters 9-10: [5] Object-Dependent Thoughts. Philosophical Studies 58 (1990): 51-85. [6] Neo-Fregean Thoughts. In: Tomberlin J E (ed) Philosophical Perspectives, 3: Philosophy of Mind and Action Theory. Ridgeview Publishing Co., Atascadero (1989), pp. 187-224. The extracts from items [4] and [6] appear by kind permission of Blackwell Publishers Ltd., and those from items [1], [2], [3], and [5] by kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media.

INTRODUCTION

According to our commonsense view of the matter, beliefs, desires, intentions and the like are special kinds of internal states the possession of which by a given creature potentially explains its behavior and otherwise renders the creature intelligible to us. So-called folk psychology provides us with a rough-and-ready network of counterfactuals delimiting the role supposedly played by these internal states visà-vis perceptual input, inference, and behavioral output in a normal member of our species. The exact empirical details of this network do not matter here, for we are not undertaking further refinement or systematization of the relevant counterfactuals. Instead, our topic is the ontological analysis of the internal states that occupy the nodes of this complex network and the bearing of that analysis on the truth conditions of the sentences we use to ascribe beliefs and related states. The relevant counterfactuals canonically describe particular belief-, desire-, and intention-states as states of believing, desiring, and intending that such-andsuch. The use of infinitival clauses to describe desires and intentions is not really an exception, for desiring or intending to do A (or to be F) is just having a self-regarding desire or intention that oneself does A (or that oneself is F). By the lights of our commonsense psychology, then, to be in a particular belief-, desire-, or intention-state is to bear the corresponding attitudinal relation— believing, desiring, or intending—to a certain content. Since these contents are potentially common to many different thought-states, we shall call them thoughtcontents. So understood, beliefs, desires and intentions are examples of what philosophers have come to call ‘propositional attitudes’—psychological states of a subject A that one can report (in English) by means of a sentence of the form ‘A Vs that P’ in which ‘V’ is replaced by suitable attitudinal verb (e.g., ‘believe’, ‘hope’, ‘doubt’, ‘wish’, etc.) and ‘P’ is replaced by a sentence conveying a thought-content. Propositional attitudes involving the same attitudinal relation are thus individuated by their thought-contents. (In light of the etymology of ‘propositional attitude’, it is obviously tempting to call these thought-contents ‘propositions’, but this term has come to carry so much philosophical baggage that it is best, at least at the outset, to use a more neutral expression.) For the most part, our discussion will follow the traditional practice of focusing on belief as the paradigm of a propositional attitude. xiii

xiv

Introduction

The propositional attitudes contrast with those ‘direct-object’ attitudes reported by means of so-called intensional transitive verbs like ‘worship’, ‘seek’, ‘depict’, etc., which take as grammatical complements not ‘that’-clauses but noun phrases of various sorts.1 It is a matter of controversy whether such direct-object attitudes can be adequately analyzed in terms of propositional attitudes. Some, like seeking, intuitively invite such analysis; others, like worshipping, seem to resist it. But settling this question is impossible without an adequate prior account of the propositional attitudes themselves. Since our concern here is with latter, we may put the analyzability issue aside and return to the case of the propositional attitudes. By virtue of their distinctive thought-contents, beliefs and other attitudes will possess various quasi-semantical features. Corresponding to particular thoughts in the various modes (belief, desire, intention, etc.) are what might naturally be called their conditions of satisfaction—the conditions which, in light of thought-content, are necessary and sufficient for a given belief to be true, for a given desire to be fulfilled, for a given intention to be realized, etc. However, a propositional attitude’s condition of satisfaction, unlike its thought-content, does not seem sufficient to individuate it. Thus, e.g., the belief that woodchucks are mammals is intuitively distinct from the belief that groundhogs are mammals—some people, being ignorant of matters zoölogical, have the one belief but lack the other—yet these two different beliefs possess the very same truth condition in light of the fact that being a woodchuck is the same property as being a groundhog. (The proper criterion of identity for satisfaction conditions may not be self-evident, but surely any plausible criterion would have to entail that if F and G are the very same kind, then the satisfaction condition being an F is identical to the satisfaction condition being a G!) In sharp contrast to the semantical features of natural languages which they parallel, the conditions of satisfaction that propositional attitudes inherit from their thought-contents are not, at least in the first instance, matters of human convention. Indeed, as David Lewis (1969) has convincingly argued, the very existence of conventions in a human community presupposes the capacity of its members to have certain propositional attitudes (in particular, certain beliefs, preferences, and expectations) with specific satisfaction conditions. Beliefs with certain kinds of thought-content will also pertain to specific individuals, properties, and relations in a manner reminiscent of the direct-object attitudes alluded to above. To believe that London is pretty one must think about London (and perhaps also about the property being pretty). To believe that patience is a virtue one must have in mind patience (and perhaps also the property being a virtue). It is natural to construe this kind of ‘thinking about’ or ‘having in mind’ as a mental analogue of speaker’s reference—let us call it mental reference. Now in connection with overt speech, it is often pointed out that speaker’s reference is not an act performed in isolation but is rather a subsidiary aspect of a total speech act of saying something (in some illocutionary mode) in the course of an utterance. In the same way, the mental analogue of speaker’s reference involved

Introduction

xv

in thinking about specific items should be seen as a subsidiary aspect of the total mental act of thinking something (in the course of some interior performance), i.e., of taking up an attitude towards a thought-content involving the mental referents in question.2 For a thought-content to involve an item in the relevant sense is for that content to determine an appropriate satisfaction condition of which that item is a constituent. The thought-content of the belief that Socrates is wise thus involves Socrates in the sense that it determines a truth condition (roughly, the state-ofaffairs Socrates being wise) of which Socrates is a constituent. So, as we shall understand it, mentally referring to an item is a matter of being in a thought-state with a thought-content that determines a satisfaction condition of which that item is a constituent.3 In the traditional literature, the phrase ‘object of thought’ is sometimes applied both to the thought-content of a given propositional attitude and to any item involved in that thought-content. Unfortunately this usage carries with it the danger of conflating thinking-that with thinking-about (hence with mental reference). It is crucial to distinguish the thought-content of a propositional attitude from any item which that thought-content itself might involve, especially when that thought-content involves another thought-content (as, e.g., in beliefs about the contents of others’ beliefs). Accordingly, let us reserve the phrase ‘object(s) of propositional attitude ψ’ solely for the item(s), if any, to which one mentally refers by virtue of having ψ, and let us employ ‘thought-content of propositional attitude ψ’ for what one thinks by virtue of having ψ, as this would be identified by an appropriate ‘that’clause in a canonical ascription of ψ. Then, e.g., the thought-content of the belief that Chisholm admires Brentano is that Chisholm admires Brentano, whereas its objects are Chisholm, Brentano, and perhaps also the relation admires. In cases where a propositional attitude ψ seems to be about a thought-content C, to the effect that it is F, the thought-content of ψ itself must be distinguished from C. What one thinks by virtue of having ψ (i.e., ψ’s thought-content) is that C is F; what one thinks of or about by virtue of having ψ (i.e., its object, or one of its objects) is C itself. Although commonsense psychology regards beliefs as relations to contents of some sort that determine satisfaction conditions, it does not, qua folk theory, endorse any particular ontological view of thought-contents. Detached from an ontological account of thought-contents and the belief relation, the claim that beliefs are propositional attitudes is noncommittal enough to sound plausible but not substantial enough to bear the weight of answering philosophical questions about belief. For example: Why is the set of a person’s beliefs not closed under logical equivalence, let alone under entailment? What would it mean for two or more people to have the same belief (as opposed to merely similar beliefs)? How can rational people believe things that cannot possibly be true? If water is nothing but H2 O, why doesn’t knowing the triviality that water is water automatically confer the scientific knowledge that water is H2 O? Nothing we have said so far sheds any light on perplexing questions like these. Answering them requires a substantive theory

xvi

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of the ontology of beliefs qua propositional attitudes. One of the main objectives of this book will be to provide such a theory. Parallel to the foregoing questions about beliefs are equally perplexing questions about the ‘believes that’ constructions that we use in English to ascribe them. Logical operations which are equivalence-preserving in other environments apparently fail to preserve logical equivalence when applied within the ‘that’-clauses of belief reports. The truth condition of ‘A believes that P’ seems curiously detached from the truth condition of ‘P’ in a way that threatens the very possibility of providing a compositional denotational semantics for English within which all instances of the scheme (B) could be secured as theorems: (B) TrueEnglish (‘A believes that P’) ≡ Bel(A, p) (where ‘≡’ is the truth-functional analogue of ‘if and only if’, and ‘Bel’ and ‘p’ respectively name the posited denotata of ‘believes’ and ‘that P’). For there seems little hope of specifying the denotation of ‘that P’, for arbitrary sentential replacement of ‘P’, in terms of what the words in ‘P’ would normally be taken to denote (i.e., what they would be taken to denote if ‘P’ were uttered as a free-standing sentence). If, e.g., one attempts to regard p as some sort of set-theoretic construction from the ordinary denotations of the words in ‘P’, one quickly runs afoul of the fact that sets with the same members are identical, hence that the denotation of ‘that P’ should be unaffected by any replacement of terms within ‘P’ that preserves the ordinary denotation of those terms. Thus, e.g., if the complement clauses ‘that water is water’ and ‘that water is H2 O’ were taken to denote the sequences and respectively, we would have (i) and (ii) as theorems: (i) TrueEnglish (‘Socrates believes that water is water’) ≡ Bel(Socrates, ). (ii) TrueEnglish (‘Socrates believes that water is H2 O’) ≡ Bel(Socrates, ). And, in any event, we should expect to have (iii) as a theorem: (iii) TrueEnglish (‘water = H2 O’) ≡ water = H2 O. Since = if water = H2 O, theorems (i)-(iii) yield the further theorem (iv): (iv) [TrueEnglish (‘Socrates believes that water is water’) & TrueEnglish (‘water = H2 O’)] → TrueEnglish (‘Socrates believes that water is H2 O’). But (iv) appears to be false: most English-speakers (especially when they are reminded that Socrates knew no chemistry) have no trouble at all hearing readings of these sentences on which both ‘water = H2 O’ and ‘Socrates believed that

Introduction

xvii

water is water’ are true but ‘Socrates believed that water is H2 O’ is false. Indeed, the readings on which this is the case are arguably the most natural ones. What is needed is a systematic account of the values of ‘p’ and ‘Bel’ in the truth condition scheme (B) that not only accommodates but actually predicts these intuitions about the truth-values of ‘Socrates believed that water is water’, ‘Socrates believed that water is H2 O’, and correspondingly related belief reports. So the second main objective of this book will be to enlist its proffered ontology of belief and thoughtcontents in the cause of formulating, for a suitable fragment of English in which beliefs are ascribed, a compositional semantics that accepts and explains the logical oddity of belief reports (rather than trying, as is fashionable in some circles4 , to explain it away as a pragmatically induced illusion of some sort). The work that follows comprises four parts. Part I (Chapters 1-2) is devoted to background matters, attempting (in Chapter 1) to sort out the complicated terminology that attends discussion of the propositional attitudes and proceeding (in Chapter 2) to sketch, and to evaluate against certain proposed ontological and semantical adequacy conditions, the relevant proposals of three philosophers— Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Roderick Chisholm—whose theories, though ultimately failing to meet various of those conditions, nonetheless provide important insights that our own account will incorporate. Part II (Chapters 3-5) presents the core of our ontological account, beginning (in Chapter 3) with an explanation of how Russell’s infamous ‘multiple relation’ theory of judgment (MRTJ) might be repaired with the aid of the language of thought hypothesis and a certain interpretation of Russell’s obscure notion of a ‘logical form’. Enlisting (in Chapter 4) a modified version of Edward Zalta’s intensional logic for abstract objects (Zalta 1988), the ingredients used to rescue MRTJ are employed in the construction of a simplified version an axiomatic theory TC of thought-contents and the belief relation, and TC is shown to meet most of the ontological adequacy conditions of Chapter 2. Chapter 5 then details the additions to TC needed for it to apply to beliefs of arbitrary complexity—in particular to beliefs about beliefs—and for it to satisfy the remaining ontological adequacy conditions. The Appendix to Chapter 5 presents the fully formalized version of TC thus supplemented. Part III (Chapters 6-8) addresses the semantics of belief reports. Chapter 6 begins with the construction of a finitely axiomatized TC-based compositional semantics STC for a fragment of regimented English containing the requisite vocabulary for belief reports and concludes with an indication of what a semantics for one’s own language of thought might look like from the vantage point of TC. Chapter 7 argues that STC meets all of the semantical adequacy conditions posed in Chapter 2. And Chapter 8 answers various objections directed either against STC in particular or against theories of the general category to which it belongs. Finally, by way of rear-guard action, Part IV (Chapters 9-10) undertakes the defense of a certain view about the object-dependence of thoughtcontents that was built into TC at the outset, surveying (in Chapter 9) the arguments for that view and attempting (in Chapter 10) to rebut some rival accounts of the data.

xviii

Introduction

NOTES 1 Three features are usually cited as individually sufficient conditions for a transitive verb ‘V’ to

qualify as a so-called intensional transitive: (i) the principle of the Substitutivity of Identity appears to fail when applied to the complement of ‘V’ or to other terms occurring therein; (ii) certain quantifier phrases in the complement of ‘V’ admit of a special ‘narrow-scope’ reading; (iii) existential commitments normally associated with terms are cancelled with those terms occur as or within the complement of ‘V’. Thus, e.g., ‘Tom was expecting Mark Twain’ and ‘Tom was expecting Sam Clemens’ might fail of equivalence despite the truth of ‘Mark Twain = Sam Clemens’; ‘Mary seeks a mate’ may be true even though there is no particular mate she seeks; and the truth of ‘Homer worshipped Zeus’ is compatible with the non-existence of Zeus. 2 In tandem with mental reference there is presumably mental predication of various properties and relations. Depending on one’s account of the act of mental predication, it may involve mental reference to these predicated properties and relations in the course of predicating them—e.g., thinking that Socrates is wise may involve mental reference both to Socrates and wisdom in the course of mentally predicating the latter of the former. 3 If we were discussing the direct-object attitudes associated with intensional transitives, we might need to broaden this account of mental reference. However, the present account can apply to the object-oriented attitudes even if they are not reducible to propositional attitudes—so long, that is, as possession of one of the former entails possession of certain of the latter. Thus, e.g., if X worships Y, then surely X must have certain beliefs putatively ‘about Y’—that Y exists, that Y is worthy of worship, etc. If the thought-content of a belief that Y is F determines a satisfaction condition of which Y is a constituent, then X will count as mentally referring to Y by dint of worshipping Y. Of course, where Y does not exist (e.g., where X is worshipping Zeus) then it is an open question whether and how the belief that Y is F could determine a satisfaction condition of which Y is a constituent (unless, that is, we are prepared not only to countenance a being-existence distinction but also to count Y as a non-existent being). (Cf. Chapter 1, Sections 1.1-1.3.) 4 This strategy was first recommended in Boër and Lycan (1980) for dealing with the peculiarities of self-regarding belief reports but later renounced in Boër and Lycan (1986). Similar strategies have subsequently been adopted by neo-Russellians like Nathan Salmon (1986), Mark Richard (1987), and Scott Soames (1987a, 1987b, 2002). Interestingly, Richard too has recanted in (1990) and remains unrepentant.

PART I

PRELIMINARIES

CHAPTER 1

TERMS OF THE ART

Every philosophical discipline and sub-discipline has its proprietary jargon. The study of the propositional attitudes and the language of attitude-ascription is no exception. This Chapter, which is intended mainly for the reader who is unfamiliar with the argot of the attitudes, introduces the salient technical vocabulary and, where its usage is unclear, specifies the way it will be used in the present work.

1.1

SOME TYPES OF INTENTIONALITY

By dint of possessing satisfaction conditions, belief-states and other propositional attitudes are prime examples of what philosophers have called intentional states (note the second ‘t’). On the traditional characterization stemming from Brentano (1874), an act or state is deemed intentional if it is essentially ‘aimed at’, ‘directed upon’, or ‘about’something. Thus, e.g., a belief that Socrates was wise is essentially about Socrates and being wise—in the sense that it is impossible for a state-token to count as a belief that Socrates was wise unless it is connected to Socrates and wisdom in the relevant way (whatever that is).1 The items at which an intentional state is thus directed are called its intentional objects. Although these metaphors of aiming and directing are richly suggestive, they are not very helpful in giving a characterization of intentionality that is precise enough to be useful. To make matters worse, different philosophers have employed the notion of intentionality in a variety of non-equivalent ways. It will therefore be helpful to distinguish several different things that might be meant by calling a state intentional so as to fix on the one most germane to our discussion. One thing that is sometimes meant by calling a state intentional is just that it is or involves a propositional attitude of some sort—i.e., that being in the state in question entails bearing a certain attitudinal relation to a thought-content. Let us call this the cognitive intentionality of a state. Derivatively, a relation may itself be called cognitively intentional when bearing it to entities of the appropriate sorts constitutes or entails being in a cognitively intentional state. Believing and mentally referring are thus, trivially, cognitively intentional relations. To explain the nature 3

4

Chapter 1

of thought-contents and the belief relation is ipso facto to explain the cognitive intentionality of belief and mental reference. A second, even weaker thing that might be meant by calling a state intentional is that being in it entails being in one or more states having conditions of satisfaction and their concomitant quasi-semantical features. Let us call this the semantical intentionality of a state. Since thought-contents asymmetrically determine conditions of satisfaction, all cognitively intentional states will be semantically intentional. But the converse may not be true. We sometimes are willing to attribute satisfaction conditions to a state but are reluctant to credit it with a full-blown thought-content. For having a particular thought-content is intuitively connected with having specific concepts, whereas possession of satisfaction conditions is not. Thus, e.g., we may be willing to credit a dog with something like the desire that food now be in its dish on the ground that the dog is in a psychological state which has a functional role similar to that of a desire in humans and which would be satisfied by food now being in its dish. But even if we are not averse to the idea that dogs enjoy certain simple concepts or some analogue thereof, we may well be loath to attribute to the dog the specific concepts ‘food’, ‘dish’, ‘belonging to’, ‘I’ and ‘now’ that seem to be connected with the thought-content that food now be in my dish. This is reflected in the fact that it seems more accurate to report the dog’s alleged desires, beliefs, etc. in a noncommittal, relational way rather than a notional way—i.e., to say things like ‘The dog believes, of the food and his dish, that the former is in the latter’ rather than ‘The dog believes that the food is in his dish’. Derivatively, a relation may itself be called semantically intentional when bearing it to entities of the appropriate categories constitutes or entails being in a semantically intentional state. Believing and mentally referring are (again, trivially) semantically as well as cognitively intentional relations. According to some philosophers—most notably, Christopher Peacocke (1992, 1994, 1998, 2001)— certain perceptual states/relations may also be semantically but not cognitively intentional. Whether, in contrast to the conceptually articulated content of the propositional attitudes, there is such non-conceptual content is a highly controversial matter. Fortunately, our project does not require taking a stand on the reality of such non-conceptual content, and so we shall say no more about it here. There are at least two other, metaphysically more exciting-sounding things that philosophers have meant by calling a state intentional. Typically, these involve being a relational state in which the relation in question is independently deemed intentional in virtue of possessing certain peculiar features. As a preliminary to spelling out these features, we need a roster of the various categories of entities to which people might be thought to bear relations in general. For the sake of argument, let us take these to include at least individuals, propositions, states-ofaffairs, universals (properties and relations), and perhaps events (insofar as events are construed as non-individuals). For the present, let us suppose that this list is complete. (If additional categories need to be added, the following remarks can

Terms of the Art

5

obviously be adapted to the expanded list). On this assumption, (P1) will be an ontological principle acceptable to all parties: (P1)

Everything is either an individual, a proposition, a state-of-affairs, an event, a property, or a relation.

Now there is a view of existence, stemming from the pioneering work of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell and receiving its most famous contemporary expression in W. V. O. Quine’s essay ‘On What There Is’ (Quine, 1953), which rejects any existence-being distinction and holds that there are no non-existent beings of any sort. On such a view, what there is = what exists; so the field of every nonempty relation consists solely of existing things. Let us call this view Actualism and its adherents Actualists. Strict Nominalists, who countenance the existence of nothing but concrete individuals, are of course Actualists in our sense; but an Actualist need not be a strict Nominalist. An Actualist who admits the existence of something other than concrete individuals may be called a ‘tolerant’ Actualist. Some tolerant Actualists with Nominalist sympathies (e.g., Quine himself) limit their tolerance to the category of individuals: beyond concrete individuals, they admit the existence only of certain special non-spatiotemporal individuals—sets being their favorite candidate. In contrast, tolerant Actualists without Nominalist scruples (e.g., Plantinga, 1974) are willing to grant the existence of things belonging to other ontological categories, such as properties, relations, and propositions. A tolerant Actualist, whether nominalistically inclined or not, might be struck by the fact that some of the items in his ontological inventory fail to participate in the real world: non-concrete individuals are all causally inert; some states-of-affairs fail to obtain; some properties and relations are not exemplified; and so on. These non-participating entities may seem less robust, more shadowy and insubstantial, than their participating counterparts. In calling certain relations ‘intentional’, then, the tolerant Actualist may merely wish to draw our attention to the fact that these relations are, so speak, participation-independent—i.e., that they are capable of relating us (or other concrete existents) to certain abstract entities regardless of whether the latter participate in the relevant way. More precisely, we may give the following neutral definition: (D1)

X participates in the world =df . If X is an individual then X exists and is located in space-time; if X is a proposition then X exists and is true; if X is a state-of-affairs then X exists and obtains; if X is a property or relation then X exists and is exemplified; and if X is an event, then X exists and X occurs.

For an Actualist, of course, the inclusion of ‘exists’ in the definiens of (D1) is redundant. But a non-Actualist would presumably hold that nonexistent beings do not participate in the world any more than do, say, existing but unexemplified

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properties. Consequently, (D1) has been so formulated as to make the notion useful to Actualists and non-Actualists alike. (If accommodating the possible truth of Cartesian Dualism is a desideratum, the phrase ‘located in space-time’ in (D1) could be understood to include location in time but not in space.) Given the principle (P1) and our definition (D1), the theorem (T1) now follows trivially: (T1) All things that participate in the world are things that exist. The converse of (T1) is, of course, tendentious: our tolerant Actualist rejects it. Now a thing that does not participate in the world is either a non-existent or nonspatiotemporal individual, a non-existent or false proposition, a non-existent or non-obtaining state-of-affairs, a non-existent or unexemplified property or relation, or a non-existent or non-occurring event. So we may give the following, more precise definition of participation-independence as it applies to relations: (D2)

R is a participation-independent relation =df . It is possible for some existing thing to bear R to some being that does not participate in the world.

For example, mental reference might be deemed an intentional relation simply on the ground that one can think about abstract as well as concrete individuals (and/or about unexemplified properties as well as exemplified ones; and/or about non-obtaining states-of-affairs as well as facts; etc.). Although a tolerant Actualist who countenances the existence of relations at all is likely to accept that some are participation-independent, it is important to note that (D2) does not restrict the relata of such relations to existing things. (D2)’s definiens merely requires that an existent might bear such a relation R to a non-participating thing. So from the fact that one bears R to something it does not follow that one bears R to something that participates in the world. If it should turn out that there also are non-existent things, nothing in (D2) prevents one from bearing to nonexistent things a participation-independent relation like mental reference. No one but the most austere Nominalist is likely to balk at the suggestion that there are participation-independent relations in this sense. Indeed, when the belief relation is characterized in one of the traditional ways—e.g., as relating people to statesof-affairs regardless of whether the latter obtain, or to propositions regardless of their truth-value, or to properties regardless of whether they are exemplified—then believing will clearly count as a participation-independent relation. A relation’s being participation-independent, or a state’s being such that occupying it entails bearing a participation-independent relation to something, may thus be taken to constitute the weak metaphysical intentionality of that relation or state. In calling a state or relation ‘intentional’, however, some philosophers have had in mind a stronger kind of metaphysical intentionality. These philosophers

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have held that the twin hallmarks of an intentional relation in this stronger sense are what (following Smith and McIntyre (1982)) may be called ‘existenceindependence’ and ‘concept-dependence’. Unlike the relatively benign notion of participation-independence, however, the notions of existence-independence and concept-dependence are difficult to formulate coherently without certain departures from Actualism and the classical logic it typically espouses. The naïve and natural way of expressing a relation’s existence-independence is to say that it can relate us (or other existents) to various things ‘regardless of whether the latter things exist’. This is sometimes put by saying that such relations can relate us to something without there being any existing thing to which they relate us. Thus, it may be said, a man who seeks the Fountain of Youth or who worships Zeus is surely seeking or worshipping something—for it seems we cannot truly say that he seeks or worships nothing at all—but there is no existing thing such that he is seeking or worshipping it. Seeking and worshipping seem ontologically indifferent to the existence of that towards which they are directed. Taking all this at face value would give us the definition (D3): (D3) R is an existence-independent relation =df . It is possible for some existing thing to bear R to some being that is not an existing being. The applicability of (D3), however, depends on how we interpret the key words ‘some’ and ‘existing’ in its definiens. By the lights of Actualism and classical logic, the ingredient quantifiers in (D3) would be construed objectually and their domain would be identified with the class of existents: to exist is to fall within the range of the quantifiers. But on this interpretation of (D3) there obviously could not be any existence-independent or concept-dependent relations. For it is clearly not possible for an existing thing to bear a relation to something—i.e., to some existing thing—which is not an existing thing! For this reason, philosophers committed to the classical approach are likely express doubts about whether so-called intentional relations are really relations at all. An extreme expression of this doubt might take the form of a proposal to assimilate predicates like ‘seeks the Fountain of Youth’ and ‘worships Zeus’ to such fused idioms as ‘kicked the bucket’, i.e., to treat them as expressions devoid of logical complexity, hence as not really containing an independently significant relational verb and singular term. Concept-dependence, the second traditional hallmark of intentionality in the strong metaphysical sense, is an even more perplexing notion. Let us approach it via the familiar story of Oedipus. Oedipus wanted to marry Jocasta. Unbeknownst to him, however, Jocasta was his mother. But Oedipus, one is inclined to say, certainly never wanted to marry his own mother, as is evidenced by his grisly reaction to discovering that he has done so. So whether he wanted to marry the woman in question seems to depend on who he thought of her as being. In other words, the relation wants to marry appears to be mediated by its subject’s conception of its object’s identity. This is sometimes put by saying that one bears an intentional relation like

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wants to marry to something only under a certain description or representation of that thing. Prima facie, then, it looks as if we should characterize concept-dependence by (CD): (CD)

R is a concept-dependent relation =df . It is possible that, for some objects x and y and properties F and G, x bears R to y qua the thing which is F, but x does not bear R to y qua the thing which is G.

No doubt there is something right about (CD), but it proves difficult to articulate precisely what that something is without making concept-dependence into something paradoxical. In particular, (CD) may suggest that a concept-dependent relation can literally fail to respect the identity of its terms—i.e., that there could be items a, b, c such that b = c and a bears R to b, but a does not bear R to c! Indeed, this would follow logically from (CD) if (CD)’s definiens were crudely symbolized as Possibly (∃x)(∃y)(∃F)(∃G)(y = the F & y = the G & R(x, the F) & ∼R(x, the G)). But accepting this suggestion would be fatal. The very idea of a relation that fails to respect the identity of its terms runs afoul of the following two principles (in which the property and relation quantifiers are to be taken objectually): (P2)

For any objects x and y: if x = y then, for any property F, x has F iff y has F.2

(P3)

Necessarily, for any binary relation R and objects x and y: x bears R to y iff y has the relational property being a thing z such that x bears R to z (symbolized ‘[λz Rxz]’).

(P2), of course, is Leibniz’s Law, also known as the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals. (P3) is simply the principle of property abstraction/concretion that grounds the intuitive truth of a statement like ‘John loves Mary iff Mary has the property being loved by John’. Insofar as one countenances objectual quantification over properties and relations in the first place, both principles seem incontestable (and will be so treated here). But (P2) and (P3) have (T2) as an immediate consequence: (T2)

For any objects x, y, z, and any binary relation R: if y = z and x bears R to y, then x bears R to z.

For if x bears R to y, then by (P3) there is a property [λz Rxz] which is exemplified by y. And if y = z, then by (P2) z must have this property too, whence by (T2) again, it follows that x bears R to z. (This derivation of (T2) does not beg the question by using the standard substitution rule for identity—viz., from formula

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φ and equation
α = β to infer φ(α//β). Someone who thought that conceptdependent relations really could fail to respect the identity of their terms would of course reject the substitution rule for identity.) So whatever it may mean to say that a relation R is concept-dependent, it cannot on pain of glaring absurdity mean that R is a counterexample to the theorem (T2). 1.2 THE SUBSTITUTIONAL APPROACH AND ITS PROBLEMS So far we have failed to find a non-paradoxical way of understanding existenceindependence and concept-dependence along classical lines. In this connection, it is often suggested that sentences like ‘Homer worshipped something’, in the only sense in which they are true, do not involve standard objectual quantifiers but employ instead substitutional quantifiers, which can be promiscuously applied to any part of a sentence that falls within the stipulated substitution-class regardless of whether that part is independently referential or not. (Where ‘’ and ‘’ are respectively ‘universal’ and ‘existential’ substitutional quantifiers of a language L and α is a variable of L with stipulated substitution class C of expressions of L:
(α)φ is true in L iff φ(β/α) is true for every β ∈ C; and
(x)φ is true in L iff φ(β/α) is true for at least one β ∈ C.) Where ‘’ and ‘’ are so understood, and the substitution class for boldfaced variables is taken as the class of ordinary English singular terms, (D3sub ) captures the proposed interpretation of (D3): (D3sub ) R is an existence-independent relation =def . It is possible that (x) (y) (x exists and x bears R to y, but y does not exist). By the lights of (D3sub ), seeking and worshipping are existence-independent relations since, e.g., it is possible (because actually the case) that Homer existed and worshipped Zeus although Zeus does not exist; and it is possible (because actually the case) that Ponce de Leon existed and sought the Fountain of Youth although the Fountain of Youth does not exist. Substitutional quantification also provides a non-toxic way of understanding concept-dependence, for it permits us to formulate something perfectly intelligible that might be meant by saying that a concept-dependent relation is one that can fail to respect the identity of its terms—viz., (D4sub ): (D4sub ) R is a concept-dependent relation =def . It is possible that (x)(y) (z)(y = z & x bears R to y & ∼(x bears R to z)). Thus the scenario described in (1) is certainly possible: (1)

Jocasta = Oedipus’s mother, and Oedipus wants to marry Jocasta, but Oedipus does not want to marry his mother.

But (1) entails (2): (2)

(x)(y)(z)(y = z & x wants to marry y & ∼(x wants to marry z)).

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It follows by (D4sub ) that wanting to marry counts as a concept-dependent relation. Contrasting marrying with wanting to marry, we find that by (D4sub ) the former is not concept-dependent, for (3) is a necessary truth: (3)

(x)(y)(z)((y = z & x marries y) → x marries z).

We could then lay it down that a binary relation R is a metaphysically intentional relation in the strong sense iff R is both an existence-independent relation in the sense of (D3sub ) and concept-dependent relation in the sense of (D4sub ). And we could say that a state s is metaphysically intentional in the strong sense iff there is a binary relation R such that, for any x, x’s being in state s entails (y)(R is a metaphysically intentional relation in the strong sense & x bears R to y). On this approach, the official sufficient condition for strong metaphysical intentionality of a state s would be (4): (4)

(∃R){An agent a’s being in s entails [(w)aRw & Possibly(x)(y)(x exists and xRy, but y does not exist) & Possibly(x)(y)(z) (y = z & xRy & ∼xRz)]}.

The canonical specification of a state s as a belief-state (or as any other propositional attitude for that matter) will automatically yield a value for ‘R’ which shows, by the lights of the suggested substitutional definition, that s exhibits strong metaphysical intentionality. Consider, e.g., the state believing that Zeus exists. Now (5) obviously entails (6): (5)

a is in the state believing that Zeus exists.

(6) a believes that Zeus exists. Then it is easy to see that (7) will be true:3 (7)

(w)(a believes that w exists) & Possibly(x)(y)(x exists and x believes that y exists, but y does not exist) & Possibly(x)(y)(z)(y = z & x believes that y exists & ∼(x believes that z exists)).

Assuming the complex predicate ‘· · · believes that · · · exists’ in (7) expresses a binary relation of some sort, (4) now follows. Despite its undeniable formal attractions, however, there are reasons for suspecting that the substitutional approach is too weak to capture what is traditionally intended by talk of existence-independence and concept-dependence. Although the substitutional reading of Something is such that Homer worshipped it but it does not exist.

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as (y)(Homer worshipped y, but y does not exist) makes the former sentence true, it does so at the cost of undermining the project for which it was enlisted, viz., making sense of the idea that there are or could be genuine relations that are existence-independent. For ‘Homer worshipped Zeus’ will indeed imply ‘Homer worshipped something’ when the latter is read as ‘(y)(Homer worshipped y)’, but it will do so for the same uninteresting reason that the idiom ‘Homer kicked the bucket’will imply ‘Homer kicked something’when this is read as ‘(y)(Homer kicked y)’—a fact which strongly suggests that ‘Homer worshipped Zeus’, like ‘Homer kicked the bucket’, does not assert any real relation between Homer and something else (the ‘something’ in ‘something else’ being a classically interpreted objectual existential quantifier). Now those who maintain that it is possible for an existing thing to bear an intentional relation to some being that does not exist are, of course, logically committed to its being possible that there are things that don’t exist. Moreover, there is no obvious reason to suppose that every non-existent thing would have to have a name. (Indeed, for all we know, the number of non-existent things might be so large as to preclude the possibility of naming all of them.) So those who allow the possibility of there being things that don’t exist might well want to accept (8): (8)

It is possible that some things that don’t exist are nameless.

But on the substitutional approach, (8) would be codified as (9): (9)

It is possible that (y)(y does not exist & y is nameless),

Yet—on the plausible assumption that, for any name α, the claim
α is nameless is self-refuting—(9) could not be true! It is also worrisome that, on the substitutional reading, the truth-value of sentences like ‘Homer worshipped something’ will inappropriately depend on contingent facts about what singular referential devices our language happens to contain. For consider English∗ , which is just English minus all singular terms other than ‘Homer’. The sentence ‘Homer worshipped something’ (construed as ‘(y)(Homer worshipped y)’) will be false in English∗ , since—assuming that Homer did not worship himself—the open sentence ‘Homer worshipped y’ has no true substitution-instances in English∗ . Now it is normally supposed that correct translation of sentences devoid of context-dependent elements preserves their truthvalue; and since English∗ is just a fragment of English, homophonic translation of the former into the latter is surely in order. But ‘Homer worshipped something’ is true in English, which contains the empty name ‘Zeus’ and hence the presumably true substitution-instance ‘Homer worshipped Zeus’. This divergence in truth-value

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is very puzzling, since the two sentences in question consist of exactly the same three words in exactly the same grammatical pattern, and those words in that pattern intuitively have the same meaning in both English and English∗ since they are correct translations of one another. What this anomaly suggests is that the substitutional reading fails to capture what people are trying to express when, while themselves regarding Homer’s gods as mere mythology, they insist that Homer nonetheless worshipped something. A similar problem arises in connection with concept-dependence. For the second conjunct of (7)—viz., Possibly(x)(y)(x exists and x believes that y exists, but y does not exist) & Possibly(x)(y)(z)(y = z & x believes that y exists & ∼(x believes that z exists)) —is, as we saw, true in English but will be false in English∗ . But again, why should the truth-value of what we are trying to express by ‘R is a concept-dependent relation’ depend on whether we speak English or English∗ ? 1.3

NON-ACTUALISM

Let us try a different, more robust way of understanding existence-independence and concept-dependence. The kind of ontological approach which seems to lie behind most endorsements of existence-independent relations (and which will be adopted here) is one which acknowledges a basic distinction between existence or actuality4 on the one hand and being on the other. For lack of a better name, let us call this view Non-Actualism. A common reaction to the non-Actualist’s proposal of a being-existence distinction is the worry it that entails commitment to various entities of dubious stature—legions of possible fat men crowding every doorway, herds of unicorns prancing through mythological fields, square circles, and who knows what other creatures of darkness dwelling jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein. This an overreaction: the mere claim that there are things that don’t exist (are not actual) carries no commitment to any particular inventory of non-existents. Of course, particular ontological commitments would inevitably attend any attempt to explain a being-existence distinction, since the assertion of ‘There are non-actual things’ invites the question ‘Such as. . .?’. So, before attempting a non-Actualist gloss on existence-independence and concept-dependence, it will be worthwhile digressing for a moment to discuss at least one possible metaphysical basis for a being-existence distinction that does not license ontological profligacy. 1.3.1 The Being-Existence Distinction: A Proposal Where N is an entity of a given type, let us say that a property EN of things of that type is an individual essence of N just in case (i) EN is exemplifiable (i.e., possibly,

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something has EN ) and (ii) necessarily, a thing exemplifies EN just in case it is identical with N. If there is such a property as being N (traditionally called the haecceity of N), then it would trivially be an individual essence of N. But not all individual essences need be haecceities. If, e.g., there are such things as numbers, then the number 2 presumably has the individual essence being an even prime, which is not an haecceity but rather a purely qualitative property. Now familiar individuals, properties and relations seem to have ‘identities’ in the sense that there is something about them that makes them particular things they are. This at least suggests that we might connect existence/actuality with having an identity by taking the principle (E!) as axiomatic: (E!) A being is an existent/actual being iff some individual essence of it is exemplified. Accordingly, something is a non-existent/non-actual being iff no individual essence of it is exemplified. This leaves open, however, two ways that a being N might qualify as non-existent/non-actual: N might enjoy an individual essence that is unexemplified, or N might lack an individual essence altogether. So-called merely possible individuals (of which fictional characters are popular examples) would be of the former sort. If, e.g., one thinks that there is an individual essence of Superman—a property ESuperman which is exemplified in some possible world and is such that a thing possesses it in a given world iff that thing is Superman in that world—then one will count Superman as a non-existent thing that nonetheless might have existed, i.e., exists in some possible world other than ours. (It is perhaps worth pointing out in this connection that at least some Actualists—e.g., Plantinga and his followers—are willing to accept individual essences and to treat the unexemplified ones as surrogates for the Possiblist’s merely possible individuals, which they vigorously reject.) On the other hand, one might take the opposing view that fictional entities are essentially fictional in the sense that they could not be real. On such a view nothing, no matter what properties it had, could actually be Superman (or Kryptonite, for that matter): at best it would be an imitation, not the individual that the salient story is about. Looked at in this latter way, the fictional Superman is a being without an individual essence: there simply is no exemplifiable property the instantiation of which is metaphysically necessary and sufficient for identity with Superman. (This fact, of course, need not interfere with our allowing that all beings are self-identical.) Let us say that a being is ordinary (in our proprietary sense) just in case it is possible that it should exist/be actual; and let us say that a being is abstract (in our proprietary sense) just in case it cannot exist/be actual. Given the gloss on existence/actuality provided by the principle (E!), fictional characters viewed in the first way (as mere possibilia) would be ordinary albeit non-existent things; but viewed in the second way (as incapable of being real) they would be abstract individuals. Given (E!) and our definition of an individual essence as a possibly

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exemplified property of a certain sort, it follows that an abstract entity (in our sense), being necessarily non-existent, lacks an individual essence altogether. A fortiori, then, abstract entities in our sense lack haecceities.5 It should be emphasized, however, that this result does not entail repudiation of the vaunted ‘no entity without identity’ principle in the special case of abstract objects: it merely requires that their identity conditions be articulated in a way that does not presuppose that they are identifiable by the properties they exemplify. Trivially, actual individuals will be identifiable by their properties: the principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles will hold for them. (The same, it will be assumed, is true of ordinary individuals in general.) But there will be no guarantee that the Identity of Indiscernibles holds for abstract individuals. Instead, in the formalism of Chapter 4, identity for abstract individuals will be defined in such a way as to leave open the possibility that numerically distinct abstract individuals might exemplify exactly the same properties. Since, as Platonists, we regard the realm of actual properties and relations as a plenum, we shall take it as axiomatic that any property or relation which might exist at all (i.e., which is ordinary) not only does but must exist. Given (E!), this has the result that the Identity of Indiscernibles holds for ordinary properties and relations as well (though, as will be seen in Chapter 4, this is not how we shall officially define their identity). While we are thus committed to the view that there are no ‘merely possible’ properties or relations, we shall remain neutral on the issue of merely possible individuals. The admission of unexemplified individual essences does not commit us to positing non-actual individuals whose essences they are; indeed, Plantinga may be right in holding that the availability of the former makes positing the latter superfluous. A fortiori, there is no commitment to bizarre impossibilia like square circles: no being, ordinary or actual, can be a square circle. (There is, of course, the unexemplifiable ordinary property being a square circle.) The only non-actual individuals our theory requires are certain abstract ones.6 Additionally, and much more important for our purposes, we shall also require a variety of abstract properties. Now if Superman-qua-essentially-fictional-being is an example of an abstract individual, what might be an intuitive example of an abstract property or relation? The properties attributed to fictional beings in their host stories (e.g., being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and being able to run faster than a speeding bullet) are typically ordinary, hence actual ones, even though these properties and relations may not in fact be exemplified by anything at all. Nevertheless, fictional stories sometimes describe and assign names to essentially fictional properties. In the classic science fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, we find descriptions of eightlegged Martian beasts called ‘thoats’. At the beginning of Chapter 3 of Llana of Gathol, Burroughs writes: There are two species of thoat on Mars: the small comparatively docile breed used by the red Martians as saddle animals and, to a lesser extent, as beasts of burden on the farms that border the great irrigation canals; and then there are the huge, vicious, unruly beats that the green warriors use exclusively as steeds

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of war. These creatures tower fully ten feet at the shoulder. They have four legs on either side and a broad, flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, that they hold straight out behind while running. Their gaping mounts split their heads from their snouts to their long, massive necks. Their bodies, the upper portion of which is a dark slate color and exceedingly smooth and glossy, are entirely devoid of hair. Their bellies are white, and their legs shade gradually from the slate color of their bodies to a vivid yellow at the feet, which are heavily padded and nailless. Thoats constitute an essentially fictional natural kind, and being a thoat is an essentially fictional zoological property. No matter what turned out to be true of a property, nothing could compel us to identify it with being a thoat. For all that, however, there is such a property as being a thoat—though of course nothing does (and perhaps nothing could) exemplify it. It is an abstract property in our sense, not an ordinary property like being a camel. Essentially fictional entities are usually severely underdescribed, but this is not why they lack individual essences. In principle, Burroughs could have invented an extensive biology and evolutionary history for thoats, reaching all the way back to the primordial Martian ooze. Nevertheless, actually discovering on Mars a genuine natural kind K (perhaps a long extinct species) that fits the expanded description would not amount to discovering that Ks are thoats or that thoats once existed on Mars, much less license identifying the property belonging to K with the property being a thoat. (All of this is, of course, compatible with its being predictable that readers of Burroughs’ stories would quickly dub the newly discovered Ks ‘thoats’in Burroughs’honor, thereby initiating a new chain of usage whose adherents might correctly call Ks ‘thoats’ after all.) Assuming that the foregoing has provided some substance to the being-existence distinction, let us return to the question of the role of that distinction in explicating intentionality. 1.3.2 The Non-Actualist Approach to Existence-Independence and Concept-Dependence On the non-Actualist approach to defining existence-independence and conceptdependence, the ingredient quantifiers are again construed objectually but their domain is now taken to be the class of beings, some of which are existents and some of which are not. Being is expressed by the quantifier ‘some’ and its colloquial variants (symbolized by ‘∃’), whereas existence is expressed by the predicates ‘exists’ and ‘is actual’ (symbolized by ‘E!’). Understood as (D3NA ) below, (D3) is then a perfectly intelligible definition of existence-independence which does not prejudge the issue of whether anything falls under it: (D3NA ) R is an existence-independent relation =def . Possibly(∃x)(∃y)(E!(x) & xRy & ∼ E!(y)). By the lights of (D3NA ) and (T1), existence-independence entails, but is of course not entailed by, participation-independence.

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An isomorphic non-Actualist strategy (a version of so-called Possibilism) could be obtained by invoking the apparatus of possible worlds, with the actual world and its contents taken to constitute the genuine existents, the merely possible worlds and their inhabitants regarded as non-existent beings ontologically inferior to existing things, and the domain of the quantifiers comprising all that is possible—i.e., actual or merely possible. A binary relation R would then be deemed existence-independent just in case an actual thing could bear R to some merely possible (i.e., non-actual) thing. Relations of belief and mental reference might well be existence-independent in this modal sense as well, the former potentially relating us to something like merely possible states-of-affairs and the latter to certain non-existent constituents of such states-of-affairs. Given the isomorphism with the strategy that exploits an existence-being distinction, and considering the relative simplicity of latter, we shall not pursue the modal version any further here. Returning to (D3), now officially understood as (D3NA ), it should be clear that most familiar relations, including any which involve a causal or spatial connection between their relata, will fail to be existence-independent. If, e.g., one smells or is six miles from something, then there is some existing thing such that one smells or is six miles from it. On the other hand, if there are any non-existent entities at all, there will automatically be some existence-independent relations (e.g., being discernible from) that every existent bears to every non-existent;7 and there will be others, like having in mind (mental reference), which some existents bear to some of these non-existents. What, then, about concept-dependence? As we saw earlier, we cannot coherently replace the substitutional quantifiers in (D4sub ) by their objectual counterparts. There is, however, a perfectly intelligible property in the neighborhood that a genuine relation might well have. For a natural way of understanding (CD)’s talk of x’s bearing a relation to y qua F-thing is to regard it as involving x’s representations of y. The idea, then, is that a concept-dependent relation R is mediated by representations in the sense that for x to bear R to y, x must be behaviorally attuned to the intrinsic features of some (verbal or non-verbal) representation that in turn is connected with y in the right sort of way. Where y is an object of thought, a representation r’s being connected with y in the right sort of way might consist in r’s being a sort of ‘presentation’ of y (e.g., a current percept or memory-image causally based on y, a public or private name or description that denotes y, etc.). Where y is a thought-content, the proper sort of connection between r and y would presumably consist in r’s ‘expressing’ y—i.e., in r’s being not so much name-like as sentence-like, having a truth or satisfaction condition somehow determined by y. (If there are languages of thought, their singular terms would do the presenting and their formulas the expressing.) We may sum this up in (D5): (D5)

R is a concept-dependent relation =def . For any objects x and y, x’s bearing R to y entails that, for some representation z and some

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behavior-determining relation Q: (a) x bears Q to z; and (b) either (i) z depicts y to x [i.e., z is or contains something which represents y to x], or (ii) z expresses y [i.e., z is a representation with a satisfaction condition that it derives from y]; and (c) for any representation r that depicts or expresses y, whether x bears Q to r depends on r’s having one or more of a certain range of intrinsic features [i.e., there is a set F of intrinsic features of x’s representations such that, for any representation r that expresses or depicts y for x: x bears Q to r iff r exemplifies some feature in F]. The binary relation wants to marry will be concept-dependent according to (D5) if it turns out that a’s wanting to marry b entails a’s bearing to a certain style of representation of b (e.g., a visual impression of b as from a certain angle) a certain behavior-determining relation which a is not thereby guaranteed to bear to any other representation of b which is not of that style (e.g., an auditory impression of b, or a visual impression of b as from a different angle). This is a relatively modest but respectable thing that might be meant by those who say that one bears a concept-dependent relation R to something only under a certain specification. As defined via (D5), concept-dependent relations are in complete compliance with (T2). For precisely this reason, however, it might be thought that (D5) fails to capture what it should. After all, wasn’t the concept-dependence of the binary relation wants to marry supposed to explain how it could be the case that Oedipus wanted to marry Jocasta but did not want to marry his mother? Indeed, doesn’t our avowed allegiance to the principles (P2) and (P3) preclude our defining any possible feature of relations that would explain this? For by (P3) we have (10)

Necessarily, Jocasta has the property being a thing such that Oedipus wants to marry it just in case Oedipus wants to marry Jocasta.

So from (11) we may infer (12): (11)

Oedipus wants to marry Jocasta.

(12)

Jocasta has the property being a thing such that Oedipus wants to marry it.

But (13) is stipulated to be true: (13)

Jocasta = the mother of Oedipus.

So by (P2), we may infer (14): (14) The mother of Oedipus exemplifies the property being a thing such that Oedipus wants to marry it.

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And so by (P3) again we infer (15): (15)

Oedipus wants to marry the mother of Oedipus.

So how could (11) and (13) be true and yet (15) be false? The answer, of course, is that each of (11) and (15) is ambiguous as between a strong, notional reading on which it reports how Oedipus conceives the desired state-of-affairs and a weak, relational reading on which it merely reports what objects are involved in that state-of-affairs, without undertaking any commitment as to how Oedipus conceives anything. On the relational readings of (11) and (15), the inference from (11) and (13) to (15) is valid. This is unsurprising, since on these readings (11) and (15) merely report Oedipus as having a desire, the object of which happens to be his mother Jocasta, to the effect that he (Oedipus) marries her. But on their notional readings, we cannot infer (12) and (14) from (11) and (13). For all that (P3) requires is that the property in question be exemplified by whatever is alluded to by ‘Jocasta’ and ‘the mother of Oedipus’ in (11) and (15) respectively on their notional readings. But, so far at least, it is an open question just what these terms do allude to on those readings. Intuitively, the notional readings somehow involve Oedipus representing the woman in question respectively ‘as Jocasta’ and ‘as his mother’, and so the abstracted property being a thing such that Oedipus wants to marry it may, for all that (P3) says, not be a property of a person but instead be a property of something more exotic, perhaps a person-qua-individual-of-a-certainkind or a person-qua-represented-in-a-certain-way, the ontology of which remains to be determined. Clearly, a theory of belief and its attribution is needed to sort this out. A variety of familiar resources are available for explaining the illusion of noncompliance with (T2). One such ploy lurks just below the surface of remarks about bearing attitudinal relations to things only under a description: it is the idea such relations have hidden parameters, extra argument-places in their logical forms not reflected in their normal verbal expressions. The values of these hidden parameters would be the sorts of representations quantified over in (D5), or perhaps other entities from which these representations could be somehow recovered. Apparent non-compliance with (T2) is then easily explained. For the facts that b = c and that R(a, b, r) need not entail that R(a, c, r  ) where r  is a representation distinct from r. Insofar as the representation-parameter remains tacit, it will superficially appear that we have a binary relation that violates (T2). A second strategy is to invoke contextual dependence in our talk about R. The relation R itself is not accorded extra argument-places but its verbal expression ‘R’is held to be context-sensitive in such a way that the assertive utterance of ‘b = c and R(a, b)’may be logically compatible with the assertive utterance of ‘∼ R(a, c)’when these utterances occur in suitably different contexts. (e.g., ‘R’ might be analysed as the complex binary predicate ‘[λxy (∃r)Gxry]’, where the domain of the quantifier in question is a contextually restricted set of mediating representations, different

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such restrictions being operative on the occasions when ‘b = c and R(a, b)’ and ‘∼ R(a, c)’are respectively uttered.) Although it appears that (T2) has been violated, in fact it is not the same relation that is being called ‘R’ in the two cases. Yet a third strategy would claim that when (T2) seems to fail, the apparent relata of R are not its real relata. Perhaps, that is, the fact that the term ‘b’ occurs twice in ‘b = c and R(a, b)’ has misled us into supposing that it is functioning exactly the same way in both places, e.g., that its semantic contribution is just the object b. But this supposition is not mandatory. After all, when a name occurs in a sentence both inside and outside direct quotation it is natural to view the latter occurrence as referring to the name’s bearer but the former occurrence as referring to the wordtype of which it is a token. So the semantic contribution made by a term might depend on where it occurs in a sentence, in consequence of which the items which ‘R(a, b)’ and ‘R(a, c)’ claim to be related to a are not the ones of which identity is asserted in ‘b = c’. The claims ‘b = c’, ‘R(a, b)’ and ‘∼ R(a, c)’ might then form a consistent triad. In addition, there is an ambiguity in the preposition ‘about’ that may create the false impression that a relation like having a belief about (or, more generally, thinking about) can fail to respect the identity of its terms. For there is a sense of ‘about’ in which it is true that, e.g., a belief about the Morning Star is not ipso facto a belief about the Evening Star, despite the fact that the Morning Star = the Evening Star. This, however, is presumably the sense of ‘about’ in which ‘A has a belief about (i.e., believes something about) N’ merits a notional paraphrase like ‘For some G, A believes that N is G’. But although it is notorious that (16) together with (17) does not entail (18), this fact has no tendency to show that having a belief about is a relation which does not respect the identity of its terms: (16) The Morning Star = the Evening Star. (17)

For some G, A believes that the Morning Star is G.

(18)

For some G, A believes that the Evening Star is G.

For, given the notional paraphrase, having a belief about is the corresponding abstracted relation [λxy (∃G)(x believes that y is G)], which, as we saw above, cannot automatically be assumed to take an ordinary individual as its second relatum. One may concede that, in the foregoing sense, the belief that the Morning Star is G is distinct from the belief that the Evening Star is G while still insisting that, in another perfectly good sense of ‘about’, these distinct beliefs are both about one and the same thing (Venus) regardless of what we call it. This is presumably the sense in which ‘A has a belief about (i.e., believes something about) N’ merits a weaker, relational paraphrase like ‘For some G, A believes, of N, that it is G’ or ‘For some G, A believes N to be G’. And, of course, (16) together with (19) does

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entail (20): (19)

For some G, A believes, of the Morning Star, that it is G.

(20)

For some G, A believes, of the Evening Star, that it is G.

Assuming, then, that alleged failures of (T2) are merely apparent and can be explained away compatibly with accepting (D5), let us characterize the strong metaphysical intentionality of a relation in terms of its being both existence-independent in the sense of (D3NA ) and concept-dependent in the sense of (D5). And let us say that a state is metaphysically intentional in this strong sense just in case occupying that state entails standing in at least one such relation to some being. As we saw above, it is not especially contentious to regard mental reference as a participation-independent relation, hence as metaphysically intentional in the weak sense. But it is controversial whether mental reference is metaphysically intentional in the strong sense. To be sure, by our ordinary practices of belief reporting, the likes of ‘Some people believe that Atlantis sank into sea’ and ‘Some people believed that Phlogiston is a chemical substance’ are counted as true. But one might shy away from concluding that the truth of these reports implies that the people in question were intentionally related to a certain non-existent continent and a certain non-existent substance (i.e., that they bore a dyadic relation of mental reference to Atlantis and Phlogiston respectively). However, since we have chosen to acknowledge a being-existence distinction, there is no particular reason to balk at regarding mental reference as an existence-independent relation, since by itself this commits us to no particular view about which things belong in its range. (Indeed, in Chapter 4 it will be made clear that our official view involves a commitment to only one special sort of non-actual entity—the so-called A-objects—and that other, more familiar putative non-existents such as mythical beings and fictional characters are to be countenanced only insofar as they are analyzed in terms of A-objects.) Whether the belief relation is similarly existence-independent is not settled merely by acknowledgement of a being-existence distinction. For as yet we have merely spoken of belief as a relation to a ‘thought-content’ but have offered no explanation of what thought-contents are. If thought-contents could be identified with the likes of propositions, states-of-affairs, or ordinary properties, and if in good Platonic fashion such entities were taken to exist regardless of whether they participate in the world, then there would be no reason to regard the belief relation itself as existence-independent even if mental reference were so regarded—unless, that is, we had some ground for thinking that a thought-content, so construed, cannot determine a satisfaction condition in which a non-existent figures. But this is precisely the sort of ground that could only arise from and be assessed within a comprehensive theory of the nature of thought-contents and attitudinal relations to them.

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Is mental reference also concept-dependent? By (D5) it would be sufficient for mental reference to be concept-dependent that x’s mentally referring to (thinking about) y should entail that, for some representation z, some intrinsic feature f of z, and some behavior-determining relation Q: (a) x bears Q to z; (b) z contains something which expresses or depicts y to x; (c) whether x bears Q to a representation that depicts or expresses y depends on that representation’s having one or more of a certain range of intrinsic features. Given our earlier characterization of mental reference to an item—as a matter of being in a thought-state with a thought-content which determines a satisfaction condition of which that item is a constituent—the plausibility of this entailment rests squarely on plausibility of viewing the belief relation as itself concept-dependent. So the prior question is whether belief is a representationally mediated relation to a content (taking ‘representation(al)’ in the widest possible sense). More precisely, the question is whether x’s believing a thought-content y requires that, for some representation z and some behavior-determining relation Q: (a) x bears Q to z; (b) z has a satisfaction condition determined by y; and (c) whether x bears Q to a representation that depicts or expresses y depends on that representation’s having one or more of a certain range of intrinsic features. If the belief relation to a thought-content is thus representationally mediated, then it is natural to expect that the ingredient representation whose satisfaction condition derives from that thought-content will involve something that represents to the believer the various constituents of that satisfaction condition, hence that the believer will count as thinking about (mentally referring to) those very constituents. But whether and how belief is thus mediated is, once again, precisely the kind of question we need a theory of the propositional attitudes to settle. 1.4

INTENSIONALITY AND EXTENSIONALITY

The intentionality of belief-states is reflected in the so-called intensionality (note the ‘s’) of the sentences used to ascribe them. Indeed, widespread adoption of the Quinean practice of semantic ascent has led concern with the latter feature to eclipse concern with the former. It is customary nowadays to define intensional sentences negatively, as non-extensional ones. So we will need a working definition of ‘extensional sentence’. As a preliminary, let us define some ancillary notions. First, we provisionally take the (putative) denoting terms of English to be its proper names, indexicals, demonstratives, and mass terms. (Later, certain additions will be made to this list). Second, we allow English+ to be any expansion of English obtained by adding zero or more new denoting terms and predicates to its lexicon. Third, we understand a reading of an English sentence to be a fully disambiguated version of that sentence, expressed in a regimented version of English+ that permits

22

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the use of variables and corresponding quantificational idioms like ‘Some thing x is such that · · · x · · · ’. Then a declarative sentence of English+ is deemed extensional on a reading S iff the reading S satisfies all of the following Extensionality Principles: Strong Existential Generalization Principle: For any denoting term D and variable v foreign to S, if S has the form
· · · D · · · then from S one may validly infer
Some existing thing v is such that · · · v · · ·. Replacement Principle for coextensive predicates: For any n-ary predicate expressions P and Q of English+ (n ≥ 1), if P occurs in S, then from S and
For any objects x1 , . . . , xn , either P(x1 , . . . , xn ) and Q(x1 , . . . , xn ), or neither P(x1 , . . . , xn ) nor Q(x1 , . . . , xn ) one may validly infer any sentence that results from replacing one or more occurrences of P in S by Q. Replacement Principle for materially equivalent sentences: For any sentences P and Q of English+ , if P occurs in S, then from S and
Either P and Q, or neither P nor Q one may validly infer any sentence that results from replacing one or more occurrences of P in S by Q. Principle of Substitutivity of Identity: For any denoting terms D and E of English+ , if S has the form
· · · D · · ·, then from S and an equation of the form
D = E  [or
E = D] one may validly infer any sentence that results from substituting E for one or more occurrences of D in S. The relativization to readings is cumbersome but unavoidable when dealing with natural languages, which are rife with lexical and grammatical ambiguity. It is only relative to a reading of its constituent sentences that a natural language argument can be said to be valid or not. (e.g., the validity of the argument from (21a) to (21b) obviously depends on disambiguating the phrase ‘visiting relatives’: (21)

a. John believes that visiting relatives can be boring. b. John believes a certain activity to be potentially boring.)

The fuss about English+ is necessary to prevent a sentence from counting as extensional by vacuously satisfying the four principles—i.e., where no counterexample to the inferences in question exists simply because there are not enough names or predicates to formulate one. Since the English+ sentences in question may contain various context-dependent items such as indexicals, demonstratives, tensed verbs, etc., it is important to be clear exactly what is meant by saying that an inference involving English+ sentences is valid or not. Particular inferences are sometimes characterized as valid when no inference ‘of the same form’has true premises and a false conclusion. Given that we are not ruling out the possibility that English+ contains names of non-existents and predicates that signify intentional properties or relations, this way of characterizing validity is not open to us. For, superficially at least, the inference from (22a) to

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(22b) has the same form as the inference from (23a) to (23b): (22)

a. John kissed Mary. b. Some existing thing is such that John kissed it.

(23)

a. Erik the Red worshipped Odin. b. Some existing thing is such that Erik the Red worshipped it.

But (23a) is true and (23b) is, we suppose, false; yet we do not for that reason reject the inference from (22a) to (22b) as invalid! Otherwise, we should end by counting every atomic sentence as non-extensional. So we must take a different tack. To begin with, we shall suppose that, in the first instance, it is the readings of sentences that express propositions at contexts, so that talk about the proposition expressed at a context c by an English sentence on such-and-such a reading is just talk about the proposition expressed at c by that reading. We further suppose that an English sentence on a given reading has, as hypothetically uttered in a context c, whatever truth-value and modal status pertains to the proposition expressed in c by that reading. Accordingly, we lay down the following criterion: An inference from English+ sentences S1 , . . . , Sn to the English+ sentence S0 is valid (relative to a specified sequence <S1 , . . . , Sn , S0 > of readings for these sentences) iff: for every context c, the propositions expressed in c by S1 , . . . , Sn jointly entail the proposition expressed in c by S0 (i.e., it is not possible that the former propositions are all true but the latter proposition is false). By this criterion, the inference from (22a) to (22b) above is valid but the inference from (23a) to (23b) is not. With validity thus understood, (22a) is an extensional sentence and (23a) is not. We may then say that an English+ sentence is intensional on a reading S just in case S fails to satisfy at least one of the four Extensionality principles. Every ascription of belief having the canonical form ‘A believes that P’ trivially counts as an intensional sentence on all of its admissible readings, since the Replacement Principle for materially equivalent sentences always fails when applied to the sentence occupying the position of ‘P’. Otherwise, we could not attribute to a person belief in a particular truth (or falsehood) without being committed to attributing to that person belief in every truth (or falsehood). We should further expect the Replacement Principle for coextensive predicates to fail for any predicate in a belief ascription’s ‘that’-clause. This owes to the fact that, for any such predicate, we can always concoct a coextensive predicate containing alien conceptual material and/or logical structure whose addition to the ‘that’-clause threatens to falsify the resulting belief ascription. Consider, e.g., ‘barks’ as it occurs in (24): (24) Tom believes that Fido barks.

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Trivially, ‘x barks’ is coextensive with ‘x barks, and the Axiom of Choice is equivalent to Zorn’s Lemma’, since it is a necessary truth that the Axiom of Choice is equivalent to Zorn’s Lemma. But, absent extra premises about Tom’s mathematical knowledge, it does not appear that from (24) we can validly infer (25): (25) Tom believes that Fido barks and the Axiom of Choice is equivalent to Zorn’s Lemma. Belief ascriptions with ‘that’-clauses containing denoting terms all appear to have legitimate readings (even if these are not always the most natural ones) on which the Principle of Substitutivity of Identity fails for those terms. Given the truth of instances of ‘A believes that · · · D · · · ’ and ‘D = E’, the truth of the corresponding instance ‘A believes that · · · E · · · ’ is not guaranteed. Thus, e.g., on the most natural readings of (26a-c), (26c) cannot be validly inferred from (26a) and (26b): (26)

a. Homer believed that the sea is full of water. b. Water = H2 O. c. Homer believed that the sea is full of H2 O.

For the author of the Odyssey presumably knew no chemistry. Similarly, on the most natural readings of (27a-c), (27c) cannot be validly inferred from (27a) and (27b): (27)

a. No rational person believes that Stalingrad = Stalingrad. b. Stalingrad = Volgagrad. c. No rational person believes that Stalingrad = Volgagrad.

Mere rationality, alas, does not confer substantive geographical knowledge. Admittedly, the interpretation of a belief ascription that first comes to mind is sometimes not one on which it obviously violates the Substitutivity Principle. Thus, e.g., it may not be at all obvious that (28c) fails to follow from (28a) and (28b) when (as the pictorial annotation ‘[
Venus]’ is meant to capture) these are thought of as sequentially uttered by someone who publicly ostends Venus in connection with both tokens of the italicized demonstrative: (28)

a. Tom believes that Venus is a planet. b. That [
Venus] = Venus c. Tom believes that that [
Venus] is a planet.

For (28a) is normally heard as implying (29), which, together with (28b), implies (30): (29) Venus is something Tom believes to be a planet. (30)

That [
Venus] is something Tom believes to be a planet.

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And it is normally hard to hear much difference between (30) and (28c). Even here, however, one can get the opposite effect by dint of supplying a suitable (if fanciful) background story. Suppose that Tom has observed Venus and other extraterrestrial planets only at night and that he loudly insists that no extraterrestrial planet is observable during daylight hours. If we now imagine the time of utterance to be shortly after daybreak and the ostension to rely on Venus being seen against the morning sky, it is much easier to hear (28a) and (28b) in such a way that that (28c) does not follow from them. After all, if we were to produce Tom and to ask him, while pointing to Venus, ‘Do you believe that that is a planet?’ (or the equivalent in his language if he does not speak English), he would presumably answer in the negative given his avowed view that other planets can only be seen at night. And there is a reading of (28c) to which this would matter, viz., one on which (28c), unlike (29), would intuitively ascribe to Tom a certain visually demonstrative way of thinking of Venus. This dependence of our ability and inclination to hear a certain reading on background stories is not confined to belief reports employing demonstrative vocabulary. There are further cases like (31), in which one’s inclination to hear a reading on which (31a) and (31b) imply (31c) varies with different assumptions about how the subject arrived at his belief: (31)

a. Igor believes that the cleverest spy is the most successful spy. b. Natasha is (=) the cleverest spy. c. Igor believes that Natasha is the most successful spy.

Suppose we are told that Igor has never had any contact with Natasha but has deduced that the cleverest spy must be the most successful spy from propositions which he believes on general (e.g., statistical) grounds alone: viz., that there is a spy cleverer than any other, that there is a spy more successful than any other, and that no one could be maximally clever at spying without being maximally successful at it. Then we would most likely hear (31a) as ascribing a merely ‘general’ belief to Igor, and our acceptance of (31a) and (31b) would not be likely to induce us to accept (31c). On the other hand, if we are told that Igor formed his belief that the cleverest spy is the most successful spy as a direct result of being introduced to Natasha by name at her KGB retirement celebration and hearing her honored as the world’s cleverest and most successful spy, then it is natural to hear (31c) as being a consequence of (31a) and (31b). Some belief ascriptions with ‘that’-clauses containing denoting terms have readings on which they obey the Strong Existential Generalization Principle, and some do not. Thus, e.g., both (32a) and (32b) would normally be taken to imply (32c): (32)

a. Galileo believed that Venus is a planet. b. Galileo believed that that [
Venus] is a planet. c. Some existing thing is such that Galileo believed that it is a planet.

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In contrast, consider the case of Tom, a classical scholar who remembers every line of the Odyssey and can recite it word-for-word. The truth of (33a) then seems unassailable, but (33b) seems plainly false: (33)

a. Tom believes that Odysseus escaped from the Cyclops. b. Some existing thing is such that Tom believes that it escaped from the Cyclops.

Whatever ontic status (if any) Odysseus and his fellow fictional characters may enjoy does not include existing. On the Actualist view that everything exists—i.e., that there are no non-existing entities—the word ‘existing’ in ‘Some existing thing is such that. . .’ is of course redundant. On the non-Actualist view adopted here, which concedes that some things do not exist (i.e., that some things are non-existing things), a sentence of the sort ‘Some existing thing is such that · · · it · · · ’ implies but is not implied by a sentence of the corresponding sort ‘Something is such that · · · it · · · ’. For the non-Actualist, there is thus a point to distinguishing the Strong Existential Generalization Principle from the following: Weak Existential Generalization Principle: For any denoting term D and variable v foreign to S, if S has the form
· · · D · · ·, then from S one may validly infer
Something v is such that · · · v · · ·. Obviously, one way in which a belief report could fail to obey the strong version of the principle is by failing to obey even the weak version. The non-Actualist will not regard this as the typical case but will take the standard case to be one in which the strong but not the weak version fails. Thus, e.g., a non-Actualist who regards fictional characters as non-existent entities in the domain of ‘something’ will take the standard case to be illustrated by the likes of (33a), which fails to imply (33b) but does (by such a non-Actualist’s lights) imply (34): (34) Something [viz., Odysseus] is such that Tom believes that it escaped from the Cyclops. Indeed, it is an open question whether there are any belief reports to which the Weak Existential Generalization Principle (as understood by the non-Actualist) does not apply. It has been suggested (Zalta, 1988) that the story of Igor rehearsed above provides such a case. The story provided a reading on which (31a) and (31b) together failed to imply (31c). That same reading appears to be one on which (31a) fails to imply even (35a), let alone (35b): (35)

a. Something is such that Igor believes that it is the most successful spy.

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b. Some existing thing is such that Igor believes that it is the most successful spy. However, it is controversial whether this failure of (31a) to imply (35a) constitutes a counterexample to the Weak Existential Generalization Principle. For the status of the ingredient definite description ‘the cleverest spy’ as a genuine denoting term in its own right has been open to dispute ever since Russell first presented his Theory of Descriptions. In later chapters we will undertake a commitment to there being one very special sort of non-actual entity. But we are also persuaded by the Russellian view that natural language definite descriptions are not, logically speaking, denoting terms. So we will not count the foregoing example as a counterexample to the Weak Existential Generalization Principle so long as that principle is restricted to English+ . Indeed, if this principle is understood as restricted to ordinary English, and if English definite descriptions are not counted as denoting terms, then the principle seems to have no clear exceptions at all.8 (Alleged counterexamples using vacuous demonstratives run afoul of serious doubts as to whether belief reports whose content-clauses contain such expressions actually say anything that could be literally true or false—on which, cf. Chapter 9.) As propositional attitude ascriptions, then, belief reports are thoroughly intensional: each has a permissible reading on which violates one or more of the four Extensionality Principles. Of course, ascriptions of belief and other propositional attitudes are by no means unique in this respect. Sentences of the form ‘Necessarily, P’ (even where ‘P’ itself is purely extensional) provide familiar, uncontroversial counterexamples to the two Replacement Principles. Whether such modal sentences also provide counterexamples to Substitutivity and Strong Existential Generalization is a matter of controversy, the outcome depending heavily on whether definite descriptions are to be counted as denoting terms and whether names and demonstratives are to be regarded as rigid designators (i.e., as picking out the same thing with respect to every possible world in which that thing exists9 ). Insofar as there is current consensus on such matters, it favors the view that the mere presence of modal operators like ‘necessarily’ and ‘possibly’ does not, by itself, threaten either Substitutivity or Strong Existential Generalization.10 1.5

HYPER-INTENSIONALITY

There are, of course, related principles violated by every belief ascription (on some reading thereof) but not by every modal sentence. Consider, e.g., the modalized versions of the two Replacement principles: Replacement Principle for necessarily coextensive predicates: For any n-ary predicate expressions P and Q of English+ (n ≥ 1), if P occurs in S, then from S and
Necessarily, for any objects x1 , . . . , xn , either P(x1 , . . . , xn ) and

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Q(x1 , . . . , xn ), or neither P(x1 , . . . , xn ) nor Q(x1 , . . . , xn ) one may validly infer any sentence that results from replacing one or more occurrences of P in S by Q. Replacement Principle for necessarily equivalent sentences: For any English sentences P and Q, if P occurs in S, then from S and
Necessarily, either P and Q, or neither P nor Q one may validly infer any sentence that results from replacing one or more occurrences of P in S by Q. Modal operators are insensitive to the differences between necessarily coextensive predicates and necessarily equivalent sentences, but belief ascriptions are not. The strategy used earlier to show the failure of the Replacement Principle for coextensive predicates already involved necessarily coextensive predicates and so equally shows that the modalized version of the principle fails for belief reports. Moreover, our beliefs are no more closed under logical equivalence than they are under material equivalence. Someone could believe, e.g., that every set has a choice-function without ipso facto believing that every set can be placed in 1-1 correspondence with some ordinal. But the set-theoretic propositions in question (which formulate the Axiom of Choice and the Numeration Theorem respectively) are necessarily equivalent. Finally, let us broaden the Principle of Substitutivity of Identity by extending the class of (putative) denoting terms to include predicate terms and sentences as well, taking predicate terms to denote properties or relations and sentences to denote propositions. Fully spelled out by cases, the broadened Principle of Substitutivity of Identity will then read as follows (where
S(E//D) abbreviates
the result of substituting E for one or more occurrences of D in S : Principle of Substitutivity of Identity [Broadened Version]: 1. For any proper names, demonstratives, or mass terms D and E of English+ , if S contains D, then from S and an equation of the form
D = E  [or
E = D] one may validly infer S(E//D); and 2. For any n-ary predicate terms F and G of English+ (n ≥ 1), if S contains F, then from S and an equation of the form
being x1 , . . . , xn such that F(x1 , . . . , xn ) = being x1 , . . . , xn such that G(x1 , . . . , xn ) [or its converse] one may validly infer S(G//F); and 3. For any sentences P and Q of English+ , if S contains P [i.e., if P is a subformula of S], then from S and an equation of the form
the proposition that P = the proposition that Q [or its converse] one may validly infer S(Q//P). (Intuitions about propositional identity tend to be weaker than intuitions about the identity of properties and relations. For expository purposes we provisionally assume that atomic propositions R1 (a1 , . . . , an ) and R2 (b1 , . . . , bn ) are identical iff R1 = R2 and aj = bj for 1 ≤ j ≤ n.)

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The broadened Principle of Substitutivity of Identity would thus license both inferences like (36), in which the locus of substitution is the predicate position, as well as inferences like (37), in which the locus of substitution is the subject position: (36)

Ralph is a lawyer. Being a lawyer = being an attorney. ∴ Ralph is an attorney.

(37)

Celibacy is a virtue. Celibacy = Abstinence from sexual relations. ∴ Abstinence from sexual relations is a virtue.

Since it extends to sentences, the broadened Substitutivity Principle will also license inferences like (38): (38)

It is logically impossible that Lincoln was a lawyer but not a lawyer. The proposition that Lincoln was a lawyer = the proposition that Lincoln was an attorney. ∴ It is logically impossible that that Lincoln was an attorney but not a lawyer.

In contrast, many belief reports violate this broadened version of the Substitutivity Principle on their most natural readings. While (36), (37) and (38) above were valid, the corresponding inferences (39), (40) and (41) below are not valid when the constituent sentences receive their normal interpretations: (39)

No rational person believes that some lawyers are not lawyers. Being a lawyer = being an attorney. ∴ No rational person believes that some lawyers are not attorneys.

(40)

No rational person believes that celibacy is not the same property as celibacy. Celibacy = Abstinence from sexual relations. ∴ No rational person believes that celibacy is not the same property as abstinence from sexual relations.

(41)

No rational person believes that Lincoln was a lawyer but not a lawyer.

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The proposition that Lincoln was a lawyer = the proposition that Lincoln was an attorney. ∴ No rational person believes that Lincoln was an attorney but not a lawyer.

In each of (39)-(41) the premises are plausibly true. But there are certainly imaginable situations in which a perfectly rational but suitably ignorant person might be duped (by lies, misread literature, etc.) into thinking, on the one hand, that lawyers are to attorneys in the American judicial system as barristers are to solicitors in the British system and, on the other hand, that celibacy is a religiously based abstinence from sexual relations. Regarding predicates as denoting terms has the consequence that sentences which fail the broadened version of the Substitutivity Principle also fail the modalized Replacement Principles for predicates and sentences. For predicates denoting the same property are necessarily coextensive, and sentences denoting the same proposition are necessarily equivalent. So if a sentence permits the internal interchange of necessarily coextensive predicates and sentences salva veritate it must similarly permit the interchange of predicates denoting the same property and sentences denoting the same proposition, hence failure to tolerate the latter kind of exchange implies failure to tolerate the former kind. Failing the modalized Replacement Principles for predicates and sentences is not, however, sufficient for failing the broadened Substitutivity Principle. It is possible to conform to the latter principle despite failing the former because, on the one hand, even necessarily coextensive properties might be distinct (as is plausibly the case, e.g., with Triangularity and Trilaterality, or with the properties being a natural number between 1 and 3 and being an even prime number) and, on the other hand, even necessarily equivalent propositions might be distinct (as, e.g., the necessary proposition that 2 is prime is intuitively distinct from the equally necessary, hence necessarily equivalent, proposition that 7 + 5 = 12). Interestingly, failure to conform to the broadened Substitutivity Principle separates belief ascriptions not only from modal sentences (when the latter contain no psychological vocabulary) but also from attributions of ‘direct-object’ intentional states made using certain intensional transitive verbs. Consider, e.g., the intensional transitives ‘exalt’ and ‘depict’ (neither of which is obviously analyzable as a disguised propositional attitude). The inferences (42) and (43) seem perfectly valid:11 (42) Tom exalts celibacy. Celibacy = Abstinence from sexual relations. ∴ Tom exalts abstinence from sexual relations.

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(43) Tom depicted a warlock. Being a warlock = being a male witch. ∴ Tom depicted a male witch.

Where the intentional relation in question is directed at a particular rather than a universal, matters are a bit more complicated. ‘Tom worships the Sun’ and ‘the Sun = the Star around which Earth orbits’ seems to imply ‘Tom worships the Star around which Earth orbits’. But if the putative individual is a non-existent, the status of the relevant equations may not be clear. Do ‘Tom worships Hera’ and ‘Hera = the wife of Zeus’ entail ‘Tom worships the wife of Zeus’? If it is possible for ‘Hera = the wife of Zeus’ to be literally true or false, despite Hera and Zeus being non-existent, intuition seems to favor the validity of the argument. Otherwise, it is not clear what one should say. Also, if the intentional relation in question is not primitive but can be analyzed in terms of propositional attitudes, the substitution inference may fail—but for reasons traceable solely to its involving those attitudes. Something like this probably explains why there are not only readings of the sentences involved on which the inference (44) is valid but also readings of those sentences on which the inference is invalid: (44)

Oedipus lusts after the woman he just met. The woman Oedipus just met = his mother. ∴ Oedipus lusts after his mother.

For ‘A lusts after B’ is plausibly analyzed as involving a propositional attitude ascription like ‘A wants it to be the case that A-self has sexual relations with B’, so the reading of (44) on which it is invalid is just the one giving the narrowest possible scope to the quantifier-phrases ‘the woman he just met’ and ‘the mother of Oedipus’ in the first premise and conclusion respectively. Let us say, then, that a sentence of English is hyper-intensional on a given reading just in case the broadened Substitutivity of Identity Principle fails for it on that reading. Any belief ascription in the canonical ‘A believes that P’ format will have at least one admissible interpretation on which it is hyper-intensional. This is clearly so when ‘P’ contains non-logical vocabulary, and it remains so even in the limiting case in which ‘P’ is a wholly general sentence like ‘Everything is the same as something or other’. For, insofar as we have intuitions about propositional identity, ‘Everything is the same as something or other’and ‘For each thing there are one or more things with which it is identical’ would seem to express the very same proposition. But the behavior of some beginning logic students on symbolization

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quizzes attests to the invalidity of the inference (45): (45)

Even the dullest logic student believes that if everything is numerically the same as something or other, then everything is numerically the same as something or other. The proposition that everything is numerically the same as something or other = the proposition that for each thing there are one or more things with which it is identical. ∴ Even the dullest logic student believes that if everything is numerically the same as something or other, then for each thing there are one or more things with which it is identical.

It is their hyper-intensionality that marks out ascriptions of belief (and other propositional attitudes) as special among intensional sentences, distinguishing them even from intensional transitive constructions (at least to the extent that the latter are not analyzable in terms of propositional attitudes).

1.6

OPACITY AND TRANSPARENCY

The locus of the substitution failures in a sentence of the form ‘A believes that P’ is typically the embedded sentence ‘P’. Of course, by putting in place of ‘A’ a definite description that incorporates propositional attitude ascriptions—e.g., a description of the sort ‘the person who believes that · · · D · · · ’—it is possible to construct examples in which the subject term ‘A’ also resists substitution, but these cases are parasitic on substitution failures in the sentences embedded within those terms. An explanation of hyper-intensionality will need a more discriminating vocabulary to sort these matters out. From Quine (1960) we borrow the ideas of the ‘substitutional transparency/opacity’and ‘quantificational transparency/opacity’of a term position in a sentence (or complex term) on one of its admissible readings. Since natural language definite descriptions are not being treated as denoting terms at all, let alone as complex ones, the ‘positions’ they superficially occupy will not be counted as genuine term positions. But since the class of denoting terms has been expanded to include predicate terms and sentences, complex denoting terms will include the likes of ‘(the property) being F’, ‘(the relation) x bearing R to y’, and ‘(the proposition) that S’, in which the optional parenthetical phrases may be regarded as pleonastic. Where a and b are denoting terms, v is a variable, and a occupies the term position pE in the expression E, let E(b/a[pE ]) be the result of substituting b for a at the position pE and let E(v/a[pE ]) be the result of substituting v for a at the

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position pE . Then, relative to a given reading of a sentence S: The term position pS in S is said to be substitutionally transparent or substitutionally opaque according as the inference from S and
b = a to S(b/a[pS ]) is valid or not on that reading of S; and The term position pS in S is said to be quantificationally transparent or quantificationally opaque according as the inference from S to
Some existing thing v is such that S(v/a[pS ] [v being foreign to E] is valid or not on that reading of S. Similarly, relative to a given reading of a complex term T : The term position pT in T is said to be substitutionally transparent or substitutionally opaque according as the inference from
b = a to
T = T (b/a[pT ]) is valid or not on that reading of T ; and The term position pT in T is said to be quantificationally transparent or quantificationally opaque according as the inference from the inference from
T = T  to
Some existing thing v is such that T = T (v/a[pT ])—or to
Some existing thing v is such that T (v/a[pT ]) = T —is valid or not on that reading of T [v being foreign to E]. It follows from the definitions above that a sentence is hyper-intensional on a reading just in case, as so interpreted, one or more term positions in it are substitutionally opaque. Derivatively, a particular occurrence of a term T in a sentence or complex term E may be called transparent/opaque in one of these ways when it occupies a term position in E that is correspondingly transparent/opaque. Similarly, a term T may be said to occur transparently/opaquely in a sentence or complex term E in one of these ways when there is at least one occurrence of it in E that is correspondingly transparent/opaque. Substitutional opacity/transparency and quantificational opacity/transparency are not necessarily coextensive phenomena. We saw, e.g., that the position occupied by ‘water’ in ‘Homer believed that the sea is full of water’ is substitutionally opaque. But, intuitively at least, that position is not quantificationally opaque, because ‘Homer believed that the sea is full of water’ seems to imply ‘Some existing thing [viz., water] is such that Homer believed that the sea is full of it’. That the word ‘water’ may not ‘merely’ be referring to water in that sentential context does not preclude its referring to water, an actual substance. Indeed, if natural language definite descriptions are not counted as denoting terms, it seems that clear cases of quantificational opacity will arise only in sentences or complex terms containing proper names like ‘Zeus’ and ‘Phlogiston’ (which, if they name anything at all, presumably name non-actual things). Since the proper treatment of sentences containing so-called empty names is a large and controversial matter in its own

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right, we propose to sidestep it here and to concentrate only on belief ascriptions all of whose constituent terms are presumed to denote real things (individuals, properties, or relations). (Some reasons for doing so are to be found in Chapter 9). So it is substitutional transparency and opacity that will concern us hereafter. Accordingly, unless otherwise indicated, we shall henceforth understand ‘transparent’ and ‘opaque’ as short for ‘substitutionally transparent’ and ‘substitutionally opaque’ respectively. Also, we shall henceforth use ‘Substitutivity Principle’ to mean the broadened Substitutivity Principle, which counts both predicate terms and sentences as denoting terms. 1.7

DE RE / DE DICTO / DE SE

In discussions of ascriptions of propositional attitudes, one frequently encounters the technical expressions ‘de re’ and ‘de dicto’. Unfortunately, it is not always perfectly clear just what this terminology means. So before availing ourselves of it, some definitions are in order. The original home of the ‘de re’ / ‘de dicto’ terminology was the discussion of alethic modality, where necessity or possibility de dicto concerns the modal status of a proposition (dictum), and necessity or possibility de re concerns the modal character of a certain property of an object (res). Thus, e.g., a sentence like (46) The number of planets is necessarily odd. is often said to be ambiguous: taken one way, it (incorrectly) attributes necessity to the proposition The number of planets is odd ; taken another way, it (correctly) attributes to the number of planets (viz., the number 9) the property being necessarily odd. Since the former necessity is de dicto and the latter de re, it is natural to call the two interpretations of (46) its de dicto and de re readings respectively. This way of talking suggests, of course, that the de dicto/de re distinction is fundamentally ontological (a matter of the metaphysics of propositional necessity and essential properties) and only derivatively a linguistic matter. Now as far as superficial grammar goes, saying of the proposition a is F that it is necessary and saying of the object a that it has the property being necessarily F are respectively analogous to saying of the proposition a is F that it is believed by so-and-so and saying of the object a that it has the property being believed by so-and-so to be F. This grammatical analogy has encouraged use of the ‘de re’ / ‘de dicto’ terminology in contemporary discussions of the propositional attitudes as well. Thus, e.g., (47a) is often held to be ambiguous, having one reading on which it is synonymous with (47b) and another on which it is synonymous with (47c): (47)

a. Igor believes that the cleverest spy is a successful spy. b. The proposition the cleverest spy is a successful spy is believed by Igor.

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c. The cleverest spy has the property being believed by Igor to be a successful spy. Taken in the first way, (47a) is said to ascribe a ‘de dicto belief’, and taken in the second way (47a) is said to ascribe a ‘de re belief’. Unfortunately, this talk of ascribing de re or de dicto beliefs can be misleading, owing to an ambiguity in the noun ‘belief’. Sometimes ‘belief’ means belief-state (type or token), as when we say that beliefs causally interact with desires and lead to the formation of certain intentions. But sometimes ‘belief’ means thoughtcontent, as when we say that certain beliefs are true, false, shared by many people, etc. Now when ‘belief’ means thought-content, talk of reporting de re or de dicto beliefs suggests that belief-states reported in these different ways ipso facto have different contents. One who takes a belief-state to involve a relation to a proposition might then be tempted to suppose that the content of a de dicto belief is a wholly general proposition and the content of a de re belief is a singular proposition. Thus, e.g., the two readings of (47a) might be seen as relating Igor to two quite different propositions—perhaps to a general proposition like There is a cleverest spy and she is a successful spy in the case of (47b) and to a special singular proposition like That woman is a successful spy in the case of (47c). On the other hand, if belief-state is meant, then talk of ascribing de re or de dicto beliefs suggests that there are different kinds of believing, hence that the verb ‘believe’ is ambiguous as between relational and notional senses. Such a view may be coupled with the ‘different contents’ view alluded to above: e.g., it might be held that notional believing relates an agent to a proposition whereas relational believing relates an agent to an n-tuple of objects and an n-ary attribute. Of course, both suggestions might ultimately turn out to be correct: perhaps there really are different kinds of belief relations, and perhaps each relates its subject to different sorts of entity. But it would be tendentious in the extreme to saddle use of the ‘de re / de dicto’ idiom with such heavy philosophical baggage in advance of any demonstrated need for it. In the interest of neutrality, then, we shall initially use ‘de re’ and ‘de dicto’ merely to signify ways of reporting attitudes. Where ‘V’ is an attitudinal verb, a report of the form ‘A Vs that P’ is purely de dicto/purely de re iff every term position in the embedded sentence ‘P’ is an opaque/transparent position in ‘A Vs that P’. Of course, there can be mixed attitude reports which are neither purely de dicto nor purely de re—i.e., in which some but not all term positions in the embedded sentence ‘P’ are transparent positions in ‘A Vs that P’. We shall use ‘de re’, unqualified, to cover both the pure de re and the mixed cases. A de re report may be said to be de re with respect to any item denoted by a term occupying a transparent position in that report. An important special case is provided by reports of the form ‘A Vs that (· · · M · · ·)’, where ‘M’ is either the explicitly reflexive construction ‘he himself’ / ‘she herself’ or a bare personal pronoun that is taken in context to be short for such a construction. Self-regarding attitude reports of this form are nowadays called ‘de

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se’. The question arises as to whether, in such a case, the embedded expression ‘M’ is to be regarded as a term, and whether the position it occupies is to count as a term position in ‘(· · · M · · ·)’. While it would be possible to treat such reflexive pronouns as free-standing terms (as Frege apparently did), it will prove technically more useful to regard them as surface reflections of underlying bound variables— assimilating ‘(· · · M · · ·)’ to ‘(· · · x-self · · ·)’—and thus not to count the superficial positions these pronouns occupy as authentic term positions in the sense invoked in our definition of opacity and transparency. Accordingly, the status of a de se report ‘A Vs that (· · · x-self · · ·)’ as purely de dicto, purely de re, or a mixed case will depend solely on the opacity or transparency of any genuine term positions therein that fall within the ‘that’-clause. Now the ability to explain the relevant data about belief reports of the foregoing sorts without proliferating kinds of belief relations or kinds of entities to which they may relate us, while perhaps not strictly an adequacy condition on theories of the propositional attitudes and their ascription, would certainly be a methodological merit of any candidate theory. The theory TC to be constructed in Chapters 4-5 will have this feature. Although by the lights of TC the entities (viz., thoughtcontents) to which the belief relation relates the believer will all be of the same ontological category, there will nonetheless prove to be internal differences among them that generate a derivative, ontological sense in which one could sensibly speak of thought-contents themselves as being de re, de dicto or de se (see Section 4.3.8 of Chapter 4). But until we are in a position to characterize these thought-contents and hence to spell out this derivative sense, we shall use ‘de re’, ‘de dicto’ and ‘de se’ only to signify modes of reporting.12 (Not surprisingly, it will turn out that what is alleged by a belief report which is de re / de dicto / de se in the linguistic sense is, in effect, that the subject bears the unitary belief relation to a thought-content which is de re / de dicto / de se in TC’s special ontological sense.) NOTES 1 This leaves open whether someone who is connected to Socrates and wisdom in the relevant way could have been in the same physical state without being so connected. If intentional states supervene locally on non-intentional individualistic facts about persons, then the answer is negative. If intentional states supervene (not locally but) globally on non-intentional facts about persons and their external environments, then the answer is affirmative. 2 For the sake of brevity, ‘if and only if’ will often be written ‘iff’. 3 The first conjunct of (7) follows from (6). The second conjunct of (7) follows from the truth of such sentences as ‘Homer exists and Homer believes that Zeus exists, but Zeus does not exist’. Finally, the third conjunct of (7) follows from the truth of sentences like ‘Zeus = the purely mythical king of the Greek gods; and Homer believes that Zeus is a god, but Homer does not believe that the purely mythical king of the Greek gods exists’. 4 As we shall use these expressions, ‘exists’ and ‘is actual’ are synonyms. Unfortunately, some philosophers use ‘actual’ in ways that involve a contrast between actual existents and non-actual existents. Frege, an Actualist in our proprietary sense, characterizes actuality (Wirklichkeit) in terms of concreteness and causal involvement, maintaining that there also exist non-actual objects such as

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numbers and senses. David Lewis, whose modal realism makes him an Actualist in our sense, treats ‘actual’ as an indexical like ‘here’ (cf. Lewis, 1986). So for Lewis too there exist non-actual things in the sense that from the standpoint of any given world there exist things not belonging to that world. 5 This result may seem to run afoul of a certain principle of parity—proposed and defended by Gary Rosenkrantz (1993: 13–14)—which maintains that if one thing has an haecceity then everything does. His argument for this principle depends, however, upon the dubious assumption that it is always legitimate to infer from the truth of a sentence of the form ‘(∃x)(x = N)’ that there is a corresponding proposition that something is identical to N, hence a corresponding property (haecceity) being identical to N. But in Chapters 4 and 5 we adopt for the articulation of our theory a formal system (derived from Zalta 1988) within which (a) there are two basic kinds of predications—familiar exemplification predications and special ‘encoding’ predications—; (b) ‘=’ is defined via certain encoding predications; and (c) sentences containing encoding predications or expressions which are defined in terms of them do not generate additional properties, relations or propositions. (Indeed, in this formalism one cannot legitimately form λ-expressions that would purport to denote such items: e.g., both ‘[λx x = N]’ and ‘[λ (∃x)(x = N)]’ are ill-formed. Only for identity of ordinary objects (symbolized ‘=E ’), which is subject to the Identity of Indiscernibles, are we allowed to form property-designators like ‘[λx x =E N]’ and proposition-designators like ‘[λ (∃x)(x =E N)]’. Of course, Rosenkrantz’s principle of parity holds trivially for any ordinary object o, since [λx x =E o] will be its haecceity. 6 The theory of abstract objects presented in Zalta (1988) allows that an abstract individual might encode any first-order properties whatever, even contradictory ones like being square and being circular—though of course no object could simultaneously exemplify them. The abstract individual which encodes just these two properties might be pressed into service for the analysis of discourse and reasoning about ‘the square circle’. 7 From a non-Actualist perspective, any existent being, x, is ipso facto discernible from any nonexistent being, y, because x will always exemplify a property (viz., existing/being actual) that y does not. If a type theory is imposed, then for each logical type t there will be a discernibility relation [λxt yt (∃F )(Fx & ∼ Fy)] for items of that type. So every existent of a given type would bear that relation to every non-existent of that type. 8 Our ultimate theory of thought-contents and the belief relation (Chapters 4-5) will be articulated in an intensional formal language which, for purely technical purposes, contains certain (rigidified) definite descriptions as singular terms subject to a Free Logic. Some of these descriptive terms will be axiomatically guaranteed to denote certain non-actual entities; the remaining, ‘ordinary’ descriptions carry no denotational warranty. Consequently, the analogue of the Weak Existential Generalization Principle will not hold for sentences of that language that contain any ordinary definite descriptions, but will hold for all other sentences of our formalism. 9 This informal account of rigidity leaves open the question of what, if anything, a rigid designator of an object x designates at worlds in which x does not exist. Following Salmon (1981), we might call a rigid designator of x persistently rigid if it designates nothing at all with respect to worlds in which x does not exist; and we might call a rigid designator of x obstinately rigid if it continues to designate x even in worlds in which x does not exist. Recanati (1993) reminds us that Kripke’s notion of a rigid designator should not be confused with the richer ‘Millean’ notion of a directly referential term, since the latter involves the idea of a rigid designator lacking any connotation that determines what it designates at a given world. 10 Thus, e.g., if officially recognized denoting terms like proper names are treated as rigid designators, then there is no way in which sentences like ‘Necessarily, if Mark Twain existed, then he was Mark Twain’ and ‘Mark Twain = Sam Clemens’ could both be true without ‘Necessarily, if Mark Twain existed, then he was Sam Clemens’ also being true. 11 Since there are no witches, what is presumably at issue in (43) is that ‘narrow-scope’ or ‘nonspecific’ reading of its quantifier phrase complement that is peculiar to intensional transitives.

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12 Occasionally, in discussing an author (e.g., Roderick Chisholm) who uses ‘de re’, ‘de dicto’, and

‘de se’ as modifiers of ‘belief’ and ‘believes’, we shall lapse into similar usage on stylistic grounds. Even so, remarks like ‘A believes de dicto that P’ or ‘A has the de dicto belief that P’ are still to be understood as short for the more cumbersome ‘ “A believes that P” is true on its de dicto reading’ or ‘A has the belief reported de dicto by “A believes that P” ’.

CHAPTER 2

ADEQUACY CONDITIONS AND FAILED THEORIES

As a prelude to the technicalities, the present Chapter formulates some major adequacy conditions on the project at hand, sketches certain historically influential theories of belief—those of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Roderick Chisholm—and shows how they fail to satisfy various of these requirements. In later Chapters, useful elements of these failed theories will be incorporated into our own account in a way that ensures that the resulting view meets all the relevant adequacy conditions. 2.1

SOME GENERAL ADEQUACY CONDITIONS

The proposed conditions are of two sorts: metaphysical constraints on any account of the nature of belief and semantical constraints on any account of the truth conditions of belief ascriptions. To begin with, a candidate theory B of the nature of belief is adequate only if B satisfies at least the following metaphysical requirements (I)-(VII): I. B should provide an ontological assay of belief-states that grounds their intentionality (in all four of the senses distinguished in the previous chapter). In brief, B must provide an account of what thought-contents are, how they figure in states of belief, how they determine conditions of satisfaction for those states, how these conditions of satisfaction may have various items as constituents, and how states of belief, as relations to thought-contents, involve relations that are both existence- (hence participation-) independent and concept-dependent. II. B must permit generalization in some natural way to propositional attitudes other than belief. That is, B should suggest what is common to beliefs, intentions, desires, and the like qua contentful psychological attitudes. (Though perhaps not a strict adequacy condition, forging a link between propositional attitude reports and indirect speech reports would certainly be a nice-making feature in view of the many obvious parallels between the logical behavior of ‘believes that’ and ‘says that’ constructions.) 39

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III. With the possible exception of quotation names, constructions employed by B must neither overtly nor covertly evince substitutional opacity: B should not exploit the very features it is trying to explain (or explain away). Whether or not an exception must be made for standard quotation names depends on whether such a name q of an expression e is counted as containing a genuine occurrence of e, or is instead regarded as a semantically simple (albeit suggestively shaped) name of e. To avoid the need for special dispensation, we shall officially treat quotation names in the latter way—as semantically unstructured—hence will regard the apparent occurrence of ‘Cicero’ in ‘Cicero’ as spurious, like the specious occurrence of ‘can’ in ‘canary’.1 IV. B must usefully connect with the body of issues about the mechanics of believing. How does one get related to a thought-content by the belief relation? How can being so related to such an entity have any causal-explanatory power anent one’s behavior? Insofar as these and similar questions are left dangling, we lack a psychologically plausible picture of what beliefs are. V. B must not invoke unusual entities—complexes, senses, propositions, or whatever—unless it provides both existence-conditions and identityconditions for them. This is an ontological requirement and must be sharply distinguished from the demand for epistemic ‘criteria’ of existence and identity. To specify what it is for things of a certain putative kind to exist or to be identical with one another need not be to specify how one could tell (i.e., come to know) whether they exist or are identical. VI. B must provide an account of thought-contents on which they are potentially public. In other words, B must allow that different people can take the same or different attitudes towards the very same thought-content. In connection with the semantics of belief reports, B must thus provide for the possible truth of reports of the forms ‘Everybody believes that S’, ‘Many people believe that S’, ‘There is something that everyone believes’, etc. (This is closely connected with the generalization requirement mentioned above, for we would like to be able to handle locutions like ‘Fred said something that everyone believes’ and ‘Bob doesn’t believe anything unless he wants it to be true’ as straightforward cases of quantification over thought-contents.) VII. If B analyses believing that P in terms of its being the case that Q, then this analysis, when applied to nested beliefs, should not succumb to the Paradox of Analysis by entailing that to believe that X believes that P = to believe that Q. Otherwise, any account of the belief that P which, like Fregean theories and many of their rivals, invokes items not overtly mentioned in ‘P’—e.g., senses, mental representations, possible worlds, causal chains, etc.—will be doomed to failure. For one could presumably believe that X believes that P without thereby believing (indeed, while explicitly disbelieving) that X is related to any such additional foreign items (cf. Forbes (1993)).

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Furthermore, any semantics S for belief ascriptions will itself be adequate only if S satisfies the semantical requirements (VIII)-(XI): VIII. S must systematically sort out the different truth conditions attaching to the various possible pure and mixed de re and de dicto readings of (non-iterated) belief ascriptions in a way that captures the logical relations between these various readings. As an example of the effect of this variety of readings, consider the arguments (1)-(2): (1)

a. Fred believes that Stalin was a tyrant. b. Stalin = Iosif Dzhugashvili. ∴ c. Fred believes that Iosif Dzhugashvili was a tyrant.

(2)

a. Fred believes that Stalin was a tyrant. b. Being a tyrant = being a despot. ∴ c. Fred believes that Stalin was a despot.

It appears that any combination of verdicts about the validity or invalidity of (1)-(2) is such that at least one reading of the first premise and conclusion of each will support it. S must accommodate this appearance, either (as we shall) by accepting it as veridical and explaining why things are as they seem, or by rejecting it as delusory and explaining how so many people have been misled into thinking that such a variety of readings is semantically possible. IX. S must capture what is distinctive about so-called de se belief reports and explain their relation to corresponding de re and de dicto belief reports. Consider, e.g., (3) and (4): (3)

John believes that he himself is in danger.

(4)

John believes that John is in danger.

Why does (3) seem logically stronger than (4) when (4) is taken de re with respect to the embedded name ‘John’ but logically independent of (4) when the latter is taken purely de dicto? And what is it about the greater strength of (3) that allows (3) but not (4) to explain certain behavior on John’s part in special situations? (E.g., (3), but not (4), seems to explain why John, suffering from amnesia and hence ignorant of his own identity, curls up in a ball at the sight of a charging grizzly bear). A closely related issue concerns the influence of context on the relative interpretation of belief reports of the form ‘I believe that I am F’ and those of the form ‘N believes that I am F’ where ‘N’ is a term other than ‘I’. Consider, e.g., the following scenario: Bob [addressing Ted] first says: ‘I believe that I am overweight.’ Bob [addressing Ted] then says: ‘You believe that I am overweight.’

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It is natural to give the first sentence Bob utters a de se reading and to treat the second as a de dicto ascription to Ted of a belief which has the same truth condition as the belief Bob avows (viz., Bob’s being overweight) but a different thought-content. On this interpretation, Bob avows in his first utterance the belief that he-himself is overweight, but in his second utterance he ascribes to Ted the different belief that he [Bob-as-contextually-identified] is overweight. So construed, the ‘I’ in the contentclause of the latter ascription occurs opaquely and is not replaceable salva vertitate by just any term referring to Bob. (Crudely put, it might be contextually required that Ted think of Bob indexically as ‘you’or ‘the man addressing me’or some such.) Yet it is also possible to hear both sentences as de dicto reports of beliefs with the same thought-content, viz., that he [Bob-as-contextually-identified] is overweight. This would be natural, e.g., in a context in which Bob and Ted are discussing how Bob looks in certain childhood photographs. Correlatively, if Bob and Ted each utter ‘I believe that I am overweight’, there is a clear sense in which the beliefs they express have the same content despite being about different people: viz., each man expresses the belief that he-himself is overweight. In this case, the second occurrence of ‘I’ in the sentence they utter could without loss of meaning be replaced by ‘I-myself’, making it clear that each man is avowing a de se belief. But there is also a de dicto reading of their two utterances on which the beliefs they express differ in content in a way not reducible to the mere fact that they are about different people, a reading on which Bob is avowing the belief that he [Bob-as-contextually-identified] is overweight, but on which Ted’s utterance avows the belief that he [Ted-as-contextually-identified] is overweight—as, e.g., in a context in which Bob and Ted are comparing childhood photographs of each other, or standing side by side in front of a mirror at their health club. S must be able to provide thought-contents that support all these distinctions. X. S must extend in a natural way to iterated belief ascriptions, i.e., to attributions of nested beliefs of the sort reported by (5): (5)

Mortimer believes that Natasha believes that the earth is flat.

In particular, if S takes opacity as a semantic datum, it should allow that reports of beliefs about beliefs have the full range of purely de dicto, purely de re, and mixed interpretations that they intuitively appear to have. XI. Finally, S must solve or dissolve standard conundrums about ascribing beliefs to people who are variously confused, deceived, or mistaken about certain linguistic and/or extra-linguistic facts. Two such puzzles in particular, one owing to Saul Kripke (1979) and the other to David Austin (1990), must be addressed by any semantics for belief reports. Kripke’s puzzle concerns Pierre, a monolingual French-speaker who learns English later in life by the direct immersion method. As a child in France, while still monolingual, Pierre is told stories (in French) about a beautiful city called ‘Londres’

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and comes to assent to ‘Londres est jolie’. Later, he is transported to an ugly slum in London and forced to learn English from scratch, without benefit of interpreters. He learns that ‘London’ is the name of the surrounding city. Being confined to the slum, he naturally comes to assent to ‘London is not pretty’. Of course, he is unaware that the city he calls ‘Londres’ when speaking his native French is the very same city that he calls ‘London’ when speaking his newly acquired English. Now our usual practices of translation and de dicto belief ascription, Kripke maintains, rely upon the following two principles: The Disquotation Principle (‘S’ being schematic for any univocal sentence of English free of indexicals, demonstratives, and the like): If a normal English speaker, on reflection, sincerely assents to ‘S’, then he believes that S. The Translation Principle: For any languages L and L , if a sentence σ of L is true-in-L, then any (correct) translation of σ into L must be true-in-L . The looming paradox Kripke finds here is that these two principles—together with the acceptability of any instance of the Tarski schema ‘ “S” is true ≡ S’—seem to license both the de dicto report ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty’ and the de dicto report ‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty’, hence to warrant attributing to Pierre contradictory beliefs, despite the fact that Pierre may simultaneously be supposed perfectly rational and logically infallible!2 Kripke, who seeks to undermine arguments for opacity that are based on our standard principles of belief ascription, concludes that these principles are somehow flawed and hence that the arguments based on them are untrustworthy. In contrast, any theory of belief and the truth-conditions of belief attributions that accepts opacity as a genuine semantic datum had better dispel the air of paradox created by the story of Pierre. David Austin’s puzzle concerns Smith, a medical student who has learned to focus his eyes independently of one another. As a result, Smith is able to enjoy two independent visual fields under certain circumstances—e.g., when looking at a specimen through a microscope with his left eye and, at the same time, looking at a second specimen though a second microscope with his right eye. Now imagine an experiment in which, instead of two microscopes, two independently adjustable tubes are attached to Smith’s eyes and directed by the experimenter at a uniformly illuminated sheet of red plastic, so that the contents of Smith’s two visual fields are two qualitatively indiscernible red spots. Smith knows all the details of the experimental set-up except one: viz., the particular way in which the experimenter has subsequently oriented the two tubes vis-à-vis the red plastic sheet. In the context of the experiment, Smith uses tokens of ‘this’ to refer to the red spot he sees with his left eye, and he uses tokens of ‘that’ to refer to the red spot he sees with his right eye. Smith acknowledges the spots’ color by saying to himself ‘This is red and that is red’ and acknowledges their existence by saying to himself ‘This = this and

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that = that’. Knowing that he cannot tell how the experimenter has oriented the tubes, Smith then wonders aloud ‘Is this identical to that?’. Unbeknownst to Smith, however, the two tubes are pointed at exactly the same spot on the red plastic sheet. The trouble begins when we ask whether Smith believes what he would express by ‘This = that’. One the one hand, there is reason to think that it is not that case that Smith believes what he would express by ‘This = that’, for otherwise he would have no ground for asking ‘Is this identical to that?’. On the other hand, there is reason to think that Smith does believe what he would express by ‘This = that’. For in the context of Smith’s employment of them, ‘this’ and ‘that’ both refer to the very same spot, and the phenomenal contents of Smith’s two visual fields are ex hypothesi intrinsically indiscernible. So it seems that ‘This = this’ and ‘That = that’ must have for him the very same content. If so, then ‘This = that’ will also have that content, in which case Smith, who presumably believes both what he expressed by saying ‘This = this’ and what he expressed by saying ‘That = that’, must also (paradoxically) believe what he would express by ‘This = that’. Any theory of belief as a dyadic relation to a content-entity (e.g., a Fregean Thought or Russellian proposition) must find a way to avoid this paradox. Only two escape routes are open to such a theory: on the one hand, it can attempt to distinguish Smith’s three beliefs by finding suitably distinct entities to serve as contents of his utterances of ‘This = this’, ‘That = that’, and ‘This = that’; or, on the other hand, it can attempt to identify Smith’s three beliefs by finding grounds to deny that his asking ‘Is this identical to that?’ shows that he fails to believe what he would express by ‘This = that’. In addition to meeting the foregoing general requirements, both B and S should of course be able to answer any further, theory-specific objections that have been raised against accounts of the particular kind they offer. In the case of the sample theories adduced in this chapter, various such theory-specific objections will be discussed. Which if any of them will prove to be relevant to our own view is a matter taken up in Chapters 7-8. Prior to presenting our own account and showing that meets all the general adequacy conditions and can answer relevant theory-specific objections, it would be nice to have demonstrated that no known rival can do likewise. In view of the number of such rivals proposed in the last hundred years and the complexity of the dialogue between their proponents, such a synoptic undertaking would require a lengthy book in its own right and so will not be attempted here. Still, it will be useful to give a brief illustration of how four historically important and radically different lines of attack fall short of satisfying our criteria. The approaches in question fall into two kinds, which may roughly be styled ‘propositional’ and ‘non-propositional’. As representative propositional approaches, we shall examine Frege’s theory of Thoughts and Russell’s early theory of propositional complexes. As representative non-propositional approaches, we shall scrutinize Russell’s later ‘multiple relation’ theory and Roderick Chisholm’s contemporary ‘property attribution’ theory. Beyond their historical interest, there is

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a self-serving reason for choosing these four theories: certain elements of each will be incorporated into our own account, where they will be connected in a way that exploits their usefulness while avoiding the problems they caused in their original environments. 2.2

FREGE’S THEORY OF THOUGHTS

Frege’s theory, as originally formulated in ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’ (Frege 1892a) and presented later in ‘Der Gedanke’ (Frege 1918), involves the following ontological and semantic ingredients. On the ontological side, Frege maintains that beyond the mental and physical realms there is a third, abstract realm inhabited by senses and logical entities (the latter including Fregean functions and their value-ranges, of which the two truth-values are special cases). The denizens of this third realm exist independently of anything mental or physical but are in principle capable of being cognitively grasped by minds. Senses are modes of presentation of (putative) entities from the three realms—i.e., ways in which minds might think of (conceive) such things.3 To think about an entity is, inter alia, to grasp a sense that presents it. Among senses, pride of place is given to so-called Thoughts, the modes of presentation of truth-values. Thoughts are, in effect, ways one might take things-as-conceived-in-certain-ways to stand to one another—as when, e.g., one takes an object which one conceives as the F to have a property which one conceives as being G, thereby thinking the Thought that the F is a G. Thoughts are thus complexes that somehow contain modes of presentation of the various things (objects, relations, logical operations, etc.) that they are about. To grasp a Thought is to grasp a way it might be with these things, a piece of (true or false) information. So conceived, Thoughts are not only the contents of the psychological attitudes but also the basic bearers of truth-value and hence the things with whose character and interrelations the science of logic is primarily concerned. On the semantic side, Frege maintains that linguistic expressions of the various basic sorts (singular terms, n-ary predicates, truth-functional connectives, and quantifiers) first become meaningful by being conventionally associated with (coming to express) appropriate senses, where this association may in some cases be speaker-specific rather than community-wide. Once associated with a sense, an expression will refer to or designate whatever its sense presents.4 Expression and presentation are thus primary: the relation of reference/designation is merely their relative product. (Although Frege recognizes the possibility of senses that fail to present anything, he holds that a properly scientific language would disallow such senses for its words.) As regards the nature of senses, Frege is exasperatingly coy. He remarks in passing that the sense of certain singular terms (‘Proper Names’ [Eigennamen] in his idiosyncratic jargon) may be articulated via certain definite descriptions. Many (though not all) commentators have seen these remarks as reflecting the underlying view that the sense of a singular term is or somehow determines a uniqueness property, i.e., a property of the sort being uniquely

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F (or: being the F). For working purposes, let us sidestep the exegetical controversy and assume that this was in fact Frege’s view. Then the referent (if any) of a singular term would then be whatever exemplifies this correlated uniqueness property. The reference of an n-ary predicate is taken to be a function from n-tuples of objects to truth-values. Frege (1892b) calls the reference of a unary predicate a ‘concept’ and uses the term ‘relation’ for the references of all other predicates. The status of the senses of predicates is much less clear. Frege’s official ontology recognizes only two basic categories of entities: functions and objects. Functions are ‘unsaturated’ entities that correlate items; objects are ‘complete’ or ‘saturated’ entities. The correlations that functions generate (their ‘value-ranges’) are objects in their own right (which serve as Frege’s substitute for sets). Frege clearly regards the senses of singular terms as likewise being objects of some sort. But he appears ambivalent about the proper categorization of the senses of predicates. Sometimes a predicate sense would appear to be an object that determines identifying characteristics of a Fregean concept or relation. On other occasions, the sense of an n-ary predicate appears to be an n-ary function—i.e., a function from n-tuples of singular-term senses to Thoughts. In any event, Frege always regards declarative sentences themselves as complex singular terms that (putatively5 ) refer to truthvalues. An atomic sentence like ‘Fido snores’ will have as its sense the Thought that Fido snores—where this Thought somehow contains the senses of both ‘Fido’ and ‘snores’—and will have as its reference whichever truth-value is the truth-value thereof that Fido snores. Since he championed opacity as a semantic datum, Frege needed some explanation of the unusual behavior of propositional attitude ascriptions. His justly famous solution in ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’ was to distinguish between the ordinary or ‘direct’ sense and reference of an expression and various oblique or ‘indirect’ senses and references that it acquires as it is embedded under one or more verbs of propositional attitude. To put it another way, the notion of an expression’s sense and reference is to be relativized to its grammatical position in a sentence. In application to a belief report like ‘Ralph believes that Fido snores’, the strategy is simple: relative to their locations in this sentence, ‘Ralph’ and ‘believes’ have their ordinary senses and references; however, when embedded in the ‘that’-clause ‘that Fido snores’, the words ‘Fido’ and ‘snores’ do not have their ordinary referents but take instead their ordinary senses as their new (indirect) referents, while taking on new (indirect) senses that present those ordinary senses. Consequently, the clause ‘that Fido snores’ in the belief report designates the Thought composed of those ordinary senses, viz., the Thought that Fido snores, and the report is true iff Ralph stands in the belief relation to that Thought. The invalidity of the argument form (6) is thus neatly explained: (6)

a. X believes that F(a) b. a = b ∴ c. X believes that F(b).

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For the truth of (6b) ensures only that ‘a’ and ‘b’ have the same ordinary reference, not that their ordinary sense is the same. But if their ordinary senses differ, so will their indirect references in (6a) and (6c), with the result that the terms ‘that F(a)’and ‘that F(b)’ will designate different Thoughts, the former of which X may believe without believing the latter! Moreover, although Frege must reject the principle of Substitutivity of Identity as a formal syntactic inference rule, his solution permits him to maintain a modified semantic Principle of Extensionality: viz., coreferential terms may be replaced salva veritate at any position in a sentence provided their references are the same relative to that position in that sentence. In its original version, Frege’s theory clearly fails to meet most of our general adequacy conditions, though it may prove possible to supplement his view so as to meet at least some of the remaining conditions without sacrificing the basic spirit of his approach. To begin with, it is concerned exclusively with the purely de dicto attitude ascriptions and wholly opaque indirect discourse constructions: as the view stands, it has nothing to say about de re belief reports. Commentators, however, have suggested a variety of plausible remedies for this omission (cf., e.g., Dummett (1973) and Kaplan (1968)). Since a Fregean Thought is supposedly a complex of senses which is somehow isomorphic to the formula of Frege’s Conceptual Notation that canonically expresses it, the interpretation of (7) on which ‘Venus’ occurs transparently, might be accorded a logical form like (8): (7)

Galileo believed that Venus is a planet.

(8)

(∃σ)(Presents(σ, Venus) & Believed (Galileo, [Planet]∧ σ)).

Here the variable ‘σ’ ranges over individual senses, ‘[ ]’ is an operator that forms a name of the sense of whatever expression it encloses, and ‘∧ ’ signifies the appropriate concatenation of senses (so that the complex term ‘[Planet] ∧ σ’ names the relevant atomic Thought). Perhaps Frege could have accommodated de re ascriptions of belief in some such way. But his ability to handle de se belief attributions like (9) is in serious doubt: (9)

Gustav believed that he himself had been wounded.

Frege seems to regard ‘he himself’ as a free-standing term which, in the context of the clause ‘that he himself had been wounded’, designates the allegedly special way in which Gustav alone can identify himself—viz., that self-identifying sense, presenting Gustav but accessible to Gustav alone, which he associates with his own uses of the first-person singular personal pronoun. In other words, Frege appears to propose for (9) an analysis like (10): (10)

(∃σ)(SelfIdentifies(σ, Gustav) & Presents(σ, Gustav) & Believed (Gustav, [Wounded ]∧ σ)).

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This at least has the merit of explaining the obvious logical relationships between (9) and the corresponding de re attribution. But as a general account of de se belief reports, this line is not promising. In the first place, the appeal to essentially private self-identifying senses flagrantly undercuts Frege’s leading idea that Thoughts are in principle shareable. Worse, these essentially private self-identifying senses are even more mysterious than ordinary, sharable senses. For we can at least get a tenuous grip on the notion of an ordinary sense by thinking of it as essentially involving one or more properties of the thing (if any) that it presents, so that presentation itself can be understood in terms of the unique instantiation of those properties. No such route to understanding self-identifying senses is available. Not even an appeal to haecceities will help, for Gustav’s haecceity (if such there be) is just the non-qualitative property being Gustav. But Gustav’s haecceity could just as well be involved in someone else’s sense for the name ‘Gustav’: nothing prevents someone other than Gustav from identifying Gustav via this property. The problem here is of course connected with Frege’s conspicuous failure to provide adequate criteria of existence and identity even for ordinary senses—despite his earlier insistence (in Frege (1884)) that the provision of identity-criteria is an adequacy condition on the introduction of new objects into a theory. Where senses are concerned, Frege’s procedure was instead to mark out a number of theoretical jobs that allegedly must be done by something—e.g., accounting for the possible cognitive difference between equations of the forms ‘a = a’and ‘a = b’, explaining opacity phenomena in attitude reports and indirect speech constructions, providing for the objectivity and communicability of scientific and mathematical information, etc.—and then to characterize senses functionally as the entities that fill these roles. Though it may be useful as a heuristic device, this procedure does not automatically provide a functional definition. For the most it tells us is that each role must be filled by something or other. But without existence- and identity-criteria for senses, we cannot have any assurance that they constitute a determinate kind of entity in the first place, let alone that they uniquely fulfill the functions in question. Indeed, it is widely noted that Frege invokes so many disparate logical, linguistic, and psychological jobs for senses to perform that it is far from obvious that any single kind of entity could accomplish them all. In particular, much grief results from Frege’s tendency to treat senses both as the linguistic meanings of words (at least in an ideal, context-free language) and as constituents of the Thoughts expressed by sentences formed from those words. This invites an unfortunate conflation of linguistic synonymy with expressing the same sense. One result of such conflation is that, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, there could not be any synonyms even within an idealized version of a natural language, in which all sentences are eternalized, purged of vagueness and ambiguity, and regimented in Frege’s formal notation! In Frege’s semantics, sameness of ordinary or direct sense presumably guarantees sameness of oblique or indirect sense at every level of embedding, so that expressions of, say, idealized

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English with the same sense would be everywhere interchangeable in its sentences salva veritate. But, as Benson Mates (1950) pointed out, any two distinct singular terms ‘a’ and ‘b’ or distinct general terms ‘F’ and ‘G’ seemingly fail to be interchangeable salva veritate in certain multiply embedded environments. Thus, e.g., the inferences from (11a) to (11b) and from (12a) to (12b)—or their counterparts in idealized English—are bound to fail when the ingredient sentences are accorded purely de dicto readings: (11)

a. Nobody can rationally doubt that anyone who believes that a = a thereby believes that a = a. b. Nobody can rationally doubt that anyone who believes that a = a thereby believes that a = b.

(12)

a. Nobody can rationally doubt that anyone who believes that all Fs are Fs thereby believes that all Fs are Fs. b. Nobody can rationally doubt that anyone who believes that all Fs are Fs thereby believes that all Fs are Gs.

So no two singular or general terms even of idealized English could ever have the same sense, and hence they could never be synonyms. Now one might argue on Frege’s behalf that this problem is not a fatal, since ‘sense’ is a technical notion whose job-description does not obviously require the existence in one and the same language of distinct expressions having the same sense. (The italicized qualification is crucial, since Frege clearly does require that the same Thought can be expressed by distinct sentences in different languages.) Be that as it may, however, insofar as synonymy is identified with expressing the same sense, intraliguistic synonymy will be impossible (though interlinguistic synonymy would remain a possibility). Quite apart from any entanglement with the notion of synonymy, Frege says things that threaten his view with outright inconsistency by implying that there are distinct expressions of a given language (in his case, German) that have the same sense. For if this were not possible, it would surely be impossible for distinct sentences of that language to express the same Thought. Yet Frege insists, e.g., that (German) sentences containing distinct indexicals can, if uttered in appropriate contexts, express the same Thought. In English, sentences like ‘My rent is due today’ (uttered by Gustav on a given day) and ‘My rent was due yesterday’ (uttered by Gustav on the following day) serve to illustrate his point.6 Frege also claims that the grammatical shift between active and passive voice constructions does not affect the Thought expressed, so that ‘Brutus stabbed Caesar’ and ‘Caesar was stabbed by Brutus’ can express the same Thought (which is why Frege’s Conceptual Notation symbolizes both in the same way). He even goes so far as to suggest that certain simple syntactic operations that ‘obviously’ preserve logical equivalence—e.g., commutation of conjunctions—also preserve identity of the Thought expressed.

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Needless to say, evaluation of these claims would require knowing a necessary and sufficient condition for two different sentences to express the same Thought. Frege’s own candidate for such a condition is the following (cf. Dummett 1991: 171): (FC)

Sentence S1 expresses the same Thought as sentence S2 iff: it is impossible for a person simultaneously to grasp both the Thought expressed by S1 and the Thought expressed by S2 without immediately recognizing that they must have the same truth-value.

Now (FC) does license Frege’s various claims about identity of Thoughts expressed. But, as Dummett points out, (FC) is seriously defective as a putative sufficient condition and so cannot really vindicate those claims. For one thing, (FC) would license the claim that (13a) and (13b) both express the same Thought: (13)

a. Cato killed Cato. b. Cato committed suicide.

But on Fregean grounds this result would in turn entail the falsehood (14): (14) Whoever believes that Cato killed Cato believes that Cato committed suicide. The problem, of course, is that someone (a child, perhaps) may possess the concept ‘kill’ but lack the more sophisticated concept ‘commit suicide’. Intuitively, the Thoughts expressed by (13a) and (13b), though logically equivalent, have distinct constituents—hence the attractiveness of symbolizing (13a) and (13b) differently as, say, (15a) and (15b) respectively: (15)

a. Killed (Cato, Cato). b. [λx Killed (x, x)](Cato).

An adequate sufficient condition for the identity of Thoughts expressed must take account of the way in which the grammatical differences between sentences like (13a) and (13b) are reflected in differences between the constituents (senses) in the Thoughts they express. But it is unlikely that this can be done in the absence of some defensible theory about the existence- and identity-conditions for Thoughts and other senses as such. One of the most serious shortcomings of Frege’s theory, noted in Kripke (1979) and stressed in Schiffer (1992), concerns its inability to allow for the straightforward truth of de dicto reports of shared beliefs. Consider, e.g., a claim like (16) in the

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mouth of a normal English-speaking utterer u: (16)

Everyone who has seen Paris believes that Paris is beautiful.

It seems entirely plausible to assume that the content-clause ‘that Paris is beautiful’ is semantically univocal. In Fregean semantics, this means that there is a unique Thought —presumably the one u would express by uttering ‘Paris is beautiful’ in isolation—which is designated by ‘that Paris is beautiful’, so that (16) is true in u’s mouth just in case every person who has seen Paris stands in the belief relation to . Fregean Thoughts/sentence-meanings, however, are composed of senses/wordmeanings: there would have to be a particular sense/word-meaning [Paris] and a particular sense/word-meaning [beautiful] of which  is uniquely composed. But the senses that compose a Thought are modes of presentation, determinate ways of thinking of certain (putative) objects. So Frege’s semantics appears to have the consequence that (16), as uttered by a normal English-speaker, is true only if all the people who see Paris believe it to be beautiful under [Paris]—i.e., that they all think of Paris under exactly the same mode of presentation (indeed, the very one employed by u)! This, however, is wildly implausible, at least insofar as a mode of presentation is understood to be anything like a way of thinking of an object. Surely the truth of (16) should be compatible with the fact (which Frege himself concedes) that people’s ways of thinking of an object could be diverse and idiosyncratic. The problem of existence- and identity-conditions arises again in connection with iterated belief reports. For Frege’s official view is that there is a hierarchy of indirect senses and references corresponding to the levels of embedding in a nested ‘that’clause. Thus, e.g., his account of the truth condition of (5) [‘Mortimer believes that Natasha believes that the earth is flat’] involves not only the ordinary or direct sense of the sentence ‘Natasha believes that the earth is flat’ but also a mysterious indirect sense of the embedded sentence ‘the earth is flat’ distinct from its direct sense (which is the Thought that the earth is flat). While capable of coherent formal articulation (as, e.g., in Church (1951)), this feature of Frege’s view has struck most readers from Russell onwards as extremely counterintuitive. Our grip on the notion of sense, tenuous as it was for direct senses, gives way completely when we attempt to climb this hierarchy of indirect senses. (Dummett (1973) has argued that this hierarchy is a dispensable feature of Frege’s view, so perhaps iterated belief ascriptions will not pose quite the problem for Frege that they initially seem to.)7 It is generally agreed that Frege’s few brief remarks on context-dependent expressions provide no workable theory of indexicals and demonstratives or of the de dicto belief reports that employ them (cf., e.g., Perry (1977) and Burge (1979)). So it is unclear whether one could provide a ‘Fregean’ solution to Austin’s Two Tubes Puzzle without serious violence to Frege’s original position. Subsequent work by Fregeans on demonstrative thought (e.g., Forbes (1987)) may provide a broadly

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Fregean framework for handling Austin’s problem, but the matter is controversial and we cannot pursue it further in this brief review. It may seem that Frege would be equally unable to cope with Kripke’s puzzle about Pierre. Certainly this is Kripke’s view of the matter: indeed, he takes the puzzle to undercut the usual arguments for the opacity of attitude reports. Here, however, there are some conservative defensive moves that a Fregean sense-theorist might make. In particular, William Taschek (1988) reminds us that the Fregean’s point of attack on so-called Millianism is not the latter’s doctrine of direct reference for proper names—i.e., the doctrine that the semantical function of a proper name is everywhere just that of (rigidly) designating its bearer—but is instead the strong substitution principle that it authorizes, which licenses the interchange of co-designative proper names in all (non-quotational) linguistic environments. For Frege and his followers take the standard intuitions about opacity to show that such substitutions, when made within propositional attitude reports, can differentially effect the cognitive significance (Erkenntniswert) of the sentences involved. To defuse the Fregean attack, the Millean must show that the absurdities alleged to follow from adopting his strong substitution principle can be derived without using any principle that licenses substitutions that can differentially effect the cognitive significance (sense) of the sentences involved. The question is whether Kripke’s story about Pierre really shows this. Taschek (op. cit.) forcefully argues that it does not. For, on the one hand, a Fregean understanding of the Translation Principle (including its homophonic version) requires both that the idiolects of individual speakers be counted as languages too and that strictly correct translation (as opposed to the rough-and-ready paraphrases we often settle for) must preserve cognitive significance. But, on the other hand, Kripke’s use of the Translation Principle does not conform to these requirements: This is evident when—despite the undeniable fact that, for Jones, ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’ differ in cognitive significance—Kripke allows that ‘A proposal that “Cicero” and “Tully” are interchangeable amounts to a homophonic “translation” of English into itself in which “Cicero” is mapped into “Tully” and vice versa, while the rest is left fixed’. And it is no less clear that, for Pierre, ‘London’ and ‘Londres’ differ in cognitive significance. (Taschek 1988: 103) The Fregean thus has no reason to be perplexed. For, by his lights, whether we accept ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty’ or ‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty’ in the context of Kripke’s story will depend on whether we regard ‘London’ as being used therein with the same sense that Pierre attaches to his uses of ‘Londres’ or with the same sense that Pierre attaches to his uses of ‘London’. And in the likely event that we are unclear about just what senses Pierre attaches to these names, we will not know which, if any, of these claims to accept. But this, as Taschek rightly observes, is no puzzle. Frege’s account provides no connections to the mechanics of believing, since ‘grasping’ (i.e., entertaining) is left as a primitive relation between two radically

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different sorts of objects: thinkers and Thoughts—the latter being languageindependent abstract objects of some sort that can serve as the senses of sentences. Now while it may be a truism that to think of an object is to think of it in some way or other, there is a serious question about the coherence of Frege’s apparent identification of thinking of an object in a given way with grasping a sense that presents that object. For if that sense is itself just another object that the thinker has in mind, a vicious infinite regress looms: to have that sense in mind would require grasping yet another sense that presents it, and so on ad infinitum. But if not in terms of identity, how we are to understand the relation between grasping a sense of an object and having it in mind? A persistent thought among some admirers of Frege is that augmenting his ontology with the apparatus of possible worlds would solve many of the problems he faced. Certainly some advantages would accrue. Alongside Frege’s purely extensional notion of ‘concepts’ and ‘relations’ (understood respectively as unary and n-ary (n > 1) functions from objects to truth-values) one could then appeal to predicate intensions, understood as functions from possible worlds to Fregean concepts and relations defined over the objects in those worlds. These predicate intensions could then be drafted to play the role of predicate senses. Similarly, the role of singular term senses could played by individual intensions, understood as functions from possible worlds to particular objects in those worlds. A first-order atomic Thought could then be identified with a structured entity (perhaps a finite sequence) whose constituents are an n-ary predicate intension and n individual intensions. Given appropriate intensions for logical operators, Thoughts in general could be identified with suitably structured systems of intensions. Provided that these structured systems are themselves sets of some sort (e.g., nested sequences that mimic the syntactic structure of sentences), our misgivings about existence- and identityconditions for senses might be assuaged, for existence- and identity-conditions for sets are provided by standard set theories. Moreover, logically equivalent Thoughts would not have to be implausibly identified with one another, as they would have to be if Thoughts were directly identified with sets of possible worlds. As sets, the atomic Thoughts and will be distinct so long as f = g or a1 = b1 or . . . or an = bn . Thus, e.g., the Thought that zero is less than one and the Thought that one is greater than zero would be numerically distinct because the corresponding intensions they contain are pairwise distinct. But these two Thoughts are logically equivalent because both are true in every possible world: each is such that, in any possible world W , the pair of values of its ingredient individual intensions at W is mapped onto the True by the value of its ingredient predicate intension at W . So, in principle, someone could stand in the belief relation to the one Thought but not to the other despite their strict equivalence—surely a welcome result. It is unlikely, however, that Frege could in this way meet the demand for property-tracking versus transworld extension-tracking involved in certain de re belief reports. For even in his augmented ontology the nearest analogue to the notion of a property would be that of a unary predicate intension. Yet this

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notion is still inadequate to explain the difference between (17) and (18) taken purely de re: (17)

Gustav believes that the Greek letter ‘’ is a triangle.

(18)

Gustav believes that the Greek letter ‘’ is a trilateral.

When all their term-positions are construed as transparent, each reports Gustav as believing, of ‘’ and a certain property, that the former has the latter. But each involves a different property, which is why (17) and (18) would still be heard as inequivalent despite the fact that the predicate intension of ‘is a triangle’ is the very same set as the predicate intension of ‘is a trilateral’: viz., that function f from possible worlds to Fregean concepts such that f (W ) is that function from objects in W to truth-values which maps an object onto the True if it is a triangle/trilateral, and which maps an object onto the false otherwise. Worse still, such possible-worlds versions of Fregeanism—at least those based on some standard set theory—can easily run afoul of the Axiom of Foundation when attempting to provide for the various mixed readings in iterated belief reports. For this theoretical reason Max Cresswell (1985: Ch. 10) declares that sentences like (19)

Mortimer believes that Natasha believes that the earth is flat.

cannot coherently be given any pure or mixed de re reading on which the second occurrence of ‘believes’ is transparent, because (on his possible-worlds version of Fregeanism) this would require the function which is the intension of ‘believes’ to take itself as argument. This rejection seems ad hoc, indicating a limitation of his semantical framework rather than any anomaly in the data.8 Suppose Mortimer, having been asked for his opinion as to whether Natasha has any position on the Flat Earth Hypothesis, says ‘Uncritical belief is what I take to be her attitude towards that hypothesis’. It is hard not to hear this as warranting precisely the disputed reading of (19). Moreover, there does seem to be a de re reading of (19) on which it implies and is implied by (20): (20)

Mortimer believes that Natasha thinks that the earth is flat.

This needs explaining. 2.3

RUSSELL’S PROPOSITIONAL AND MULTIPLE-RELATION THEORIES

Like Frege, Russell (1903, 1904) began by regarding judgment as a simple binary relation between a judging mind and a judicable content, the latter being a special kind of mind-independent, non-linguistic complex of entities, which he called

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a ‘proposition’. Unlike Frege, however, Russell took the constituents of these complexes to be the real (or—early on—even unreal) individuals, properties, and relations that we normally suppose ourselves to be thinking and talking about, as well as various logical operations and other propositions constructed from these basic ingredients. A Russellian proposition, like a Fregean Thought, mimics the structure of the declarative sentence we use to express it (at least when we are speaking in an Ideal Language) but, unlike a Fregean Thought, is composed not of senses but of the presumed referents of the logical and non-logical words in that sentence. Truth is treated as an unanalysable property: it is simply a brute fact that some propositions do, and others do not, exemplify it. As Russell quickly came to see, the problem of existence- and identity-conditions for these propositions is acute. Given what little he says about them, it is obviously tempting to identify them with set-theoretic constructs of some sort: e.g., the proposition that Bob loves Sue might be identified with the nested sequence . This strategy is undeniably attractive in light of the simple extensional identity-conditions for sets, and for this reason it has been favored by some of Russell’s contemporary followers. But it is not available to Russell himself, for he notoriously denied that there are any such things as sets or classes! (To be an individual in his ontology, a thing must be a potential object of acquaintance—a requirement that rules out sets and classes, since these are normally understood to be abstract individuals.) Yet if a proposition does not unite its elements in the manner of a set, what sort of unity could a proposition have? An attractive place to look for the requisite unity of properties, relations, and individuals is in the ontological category of facts. The fact that Bob loves Sue exists iff Bob loves Sue (i.e., iff the relation [λxy Loves(x, y)] obtains between them); and facts are intuitively identical iff they involve the same individuals, properties, and relations arranged in the same way—though it is no trivial matter to explain just what ‘arranged in the same way’ means. Moreover, Russell firmly believed that there are such things as facts: they are a basic category in his ontology. The obvious problem, of course, is posed by the existence of false beliefs. ‘Fred believes that Bob loves Sue’ can still be true even when ‘Bob loves Sue’ is false; but then there is no fact that Bob loves Sue, hence nothing to be the content of Fred’s belief. If propositions are supposed to be fact-like complexes of individuals, properties and relations, then false propositions now appear to be impossible! Unless the individuals appropriately exemplify the properties and relations in question, there will be nothing that unifies these disparate elements into a free-standing whole that can serve as second relatum of the belief relation. This problem of the unity of false propositions, together with an acquired distaste for positing non-existent entities as potential objects of thought, ultimately led Russell to reject both the existence of propositions and the conception of belief as a dyadic relation in favor of his infamous ‘multiple relation’ theory of judgment (hereafter: MRTJ). According to his new theory, the desired unity resides not in

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what is believed but in the act of believing. As we shall see, however, this approach merely trades one set of internal problems for another. Since Russell presented several versions of MRTJ, a brief review of its career will be helpful.9 Russell intended the theory to cover all the propositional attitudes, but for simplicity we shall confine attention to belief. Now according to Russell (1910), a belief ascription of the superficial form (21) A believes that R(a1 , . . . , an ) is no longer to be analyzed as a binary predication (22)

B(A, that-R(a1 , . . . , an ))

in which ‘that-R(a1 , . . . , an )’ names a proposition but rather as the (n + 2)-ary predication (23)

B (A, R, a1 , . . . , an )

in which the believer A is directly related to the n + 1 entities R, a1 , . . . , an mentioned by the terms of the complement clause ‘R(a1 , . . . , an )’ in (21)—where it is now assumed that R, a1 , . . . , an actually exist. (Beliefs putatively about nonexistents are now to be handled via the Theory of Descriptions, on which see below.) Russell’s terminology varies from one presentation to the next, so we shall adopt the following standardization proposed by Nicholas Griffin (1985): A is the subject of the judgment schematized in (23); R, a1 , . . . , an are its objects; its subject and objects together comprise its terms; B is its main relation and R is its subordinate relation. The main relation together with all its terms (i.e., the n + 3 entities B, A, R, a1 , . . . , an ) comprise the constituents of the judgment. Since Russell maintains that the constituents of a judgment are the same regardless of the judgment’s truth-value, he must hold that the existence of the subordinate relation R does not depend on whether it actually relates the particular objects a1 , . . . , an . Otherwise, there would be no subordinate relation to serve as object of thought when the belief reported in (21)/(23) is false. This metaphysical commitment anent the existence conditions for properties and relations is, however, already implicit in Russell’s Platonic conception of universals. In the context of Russell’s type theory, MRTJ is forced to regard the English verb ‘believe’ as being, from a logical standpoint, infinitely ambiguous. Even in the case of belief ascriptions like (21), in which the complement clause is atomic, ‘believes’ will not be univocal. Instead, for each n ≥ 1 and each list of (simple10 ) types t1 , . . . , tn , there is an (n + 2)-ary predicate of type (i being the type of individuals) designating a (weakly intentional) belief relation of

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like type. By itself this extravagance is not fatal, but one would hope that something could be said about this huge family of relations that would explain why they are all belief relations. Russell then introduces truth and falsity as typed properties of judgments (i.e., judgmental facts).11 Claims of the form (24) are to be replaced by claims of the corresponding form (25), where (25) is defined by (26): (24) The elementary proposition that R(a1 , . . . , an ) is true. (25)

Beliefs that R(a1 , . . . , an ) have elementary truth.

(26) There exists a fact of a1 , . . . , an standing in the relation R. To extend the account from elementary to general judgments, Russell defines (27) as (28): (27)

Beliefs that (∀x)F(x) have second-order truth.

(28)

For any item a, Beliefs that F(a) have elementary truth.12

Although the gloss on (23) gives us some intuitive grip on the sort of multiple relation allegedly attributed by (21), we are not given any corresponding analysis of (29) that would reveal how general beliefs are supposed to involve a multiple relation: (29)

A believes that (∀x)F(x).

For that matter, beyond the decidedly retrograde suggestion in (1910/11) and (1992) that an ascription of negative belief like (30)

A believes that ∼ R(a1 , . . . , an )

could be replaced by (31)

D(A, R, a1 , . . . , an )

—where D is the disbelief-relation—Russell never indicates how MRTJ analyzes belief ascriptions with truth-functionally complex complement clauses! If belief is understood to include tacit belief, then we might just barely get away with rewriting (32) as (33): (32) A believes that [R(a1 , . . . , an ) & S(b1 , . . . , bk )] (33)

[A believes that R(a1 , . . . , an )] & [A believes that S(b1 , . . . , bk )].

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But even on this relaxed conception of belief, the possibility of A’s indifference prevents us from analyzing (34) as (35): (34)

A believes that [R(a1 , . . . , an ) ∨ S(b1 , . . . , bk )]

(35)

[A believes that R(a1 , . . . , an )] ∨ [A believes that S(b1 , . . . , bk )].

In general, the fact that one cannot replace truth-functional equivalences inside attitudinal contexts salva veritate seems to block any natural way of extending Russell’s suggestion. Perhaps he could include logical operations among the objects of judgment, so that, where V is the operation of disjunction, (34) could be analyzed as (36): (36)

B(A,V, R, a1 , . . . , an , S, b1 , . . . , bk ).

But he shows no sign of favoring such a move; indeed, he was moved by Wittgenstein to deny the existence of such entities as logical operations. (Nor could V be identified with the relation [λpq p ∨ q], inasmuch as this would require treating ‘p’ and ‘q’ as propositional variables!) Other technical problems for Russell’s theory arise when it tries to account, on the one hand, for the internal difference between (37) and (38) and, on the other hand, for the fact that (37)-(38) make sense whereas (39)-(40) do not: (37)

A believes that a precedes b.

(38)

A believes that b precedes a.

(39)

A believes that b a precedes.

(40)

A believes that precedes b a.

Again following Griffin (1985), these two difficulties will be called ‘the Direction Problem’ and ‘the Nonsense Problem’ respectively. In (37)-(40) the subordinate relation (precedence) is merely a term of the main relation (belief), and there is nothing in the theory so far which differentiates (37) from (38) or which excludes the likes of (39) and (40)! By the time of writing (1912), Russell thought that the Direction Problem could be solved simply by appealing to the direction of the main relation itself (which, unlike the subordinate relation, will be an actually instantiated relation for which the notion of direction makes sense). In other words, it is the particular act of believing that ‘puts the terms in the right order’. In his unfinished 1913 book manuscript Russell abandoned this ploy on the basis of the following, less than pellucid argument: Suppose we wish to understand ‘A and B are similar’. It is essential that our thought should, as is said, ‘unite’ or ‘synthesize’ the two terms and the relation;

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but we cannot actually ‘unite’ them, since either A and B are similar, in which case they are already united, or they are dissimilar, in which case no amount of thinking can force them to become united (Russell 1992: 116).13 He follows this argument with his new proposal: The process of uniting which we can effect in thought is the process of bringing them into relation with the general [logical] form of dual complexes. (loc. cit.) Thus begins Russell’s final attempt to rescue MRTJ by invoking so-called logical forms as additional terms of the judgment relation and introducing a supplementary notion of ‘the position of a constituent within a complex’. Initially, he characterizes elementary logical forms by means of their names: the name of an elementary logical form is obtained from an elementary sentence by replacing all its nonlogical vocabulary with variables of appropriate types. (He never says how this would extend to names of nonelementary logical forms.) This looks as if it solves the Nonsense Problem trivially: type-restrictions on names of logical forms ensure that there is no logical form R(x, y) in which a and b can be anything other than arguments to the relation of precedence. But it still doesn’t solve the Direction Problem. It might be thought that (37) could be analyzed as (37∗ ) and (38) as (38∗ ): (37∗ ) B(A, Rxy, precedence, a, b) (38∗ ) B(A, Ryx, precedence, a, b). But for this to work, some convention on order of substitution is clearly needed. Perhaps we could build this into the relation B. Even so, however, this introduction of logical forms as abstract templates of some sort creates a fatal difficulty. The ‘variable elements’ in logical forms are supposedly represented in their names by free variables, as in (37∗ ) and (38∗ ); but then (37∗ ) and (38∗ )—unlike the sentences they are supposed to analyze—are no longer complete sentences at all! Realizing the need to be clearer about the nature of logical forms, Russell goes on to identify them with certain ‘purely general logical facts’: e.g., the logical form (or structure) of an n-ary elementary complex is said to be the logical fact that (∃R)(∃x1 ) . . . (∃xn )R(x1 , . . . , xn ). To handle the Direction Problem, Russell defines, for each n-ary relation R, (what amounts to) the positional relation ‘x is the nth term of R in complex y’. Then he defines the ‘complex’ a-precedes-b as the complex C such that (i) C’s constituents are a, b, and the (directionless) relation S of sequence, (ii) C’s logical form is the logical fact that (∃R)(∃x1 )(∃x2 )Rx1 x2 and (iii) a is the first term of S in C and b is the second term of S in C. The judgment that a precedes b is then interpreted as the judgment that the complex a-precedes-b exists. Unfortunately, Russell provides no clue as to how this new existential judgment is itself to be understood as involving a multiple relation!14 Moreover, in the belief

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that a precedes b, the order of the subordinate relation’s terms is now determined by the positional relations: there is nothing left for the logical form to do except to carry information about the number and relative types of the constituents in the complex a-precedes-b. How it does this, and how doing so obviates the Nonsense Problem, is left obscure, since we are given no account of how the mind relates the objects of a belief with a logical form. Russell abandoned his book manuscript, but although he would continue to champion MRTJ as late as his famous logical atomism lectures (Russell 1918/19), he never supplied the missing ingredients. For the most part, the problems we have so far noted in connection with Russell’s propositional and non-propositional theories of judgment have been theory-specific ones, self-inflicted injuries as it were. But even if these difficulties could somehow be sorted out (on which, see Chapter 3), the resulting theories would seem to apply only to purely de re belief reports, since they provide no room for failure of Substitutivity in belief ascriptions or anywhere else. As represented in Russell’s notation, the only admissible readings of English sentences will be those on which every term position is transparent! Russell, of course, had read Frege and was perfectly aware of the kind of linguistic data that had occasioned Frege’s worries about opacity. Notoriously, however, Russell came to regard these apparent cases of opacity as ‘logical mirages’, illusions created by grammatical confusion over what constitutes a genuine singular term. In his celebrated essay ‘On Denoting’ (Russell, 1905), he exuded confidence that judicious use of his Theory of Descriptions would dispel these illusions, explaining away the alleged differences between de re and de dicto attitude reports in terms of syntactic distinctions of quantifier-scope. His strategy (described our terminology) is essentially as follows. First, Russell concedes that if, as Frege maintained, ascriptions of propositional attitude have de dicto readings on which some or all singular term positions in their content-clauses are opaque, then they will indeed provide counterexamples to the Substitutivity of Identity, the principle which sanctions inferences of the form (SI): (SI)

σ α=β σ(α//β) [or σ(β//α)].

For if σ is a propositional attitude ascription containing the singular term β opaquely within its ‘that’-clause, then the joint truth of σ and
α = β would fail to guarantee the truth of σ(α//β). Thus, e.g., we would expect arguments like (41) and (42) to be straightforwardly invalid instances of (SI): (41)

a. Nobody who believes that De Fato was written by just one man doubts that the author of De Fato wrote De Fato.

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b. The author of De Fato = Cicero. c. Nobody who believes that De Fato was written by just one man doubts that Cicero wrote De Fato. (42)

a. Everyone who believes that Cicero exists believes that Cicero = Cicero. b. Tully = Cicero. c. Everyone who believes that Cicero exists believes that Cicero = Tully.

Second, Russell concedes that there is a reading on which arguments like (41) and (42) are invalid; but he argues that, when so interpreted, such arguments are not really of the form (SI), hence cannot count as counterexamples to it. According to his Theory of Descriptions, natural language definite descriptions (expressions of the form ‘the F’) are not genuine singular terms (individual constants) but are to be eliminated via his famous contextual definition (DD): (DD)

. . . the F . . . =def . Exactly one thing is F, and . . . it . . .. [In symbols: ‘(∃x)(Fx & (∀y)(Fy → y = x) & (. . . x . . .))’]

Relying on (DD), Russell insists that the logical form of (41a) on its alleged de dicto reading is not (43)—in which ‘a’ is a genuine singular term corresponding to ‘the author of De Fato’—but instead is (44): (43)

Nobody who believes that De Fato was written by just one man doubts [a wrote De Fato].

(44)

Nobody who believes that De Fato was written by just one man doubts [exactly one thing wrote De Fato and it wrote De Fato].

(The use of square brackets here and below is intended to be neutral as between Russell’s propositional theory and the various versions of MRTJ; for the former view, take a bracketed sentence to be a name of the proposition the sentence expresses; for the latter views, take a bracketed sentence to be a list of the objects of the attitudinal multiple relation in question, the appropriate placement of commas being understood.) There being no singular term in (44) corresponding to ‘a’ in (43), there is no question of the conclusion (45) arising from (44) by substitution of ‘Cicero’ for that term: (45)

Nobody who believes that De Fato was written by just one man doubts [Cicero wrote De Fato].

Invoking his doctrine that ordinary proper names like ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’ (as opposed to so-called logically proper names) are really conventional shorthand for certain definite descriptions, Russell similarly denies that (42) is really of the form (SI).

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Russell concludes that (for singular term positions at least) opacity is an illusion: the only real singular term positions in a sentence are those occupied by genuine singular terms (logically proper names) in the sentence’s logical form; and all such positions are, he maintains, fully transparent. If Russell is right, then the only logical difference between the alleged purely de dicto reading of (46a), on which ‘Wanda’s sister’ occurs opaquely, and a de re reading of (46a) on which ‘Wanda’s sister’ occurs transparently is the syntactic difference in quantifier-scope exhibited by (46b) and (46c) respectively: (46)

a. Fred believes that Bob loves Wanda’s sister. b. Fred believes [exactly one thing is a sister of Wanda, and Bob loves it]. c. Exactly one thing is a sister of Wanda, and Fred believes [Bob loves it].

Given the additional premiss ‘Sue = Wanda’s sister’ (i.e., ‘Exactly one thing is a sister of Wanda, and Sue = it’) and treating ‘Sue’ as a genuine singular term, the conclusion ‘Fred believes that Bob loves Sue’ is formally derivable from (46c) but not from (46b). In general, purely de dicto (or: purely de re) readings of attitude ascriptions would simply be those on which the relevant quantifiers are accorded the narrowest (or: widest) possible scope, with any mixed readings being those in which intermediate scopes are assigned. Certainly there is no denying the ingenuity of Russell’s strategy for dismissing allegations of opacity and accounting for the logical relations among so-called de dicto and de re attitude reports. Its adequacy, however, is far from evident. One obvious shortcoming is the lack of any explicit account of de se attitude reports. One may conjecture from various scattered remarks that Russell’s view was something like the following. Each person possesses a special logically proper name of him/herself. Each person’s special self-name is intelligible only to that person and cannot be synonymous with any definite description not containing it. Communicating with others about ourselves is only possible by using public language descriptions that advert to intersubjectively accessible objects, properties, and relations. Thus ‘I’, as used by an English-speaker in overt speech, must be regarded as shorthand for some suitable definite description—perhaps ‘the utterer of this sentence-token’. If this is correct, then Russell’s private self-names are analogous to Frege’s essentially private self-identifying senses and hence are subject to analogous criticisms. Perhaps the most serious problem with Russell’s strategy is the tendentiousness of his account of the content-clauses of de dicto ascriptions, for on his analysis such ascriptions would always attribute complex, logically sophisticated beliefs. While the definiens in Russell’s contextual definition (DD) may be logically equivalent to its definiendum, it is fallacious to suppose that this fact alone would warrant his practice of substituting the former for the latter under verbs of propositional attitude (as when, e.g., he translates (46a) as (46b)). For contexts like ‘X believes that [. . .]’, even if not opaque in our technical sense, remain resolutely intensional to the extent

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that they reject interchange salva vertitate of logically equivalent sentences. Even if Russell has shown that opacity is a grammatical illusion, nothing in his account demonstrates that belief and other propositional attitudes are closed under logical equivalence, and few would advocate such closure in the first place. Fred, it seems, could have the belief reported de dicto by (46a) even if he were an untutored and not-too-bright child. Russell’s account creates an uncomfortably large gap between the reporter’s description of the belief’s content and any description thereof that the believer could reasonably be expected to provide. By itself, this complaint may not be decisive, since a defender of Russell could always argue that the strong Disquotation Principle of belief attribution presupposed by this objection—roughly, where ‘S’ is an English sentence devoid of indexicals, demonstratives and the like: ‘A normal English speaker who is not reticent will be disposed to sincere reflective assent to ‘S’ if and only if he believes that S’—is itself dubious because it leads to Kripke’s puzzle about Pierre. If our remarks above about the potential Fregean response are on track, however, coping with the puzzle need not entail abandonment of the Disquotation Principle, in which case the ‘descriptive gap’ objection above still stands. In addition to being tendentious, Russell’s account of de dicto-de re distinction in terms of scope differences seems plainly incapable of capturing our intuitions about the de dicto interpretations of certain iterated attitude reports. Linsky (1967), drawing on Mates (1950), cites (47) as an example: (47)

John believes that {it might have been the case that [(George IV wanted to know whether Scott = the author of Waverly); but (George IV did not want to know whether exactly one individual wrote Waverly and it = Scott)]}.

Intuitively, this report has a de dicto reading on which it could well be true. The reading in question attributes to John the belief we would normally take him to express if, having mastered Russell’s Theory of Descriptions and having sincerely disavowed any personal views about the actual or possible authorship of Waverly, he were to criticize Russell by assertively uttering (48): (48)

But surely it might have been the case that George IV wanted to know whether Scott = the author of Waverly but not whether exactly one individual wrote Waverly and it = Scott!

In eliminating ‘the author of Waverly’ from (47), many different scope-distinctions could be made, but none of them will produce a paraphrase that attributes the intuitively appropriate belief. On the narrowest possible scope-assignment, (47) attributes to John the absurd belief that an explicit contradiction might be true, while every other scope-assignment runs afoul of John’s presumed lack of any personal views about the actual or possible authorship of Waverly.

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Independently of the foregoing criticism, it may be objected that Russell’s ‘logical mirage’ account extends to attitude reports allegedly containing opaque occurrences of ordinary proper names only courtesy of his ‘disguised description’ view of such names. But the Description Theory of Names is nowadays in general disrepute, it being widely held that the arguments of Kripke (1972) have definitively refuted both its Russellian version (on which ordinary names abbreviate certain definite descriptions) and its Fregean version (on which ordinary names have the same sense as certain definite descriptions). Why, then, was Russell so certain in the first place that the Substitutivity of Identity, once it is understood to apply only to logically proper names, is a logical law? Linsky (1967) suggests, quite plausibly, that Russell was conflating the syntactic inference rule (SI) with the metaphysical principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals, viz., the principle that, for any objects x and y, x = y only if any property of x is a property of y. The Indiscernibility of Identicals, however, would only license unrestricted use of (SI) in the presence of the assumption that every open sentence expresses a property, so that, e.g., ‘N believes [. . . a . . .]’ would be logically equivalent by λ-conversion to ‘[λx N believes [. . . x . . .]](a)’ for any logically proper name ‘a’. But, as is well-known, this assumption would lead straight to paradox for predicates like ‘is non-self-exemplifying’ and the like. And even if the assumption is restricted so as not to apply to paradoxical predicates, it would be question-begging to apply it to an open sentence of the sort ‘N believes [. . . x . . .]’. For the property such a sentence expresses is being believed by N to be such that . . . it . . .; but the inference from (49) to (50) is not valid unless it is already taken for granted that the indicated occurrence of ‘a’ in (50) is transparent: (49)

a is believed by N to be such that …it . . . .

(50)

N believes [… a …].

If (50) has any reading on which ‘a’ occurs opaquely, then (50) will require for its truth more than a’s just having the property in question. Moreover, Russell’s crucial distinction between ordinary and logically proper names is vitiated by his inability to provide plausible examples of this logically special kind of name for which (SI) is supposed to be self-evidently valid. The only natural language candidates he ever proposes as logically proper names are pure demonstratives like ‘this’ and ‘that’ (no doubt because reference via pure demonstratives seems to lack any overt descriptive force). But even pure demonstratives seem capable of occurring opaquely in attitude ascriptions, as is attested by the intuitive invalidity of arguments like (51) when enunciated in certain contexts: (51)

a. Fred believes that this is the USS Cottonbottom. b. This = that. c. Fred believes that that is the USS Cottonbottom.

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Let the context in question be as follows. Fred is looking at a long dockside warehouse several blocks away; he sees a ship’s bow protruding from behind one end of the warehouse and a ship’s stern protruding from behind the opposite end. Because of the great length of the warehouse, he naturally assumes that the bow and stern in question must belong to different ships. He peeks through binoculars and observes the name ‘USS Cottonbottom’ emblazoned on the bow but, because of the angle, can see no identification on the stern. Now Wanda, the utterer of (51a-c), is standing alongside Fred and sees through her binoculars everything that he sees, but Wanda knows that the bow and stern they both see belong to a single, prodigiously long supertanker. In sequentially uttering (51a-c), Wanda points to the bow each time she uses ‘this’ and to the stern each time she uses ‘that’, relying on the familiar convention that one may demonstratively refer to an object by indicating a visible part of it. In the envisaged context, (51b) correctly reports an identity and (51a) correctly reports Fred’s visually based belief, but (51c) seems dead wrong in light of Fred’s ignorance. We can easily imagine him pointing first to the stern and then to the bow while proclaiming ‘No! That couldn’t be the USS Cottonbottom—it’s too far away from this!’ 2.4

CHISHOLM’S PROPERTY-ATTRIBUTION THEORY

Roderick Chisholm (1981) puts forward a view of thinking which takes thoughtstates to be essentially relational and which maintains that properly intentional notions cannot be eliminated from the characterization of these relations. As he sees it, the philosophical task is to achieve the formally tidiest and ontologically most economical non-reductive explication of intentionality. Accordingly, Chisholm allows himself only five primitive ontological predicates: ‘x exemplifies y’, ‘x is possibly such that it is F’, ‘x conceives y’, ‘x obtains’, and ‘x is a relation’. Properties are defined as those things which are possibly exemplified, and it is postulated that every property is possibly such as to be conceived. It is further laid down that any property (other than conceiving and what it entails) which is possibly unexemplified is possibly unexemplified-but-conceived. From this it follows that no property is conceivable only by reference to a contingent thing. The force of these requirements is thus to eliminate ‘singular’ properties such as being identical to Meinong and being the owner of this book. Properties, in Chisholm’s favored sense, are thus purely qualitative. States of affairs are defined as items which are (i) necessarily distinct from properties and relations, (ii) conceivable, and (iii) such that whoever conceives one conceives something which possibly obtains. Statesof-affairs which we would intuitively think of as non-compound are tied to sets of properties through a postulate which equates the obtaining of such states-ofaffairs with the exemplification either of all the properties in a certain non-empty set of properties or of none of the members of a certain nonempty set of properties (affirmative verses negative states of affairs). Since there are no singular properties in Chisholm’s ontology, this postulate has the effect of eliminating singular

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states-of-affairs such as Meinong’s being an Austrian, or someone’s owning this book. States-of-affairs, in the admissible sense, are purely qualitative and general. The power and ingenuity of Chisholm’s positive view emerges when we see how he proposes, within the confines of this purified ontology, to solve the problem of singular belief. Traditional relational theories invoke propositions as the second term of the belief relation and accordingly treat a singular belief report as a de dicto ascription of belief in a singular proposition. But, as Chisholm forcefully points out, the doctrine of singular propositions runs hopelessly aground on the case of those singular beliefs which are self-regarding (de se),15 such as my belief that I was born in California, your belief that you had parents, Jimmy Carter’s belief that he himself was once president, and so on. With respect to such beliefs, the proponent of singular propositions is driven to wild excesses in his attempt to say just what propositions are believed. (There appears, e.g., to be no such intersubjectively available proposition as that he himself was once president which Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton might both truly believe). Accordingly, the proponent of singular propositions is forced to follow Frege in positing mysterious first-person propositions which embody the subject’s ineffable Ich-Vorstellung and consequently are accessible only to the subject. Nor does it help to posit two different belief-relations: say, dyadic ‘notional believing’, which relates the subject to an intersubjectively available proposition, versus triadic ‘relational believing’, which relates the subject to an n-ary attribute and n-tuple of individuals. For while such a ploy might aid in explaining the difference between de dicto and de re belief ascriptions, de se belief ascriptions (which attribute self-regarding beliefs) are importantly different from both, as is reflected in the logical relations among sentences of the forms (52)-(54) (where (53) is accorded its normal de dicto reading): (52) The F believes that he himself is G. (53) The F believes that the F is G. (54) The F believes, of the F, that he is G. For (52) implies, but is not implied by, (54); and (52) neither implies, nor is implied by, (53)! So, pursuing the proliferation tactic, one would be driven to posit yet a third kind of belief, the self-regarding kind, which would hover inexplicably between the other two. Chisholm’s solution (which resembles one independently worked out by David Lewis (1979)) is brilliantly simple: instead of invoking mysterious first-person propositions or proliferating belief relations, Chisholm inverts the traditional picture by taking self-regarding belief as fundamental. He then proceeds to show how what is attributed in de re and de dicto belief reports can be regarded, within the confines of his purified ontology, as species of such self-regarding belief. The key to this paradigm-shift is a new primitive doxastic locution: ‘x directly attributes

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z to y’. The concept of direct attribution is constrained by postulates which ensure that if x directly attributes z to y, then y = x and z is a property. Direct attributions are thus (in the alternative terminology employed in Lewis’s version) self-ascriptions of properties. Person x’s self-regarding belief that he himself is F may then be identified with x’s direct attribution of F-ness to x—or, more colloquially, with x’s self-ascription of F-ness. What is said here regarding belief may be extended, mutatis mutandis, to the other modes of thought by regarding them all as modifications of a single generic relation expressed by ‘x entertains F-ness of y (in mode M )’, a relation which a person bears solely to himself and some property or other. Belief could then be viewed as self-entertainment of some property in the doxastic mode. (Where the mode of entertainment is that of mere contemplation, Chisholm speaks of x ‘considering’ y as being F.) Rather than pursue this complication, however, let us follow Chisholm in concentrating on belief as the paradigm of thought and treating self-ascription as basic rather than as a mode of something else. Turning now to the question of belief ascribed de dicto and de re, we must inquire how Chisholm proposes to allow for ascription of beliefs that pertain to transcendent objects (i.e., to things other than the ascriber). This is accomplished by means of a derivative notion of indirect attribution of properties to objects qua objects related to the ascriber in certain ways. More precisely: x indirectly attributes F-ness to y (as the thing that x bears R to) if and only if (i) x bears R to y alone and (ii) x self-ascribes a property entailing the property of bearing R to just one thing and to a thing which is F. For short, we can say simply that x indirectly attributes F-ness to y—meaning thereby that there is some relation R such that x indirectly attributes F-ness to y as the thing to which x bears R. Now the key point is just that a person may indirectly attribute a property to himself without directly doing so, hence have a belief about himself which is nevertheless not a genuine self-regarding belief. What is asserted by belief reports of the forms (52) and (54), that is, may provisionally be captured in (52∗ ) and (54∗ ): (52∗ ) The F directly attributes to the F (self-ascribes) the property G. (54∗ ) The F self-ascribes or indirectly attributes to the F the property G. This explains why instances of (52) entail, but are not entailed by, corresponding instances of (54). What, then, is reported by the de dicto belief ascriptions which are instances of (53)? Chisholm regards them as reporting the acceptance of states-of-affairs (‘de dicto beliefs’ in his terminology), where by definition: The state-of-affairs that p is accepted by x if and only if exactly one state-ofaffairs is the state-of-affairs that p, and either x self-ascribes the property being

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such that p, or x indirectly attributes the property of obtaining to the state-ofaffairs that p as the thing x is conceiving in a certain way. Several points call for comment here. It will be remembered that, in Chisholm’s ontology, states-of-affairs as well as properties are required to be pure or qualitative; in particular, there are no singular states-of-affairs. It follows, then, that all de dicto beliefs are general in content. If an instance of (53) attributes a genuine de dicto belief to the F, it would presumably attribute something like the F’s acceptance of the state-of-affairs that there is one and only one F and it is G. What is asserted by instances of (53), then, might be captured schematically in (53∗ ): (53∗ ) There is exactly one state-of-affairs s that [one and only one thing is F and it is G] and the F either self-ascribes being such that [one and only one thing is F and it is G] or indirectly attributes obtaining to s as the thing he is conceiving in a certain way. Now even though there may well be such a unique state-of-affairs s, the F’s selfascribing G neither entails nor is entailed by his either self-ascribing being such that [one and only one thing is F and it is G ] or indirectly attributing obtainment to s qua thing he is conceiving in a certain way. This is why instances of (52) neither entail, nor are entailed by, corresponding instances of (53). A few cautionary words are now in order. Chisholm maintains that the locutions ‘x directly attributes z to y’ and ‘x conceives y’ express certain primitive intentional relations of which a person may be the subject. But it is important to see this talk of intentional relations in the proper light, lest it seem that Chisholm is committed to too much. As was pointed out earlier, some traditional discussions of intentional relations characterize them as possessing certain anomalous features: e.g., the ability to obtain between an existing and a non-existing entity, or the ability to ignore the identity of their terms, i.e., to obtain between x and y but not between x and z despite the fact that y = z. The sense in which Chisholm regards conception and self-ascription as primitive intentional relations is, however, much more modest than this. Self-ascription is directed in a primitive and unmediated way upon the self (the ascriber) and a property (in Chisholm’s highly restricted sense of ‘property’), and Chisholm distinguishes the existence of a property from the existence of something exemplifying that property, holding that there exist unexemplified (but not unexemplifiable) properties. The only sense in which he allows that self-ascription may relate a person to a ‘non-existent’ entity is that the property self-ascribed may not be exemplified by anything (as when, e.g., someone self-ascribes the property being king of France in 1983). Moreover, self-ascription is a relation which respects the identity of its terms: if F-ness = G-ness, then self-ascribing F-ness = self-ascribing G-ness.

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Matters are a bit more complicated with the relation of conceiving, since its objects may be of various ontological categories: one may conceive states-ofaffairs, properties, concrete and abstract particulars, and so on. Here too, however, Chisholm insists that the objects of conceiving straightforwardly exist: they are not mere possibilia or entities endowed with subsistence or some other non-standard mode of being. The case of states-of-affairs parallels that of properties, upon which we have already remarked. Although it might seem rather artificial to distinguish the existence of a state-of-affairs from its obtaining, the blow is softened by the connection which Chisholm makes between states-of-affairs and properties, for which the parallel distinction between existence and exemplification is more natural (at least for a Platonist), namely, that the obtaining of non-compound states-of-affairs is equivalent to the joint exemplification or a joint non-exemplification of certain sets of properties. The question of the identity-criteria for properties, states of affairs, and their ilk is a vexed one, but there is nothing in Chisholm’s account to suggest that the relation of conception fails to respect the identity of its terms any more than self-ascription does. (Indeed, were conception or self-ascription to behave in such an anomalous way, the grammatical object-positions in the verbs ‘conceive’ and ‘self-ascribe’ would be substitutionally opaque, so that the Chisholmian vocabulary could not be used to give a non-circular account of opacity in attitude ascriptions.) What we are asked to accept, then, is just that there are these two weakly intentional relations of conception and self-ascription—capable of obtaining between persons on the one hand and existing (though perhaps abstract and unexemplified or non-obtaining) entities such as properties and states-of-affairs on the other—and that their happening to relate appropriate items or not in any given case is a brute fact in the sense of not consisting in the presence of anything ontologically more fundamental. As explicated by indirect attribution, the notion of having a belief ‘about’ an object (a ‘de re belief’ in Chisholm’s terminology) is a very weak one, being merely a special case of the old Russellian idea of thinking of an object under a description. Russell contrasted this indirect way of reaching the object with the direct access provided by acquaintance, and many philosophers have followed Russell at least to the extent of supposing that genuine de re beliefs must involve some more intimate connection(s) between the self and the transcendent objects in virtue of which they are about the latter. Chisholm is at pains to show that his theory can accommodate these more demanding conceptions of de re belief where, as he puts it, the believer identifies the object as a thing which he (the believer) believes to have such-andsuch a property. There are, broadly speaking, four types of case Chisholm considers: self-identification, perceptual identification, epistemic identification, and a special ‘essential’ mode of identification for abstract (eternal) objects. Identifying oneself as the thing one believes to be F is simply a matter of selfascribing F-ness while considering one’s doing so (i.e., while self-entertaining in the contemplative mode the property being a self-ascriber of F-ness). Explanation of the other types of identification is more complicated, involving suitably adapted

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versions of concepts from Chisholm’s theories of knowledge and perception, some familiarity with which will be taken for granted it what follows. Let us say that x knows himself to be F just in case: he is F, he self-ascribes being F, and this self-ascription is evident to him. Let us say further that x perceptually takes y to have property F if and only if: there is a certain way in which y alone appears to x, and F-ness is a sensible property which x indirectly attributes to y as the thing appearing to him in that way. Assuming appropriately definability of ‘it is evident to x that y is F, we may then say that x perceives y to be F if and only if: y is F, x perceptually takes y to be F, and it is evident to x that y is F. Then we may characterized x’s perceptual identification of y as a thing he believes to be F in terms of the existence of some property G such that x perceives y to be G and self-ascribes the property of being such that the thing he perceives to be G is F. We turn next to epistemic identification of an object as a thing one believes to be F. Here the key notion is that of recognizing an object of indirect attribution under various descriptions. More precisely, x identifies y as a thing to which, under several descriptions, he indirectly attributes F-ness (i.e., epistemically identifies y as a thing he believes to be F) if and only if (i) x indirectly attributes F-ness to y, both as the thing to which he bears a certain relations R and as the thing to which he bears a certain relation S; (ii) x knows himself to bear R and S to the same thing; and (iii) his evidence for believing that he bears R to just one thing is independent of his evidence for believing that he bears S to just one thing. Finally, there is the special case in which x essentially identifies an eternal object y as something he believes to be F. This is a matter of x’s being uniquely related to y by means of some relation R and self-ascribing a certain property H which (a) entails F-ness if F-ness is entailed by the essence of y and (b) is necessarily such that whatever has it bears R to something having both the essence of y and F-ness. In sum, then, we may say that x has a ‘strong’ (some would say ‘genuine’) de re belief regarding an object y to the effect that it is F just in case, in one of the four senses above, x identifies y as a thing he believes to be F. (The extension of these remarks to de re beliefs with multiple objects, and to modes of thought other than the doxastic, is straightforward.) We may now see how Chisholm’s view fits into our initial characterization of the intentionality of thought, where we spoke of the contents, objects, and satisfaction conditions of thoughts. All belief is at bottom self-ascription of properties: the differences between de se, de dicto, and de re belief ascriptions are ultimately just differences in the kinds of properties whose self-ascription they report. Selfascription (direct attribution) involves primitive, unmediated mental reference to oneself, which thus deserves to be called the ‘direct object’ all of one’s beliefs. All other, ‘indirect objects’ of one’s beliefs, even in the strong de re cases, are picked out by relation to oneself, hence are referred to only indirectly, by description. (In other words, these indirect references, unlike direct reference to the self, are parasitic upon content.) Content may be similarly stratified. The ‘direct content’ of a belief state is the property which the owner of that state ultimately is

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self-ascribing; it’s ‘indirect content’ consists in those properties (if any) therein indirectly attributed to (indirect) objects. The association of a truth condition with a belief state is, intuitively, a matter of the direct content of the latter. On Chisholm’s view, however, it is not correct to say, as the traditional propositionalist account does, that contents themselves have truth conditions, since contents are now properties. Nor can we think of truth conditions themselves as possible states of affairs, since they would always have to be of the forbidden singular kind (i.e., of the sort ascriber-exemplifying-self-ascribed-property). Rather, it seems that we must regard talk about associated truth conditions as mere shorthand for talk about direct contents themselves. To say that one of x’s belief-states is true if and only if p (or has the truth condition that p, etc.) is just to say that its direct content is exemplified by x if and only if p. Rather than there being two explananda—viz., how thoughts are contentful and how their contentfulness determines a correlation with something else—only contentfulness calls for explanation. We have seen, in outline, how Chisholm proposes to account for the intentionality of thought (specifically, of beliefs). What remains to be seen is whether his theory is adequate to handle all of the relevant data. One crucial datum was touched upon in our initial characterization of intentionality as involving satisfaction conditions: namely, that one can think the impossible. Any adequate account of belief must explain how, e.g. someone can believe that p even though it is strictly impossible that p. It seems, however, that Chisholm’s purified ontology will prevent him from giving a fully general account of such beliefs. A case in point is someone’s belief that there is more than one even prime number. This is, it would seem, a purely general belief (a ‘de dicto belief’ in Chisholm’s sense) which any mathematically naive or confused person might have. Now according to Chisholm’s construal of de dicto belief, a person x has such a belief just in case there is a unique state of affairs s that [there is more than one even prime number] and either (a) x selfascribes the property being such that [there is more than one even prime number], or (b) x indirectly attributes obtainment to s qua thing he is conceiving in a certain way. Now if s is a state of affairs, then it follows on Chisholm’s definition that whoever conceives s conceives something which is possibly such that it obtains. But there cannot possibly be more than one even prime number, so in conceiving s one would not be conceiving something which might obtain. Therefore, Chisholm cannot allow that there is any such state of affairs as s to which (qua thing one is conceiving in a certain way) one might indirectly attribute obtainment. Nor can there be any such property as the property being such that there is more than one even prime number, since nothing could possibly exemplify such a property, and unexemplifiable properties are forbidden. It appears, then, that Chisholm’s account of belief must be modified, or else his ontology must be enriched. The proceeding problem is intimately connected with another. One of the curious features of belief ascriptions is that their content clauses are opaque to predicate replacement not only with respect to coextensive predicates but even with respect to synonymous predicates. The sentences ‘John believes that he owns a hinny’ and

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‘John believes that he owns an offspring of a male horse and a female donkey’ seemingly can differ in truth-value despite the synonymy of the predicates ‘hinny’ and ‘offspring of a male horse and a female donkey’. On Chisholm’s account, however, the truth of the former sentence consists in John’s self-ascribing the property owning a hinny. But the property being a hinny is identical to the property being an offspring of a male horse and a female donkey. So it follows that owning a hinny is the same property as owning an offspring of a male horse and a female donkey, hence that John’s self-ascription of the former property = his self-ascription of the latter property. But then the original sentences ‘John believes that he owns a hinny’ and ‘John believes that he owns an offspring of a male horse and a female donkey’ could not differ in truth value, since they report exactly the same thing. The connection with the problem of believing the impossible runs through one sort of reason we might give for the alleged truth-value divergence: namely, that John might believe that a hinny is not the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey—which is clearly a case of believing the impossible. It is worth noting that nothing in Chisholm’s account appears to permit a nonquestion-begging denial of the identity of the two properties mentioned above. One could not, e.g., deny their identity by claiming that they do not (in Chisholm’s sense) entail one another. Since their possible exemplifications are obviously connected in the right way, this claim could only mean that neither property is necessarily such that whoever conceives it conceives the other—i.e., that one can conceive the property being a hinny without conceiving the property being an offspring of a male horse and a female donkey (or vice versa). But conceiving is presumably a relation which respects the identity of its terms; so it would be question-begging to claim that one can conceive one of these properties without conceiving the other. Intuitively, they are the same property, so that to conceive one is to conceive the other. It appears, then, that Chisholm must either deny the intuitive data regarding predicate opacity or else regard direct attribution and/or conceiving as being intentional relations in the incurably problematic sense of being relations which somehow can obtain between x and (property) y without obtaining between x and z even though y = z! Another difficulty with Chisholm’s account is that it seems to sever certain intuitive connections between believing and the possession of various concepts. To avoid begging any questions in what follows, let us say that what Chisholm has defined is ‘belief ∗ ’, which may or may not coincide with our pre-analytic notion of belief. Then there appears to be some initial oddity in the fact that nothing in Chisholm’s definitions prevents one from directly or indirectly attributing properties that one is unable to conceive, so that nothing prevents one from having beliefs∗ whose direct or indirect contents involve properties beyond one’s conceptual ken. If, e.g., having the concept ‘airplane’ involves the ability to conceive the property being an airplane, then there seems to be no reason of principle why one should not be able, say, to believe oneself to be standing next to an airplane even though one lacks the very concept of an airplane—surely a counterintuitive

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result! To this it might with some justice be replied that possession of a concept is not the same thing as the ability to conceive the related property, for conceiving a property is a way of referring to it in thought, whereas attributing properties is a kind of mental predication. Thinking of oneself as being hungry is compatible with not yet having mentally singled out the property of being hungry. But taking this line only relocates the oddity. For if the intuitive constraint is not captured by conceiving qua mode of mental reference, then it seems that we should look to attribution, the mental analogue of predication. The suggestion, in other words, is that we think of having the concept of an F-thing (whatever that ultimately amounts to) as an essential part of the ability directly or indirectly to entertain (in whatever mode) the property of being an F-thing. This would certainly explain our reluctance to say that a member of a primitive tribe, coming across an airplane for the first time, believes that he is standing next to an airplane. Unfortunately, this natural way of capturing the intuitive conceptual repertoire constraint would be disastrous for Chisholm’s theory, which analyzes certain conceptually innocentlooking beliefs as beliefs∗ involving the attribution of suspiciously complex properties. Consider, e.g., our primitive tribesman—call him ‘Gornak’—staring in amazement at the airplane which has just crashed in front of his hut, deep in the unexplored forests of New Guinea. We may well suppose that Gornak has a simple indexical belief about this extraordinary object: he believes, say, that that thing is a demon. Chisholm would presumably regard this belief as a ‘strong’ de re belief ∗ , i.e., a case of Gornak’s perceptually (visually) identifying the airplane as a thing which he himself believes to be a demon. Such a belief ∗ is analysed as follows: there is some sensible property G such that Gornak sees that object to be G, and Gornak self-ascribes the property being an x such that there is one and only one y such that x sees y to be G and y is a demon. For concreteness, we may suppose that G is the property being-huge-silvery-bird-like. But self-ascription is definitive of belief ∗ de se, so if Gornak has the de re belief ∗ in question, he also has the de se belief ∗ that there is one and only one thing which he himself sees to be huge-silvery-bird-like, and it is a demon. On the proposed way of capturing the conceptual repertoire constraint, he could not have this belief ∗ unless he possessed the concept of seeing, or visual perception. And this, to put it mildly, seems a bit much to expect of poor Gornak! Primitive humans (not to mention monkeys, dogs, etc.) seemingly end up believing∗ things which it is highly doubtful that they really believe. By failing to provide a coherent locus for anything like a conceptual repertoire constraint, Chisholm creates the strong suspicion that the class of beliefs∗ does not coincide with the class of beliefs at all. What is suggested by the foregoing difficulty with de re beliefs about perceived particulars is that certain kinds of demonstrative reference to such particulars may be on the same footing with mental reference to the self, rather than being reducible to self-ascription of various properties. This is sometimes put by saying that there are ‘irreducible perceptual modes of presentation’, or ‘de re modes of presentation’,

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or ‘demonstrative ideas’ of objects. Some authors go so far as to suggest that demonstrative reference to particular thoughts and experiences is the primitive sort of mental reference, the self being referred to only indirectly as the owner of these items. Not surprisingly, there seem to be difficulties with ‘here’-thoughts that parallel those regarding ‘this’-thoughts. Egocentric spatial thinking gets short shrift from Chisholm: to think of a place as ‘here’is, we are told, just to think of it (indirectly) as ‘where I am’. On this view, what distinguishes ‘here’-thoughts from other thoughts about particular places is merely that the latter involve different and richer sorts of envisaged relations to oneself. All such thoughts are ultimately egocentric: ‘here’thoughts are just the simplest and least specific, for they involve no characterization of the self’s location beyond its being such. There is an undeniable attractiveness to this way of construing egocentric spatial thinking; indeed, it does seem to some to be self-evidently correct. But problems loom. Suppose person x is located at place y and has a belief which he would formulate for himself by something of the form ‘F(here)’, in which ‘here’ is the only singular term pertaining to a place. Now if, as Chisholm would have it, this belief is just a matter of x’s indirectly attributing F-ness to y qua place where he himself is, hence ultimately a matter of x’s being at y and self-ascribing the property of being situated at an F-place (or some richer property entailing this one), then there is no way of allowing that the (indirect) object of x’s belief could be any place other than y. Yet we do seem to be able to imagine cases in which the indirect object of x’s belief would be some place other than y. Consider the skeptic’s favorite scenario: x is, unbeknownst to himself, a brain in a vat at place y. Let us add to this that x has been attached, by remote control, to a cyborg whose body is a perfect replica of the one from which x was extracted—except, of course, that it has no brain of its own, only a piece of hardware which transmits afferent signals to x’s brain and passes along efferent signals from x’s brain to the body. The requisite operations having been done while x was unconscious, x supposes that all is normal. The body he sees and feels he naturally regards as his own familiar body. Now the obvious question arises: where is x? Since there is no spatio-temporal continuity between the cyborg and the previously incarnated x, it seems reasonable to continue identifying x with his living physical residue, the discorporated brain, and hence to say that x is wherever the mad scientists have stashed the latter. But the cyborg could be anywhere, say on the opposite side of the world. Now the problem is evident: x, who is located at y, judges, on the basis of perceptual input from the cyborg, which is currently at a distant spot z, some ‘F(here)’-thought. There is a strong intuition that, contra Chisholm, x is thinking about z and not about y. The ground of this intuition is that x’s perceptions and actions by his ‘body’ pertain exclusively to z: he is not even dispositionally linked to extra-cerebral goings-on at y in the same intimate way.16 The difficulties do not end here. Chisholm treats both ‘x believes that x-self is F’ and ‘x believes [accepts the state-of-affairs] that p’ as strictly defined in terms

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direct and indirect attribution. This would presumably make the property equation (55) analytically true: (55)

believing that x-self believes that x-self is in pain = believing that x-self is a self-ascriber of the property being in pain.

But now Chisholm faces the iteration problem mentioned in our initial statement of adequacy conditions. For consider the belief report (56): (56)

Nelson believes that he-himself believes that he-himself is in pain.

(issued, say, after Nelson proclaims ‘Not only am I in pain, but I believe that I am, and I believe that I believe that I am!). On Chisholm’s view, (56) should be analytically, hence necessarily, equivalent to (57): (57)

Nelson believes that he-himself is a self-ascriber of the property being in pain.

But Nelson could be a devout Nominalist, who vehemently rejects the existence of properties and other non-particulars. In such a case, (56) could easily be true while (57) is false. Finally, let us consider the impact of Kripke’s and Austin’s puzzles. Chisholm is well aware of the former. He prefaces his treatment of it with an argument for the conclusion that . . .if we are justified in using proper names to report other people’s beliefs (as in ‘Jones believed that Cicero was identical to Tully’), then the beliefs in question are in part beliefs about those names. (1981: 66) He then dismisses Kripke’s puzzle with the observation that The first sentence [‘Pierre believes that London is pretty’] is true in virtue of the fact that Pierre attributes to himself the property of being such that the thing he usually uses ‘Londres’ to designate is pretty. And the second sentence [‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty’] is true in virtue of the fact that he attributes to himself the property of being such that the thing he usually uses ‘London’ to designate is a thing that is not pretty. (1981: 67) The two facts in question being mutually compatible, the puzzle allegedly disappears. This quick dissolution of Kripke’s problem comes at the price of accepting two claims. The first is that, where ‘a’ is any proper name, there is a reading of the sentence ‘a is F’ on which its semantic value is not a proposition but a property— viz., being an x such that the thing x normally uses ‘a’ to designate is F—which

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would be self-ascribed by anyone who utters the sentence. And the second claim, whose plausibility rests mainly on that of the first, is that the reading in question is the one relevant to interpreting sentences of the form ‘x believes that a is F’ at least on those occasions when we are justified in asserting them. Unfortunately, the first claim reintroduces the ‘missing concepts’/‘alien complexity’ problem. For the truth of ‘x believes that a is F’ will involve x’s self-ascribing a complicated property which x may be unable to conceive. Surely, one would suppose, someone may believe that London is pretty even though he lacks the semantical concepts of quotation and designation (not to mention the logical concepts) involved in paraphrasing away the definite description ‘the thing x normally uses ‘a’ to designate’). Mastering the use of proper names in object-English, something that small children manage to do, does not seem to require competence in semantical meta-English. It would be nice to be able to solve or dissolve Kripke’s puzzle without the need to assume otherwise. Although Chisholm does not explicitly discuss Austin’s Two Tubes Puzzle, it is not difficult to predict the way in which he would diagnose Smith’s confusion. By Chisholm’s lights, Smith ‘perceptually identifies’ the spot he sees under the phenomenal description ‘the thing that now appears to me to be here/on the right/at the center of my right visual field’ and under the phenomenal description ‘the thing that now appears to me to be there/on the left/at the center of my left visual field’but fails to realize that it is one and the same thing to which he bears these perceptual relations. So in saying ‘This is red’, Smith indirectly attributes to the spot, as the thing that appears to him(self) to be on the right, the property being red. And in saying ‘that is red’, Smith indirectly attributes this same property to the spot, only now as the thing that appears to him(self) to be on the left. No problem now arises, for Smith’s beliefs are appropriately distinct. As Austin himself points out, however, this solution threatens to be unintelligible on Chisholm’s own principles. How can Chisholm differentiate what is expressed by such phrases as ‘appears to me to be here’ and ‘appears to me to be there’, or by ‘appears to me to be on the left’and ‘appears to me to be on the right’? Relations like x appears to y to be here and x appears to y to be on y’s right are not ‘pure’and hence must, by Chisholm’s lights, be further analyzable in non-indexical terms. But how? For someone like Chisholm, who is an adverbialist about perception, there are no such things as sense-data or visual fields and their parts to which one might appeal in crafting the requisite non-indexical analysis. And we have no corresponding notion of how to differentiate locative ‘aspects’ in these ways of being appeared to.

NOTES 1 Cf. Quine (1960: 143-144), where it is pointed out that such illusory occurrences could be

avoided altogether by dissolving quotation into spelling (i.e., by using names of the letters of the alphabet together with a concatenation operator). In practice, however, the latter strategy would be unnecessarily hard on the reader.

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2 The argument proceeds as follows. Since Pierre assents to ‘London is not pretty’, the Disquotation

Principle yields (i): (i) Pierre believes that London is not pretty. Since Pierre also assents to ‘Londres est jolie’, the French version of the Disquotation Principle entitles a French-speaker to assert Pierre croit que Londres est jolie. and hence, by the French version of the Tarski schema, to assert ‘Pierre croit que Londres est jolie’ est vrai (en Francais). Under translation into English, this truth becomes the truth ‘Pierre croit que Londres est jolie’ is true (in French). But the English translation of ‘Pierre croit que Londres est jolie’ is presumably just ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ So by the Translation Principle again, we are entitled to assert ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty’ is true (in English). The Tarski-schema then yields (ii): (ii) Pierre believes that London is pretty. Kripke points out that if we are willing to strengthen the Disquotation Principle to a biconditional schema like A normal English speaker who is not reticent will be disposed to sincere assent to ‘S’ if and only if he believes that S., then we could derive the explicit contradictory of (ii), for it is stipulated that Pierre assents to ‘London is not pretty’ and is logically competent, in which case he would presumably not assent to ‘London is pretty’! 3 At one point Frege says that modes of presentation are ‘contained’ in senses, but the distinction between ‘being’ a mode of presentation and ‘containing’ one is not further exploited, so it is difficult to know what Frege had in mind. 4 In Frege (1960), Max Black’s original translation of Frege (1892a), ‘Bedeutung’and ‘Bezeichnung’ (which Frege uses interchangeably) are rendered as ‘reference’ and ‘designation’ respectively. 5 The qualification ‘putatively’ is required because of the truth-value gaps that appear to open up in connection with meaningful declarative sentences containing ‘empty’ terms—terms whose senses fail to present any referents. Sometimes Frege seems to regard such sentences as expressing perfectly respectable albeit truth-valueless Thoughts, but on other occasions he appears to back away from countenancing truth-valueless Thoughts, calling them instead ‘Scheingedanken’ (‘mock Thoughts’ or ‘pseudo-Thoughts’). No doubt part of his ambivalence on this issue owes to his conflation of sense and linguistic meaning.

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6 The presence in natural languages of indexicals and demonstratives—which intuitively retain a

constant meaning even when their reference shifts with context—ultimately undermines any attempt to equate Fregean sense with the ordinary notion of linguistic meaning. If Frege equated them, it was most likely because he was concerned primarily with idealized languages. See Burge (1979, 1990). 7 Frege’s theory involves certain weakly intentional relations as primitive: e.g., grasping relates us to senses, which are non-spatiotemporal entities; presentation relates these non-spatiotemporal entities to other things, which themselves might be non-spatiotemporal; expression relates wordtypes to senses, both of which are non-spatiotemporal entities. Since Frege’s account of fictional belief and the like exploits senses rather than positing any non-existent entities, he avoids the need for strongly intentional relations. 8 Of course it is open to the possible-worlds theorist to avoid the problem by adopting some nonstandard set theory (such as that of Aczel (1987)) in which nonwellfounded sets (hypersets) are allowed. A lucid discussion of this approach can be found in Barwise and Etchemendy (1987, Ch. 3). 9 Although an early form of MRTJ is tentatively proposed in (1906/08), the first version Russell publicly endorses appears in (1910). It is repeated in (1910/11), revised in (1912) and further revised in the posthumously published 1913 book manuscript (1992). Russell was still propounding MRTJ in print as late as (1918/19), but officially abandoned it the following year in (1919). 10 We ignore here the ramified version of Russell’s theory of types. In the simple type theory invoked here, i is the basic type (of individuals) and is a type if all of t1 , . . . , tn are. 11 Since there are presumably only finitely many such judgmental facts, it is unclear how Russell proposed to account for the truth-values of unjudged propositions. 12 Russell takes for granted here that all the belief-relations required by his theory are extensional. 13 Russell’s reasoning here is rather obscure. Of course thought cannot (in general) literally bring about the very connections it envisages as obtaining among objects in the extramental world! Who, except perhaps an extreme Idealist, would ever have supposed otherwise? The problem for MRTJ, surely, is to say what the multiple relation of believing does do with these objects. 14 Perhaps, taking a hint from the suggestion about general judgment in Russell and Whitehead (1910: Introd., Ch. II, pp. 45-46), we could regard existential judgment as a new binary relation E between persons and propositional functions, thus representing the judgment that the complex C exists by something like ‘E(A, (ˆu = C))’. Alternatively, we might invoke the property E of being exemplified by something and try to represent the existential judgment as ‘B(A, E,(ˆu = C))’. Of these ploys, the former seems more Russellian in spirit, especially since the latter would involve the very reification of logical constants that Russell later rejected. 15 Chisholm treats ‘de re’, ‘de dicto’, and ‘de se’ as adjectives modifying ‘belief’ and as adverbs modifying ‘believes’. Where possible without intolerable circumlocution, we have avoided this usage in favor of our neutral ‘linguistic’ alternative, on which ‘de re’, ‘de dicto’, and ‘de se’ characterize ways of reporting beliefs. 16 This line of argument is adapted from Evans (1982).

PART II

ONTOLOGY

CHAPTER 3

LOGICAL FORMS AND MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS: THE LESSON OF RUSSELL’S MULTIPLE RELATION THEORY OF JUDGMENT In Chapter 2 we sketched and criticized Russell’s infamous multiple relation theory of judgment, paying special attention to its final and most developed version, according to which the relata of judgment relations include not only the individuals, properties, and relations that the judgment is intuitively about but also a mysterious logical form that somehow encodes the pattern in which these constituents are judged to be arranged, thereby determining the judgment’s truth condition. On that version of the theory, it will be remembered, an atomic belief ascription of the superficial form (1) is to be analysed1 along the lines of (2), in which f is the yet-to-be-explained logical form of an n-ary predication and Bel is a yet-to-beexplained (n+3)ary relation of the appropriate logical type for relating items having the respective logical types of A, f , R, a1 , . . . , an : (1)

A believes that R(a1 , . . . , an )

(2)

Bel(A, f , R, a1 , . . . , an ).

The primary aim of this Chapter is to show how, by developing apparatus rooted in Russell’s own early work, we can provide explications of these logical forms and Bel-relations that will facilitate the formal reduction of Russell’s theory— suitably formalized as the system MRTJ—to a plausible representationalist theory, thereby vindicating his much-maligned account of judgment, at least as regards attitudes reported de re.2 The secondary aim of this Chapter is to extract from these explications of Russell’s logical forms and Bel-relations certain key insights that may be enlisted in the aid of a fully adequate account that extends to attitudes reported de dicto and de se. Section 3.1 briefly sketches the ideas behind MRTJ and presents some adequacy conditions on any reductive vindication of such a theory. Section 3.2 details the formalities of MRTJ: its base language, underlying logic, and some of its characteristic

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axioms. Section 3.3 adduces some general considerations about mental representation and, against the same formal background, discusses some salient axioms of a representationalist theory
that treats thought as inner speech in one’s mental language. Section 3.4 provides the crucial definitions and axioms which, when added to
to obtain the theory
+ , function as bridge principles allowing the formal reduction of MRTJ to
+ . Section 3.5 argues that this reduction constitutes a vindication inasmuch as MRTJ, reconstructed within
+ , meets the adequacy conditions laid down in Section 3.1. Finally, Section 3.6 discusses how
+ ’s explication of the logical forms and de re belief relations invoked by MRTJ might be further refined to serve a more ambitious account that extends to belief reported de dicto and de se—an account in which logical forms are transmogrified into an analogue of Fregean modes of presentation and the vast family of disparate Bel-relations are reunited into a single dyadic belief-relation.

3.1 ADEQUACY CONDITIONS ON THE REDUCTION Before becoming immersed in the technicalities of MRTJ’s axiomatization, it will be useful to articulate certain adequacy conditions specific to our program of reductive vindication. Suppose—as will transpire in the next section—that MRTJ is set out as a formalized theory in which the general notions of ‘belief’, ‘logical form’, and ‘determining a truth condition’ are taken as primitive, along with some notation for describing the logical complexity of the logical forms of particular beliefs. A reduction of MRTJ to another theory whose primitives are taken as antecedently understood will not be adequate for the purpose of vindicating the former’s notions of logical forms, multiple relations and the like unless the reduced version of MRTJ provides plausible analyses of beliefs of arbitrary complexity. One test of the plausibility of such analyses is their ability to accommodate and explain the intuitive validity or invalidity of certain inferences about people’s beliefs. It is, e.g., notorious that the Substitutivity of Identity seems to fail in inferences about psychological attitudes like belief. The reduced theory should offer some account of this which is consistent with MRTJ’s commitment to the Substitutivity of Identity. In sum, then, we have (C1) as an adequacy condition on the reduced version of MRTJ: (C1)

It should give a plausible analysis of ‘A believes that p’ and ‘The belief that p is true/false’ for all grammatically admissible replacements of ‘p’, not just for atomic ones like (1). In particular, this analysis should shed light upon alleged failures of the Substitutivity of Identity.

Moreover, because MRTJ eschews propositions in favor of a multiplicity of typed belief relations among logical forms and various non-propositional objects of belief, the reduced version of MRTJ must additionally meet the adequacy conditions

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(C2)-(C5): (C2)

It should reveal what is common to the members of the infinitely large family of differently typed belief relations (i.e., that in virtue of which they are belief -relations).

(C3)

It should incorporate a precise account of the nature of the posited logical forms.

(C4)

It should explain how the obtaining of a belief relation brings the objects of the belief into relation with a logical form so conceived; and this explanation should account for the role of logical forms in fixing the logical structure of a belief—explaining, e.g., (a) how a specific order is thereby imposed on the objects of the belief and (b) why certain possible orderings make sense but others do not.

(C5)

It should neither appeal to propositions nor use locutions that might seem to presuppose propositions for their interpretation—such as, e.g., undefined predicates that take nominalized sentences (as opposed to names of sentences) as arguments.

While Russell’s versions are set up to comply nominally with (C5), it is a matter of record that none ever came close to satisfying (C1)-(C4). This is not surprising, since everything clearly depends upon what is said, on the one hand, about the nature of the posited logical forms and, on the other hand, about the way in which belief (even when false) supposedly unites its objects with logical forms so conceived. But both of these topics ultimately remain mysterious in Russell’s writings. Let us see if we can dispel the mystery. 3.2 THE FORMALITIES OF MRTJ 3.2.1 The Base Language and Underlying Logic MRTJ, we shall assume, is articulated in a quantificational language L embodying a simple type theory in which the basic type is i (the type of individuals) and in which counts as a type if t1 , . . . , tn do.3 (Type indices appear as right superscripts on terms.) L contains variables of every type and a finite selection (borrowed from English) of primitive names for the individuals, properties and relations that serve as objects of judgment. (We use ‘name’ as a synonym for ‘constant’. When t = i, we will also call a name of type t a predicate of type t. The variables and names of a given type constitute the terms of that type.) Two sorts of complex terms are permitted. When α1t1 , . . . , αntn (n ≥ 1) are variables and φ is a formula in which none of α1 , . . . , αn occurs bound, L counts λ-abstracts of the form
[λα1t1 . . . αntn : φ] as complex terms of type . And where β t is a variable occurring free but nowhere bound in the formula ψ, L counts a definite

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description of the form
(ιβ t )ψ  as a complex term of type t. For future reference, let us call a formula pure iff it contains no primitive names. The underlying logic treats the sentential connectives (‘∼’, ‘&’, ‘∨’, ‘→’, ‘≡’) in classical fashion and subjects λ-abstracts to the familiar principles of λ-conversion. Identity is also treated classically: subject to the usual restrictions on free variables, every instance of
α t = β t → (φ ≡ φ(β //α )) is an axiom. However, in light of L’s syntactic treatment of definite descriptions as terms, ‘∀’ will be so restricted as to ensure a free logic for such terms (‘∃’ being defined as usual via ‘∀’). In other words, where τ is a term containing no definite descriptions save those whose non-emptiness is assured by our axioms, φ(τ /α ) may be inferred from
(∀α)φ ; but the conditional
ψ(τ /β ) → φ(τ /α ) may be inferred from
(∀α)φ  for any term τ substitutable for both α and β, provided that the formula ψ is atomic. This departure from Russell as regards the treatment of definite descriptions is purely for technical convenience, and nothing essential to the results obtained below depends upon it. To the foregoing apparatus, we add the axiom scheme (Ax. 1), which formalizes the plausible (albeit metaphysically optional) thesis that if F and G are the indeed one and the same n-ary relation, then F cannot require its jth term to be identical with an object a while G requires its jth term to be identical with a distinct object b:4 (Ax. 1)

t

If φ and ψ are formulas, α1t1 , . . . , αj j , . . . , αntn are variables, θ tj and τ tj t

are terms distinct from each of α1t1 , . . . , αj j , . . . , αntn and foreign to both φ and ψ, then every instance of the following is an axiom (1 ≤ j ≤ n): t

[λα1t1 . . . αj j . . . αntn : αj = θ & φ] t

= [λα1t1 . . . αj j . . . αntn : αj = τ & ψ] → θ = τ . 3.2.2 Some Primitive Vocabulary and Axioms of MRTJ Since Russell never undertakes an axiomatic presentation of his multiple relation theory, it is not clear what primitives or axioms he would have favored for its articulation. For the purposes of our reconstruction, we shall assume that MRTJ is formulated in the language LMRTJ obtained by adding to L the four families of primitive predicates specified in (Pr1)-(Pr4): (Pr1)

the (n+2)-ary predicates
Bel  (n ≥ 0);

(Pr2)

the binary predicates
Determines (n ≥ 0);

(Pr3)

the unary predicates
LogicalForm (n ≥ 0); and

(Pr4)

for each pure formula φ whose free variables (if any) are α1t1 , . . . , αkk and each variable δi foreign to φ, the quaternary predicate

t

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α . . . α δ/φ 1 k

of type , which is counted as syntactically simple (hence as not containing occurrences of t α1t1 , . . . , αkk ).

The new terms of the sort
α1 · · · αk δ/φ mentioned in (Pr4) serve as LMRTJ ’s official names for particular logical forms. The reason for including the seemingly redundant variable δ i will emerge later when we consider wholly general judgments. The informal interpretation of these special names (and their alphabetical variants) may be conveyed by the following sample glosses: • • • •

Read ‘G xi d i /G(x)’ as ‘the logical form of a (first-order) unary predication’. Read ‘G xi d i /∼G(x)’ as ‘the logical form of the negation of a (first-order) unary predication’. Read ‘F x1 i x2 i G y1 i y2 i d i /F(x1 , x2 ) ∨ G(y1 , y2 )’ as ‘the logical form of the disjunction of two (possibly unrelated, first-order) unary predications’. Read ‘d i /(∀xi )(x = x)’ as ‘the logical form of the (first-order) universal quantification of a predication of self-identity’.

A full axiomatic development of MRTJ will not be undertaken here. For our purposes it will suffice to concentrate upon certain key axiom schemes that might plausibly be proposed to govern the vocabulary introduced in (Pr1)-(Pr4). Let us begin with the connections between belief relations and logical forms. Since belief is supposed to essentially involve a relation to a logical form, [I] is an obvious candidate for axiomatic status: [I] Bel (α i , ρ , β1t1 , . . . , βntn ) LogicalForm(ρ).

→

(Axioms peculiar to MRTJ will be indexed with bracketed roman numerals; logical axioms and the additional axioms of
and
+ will be numbered as (Ax. 1), (Ax.2), etc.) The intuitive logic of de re belief ascriptions might be expected to supply more candidates for axiomhood. For example, although we presumably do not want MRTJ to rule out someone’s having two implicitly contradictory beliefs regarding the same object—say, one under the logical form G xi d i /G(x) and the other under G xi d i /∼G(x)—we might well be averse to the prospect of someone’s having an explicitly contradictory belief about an object under the logical form G xi d i /G(x) & ∼G(x). For the sake of argument, then, let us legislate this aversion into the axiom scheme [II]: [II] ∼Bel (α0i , α1t1 . . . αntn δ i /φ & ∼φ, β1t1 , . . . , βntn ). Notoriously, people’s beliefs are not closed under logical consequence, but we might at least expect some of their beliefs to respect the simple valid inferences that

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characterize the logical constants. Thus, e.g., a ‘conjunctive’ de re belief should be accompanied by de re beliefs matching the ‘conjuncts’ (though not always conversely). An appropriate axiom scheme for this kind of conjunctive belief would thus be [III]: [III]

Bel (α0 , α1 . . . αn δ/φ & ψ, β1 , . . . , βn ) → {Bel (α0 , αg1 . . . αgn δ/φ, βg1 , . . . , βgn ) & {Bel (α0 , αj1 . . . αjn δ/ψ, βj1 , . . . , βjn )},

where (i) αg1 , . . . , αgn are those of the variables α1 , . . . , αn free in φ, and βg1 , . . . , βgn are the corresponding terms from among β1 , . . . , βn ; (ii) αj1 , . . . , αjn are those of the variables α1 , . . . , αn free in ψ, and βj1 , . . . , βjn are the corresponding terms from among β1 , . . . , βn . Again, under the assumptions (i) and (ii), we might lay down [IV], which (roughly speaking) requires that when objects are believed to satisfy neither of two conditions, they should be separately believed not to satisfy each of those conditions: [IV]

Bel (α0 , α1 . . . αn δ/ ∼(φ ∨ ψ), β1 , . . . , βn ) → {Bel (α0 , αg1 . . . αgn δ/ ∼φ, βg1 , . . . , βgn ) & Bel (α0 , αj1 . . . αjn δ/ ∼ψ, βj1 , . . . , βjn )}.

Similarly, we might stipulate [V], which says (again roughly) that believing objects to satisfy some condition rules out believing that condition to be unsatisfied: [V] Bel (α0 , α1 . . . αn δ/φ, β1 , . . . , βn ) → ∼Bel (α0 , δ/ ∼(∃α1 ) . . . (∃αn )φ). No doubt numerous other principles of this ilk could be justified for beliefs of other basic logical forms, but having a complete list of them is not important for present purposes. As for the nature of logical forms themselves, we may lay down at least this much at the outset. A logical form f is a relational entity that determines a particular ontological structure Rf , the latter being a (possibly unexemplified) formal relation between ordinary properties, relations, and individuals. The chief constraint on the identity of the structure Rf derives from the role that a logical form is supposed to play vis-`a-vis the conditions for someone’s believing truly/falsely under it: viz., a case of believing under f is a case of believing truly/falsely under f iff the entities believed-about are/are not related by Rf . Accordingly, the logical form f must be distinct from the determined structure Rf . For in a case of believing falsely

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under f , the entities believed-about are of course not related by Rf . Yet even if Rf is not exemplified by anything at all, f must still be the logical form under which the subject believes, where this naturally suggests that f (itself a relational entity) must somehow be ‘exemplified in the belief’. By this we do not mean that there is an extra entity, ‘the belief’, which is a relatum of f , but merely that any case of believing ‘under’ f must involve f ’s actually relating some items. (As it stands, MRTJ offers no account of f ’s relata; in our proposed reduction, we shall identify them with certain mental representations.) In sum, whether or not the structure it determines relates anything on the side of the world, the logical form under which one believes must relate certain things on the side of the believer, fixing (in a way that Russell never explains) the distinctive way that the believer is related to the entities believed-about. Now for technical reasons that will emerge in due course, we have chosen to speak of the ontological structures in question at one remove, by way of correlated relations with an extra argument-place. Thus, e.g., the structure determined by the logical form G xi d i/G(x) of a first-order unary predication is taken to be the corresponding ternary formal relation [λG xi d i : G(x)] instead of the binary formal relation [λG xi : G(x)]. Generalizing, we have the axiom scheme [VI]: [VI]

Determines (α1t1 . . . αntn δ i /φ, [λα1t1 . . . αntn δ i: φ]).

(Since ‘Determines’ requires arguments of different types, the very idea of a logical form being identical to the corresponding structure cannot be mooted in LMRTJ .) We shall leave unsettled the question whether a given structure can be determined by more than one logical form. But we shall adopt axiom scheme [VII], which disallows the possibility of the same logical form determining two distinct structures: [VII] (Determines(α1t1 . . . αntn δ i /φ, y ) & Determines(α1t1 . . . αntn δ i /φ, z )) → y = z. What motivates [VII] is the intuitive notion of ‘determining’at work here, according to which the logical form of a belief about e1 , . . . , en somehow encodes a unique ontological structure that e1 , . . . , en must exemplify for that belief to be true. Two beliefs about the same entities e1 , . . . , en under the same logical form must ipso facto have identical truth conditions. Indeed, it would seem that from the standpoint of their role in a multiple relation theory of judgment, logical forms just are the determiners of unique ontological structures. Accordingly, let us add the axiom scheme [VIII]: [VIII]

(∀x ){LogicalForm(x) ≡ (∃!y )Determines(x, y)}.

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Given the foregoing, (T1) is a theorem scheme: (T1)

LogicalForm(α1t1 . . . αntn δ i /φ).

MRTJ, of course, treats all belief ascriptions as wholly transparent. Some (e.g., Salmon (1986) and Soames (1987a, 1987b, 2002)) have argued on Russell’s behalf that so-called attitudinal opacity is an illusion—not a syntactic/semantic datum but merely a pragmatic phenomenon—hence that there are no real substitutionfailures in attitudinal contexts to contend with in the first place. Be that as it may, MRTJ does at least have a way of handling apparent substitution-failures involving definite descriptions, despite treating them syntactically as terms. Consider, e.g., the inference from (3a-b) to (3c): (3)

a. George IV believes that Scott = the author of Waverly. b. The author of Waverly = the author of Marmion. ∴ c. George IV believes that Scott = the author of Marmion.

Because it can make fine-grained distinctions of logical form, MRTJ can in principle formalize this inference in any of the four ways (4)-(7): (4)

a. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi yi d i/x = y, Scott, (ιyi )AuthorOf (y, Waverly)). b. (ιyi )AuthorOf (y, Waverly) = (ιyi )AuthorOf (y, Marmion). ∴ c. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi yi d i/x = y, Scott, (ιyi )AuthorOf (y, Marmion)).

(5)

a. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi F d i/x = (ιz i )Fz, Scott, [λyi : AuthorOf (y, Waverly)]). b. (ιxi )AuthorOf (x, Waverly) = (ιxi )AuthorOf (x, Marmion). ∴ c. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi F d i/x = (ιz i )Fz, Scott, [λyi : AuthorOf (y, Marmion)]).

(6)

a. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi F d i/x = (ιz i )Fz, Scott, [λyi : AuthorOf (y, Waverly)]). b. (ιxi )AuthorOf (x, Waverly) = (ιxi )AuthorOf (x, Marmion). ∴ c. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi yi d i/x = y, Scott, (ιxi )AuthorOf (y, Marmion)).

(7)

a. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi yi d i/x = y, Scott, (ιxi )AuthorOf (y, Waverly)). b. (ιxi )AuthorOf (x, Waverly) = (ιxi )AuthorOf (x, Marmion). ∴ c. Bel (GeorgeIV , xi F d i/x = (ιz i )Fz, Scott, [λyi : AuthorOf (y, Marmion)]).

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Now (4), which is univocal with respect to ‘Bel’ and the logical form assignment in premises and conclusion, not only is a plausible analysis of the transparent reading of (3) but also is formally valid, being an instance of the Substitutivity of Identity. This leaves (5)-(7) as candidates for representing the wholly or partly opaque readings of (3) on which it is invalid. Each of (5)-(7) either equivocates on ‘Bel’ and the logical form assignment or changes the subject by making the statements about properties instead of (or in addition to) individuals. None of (5)-(7) is valid solely in virtue of our logical axioms, although this leaves it open that a deeper understanding of what it is to have a belief ‘under’ a logical form might lead us to accept one of them. (5), which involves no equivocation, looks promising as a rendering of the fully opaque construal of (3) and is intuitively invalid. Here the intuition is that if George IV thinks of Scott as uniquely authoring Waverly, then the mere fact that Scott uniquely authored both Waverly and Marmion offers no assurance that George IV also thinks of Scott as uniquely authoring Marmion. (7) likewise seems invalid. The fact that the two novels had the same author and that George IV has an identity-belief that happens to be about Scott and the author of Waverly is insufficient grounds for concluding that George IV thinks of Scott as the author of Marmion (or ‘as’ of any other kind, for that matter). The intuitive status of (6) is less clear and will be left to our reduction to settle.

3.2.3 Truth in MRTJ Where f is a logical form, let us call the ontological structure it determines the value of f and introduce for it the following abbreviatory notation: (Df.1) Where ρ is a term of type : |ρ| =def . (ιγ )Determines(ρ, γ ). We have seen that the value | f | of a logical form f is intuitively connected with the truth conditions for beliefs under f . Can this intuitive connection be made explicit in MRTJ itself? As regards the truth-values of ‘belief facts’, it is easy to define typed counterparts of ‘truly believes’ and ‘falsely believes’. The basic idea is simple: one bears the multiple relation of truly/falsely believing to such-and-such items under a given logical form f iff (i) one bears to those items under f the multiple relation of believing and (ii) the value of f does/does not relate those items (in the indicated order). Formally, this amounts to taking (Df.2) and (Df.3) as definition schemes: (Df.2) TrBel =def . [λα i ρ β1t1 . . . βntn : Bel (α, ρ, β1 , . . . , βn ) & |ρ|(β1 , . . . ,βn , α)].5

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(Df.3) FlsBel =def . [λα i ρ β1t1 . . . βntn : Bel (α, ρ, β1 , . . . , βn ) & ∼|ρ|(β1 , . . . , βn , α)]. Thus, e.g., (8) will be paraphrased in MRTJ by (9), which is provably equivalent in MRTJ to (10): (8)

Othello truly believes that Desdemona loves Cassio.

(9)

TrBel (Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

(10)

Bel (Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio) & Loves(Desdemona, Cassio).

Clearly, however, the definition schemes (Df.2) and (Df.3) will not supply what Russell wanted of MRTJ, viz. (stratified) notions of truth and falsehood for beliefs that will serve in place of the traditional notions of propositional truth and falsehood that he jettisoned along with the propositions themselves. The obvious problem is that infinitely many truths and falsehoods may go unbelieved, so that there will not be enough surrogate ‘belief facts’ to go around (hence not enough real cases of believing-truly or believing-falsely for (Df.2) and (Df.3) to take up the slack). However, even where there is no fact that someone believes, say, that Rab, there is still the corresponding relation between a thinker x and a logical form f that consists in (i) x’s bearing the appropriate multiple relation to R, a,b under f and (ii) f ’s being such-and-such a logical form h. Taking h to be F y1i y2i d i /F(y1 , y2 ), this relation between thinker and logical form would be the complex relation Bh:R,a,b defined by (Df.4): (Df.4)

Bh:R,a,b =def . [λxi f : f = F y1i y2i d i /F(y1 , y2 ) & Bel (x, f , R , a, b)].

In sentences of the sort ‘The belief that a bears R to b is true’, we can now think of (11) as paraphraseable by (12), to which the relation Bh:R,a,b is assigned as referent: (11)

the belief that a bears R to b

(12)

beliefs under the logical form of a binary predication involving R, a,b respectively.

In general, then, for any logical form g and entities e1 , . . . , en of respective types t1 , . . . , tn , we will have as a belief-surrogate the complex relation

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Bg:e1 ,...,en defined by (Df.5): (Df.5)

Bg:e1 ,...,en =def . [λxi f : f = g & Bel (x, f , e1 , . . . , en )].

To complete the picture, we need a suitable family of typed truth-predicates for such belief-surrogates. What immediately suggests itself is an appeal to the notion of the value of the logical form relating the objects of the belief. Tailored to fit (Df.5), a suitable definition scheme would be (Df.6): (Df.6)

For any term ρ of type and terms α1t1 , . . . , αntn : True (Bρ:α1 ,...,αn ) =def . (∃β i )|ρ|(α1 , . . . , αn , β),

with ‘False ’being defined as ‘∼True ’. In other words, a belief-surrogate Bg:e1 ,...,en is ‘true’ just in case the value of g actually relates e1 , . . . , en to some object w. Trivially, we will have as theorems all instances of the corresponding truth scheme (T2), and from the instance of (T2) for the particular belief-surrogate Bh:R,a,b discussed above, theorem (T3) will follow: (T2) True(Bα1 ...αn δ/φ:β1 ,...,βn ) ≡ (∃γ i )([λα1t1 . . . αntn δ i:φ](β1 , . . . , βn , γ )). (T3)

True(Bh:R,a,b ) ≡ R(a, b).

Using this apparatus, we can translate a vernacularism like (13) by its perspicuous counterpart (14), which, however unwieldy, will at least have the virtue of being demonstrably equivalent to (15): (13) The belief that Desdemona loves Cassio is true. [i.e.: Beliefs under the logical form of a binary predication involving loving, Desdemona, and Cassio respectively are true.] (14) True ([λxi f : f = F y1i y2i d i /F(y1 , y2 ) & Bel (x, f , Loves, Desdemona, Cassio)]). (15)

Loves(Desdemona,Cassio).

These results, together with the fact that MRTJ treats the logical complexity of a belief’s content as a function of its logical form, ensure that the foregoing account of truth for belief-surrogates applies not just to the ‘atomic’ ones but to the ‘molecular’ ones as well.

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3.3 THE THEORY
Our concern is to vindicate MRTJ, not the various doctrines entangled with Russell’s own versions of the multiple relation theory (e.g., his Principle of Acquaintance and his sense-datum phenomenalism). In particular, we carry no brief for his curious view that the mind somehow directly arranges the (non-mental) objects of judgment in accordance with a certain logical form. Instead, we look for vindication in the direction of a representational theory of mind (RTM) according to which what gets manipulated in thought are not the nonmental objects of thought per se but mental representations of those objects. Specifically, we shall consider a formal theory
that embraces RTM in the specific form of the so-called Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOT), which we understand to be the conjunction of the following five theses:6 (i) thinking is a matter of tokening sequences of mental representations, which constitute the domain of relevant mental processes; (ii) for each propositional attitude A there is a functionally definable psychological relation RA such that, for any agent a and thought-content p, a bears A to p if and only if there is a mental representation Mp to which a bears RA and which ‘means’ p; (iii) such mental representations (at the type level) form a language-like system— i.e., they are, in effect, the sentences of the agent a’s language of thought (a’s ‘Mentalese’)—which is ontologically and explanatorily prior to the agent’s public language(s) if any and for which an appropriate compositional syntax and semantics could in principle be provided [such a semantics treating a’s Mentalese as a univocal idiom each of whose terms makes a single, invariable semantic contribution to the truth condition of any Mentalese sentence in which it occurs]; (iv) the mental operations involved in a’s thinking are causally sensitive to the form (syntactic structure) of the sentences of a’s Mentalese. (v) for each sentence-type of an agent’s language of thought, the property of being a token of that sentence-type is, at some appropriate level, a functionally definable property. Since our aim is to use LOT in vindicating MRTJ, we shall be assuming its truth rather than directly arguing for it here.7 (However, its usefulness in unraveling the mysteries of MRTJ could be viewed as counting in favor of LOT, provided of course that one regards such mysteries as worth solving in the first place.) Ironically, Russell’s first, very brief and tentative sketch of his theory (Russell 1906/08) did involve mental representatives of objects in addition to the objects themselves; and after officially renouncing the multiple relation approach (Russell 1919) he immediately embraced a new view of belief as a relation to certain mental representations constructed from mental images standing for objects, properties,

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and relations. Perhaps what prevented Russell from exploiting his latent affinity for mental representations in the interest of his multiple relation theory of judgment was his failure to get beyond the unprofitable traditional talk of mental imagery to some version of LOT. In any event, let us see whether, availing ourselves of LOT, we can do better on behalf of MRTJ. As loyal type-theorists, we assume that languages of thought have a type-structure like that of L. Since we will both be talking in English about the extended language L
of
and using L
in turn to talk about the syntax and semantics of Mentalese, it will be useful to adopt the following notational conventions to keep track of our hierarchy of languages. In our English metalanguage for L
: – Expressions of the form
φ[; ] are restricted variables ranging over formulas of L
whose free variables (in order of first occurrence) are α1 , . . . , αk and whose bound variables (in order of first occurrence) are αk+1 , . . . , αn . –

Uppercase Greek letters are restricted metavariables that range solely over the boldfaced variables of L
(see below).

– Sellarsian dot-quotes (Sellars 1963) are used for talking about the grammatical and inferential role of expressions of Mentalese. (For any expression σ of MRTJ, an expression of agent a’s Mentalese is a • σ • iff it plays therein the same grammatical/inferential role that σ plays in MRTJ.) The language L
itself contains the following additions to the basic formalism of L: – Boldfaced Roman letters are used as restricted variables of type ranging over Mentalese expression-kinds (construed as type properties, so that to token an expression-kind is literally to exemplify it). – Where α is a term designating an agent a,
M α  designates a’s language of thought,
i α  is a name for the M a -type of individuals, and
t α  (with or without subscripts) is a variable ranging over M a -types (where the identity of the agent a is obvious, the superscripts will be omitted).8 – The vergules ‘«’ and ‘»’ are used to form structural-descriptive names of complex Mentalese expression-kinds. Thus, e.g., where ‘∧ ’ signifies concatenation of Mentalese tokens, the expression
«(S1 &S2 )» is a type name for the property of being an individual x such that x = y1 ∧ y2 ∧ y3 ∧ y4 ∧ y5 for some individuals y1 , y2 , y3 , y4 , y5 such that y1 is a • (• and y2 = S1 and y3 is a • &• and y4 = S2 and y5 is a • )• . – Boldfaced logical symbols are names for the Mentalese symbol-kinds that are their counterparts: e.g., ‘&’ names the property of being a Mentalese • &• ; ‘)’ names the property of being a Mentalese • )• ; and so on). In

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particular, boldface expressions of the sort

1 . . . k / are the Mentalese counterparts of LMRTJ ’s official names for particular logical forms. The following vocabulary (minus type indices and with the obvious interpretations or those supplied in brackets) is employed for discussing the syntax and semantics of a thinker’s Mentalese sentences and the thinker’s psychological relations to those sentences: VarType(, t, M α ); NameType(, t, M α ); TermType(, t, M α ); Sentence(, M α ); Expression(, M α ); SimpleIn(, M α ); FreeIn(, ); OccursIn(, ); (1 . . . n /1 . . . n ); DenIn(, β t , M α ) [i.e.,  denotes9 β t in M α ]; Distinct(1 , 2 , . . . , m ) [i.e., &1≤i =j≤m (i = j )]; SynRel(µ) [i.e., µ is a syntactic relation among Mentalese expressions]; Accepts(α, ). In axiom, theorem and definition schemes where ‘t’ is employed as a schematic letter whose replacements are particular type indices of our formalism, its primed counterpart ‘t  ’ is to be understood as a schematic letter whose replacements are the boldfaced indices for the corresponding Mentalese types. (Thus, e.g., if ‘t’ is replaced by ‘’ in an instance of a scheme also containing ‘t  ’, then ‘t  ’ must be replaced by ‘’ in that instance.) The metalinguistic expression ‘t  ’ must not be confused with the object language variable ‘t’. In the case of L
’s syntactic vocabulary, the corresponding axiom schemes of
are predictable. There will be, e.g., an axiom scheme to guarantee that «[λ1 . . . m :]» will count as a term of type in M α if  is a sentence and 1 , . . . , m are variables of respective types t 1 , . . . , t m in M α ; another axiom scheme to guarantee that if «[λ1 . . . m :]» is a term of type in M α with  foreign to , then «
1 . . . m /» is a term of type in M α ; and so on. Since these axiom schemes are as uninteresting as they are predictable, there is no point to enumerating and formalizing them here. For present purposes there is no need for assumptions about the make-up or semantics of anyone’s non-logical Mentalese vocabulary. It will, however, be important to specify the denotation of ‘pure’ Mentalese λ-abstracts—i.e., terms of the sort «[λv1 . . . vk : S]» in which S contains no primitive Mentalese names of any type. So
will require a corresponding semantic axiom scheme. To formulate this axiom scheme (and others to come), we introduce the useful notion of the ‘shadow’ of a pure formula. Suppose φ[; ] is a pure formula of L. Then, for any distinct boldfaced letters 1 , . . . , k , k+1 , . . . , n : An expression  is the shadow of φ[; ] under [; ] iff:  results from φ[; ] by first replacing α1 , . . . , αk , αk+1 , . . . , αn with 1 , . . . , k ,

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k+1 , . . . , n and then replacing any remaining non-boldfaced symbols with their boldface counterparts from L
’s special vocabulary for Mentalese. (For example:
(∃v4 )(v1 (v4 ) & v2 (v3 )) would be the shadow of
(∃x)(F(x) & G(y)) under [; ]; and
(∃v1 )(∃v2 )v2 (v1 ) would be the shadow of
(∃x)(∃F)F(x) under [; ].) tk+1 t Where  is the shadow of the pure formula φ[; ] under [; ] and  is a boldfaced letter foreign to ,
has the axiom scheme (Ax.2) for the semantic predicate ‘DenIn’ of type : (Ax.2)

(Distinct(1 , . . . , n , ) & VarType(1 , t1 ,Mγ ) & . . . & VarType(n , tn ,Mγ ) & VarType(,i,Mγ ) & ∼OccursIn(, ))→ t DenIn(«[λ1 . . . k  : ]», [λα1t1 . . . αkk δ i : φ[α1 , . . . , αk >; ]], M γ ).

Thus, since ‘f(x)’ is the shadow of ‘F(x)’, under [; ], it follows from (Ax.2) that if f,x,d are distinct variables of respective types , i and i in y’s Mentalese, (d foreign to «f (x)»), then y’s Mentalese name «[λfxd: f (x)]» denotes the type relation [λF xi d i : F(x)]. Given the adoption of LOT, it is natural to model the having of beliefs as the ‘acceptance’ of certain sentences of one’s Mentalese. Since, however, most of a person’s beliefs at any moment are merely tacit, the corresponding notion of acceptance must not require occurrent tokening of Mentalese sentences. Accordingly, let us gloss
Accepts(x,S) as
x is disposed as if x inwardly and assertively tokens S),10 where to token S—a property—is to produce something exemplifying it.
will of course contain axioms characterizing this relation. The following, admittedly incomplete list of axioms (derived, with modifications, from Loar (1981: 72)) may serve to convey the flavor of what would be involved: (Ax.3.1)

(Sentence(S1 ,Mx ) & Sentence(S2 ,Mx )) → ∼Accepts(x, «S1 & ∼S 2 »).

(Ax.3.2)

(Sentence(S,Mx ) & Accepts(x, S)) → ∼Accepts(x, «∼S»).

(Ax.3.3)

(Sentence(S1 ,Mx ) & Sentence(S2 ,Mx ) & Accepts(x, «S1 & S2 »)) → Accepts(x, «S1 ») & Accepts(x, «S2 »)).

(Ax.3.4)

(Sentence(S1 ,Mx ) & Sentence(S2 ,Mx ) & Accepts(x, S1 ) & Accepts(x, S2 )) → ∼Accepts (x, «∼(S1 & S2 )»).

(Ax.3.5)

(Sentence(S1 ,Mx ) & Sentence(S2 ,Mx ) & Accepts (x, «∼(S1 ∨ S2 )»)) →(Accepts(x, «∼S1 ») & Accepts(x, «∼S2 »)).

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(Ax.3.6)

(NameType(a,t,Mx ) & NameType(b,t,Mx ) & Sentence(S,Mx ) & Accepts(x, S) & Accepts(x, «a = b»)) → Accepts(x, S(a //b ))11

(Ax.3.7)

(Sentence(S,Mx ) & Accepts(x, S) → ∼(∃v)(∃a)(∃t){VarType(v,t,Mx ) & NameType(a,t,Mx ) & ∼OccursIn(v, S) & OccursIn(a, S) & Accepts(x, «∼(∃v)S(v /a )»)}.

A comprehensive list of axioms for ‘Accepts’, supplemented with principles relating acceptance to other psychological relations to Mentalese sentences, might even provide the basis for a functional definition of ‘Accepts’. But since it is controversial exactly what such a list should contain, we shall content ourselves here with the foregoing sample. The question now is how the resources of
could be pressed into the service of vindicating MRTJ. 3.4 THE BRIDGE PRINCIPLES AND REDUCTION OF MRTJ TO
+ The reducing theory
+ is the extension of
obtained by adding appropriate definition and axiom schemes to serve as bridge principles connecting the primitive vocabulary (Pr1)-(Pr4) of LMRTJ to that of L
. Let us begin with the crucial definit tion scheme that allows the predicates  α1t1 . . . αkk δ i /φ —and hence MRTJ’s talk of logical forms—to be understood purely in terms of the vocabulary of L
. tk+1 t Where  is the shadow of the pure formula φ[; ] under [; ] and  is a boldfaced letter foreign to , we take (Df.7) as a definition scheme of
+ : t

(Df.7) α1t1 . . . αkk δ i /φ[; ] =def t [λxyi zd i : x = [λα1t1 . . . αkk δ i : φ[; ]] & (∃w){NameType(w, , My ) & DenIn(w, x, My ) & [λrsi u: (∃1 ) . . . (∃n )(∃) (Distinct(1 , . . . , n , ) & VarType(1 , t1 ,Ms ) & . . . & VarType(n , tn ,Ms ) & VarType(, i,Ms ) & ∼OccursIn (, «») & r = «[1 . . . k :]») & u = «
1 . . . k /»)]wyz}].12 The import of this complicated definition scheme is best appreciated by way of a simple example. Since ‘f (x)’ is the shadow of the pure formula ‘F (xi )’ under [; ], we have the definition (16) as an instance of (Df.7): (16)

F xi d i /F(x) = def . [λv yi zd i : v = [λF xi d i : F(x)] & (∃w){NameType(w, ,My ) & DenIn(w, v, My ) & [λrsi u: (∃f )(∃x)(∃d)(Distinct(f , x, d) & VarType(f , ,Ms ) &

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VarType(x, i,Ms ) & VarType(d,i,Ms ) & ∼OccursIn(d, «f (x)») & r = «[λfxd: f (x)]») & u = «
fxd/f(x)»)]wyz}]. From (16) we learn that what MRTJ calls ‘F xi d i /F(x)’—alias ‘the logical form of a (first-order) unary predication’—may be identified with a certain complex relation R between a structure v, person y, expression z of My , and arbitrary individual d . In effect, Rvyzd obtains just in case: (a) v is the structure [λF xi d i : F(x)]; (b) for some distinct variables f,x,d of respective My -types ,i,i the term «[λfxd: f (x)]» denotes the structure v in My ; and (c) z is the corresponding term «
fxd/f (x)» of My . According to MRTJ, F xi d i/F(x) determines the ontological structure [λF xi d i : F(x)]. But by (16), F xi d i/F(x) ‘contains’ [λF xi d i : F(x)] in the sense of being a relation that requires its first term to be that very structure. This suggests a general definition of determining via ‘containing’, which is spelled out in (Df.8) with the aid of the predicate ‘SynRel’ that expresses the higher-order property of being a syntactic relation among expressions of a person’s Mentalese: (Df.8) Determines,> =def [λF G : (∃K ){SynRel(K) & F = [λx yi zd i : x = G & (∃w){NameType(w, , My ) & DenIn(w, x, My ) & Kwyz}]}]. For present purposes, it is not important exactly how ‘SynRel’ is ultimately characterized. All we need assume here is that it has been so axiomatized in
+ as to yield as a theorem any formula in which ‘SynRel’ is applied to an instance of the schematic λ-term used in (Df.7); in other words, we shall assume that (T4) is a theorem scheme: (T4) SynRel([λrsi u: (∃1 ) . . . (∃n )(∃)(Distinct(1 , . . . , n , ) & VarType(1 , t 1 , Ms ) & . . . & VarType(n , tn , Ms ) & VarType(, i, M s ) & ∼OccursIn(, ) & r = «[λ1 . . . k : ]») & u = «
1 . . . k /»)]). (T4) ensures that instances of this schematic λ-term count as expressing a ‘syntactic condition’ on expressions of a person’s Mentalese. Courtesy of (Ax. 1) and the definitions (Df.7) and (Df.8), the axiom scheme [VII] of MRTJ is now a theorem scheme of
+ .13 With ‘Determines’ defined, we can now equate what MRTJ calls ‘being a logical form of a given type ’ with being a certain relation of type that determines relations of the corresponding lower type

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. This is recorded in (Df.9): (Df.9)

LogicalForm =def . [λx : (∃y )Determines(x, y)].

In light of (Ax. 1), (Df.8), and (Df.9), MRTJ’s axiom schemes [VIII] and [VI] are theorem schemes of
+ . Having embraced LOT, we shall naturally wish to speak not only about a logical form determining a structure but also about its being a logical form of something— viz., someone’s Mentalese sentence. While it would be possible to define a relation FormOf that would apply to any Mentalese sentence, our project here requires only a more restricted version that applies to ‘pure’ Mentalese sentences, i.e. those all of whose simple terms are variables. Accordingly, we schematically define FormOf as the following complex relation: (Df.10) FormOf =def . [λf Sxi : LogicalForm(f ) & Sentence(S, M x ) & (∃v1 ) . . . (∃vk )(∃d) {(Distinct(v1 , . . . , vk , d) & VarType(v1 , t1 , M x ) & . . . & VarType(vk , tk , M x ) & VarType(d, i, M x ) & (∀v0 )(FreeIn(v0 , S) ≡ (v0 = v1 ∨ . . . ∨ v0 = vk ))& ∼OccursIn(d, S) & (∀r)(∀t x ) ((NameType(r, t, M x ) & SimpleIn(r, M x )) → ∼OccursIn(r, S)) & f (|f |, x, «
v1 . . . vk d/S», x)}]. In other words, FormOf is that relation between a logical form f , sentence S, and agent x consisting in S’s being a pure sentence of M x containing free variables v1 , . . . , vk such that, for some M x -type i variable d foreign to S, f relates its value to x and to the corresponding term «
v1 . . . vk d/S» of M x . (Df.10) enables us to prove every instance of the important scheme (T5), in tk+1 t which  is the shadow of the pure formula φ[; ] under [; ]: (T5)

(Distinct(1 , . . . , n ) & VarType(1 , t1 , M γ ) & . . . & t VarType(n , tn , M γ )) → FormOf(α1t1 . . . αkk δ i /φ[; ], «», γ i ).

Thus, e.g., (‘G(v)’ being the shadow of ‘G (xi )’ under [; ]) we can prove that where G and v are free variables of respective Ma -types and i, the logical form G xi d i /G(x) is a logical form of the elementary Ma -sentence «G(v)». This is recorded in theorem (T6): (T6)

(∀ai )(∀G)(∀v){{Distinct(G, v) & VarType(G, , M a ) & VarType(v, i, Ma )} → FormOf((G xi d i/G(x), «G(v)», a)}.

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The axiom scheme (Ax.2) that
+ inherits from
specifies the denotata of Mentalese counterparts of relational names of the form  [α1 . . . αk δ:φ] . But in order to complete the connection of MRTJ’s vocabulary for logical forms with
’s vocabulary for their mental representations, we need to specify the denotata of the Mentalese counterparts of relational names of the form  α1 . . . αk δ/φ . Intuitively, these Mentalese counterparts are supposed to be names of logical forms. Accordingly, we suppose that, where  is the shadow of the pure formula tk+1 t φ[; ] under [; ] and is  is a boldfaced letter foreign to , the instances of scheme (Ax.4) are axioms of
+ : (Ax.4)

(Distinct(1 , . . . , n , ) & VarType(1 , t1 , M γ ) & . . . & VarType(n , tn , M γ ) & VarType(, i, M γ ) & ∼OccursIn(, )) → DenIn(«
1 . . . k /», α1 . . . αk δ/φ[; ], M γ ).14

Having said in
+ what sort of relation MRTJ’s logical forms are and what it is for one of them to be a logical form of a (pure) Mentalese sentence, we must now specify the nature of the multiple relation of belief in which logical forms are to figure as terms. Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that F y1 i y2 i d i /F(y1 , y2 ) is the logical form invoked for ‘Desdemona loves Cassio’ and that (17) is MRTJ’s analysis of (18): (17)

Bel (Othello, F y1 i y2 i d i /F(y1 , y2 ), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

(18)

Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio.15

The idea about ‘Bel’ we want to articulate in
+ is that the truth of (18) requires something like the following: (i) that Othello assertively tokens in his language of thought some sentence S comprising names of loving, Desdemona, and Cassio; and (ii) that these names are syntactically arranged in S in exactly the way dictated by F y1 i y2 i d i /F(y1 , y2 ) (so that S will be a relational sentence of Othello’s Mentalese whose binary predicate, first argument, and second argument are respectively the aforementioned names of loving, Desdemona, and Cassio). This would be straightforward were it not for a difficulty that arises in trying to generalize the account to cover nested beliefs. A purported vindication of MRTJ must surely take seriously the latter’s guiding idea—that belief is a multiple relation involving thinker, logical form, and the various entities thought about. If so, however, then that guiding idea should be applied across the board, to any proffered analysis of belief ascriptions in Mentalese as well as in English! (This is part of the point of the adequacy condition (C5), which bars appeal to any unanalysed Mentalese analogue of a ‘that’-clause construction.)

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Now MRTJ analyses an iterated belief ascription like (19) by something of the form (20): (19)

Iago believes that Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio.

(20)

Bel 1 (Iago, f1 , Bel 2 , Othello, f2 , Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

In (20), however, there are two logical forms to contend with—f1 , which determines how Bel1 relates Iago to all the other constituents, and f2 , which determines how Iago thinks of Bel2 as relating Othello, loving, Desdemona and Cassio! In other words, logical forms must be capable of figuring among the objects of a belief as well. The difficulty facing the attempt to generalize the account to cover (20) is this: it is not enough merely that Iago should accept a Mentalese sentence whose structure is dictated by f1 and whose terms respectively denote believing, Othello, loving, Desdemona, Cassio, and a certain logical form f2 (for Othello’s belief). Rather, Iago must represent the logical form of Othello’s alleged belief in some canonical way that reveals to Iago the conditions under which Othello’s belief would be true, i.e., puts Iago in a position to appreciate those truth conditions (if he considers the matter, is smart enough, etc.). The need for such canonical representation of the logical forms of others’ beliefs is intrinsic to any view of thinking as a kind of inner speech. This is most easily seen when we pretend that the inner speech in question occurs in a natural language like English. Imagine, e.g., a situation like the following. Iago, peering through a telescope, dimly sees a man a crouched behind a bush spying on a woman b who is embracing a man c. Iago, thinking in approved multiple-relation jargon, then says to himself (21) while mentally ostending a, b, and c respectively in connection with the tokens of ‘he’, ‘her’, and ‘him’: (21)

He has a belief of the binary first-order relational sort about her and him.

But—unbeknownst to Iago—a = Othello, b = Desdemona, and c = Cassio. In such a situation, a wholly transparent construal of (19) would presumably be true, and the logical form of Othello’s alleged belief (viz., binary first-order relational predication) is recoverable from what Iago has said to himself. On the other hand, suppose Iago had instead said to himself (22): (22)

He has a belief of his favorite sort about her and him.

This is plainly not enough to make true even a wholly transparent construal of (19), precisely because the logical form of Othello’s alleged belief would no longer be recoverable from what Iago had said to himself. In light of the foregoing, we need to ensure that when a logical form v1 . . . vk δ/ψ occurs among the objects of a person’s belief, the person’s mental name for it is ‘canonical’ in the sense of being a Mentalese • v1 . . . vk δ/ψ• .

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Accordingly, we define by cases the ternary predicate ‘CNO’ (read: ‘. . . is a canonical name of . . . in . . .’s Mentalese’). For the cases in which t ∗ is a type of the sort , we provide definition scheme (Df.11): ∗

∗

(Df.11) CNO =def . [λwxt yi : {LogicalForm(x) & (∃r)(∃S) {Sentence(S, M y ) & (∃v1 )(∃v2 )(∃v3 )(∃d){Distinct(v1 , v2 , v3 , d) & VarType(v1 , , M y ) & VarType(v2 , i, M y ) & VarType(v3 , , M y ) & VarType(d, i, M y ) & (∀v0 ) (FreeIn(v0 , S) ≡ (v0 = v1 ∨ v0 = v2 ∨ v0 = v3 )) & ∼OccursIn(d, S) & (∀n)(∀t y )(NameType(n, t, M y ) →∼OccursIn(n, S)) & r = «[λv1 v2 v3 d: S]» & DenIn(r, |x|, M y ) & w = «
v1 v2 v3 d/S»}} ∨ {∼LogicalForm(x) & DenIn(w, x, M y )}]. For types t  not of the sort , canonical naming may be equated with ordinary denotation, as in (Df.12), since no type t  entity could be a logical form: (Df.12) CNO





=def . [λwxt yi : DenIn(w, xt , M y )].

At last we are in a position to define the family of predicates Despite the proliferation of Bel-relations to which MRTJ is committed, it is nevertheless possible to capture them all in
+ by means of the single definition scheme (Df.13):  Bel  .

(Df.13) Bel =def . [λxi f y1t1 . . . yntn : (∃S)(∃v1 ) . . . (∃vn ){Sentence(S, M x ) & VarType(v1 , t1 , M x ) & . . . & VarType(vn , tn , M x ) & Distinct(v1 , . . . , vn ) & (∀w)(FreeIn(w, S) ≡ (w = v1 ∨ . . . ∨ w = vn ) & FormOf (f , S, x) & (∃b1 ) . . . (∃bn ) {(NameType(b1 , t1 , M x ) & . . . & NameType(bn , tn , M x ) & CNO(b1 , y1 , x) &. . . & CNO(bn , yn , x) & Accepts(x, S(bl ...bn /v1 ...vn ))}}]. (n ≥ 0) What (Df.13) tells us is that an (n+2)-ary Bel-relation of given type is that relation between an agent, a logical form, and entities y1 , . . . yn (of corresponding types) which consists in the agent’s being disposed as one who inwardly and assertively tokens the (closed) Mentalese sentence which results from uniformly substituting names b1 , . . . , bn for the free variables of an n-ary open Mentalese sentence having the given logical form, where each bi is a canonical name of yi in the agent’s Mentalese. The description of b1 , . . . , bn is couched in terms of canonical names for the sake of generality: we want MRTJ to apply to iterated belief ascriptions, its analysis of which requires logical forms to appear among the entities y1 , . . . yn . However, in cases not involving nested belief predicates—hence where none of y1 , . . . yn is a logical form—the description of b1 , . . . , bn simply amounts to the

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requirement that b1 , . . . , bn respectively denote y1 , . . . yn in agent’s Mentalese. So, in the non-nested cases, to have a belief about y1 , . . . yn under a logical form f is to accept the substitution-instance S(b1 ...bn /v1 ...vn ) of a pure sentence S of one’s Mentalese which is such that (i) f is a form of S and (ii) b1 , . . . , bn respectively denote y1 , . . . yn in one’s Mentalese. In the formulation of (Df.13) the Mentalese names b1 , . . . , bn , unlike the Mentalese variables v1 , . . . , vn they replace, are not required to be distinct from one another, for (like Russell) we are dealing with relational rather than notional belief, hence allowing that identities among the objects of a belief may not tracked by identities among their Mentalese names. The unity of the family of Bel-relations is thus more intimate than that of a group of relations that merely obey the same or similar laws: members of the family of Bel-relations are all structurally alike in the way depicted in (Df.13). It is this structural likeness, together with their incorporation of the relation Accepts, which makes them all belief relations—though of course this cannot be ‘said’ in
+ itself but only ‘shown’ by the definitional status of (Df.13)’s instances. Given (Df.10) and (Df.13), MRTJ’s axiom scheme [I] becomes a theorem scheme of
+ . Indeed, in light of (Df.7) and (Df.13), all the remaining axiom schemes of MRTJ also become theorem schemes of
+ : [II] via (Ax.3.1); [III] via (Ax.3.3); [IV] via (Ax.3.5); and [V] via (Ax.3.7). Furthermore, it is now possible to say what it is for a type-indexed expression of M x to be a ‘belief predicate’ (a • Bel • ) or a ‘believes-truly predicate’ (a • TrBel • ) of that Mentalese type—two notions that will loom large in the next section. To simplify the formulation, let us take ‘Vocab(v1t 1 , . . . , vnt n , di , ui , y1t 1 , . . . ynt n , S; M x )’ to say that v1 , . . . , vn , d, u, y1 , . . . yn are distinct variables of respective M x -types t 1 , . . . , t n , i, i, t 1 , . . . , t n and that S is a pure formula of M x in which the free variables are exactly v1 , . . . , vn but in which d does not occur. Now consider the schematic formula (23), in which ‘x’, ‘B’, and ‘t 1 ’, . . . ,‘t n ’ are the only free variables: (23) (∀v1 ) . . . (∀vn )(∀d)(∀u)(∀y1 ) . . . (∀yn )(∀S){Vocab(v1t 1 , . . . , vnt n , di , ui , y1t 1 , . . . ynt n , S; M x ) → Accepts(x, «(∀u)∼B (u,
v1 . . . vn d/S & ∼S, y1 , . . . , yn )»)}. (23) attributes to x acceptance of Mentalese sentences that mimic instances of the axiom scheme [II] of MRTJ. It seems clear that, whatever the plausible axiom schemes for ‘Bel’ turn out to be in MRTJ (including ones that might be added to relate belief to desire and intention), there will be corresponding open formulas of
analogous to (23) for attributing acceptance of instances of those schemes. Since ‘x’, ‘B’, and ‘t 1 ’,…,‘t n ’ are the only free variables involved, let ‘(x, B, t 1 , . . . , t n )’ denote the conjunction of all such open acceptance-attribution formulas of
. Then what it is for a type-indexed expression «B » of M x to be an (n + 2)-ary ‘belief predicate’ of that Mentalese type can be equated with

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x’s accepting (i.e., being disposed as one who assertively tokens) all the relevant axioms. In other words, we can lay down (Df.14) as a definition scheme in
+ : (Df.14) BeliefPred n =def . [λbt x x: (∃t x1 ) . . . (∃t xn )(t = &(∃e)(Expression(e, M x ) & b = «et » & ∼(∃d)(∃t 0 x ) (Expression(d, M x ) & e = «dt 0 »)) & (x, e, t 1 , . . . , t n )))]. (n>0) Given (Df.14), we can define in
+ what it is for an expression p of M x to be a ‘believes-truly predicate’ of suitable type. This is accomplished by adoption of the definition scheme (Df.15), in which t ∗ = : (Df.15) TrueBeliefPred n =def . [λpt x x: (∃t x1 ) . . . (∃t xn )(∃e){t = t ∗ & Expression(e,M x ) & p = «et » & ∼(∃d)(∃t x0 ) (Expression(d, M x ) & e = «dt 0 ») & (∃b)BeliefPred n (b, t, x) & (∀b)(∀v1 ) . . . (∀vn )(∀d)(∀a)(∀y1 ) . . . (∀yn )(∀S){(BeliefPred n (b, t, x) & Vocab(v1t 1 , . . . , vnt n , di , ui , y1t 1 , . . . ynt n , S, M α )) → Accepts(x, «(∀y1 ) . . . (∀yn )([λu: p(u,
v1 . . . vn d/S, y1 , .., yn )] = [λu: b(u,
v1 . . . vn d/S, y1 , .., yn ) & S(y1 ,..,yn /v1 ...vn )])»)}}]. The idea (near enough) is that a ‘believes-truly’ predicate of x’s Mentalese is one for which x accepts a Mentalese analogue of (Df.2), MRTJ’s definition of ‘Trbel’ in terms of ‘Bel’. If we pretend that x thinks in regimented English, we could put the idea by saying that τ is a Mentalese ‘believes-truly’ predicate for x just in case x accepts every instance of (24): (24)

For any y1 , .., yn : being a u such that τ (u, v1 . . . vn δ/ψ, y1 , .., yn ) = being a u such that u has a belief about y1 , .., yn under v1 . . . vn δ/ψ where ψ(y1 ,..,yn /v1 ...vn ).

In particular (and continuing the ‘inner English’ pretense), it follows that if β and τ are respectively Mentalese belief and true-belief predicates for x, then x accepts every instance of (25): (25)

For any y1 , .., yn : being a u such that τ (u, v1 . . . vn δ/ψ, y1 , .., yn ) = being a u such that β(u, v1 . . . vn δ/ψ, y1 , .., yn ) where ψ(y1 ,..,yn /v1 ...vn ).

This is recorded in theorem scheme (T7), where t ∗ = : (T7) (∀xi )(∀b)(∀v1 ) . . . (∀vn )(∀d)(∀u)(∀y1 ) . . . (∀yn )(∀S)(∀p) {{TrueBeliefPredn (p, t ∗ , x) & BeliefPredn (b, t ∗ , x) & Vocab(v1t 1 , . . . , vnt n ,

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di , ui , y1t 1 , . . . ynt n , S; M x )} → Accepts(x, «(∀y1 ) . . . (∀yn )([λu: p(u,
v1 . . . vn d/S, y1 , .., yn )] = [λu: b(u,
v1 . . . vn d/S, y1 , .., yn ) & S(y1 ,..,yn /v1 ...vn )])»)}. This completes the apparatus needed for the reduction of MRTJ to
+ . Assuming (as we have) the plausibility of LOT in general and of
in particular, the status of this reduction as a vindication of MRTJ depends upon whether the reduced version of MRTJ satisfies the adequacy conditions (C1)-(C5) laid down in section 1. We shall now argue that these conditions have indeed been satisfied. 3.5 VINDICATION AND THE ADEQUACY CONDITIONS Since we have neither appealed to propositions nor made use of any undefined predicates of a language that take nominalized sentences of that language as arguments, condition (C5) has clearly been met. Moreover, the definition schemes (Df.7)(Df.13) provide a precise ontological account of the logical forms posited by MRTJ and reveal (via the systematic connection with the single relation Accepts ) what is structurally common to the members of the family of differently typed belief relations in virtue of which they are belief relations; so (C2) and (C3) are satisfied. What remains to be shown is that (C1) and (C4) are met as well. Let us begin with (C1). There are two issues here: viz., (a) whether MRTJ, understood via the reduction to
+ , can provide analyses of ‘A believes that p’ and ‘The belief that p is true/false’ for all grammatically admissible replacements of ‘p’; and (b) whether the proffered analyses are plausible. The answer to question (a) is clearly affirmative. Since logical forms themselves can be of arbitrary truthfunctional and/or quantificational complexity, and since according to MRTJ all of a judgment’s structure derives from its logical form, it should be obvious that MRTJ is not restricted merely to atomic judgments but can provide analyses of belief ascriptions with content-clauses of any degree of complexity.16 Question (b) is not so easily settled. Even assuming, as we have, the acceptability of the general framework of LOT, we can only argue from representative examples in which the analyses of belief ascriptions provided by the reduced version of MRTJ can be seen to be plausible. Let us begin with (18), an ascription to Othello of the atomic belief that Desdemona loves Cassio. MRTJ’s analysis of (18) is (26): (26)

Bel (Othello, F xi yi d i/F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

In
+ , (26) will be provably equivalent to (27): (27)

(∃b1 )(∃b2 )(∃b3 ){(NameType(b1 , , MOthello ) & NameType (b2 , i, MOthello ) & NameType(b3 , i, MOthello )) & DenIn (b1 , Loves, MOthello )

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& DenIn(b2 ,Desdemona,MOthello ) & DenIn(b3 ,Cassio,MOthello ) & Accepts(Othello, «b1 (b2 , b3 )»)}]. According to
+ , then, (18)/(26) obtains iff Othello is disposed as one who inwardly and assertively tokens in his language of thought a relational sentence whose binary predicate, first argument, and second argument respectively denote loving, Desdemona, and Cassio. Consider next (28), which (suppressing the type-indices) is analysed by MRTJ as (29): (28) A believes that either R(a1 , . . . , an ) or S(b1 , . . . , bk ). (29)

Bel(A; Fx1 . . . xn Gy1 . . . yk d i /F(x1 , . . . , xn ) ∨ G(y1 , . . . , yk ); R, a1 , . . . , an , S, b1 , . . . , bk ).

According to
+ , (29) obtains just in case A accepts a Mentalese sentence of the sort «R(a1 , . . . , an ) ∨ S(b1 , . . . , bk )» in which (i) the Mentalese names R and S respectively denote the relations R and S, and (ii) the Mentalese names a1 , . . . , an , b1 , . . . , bk respectively denote the individuals a1 , . . . , an , b1 , . . . , bk . No peculiar logical object is required to correspond to the disjunction sign itself, whether in English or in A’s Mentalese. The same results holds, mutatis mutandis, for belief ascriptions with content-clauses involving other connectives, quantifiers, etc. In our examples so far, the dummy variable in logical form specifications has merely been along for the ride. However, when the content-clause in a belief ascription is wholly general, this otherwise inert element finally comes into play. Thus, e.g., (30) is analyzed as (31): (30) A believes that every individual has properties. (31) Bel (A; d i /(∀vi )(∃F )F(v)). Now by (Df.7) the logical form d i /(∀vi )(∃F )F(v) is the relation [λx yi zd i : x = [λd i : (∀v)(∃F)F(v)] & (∃w){DenIn(w, x, M y ) & [λrsi u: (∃v)(∃F)(∃d)((VarType(d, i, M s ) & VarType(v, i, M s ) & VarType(F, , M s ) & r = «[λd: (∀v)(∃F)F(v)]») & u = «
d/(∀v)(∃F)F(v)»}]wyz]. So (31) is ultimately equivalent to (32): (32)

(∃v)(∃F){VarType(v, i, MOthello ) & VarType(F, , MOthello ) & Accepts(Othello, «(∀v)(∃F)F(v)»)}.

A wholly general belief is thus a binary relation between a thinker and a ‘general’ logical form f , i.e., one which is a logical form for certain wholly general sentences

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of the thinker’s Mentalese; and to be so related to f is inwardly and assertively to token a sentence of that form (or at least to be disposed as if one did so). The reduced version of MRTJ easily handles iterated belief ascriptions like (33): (33)

Iago believes that Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio.

Where the two occurrences of ‘believes’ in (33) are translated as predicates ‘Bel t1 ’ and ‘Bel t2 ’ of appropriate (and, of course, distinct) types t1 and t2 , we have the analysis (34) of (33): (34)

Bel t1 (Iago, H t2 z i G J xi yi d i /H (z, G, J , x, y), Bel t2 , Othello,F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

Skipping the derivation and stating the result less formally, (34) obtains just in case (35) does: (35)

Iago [is disposed as if he] assertively tokens a certain sentence in MIago of the form «b(o, f , l, d, c)» in which (i) b, o, f, l, d, and c are names in MIago respectively denoting Bel t2 , Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), loving, Desdemona, Cassio; and (ii) f has the form «
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 )» for distinct variables v1 , v2 , v3 , and v4 of respective MIago -types , i, i, and i.

By our definitions and axioms, Iago’s belief is true (i.e., Iago truly believes that Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio) iff, in addition to (35), (36) also obtains: (36)

[λH t2 z i G J xi yi d i : H (z, G, J , x, y)](Bel t2 , Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

But (36) is equivalent to (26), which we unpacked above. So, in the end, Iago’s belief is true iff (35) obtains and Othello accepts in his language of thought a relational sentence whose binary predicate, first argument, and second argument respectively denote loving, Desdemona, and Cassio. Moreover, independently of any assumptions about what belief facts there are, we are now entitled to assert (37): (37)

The belief that Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio is true iff Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio.

For MRTJ’s translation of (37) is (38): (38)

True([λui f : f = H t2 z i G J xi yi d i /H (z, G, J , x, y) & Bel t1 (u, f , Bel t2 ,Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona,

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Cassio)]) ≡ Belt2 (Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves,Desdemona, Cassio). And (38) follows from the corresponding instance of theorem scheme (T2) in which g is the logical form H t2 z i G J xi yi d i /H (z, G, J , x, y) and e1 -e6 are respectively the relation Bel t2 , Othello, the logical form F xi yi d i /F(x, y), the relation Loves, and the individuals Desdemona and Cassio. By forcing Mentalese to incorporate the kind of multiple relation treatment of belief ascriptions found in MRTJ, our account of (33)/(34) requires Iago’s Mentalese representation of the logical form F xi yi d i /F(x, y) of Othello’s belief to be of the canonical sort «
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 )». This satisfies our original demand that Iago must represent the logical form of Othello’s alleged belief in some canonical way that reveals (to Iago) the conditions under which Othello’s belief would be true. For suppose that in Iago’s Mentalese O, L, D, and C are respectively names for, Othello, loving, Desdemona, and Cassio. Suppose also that Iago’s Mentalese contains predicates B and T (both of Mentalese type ) for believing and truly-believing respectively. Then it follows from (T7) that Iago accepts (39): (39)

«(∀y1 )(∀y2 )(∀y3 )([λu: T(u,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), y1 , y2 , y3 )] = [λu: B(u,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), y1 , y2 , y3 ) & y1 (y2 , y3 )])».

Although we cannot presume upon Iago’s logical acumen, he is nonetheless now in a position to reason validly from (39) to (40), and hence to (41): (40)

«[λu: T(u,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), L, D, C)] = [λu: B(u,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), L, D, C) & L(D, C)]»

(41)

«T(O,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), L, D, C) ≡ B(O,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), L, D, C) & L(D, C)]».

By requiring Iago to employ a canonical representation of the sort «
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 )» we ensure that he is primed to exploit the inferential connections between his three Mentalese sentences «T(O,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), L, D, C)», «B(O,
v1 v2 v3 d/v1 (v2 , v3 ), L, D, C)» and «L(D, C)»—hence to appreciate what he is attributing to Othello—even if for some reason he fails to do so. To handle alleged failures of Substitutivity of Identity in natural language arguments like (3), MRTJ appealed to the alternative formalizations (5)-(7) of (3).
+ provides interpretations for (5)-(7) that show how this appeal sheds genuine light on the subject. The argument (5) is invalid because, despite the identity of the author of Waverly with the author of Marmion, the fact that George IV

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accepts a Mentalese equation «a = (ιx)fx» for some name a of Scott and predicate f denoting Waverly-authorship cannot guarantee that George IV accepts a Mentalese equation «b = (ιx)gx» for some name b of Scott and predicate g denoting Marmion-authorship. For the distinctness of these two authorship-properties requires the distinctness of f and g. Similarly, the argument (7) is invalid because, despite the identity of the author of Waverly with the author of Marmion, the fact that George IV accepts a Mentalese equation «a = b» for two names a and b of Scott/the author of Waverly cannot guarantee that George IV accepts a Mentalese equation «c = (ιx)gx» for some name c of Scott and predicate g respectively denoting Marmion-authorship. For there is no guarantee that George IV has any such a predicate g in his Mentalese! As it happens, the argument (6) will go through provided (as seems plausible) that a full axiomatization of
would yield (42) as a semantic theorem scheme: (42) (∀yi )(∀F )(∀f )(∀x){(NameType(f , , M y ) & VarType(x, t  , M y ) & DenIn(f , F, M y )) → (∀z t )(DenIn(«(ιx)f (x)», z, M y ) ≡ z = (ιxt )F(x))}. For if George IV accepts a Mentalese equation «a = (ιx)fx» for some name a of Scott and predicate f denoting Waverly-authorship, then by (42) the ingredient name «(ιx)fx» will denote the author of Waverly; so the identity of the author of Waverly with the author of Marmion would guarantee that George IV accepts a Mentalese equation «a = b» for two names a and b of the author of Marmion. Finally, we turn to (C4). Given our explanation of how the obtaining of a belief relation brings various constituents into relation with a logical form, do we face either (a) a residual problem of accounting for the specific order thereby imposed on these constituents or (b) a residual problem of accounting for the fact that certain possible orderings make sense but others do not? (These are respectively the Direction and Nonsense Problems encountered in Section 2.2 of Chapter 2.) It should be clear that MRTJ, as reduced to
+ , does not suffer from the Direction Problem. So long as ’believes’ is translated by an appropriately typed predicate, the ingredient type theory prevents any permutation of arguments of unlike type. Moreover, the residual difference within a type between, say, (43)

Bel (Othello, F xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio)

and (44)

Bel (Othello, λF xi yi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Cassio, Desdemona)

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is reproduced at the level of Othello’s Mentalese in terms of the difference between (i) a sentence «a1 (a2 , a3 )» whose three terms respectively denote the loving relation, Desdemona, and Cassio and (ii) an isomorphic sentence «b1 (b2 , b3 )» whose three terms respectively denote the loving relation, Cassio, and Desdemona. Likewise, no problems are occasioned by differences in the alphabetical order of variables in the canonical names of logical forms. Consider, e.g., the differences between (43), (45), and (46): (45)

Bel (Othello, F yi xi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio)

(46)

Bel (Othello, F xi yi d i /F(y, x), Loves, Desdemona, Cassio).

In
+ , (45) and (46) are both equivalent to (44). And of course both (47) and (48) are equivalent in
+ to (43): (47)

Bel (Othello, F yi xi d i /F(x, y), Loves, Cassio, Desdemona)

(48)

Bel (Othello, F xi yi d i /F(y, x), Loves, Cassio, Desdemona).

Nor does MRTJ, as reduced to
+ , confront any Nonsense Problem. For logical forms and belief relations, as these are defined in
+ , do provide the requisite restrictions on meaningful combinations in the form of type-constraints on free variables in certain of the thinker’s Mentalese sentences into which the Mentalese names of the various objects of the judgment are to be inserted.17 Provided the logical types are respected, every sentence of the form (49)

Bel (α0i , (α1t1 . . . αntn δi /φ, β1t1 , . . . , βntn ))

receives via the reduction an interpretation that not only is intelligible but is—so we have urged—plausible as well. 3.6

IMPLICATIONS OF THE REDUCTION OF MRTJ FOR OUR WIDER PROJECT

The wider project of this book is, of course, to provide a satisfactory account of belief as a dyadic relation to thought-contents. Our rescue effort on behalf of MRTJ has three main morals for this project. The first is that Russell was correct in supposing that, at least as regards their role as objects of the psychological attitudes, propositions may be dispensed with in favor of their non-propositional

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constituents plus logical forms, where the latter are conceived as special properties or relations. The second moral is that the properties and relations that function as logical forms essentially involve syntactic and semantic features of a thinker’s language of thought; it was Russell’s failure to appreciate this fact that prevented him from adequately working out his multiple-relation theory of judgment. The third moral is that the plurality of Russellian belief-relations have one key feature in common: they involve the believer’s acceptance of a sentence of his language of thought having the syntactic and semantic features specified in the salient logical form. Implementation of these three lessons forms the basis of the account of belief to be developed in Chapters 4-5. Even as successfully reduced to
+ , however, MRTJ still suffers from three major inadequacies that must somehow be overcome before the foregoing lessons can be put into effect. In the first place,
+ is merely an account of belief as reported de re: it makes no provision for belief as reported de dicto or de se, hence is powerless to handle opacity as a semantic phenomena in belief ascriptions (except in the special case where it can be attributed to the presence of definite descriptions). In the context of our commitment to LOT, the source of this shortcoming is obvious: all of a thinker’s Mentalese names of a given object are treated alike. So accommodating opacity will require us to build in some principled way of distinguishing them. Second, given the restrictions of its type theory,
+ cannot provide a satisfactory objectual interpretation of the quantifier in statements like (50): (50)

John believes everything that Mary believes.

For the things Mary believes may be of varying degrees of complexity, involving very different logical forms and numbers of constituents of various types. Since variables must be typed, no one quantifier could range over the many different types of entities involved. Finally, where quantifiers are treated as objectual,
+ cannot accommodate the intuitive validity of the inference from (51) to (52): (51)

John believes that Cicero was a Roman, and Mary believes that Cicero wrote De Fato.

(52) There is an attitudinal relation which John bears to Cicero’s being a Roman and which Mary bears to Cicero’s having written De Fato. For within the confines of its type theory,
+ would have to assign different beliefrelations to the two occurrences of ‘believes’ in (51), owing to the difference in the complexity of what John and Mary are said to believe. Now the latter pair of shortcomings might be regarded as self-inflicted injuries, mere artifacts of
+ ’s allegiance to type theory. But given the protection offered by stratification into logical types, it is well worth exploring whether the benefits of such stratification might be retained while finding a way to circumvent the

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expressive limitations it imposes. Both our ordinary linguistic practices of attitude ascription and our psychological explanations of similarities in the behavior of different persons seem to require generalizing not only over the contents of their psychological attitudes but also over their attitudinal relations towards various contents, regardless of the logical complexity of those contents. So we need, on the one hand, to locate thought-contents, the range of the attitudinal relations, as nonpropositional entities of some single type t—where entities of type t can be usefully invoked as semantical values of the content-clauses in attitude-ascriptions—and, on the other hand, to find a way of construing attitudinal relations themselves as likewise of a single type (presumably, the corresponding relational type ). Moreover, these ingredients must be rich enough to allow for distinctions among attitudes reported de re, de dicto, and de se, and to account for opacity as a semantic phenomena. 3.7 THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME By way of implementing the lessons learned from rehabilitating MRTJ, let us revisit an important idea we encountered in Chapter 2 in our discussion of Chisholm’s views on intentionality—viz., the idea that the objects of the so-called propositional attitudes are not propositions but are instead certain (type ) properties that one self-ascribes. On such a view, first-person thinking is primary and other sorts of thinking are explained in terms of it. This strategy allows for a neat unification of the two species of thought—de dicto beliefs which are not de se being regarded as self-ascriptions of ‘propositional’ properties like being such that Fido is a dog— and has various other theoretical advantages touted by both Chisholm and Lewis. But it does not by itself dictate any particular account of substitutional opacity. Consider the de se belief reports (53) and (54): (53) Wanda believes that she herself is an ophthalmologist. (54) Wanda believes that she herself is an oculist. Each, we are told, is true iff Wanda self-ascribes a certain property. But what properties are invoked here? An obvious first guess would be that (53) is true iff Wanda self-ascribes the property being an ophthalmologist, and that (54) is true iff she self-ascribes the property being an oculist. Now if there is such a thing as an opaque reading18 of (53) and (54), which by most philosophers’ lights there is, then (53) and (54) should be capable of differing in truth-value, provided that Wanda is suitably ignorant or misinformed (perhaps she has confused oculists with opticians). But surely the salient fact which escapes her is the one expressed by (55): (55)

being an ophthalmologist = being an oculist.

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If so, then (53) and (54) cannot differ in truth-value, for to self-ascribe the one property is to self-ascribe the other! So either there is no opaque reading of (53) and (54), or else the properties whose self-ascription is reported in (53) and (54) are not ordinary properties after all. For one who wishes to acknowledge substitutional opacity as a genuine semantic datum, the almost irresistible move is to suppose, on the one hand, that these properties are indeed just the ordinary ones they seem to be and, on the other hand, that self-ascribing a property involves some way of taking it—e.g., that one selfascribes a property under some mode of presentation of that property. Provided one can deliver a suitable ontological account of these ‘ways of taking’, ‘modes of presentation’, ‘senses’ or whatever, one can then attempt to provide a contextrelativized semantics for English that permits different such entities to be invoked by utterances of (53) and (54) in certain contexts, thus allowing in principle for (53) and (54) to differ in truth-value relative to those contexts. The success of the semantic program, however, presupposes that of the ontological program. Unfortunately, the traditional metaphysics of sense does not exactly inspire confidence here. Frege, the father of sense theories, told us a fair amount about the formal role of senses, but relatively little about what they are (beyond the very general characterization of them as abstract, eternal, mind-independent entities that are somehow capable of being grasped by us). Others have tried to flesh out the Fregean picture in various familiar ways, but there are equally familiar objections to the whole project.19 Now the Chisholm-Lewis picture is obviously promising for our purposes, provided a way can be found of combining it with our acknowledgement that attitude ascriptions have genuinely opaque readings. A simple retreat to classical Fregeanism will not accomplish this, for its critics have made a powerful case for the inadequacy of the received metaphysics of sense. What is needed, then, is not just further tinkering with the old apparatus but a wholly different way of looking both at the nature of those properties we self-ascribe in thinking (which we have been calling ‘thought-contents’) and at certain of their possible constituents (which, with some trepidation, we shall call ‘senses’). To this end, we shall elaborate in Chapters 4-5 an unorthodox theory of thought-contents as certain ‘abstract’ properties which, although distinct both from ordinary properties and from mental representations, nonetheless intimately involve both. It will there be argued that, so viewed, thought-contents are well suited to the role of attitudinal objects. The first step in the direction of the desired account of thought-contents involves combining LOT’s picture of (occurrent) thinking as inner speech in the agent’s Mentalese with the Chisholm-Lewis ideas about belief as self-ascription of properties. It then becomes natural to construe the truth condition of (53) as involving Wanda’s inward affirmation of a Mentalese sentence whose subject term is her active self-name (her mental ‘I’—call it ‘IWanda ’—individuated via its distinctive psychological role20 ) and whose predicate term denotes the property (presumably

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being an ophthalmologist) that she is mentally predicating of herself. So we accept (I): (I) The property Wanda must mentally predicate of herself for (53) to be true = the property being an ophthalmologist. At the same time, however, the Chisholm-Lewis approach treats (53) and (54) as respectively having the simple dyadic forms ‘B(a,P)’ and ‘B(a,Q)’, where ‘P’ and ‘Q’ are suitably structured names of the properties being self-ascribed. But if P = being an ophthalmologist, then adopting LOT will be of no help in providing an exploitable difference between the truth conditions of (53) and (54). For if (55) is true, the condition that Wanda should inwardly affirm a Mentalese sentence whose subject term is IWanda and whose predicate term denotes being an ophthalmologist is of course none other than the condition that she should inwardly affirm a Mentalese sentence whose subject term is IWanda and whose predicate term denotes being an oculist! Consequently, it seems that LOT will aid our project only if the property P whose self-ascription is reported in (53) is not identical to the property being an ophthalmologist. So, in the interest of progress, we accept (II): (II) What, according to (53), Wanda self-ascribes = the property Wanda must mentally predicate of herself for (53) to be true. But if P is not identical to the property being an ophthalmologist(/oculist), it is a complete mystery what ordinary property it could be! So it looks as if P, if it is to be viewed as a property at all, must be regarded as a property of some very special kind which is distinct from but nonetheless somehow intimately connected with the property being an ophthalmologist (/oculist).21 Now on the view to be developed in this work, thought-contents, the properties self-ascribed in beliefs, are indeed special, non-ordinary properties of individuals: each thought-content embodies (i.e., is characterized by) some particular way of thinking of a corresponding ordinary property. We are thus committed to (III) and (IV): (III) What, according to (53), Wanda self-ascribes is characterized by some particular way of thinking of the property she must mentally predicate of herself for (53) to be true. (IV) What, according to (53), Wanda self-ascribes and the property she must mentally predicate of herself for (53) to be true are both properties of individuals (hence of the same type ). Moreover, we regard these ways of thinking of properties as uniquely determining them in the way that a property can be said to uniquely determine an entity when that entity alone is capable of exemplifying the property in question. That is to say,

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we accept (V): (V) A way of thinking of a property F is a certain property that F, but only F, could exemplify.22 Finally, we subscribe to the orthodox type-theoretic principle (VI): (VI)

Every property/relation has its own unique logical type, and a property/relation belonging to a given logical type cannot be exemplified by things that belong to that very type but must be of a higher logical type than anything by which it can be exemplified. (In particular, if the property Wanda self-ascribes is of type , then a way of thinking of that property must be of type .)

Here we encounter what might seem to be an insuperable challenge. ‘Surely,’ the critic urges, ‘the phrase ‘X is characterized by the property G’ just means that X exemplifies G (as in ‘Socrates is characterized by wisdom’ and ‘His assertion is characterized by a fallacy’). If this is what ‘is characterized by’ means in (III), then (III) will certainly be an intelligible claim. But with (III) so interpreted, (I)-(VI) trivially imply the negations of both (II) and (IV). Hence (I)-(VI) would be collectively inconsistent! How then can you render (III) intelligible while not contradicting any of your other five claims?’ Reconciling (III) with our other claims requires, on the one hand, giving an account of ‘ways of thinking’ qua type properties that explains how they are ‘of’ordinary type properties and, on the other hand, providing an account of thought-contents qua special type properties that explains how they ‘embody’ ways of thinking of ordinary type properties.
+ ’s explication of Russellian logical forms suggests a promising way of moving forward with the first of these tasks using just the materials at hand. Progress with the second task, however, will require us to look beyond the resources of
+ and hence must await the developments of the next Chapter. Instead of having many belief-relations to combine logical forms of different types with lists of objects of related types, we could reduce the plethora of Russellian logical forms to relations of a single type by the simple expedient of inserting those objects into the structures determined by those logical forms. Thus, e.g.,
+ identified F xi d i /F(x), the logical form of a (first-order) unary predication, with a certain complex relation R between a structure v, person y, expression z of y’s language of thought M y , and arbitrary individual d . According to
+ , Rvyzd obtains iff: (a) v is the structure [λF xi d i : F(x)]; (b) for some distinct variables f, x, d of respective M y -types , i, i, the term «[λfxd: f (x)]» denotes the structure v in M y ; and (c) z is the corresponding term «
fxd/f (x)» of M y .

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Now consider a particular third-person belief involving this form—say, the belief that Fido is a dog, which we may suppose to involve mental self-predication of the property [λd i : Dog(Fido)] (i.e., being such that Fido is a dog). We could replace R above by a ternary relation R between a structure v, person y, and expression z of M y such that R vyz obtains iff (a ) v is the type property [λd i : Dog(Fido)]; (b ) for some M y -type name f, some M y -type i name a, and some M y -type i variable d: f denotes in M y the property being a dog; n denotes Fido in M y ; [so that the term «[λd: f(a)]» presumably denotes v in M y ]; and (c ) z is the term «
d/f (a)» of M y . The relation R can then be compacted into the corresponding type relational property [λv : (∃yi )(∃z)R vyz]—or ‘℘ (R )’ for short. Now it was pointed out earlier that the resources of LOT cannot be exploited within the present framework to account for the special features of beliefs reported de se and de dicto unless there is some principled basis for singling out certain of one’s Mentalese names of a given entity for preferential treatment. If the relational property ℘ (R ) is to be a candidate for a ‘way of thinking’ of the (mentally selfpredicated) property [λd i : Dog(Fido)], some way must be found to make ℘ (R ) context-sensitive—in effect, to restrict the range of the quantifier phrases ‘some M y type name f’ and ‘some M y -type i name a’ in (b ) above to some contextually specified subset of such Mentalese names. Finding an adequate way of doing this will occupy us at length in Chapter 4. But the underlying idea is already implicit in the informal device of Sellarsian dot-quotes, taken as relativized to persons and contexts. Whatever M y -type name f of being a dog is involved in a given context, f should count in that context as a • Dog • of M y . Similarly, whatever M y type i name a of Fido is involved in a given context, a should count in that context as a • Fido• of M y . The crucial fact for our purposes is that a Mentalese term’s being a • Dog • or a • Fido• for someone in a given situation depends on more than the identity of the term’s denotation. (Later, of course, we shall have to say explicitly what this ‘more’is.) Thus, e.g., even if it should turn out that Fido = Rover, mentally designating Fido via a name that counts in a given context c as a • Fido• of one’s Mentalese is not ipso facto mentally designating Fido via a name that counts in c as a • Rover • of one’s Mentalese. So construed, a context-relativized version of the property ℘ (R ) is at least an initially promising candidate for a way of thinking of the (mentally self-predicated) property [λd i : Dog(Fido)]. Similarly, in the case of Wanda’s de se belief that she (herself) is an ophthalmologist, which by (I) we take to involve her mental self-predication of the property being an Ophthalmologist, we could replace R above by a context-relativized relation R between a structure v, person y, and expression z of M y such that R vyz obtains in a given context c iff (a ) v is the type property [λd i : Ophthalmologist(d )]; (b ) for some M y -type name f and some M y -type i variable d: f counts in c as a • Ophthalmologist • of M y and denotes in M y the property being an

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Ophthalmologist [so that the term «[λd: f (d)]» presumably denotes v in M y ]; and  (c ) z is the term «
d/ f(d)» of M y . The relation R can then be compacted into the corresponding context-relativized relational property ℘ (R ), which in turn could be adduced as a candidate for a way of thinking of the mentally self-predicated property [λd i : Ophthalmologist(d )]. In general, then, Russellian logical forms, as we have explicated them, naturally transmogrify into would-be ways of thinking of properties. For by fusing the logical form and the objects of a belief in which one intuitively self-predicates a certain property F, we can regard a way of thinking of F as the following context-relativized higher-order property: being identical to F and being denoted by a Mentalese λ-term constructed, in a way that exhibits the form in question, from Mentalese names that denote the ‘objects’ of the belief and satisfy certain contextually determined restrictions. So construed, a way of thinking of F is of F by virtue of uniquely determining it in the sense required by (V): a way of thinking of F is a property exemplifiable (in a given context) only by F. Now, with respect to a context c, the special property P (the thought-content) that Wanda self-ascribes in c must be such that her doing so involves her being (disposed as one) who, for some g, accepts a sentence «g(IWanda )» of MWanda for which R obtains in c between the property being an ophthalmologist, Wanda, and the term «
d/g(d)» of MWanda . The property she self-ascribes must ‘embody’ the contextdependent way of thinking ℘ (R ) of the property being an ophthalmologist in such wise as to ensure that this condition is met. But what is this type property P, and how can it embody/be characterized by the type property ℘ (R )? To answer these residual questions, we must transcend the resources of
+ . In the next Chapter, we shall avail ourselves of the apparatus of ILAO, the intensional logic for abstract objects presented in Zalta (1988). Briefly, the system ILAO is a formal theory of properties, relations and propositions. It takes as primitive and seeks axiomatically to characterize both the notion of n-ary relation (including properties as unary relations and propositions as 0-ary relations) and—more importantly for our purposes—a special intensional notion of encoding. Encoding is precisely a way of ‘embodying’ or ‘being characterized by’ a property which neither necessitates nor rules out exemplifying it. For anyone willing to allow, as we have, that there are non-actual things—the existential quantification here being objectual, not merely substitutional—encoding provides a useful model for understanding sentences which predicate properties of such things. ILAO posits the existence of certain ‘abstract’ objects, which (unlike ‘ordinary’ objects) are non-actual items that essentially encode various properties. (In ILAO, ‘object’ is

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understood to cover n-ary relations as well as individuals.) For any admissible condition φ, it is taken as axiomatic that there is an abstract object encoding exactly those properties satisfying φ. Now if ‘is characterized by’ in (III) is interpreted in terms of ILAO’s notion of encoding, and if thought-contents are regarded as type properties that are abstract in ILAO’s sense, then (III) becomes the perfectly intelligible claim (III∗ ): (III∗ ) The thought-content Wanda self-ascribes encodes a particular way of thinking of the property she must mentally predicate of herself if (53) is to be true. Since encoding requires appropriate type-differences between encoder and encoded and implies nothing about exemplification, it should be apparent that the threatened inconsistency does not arise when (III) is understood as synonymous with (III∗ ). The way is then open for construction of a theory of belief (and its extension to other psychological attitudes) incorporating three key theses: — Believing is self-ascription of properties; in particular, the logical form of a belief-attribution is simply ‘B(a, P)’, where ‘P’ is a suitably structured name of the property in question. [The Chisholm-Lewis approach]. — The properties self-ascribed in believing are not the ones the ascriber must exemplify for the belief to be true (its truth conditions) but are instead certain abstract properties (thought-contents), which encode ways of thinking of those truth conditions. [Our proposal, to be interpreted via ILAO]. — The context-relativized truth conditions of belief reports involve agents’ inwardly affirming certain of their Mentalese sentences that contain terms which denote the objects (if any) the beliefs in question are intuitively about and which satisfy certain contextually specified restrictions. [From LOT] NOTES 1 In the spirit of Russell’s Ideal Language philosophy, talk of MRTJ ‘analysing’ a natural language sentence S via a formula φ should be understood as meaning that φ is the translation of S into the (allegedly more perspicuous) language of MRTJ. No commitment is undertaken here as to what role, if any, MRTJ might play in a theoretical account of natural language syntax. 2 Our concentration on the final version of Russell’s theory is not meant to suggest the impossibility of vindicating any of his earlier versions, in which the belief relations themselves are supposed to provide the ‘pattern’. These earlier versions have their own attractions (and problems) and may well be independently defensible (see Jubien (2001)). The main reason for ignoring them here is that the technical apparatus employed in the reduction of MRTJ to
+ requires isolating the structuredetermining factors as discrete elements. Doing so is trivial in MRTJ but not in a version that hides these factors inside the belief relations—unless, that is, the corresponding belief predicates are formalized in such a way that the resulting theory becomes a mere notational variant on MRTJ. Insofar as these other versions are intended to be substantive alternatives to MRTJ, their defense would require different strategies, but limitations of space preclude pursuing them here.

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3 Types themselves may be thought of as symbols that categorize both linguistic and extralinguistic

items. So we could regard the letter ‘i’ in the text as naming itself and think of the set of types as being the smallest set T such that ‘i’ ∈ T and ‘’∈ T for every t1 , . . . , tn ∈ T (n ≥ 1). 4 (Ax.1), of course, entails the numerical distinctness of at least some necessarily coextensive relations. 5 Since |ρ| will be an (n + 1)ary relation in which the (n + 1)th argument-place is a dummy position, we have put α in that slot just for definiteness. Alternatively, we could existentially quantify over it. 6 As articulated in (i)-(v), LOT is typically regarded as an empirical hypothesis. There are reasons, however, for thinking that it could be supported on conceptual or a priori grounds as well: cf. Davies (1989, 1991), Lycan (1993), and Rey (1995). It should be noted that (i)-(v) include no commitment to Fodor’s Nativism. The bracketed portion of (iii) is a useful idealization. 7 The classical arguments for LOT are found in Fodor (1975) and Fodor (1987). See also Maloney (1989). A vast secondary literature has subsequently arisen, much of it since the mid-1980’s couched in terms of the ‘Connectionism versus Classicism’ debate, which is usefully surveyed in Aydede (1997). 8 Mentalese types, like the types of L, may be thought of as symbols—in this case, Mentalese symbols. This is important, since
needs to quantify univocally over these symbols in ‘syntactic’ axioms like (∀w)(∀x)(∀t 1 x ){ TermType (w, t 1 , M x ) ≡ (∃!e)(Expression (e, M x ) & w = «et 1 » & ∼(∃d)(∃t x2 )(Expression(d, M x ) & e = «dt 2 »)}, which requires a term of a given Mentalese type to be the result of indexing a unique (unindexed) Mentalese expression with that very type. We exploit this treatment of Mentalese types in (Df.14) and (Df.15) of section 3.4. 9 ‘Denote’ is used throughout simply as a synonym of ‘designates’ or ‘refers’: our use of it should not be confused with Russell’s proprietary use of ‘denotes’ according to which “N’ denotes A’ means that ‘N’ is or abbreviates some definite description ‘the F’ such that A alone satisfies ‘F’. 10 For an interesting and persuasive account of tacit belief and being-disposed-as-if, see §2.3 of Crimmins (1992). Crimmins, however, is no fan of the language of thought hypothesis. 11 Of the principles listed, only this one runs afoul of the fact that limitations of memory will put an upper bound on the complexity of Mentalese sentences that x can process, for S(a //b ) may be more complex than S, where the latter is already at x’s computational limit. To keep the principle with its present consequent, an appropriate clause should be added to its antecedent. Alternatively, we could weaken the consequent to ‘∼Accepts(x, «∼S(a //b )»’. 12 With its nesting of λ-abstracts, the formulation of the relation in question might seem to be needlessly complex. There is a purely technical reason for this prolixity, but limitations of space preclude explaining the details here. 13 Once the salient definitions and axioms of
+ are in place, the derivation of MRTJ’s axioms is trivial and hence need not be spelled out here. 14 There is no circle here, for definition scheme (Df.7) appeals merely to the denotation of «[λ1 . . . k : φ]»—identified by (Ax.2) as [λα1 . . . αk δ: φ[; ]] — in order to define the logical form α1 . . . αk δ/φ[; ], which is then invoked by (Ax.4) as denotatum for «
1 . . . k /». The status of (Ax.4) as a bridge principle would perhaps be clearer if its consequent had been written in biconditional form as: (∀x){DenIn(«
1 . . . k /», x, M y ) ≡ x = α1 . . . αk δ/φ[; ]}. 15 As is customary, we pretend that the ingredient proper names denote real individuals.

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16 For ease of exposition, we have restricted attention to replacements of ‘p’ whose logical forms

could be formalized in the base language L. But it should be clear that the addition, e.g., of tense and modal operators would be straightforward, so that L could be brought ever closer to full-blown (albeit regimented) English. 17 Of course, some sentences are called nonsensical for reasons that have nothing to do with their type-theoretical well-formedness. Thus, e.g., if numbers are entities of type i and having a beard is a property of type , type restrictions cannot rule out such Rylean ‘category mistakes’ as ‘The number 6 has a beard’. Such residual oddities, however, are perhaps best viewed not as literal nonsense but merely as gross absurdities—particularly blatant necessary falsehoods. 18 By a reading of an English sentence we mean any of its translations into English , a disambiguated and suitably regimented version of natural English. A reading S  of an English sentence S is substitutionally transparent [or: opaque] with respect to a certain occurrence of a term in it iff the semantics of English is such that the result of replacing that occurrence of the term in S  by an occurrence of any distinct but codenoting term will [will not] automatically be truth-conditionally equivalent to S  . When S is a belief ascription of the form ‘X believes that P’, we will sometimes call one of its readings S  wholly transparent [or: wholly opaque] iff S  is transparent [opaque] with respect to every term-occurrence in its highest ‘that’-clause. (On the distinction between readings and ‘interpretations’, see Chapter 4, note 24.) 19 See, e.g., Schiffer (1990) and (1992) for a catalogue of such objections. 20 Millikan (1990) argues convincingly that one’s mental ‘I’ is not at all like an ordinary indexical. The expression ‘active self-name’ is borrowed from her. In principle, an agent’s Mentalese might contain more than one active self-name, but, given the way they are individuated, all such names must function interchangeably in the agent’s thinking. In particular, where I1 and I2 are any two such self-names, it must not be possible for a rational agent to accept a formula of the sort «I1 = I2 » or to balk at accepting «I1 = I2 ». In this respect, an agent’s active self-name(s) is (are) very different from any other sort of Mentalese term that might happen to refer to the agent. 21 Given our endorsement of LOT, one might think that P could be identified with some hybrid entity such as an ordered pair in which R is a Mentalese predicate. There are two reasons we have not pursued this idea here. First, it—like the related proposal that belief is a three-place relation between agent, Mentalese predicate, and ordinary property—would involve abandoning the Chisholm-Lewis view that we are trying to accommodate, according to which belief is a two-place relation between agent and property. Second, both it and the related proposal run into serious problems when applied to the analysis of beliefs about beliefs, especially when coupled with a set-theoretic construal of relations themselves (e.g., as functions from possible worlds to sets of n-tuples of objects in those worlds). 22 The following complaint is inevitable: ‘What about Putnam’s Twin-Earthers? (Putnam 1975). Don’t the beliefs they express by ‘Water is wet’ in Twin-English have something in common with the beliefs we express by the homophonic English sentence? Of course it is widely conceded that we cannot truly say that they believe (as we do) that water is wet: indeed, no ordinary English belief ascription seems quite adequate to express exactly what they believe. But it is also widely held that our respective beliefs, although different in content, share something important: although earthmen and the Twin-Earthers are thinking of (what turn out to be) different substances, both groups employ the same way of thinking of their local liquids. But (V) rules this out. By (V), a way of thinking of water (i.e., H2 O) could not also be a way of thinking of twin-water (XYZ).’ [Actually, we could evade this objection by treating mass terms like ‘water’ as naming something other than properties, but other examples involving count nouns would serve to resurrect the point.] What the complaint alleges is true, but we do not regard this as a reason for rejecting (V). In the first place, we are primarily concerned here to develop an ontological account of thought-contents that will mesh with a plausible semantics for a certain fragment of English. So if it is conceded that

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we should not expect to be able say in English exactly what the Twin-Earthers believe, then it is not an adequacy condition on this enterprise that it should provide for the ‘shared’ ways of thinking in question. In the second place, the theory we develop can be developed in such a way that the ‘ways of thinking’ alluded to in (V), though ‘object-dependent’, can still contribute to explaining the behavioral similarities between Earthmen and Twin-Earthers. We will return to this issue in Sections 8.2-8.3, where such an alternative development of the theory is briefly outlined.

CHAPTER 4

THOUGHT-CONTENTS, SENSES, AND THE BELIEF RELATION: THE PROTO-THEORY

. . .Frege’s explanation, by way of ambiguity, of what appears to be the logically deviant behavior of terms in intermediate contexts is so theoretically satisfying that if we have not yet discovered or satisfactorily grasped the peculiar intermediate objects in question, then we should simply continue looking (Kaplan, 1968).

4.1

OVERVIEW

At the end of the previous Chapter, we promised a theory of belief incorporating the following three ingredients: — The Chisholm-Lewis thesis that believing is self-ascription of properties; in particular, that the logical form of a belief-attribution is simply ‘B(a,P)’, where ‘P’ is a suitably structured name of the property in question. — The thesis that properties self-ascribed in beliefs are not the ones the ascriber must exemplify for the belief to be true (its truth conditions) but are instead certain abstract properties (‘thought-contents’, possibly having ‘senses’ as constituents) which ‘encode’ ways of thinking of those truth conditions, where the scare-quoted terms are to be characterized via an extension of ILAO, the intensional logic for abstract objects formulated in Zalta (1988). — The thesis, incorporating the Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOT), that the truth conditions of belief reports involve agents’ inwardly affirming certain of their Mentalese sentences that contain terms denoting the objects (if any) which the beliefs in question are intuitively about. Not only are the first and third of these theses mutually independent, but neither is particularly suggestive of the other. The job of the second thesis, suitably spelled out, is to harness them together in a way that enables us to exploit the inherent advantages of each. In articulating the second thesis we must therefore make clear exactly how taking thought-contents, qua abstract properties, to be what is self-ascribed in believing can usefully unite the Chisholm-Lewis picture of the logical form of belief reports with our LOT-based picture of their truth conditions.

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TC, the theory of thought-contents, senses, and the belief relation articulated in this Chapter and the next, accomplishes this unification along the following lines. In Fregean fashion1 , it will distinguish senses from the modes of presentation they ‘contain’. At the most general level of description, a mode of Mentalese presentation—‘MP’ for short—of an object o will be identified with a ternary relation of the sort Ro : [Ro ]

[λxyz z is an expression of y’s Mentalese that denotes x, and Do yz],

in which Do is a relation between agents and their Mentalese expressions imposing a syntactico-semantic condition sufficient for a term of an agent’s Mentalese to denote o. Corresponding to the relation Ro is its property-reduct, the property ℘ (Ro ): [℘ (Ro )]

[λx (∃y)(∃z)Ro xyz].

ILAO’s notion of encoding is invoked to define ‘contains Ro ’ by ‘encodes ℘ (Ro ) alone’. A sense of an individual a is then regarded as an abstract individual containing an MP of a; and a sense of an n-ary relation F n is taken to be an abstract n-ary relation containing an MP of F n .2 (As thus defined, ‘is a sense of object o’ must of course be distinguished from ‘is a sense of a linguistic expression E’: both are predicates of senses, but only the former concerns us here. The latter will get its due in Chapter 6, where we turn our attention to the semantics of belief-ascription.) In taking the relational ‘. . .is a sense of object o’ rather than the monadic ‘. . .is a sense’ as the basic locution to be analyzed, TC exhibits its commitment to the idea that a sense must contain an MP of—i.e., must present—a certain object. We are thus in agreement with so-called Neo-Fregeans like Evans, McDowell, and Peacocke, who have argued that senses are essentially object-dependent and that the problems which seemed to motivate the introduction of ‘empty’ senses can be dealt with by other means.3 In the interest of minimizing distractions, we postpone discussion of the reasons for our agreement until Chapter 9. Once our complete theory is in place, however, we shall briefly return to the issue in Chapter 5 and indicate how, using only object-dependent senses, we might interpret belief ascriptions that involve vacuous substance and kind terms. Various kinds of senses will be defined as we proceed. Each kind of sense of an object o is determined by the distinctive kind of MP of o that it contains, and the identity of that MP in turn depends on the identity of its embedded syntacticosemantic condition Do . In particular, a thought-content whose intuitive constituents are objects o1 , . . . , on will turn out to be a sense T of an ordinary property P (P being, in effect, the thought-content’s truth condition) such that T contains an MP of P whose embedded syntactico-semantic condition DP has the following

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feature: [λ]

For any y and z, DP yz entails that z is a λ-abstract in y’s Mentalese—call it ‘[λv S]’—in which S is a Mentalese sentence whose non-logical parts stand in appropriate semantic relations to o1 , . . . , on .

The belief relation will be axiomatized as a binary relation Believes between an agent a and a thought-content T (of a property P) such that Believes(a, T ) obtains just in case—where Ia is a’s Mentalese self-name—a is disposed as one who inwardly affirms a substitution-instance S(Ia /v ) of a sentence S of a’s Mentalese which is such that the MP contained by T actually relates P, a, and [λv S] (in that order), i.e., a sentence S of a’s Mentalese whose non-logical parts stand in appropriate semantic relations to T ’s constituents (some of which may be senses). By thus taking thought-contents as that to which one is related by the belief relation, TC can unite the Chisholm-Lewis picture of the logical form of belief reports with LOT’s picture of what their truth conditions involve. The fruitfulness of this union, however, depends upon TC’s ability so to characterize these ‘constituents’ and ‘appropriate semantic relations’ alluded to in [λ] that S’s parts standing in those relations to those constituents will generate the desired opacity-explaining difference between the Mentalese sentences Wanda must inwardly affirm if the likes of ‘Wanda believes that she-herself is an ophthalmologist’ and ‘Wanda believes that she-herself is an oculist’ are to be true. This, at any rate, is our project here.4 As always, the devil is in the details, and working out these details will require locating thought-contents within a wider realm of senses, with special attention to the ways that thought-contents can embed other senses, including other thought-contents. The general plan for rest of this chapter is as follows. To provide a clearer picture of the apparatus being imported from ILAO, Section 4.2 briefly reviews the salient technical features of ILAO and notes certain modifications required by our project. So that the formal details should not obscure the underlying ideas, Section 4.3 informally presents a simplified version of TC which is restricted to first-order beliefs involving ‘atomic’ thought-contents and which suppresses various complications that will ultimately be needed to accommodate the possibility of higher-order thought-contents of the sort that figure, e.g., in beliefs about beliefs. This prototheory of thought-contents will provide the characterization of ‘constituents’ and ‘appropriate semantic relations’ needed to construct canonical descriptions of particular atomic thought-contents. In conjunction with our account of Believes, these canonical descriptions will in turn be applied to the analysis of de re belief attributions and to the interpretation of quantifying-in. Various kinds of senses other than thought-contents will then be introduced as additional possible constituents of thought-contents, and it will be shown how canonically described atomic thoughtcontents having such senses as constituents are the key to an account of de dicto and de se belief in general and, in particular, to an explanation of how Wanda can believe that she-herself is an ophthalmologist without believing that she-herself is

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an oculist. The Chapter concludes with a discussion of how TC can supply a notion of ‘transparent sense’ that solves certain problems Direct Reference theorists face when they attempt to interpret unbound pronouns that are anaphoric on proper names and demonstratives. 4.2 THE UNDERLYING THEORY OF ABSTRACT OBJECTS Much of ILAO’s notation and logical apparatus has already made an anonymous appearance in Chapter 3, where it was employed in articulating the base language and underlying logic of the formal theory MRTJ. It will be useful, however, to review the previously glimpsed portions in their new setting as part of a wider theory. 4.2.1 Zalta’s System ILAO ILAO formally articulates its notions of properties, relations, propositions, exemplification and encoding in a typed intensional logic whose basic types are i (individual) and p (proposition), where counts as a type if t1 , . . . , tn do. (Type indices appear as right superscripts.) The encoding of a property F by xt and the exemplification of F by xt are respectively represented in ILAO’s two primitive forms of predication, ‘xF’ (also written ‘x  F’) and ‘Fx’ (also written ‘F(x)’). The propositional connectives are treated classically. The modal operators ‘’ and ‘♦’ are governed by the familiar principles of S5. (There are also tense operators ‘’ (‘always’) and ‘’ (‘sometimes’) conforming to the minimal tense logic Kt , but these will play no role in our use of ILAO.) The quantifier ‘∃’ is defined as usual in terms of ‘∀’. Definite descriptions appear as type t terms of the sort ‘(ıVt )(· · · V · · · )’, but the quantifier-axioms are restricted to provide a Free Logic for such terms.5 Where ‘P’ is a propositional formula6 , λ-abstracts appear as type terms of the sort ‘[λVt1 . . . Vtn P]’ and are governed by the familiar principles of the λ-calculus. These principles provide existence-conditions for n-ary relations (hence for properties when n = 1 and for propositions when n = 0) by entailing that, for any admissible condition P—i.e., one expressed by a formula ‘P’ of a suitably restricted sort7 —there is some n-ary type relation R for which it is necessarily-always the case that, for any objects x1t1 , . . . , xntn : R(x1 , . . . , xn ) iff P. The variables of ILAO in a given type range over both ‘ordinary’ entities (Oobjects) and ‘abstract’ entities (A-objects) of that type. The predicates ‘A! ’ and ‘O! ’ respectively express O-objecthood and A-objecthood of type t. O-objects are actual items such as the concrete individuals of our world and the n-ary relations that might hold among them, including propositions as 0-ary relations. The property of actuality is conveyed by the typed predicate ‘E! ’.8 O-objects of any type are essentially incapable of encoding. In contrast, A-objects are non-actual items that essentially encode various properties. A-objects are the only non-actual items

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posited in ILAO. (Although TC will involve certain extensions of ILAO, it will posit no additional non-actual items.) For any admissible condition, it is taken as axiomatic in ILAO that there is a type t A-object encoding exactly those type properties that satisfy that condition.9 (Since ILAO quantifies over A-objects, which are nonactual, the notion of existence conveyed by its quantifier ‘∃’ does not imply actuality.)10 O-objects of type i (O-individuals) are deemed identical iff they necessarilyalways exemplify the same properties of type , whereas A-objects of type i (A-individuals) are deemed identical iff they necessarily-always encode the same properties. Properties of various types are themselves held to be identical iff they are encoded by the same A-objects of type t. The identity of relations (and propositions as 0-ary relations) is then defined in terms of identity of the associated relational and propositional properties.11 The symbol ‘=’ is used for the defined notion of numerical identity between objects of a given type, whereas ‘=E ’ is a primitive symbol that expresses the traditional notion of identity for Oobjects, it being taken as axiomatic that =E relates objects iff they are O-objects which are indiscernible (i.e., which necessarily-always agree in the properties they exemplify). Only for O-individuals are the two notions of identity initially stipulated to coincide. ILAO allows that numerically distinct A-objects might exemplify the same properties. Moreover, ILAO incorporates the principle of Substitutivity of Identity for that notion of identity symbolized by ‘=’. So ILAO is committed to regarding all genuine term occurrences in its formulas as being open both to substitution of codesignative terms and to existential quantification. Being based on ILAO, TC will be able to satisfy adequacy conditions V and III of Chapter 2, which respectively require the provision of existence- and identity-conditions for the denizens of the theory’s ontology and the assurance of transparency in the language in which the theory is couched. 4.2.2 Departures from ILAO In addition to embracing LOT (cf. theses (i)-(v) of Section 3.3) we shall assume that an agent a’s language of thought M a has a type structure like that of ILAO, that M a is referentially univocal, and that any ordinary individuals referred to by expressions of M a must exist. To this end, we adopt the following: Mentalese Univocality Principle. For any cotypical objects a and b, if a single name in an agent’s Mentalese denotes both a and b, then a = b. Mentalese Actuality Principle. The only ordinary individuals denoted by names in an agent’s Mentalese are actual individuals.12 Since we will be using English to talk about ILAO and using the language of ILAO to formulate TC, in which we talk about the syntax and semantics of agents’

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languages of thought, it will be useful to adapt Section 3.3’s notational conventions to track our new hierarchy of languages. In the language of ILAO/TC itself: — Primitive names and unrestricted variables are written as italicized Roman expressions. — Boldfaced Roman letters are (as before) restricted variables of type ranging over Mentalese expression-kinds (the latter being construed as O-properties of type ). — The boldfaced italic letters ‘i’ and ‘p’ respectively name the Mentalese counterparts of ILAO’s type indices ‘i’ and ‘p’; and ‘t ’ (with or without subscripts) is a variable ranging over Mentalese types. (Except for the introduction of ‘p’ and ‘p’, this continues the usage of Section 3.3.) — Boldfaced logical symbols are (as before) names for the Mentalese symbolkinds that are their counterparts (i.e., ‘&’ names the property of being a Mentalese conjunction sign, and so on). — The vergules ‘«’ and ‘»’ are (as before) used to form structural descriptions of complex Mentalese expression-kinds (these being construed as type properties). — Standard quotation marks are used, but only in application to individual letters and primitive names constructed therefrom, to form derived type names denoting the corresponding orthographic kinds (e.g., “red ” names the orthographic property being an expression token spelled ‘r’+‘e’+‘d’). — Sellarsian dot-quotes continue to be used, but only in application to primitive names borrowed from English, to form derived type names denoting the corresponding functional kinds (e.g., ‘• planet • ’ names the property being a token of an expression-kind indistinguishable in function from the English word ‘planet’). In the English metalanguage employed in our informal exposition of TC, uppercase plain Roman letters are used as schemata whose replacements are expressions of ILAO (of contextually indicated kinds). In contexts where ‘t’ (sometimes subscripted) is employed as a schematic letter whose replacements are particular type indices of ILAO, we continue the practice of using its primed counterpart ‘t  ’ (with like subscript if any) as a schematic letter whose replacements are the boldfaced indices for the corresponding Mentalese types. (As before, the metalinguistic expression ‘t  ’ should not be confused with the object language variable ‘t’ ranging over Mentalese types.) In its original form, ILAO is neutral on two general metaphysical issues with respect to which TC needs to take a stand. The first issue concerns the equivalence (i.e., necessary coextensiveness) of relations under certain conditions. Where ‘R’ is a relational expression of type , let us employ ‘℘(R)’ as a type name for the property reduct of the relation R, i.e., ℘ (R) =def . [λx0t0 (∃x1t1 ) . . . (∃xntn )R(x0 , x1 , . . . , xn )].

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Now the question arises: could there be a case in which some inequivalent type relations P and Q nonetheless had numerically identical property reducts? Intuitively, it would seem not. For reasons that will emerge, our theory requires cementing this intuition into an offical ban. So we adopt the following: Property-Reduct Principle. The property reducts of inequivalent relations of a given type are numerically distinct.13 The second issue concerns the existence of O-objects. Being originally a pure theory of A-objects, ILAO has no primitive names of particular O-objects and no axioms implying that there are such things. In constructing TC, however, we are building an applied theory of A-objects in which certain of them function as senses of other objects (typically, O-objects), and implementing this project will require TC to posit the existence of O-objects of various types. In order to apply our apparatus to natural language examples, we need to borrow from English some suitably disambiguated primitive type i names such as ‘Plato’, ‘Galileo’, ‘Wanda’, etc., as well as some suitably disambiguated primitive names of other types such as ‘Planet ’, ‘Owns ’, ‘Oculist ’, ‘Ophthalmologist ’, ‘Believes ’, etc.—all of which will be assumed to name O-objects of corresponding types. Accordingly, we take as axiomatic the following: O-Name Principle. N is an O-object. (‘N’ being any primitive name officially borrowed from English) (By contrast, we will have no primitive names for A-objects.) 4.3

TC: THE PROTO-THEORY

Now that its salient features have been sketched, the modified version of ILAO may be employed to construct the desired theory TC of thought-contents and the belief relation. We begin with the proto-theory, a simplified version of TC restricted to first-order ‘atomic’ beliefs. 4.3.1 Senses as A-Objects; Thought-Contents as Senses For given object ot , we say that a binary relation Do of type is an ot determiner if, for any objects yi and z , the condition Do yz entails that y is an agent in whose Mentalese z is a type t  name denoting o. (Mentalese name-kinds, it will be remembered, are being regarded as O-properties of type .) Henceforth, we use ‘Dot ’ to range over ot -determiners. The three basic notions alluded to at the outset—mode of presentation, containment, and sense—are then defined as follows (subject to the emendations made in the next chapter). First, a mode of presentation (MP) of ot is any exemplifiable relation of the sort [λxt yi z z denotes

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x in y’s Mentalese and Do yz] in which Dot is an ot -determiner. Second, an A-object contains a relation iff it encodes just the property-reduct of that relation. Third, a sense of ot is any cotypical A-object containing some MP of ot . In accordance with our commitment to object-dependent senses, ‘sense’ will be treated as short for ‘sense of some object’. The axioms of ILAO guarantee, for each MP of an object ot , the existence of a type t A-object containing that MP. For instance, borrowing from Kaplan (1968) the notion of a ‘vivid’ mental name, we could take as our ot -determiner Dot the relation R1 : [R1 ]

[λyi z y is an agent, z is a type t  name in y’s Mentalese that denotes ot , and z is vivid for y].

Then there will be an A-object st containing the corresponding relation Vividot : [Vividot ]

[λxt yi z z denotes x in agent y’s Mentalese and z is a type t  name in y’s Mentalese that denotes ot , and z is vivid for y].14

Suppose, for the sake of argument, there is a guarantee that Vivido is an exemplifiable relation. Then Vividot will be an MP of ot , and the A-object st will be one sort of sense of ot —call it a ‘Kaplan-sense’. So every object will have at least one sense, viz. a Kaplan-sense. Consequently, there will be senses of every type t such that there are objects of type t. An object ot will have as many different (kinds of) senses as there different (kinds of) MPs of ot , which in turn will be as numerous as the different (kinds of) ot -determiner they incorporate. (The finite number and contingent existence of actual Mentalese tokens is thus compatible with the possibly infinite number and necessary existence of senses qua abstract objects that contain MPs involving (perhaps unexemplified) kinds of Mentalese expressions.) Given our account of MPs as certain exemplifiable relations, formal introduction of a particular sense as ‘the one containing such-and-such an MP’ presupposes that the relation in question is provably exemplifiable. So if we wish to invoke Kaplansenses even as illustrative devices, we need to adopt a special postulate for them. t Where ‘Nt ’ is a primitive name, let us write ‘N ... ’ as a name of N’s Kaplan-sense, 15 subject to the following schematic principle: Kaplan-Sense Principle. The relation VividNt is exemplifiable, and ... Nt is the A-object containing VividNt . Our project will ultimately require the introduction of other kinds of senses as well, and that introduction will also have to include explicit postulation that the relations they contain are indeed exemplifiable, hence are MPs. In practice, this should be uncontroversial, since the exemplifiability of these relations, like that of the Vivido relations, is intuitively obvious anyway.

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Where s is a sense of o, we call o a canonical object of s. By definition, every sense has at least one canonical object. But the Property-Reduct Principle and the Mentalese Univocality Principle jointly entail that a sense cannot have more than one canonical object: Canonical Object Theorem. For any sense s and cotypical objects o1 and o2 , if o1 and o2 are canonical objects of s, then o1 = o2 . So we may (and shall) speak of the canonical object of a given sense. Among the various possible sorts of senses, the kind most germane to the analysis of thought-contents is that of the ‘λ-senses’—senses whose whose o-determiners Do are such that, for any agent y and expression z of y’s Mentalese, the condition Do yz entails that z fits a certain syntactico-semantic description, or ‘λ-profile’, requiring it to be a λ-abstract in y’s Mentalese. More precisely, a λt -profile is a binary relation L between agents y and expressions z of their Mentalese such that, necessarily, Lyz only if z =E «[λv f ]» for some type t variable v and formula f of y’s Mentalese in which at most v occurs free. A λ-MP of the property F is an MP of F whose F-determiner DF is such that, for some  λt -profile L, DF yi z additionally entails that Lyi z. A λ-sense of the property F is accordingly a sense of F that contains a λ-MP of F . In general, a thoughtcontent of the property F may simply be identified with a λ-sense of the property F . Corresponding notions may be defined for the atomic case. Thus, a k-ary atomic λt -profile (k ≥ 1) is a λt -profile L for which Lyi z additionally entails that z =E «[λv m(d1 , . . . , dk )]» for some type t variable v and simple terms m, d1 , . . . , dk of some respective types , t 1 , . . . , t k in y’s Mentalese. A k-ary atomic λ-MP of the property F (k ≥ 1) is a λ-MP of F whose  F-determiner DF is such that, for some k-ary atomic λt -profile L, DF yi z additionally entails that Lyi z. A k-ary atomic λ -sense of the property F (k ≥ 1) is a λ-sense of F that contains a k-ary atomic λ-MP of F, and a k-ary atomic thought-content of the property F is a k-ary atomic λ-sense of F . 4.3.2 Valuation Relations and Canonical λ-Profiles In order to provide for the analysis of attitude ascriptions, we need a canonical way of specifying particular (atomic) thought-contents by way of mentioning their putative constituents. These canonical names will, of course, be the analogues in TC’s formalism of ‘that’-clauses in English. Now it is generally supposed that the syntax of a ‘that’-clause reveals the form of the thought being attributed, while its ingredient non-logical vocabulary is supposed to identify the items the thought is about—these two factors together determining the thought’s truth condition. So there are three desiderata. First, we want in TC canonical names for thought-contents that will display in their own syntax the syntactic structures required of the salient

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Mentalese formulas (i.e., the syntactic structures invoked by the λ-profiles in the λMPs these thought-contents contain). Second, we want the non-logical vocabulary in these canonical names to identify the values of the corresponding elements in the salient Mentalese formulas. Third, we want the structures and values in question to feed into a plausible account of truth conditions. So as not to be distracted by the complications involved in providing canonical names for thought-contents of arbitrary complexity (on which, seeAppendix 2 of the next chapter), we shall focus here on canonical names for k-ary atomic thoughtcontents, which in TC are type expressions of the sort ‘[§V T(T1 , …, Tk )]’ in which ‘V’ is a variable of type i, ‘T’ is a term of type and ‘T1 ’,…,‘Tk ’ are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tk . Subsequent occurrences (if any) of the variable ‘V’ in ‘T(T1 , …, Tk )’ correspond in our symbolism to uses of the reflexive pronouns ‘he himself’ or ‘she herself’ in English. For expository convenience, we shall further restrict our attention to examples of the sort ‘[§Vi N(T1 , …, Tk )]’ in which ‘N’is a simple name and each of the terms ‘T1 ’,…, ‘Tk ’is either a simple name or the variable ‘V’. The denotata of the name ‘N’ and of the simple names (if any) among ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tk ’ are the constituents of the particular atomic thought-content putatively named by the instance of ‘[§Vi N(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’. In the atomic case at least, matters are fairly straightforward. Intuitively, if t ‘M ’,‘N1t1 ’, …,‘Nkk ’ are all simple names having the indicated types, then the k-ary atomic thought-content represented by the corresponding canonical name ‘[§Vi M(N1 , . . . , Nk )]’ should contain a k-ary atomic λ-MP involving a k-ary atomic λi -profile L such that Lyi z, in addition to entailing (a)—as does any such λi -profile—also entails (b): (a) z =E «[λv m(d1 , . . . , dk )]» for some Mentalese types t 1 , . . . , t k , type i variable v, and simple names m, d1 , . . . , dk of respective types , t 1 , . . . , t k in y’s Mentalese. t (b) M , N1t1 , . . . , Nkk —i.e., the k+1 constituents of the atomic thoughtcontent [§Vi M(N1 , . . . , Nk )]—are respectively the ‘values’ of the Mentalese names d, d1 , . . . , dk . In other words, there is a certain ‘canonical’ k-ary atomic λi -profile involved, one which specifies a valuation relation that connects the agent, the mentioned constituents, and the agent’s Mentalese names. Before we can say precisely what this canonical λi -profile is, however, we must specify the nature of these valuation relations. To appreciate what is required of such a valuation relation, we need to ask why a sense of an object rather than the object itself would be mentioned at a given juncture in the canonical specification of a thought-content—i.e., why one would want to write ‘[§Vi · · · sO · · · ]’, in which ‘sO ’ names a sense of an object O, rather than ‘[§Vi · · · O · · · ]’. Presumably, the point of mentioning a sense as one of the constituents of a thought-content is to specify how that sense’s canonical object should be represented by any thinker of that thought-content—i.e., how the thinker

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of [§Vi · · · sO · · · ] should think of O. As we have seen, a sense determines this by containing an MP that specifies a certain restriction on Mentalese names of its canonical object. So if the alleged constituent Nj (the denotatum of the j th term in ‘[§Vi M(N1 , . . . , Nk )]’) is a sense of some sort, we want the restriction specified by the MP this sense contains to be satisfied by the corresponding Mentalese name dj whose value is Nj . Since the MP contained by Nj is a ternary relation R amongst objects, Mentalese names, and their owners, we can put this point as follows: For a sense Nj to be the value of a name dj in an agent a’s Mentalese is just for it to be the case that R(Nj , dj , a). In contrast, we employ as the jth term in ‘[§Vi M(N1 , . . . , Nk )]’ a name ‘Nj ’ denoting a non-sense (paradigmatically, some O-object), thereby directly mentioning a non-sense Nj as a constituent of the thought-content, when we are indifferent as to how a thinker would mentally represent it. Here the point is merely to specify Nj as the semantic value of the corresponding component of the Mentalese formula whose construction is specified by the λ-MP contained in that thought-content. So if the alleged constituent Nj is not a sense, it should merely be the denotatum of dj . In other words: For a non-sense Nj to be the value of a name dj in agent a’s Mentalese is just for dj to denote Nj in a’s Mentalese. Now in specifying a thought-content by way of its constituents, the very same constituent may be mentioned more than once. The significance of this fact depends, of course, on whether the repeatedly mentioned constituent is a sense or not. For such recurrence of a sense as a constituent in a thought-content T intuitively signifies that the canonical object of that sense is to be represented in the same way again in the Mentalese formula whose construction is specified by the λ-MP that T contains (a fact we exploit at the end of Section 4.3.10). In other words: If Nj and Nk are one and the same sense, then it should be the case that the corresponding mental representations dj and dk are likewise identical. But recurrence of a non-sense as a constituent in a complex sense should be noncommittal as regards how that entity is to be represented. In light of the above, the required family of type valuation relations Val[t1 ,...,tn ] (n ≥ 0) may be schematically characterized:16 Valuation Principlen . For any agent yi , objects ot11 , . . . , otnn and names a1 , . . . , an of corresponding types t1 , . . . , tn in y’s Mentalese,

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Val[t1 ,...,tn ] (yi ; ot11 , . . . , otnn ; a1 , . . . , an )—read: ot11 , . . . , otnn are the respective values of a1 , …, an in y’s Mentalese—iff y =E y and (i)-(iii) obtain: (i) if oj is a sense, then the MP that oj contains relates the canonical object of oj , the agent y, and the corresponding Mentalese name aj (in that order) (1 ≤ j ≤ n); and (ii) if oj is not a sense, then aj denotes oj in y’s Mentalese (1 ≤ j ≤ n); and t

t

t

t

(iii) if ojj and okk are senses and ojj = okk , then aj = ak . (1 ≤ j, k ≤ n : tj = tk ).17 By way of illustration, consider the three valuation conditions Val[,i] (y; Planet, Venus; a1 , a2 ), Val[,i] (y; Planet ......... , Venus ......... ; a1 , ......... , Venus ......... ; a1 , a2 ), and Val [i,i] (y; Venus a2 ). Since by the O-Name Principle it is provable that Planet and Venus are Oobjects18 , hence not senses, clauses (i) and (iii) above drop out as redundant and we have the result (1): (1)

Val[,i] (y; Planet, Venus; a1 , a2 ) obtains—i.e., Planet and Venus are the respective values of a1 and a2 in in y’s Mentalese—iff a1 and a2 are respectively names of types and i in y’s Mentalese such that a1 denotes the property Planet and a2 denotes the individual Venus.

Similarly, since both Planet ......... and Venus ......... demonstrably are senses, we have the results (2) and (3): (2)

Val [,i] (y; Planet ......... , Venus ......... and Venus ......... ; a1 , a2 )—i.e., Planet ......... are the respective values of a1 and a2 in in y’s Mentalese—obtains iff a1 and a2 are respectively names of types and i in y’s Mentalese such that a1 denotes the property Planet, a2 denotes the individual Venus, and both names are vivid for y.

(3)

Val [i,i] (y; Venus ......... , Venus ......... ; a1 , a2 ) obtains—i.e., Venus ......... and Venus ......... are the respective values of a1 and a2 in in y’s Mentalese—iff a1 and a2 are names of type i in y’s Mentalese that denote the individual Venus, both names are vivid for y, and a1 = a2 .

It is now possible to define the canonical sort of atomic λi -profile that we need in order to specify in TC the reference of a name like ‘[§Vi P(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’— i.e., the canonical atomic λi -profile for ‘[§Vi P(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’ (for short: CAλP ‘[§V P(T1 ,...,Tk )]’). Where ‘P’ is a term of type ; ‘T1 ’,…,‘Tk ’ are terms of respective types t1 , …, tk ; ‘Tf (1) ’,…,‘Tf (k) ’ are exactly the terms among ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tk ’ other than the variable ‘Vi ’; and (for 1 ≤ j ≤ k) the term j is ‘v’ if ‘Tj ’ is ‘Vi ’, and the term j is ‘df (j) ’ otherwise): CAλP ‘[§V P(T1 ,...,Tk )]’ =def . [λryi r =E «[λv d(1 , . . . , k )]» for some variable v of type i and names d, df (1) , . . . , df (k) of respective types

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, tf (1) , . . . , tf (k) in y’s Mentalese for which Val(y; P, Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (k) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (k) )]. Three features of this definition call for comment. First, its definiens does not contain the expression ‘[§Vi P(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’ and makes no assumption about what, if anything, that expression refers to. There will thus be no threat of circularity when, in Section 4.4.3 below, ‘CAλP‘[§V P(T1 ,...,Tk )]’’ occurs in our specification of the reference of ‘[§Vi P(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’. Second, and very importantly, it allows for a case in which some of the terms ‘P’,‘T1 ’,…,‘Tk ’ are variables distinct from the variable ‘Vi ’. This latitude is essential if our apparatus is to allow for the possibility of objectually quantifying into attitude ascriptions. Third, the convention regarding the identity of the term j , though admittedly cumbersome, is nonetheless crucial: the list ‘1 , . . . , k ’ in ‘r =E «[λv d(1 , . . . , k )]»’ cannot in general simply be replaced by the list ‘df (1) , . . . , df (k) ’. Since the boldfaced letters ‘df (1) ’,…,‘df (k) ’ are required to range over Mentalese names, the replacement in question would give the desired result only when none of ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ is itself the variable ‘Vi ’. But if ‘Tj ’ is ‘Vi ’, then j will have to be replaced by ‘v’ (stipulated to range over Mentalese variables). A simple illustration is provided by the canonical atomic λi -profile for [§xi GivesTo (x, y, Wanda)], which, for a given individual y, is the relation between a Mentalese expression r and an agent a which consists in r’s being a term in a’s Mentalese of the form «[λv d(v, d1 , d2 )]» for some variable v of type i and names d, d1 , and d2 (of types , i, and i) whose respective values in a’s Mentalese are the relation Loves, the individual y, and Wanda. 4.3.3 Thought-Contents with Specified Objects as Constituents We are now in a position to define the more fine-grained notion of a thoughtcontent that has as constituents the objects ot11 , . . . , otnn (some or all of which might themselves be senses). Following our usual pattern, we must first refine the notions ‘λt -profile’ and ‘k-ary atomic λt -profile’ to take account of such constituents. For any objects ot11 , . . . , otnn , a binary relation L between agents y and expressions z of their Mentalese is a λt[o1 ,...,on ] -profile iff: L is a λt -profile and either (a) or (b) obtains: (a)

n ≥ 1 and Lyz entails that there is a type t variable v, a formula f containing free at most v, and simple names a1 , . . . , an of respective types t  1 , . . . , t  n in y’s Mentalese such that (i) z =E «[λv f ]»; and (ii) a1 , . . . , an are exactly the simple names occurring in f; and (iii) Val[t1 ...tn ] (y; o1 , . . . , on ; a1 , . . . , an ).

(b) n = 0 and Lyz entails that there is a variable v of type t and name-free formula f containing free at most v such that z =E «[λv f ]» and Val[] (y). (For n = 0, we call L a λt[] -profile.)

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A λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MP of the property F is a λ-MP of F whose F-determiner  DF is such that whatever meets it must fit a certain λt -[o1 ,...,on ] -profile—i.e.,  which is such that, for some λt [o1 ,...,on ] -profile L, DF yi z entails Lyi z. Correspondingly, a λ[o1 ,...,on ] -sense of the property F is a type t A-object containing an λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MP of that property. In particular, a thought-content (of F ) having o1 , . . . , on as constituents—for short: a thought-content [o1 ,...,on ] (of F )— is a λ[o1 ,...,on ] -sense of F .19 Since the present Chapter will focus on atomic thought-contents and their constituents, the corresponding kinds of profiles, MPs, and thoughtcontents involving those constituents are naturally defined as special cases of  λt[o1 ,...,on ] -profiles, λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MPs, and thought-contents[o1 ,...,on ] . Accordingly, let P, o1 , . . . , om (m ≥ 0) be objects of respective types , to1 , . . . , tom , where each of to1 , . . . , tom is one of t1 , . . . , tk . Then for k ≥ 1 and m ≤ k, a k-ary atomic λt[P,o1 ,...,om ] -profile is an λt[P,o1 ,...,om ] -profile L such that Lyz additionally entails that, for some variable v of type t, name f of type , terms d1 , . . . , dk of respective types t1 , . . . , tk , and names n1 , . . . , nm of respective types to 1 , . . . , to m in y’s Mentalese, (i)-(iii) hold: (i) z =E «[λv f (d1 , . . . , dk )]»; (ii) each of n1 , . . . , nm is one of d1 , . . . , dk ; (iii) either dj is one of n1 , . . . , nm , or else dj =E v (1 ≤ j ≤ k). Our earlier notion of the canonical atomic λ-profile associated with a canonical name ‘[§Vi P(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’ is easily shown to fall under this new notion of a k-ary λt[P,o ,...,om ]− profile: 1

First CAλi P Theorem. Let ‘P’ be a term of type ; let ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tk ’ be terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tk ; and let ‘Tf (1) ’,…,‘Tf (k) ’ be exactly the terms among ‘T1 ’,…,‘Tk ’ distinct from the variable ‘Vi ’. Then any instance of the following is a theorem: CAλP‘[§V i

P(T1 ,...,Tk )]’

is a k-ary λi[P,Tf (1) ,...,Tf (k) ] -profile.

Finally, for k ≥ 1 and 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1, we define a k-ary atomic λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MP of the property F as a λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MP of F whose F-determiner DF is such t that, for some k-ary atomic λ[o -profile L, DF yz entails that Lyz. And we cor1 ,...,on ] respondingly define a k-ary atomic thought-content (of F ) having o1 , . . . , on as constituents—for short: an atomic thought-content k:[o1 ,...,on ] —as a thoughtcontent (of F ) having o1 , . . . , on as constituents that contains an k-ary atomic λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MP of that property.20 It will be useful to illustrate the recently defined notions via a concrete case. A single example of a k-ary atomic thought-content having such-and-such constituents will suffice, for any such item will trivially count both as a k-ary atomic

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thought-content and as a thought-content with those constituents, hence also as a thought-content simpliciter. Accordingly, consider the relation R2 and the corresponding relation R3 that embeds it: [R2 ]

[λyi z For some variable v of type i and simple type name g in agent y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv g(v)]» and Val[] (y; Planet; g)].

[R3 ]

[λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and R2 (y, z)].

Suppose—as will shortly be the case—that steps are taken to assure that if a simple type name g in agent y’s Mentalese denotes Planet , then «[λv g(v)]» will count as a derived complex type name in agent y’s Mentalese that also denotes Planet . Then, since the valuation condition Val[] (y;Planet;g) entails that g denotes Planet in y’s Mentalese, R2 will count as a Planet -determiner. Moreover, R2 is a λi[Planet] -Profile, for it is verifiable by inspection that R2 yz entails that there is a type i variable v, a formula f (viz., «g(v)») containing free at most v, and simple type name a1 in y’s Mentalese (viz., g) such that: for any n, n is a simple name occurring in f iff n =E a1 ; z =E «[λv f ]»; and Val[] (y;Planet;a1 ). But, as is equally verifiable by inspection, R2 yz additionally entails that there is in y’s Mentalese a type i variable v, type name m, and type i term d1 such that: z =E «[λv m(d1 )]» and d1 =E v. So R2 is also a unary atomic λi[Planet] -profile. Therefore, R3 will in turn be a unary atomic λ[Planet] -MP of the property Planet , and an A-object that contains R3 will be a unary atomic thought-content (of the property Planet ) that has Planet as a constituent—i.e., an atomic thought-content1:[Planet] . 4.3.4 Interpreting Canonical Names of Atomic Thought-Contents We turn now to the task of specifying which atomic thought-content is named by a given canonical name of the sort ‘[§V T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]’. Consider the objects Planet and Venusi and some senses of each—say, their Kaplan-senses Planet ......... and Venus ......... . Intuitively, canonical names that are related to one another in the i way that the four expressions ‘[§xi Planet (Venusi )]’, ‘[§xi Planet ......... (Venus )]’, i i ‘[§x Planet (Venus ......... )]’ and ‘[§x Planet ......... (Venus ......... )]’ are should pick out unary atomic thought-contents with different constituents but with the same canonical object — that object being, in the present case, the propositional property [λxi Planet (Venusi )]. So these thought-contents should collectively contain four

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different λ-MPs of that propositional property, which means that the λ-MPs in question must involve four different determiners of that property. This is where we look to the canonical λ-profiles CAλP‘[§x Planet(Venus)]’, CAλP‘[§x ........ Planet (Venus)]’, CAλP‘[§x Planet(Venus , and CAλP . Given a principle (viz., the Men)]’ ‘[§x Planet (Venus )]’ ....... ........ ....... talese Denotation Principle adopted later in this section) which ensures that any name in an agent’s Mentalese that fits any of these canonical λ-profiles will denote the propositional property [λxi Planet (Venusi )], these canonical λ-profiles will qualify as four different determiners of that propositional property. In other words, any of the four canonical λ-profiles in question is a relation L such that the corresponding relation [λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and Lyz] is, if exemplifiable, an λ-MP of the propositional property [λxi Planet (Venusi )]. More generally, where N0 and N1 , . . . , Nn are objects of respective types and t1 , . . . , tn , we want [§Vi N0 (N1 , . . . , Nn )] to count both as an n-ary atomic thought-content having N0 , N1 , . . . , Nn as constituents and as a thought-content of the corresponding propositional property [λVi A0 (A1 , . . . , An )] in which, for 0 ≤ j ≤ n, Aj is the canonical object of Nj if Nj is a sense and Aj is Nj otherwise. Accordingly, we could lay down the following schematic principle (a special case of our Generalized Thought-Content Principle, formalized as axiom scheme (A20) in Appendix 1 of the next chapter): Special Atomic Thought-Content Principle (provisional form). Where ‘T0 ’,‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ are terms of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn , all of which are distinct from the variable ‘Vi ’, the universal closure of any instance of the following is an axiom: [§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )] is the type A-object containing the relation [λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’(z, y)]; and this relation is exemplifiable. The clause ‘CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’(z,y)’ in this formulation — which says that z is a canonical atomic profile associated with the expression ‘[§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]’ — is, it will be remembered, equivalent to the following requirement: For some type i variable v and names d0 , d1 , . . . , dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn in agent y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv d0 (d1 , . . . , dn )]» and T0 , T1 , . . . , Tn are the values in y’s Mentalese of d0 , d1 , . . . , dn respectively. For the sake of illustration, consider a canonical name ‘[§Vi N0 (N1 , …, Nn )]’ in which ‘N0 ’,‘N1 ’,. . .,‘Nn ’ are simple names of respective types

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, t1 , . . . , tn . Given the Valuation Principlen and our definition of ‘CAλP‘[§V N0 (N1 ,...,Nn )]’(z,y)’, what the Special Atomic Thought-Content Principle says is that [§Vi N0 (N1 , . . . , Nn )] is the type A-object containing a certain λ[N0 ,N1 ,...,Nn ] -MP—call it ‘| [§Vi N0 (N1 , . . . , Nn )] |’—such that, for any property x , agent yi , and Mentalese name z, | [§Vi N0 (N1 , . . . , Nn )] |(x, y,z) obtains iff (4) does: (4) z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names d0 , d1 , . . . , dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn in y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv d0 (d1 , . . . , dn )]», and (i)

if Nj is a sense, then the MP that Nj contains must relate the canonical object of Nj , the agent y, and the corresponding Mentalese name dj (0 ≤ j ≤ n); and

(ii)

if Nj is not a sense, then dj denotes Nj in y’s Mentalese (0 ≤ j ≤ n); and

(iii)

if Njj and Nkk are senses and Njj = Nkk , then dj = dk (0 ≤ j, k ≤ n : tj = tk ).

t

t

t

t

Thus, e.g., [§ν i Planet(Venus)] is the type sense containing a certain λMP—call it ‘| [§ν i Planet(Venus)] |’—such that, for any property x , agent yi , and Mentalese name z, the condition | [§ν i Planet(Venus)] |(x, y,z) obtains iff (5) does: (5)

z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names d0 , d1 of respective types , i in y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv d0 (d1 )] », d0 denotes the property Planet, and d1 denotes Venus.

Even where only atomic thought-contents are concerned, however, the Special Atomic Thought-Content Principle will not cover all the cases. For in addition to the thought-contents picked out by canonical names of the sort it mentions, there are the first-person thought-contents, which, intuitively, should be picked out by canonical names of the sort ‘[§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]’ in which one or more of the terms ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ is the variable ‘Vi ’ itself. Instead of treating cases piecemeal, TC should have a more general principle that covers all atomic thought-contents at once. This principle (also a consequence of axiom scheme (A20) in Appendix 1) requires a somewhat more complicated formulation. Fully spelled out, it would read: General Atomic Thought-Content Principle (provisional form). Let ‘T0 ’,‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ be terms of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn and let ‘Tf (1) ’, . . .,‘Tf (n) ’ be exactly the terms among ‘T1 ’,…,‘Tn ’ that are distinct from the variable ‘Vi ’. Then—where (for 1 ≤ j ≤ n) the term j is ‘v’ if ‘Tj ’ is

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‘Vi ’, and j is ‘df (j) ’ otherwise—the universal closure of any instance of the following is an axiom: [§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )] is the type A-object containing the relation [λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) of respective types , tf (1) , . . . , tf (k) in y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]» and Val[,tf (1) ,...,tf (n) ] (y; T0 , Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (n) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) )]; and this relation is exemplifiable. In the complicated description of the contained relation, however, the schematic condition (6) occurs: (6)

For some type i variable v and names d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) of respective types , tf (1) , . . . , tf (k) in y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]» and Val[,tf (1) ,...,tf (n) ] (y; T0 , Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (n) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) )].

But (6) is just the result of λ-converting the definiens of ‘CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’(z, y)’ for the case in which one or more of ‘T1 ’,…,‘Tn ’ is ‘Vi ’. So, understanding the schematic letters as above, and bearing in mind that ‘CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’(z, y)’ abbreviates something more complicated when any of ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ is ‘Vi ’, the General Principle could be expressed in the same way as the Special Principle, i.e., as saying that the universal closure of any instance of the following is an axiom: [§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )] is the type A-object containing the relation [λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’(z,y)]; and this relation is exemplifiable. 4.3.5 Mentalese Denotation; The Constituents and Canonical Objects of N-ary Atomic Thought-Contents It remains to be shown that, as identified above, the A-object picked out by a name of the sort ‘[§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]’ does indeed count, by the lights of our earlier definitions, as an n-ary atomic thought-content which has T0 , Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (n) as constituents and which is ‘of’ the appropriate canonical object. To show this, we must make explicit the underlying assumption about Mentalese semantics which ensures that CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’ is a determiner of that canonical object, hence that the relation [λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’ (z,y)] counts as a λ-MP of that canonical object. We begin by specifying, for each object o, a unique cotypical object that we call the correlate of o (in symbols: ‘⎨o⎬’):

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Correlate Principle. For any object o: if o is a sense then ⎨o⎬ is o’s canonical object, and if o is not a sense then ⎨o⎬ is o itself. Let us say that a maximal occurrence of a term in an expression E is an occurrence that is not embedded within an occurrence of any definite description or canonical name for a thought-content which is a proper part of E. (Intuitively, the constituents of the relation named by a λ-abstract are the denotata of its maximally occurring terms.) Using this notion of maximal occurrence, we introduce the following abbreviatory device: Where ‘T’ is a term distinct both from ‘E’ and from any canonical name for a thought-content, ‘#E#’ abbreviates the result of replacing each maximal occurrence of ‘T’ in the expression ‘E’ by an occurrence of ‘⎨T⎬’.21 Stated in this terminology, our goal is to show that the A-object identified with [§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )] contains an n-ary atomic λ[T0 ,Tf (1) ,...,Tf (n) ] MP of #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]#—i.e., a λ[T0 ,Tf (1) ,...,Tf (n) ] -MP of the property #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]# whose #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]#-determiner D is such that, for some n-ary atomic λi[T0 ,Tf (1) ,...,Tf (n) ] -profile L, Dyz entails that Lyz. But in the Special and General Atomic Thought-Content Principles we have equated D with CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’—the canonical n-ary atomic λi[T0 ,Tf (1) ,...,Tf (n) ] -profile. So, as predicted, the problem reduces to showing that the canonical atomic λprofile for ‘[§V T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]’ is an #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]#-determiner—i.e., that CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’(z,y) entails that the Mentalese λ-term z denotes the property #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]# in y’s Mentalese. Since whether a Mentalese λ-term denotes a given property is presumably a matter of how the relevant valuation relation Val[t1 ,...,tn ] connects the parts of the term with the constituents of the property, we shall assume that Mentalese denotation is subject to the following principle (in which ‘T0 ’(of type ), ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ (of respective types t1 , . . . , tn ), ‘Tf (1) ’,. . .,‘Tf (n) ’ and ‘1 ’, . . .,‘n ’ are understood as above): Mentalese Denotation Principle (provisional form). The universal closure of any instance of the following is an axiom: If v is a variable of type i and d,df (1) , . . . , df (n) are names of respective types < t  1 , . . . , t  n >, t  f (1) , . . . , tf (n) in y’s Mentalese such that Val[,tf (1) ,...,tf (n) ] (y; T0 , Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (n) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) ), then «[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]» denotes #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]# in y’s Mentalese. To see how this works, let us return to our original examples of the four canonical i i (Venus )]’, names ‘[§xi Planet (Venusi )]’, ‘[§xi Planet ......... (Venus )]’, ‘[§x Planet .........

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and ‘[§xi Planet ......... (Venus ......... )]’. The Correlate Principle and definition of ‘#E#’guarantee the results (7a-d): (7)

a. b. c. d.

#[λν i Planet(Venus)]# = [λν i ⎨Planet⎬(⎨Venus⎬)] = [λν i Planet(Venus)]. i i #[λν i Planet ......... ⎬(⎨Venus⎬)] = [λν Planet(Venus)]. ......... (Venus)]# = [λν ⎨Planet i i i #[λν Planet(Venus ......... )]# = [λν ⎨Planet⎬(⎨Venus ......... ⎬)] = [λν Planet(Venus)]. i i #[λν i Planet ......... (Venus ......... )]# = [λν ⎨Planet ......... ⎬(⎨Venus ......... ⎬)] = [λν Planet(Venus)].

The Mentalese Denotation Principle ensures that, where v is a variable of type i and d,d1 are names of respective types , i in y’s Mentalese, (8a-d) all hold: (8)

a. If Val[,i] (y; Planet , Venusi ; d,d1 ), then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese. , Venusi ; d,d1 ), then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes b. If Val[,i] (y; Planet ......... [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese. i c. If Val[,i] (y; Planet , Venus ......... ; d,d1 ), then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese. i , Venus d. If Val[,i] (y; Planet ......... ......... ; d,d1 ), then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese.

Given the Valuation Principle2 for Val[,i] , (8a-d) in turn amount to (9a-d): (9)

a. If d denotes the property Planet and d1 denotes the individual Venus, then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese. b. If d denotes the property Planet and is vivid for y, and d1 denotes the individual Venus, then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese. c. If d denotes the property Planet and d1 denotes the individual Venus and is vivid for y, then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese. d. If d denotes the property Planet, d1 denotes the individual Venus, and both d and d1 are vivid for y, then «[λv d(d1 )]» denotes [λν i Planet(Venus)] in y’s Mentalese.

So each of the four canonical λ-profile conditions CAλP‘[§vi Planet(Venus)]’(z, y), CAλP‘[§vi Planet (Venus)]’(z, y), CAλP‘[§vi Planet(Venus)]’(z, y), and ........ ....... CAλP‘[§vi Planet (Venus)]’(z, y) will entail that y’s Mentalese λ-term z denotes the ........ ....... propositional property [λν i Planet(Venus)]. That is to say, each of the canonical λ-profiles in question is a [λν i Planet(Venus)]-determiner. Hence—by the Canonical Atomic λi -Profile Theorem and the Special Atomic Thought-Content Principle—each of (10a-d) will hold:

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a. [§ν i Planet(Venus)] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν i Planet (Venus)] having as constituents the ordinary property Planet and the ordinary individual Venus. i b. [§ν i Planet ......... (Venus)] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν Planet (Venus)] having as constituents the sense Planet ......... and the ordinary individual Venus. i c. [§ν i Planet(Venus ......... )] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν Planet (Venus)] having as constituents the ordinary property Planet and the sense Venus ......... . i i d. [§ν Planet ......... (Venus ......... )] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν Planet (Venus)] having as constituents the senses Planet ......... and Venus ......... .

In general, the Mentalese Denotation Principle ensures that CAλP‘[§V T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’ (z, y) will entail that y’s Mentalese λ-term z denotes #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]#. So, with ‘Vi ’, ‘T0 ’, ‘T1 ’,…,‘Tn ’, and ‘Tf (1) ’,…,‘Tf (n) ’ understood as above, the two desired results follow: Second CAλi P Theorem. The universal closure of any instance of the following is a theorem: CAλP‘[§Vi

T0 (T1 ,...,Tn )]’

is a #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]#-determiner.

Atomic Thought-Content Theorem. The universal closure of any instance of the following is a theorem: [§Vi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )] is an n-ary atomic thought-content of the property #[λVi T0 (T1 , . . . , Tn )]# and has as constituents the objects T0 , Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (n) . 4.3.6 Entertaining and Believing Thought-Contents To earn their keep, thought-contents as conceived by TC must be able to function appropriately as the second relatum of the belief relation, and if TC is to meet adequacy condition II of Chapter 2, thought-contents should be suitable as relata of other psychological attitude relations as well. The key here is the idea that bearing any such relation to a thought-content is a matter of entertaining it in some mode or other. To satisfy adequacy condition IV of Chapter 2, however, TC must also explain how one gets related to a thought-content by a psychological attitude relation, i.e., what one has to do in order so to entertain it. The general form of our answer is predictable from what we have said about the nature of thought-contents themselves: viz., appropriate objects must actually stand in the relation (λ-MP) that the thought-content contains. The formulation of the principle governing the relation Entertains requires two new ingredients. First, we take it as axiomatic that each agent a possesses an active Mentalese self-name Ia :22

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Self-Name Principle. For any agent a, Ia = the type i term of a’s Mentalese that both denotes a and is a’s active self-name. Second, we construe a mode of entertaining as the relation that obtains between a mental event e and its host a when e occurs in a certain functionally defined location in a’s psychic economy. In other words, we assume that what makes certain mental events instances of believing rather than, say, desiring is functionally definable in terms of where they occur in the host’s cognitive architecture. (Of course the spatial metaphors need not be taken literally: occurring (as Fodor says) ‘in one’s belief-box’ is a matter of standing in a certain complex web of counterfactual causal relations to other mental occurrences; whether this involves any interesting spatial contiguity is irrelevant.) In particular, we shall take the mode of entertaining characteristic of belief, call it ‘B ’, to be the relation [λex e is an event occurring in agent x’s ‘belief-box’]. Then, where ‘f ’ ranges over modes of entertaining so construed and the locution ‘x f-registers y’ is glossed by ‘x is disposed as one who authors an event e such that e is a tokening of y and f (e, x)’23 , we can state the desired principle succinctly: Entertainment Principle. An agent a entertains a thought-content T in mode f iff, for some formula S of a’s Mentalese having at most the type i variable x free: (a) a f-registers the result S(Ia /x ) of uniformly substituting Ia for any free occurrences of x in S, and (b) the λ-MP contained by T (viz. = |T |) actually relates T ’s canonical object, the agent a, and the term «[λv S]» of a’s Mentalese (in that order). The point of clause (a) is, of course, to capture the difference between first-person thinking, which involves use of the thinker’s active self-name, and non-first-person thinking, which does not. (Since S(Ia /v ) = S when v is not free in S, we can at least truly ascribe non-first-person beliefs to agents who lack self-consciousness and who thus presumably lack an active self-name). The point of clause (b) is to guarantee that a’s entertaining in mode f a particular thought-content with constituents o1 t1 , . . . , om tm will involve a’s f registering a Mentalese sentence appropriately constructed from names d1 ,…,dm that jointly satisfy the valuation condition Val[t1 ,...,tm ] (a; o1 , . . . , om ; d1 ,…,dm ) embedded in the λ-MP that thought-content contains. In the atomic case at least, it is easy to see that clause (b) has this consequence. Consider an n-ary atomic thought-content [§Vi N (N1t1 ,…, Nntn )] of the propositional property #[λVi N (N1t1 ,…, Nntn )]#. This thought-content contains a corresponding λ-MP (viz. |[§Vi N(N1 , . . . , Nn )]|) that obtains between items x , yi ,z iff: z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names d,d1 ,…,dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn in y’s Mentalese, z =E

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«[λv d(d1 , . . . , dn )]» and N,N1 ,…,Nn are the values in y’s Mentalese of d,d1 ,…,dn respectively. So (b) is the case—i.e., the λ-MP | [§Vi N(N1 ,…, Nn )] | actually relates the property #[λν i N(N1 ,…, Nn )]#, the agent a, and the Mentalese term «[λv S]»—iff: z denotes #[λVi N(1 ,…,Nn )]# in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names d,d1 , …,dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn in a’s Mentalese, «[λv S]» =E «[λv d(d1 , . . . , dn )]» and N,N1 ,…,Nn are the values in a’s Mentalese of d,d1 , . . . , dn respectively. Via the Mentalese Denotation Principle, this reduces as predicted to saying that (b) obtains iff: there is an atomic formula «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» in a’s Mentalese constructed from Mentalese names d,d1 , . . . , dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn such that N,N1 ,…,Nn are the values in a’s Mentalese of d,d1 , . . . , dn respectively. The Entertainment Principle connects the ephemeral, concrete, private and causally efficacious episodes of symbol use on the one hand with the eternal, abstract, shareable and causally inert thought-contents on the other. It provides our ontological answer to Frege’s question ‘Why must thoughts be ‘clothed in language’ for us to grasp them?’: viz., entertaining a thought-content in a mode f essentially requires instantiation of the λ-MP it contains, which in turn essentially requires the agent to f -register a Mentalese formula with the syntactic and semantic features specified in that λ-MP. Thus, in addition to meeting adequacy condition IV of Chapter 2, TC also meets adequacy condition VI by enabling us to see how thought-contents of all sorts are shareable in principle—i.e., how, for any thoughtcontent T , it is at least logically possible that there should be distinct agents a and b such that a entertains T in some mode f1 and b also entertains T in some mode f2 . For such joint entertaining of T is a matter of the two agents respectively f1 and f2 -registering in their own languages of thought formulas having the various syntactic and semantic features specified in the λ-MP that T contains. Even where that registration involves occurrent tokening of the formulas in question, it is not required that the distinct Mentalese tokens produced by a and b should bear any particular intrinsic (e.g., physical) resemblance to one another. In light of our treatment of entertaining thought-contents, we adopt the following principle about belief: Belief Principle. An agent a believes a thought-content T iff a entertains T in the mode B . (Similar principles could clearly be formulated, mutatis mutandis, for such explanatorily central attitudes as desire and intention.) Given the Belief Principle, we have

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the following chain of equivalences for the case in which ‘N’, ‘N1 ’,…,‘Nn ’ are primitive names of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn : a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi N(N1 ,…,Nn )] iff (by the Belief Principle and Entertainment Principle) for some formula S of a’s Mentalese having at most the type i variable x free: a B -registers S(Ia /x ), and the λ-MP contained by [§Vi N(N1 ,…,Nn )] relates #[λVi N(N1 ,…,Nn )]#, the agent a, and the term «[λx S]» of a’s Mentalese (in that order) iff (by our preceding discussion of clause (b) of the Entertainment Principle) for some type i variable v and names d,d1 ,…,dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn in a’s Mentalese: a B -registers «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» and N,N1 ,…,Nn are the values in a’s Mentalese of d,d1 ,…,dn respectively iff (by the Valuation Principlen+1 ): a B -registers a Mentalese sentence «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» in which d, d1 , . . . , dn are names of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn such that d denotes N, d1 denotes N1 ,…, and dn denotes Nn . Consequently, the following is a theorem scheme for the special case in which ‘N’, ‘N1 ’,…, ‘Nn ’ are primitive names of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn : Transparent Atomic Belief Theorem. For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi N(N1 ,…,Nn )] iff a B -registers a Mentalese sentence «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» in which d,d1 , . . . , dn are Mentalese names of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn denoting N, N1 ,…,Nn respectively. 4.3.7 Application to Belief de re To illustrate the usefulness of this machinery, let us first consider the pure de re reading of the attitude ascription (11), viz., the wholly transparent one on which it is adequately paraphrased by ‘Galileo believes, of Venus and the property being a planet, that the former has the latter’: (11)

Galileo believes that Venus is a planet.

The truth condition of this reading is provided by the interpretation (12):24 (12)

Believes (Galileo, [§xi Planet(Venus)]).

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Now if, as we maintain, belief involves dispositions to inner speech in one’s language of thought, one would expect (12) to obtain just in case Galileo is disposed as one who mentally predicates planethood of Venus via Mentalese names of each. This is precisely the result our theory gives, since (13) is a simple substitution instance of the Transparent Atomic Belief Theorem: (13)

Galileo believes the atomic thought-content [§xi Planet(Venus)] iff he B -registers a Mentalese sentence «f (a)» in which f and a are Mentalese names of respective types and i such that f denotes Planet and a denotes Venus.

Moreover, objectually quantifying into (11)/(12) is unproblematic, for the likes of (14a) and (15a) will receive the straightforward interpretations (14b) and (15b): (14)

a. There is something Galileo believes to be a planet. b. (∃yi )Believes (Galileo, [§xi Planet(y)]).

(15)

a. There is something which Galileo believes Venus to be. b. (∃F )Believes (Galileo, [§xi F(Venus)]).

On the interpretation (14b), (14a) is true iff, for some individual y, Galileo B registers a Mentalese sentence «f (a)» in which f and a are Mentalese names of respective types and i such that f denotes Planet and a denotes y. Similarly, (15a) is true on the interpretation (15b) iff, for some type property F, Galileo B -registers a Mentalese sentence «f (a)» in which f and a are Mentalese names of respective types and i such that f denotes F and a denotes Venus. Our theory thus has the intuitively desirable consequence that (11), given its wholly transparent reading, entails both (14a) and (15a). 4.3.8 Senses as Constituents of Thought-Contents: Translucent and Opaque Senses As outlined above, TC generates a plausible account of belief de re but so far sheds no light on our primary target, substitutional opacity in belief reports. Illuminating the latter requires an account of belief de dicto. In terms of TC, what is needed is an account of thought-contents that have certain special sorts of senses as constituents. (We ignore until the next chapter the case in which these constituent senses are themselves thought-contents). Our account will make use of a family of senses we call ‘translucent’, certain members of which exhibit an opacity-explaining feature that moves us to dub these senses ‘opaque’. The introduction of translucent senses, however, requires us to be more explicit than heretofore about the role of quotation marks in our formalism. An expression like
‘Plato’, it will be remembered, occurs in our formal object language merely as a name of a certain orthographic kind, whose instances might occur in different

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languages with quite different interpretations. What we need is a device for forming names of particular words understood according our usage—i.e., not as merely orthographic expression kinds but as domestically interpreted word kinds. Using the restricted versions of ordinary quotation marks and Sellarsian dot quotes25 that our formalism already contains, we may schematically define the desired device as follows (‘N’ being any primitive type t name):  N = def . the type property being a token of a • N• which is a ‘N’. Thus, e.g.,  Plato is the word kind being a token of a • Plato• which is spelled ‘P’+‘l’+‘a’+‘t’+‘o’. Many tokens of ‘Plato’ will fail to be tokens of  Plato , but it is analytic that tokens of  Plato are indistinguishable in form and function from tokens of ‘Plato’ understood according our official usage (on which they refer to the ancient Greek philosopher named ‘π λατ oν’ who studied under Socrates, wrote the Republic, etc.). As regards our stock of primitive names, we record the following truism and its corollary: Inequivalence Principle. (‘N’ and ‘M’ being distinct cotypical primitive names):  N

is not equivalent to  M .

Difference Theorem. (‘N’ and ‘M’ being distinct cotypical primitive names):  N

=E  M .

The application of TC’s formalism to the whole of English would obviously require borrowing a vast number of the latter’s primitive expressions, but even so there would be only finitely many primitive names of finitely many different types. So it is possible in principle to enumerate them exhaustively. For future reference, let us pretend that such an official enumeration has been carried out for each type t. Then, for each type t such that there are primitive names of that type, we may define what it is to be a word kind of type t in terms of our official list ‘N1t ’,. . .,‘Nkt ’ of the primitive type t names: W is a word kind of type t =def . W =E

 Nt  1

or … or W =E  Nkt  .

The notion of a word kind simpliciter may then be defined by the finite disjunction of all such type-specific notions; i.e., where t1 , . . . , tn are the occupied types: W is a word kind =def . W is a word kind of type t1 or … or W is a word kind of type tn . Hence we have the following result: Word Kind Theorem. (‘N’ being any primitive type t name):

Thought-Contents, Senses, and the Belief Relation: the Proto-Theory  N

147

is a word kind.

Given our official list ‘N1t ’,…,‘Nkt ’ of primitive names of type t, we may also define a weak, disquotational notion of ‘designation’ for TC’s primitive names (not to be confused with the presumably more robust notion of denotation for Mentalese names): W designates ot =def . (W =E and o =E Nk ).

 Nt  1

and o =E N1 ) or…or (W =E

 Nt  k

Trivially, the following results ensue: Designation-Specification Theorem. (‘N’ being any primitive type t name):  N

designates N.

Designational Uniqueness Theorem. For any objects xt and yt and type t word kind W : if W designates x and W designates y then x =E y. These notions of word kind and designation are used to define the crucial notion of a ‘counterpart’ relation for a Mentalese type. The intuitive role of a counterpart relation is to effect a correlation of Mentalese names of an object for which we have a designator with one or more of our designators for that object (and with nothing else). What is important about such a relation is not that it should match each of an agent’s Mentalese names with some designator of ours—for there is no special reason why every Mentalese name must have a counterpart in our language—but that it should match one of an agent’s Mentalese names n with our designator W only if n denotes the same thing that W designates, and that all the names in an agent’s Mentalese that it matches with W should be mutually interchangeable for that agent (outside the Mentalese analogue of ‘that’-clauses). The parenthetical qualification may be left unanalysed for the moment, since fully spelling it out requires certain apparatus introduced in the next chapter to accommodate nested beliefs. More precisely, then, (and subject to the impending clarification of clause (c)’s parenthetical qualification) a ternary relation C is a counterpart relation for Mentalese type t  iff (a)-(c) hold: (a) for any x , y and ui , C(u, x, y) entails that u is an agent, x is a simple type t  name in u’s Mentalese, and y is a word kind; (b) for every agent u, word kind W , and simple type t  name n in u’s Mentalese: C(u, n, W ) entails that there is an object ot such that n denotes o in u’s Mentalese and W designates o; (c) for every agent u, simple type t  names n and m in u’s Mentalese and word kind W : C(u, n, W ) and C(u, m, W ) entails that, for any sentence S of u’s Mentalese and mode of entertaining f , u f -registers S iff u f -registers S∗ — where S∗ is any result of putting m for one or more occurrences of n in S (that lie outside any term in S which is an analogue in u’s Mentalese of a ‘that’-clause).

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It is easy to prove the corresponding existence theorem: Counterpart Relation Theorem. For each Mentalese type, there is at least one counterpart relation for that type. Thus, e.g., for any type t, the following relation Rt  is trivially a counterpart relation for Mentalese type t  : [Rt  ]

[λui eW In agent u’s Mentalese, e is the only type t  simple name that denotes what is designated by the type t word-kind W ].

Finally, a translucent MP of ot is an MP of that object in which the ot -determiner Do is such that, for some word kind W and counterpart relation C for t  , Do yz additionally entails C(y, z, W ). For example, where Ci is any counterpart relation for Mentalese type i, the (presumably exemplifiable) relation R4 will be a translucent MP of the individual Plato: [R4 ]

[λxi yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and Ci (y, z,  Plato )].26

A translucent sense of ot is an A-object that contains a translucent MP of ot . Thus, e.g., there will be a unique A-individual containing R4 , and that A-individual will be a translucent sense of Plato. For the purpose of explaining substitutional opacity, we will be especially interested in certain context-relativized ways of specifying translucent senses, viz., ways of specifying them that rely on mentioning contexts to provide the appropriate counterpart relation. But what, ontologically speaking, is a context? Our project will best be served by thinking of contexts not as natural things out there in the world (contexts as concrete speech environments) but instead as abstract packages of parameters needed for interpreting the likes of indexicals, demonstratives, and belief reports (contexts as interpretive keys).27 Given our chosen ontology, it is thus natural to construe contexts as A-individuals which, in addition to encoding the usual information about the identity of salient speakers, times, places, etc., also encode collateral information about what is to count as a counterpart of what. In particular, where t 1 , . . . , t n are any Mentalese types, let us say that a context c specifies R1 , . . . , Rn as counterpart relations for t 1 , . . . , t n iff: for 1 ≤ j ≤ n, Rj is a counterpart relation for t j and c encodes ℘ (Rj ). We then take as axiomatic the following principle about contexts: Context Principle. Every context specifies, for each Mentalese type, a unique counterpart relation for that type; and if R1 , . . . , Rn are respectively counterpart relations for distinct Mentalese types t 1 , . . . , t n , then there is a context that specifies R1 , . . . , Rn as counterpart relations for t 1 , . . . , t n . Uniqueness thus being guaranteed, let ‘CRc,t ’ be an abbreviation for ‘the counterpart relation for type t specified by c’, where the predication ‘CRc,t (a,n,W )’ is

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accordingly read as ‘n is a type t Mentalese name that is a c-salient counterpart of W for a’. With its uniqueness guarantee, the Context Principle is something of an idealization. Later, when we turn in Chapter 6 to constructing a TC-based semantics for belief ascriptions in a fragment of English, it will prove useful in handling certain puzzles to allow for contexts that provide a sequence of (not necessarily distinct) counterpart relations for each Mentalese type, so that the situation envisaged in the current version of the Context Principle would be the special case in which, for j, k ≥ 1, Rj = Rk within each such sequence. But until then, we shall forgo the added complexity and stick with the Context Principle as formulated above in laying out the preliminary version of TC. As a corollary to the Context Principle and the Designation-Specification Theorem, we have the following guarantee that an agent’s c-salient Mentalese counterpart of our word kind  Nt  will denote Nt : Denotation Insurance Theorem. (‘Nt ’ being any primitive name): CRc,t  (a,e, Nt  ) only if e denotes Nt in a’s Mentalese. To provide for context-relativized ways of invoking translucent senses as constituents of thought-contents, we will need canonical context-relativized terms for referring to them. Where ‘N’ is a primitive type t name and ‘c’ is a variable ranging over contexts, we introduce ‘Nc ’ as an open term28 whose value, for each assignment of a context c to the variable ‘c’, is the translucent sense of N whose MP is the corresponding relation TrsltN,c : [TrsltN,c ]

[λxt yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CRc,t  (y,z, N )].

That is to say, we take as axiomatic the following: Translucent Sense Principle. For any context c, there is an exemplifiable relation M identical to TrsltN,c , and Nc is the type t A-object that contains M . The result of replacing ‘c’in ‘Nc ’with some designator of a context c is our canonical name for the translucent sense Nc of N. It follows from our definitions, then, that for each context c, the relation TrsltN,c is a translucent MP of N, and hence that the A-object Nc containing it is indeed a translucent sense of N. Thus, e.g., we have the particular instances (16) and (17) of the Translucent Sense Principle: (16)

For any context c, Venusc = the type i A-object containing the (exemplifiable) relation [λxi yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CRc,i (y,z,Venus )].

150 (17)

Chapter 4

For any context c, Planet c = the type A-object containing the (exemplifiable) relation [λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CRc, (y,z, Planet )].

So, with respect to a given context c, Venusc and Planet c are translucent senses of Venus and the property Planet respectively. TC’s account of opacity will exploit a special subspecies of translucent senses that will accordingly be called ‘opaque’. Defining these opaque senses requires the prior notion of a counterpart relation’s being ‘opacity-inducing’ for a particular Mentalese type t. Now a counterpart relation, it will be remembered, correlates one of an agent’s Mentalese names n with our designator W only if n denotes the same thing that W designates, and it pairs with W only names in an agent’s Mentalese that are mutually interchangeable for that agent (outside the Mentalese analogue of ‘that’-clauses). Intuitively, an opacity-inducing relation is just a highly discriminating counterpart relation that never correlates a Mentalese name with two or more of our word kinds that are inequivalent. In light of the Difference Theorem, this means in effect that an opacity-inducing relation will correlate a Mentalese name with at most one of our word kinds. More precisely, a type relation C is opacity-inducing for type t iff: C is a counterpart relation for t such that, for any inequivalent word kinds W1 and W2 and any simple type t name n in any agent a’s Mentalese, C(a,n,W1 ) entails ∼C(a,n,W2 ). The following result about opacity-inducing relations is then easily established by example: Opacity Theorem. There is at least one opacity-inducing relation for any Mentalese type. For instance, our envisaged official list ‘Nt1 ’,…,‘Ntk ’ of all the primitive type t names obviously generates a corresponding official ordering  Nt1  ,…, Ntk  of word kinds. So, for 1 ≤ j ≤ k, it would be appropriate to speak of the j th member of the latter series having such-and-such a property. Accordingly, any relation of the kind R5 will be opacity-inducing for t  : [R5 ]

[λui eW For some object ot , e is the only simple type t  name in agent u’s Mentalese that denotes ot , and W is the first type t word kind in the official ordering to designate ot ].

This appeal to the official ordering is, of course, ad hoc and artificial. For the simple purpose of establishing the Opacity Theorem, this does not matter. But more natural examples lie ready at hand. For instance, the opacity-inducing counterpart relation [λui eW For some object ot : W designates o, and e is the only simple type t  name in agent u’s Mentalese that denotes ot , and W is the surface reflection of e in u’s public language]

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would be especially appropriate to the familiar sort of context in which all parties are assumed to be monolingual English-speakers and in which it is required that the possessor of a belief should be prepared to accept or to echo the very sentence in the ‘that’-clause used to ascribe it. A linguistically more ecumenical opacity-inducing counterpart relation could be derived by replacing ‘W is the surface reflection of e in u’s public language’in the foregoing example with ‘W is the standard translation of the surface reflection of e in u’s public language’. The Opacity Theorem and the Context Principle together yield an important result about the availability of contexts specifying opacity-inducing counterpart relations: Context Theorem. For any distinct Mentalese types t 1 , . . . , t n , there is a context c such that CRc,t 1 , . . . , CRc,t n (the counterpart relations for t 1 , . . . , t n specified by c) are opacity-inducing for t 1 , . . . , t n respectively. An opaque MP of ot , then, is a translucent MP of that object in which the ot determiner Do is such that, for some relation C that is opacity-inducing for type t  and some word kind W , the condition Do yz additionally entails C(y, z, W ). An opaque sense of ot is, of course, an A-object containing an opaque MP of ot . It should be evident that some translucent senses will qualify as opaque senses. In particular, any translucent sense of the sort Ntc will be opaque relative to those contexts c such that CRc,t  is opacity-inducing for t  . The Inequivalence Principle and the Context Theorem jointly yield the schematic result that forms the basis of TC’s explanation of opacity in the next section: viz., t

t

Contextual Counterpart Theorem. (‘N1t1 ’, …, ‘Nkk ’ and ‘M1t1 ’, …, ‘Mkk ’ being t t primitive names such that, for 1 ≤ j ≤ k, ‘Njj ’ = ‘Mjj ’): There is at least one context c such that, for any agent a and name n in a’s Mentalese: CRc,t1 (a, n, N1t1  ) only if ∼CRc,t1  (a, n,  M1t1  ); and …; and CRc,t  (a, n,  Nkk  ) only if ∼CRc,t  (a, n,  Mkk  ). t

k

t

k

In other words, there will always be a context c relative to which, for 1 ≤ j ≤ k, CRc,tj  is opacity-inducing for tj  , hence relative to which no c-salient  Ntj  -counterpart j

in a’s Mentalese counts as a c-salient

 Mtj  -counterpart j

in

a’s Mentalese. Now that contextually specified translucent senses are available as possible constituents of properties in general and of thought-contents in particular, we need to review the significance of this fact for our earlier account. The most important consequence of this availability concerns the way that such senses interact with valuation relations. Consider, for arbitrary context c, the two translucent senses Planet c and Venusc identified above in (16) and (17). Since Planet c and Venusc

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demonstrably are senses and are of different types ( and i respectively), clause (iii) of the Valuation Principle2 does not apply29 , clause (ii) of the Valuation Principle2 drops out as redundant, and we are left with the result (18): (18)

Val[,i] (y : Planet c , Venusc ; a1 , a2 ) obtains iff CRc, (y, a1 , Planet  ) and CRc,i (y, a2 , Venus ).

In other words, the senses Planet c and Venusc are the respective values of agent y’s Mentalese names a1 and a2 just in case a1 and a2 are simple names of respective types and i in y’s Mentalese such that a1 denotes the property Planet, a2 denotes the individual Venus, a1 is a c-salient counterpart for y of ‘Planet’, and a2 is a c-salient counterpart for y of ‘Venus’. Valuation relations were used to define CAλP‘[§Vi P(T1 ,...,Tk )]’, the canonical atomic λi -profile for ‘[§Vi P(T1 , . . . , Tk )]’. That definition scheme continues to apply when some or all of the constituents P, T1 , . . . , Tk are senses. Thus, e.g., CAλP‘[§x Planet c (Venusc )]’—the canonical atomic λi -profile for ‘[§Vi Planet c (Venusc )]’—would be the unary atomic λi[Planet ,Venus ] -profile R6 : c

[R6 ]

c

[λpy p =E «[λv a1 (a2 )]» for some variable v of type i and names a1 , a2 of respective types , i in y’s Mentalese for which Val[,i] (y; Planet c , Venusc ; a1 , a2 )].

Similarly, the Special Atomic Thought-Content Principle continues to identify the type A-object [§Vi N0 (N1 , . . . , Nn )] even when one or more of its constituents N0 , N1 , . . . , Nn are senses. For example—owing to the fact that #[λν i Planet c (Venusc )]# = [λν i ⎨Planet c ⎬(⎨Venusc ⎬)] = [λν i Planet(Venus)]—it identifies the atomic thought-content [§vi Planet c (Venusc )] with the type Aobject containing the λ-MP R7 of the propositional property [λν i Planet(Venus)]: [R7 ]

[λx yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CAλP‘[§VPlanet c (Venusc )]’(z, y)].

Since CAλP‘[§x Planet c (Venusc )]’ was defined as R6 , the result (18) yields the further result (19): (19)

For any property x , agent yi , and Mentalese name z: R7 (x, y, z) obtains iff z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names a1 , a2 of respective types , i in y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv a1 (a2 )]», CRc, (y, a1 ,  Planet  ), and CRc,i (y, a2 ,  Venus )].

So, putting all these ingredients together, TC’s previous definitions and principles, when applied to the canonical name ‘[§v i Planet c (Venusc )]’, jointly yield (20):

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(20)

153

For any context c, [§v i Planet c (Venusc )] is the type A-object containing a certain λ-MP—viz., R7 —of the property [λν i Planet(Venus)], where that λ-MP is a relation between a property x , agent yi , and Mentalese name z that obtains iff: z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names a1 , a2 of respective types , i in y’s Mentalese, z =E «[λv a1 (a2 )]», a1 is a type Mentalese name that is for y a c-salient counterpart of  Planet  , and a2 is a type i Mentalese name that is for y a c-salient counterpart of  Venus .

Finally, the Atomic Thought-Content Theorem ensures that, for each context c, the thought-content [§ν i Planet c (Venusc )] will count as a unary atomic thought-content of the propositional property [λν i Planet(Venus)] having the two senses Planet c and Venusc as constituents. Parallel results obviously ensue for the related thoughtcontents [§ν i Planet c (Venus)] and [ §ν i Planet (Venusc )]. So, for each context c, all of (21a-c) obtain: (21)

a. [§vi Planet c (Venusc )] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν i Planet(Venus)] having the senses Planet c and Venusc as constituents. b. [§v i Planet c (Venus)] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν i Planet(Venus)] having the sense Planet c and the ordinary individual Venus as constituents. c. [§vi Planet(Venusc )] is a unary atomic thought-content of [λν i Planet(Venus)] having the ordinary property Planet and the sense Venusc as constituents.

Regarding their role as second relata of the belief relation, we have the following result about n-ary atomic thought-contents having senses as constituents: Opaque Atomic Belief Theorem. (‘P’ being a primitive type name and ‘A’,…,‘N’ being n primitive names of respective types t1 , . . . , tn ): For any context c and agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Pc (Ac , . . . , Nc )] iff a B -registers a Mentalese sentence «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» in which d, d1 , . . . , dn are Mentalese names of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn such that CRc, (y, d, P ), CRc,t1 (y, d1 ,A ), . . ., and CRc,tn (y, dn , N ). The proof parallels that of the Transparent Atomic Belief Theorem, proceeding via the following chain of equivalences: a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Pc (Ac , . . . , Nc )] iff (by the Belief Principle and Entertainment Principle)

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for some formula S of a’s Mentalese having at most the type i variable x free: a B -registers S(Ia /x), and the ternary relation contained by [§Vi Pc (Ac , . . . , Nc )] obtains between #[λVi Pc (Ac , . . . , Nc )]#, the agent a, and the term «[λx S]» of a’s Mentalese (in that order) iff (by our discussion of clause (b) of the Entertainment Principle) for some names d, d1 , . . . , dn of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn in a’s Mentalese: a B -registers «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» and Pc , Ac , . . . , Nc are the values in a’s Mentalese of d, d1 , . . . , dn respectively iff (by the Valuation Principlen+1 ): a B -registers a Mentalese sentence «d(d1 , . . . , dn )» in which d, d1 , . . . , dn are Mentalese names of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn such that CRc, (y, d,  P ), CRc,t  1 (y, d1 ,  A ), …, and CRc,t  n (y, dn ,  N ). 4.3.9 Belief de dicto, Belief de se, and Substitutional Opacity TC provides interpretations for various not-fully-transparent readings of attitude ascriptions by allowing that the atomic thought-content named by ‘[§Vi N(N1 , . . . , Nn )]’ will be partly or wholly opaque according as some or all of ‘N’,‘N1 ’,…, ‘Nn ’ pick out opaque senses. Thus, possession of corresponding pure and mixed de re and de dicto attitudes will involve the entertaining of different thought-contents (which may accordingly themselves be called ‘de re’or ‘de dicto’). Consider again the attitude ascription (11) (‘Galileo believes that Venus is a planet’). In addition to the interpretation (12) of its purely transparent reading, which was discussed earlier, (11) also has the two partly opaque readings, whose interpretations are (22) and (23), as well as the wholly opaque reading whose interpretation is (24): (22) Believes (Galileo, [§xi Planet c (Venus)]). (23)

Believes (Galileo, [§xi Planet(Venusc )]).

(24)

Believes (Galileo, [§xi Planet c (Venusc )]).

The interpretation (24) involves the unary atomic thought-content [§xi Planet c (Venusc )] having as constituents the translucent senses Planet c and Venusc of Planethood and Venus respectively. Given our model of belief, we would expect (11) on its fully opaque reading to be true in a given context c just in case Galileo mentally predicates planethood of Venus, referring to the former via a c-salient counterpart of ‘Planet’ and to

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the latter via a c-salient counterpart of ‘Venus’. In TC, the interpretation (24) does encapsulate this intuitive truth condition, inasmuch as (25) is a substitution instance of the Opaque Atomic Belief Theorem established above: (25)

Galileo believes the atomic thought-content [§xi Planet c (Venusc )] iff he B -registers a Mentalese sentence «g(b)» in which g and b are Mentalese names of respective types and i such that CRc, (Galileo, g,  Planet  ) and CRc,i (Galileo, b,  Venus ).

(By the Denotation Insurance Theorem, it follows that the Mentalese names g and b in question will respectively denote Planet and Venus in Galileo’s Mentalese.) The application to the remaining two mixed readings interpreted by (22) and (23) should be obvious. Not surprisingly, then, TC has the ‘Latitudinarian’ consequence that (11)-taken-wholly-or-partly-opaquely entails (11)-taken-wholly-transparently, since each of the interpretations (22)-(24) entails the interpretation (12). Earlier, we posed the opacity problem in terms of the two de se ascriptions (26a) and (26c), which seemed capable of differing in truth value despite the assumed truth of (26b). (26)

a. Wanda believes that she (herself) is an ophthalmologist. b. being an ophthalmologist = being an oculist. c. Wanda believes that she (herself) is an oculist.

We must now explain how TC accommodates this possibility, i.e., why (26), taken as an argument from (26a-b) to (26c), is not valid by the lights of TC. As a whole, the argument (26) has four possible readings, depending upon what combination of readings—in this case, wholly transparent or wholly opaque— is given to (26a) and (26c). Pretty clearly, however, the only readings remotely relevant to the issue of (26)’s validity are those in which ‘oculist’ occurs opaquely in (26c), for these are intuitively the only ones on which the truth of (26a) and (26b)—regardless of which way (26a) is taken—would not obviously necessitate the truth of (26c). For the sake of definiteness, we shall concentrate on the wholly opaque de se readings of (26a) and (26c) as representative of this class. In other words, we shall concentrate on the interpretations (27a-c) of (26a-c) respectively: (27)

a. Believes(Wanda,[§xi Ophthalmologist c (x)]). b. [λyi Ophthalmologist(y)] = [λyi Oculist(y)]. c. Believes(Wanda,[§xi Oculist c (x)]).

Courtesy of the Inequivalence Principle and the Contextual Counterpart Theorem, it is guaranteed that (28) holds:

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For some context c, if e is a type name in Wanda’s Mentalese such that CRc, (Wanda, e,  Ophthalmologist  ) then ∼CRc, (Wanda, e,  Oculist  ).

Let c0 be a particular context of the sort thus guaranteed, i.e., one in which the respective standards for being a contextually salient counterpart of  Ophthalmologist  and being a contextually salient counterpart of  Oculist  are sufficiently different that no Mentalese term of Wanda’s that meets the former also meets the latter. Now consider the following five conditions: (C1 ) Wanda B -registers a formula «p(IWanda )» of her Mentalese in which the predicate p is a simple type name in her Mentalese that is a c0 -salient counterpart of  Ophthalmologist  for her; (C2 ) being an ophthalmologist = being an oculist. (C3 ) Wanda’s Mentalese has only one simple type name for the property being an ophthalmologist / oculist. (C4 )

If p is a type name in Wanda’s Mentalese that is a c0 -salient counterpart of  Ophthalmologist  for her, then it is not the case that p is a c0 -salient counterpart of  Oculist  for her. [guaranteed by (28)].

(C5 ) Wanda B -registers a formula «o(IWanda ]» of her Mentalese in which the predicate o is a simple type name in her Mentalese that is a c-salient counterpart of  Oculist  for her. The argument for the invalidity of (26) proceeds as follows. Clearly, (C1 )-(C4 ) are jointly consistent conditions; but (C1 )-(C4 ) jointly entail the falsity of (C5 ); so (C1 )(C2 ) do not entail (C5 )! Now (C1 ) and (C2 ) are respectively just the conditions imposed by the premisses (27a) and (27b) when c = c0 . And (C5 ) is just the condition imposed by the conclusion (27c) when c = c0 . Therefore, the inference from (27a) and (27b) to (27c) fails when c = c0 . The upshot of our analysis is that the argument (26) is invalid owing to the tacit context-dependence revealed in the interpretations (27a-c) and to the fact about contexts recorded in (28). We note in passing that—courtesy of clause (iii) in the Valuation Principlen — the opaque belief ascriptions (29a)-(31a), whose interpretations are (29b)-(31b) respectively, are accorded appropriately different truth conditions: (29)

a. Wanda believes that opthamologists are not oculists. b. Believes(Wanda, [λν i (∀xi )(Ophthalmologist c (x) → ∼ Oculist c (x)]).

(30)

a. Wanda believes that opthamologists are not opthamologists. b. Believes(Wanda, [λν i (∀xi )(Ophthalmologist c (x) → ∼ Ophthalmologist c (x)]).

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a. Wanda believes that oculists are not oculists. b. Believes (Wanda, [λν i (∀xi )(Oculist c (x) →∼ Oculist c (x)]).

In particular, (29a/b) requires merely that Wanda register in her Mentalese a formula of the sort «(∀x)(p(x) → ∼o(x)» for some (possibly different) names p and o of the single property Ophthamologist/Oculist, where p is a c-salient counterpart of  Ophthamologist  and o is a c-salient counterpart of  Oculist  . But (30a/b) and (31a/b) require Wanda to register in her Mentalese a formula of the sort «(∀x)(n(x) → ∼n(x)» for some one Mentalese name n of the property Ophthamologist/Oculist which is (for (30a/b)) a c-salient counterpart of  Ophthamologist  for Wanda, or (for (31a/b)) a c-salient counterpart of  Oculist  for Wanda. Accordingly, even given the identity ‘Ophthamologist = Oculist’, (29a/b)-(31a/b) will be logically independent of one another. 4.3.10 Transparent Senses and Soames’s Problem Since our initial motivation was the explanation of substitutional opacity, we did not pause earlier to point out the possibility of ‘transparent’ MPs and senses. It will, however, repay us to do so now. To begin with, there is, for each object ot , the corresponding relation Trnspot: [Trnspot ] [λxt yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and z is a simple type t  name denoting ot in y’s Mentalese]. A relation M will be called a transparent MP of ot iff M is an MP of ot and M = Trnspot . So defined, there obviously cannot be more than one transparent MP of a given object. A transparent sense of ot is a type t A-object that contains a transparent MP of ot . ILAO ensures that, for every object ot , there is at least one cotypical A-object containing the corresponding relation Trnspot . However, it is desirable for our purposes that there should be exactly one such A-object, that it should be a transparent sense of ot , and that it should have a canonical name. We simultaneously secure all these desiderata by introducing double underlining as a term-forming operator subject to the following: Transparent Sense Principle. For every object ot , the relation Trnspot is exemplifiable, and ot is the type t A-object containing Trnspot. It is a corollary of this principle that Trnspot will be the one and only transparent MP of ot , hence that ot and ot alone will be a transparent sense of ot . So it is proper to call ot the transparent sense of ot . An obvious feature of transparent senses is that they stand in 1-1 correlation with their canonical objects. That is to say, the following is provable: Transparent Sense Theorem. For any objects at and bt : a = b iff a = b.

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This very feature of transparent senses, which disqualifies them from playing any role in explaining substitutional opacity, might make their introduction seem pointless in general. Nonetheless, there are other projects for which transparent senses prove useful. Surprisingly, one such project is the provision of a ‘Millean’ semantics for English, whose typical proponents are (in Nathan Salmon’s phrase) Millean heirs who reject the wages of Sinn. Because our initial account of transparent thought-contents can stand independently of our subsequent account of opacity, the former could be used to give a Millean semantics for English which would still allow for (merely) apparent substitution failures involving expressions of the form ‘the F’ but which would explain away the apparent opacity by invoking scope distinctions in the standard Russellian way. But, as has often been noted, this kind of ‘logical mirage’ account merely shows why, given a certain proposal about their logical form, the intuitive invalidity of certain natural language arguments does not constitute a counterexample to the Substitutivity of Identity; it does not justify these intuitions about invalidity by explaining why the arguments in question really are invalid. Whether English sentences of the form ‘The F is a G’ are to be regarded as expressing atomic thought-contents depends on whether, at the level of logical form, ‘the F’ should be interpreted by the singular term ‘(ιx)Fx’ or in some other way—e.g., by the quantifier phrase ‘(the x: Fx)’. Both on grounds of linguistic plausibility and for the sake of providing a thought-content corresponding to ‘The F is a G’ even when ‘the F’ is empty, we prefer here to treat such sentences as expressing general thought-contents. We shall canonically represent them in our symbolism by terms of the form ‘[§Vi (the xt : Fx)Gx]’ in which ‘(the xt : Fx)’ is axiomatized by the following:30 Quantifier-Phrase Principle: Where φ and ψ are propositional formulas in which the variable α occurs free and nowhere bound, every instance of the following is an axiom: (the αt : φ)ψ ≡ {(∃βt )(∀αt )(φ ≡ α = β) & (∀αt )(φ → ψ)}.31 Unlike Russell, we have the apparatus to give a principled explanation of the invalidity of the narrow scope or de dicto reading of the relevant arguments. Consider the invalid arguments (32) and (33): (32)

Believes(a, [§ν i (the xi : Fx)Hx]), (the xi : Fx)(x = b)/ ∴ Believes(a, [§ν i Hb]).

(33)

Believes(a, [§ν i (the xi : Fx)Hx]), (the xi : Fx)(the yi : Gy)(x = y) / ∴ Believes(a, [§ν i (the xi : Gx)Hx])

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By our lights, the invalidity of (32) stems from the fact that, even if b alone has the property F, one can still token in one’s Mentalese a formula of the sort «(the x: f(x))h(x)» in which f denotes the property F and h denotes the property H without tokening any distinct formula of the sort «h(b)» in which b denotes b. Similarly, (33) is invalid because, even if F and G are uniquely exemplified by one and the same thing, one can still token in one’s Mentalese a formula of the sort «(the x: f (x))h(x)» in which f denotes the property F and h denotes the property H without tokening therein a formula of the sort «(the x : g(x))h(x)» in which g denotes the property G. For F and G might be distinct properties. With (33), however, we encounter a wrinkle. ILAO respects the Substitutivity of Identity for terms of all types, so the inference (34) is just as valid by our lights as (35): (34)

Believes(a, [§ν i (the xi : Fx)Hx]); F = G
∴ Believes(a, [§ν i (the xi : Gx)Hx]).

(35) Believes(a, [§ν i Fb]); b = c
∴ Believes(a, [§ν i Fc]). If we were pursuing the Millean strategy and refusing to countenance opacity as a genuinely semantic phenomenon, then presumably we would have to tell a pragmatic story — along the lines of the Salmon-Soames stories32 regarding apparent substitution failures in the English counterpart of (35) — about why the English counterpart of (34) ‘seems’ invalid without actually being so. But even if such a pragmatic approach could explain away our intuitions about opacity, a Millean semanticist would still face a problem for whose solution our transparent senses might be useful. The problem in question, first pointed out by Scott Soames (1994), arises for Direct Reference (DR) theorists when they try to interpret unbound pronouns anaphoric on proper names and demonstratives. It is natural to think of anaphoric pronouns with c-commanding33 singular term antecedents as bound by an abstraction operator. But Soames maintains that there are syntactic reasons (the details of which need not concern us here) for resisting the temptation to extend the abstraction approach beyond these cases to certain anaphoric pronouns without c-commanding antecedents. So a mixed strategy is required: some other, independently motivated mechanism must be found to capture the ‘pseudo-reflexive’ interpretations of sentences like (36) and (37), in which the anaphoric pronouns are not c-commanded by their respective antecedents: (36)

Ralph believes that any man who dates Susan likes her.

(37)

Some woman is such that Ralph believes that any man who dates her likes her.

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(The interpretations in question are those on which Ralph thinks of the woman in question ‘in the same way twice over’.) Moreover, assuming that definite and indefinite descriptions are quantifiers whose scopes are limited to constituents they c-command, we will still have to account for the kind of unbound anaphora illustrated by (38): (38)

Ralph believes that any man who loves a/the daughter of a millionaire should marry her.

Now there is a familiar and intuitively well-motivated approach to cases like (38)—due to Evans (1977), Davies (1981) and Neale (1990)—that treats the pronoun as going proxy for a definite description derived from its antecedent. Adapting this approach to our pseudo-reflexives, we could treat the pronoun ‘her’ in (36) as going proxy either for the description ‘(the x: x = Susan)’ or, more simply, for a repetition of the name ‘Susan’ itself, as in (39): (39)

Ralph believes that any man who dates Susan likes Susan.

But the price of doing so is the rejection of the Thesis of Direct Reference (i.e., the principle that the semantic content of a name or indexical in a context c is just its referent in c). For if ‘Susan’ is directly referential in (39), then—given the usual background assumptions made by DR theorists—(39) should be truthconditionally equivalent to (40) for any name or indexical ‘N’ that likewise directly refers to Susan: (40)

Ralph believes that any man who dates Susan likes N.

But then the DR-theorist will not be able to capture via (39) the distinctive pseudoreflexive reading of (36), on which reading (36) is intuitively not truth-conditionally equivalent to (40) for just any name or indexical ‘N’ that directly refers to Susan. Moreover, independently of the issue about the Thesis of Direct Reference, the proxy-theory will also have to provide for the pseudo-reflexive reading of (37). Since, according to Soames, the abstraction strategy is ruled out for such cases, there seems no choice but to interpret (37) along the lines of (41): (41)

(Some x: Woman(x))(Ralph believes that any man who dates x likes x).

But the same background assumptions made by DR theorists prevent them from providing a pseudo-reflexive reading of (41), since they regard (41) as being semantically entailed by the conjunction of ‘Susan is a woman’ with any instance of (40) in which ‘N’ and ‘Susan’ are directly coreferential. In sum, Soames maintains, the problem is this: from a syntactic standpoint, a mixed strategy seems mandatory; but from a semantic standpoint, the most plausible mixed strategy—viz., the

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bound variable treatment of c-command cases coupled with the ‘proxy’ treatment of non-c-command cases—simply won’t work! Given our apparatus of transparent senses, however, there is a simple way of representing the propositions expressed by (36) and (37) which captures their pseudo-reflexive readings by a version of the proxy strategy—viz., the representations (42) and (43): (42)

Believes(Ralph, [§ν (∀x : Man(x) & Dates(x, Susan))Likes(x, Susan)]).

(43)

(∃y:Woman(y))(Believes(Ralph, [§ν (∀x:Man(x)&Dates(x, y)) Likes(x, y)])).

The key here is clause (iii) of the Valuation Principlen , which so characterized the valuation relation Val[t1 ,...,tn ] that –— for any objects ot11 , . . . , otnn and Mentalese names a1 , . . . , an of respective types t1 , . . . , tn –— the condition Val[t1 ,...,tn ] (Ralph; o1 , . . . , on ; a1 , . . . , an ) entails that aj = ak if oj and ok are cotypical senses and oj = ok . For in light of this, (42) and (43) are provably equivalent to (44) and (45) respectively: (44)

Ralph inwardly assertively tokens a sentence «(∀y:m(y)&d(y, s))l(y, s)» of his Mentalese in which y is a type i variable, m is a type name denoting Man , d and l are type names denoting Dates and Likes respectively, and s is a type i name denoting Susan.

(45) There is a woman x such that Ralph inwardly assertively tokens a sentence «(∀y : m(y)&d(y, s))l(y, s)» of his Mentalese in which y is a type i variable, m is a type name denoting Man , d and l are type names denoting Dates and Likes respectively, and s is a type i name denoting x. The propositions expressed by (42) and (43) thus require Ralph to think of Susan/the woman in question ‘in the same way twice over’, i.e., to mentally designate her twice by the same name s in his tokening of his Mentalese formula-kind «(∀y:m(y)&d(y, s))l(y, s)» . By contrast, the nonreflexive reading of (36), on which there is no commitment to Ralph’s thinking of Susan in the same way twice over, is captured by (46): (46)

Believes(Ralph, [§ (∀x:Man(x) & Dates(x, Susan))Likes(x, Susan)]).

For (46) is demonstrably equivalent to (47), which is neutral on the identity of Ralph’s two Mentalese designators s1 and s2 for Susan: (47)

Ralph inwardly assertively tokens a sentence «(∀y:m(y)&d(y, s1 )l(y, s2 )» of his Mentalese in which y is a type i variable, m is a type name

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denoting Man , d and l are type names denoting Dates and Likes respectively, and s1 and s2 are type i names denoting Susan. Here (42) entails both (43) and (46); but (43) is logically stronger than the noncommittal (46). In connection with the unbound anaphora problem, Soames also criticizes the theory proposed by Richard (1990) on the ground that it cannot regard a sentence like (48) as a straightforward generalization from instances of the form (49) in which ‘N’ is a man’s name: (48)

Mary told each man that he wasn’t that man.

(49)

Mary told N that he wasn’t N.

(In the imagined scenario, Mary mistakes each man for an imposter, saying to Bob ‘You are not Bob’, to Ted ‘You are not Ted’, and so on.) Our approach, however, suffers no such embarrassment. Assuming an appropriate treatment of ‘Tell’34 , the form of the propositions expressed by instances of (49) would be given by (50), of which (51) is indeed the straightforward generalization: (50)

Told (Mary, N, [§z N =E N])

(51)

(∀x: Man(x))Told (Mary, x, [§z x =E x]).

Of course, apart from context, (48) is ambiguous as between the weak reading captured by (51) and the stronger reading captured by (52): (52)

(∀x: Man(x))Told (Mary, x, [§z [λy y =E y](x)]).

In the imagined scenario, (51) is true but (52) is false, for reasons that by now should be familiar. NOTES 1 Frege speaks (in Max Black’s translation: Frege (1980), p. 26) of ‘the sense. . ., wherein the mode

of presentation is contained’. No claim is made here about the significance (if any) of this fact for the interpretation Frege’s own view. 2 To be strictly consistent with our earlier remarks about the meaning of ‘is characterized by’ in (III), we should further distinguish between an MP of an object and a ‘way of thinking of’ that object, identifying the former with a ternary relation of the sort Ro and the latter with its property-reduct ℘ (Ro ). But we shall ignore this terminological nicety in the text, since nothing of theoretical interest would be served by honoring it. 3 See Evans (1982), McDowell (1984), and Peacocke (1983).

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4 Despite the merits of a sense-reference distinction for the semantical study of natural language,

we will not attempt here to extend it to languages of thought—not because it cannot be done but because doing so seems unmotivated in general and unnecessary to our particular aims here. The lack of motivation owes to at least two factors. On the one hand, in the case of public languages expressing a sense is a matter of convention and hence presupposes contentful psychological attitudes. To avoid circularity, it would be necessary to suppose that Mentalese terms either have senses innately or somehow acquire them independently of the agent’s psychological attitudes. On the other hand, expressing a sense is supposedly a matter of being associated with a distinct entity that is something like a concept or way of thinking of an object; but given their conceptual roles, Mentalese term tokens themselves are plausibly viewed as being these concepts or ways of thinking of an object (cf. Fodor (1998)). (To put it another way: sense is usually portrayed as an extra something that must be grasped in order to understand a natural language, but it is doubtful that there is any such ‘extra’ ingredient that must be grasped in order to understand one’s own language of thought.) Finally, if the constructions carried out in this book are successful, it will not be necessary to extend the sense-reference distinction to languages of thought: the only basic semantic notion we will need (even when discussing, as in Chapter 6, semantics for someone’s Mentalese) is that of the denotation of a name of a given type in an agent’s Mentalese. Of course, it might be objected that the denotation of even a Mentalese name must somehow be mediated by its (associated nonconventional) sense—i.e., that some notion of sense for Mentalese names is required to provide the mechanism of mental reference. But the conspicuous failure of traditional sense theories to offer a convincing account of this mechanism undermines this objection. 5 Where an ‘ordinary’ definite description is understood to be one whose denotation is not axiomatically guaranteed, the relevant axioms are then specified as follows: For any formula φ, variable αt and term τ which contains no ordinary descriptions and is substitutable for α,
(∀αt )φ → φ(τ/α) and every modal and tense closure thereof is an axiom. For any formula φ, atomic formula ψ, variables αt and β, and term τ that contains an ordinary description and is substitutable for both α and β,
(∀αt )φ → (ψ(τ/β) → φ(τ/α)) and every modal and tense closure thereof is an axiom. 6 For technical reasons it is required that the matrix of a λ-term be a propositional formula, which

ILAO defines as follows: For any formula φ, φ is a propositional formula iff φ has no encoding subformulas and no subformulas of the form
(∀αt )ψ in which αt is an initial term somewhere in ψ. However, occurrences of encoding formulas in the matrices of definite descriptions do not count in ILAO as subformulas of formulas containing those descriptions. 7 Specifically, the formula stating the condition must be a propositional formula devoid of any ‘ordinary’ definite descriptions. 8 Strictly speaking, ‘O! ’ is defined in ILAO by ‘[λxt ♦E! x]’ and (for types t = i) is subject to the axiom ‘(∀xt )(O! x → E! )x)’. 9 That is to say, for any formula φ and variable αt which is not free in φ,
(∃αt )(A!t α & (∀F (αF ≡ φ)) is an axiom of ILAO. The theorems we need for our constructions, however, all follow from the weaker corollary
(∀G )(∃αt )(A! α & (∀F )(αF ≡ F = G)). 10 In addition to the foregoing apparatus, Zalta employs underlining to form names of certain A-objects that he identifies with ‘senses’, and he introduces special axioms governing these underlined expressions. Inasmuch as we shall be constructing our own, significantly different account of senses,

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those special axioms will not be counted here as part of ILAO. Later, however, we shall expropriate Zalta’s underlining notation, but subject it to a new interpretation. 11 Specifically, ILAO contains the following three definitions of identity for properties, relations, and propositions: 1. F = G =def . (∀xt )(xF ≡ xG). 2. F = G =def . (∀xt2 ) . . . (∀xtn )([λyt1 Fyxt2 . . . xtn ] = [λyt1 Gyxt2 . . . xtn ] & (∀xt1 )(∀xt3 ) . . . (∀xtn )([λyt2 Fxt1 yxt3 . . . xtn ] = [λyt2 Gxt1 yxt3 . . . xtn ]) & . . . & (∀xt1 ) . . . (∀xtn−1 )([λytn Fxt1 . . . xtn−1 y] = [λytn Gxt1 . . . xtn−1 y]). (where n > 1) 3. F p = G p =def . [λyi F p ] = [λyi G p ]. 12 By containing the axiom ‘(∀xt )(O! x → E! x)’ for types t = i, ILAO rules out the pos-

sibility of non-actual ordinary objects of any type other than individuals. It remains neutral, however, on the question of whether there are any non-actual ordinary individuals. (Fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes are sometimes characterized as such entities.) Adopting the Mentalese Actuality Principle does not compromise this neutrality, but if it should turn out that there are non-actual ordinary individuals, Mentalese will be blind to them. For present purposes, nothing essential would be lost by assuming outright that all ordinary individuals are actual ones. The only non-actual individuals posited in ILAO or required by TC are A-individuals. (As Zalta points out, reference to certain A-individuals can do duty for alleged reference to fictional characters anyway.) 13 There are, of course, counterexamples to the stronger claim that mere equivalence (necessary coextensiveness) of their property-reducts suffices for equivalence of the reduced relations. Where P and Q are either the relations < and > on the real numbers or the relations entails and is entailed by among propositions, the corresponding relational properties [λx (∃y)Pxy] and [λx (∃y)Qxy] would be equivalent, but P and Q themselves would clearly not be equivalent. In contrast, there appear to be no equally obvious counterexamples to the Property-Reduct Principle. Notice that in the cases cited above it is not plausible to claim that [λxi (∃yi )(x > y)] is the very same property as [λxi (∃yi ) (x < y)] or that [λxp (∃yp )(x entails y)] is the very same property as [λxp (∃yp ) (x is entailed by y)]. Adoption of the Property-Reduct Principle thus requires rejection of equivalence as a universally sufficient condition of property identity. 14 Strictly speaking, Vivid would be the relation [λxt yi z z denotes x in agent y’s Mentalese and o R1 (y, z)]. In other words, the relational abstract used to specify Vivid o would contain the further relational abstract used to specify R1 . Here and elsewhere in the informal exposition, however, λconversion will be applied to remove hard-to-read embeddings of relational abstracts within other relational abstracts. This results in the specification of an equivalent but not necessarily identical relation. For although λ-conversion is equivalence-preserving in ILAO, equivalence of relations does not entail their identity (see the previous note). In practice, however, this does not matter; for what ultimately counts in the relevant applications are the exemplification conditions of these relations, not their strict identity conditions. The suppressed embeddings of relational abstracts are restored the formalized version of the theory presented in the Appendix to Chapter 5. 15 The Kaplan-Sense Principle is merely a temporary expedient for the sake of providing at the outset some simple senses as illustrative devices. Since Kaplan-senses are not needed for any other purpose, the Kaplan-Sense Principle will not be counted as part of our final theory—hence its omission from the list of axioms in the Appendix to Chapter 5. 16 The Valuation Principle could be replaced by a mere definition scheme if we were willing to n restrict the realm of senses to senses of O-objects. 17 Note that an instance of the Valuation Principle will have a conjunct corresponding to (iii) only n t for the cotypical objects (if any) among o11 , . . . , otnn . Moreover, if n = 0—which happens with respect

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to purely general thought-contents inasmuch as they have no extralogical constituents to be assigned as values of anything—clauses (i)-(iii) vanish entirely, Val[t1 ,...,tn ] shrinks to a type property Val[] , and the Valuation Principlen atrophies to the following: Valuation Principle0 . For any agent yi , Val[] (y) iff y =E y. Since we will be dealing in the text only with valuation relations Val[t1 ,...,tn ] for which n ≥ 1, hence only with instances of the Valuation Principlen incorporating clauses (i)-(ii) and possibly (iii) in addition to the clause ‘y =E y’, we will henceforth ignore the clause ‘y =E y’ (which anyway will be provable and thus redundant in the cases that concern us). 18 In ILAO, ‘N = [λxt N (x)]’ is an axiom if ‘N ’ is a primitive name; hence Planet = [λxi Planet(x)]. 19 Since the above definitions do not require cotypical names among a , . . . , a to be distinct from n 1 one another, it will follow from T ’s being, say, a thought-content[F,a] that T is also trivially a thought-content[F,a,a] , a thought-content[a,F,a,F] , …etc. But the converse implication obviously fails. On the other hand, if T is a thought-content[F,a] , then T is also trivially a thought-content[a,F] . These wrinkles make no difference to our project. 20 In the atomic case, the order of listed constituents matters somewhat, since the first item (which is to be the value of the the Mentalese predicate in question) must be a relation whose type involves at least all of the types to which the remaining items belong. But the order of these remaining constituents does not matter at all to the definition. So, e.g., for k ≥ 2, an atomic thought-contentk:[R,a,b] is also an atomic thought-contentk:[R,b,a] , and conversely. 21 That ‘T’ should not be the canonical name of a thought-content is required in order to make our account of nested thought-contents work properly. Intuitively, the constituents of the nested thought-content [§yi Believes(Galileo,[§xi Planet(Venus)])] are the belief relation, Galileo, and the thought-content [§xi Planet(Venus)]—but not the latter’s canonical object, the propositional property [λxi Planet(Venus)]. (For the record: the ‘#’-notation is related to the metalinguistic asterisk-notation used by Zalta to indicate the removal of underlining (thus changing names of senses into names of what those senses represent). It differs from Zalta’s device (a) in being selective about where it makes modifications inside an expression, (b) in affecting certain nonunderlined terms as well, and (c) in inserting the ‘correlate’ operator rather than removing anything. However, where the #-operation does apply to an underlined expression, the effect is the same as with Zalta’s device; for if ‘N’ denotes a sense, ‘⎨N⎬’ will denote the canonical object of that sense.) 22 Cf. Chapter 3, n. 20. 23 Obviously the notion of ‘being disposed as one who . . .’ cries out for further analysis, but for our current purposes the intuitive idea suffices. (See Crimmins (1992) for a valuable discussion of beingdisposed-as-if.) At the very least, one would expect B-registration to be characterized by minimal rationality constraints—axioms ensuring that one who B-registers Mentalese sentences having the forms of the input-formulas for one of the standard Introduction or Elimination rules for logical operators would not also B-register a sentence having the form of the negation of the corresponding output-formula. Thus, e.g., it should presumably be axiomatic that one who B-registers «S1 &S2 » does not B-register either «∼S1 » or «∼S2 »; that one who B-registers S(n /x ) for some name n does not B-register «∼(∃x)S»; and so on. 24 We distinguish between ‘readings’ (cf. Chapter 3, note 18) and ‘interpretations’. By an interpretation of an English sentence S we mean a formula of TC that names (relative to a context) the proposition which is the truth condition (in that context) of some reading of S. More precisely, we envisage (and endeavor in Chapter 6 to develop) a context-relativized sense-reference semantics STC for English that is formulated in TC. For any context c and indicative sentence S  of English , STC

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assigns a proposition as the referent of S  relative to c, where S  is then counted true in English relative to c just in case that proposition obtains. Against this background, we would lay down the following definition: Where φκ is a propositional formula containing free at most the contextual parameter κ: φκ is an interpretation of English sentence S =def . There is a reading S  of S such that both
(∀κ)(Referentκ (S  ) = [λ φκ ]) and
(∀κ)(Trueκ -in-English (S  ) ≡ φκ ) are theorems of STC . 25 Where ‘N’ is schematic for an orthographically individuated primitive type t name in the language of TC: the dot-quoted expression ‘• N• ’ is a type predicate of TC that applies to an item x just

in case x is an expression-kind in the language of TC whose linguistic role therein is indistinguishable from the linguistic role of ‘N’ in the language of TC. (So, in effect, ‘• N• ’ names the role of ‘N’ in TC.)

It must be assumed, of course, that the language of TC is free of homonyms, so that expression-kinds with distinct linguistic roles therein will always be orthographically distinct. With suitable adjustments for identifying the language to which a given expression is supposed to belong, this account of ‘• N• ’ could be generalized in either of two directions: by letting ‘N’ belong to some other language, or by letting ‘• N• ’ apply to expressions of other languages. However, the notion of linguistic role invoked here pertains to public languages, not to an individual’s language of thought. When, e.g., the boldface notation was glossed in Chapter 3 with remarks like the boldface ampersand ‘&’ denotes the agent’s Mentalese • &• , this must be understood along the following lines: ‘&’ denotes that item of the agent’s Mentalese whose conceptual role for that agent is analoguous to the linguistic role • &• (i.e., the agent’s use of the item in question conforms to the public norms governing the use of the conjunction sign). 26 Strictly speaking of course, R should be the more complicated relation 4

[λxi yi z z denotes x in y’s Mentalese and [λui w Ci (u, w, Plato )]yz], since the requisite Plato-determiner is the relation [λui w Ci (u, w, Plato )]. 27 See Caplan (2003) for an illuminating discussion of the difference between these two notions of context (which he calls ‘natural’ and ‘formal’ respectively) as well as arguments for preferring the latter to the former in accommodating demonstratives within the general framework for indexicals. 28 Terms of the sort ‘N ’are not entirely compositional: although the variable ‘c’(and its substituends) c count as occuring in ‘Nc ’, the name ‘N’ does not. 29 I.e. the appropriate instance of the Valuation Principle will have no counterpart of clause (iii). 2 30 Provided we allow that quantifier phrases of the form
(the α: φ) have Mentalese counterparts describable by expressions of the form
«(the : )», terms of the form
[§ν i (the αt : φ)ψ] will fall under the Generalized λ-Sense Principle (cf. Chapter 5, Section 5.3). 31 If an expression of the sort
[§ν t (the α: φ)ψ] is to be well-formed in ILAO, its matrix
(the α:φ)ψ must be a propositional formula. For this reason we cannot simply define
(the αt :

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φ)ψ as
(∃βt )(∀αt )(φ ≡ β = α) & (∀αt )(φ → ψ), for the latter contains ‘=’, which in ILAO is defined in terms of encoding and so cannot occur in any propositional formula. 32 Cf. Salmon (1986) and Soames (1987a, 1987b, 2002). 33 A node of a phrase structure tree is said to dominate every node that can be traced back to it. A phrase X is then said to c-command a phrase Y iff: (i) the first branching node to dominate X dominates Y, and (ii) X does not dominate Y, and (iii) Y does not dominate X. 34 Such a treatment might involve taking [Tell] as an axiom: [Tell] Tells (x, y, T ) ≡ {Agent(x) & Agent(y) & ThtCon(T ) & (∃S)(∃G)(Sentence(S) & UttersTo(x, y, S) & Group(G) & MeansIn(S, T , G) & BelongsTo(x, G)} —the truth conditions for ‘MeansIn(S, T , G)’ being, roughly, that there should prevail in G a convention to the effect that any member x of G who utters S with conventional indications of assertive force counts as (i.e., may be taken as) being such that Believes(x, T ).

CHAPTER 5

THOUGHT-CONTENTS, SENSES, AND THE BELIEF RELATION: THE FULL THEORY Chapter 4 presented a simplified version of TC, shorn of the complexities needed to accommodate beliefs about beliefs. This Chapter restores the suppressed complications required for a statement of the full version of TC. The resulting theory is then applied to the analysis of higher-order belief, and it is shown in detail how to generalize the account to cover thought-contents of arbitrary complexity. Finally, a proposal is made for interpreting beliefs about the likes of witches and phlogiston without positing ‘empty’ senses. An Appendix then presents the full-dress formalization of TC. 5.1

REVISIONS TO THE PROTO-THEORY

No account of belief can pretend to adequacy unless it provides a plausible analysis of iterated belief attributions like (1): (1)

Newton believes that Galileo believes that Venus is a planet.

In the interest of presenting the basic apparatus in a more accessible way, the preceding chapter’s sketch of proto-TC and its applications deliberately ignored the complications needed to provide an analysis of nested beliefs. It is time now to rectify this omission. Consider, then, (2) and (3), our respective interpretations of the wholly transparent and wholly opaque readings of (1): (2) Believes (Newton, [§ui Believes (Galileo, [§vi Planet (Venus)])]). (3)

> Believes (Newton, [§ui Believes>, i, and that respectively denote the belief relation, Galileo, and the thought-content [§vi Planet(Venus)]. Moreover, we would need to suppose that q itself has some sort of structure in virtue of which a semantics for Newton’s Mentalese would ensure three things: (a) that q does denote [§vi Planet(Venus)] in Newton’s Mentalese; (b) that what Newton is claimed to believe is true iff Galileo B -registers a sentence «p(a)» of Galileo’s Mentalese in which a and p respectively denote Venus and the property of being a planet; and hence (c) that the belief Newton allegedly attributes to Galileo is true iff Venus is a planet. Accordingly, we shall suppose that the vocabulary of an agent’s Mentalese includes an arsenal of Mentalese sense-names. These will comprise names of two kinds. First, there will be names of the sort «[§x S]», which are Mentalese analogues of TC’s canonical names for thought-contents. Where, e.g., «[λx p(a)]» is a Mentalese λ-term denoting [λv i Planet(Venus)], the corresponding sense-name «[§x p(a)]» will denote the thought-content [§vi Planet(Venus)]. But we also need to account for the difference between (2) and (3), i.e., for the difference between Newton’s attributing to Galileo a belief de re and Newton’s attributing to Galileo a belief de dicto. For an agent a’s Mentalese is supposed to be a disambiguated idiom. If so, then a’s mentally ascribing to b a de dicto belief and a’s mentally ascribing to b a corresponding de re belief must involve different mental representations on a’s part—a conclusion equally supported by the so-called Formality Constraint in light of the differing causal powers of a’s beliefs about b’s de dicto beliefs and a’s beliefs about b’s de re beliefs. Morover, we must provide for an appropriate difference in the truth conditions of a’s divergent mental representations of b’s belief in the two cases. So in addition to names of the sort «[§x S]», we shall suppose that there are complex Mentalese sense-names which are formed from simple names of objects and which denote certain senses of those objects. Suppose s∗ is such a sense-name in someone’s language of thought, say one of type i that was somehow formed from a simple name s of Socrates. Then, intuitively, we would want s∗ to denote the likes of Socratesc for some context c. At this point we have two options for representing the crucial connection between s∗ and c. On the one hand, we could treat s∗ as a context-dependent term, latching onto the relevant item provided by c—viz., a counterpart relation—after the fashion of an indexical or demonstrative. This course is certainly viable and has its attractions, but the cost in technical ramifications is high. On the other hand, idealizing a bit, we could

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treat s∗ as context-indexed, i.e., as a complex term indexed with an indicator of the relevant contextual element (viz., counterpart relation). This course, which requires a minimum of additional apparatus and retroactive modifications of proto-TC, is the one we shall adopt here. Accordingly, we shall assume that an agent’s Mentalese contains a supply of sense-markers, special indices (recursively generated from some finite basis) the attachment of which to a bracketed simple Mentalese name of an object produces a sense-name, a putative name for a certain sense of that object. (No commitments are made as regards the syntactic structure, if any, of such indices.) The semantic role of these indices is to mark particular counterpart relations, the identity of which will determine the denotation of the sense-names formed with them. The marking-relation in question is assumed to satisfy the following: Sense-Marker Principle: For any x and y, x marks y only if x is a sense-marker and y is a counterpart relation for some Mentalese type; every sense-marker marks exactly one counterpart relation; and every counterpart relation is marked by exactly one sense-marker. Let ‘’, with or without subscripts, be henceforth a restricted metavariable ranging over Mentalese sense-markers. Then our second category of Mentalese sense names (to which s∗ above belongs) will comprise expressions of the sort «[n] » in which n is a simple Mentalese name. It will be assumed that the two kinds in question jointly exhaust the category of Mentalese sense-names. Consequently, in the case at hand, the syntactic and semantic differences between (2) and (3) will be reflected in our enhanced notation by the internal distinction between the Mentalese sense-names «[§x p(a)]» and «[§x [p]1 ([a]2 )]» (where, courtesy of the revised Principles adopted below, «[§x p(a)]» will denote the thought-content [§vi Planet(Venus)], and «[§x [p]1 ([a]2 )]» will denote the thought-content [§v i Planetc (Venusc )] for any sense-markers 1 , 2 and context c such that 1 and 2 respectively mark the corresponding counterpart relations CRc, and CRc,i ). In light of the SenseMarker Principle we may safely speak of the sense-marker that marks a given counterpart relation R (in symbols: ‘↑(R)’) and of the counterpart relation marked by a given sense-marker  (in symbols: ‘↓()’). The definition of counterpart relations on p. 147 requires two important clarifications. Clause (b) of that definition spoke of the denotation of a simple Mentalese name n. It must henceforth be understood that by ‘n denotes o in u’s Mentalese’clause (b) means that n primitively denotes o—i.e., that n directly names o in a way that presupposes nothing about contexts or counterpart relations. Otherwise, our system of definitions would be viciously circular, with counterpart relations presupposing a denotation-relation that presupposed counterpart relations! (And we would obviously be disbarred from ever pursuing the option of relativizing denotation to contexts.) As originally stated, clause (c) in the definition of counterpart relations carried the unanalyzed qualification ‘outside any term in S which is an analogue in u’s

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Mentalese of a “that”-clause’. With the introduction of Mentalese sense-names, (c) needs to be reworded as (c ): (c )

for every agent u, simple type t  names n and m in u’s Mentalese and word kind W : C(u,n,W ) and C(u,m,W ) entails that, for any sentence S of u’s Mentalese and mode of entertaining f , u f -registers S iff u f -registers S∗ —where S∗ is any result of putting m for one or more occurrences of n in S that lie outside Mentalese sense-terms in S.

In the proto-theory, we defined senses of an object ot via MPs of ot , where the latter in turn were defined via ot -determiners, these being binary relations Dot between agents and their Mentalese terms such that Dot yz entails that y is an agent in whose Mentalese z is a type t  name denoting o. In the full theory, however, the ot -determiners appealed to in defining MPs must be slightly more complicated: owing to the introduction of Mentalese sense names, an extra argument-place must be added. The additional terminology and amended definitions are reviewed below (the definition of ‘sense’ being verbally the same as before). 1. Where M y is agent y’s Mentalese and n and m are names in M y , we introduce the following notation ‘n <M y m’ (read: ‘n is a sense name derived from m’): n <M y m =def . Either m is simple and n =E «[m] » for some sense-marker , or m = «[λv S]» and n =E «[§v S]» for some type i variable v and formula S of M y . Corresponding to ‘’, we define a rewrite operator ‘⊗’: for any Mentalese expression w, w⊗ is the result of putting n for every occurrence in w of a name of the sort «[n] » and putting the operator λ for every occurrence in w of the operator §, except where «[n] » and § occur within a proper part of w of the form «[§v S]». Thus, e.g., «[§x [p]1 ([a]2 )]»⊗ is «[λx p(a)]» but «[§y b(y, [§x [p]1 ([a]2 )])]»⊗ is «[λy b(y, [§x [p]1 ([a]2 )])]». In the latter case, the embedded sense-names remain unmodified. Then an ot -determiner is redefined as a ternary relation Do such that Do wyz entails that: (a) w⊗ denotes o; and (b) there is no expression e of y’s Mentalese such that w <M y e (i.e., w is not a sense-name derived from e); and (c) z <M y w (i.e., z is a sense-name derived from w);

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2. A relation M is a mode of presentation (MP) of ot iff M is exemplifiable and, for some ot-determiner Dot , M is identical to the ternary relation R1 : [R1 ]

[λxt yi z For some w: w⊗ denotes x in y’s Mentalese and Do wyz].

This double use of the rewrite operator ‘⊗’—in the definition of an ot -determiner and in our description of the relation R1 —is necessary because the ot -determiner in question may additionally require w to be a complex expression (e.g., a Mentalese λ-term), in which case w might itself contain sense-names of the sorts «[n] » and «[§v S]». For example, we saw earlier (in (10a) and (21a-c) of Chapter 4) that the propositional property [λxi Planet(Venus)] not only is the canonical object of the thought-content [§xi Planet(Venus)] but also, for every context c, is the canonical object of [§xi Planet c (Venus)], [§xi Planet(Venusc )], and [§xi Planet c (Venusc )] as well. Given the introduction of Mentalese sensenames, however, these thought-contents must now be regarded as containing λ-MPs each of whose [λxi Planet(Venus)]-determiners requires w to be of a different sort: viz., «[λv p(a)]», «[λv [p]1 (a)]», «[λv p([a]2 )]», and «[λv [p]1 ([a]2 )]» respectively for certain sense-markers 1 and 2 (p and a being simple names of Planet and Venus). Since Mentalese sense-names are supposed to denote senses, one would expect corresponding Mentalese λ-terms of these four sorts to denote four distinct propositional properties, and so we cannot in general determine a sense’s canonical object as the denotatum of w. However, our definitions obviously guarantee the truth of the chain of identities (4): (4)

«[λv p(a)]»⊗ =E «[λv [p]1 (a)]»⊗ =E «[λv p([a]2 )]»⊗ =E «[λv [p]1 ([a]2 )]»⊗ =E «[λv p(a)]».

And the denotatum of «[λv p([a])]», of course, is [λxi Planet(Venus)]. So to get the desired result we must define ot -determiners and MPs of ot not in terms of what w denotes but instead in terms of what the modified expression w⊗ denotes. 3. A translucent MP of ot is an MP of that object whose ot -determiner Dot is such that, for some counterpart relation C and word kind W , Dot wyz additionally entails that C(y, w, W ). 4. Where ‘N’ is a name of an ordinary type t object and ‘c’ is a variable ranging over contexts, ‘Nc ’ is now, for each assignment of a context c to ‘c’, our canonical way of referring to the translucent sense of N in which the ot -determiner Dot is the relation R2 : [R2 ]

[λwyi z w is a simple type t  name in agent y’s Mentalese; z =E «[w] » for some  such that  =E ↑(CRc,t  ); and CRc,t  (y, w,  N )].

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In other words, in the full version of TC the Translucent Sense Principle reads as before, except that reference to the MP TrsltN,c is supplanted by reference to the richer MP + TrsltN,c : [+ TrsltN,c ]

[λxt yi z For some w: w⊗ denotes x in y’s Mentalese, w is a simple type t  name in agent y’s Mentalese, z =E «[w] » for some  such that  =E ↑(CRc,t  ), and CRc,t  (y, w, N )].

(Note that w’s being simple ensures that in this case w =E w⊗ .) 5. An opaque MP of ot is a translucent MP of that object whose ot -determiner Dot is such that, for some counterpart relation C that is opacityinducing for type t  and some word kind W , Do wyz additionally entails that C(y, w, W ). 6. The definitions of the various kinds of ‘profiles’—i.e., λt -profiles, k-ary atomic λt -profiles, λt[o1 ,...,on ] -profiles, k-ary atomic λt[o1 ,...,on ] -profiles, and CAλP‘[§V P(T1 ,...,Tk )]’—need a small adjustment in order to accommodate Mentalese sense-terms. In each case, what was previously said to be a binary relation between an agent y and one of y’s Mentalese terms w (requiring w to be a certain kind of λ-term «[λv S]») will now be defined as a ternary relation between y, w and a second Mentalese term z (a relation making exactly the same demands as before on y and w but requiring z to be «[§v S]», the Mentalese sense-term that corresponds to w). For present purposes, the only case that needs to be spelled out in detail is that of the canonical atomic λ-profiles (the remaining cases are detailed in the Appendix). The amended definition of CAλP ‘[§V P(T1 ,...,Tn )]’ reads as follows: Where ‘P’ is a term of type ; ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn ; ‘Tf (1) ’,. . .,‘Tf (k) ’ are (for k ≤ n) exactly the terms among ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ other than the variable ‘Vi ’; and (for 1 ≤ j ≤ k) the term j is ‘v’ if ‘Tj ’ is ‘Vi ’, and j is ‘df (j) ’ otherwise: CAλP‘[§V P(T1 ,...,Tn )]’ =def . [λwyi z w = E «[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]» and z =E «[§v d(1 , . . . , n )]» for some variable v of type i and names d, df (1) , . . . , df (k) of respective types , tf (1) , . . . , tf (k) in y’s Mentalese for which Val(y; P, Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (k) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (k) )]. Notice the addition of the extra argument-place for ‘z’ and the new clause ‘z =E «[§v d(1 , . . . , n )]»’ requiring z to be the Mentalese sense-term corresponding to the Mentalese λ-term «[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]». 7. A λ-MP of F is a MP of F whose F -determiner DF is such that, for some λt -profile L, DF wyz additionally entails that Lwyz. 8. A k-ary atomic MP of F is a λ-MP of F whose F -determiner DF is such that, for some k-ary atomic λt -profile L, DF wyz additionally entails Lwyz.

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9. A λt[o1 ,...,on ]-MP of F is a λ-MP of F whose F -determiner DF is such that, for some λt[o1 ,...,on ] -profile L, DF wyz additionally entails that Lwyz. 10. A k-ary atomic λ[o1 ,...,on ] -MP of F is an atomic λ-MP of F whose F -determiner DF is such that, for some k-ary atomic λt[o1 ,...,on ] -profile L, DF wyz additionally entails that Lwyz. 11. The Valuation Principlen in the full version of TC is the same as that in the proto-theory, except that clause (ii) of the original version on p. 132, which read (ii) if oj is not a sense, then aj denotes oj in y’s Mentalese, must be expanded as in (ii ): (ii ) if oj is not a sense, then aj denotes oj in y’s Mentalese, and there is no name n in y’s Mentalese such that aj <My n (i.e., aj is not a sense-name derived from some other name). Having introduced complex Mentalese sense-terms, we want to ensure retroactively that aj is not such a term; for if it were, then it would denote a sense, contrary to the hypothesis of (ii)/(ii ). 12. As before, a given kind of sense of an object will be a cotypical A-object containing the corresponding kind of MP of that object; and a sense’s canonical object will be that object of which it is a sense. 13. The Special and General Atomic Thought-Content Principles require slight rewording of their provisional forms. The amended form of the general version (which subsumes the special version) runs as follows, where ‘P’ is a term of type ; ‘T1 ’,. . .,‘Tn ’ are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn ; ‘Tf (1) ’, . . . ,‘Tf (k) ’ are (for k ≤ n) exactly the terms among ‘T1 ’, . . . ,‘Tn ’ other than the variable ‘Vi ’; and (for 1 ≤ j ≤ k) the term j is ‘v’ if ‘Tj ’ is ‘Vi ’, and j is ‘df (j) ’ otherwise: GeneralAtomic Thought-Content Principle. There is an exemplifiable relation R such that: [§Vi T(T1t1 , . . . , Tntn )] is the type A-object containing R, and R is the relation [λx yi z For some w: w⊗ denotes x in y’s Mentalese and CAλP‘[§V T(T1 ,...,Tn )]’(w, y, z)]. 14. For the purpose of defining satisfaction and truth for thought-contents in general, we need to specify what it is for a thought-content to be ‘open’ or ‘closed’. On the one hand, an open (or ‘first person’) thought-content of a property F is a thought-content of F containing a λ-MP of F whose F -determiner DF is such that DF wy additionally entails that w is the Mentalese term «[λv f ]» and z is «[§v f ]» for some Mentalese formula f having free exactly a certain type i variable v. On the other hand, a closed (or ‘impersonal’) thought-content of

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a property F is a thought-content of F containing a λ-MP of F whose F -determiner DF is such that DF wyz additionally entails that w is the Mentalese term «[λv f ]» and z is «[§v f ]», for some type i Mentalese variable v and formula f having no free variables. We then lay it down that: T is true-of (i.e., is satisfied by) oi =def . T is a thought-content and oi exemplifies ⎨T ⎬ (i.e., oi exemplifies the property that is T ’s canonical object). T is true =def . T is a closed thought-content that is true-of every individual. TC thus enshrines the intuition that, among the many logically equivalent truth or satisfaction conditions for a given thought-content T, only one (viz., that given by its canonical object ⎨T ⎬) is its proprietary truth or satisfaction condition in the sense of being the one that figures in the very identity of that thought-content. These definitions facilitate the proof of theorems like the following: Necessarily, for any context c: [§xi Oculist c (x)] is true-of Wanda iff Wanda is an oculist. Necessarily, for any context c : [§xi Planet c (Venusc )] is true iff Venus is a planet. 15. The proto-theory’s Belief Principle carries over intact. Both clauses of the Entertainment Principle, however, must be reformulated as follows to take account of Mentalese sense-terms: Entertainment Principle. An agent a entertains a thought-content T in the f -mode iff, for some formula S of a’s Mentalese having at most the type i variable x free: (a+ ) a f-ly registers S(Ia /x)⊗ , and (b+ ) |T |(⎨T ⎬, a, «[§v S]»). What clause (b+ ) requires is that the MP contained by T relates T ’s canonical object, the agent a, and the sense-term «[§v S]» of a’s Mentalese (in that order). 16. An additional principle about believing truly is needed to provide interpretations for conditionals like (5), which appear to be true regardless of whether the attitude ascription in the antecedent is construed transparently or opaquely: (5)

If Galileo believes truly that Venus is a planet, then Venus is a planet.

Since, for any context c, [λxi Planet(Venus)] is the shared canonical object of the four thought-contents [§xi Planet(Venus)], [§xi Planet c (Venus)], [§xi Planet

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(Venusc )], and [§xi Planet c (Venusc )], our account of truth for closed thoughtcontents confers on all four the same canonical truth condition. In light of this, we may adopt the following: Believing-Truly Principle. An agent a believes-truly a thought-content T iff: a believes T , and T is true-of a. As a consequence, (5) will come out true no matter which of the aforementioned four thought-contents is at issue. 17. Owing to the foregoing complications, the proto-theory’s provisional version of the Mentalese Denotation Principle must be reformulated. In its fully general form, the required principle about denotation is recorded in Section 5.3 below. Here, however, we are restricting attention to atomic thought-contents; and so we may employ instead the following special version (where ‘Tf (1) ’, . . . ,‘Tf (k) ’ are exactly the terms among ‘T1t1 ’, . . . ,‘Tntn ’ that are distinct from the variable ‘Vi ’, and (for 1 ≤ j ≤ n) j is ‘v’ if ‘Tn ’ is ‘Vi ’, and j is ‘df (j) ’ otherwise): Mentalese Denotation Principle. If in y’s Mentalese v is a type i variable and d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) are names of respective types , t  f (1) , . . . , t  f (n) such that Val[,tf (1) ,...,tf (n) ] (y; P, Tf (1) , . . . , Tf (n) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (n) ), then for any context c: «[§v d(1 , . . . , n )]» Mentalese, and

denotes

[§Vi P (T1t1 , . . . , Tntn )]

in

y’s

«[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]»⊗ denotes #[λVi P (T1t1 , . . . , Tntn )]# in y’s Mentalese. Suppose, by way of illustration, that ‘Venus’, ‘Planet’, and ‘Sees’ stand for certain names in an agent a’s Mentalese that respectively denote Venus, the property being a planet, and the relation sees. Then the Mentalese Denotation Principle guarantees the provability of claims like (6)-(8): (6) The sense-name «[§x Planet(Venus)]» denotes in a’s Mentalese the thought-content [§xi Planet(Venus)]. (7) The name «[λx Planet(Venus)]» denotes in a’s Mentalese the propositional property [λxi Planet(Venus)]. (8)

For any context c and sense-markers 1 and 2 such that 1 =E ↑(CRc, ) and 2 =E ↑(CRc,i ): the sense-name «[§x [Planet]1 ([Venus]2 )]» denotes in a’s Mentalese the thought-content [§xi Planet c (Venusc )].

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18. Invoking the refined account of Mentalese denotation, we may then characterize the required notion of truth-in-an-agent’s-Mentalese via the following principles: First Mentalese Truth Principle. If y is an agent, v is a type i variable of y’s Mentalese, f is a closed formula of y’s Mentalese, and «[§v f ]» denotes the thought-content T in y’s Mentalese, then: f ⊗ is true-in-y’s-Mentalese iff T is true. Second Mentalese Truth Principle. If y is an agent, v is a type i variable of y’s Mentalese, f is a open formula of y’s Mentalese in which v is the sole free variable, and «[§v f ]» denotes the thought-content T in y’s Mentalese, then: f ⊗ (Iy /v) is true-in-y’s-Mentalese iff T is true-of y. The Mentalese Truth Principles guarantee the provability of claims like (9) and (10): (9)

For any agent a, the formula «Planet(Venus)» is true in a’s Mentalese iff Venus is a planet.

(10)

For any agent a, the formula «(∃x)(Planet(x) & Sees(Ia , x))» is true in a’s Mentalese iff a sees a planet.

In compliance with adequacy condition I of Chapter 2, we have now seen what thought-contents are, how they figure in states of (first-order atomic) belief, how they determine conditions of satisfaction for those states, and in what way these conditions may have various items (including senses) as consitituents. It has emerged that belief is a relation between actual beings (certain agents) and thought-contents, which are non-actual beings (certain A-properties). The obtaining of this relation between x and y entails that x is an agent and y is a thought-content such that, for some mental representation z—viz., a formula of x’s Mentalese—and some behavior-determining relation Q—viz., B -registering—x bears Q to z, z has a satisfaction condition determined by y, and whether x bears Q to such a mental representation depends on the syntactic features of that representation qua formula of x’s language of thought. The relation Believes is therefore both existence-independent and concept-dependent, hence is metaphysically intentional in the strong sense defined in Chapter 1. Since some thought-contents determine conditions of satisfaction that have senses (including other thought-contents) as constituents, the mental reference to those items involved in entertaining those thought-contents will likewise exhibit strong metaphysical intentionality. The task remaining

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is the extension of our account beyond the special case of first-order atomic belief. 5.2 APPLICATION TO HIGHER-ORDER BELIEF Given the refinements to TC outlined in the previous section, we immediately have the following schematic result about higher-order belief (where ‘V’ and ‘Y’ are type i variables, ‘N’ and ‘M’ are primitive type i names, and ‘F’ is a primitive type name): First Higher-Order Belief Theorem. For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff: for some sentence S of a’s Mentalese, a B -registers S⊗ and, for some type i variable v foreign to S, the λ-MP contained by the thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] actually relates ⎨[§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])]⎬, a, and «[§v S]» (in that order). This Theorem has an important corollary. For the λ-MP contained by the thoughtcontent [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] is, of course, just the relation R3 : [R3 ]

[λx yi z For some w: w⊗ denotes x in y’s Mentalese and, for some type i variable v and names d0 , d1 , d2 of respective types , i, in y’s Mentalese, w =E «[λv d0 (d1 , d2 )]» and z =E «[§v d0 (d1 , d2 )]» and Val[,i,] (y; Believes, N, [§Yi F(M)]; d0 , d1 , d2 )].

Substituting the description of R3 into the First Higher-order Belief Theorem yields (11): (11) An agent a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff: for some Mentalese sentence S, a B -registers S⊗ and, for some type i variable v foreign to S and some name w, w⊗ denotes ⎨[§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])]⎬ in y’s Mentalese, and, for some type i variable v and names d0 , d1 , d2 of respective types , i, in a’s Mentalese, w =E «[λv d0 (d1 , d2 )]» and «[§v S]» =E «[§v d0 (d1 , d2 )]» and Val[,i,] (a; Believes, N, [§Yi F(M)]; d0 , d1 , d2 ). Simplified, (11) amounts to (12): (12) An agent a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff, for some names d0 , d1 , d2 of respective types , i, : a B -registers «d0 (d1 , d2 )»⊗ and, for some type i variable v foreign to «d0 (d1 , d2 )», «[λv d0 (d1 , d2 )]»⊗ denotes

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⎨[§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])]⎬ in y’s Mentalese and Val[,i,] (a; Believes, N, [§Yi F(M)]; d0 , d1 , d2 ). But since ‘N’, ‘M’, ‘F’ were stipulated to be primitive names, we can prove the result (13): (13)

⎨[§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])]⎬ =E #[λVi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])]#.

Given the valuation clause in (12), its denotation clause is redundant in light of the Mentalese Denotation Principle, so we have (14): (14)

For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff, for some names d0 , d1 , d2 of respective types , i, in a’s Mentalese: a B -registers «d0 (d1 , d2 )»⊗ and Val[,i,] (a; Believes, N, [§Yi F(M)]; d0 , d1 , d2 ).

Now given the Valuation Principle3 , (14) becomes (15): (15)

For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff, for some names d0 , d1 , d2 of respective types , i, in a’s Mentalese: a B -registers «d0 (d1 , d2 )»⊗ , d0 denotes Believes in a’s Mentalese, d1 denotes N in a’s Mentalese, and the MP contained by [§Yi F(M)] relates ⎨[§Yi F(M)]⎬, a, and d2 (in that order).

But the aforementioned MP contained by [§Yi F(M)] is just the relation R4 : [R4 ] [λx yi z For some w: w⊗ denotes x in y’s Mentalese, and, for some type i variable v and names e0 and e1 of respective types < i > and i in y’s Mentalese, w =E «[λv e0 (e1 )]» and z =E «[§v e0 (e1 )]» and Val[,i] (y; F, M; e0 , e1)]. Plugging the description of R4 into (15), we get (16): (16)

For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff, for some names d0 , d1 , d2 of respective types , i, in a’s Mentalese: a B -registers «d0 (d1 , d2 )»⊗ , d0 denotes Believes in a’s Mentalese, d1 denotes N in a’s Mentalese, and, for some w: w⊗ denotes ⎨[§Yi F(M)]⎬ in y’s Mentalese, and, for some type i variable v

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and names e0 and e1 of respective types < i > and i in a’s Mentalese, w =E «[λv e0 (e1 )]» and d2 =E «[§v e0 (e1 )]» and Val[,i] (a; F, M; e0 , e1 ). In light of the Mentalese Denotation Principle and the provability of ⎨[§Yi F(M)]⎬ = #[λYi F(M)]#, (16) can be simplified to (17): (17)

For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff, for some type i variable v and names d0 , d1 , e0 , e1 of respective types , i, and i in a’s Mentalese: a B -registers «d0 (d1 , [§v e0 (e1 )])»⊗ , d0 denotes Believes in a’s Mentalese, d1 denotes N in a’s Mentalese, and Val[,i] (a; F, M; e0 , e1 ).

According to the Valuation Principle2 , (17) is equivalent to the following, important result (where ‘N’, ‘M’, and ‘F’, it will be remembered, are primitive names of types i, i, and respectively, not sense-names): Second Higher-order Belief Theorem. For any agent a, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believes(N, [§Yi F(M)])] iff: for some names d0 , d1 , e0 , e1 of respective types , i,, i and some type i variable v of a’s Mentalese, a B -registers the Mentalese formula «d0 (d1 , [§v e0 (e1 )])»⊗ , d0 denotes Believes, d1 denotes N, e0 denotes F, e1 denotes M, and neither e0 nor e1 is a sense-name derived from any other name. This result enables us to give a straightforward treatment of higher-order belief attributions, which have proved troublesome for other theories (especially those employing possible-worlds apparatus within the framework of classical set theory, wherein the Axiom of Foundation proves to be a stumbling block).1 Consider again the belief report (1), only now on the interpretation (2) that corrresponds to its wholly transparent reading: (1) Newton believes that Galileo believes that Venus is a planet. (2) Believes (Newton, [§ui Believes (Galileo, [§vi (Venus)])]).

Planet

Given the Second Higher-order Belief Theorem above—and some trivial background assumptions2 about Mentalese syntax—(2) will be provably equivalent to (18): (18)

Newton B -registers a sentence «b(g, [§x f (a)])» of his Mentalese in which x is a type i variable, f is a type name that denotes Planet , a is a type i name that denotes Venus, b is a type name that denotes Believes , and g is a type i name that denotes Galileo (none of f , a, b, g being a sense-name derived from any other name).

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The Principles thus far adopted assure us that, as described in (18), the formula «b(g, [§x f (a)])» B -registered by Newton is true-in-Newton’s-Mentalese iff (19) obtains: (19)

Galileo B -registers a sentence «f(a)» of his (Galileo’s) Mentalese in which f is a type < i > name that denotes Planet and a is a type i name that denotes Venus (neither f nor a being a sense-name derived from any other name).

So in particular, (1), on the wholly transparent reading whose interpretation is (2), will be true only if (20) obtains: (20)

Newton B -registers a formula of Newton’s Mentalese which is true-inNewton’s-Mentalese iff Galileo B -registers an atomic formula of Galileo’s Mentalese the subject term of which denotes Venus and the predicate term of which denotes the property of being a planet (neither term being a sense-name derived from any other name).

It must be stressed that the interpretation (2) does not imply that Newton believes anything about Galileo’s affirming any Mentalese formula. For TC’s analysis of belief in terms of the B -registration of certain Mentalese formulas, is, like the Principles that generate it, only an equivalence claim, not the kind of strict identity claim that TC would regard as licensing substitution salva veritate in formulas like (2) and (3). To put it another way, we have not claimed that the property of bearing the belief relation to a thought-content is identical to the property of B -registering such-and-such a formula of one’s language of thought. (And on TC’s ILAO-based understanding of property-identity, necessary equivalence of properties does not entail their identity.) As things stand, then, TC imputes to believers no beliefs at all about their own or anyone else’s Mentalese. So it should be clear that TC’s account of higher-order belief faces no Paradox of Analysis problem of the sort mentioned in adequacy condition VII of Chapter 2, hence that TC will straightforwardly satisfy that condition. Parallel to the Second Higher-Order Belief Theorem is the analogous result for iterated de dicto belief reports: Third Higher-order Belief Theorem. For any agent a and context c, a believes the atomic thought-content [§Vi Believesc (Nc , [§Yi Fc (Mc )])] iff: for some simple names b, n, f , m (of respective types , i, , i) which are c-salient counterparts for a of  Believes ,  N ,  F ,  M respectively, some type i variable v of a’s Mentalese, and some sense-markers 1 and 2 such that 1 =E ↑(CRc, ) and 2 =E ↑(CRc,i ), a B -registers the Mentalese formula «b(n, [§v [f 1 ]([m2 ])])».3

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So (3), the wholly opaque interpretation of (1), will be equivalent to (21) for any context c: (3) Believes (Newton, [§ui Believesc (Galileoc , [§vi Planet c (Venusc )])]). (21)

Newton B -registers a Mentalese formula «b(g, [§x [p1 ]([m2 ])])» in which b, g, p, m are simple names (of respective types , i, , i) that are c-salient counterparts for Newton of  Believes ,  Galileo ,  Planet  ,  Venus respectively, x is a type i variable of Newton’s Mentalese, and 1 and 2 are sense-markers such that 1 =E ↑(CRc, ) and 2 =E ↑(CRc,i ).

And the formula «b(g, [§x [p1 ]([m2 ])])» that Newton B -registers is in turn truein-Newton’s-Mentalese just in case Galileo B -registers a sentence «f(a)» of his (Galileo’s) Mentalese in which f is a type < i > name that is for Galileo a c-salient counterpart of  Planet  and a is a type i name that is for Galileo a c-salient counterpart of  Venus . 5.3

GENERALIZING KEY DEFINITIONS, PRINCIPLES, AND THEOREMS

For expository convenience, our account has thus far been restricted to atomic thought-contents. It is now time to deliver on the promise that TC extends to thoughtcontents of arbitrary complexity. Doing so involves, on the one hand, formulating a completely general definition of a canonical λ-profile for
[§ν t φ] and, on the other hand, using this notion to formulate a Generalized Thought-Content Principle that tells us, for arbitrary φ, which A-object [§ν t φ] is. With [§ν t φ] thus identified, a generalized version of the Mentalese Denotation Principle can then be given. To begin with, formulating the schematic definition of a canonical λ-profile for
[§ν t φ] requires a description of the structural relation that must obtain between
[§ν t φ] itself and certain corresponding Mentalese expressions «[λ ]» and «[§ ]» (the ‘complex term-proxies’ below). We begin by defining term-proxies (TPs) and formula-proxies (FPs): 1. The simple TPs are TC’s boldface name-metavariables ‘a’,‘b’, . . . ,‘t’ (with or without subscripts) and boldface variable-metavariables ‘u’,‘v’, . . . ,‘z’ (with or without subscripts). 2. If , 1 , . . . , n are all distinct TPs then
(1 , . . . , n ) is a FP. 3. If  is a FP, so is
∼. 4. If  and  are FPs that share no name-metavariables, then
( & ),
( ∨ ),
( →) and
( ≡ ) are all FPs.

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5. If  is a FP and  is a variable-metavariable occurring in  but not in any combination of the sort
∀,
∃,
λ or
§, then
(∀)  and
(∃)  are FPs. [We may call
(∀) and
(∃) ‘-quantifier-proxies’.] 6. If  is a FP and  is a variable-metavariable, then
[λ ] and
[§ ] are complex TPs. Subformula-proxy and main operator-proxy of an FP are defined in the obvious way, the important case for our purposes being that involving quantifierproxies: viz., If  is an FP of the form
(∀)  or
(∃)  , then the quantifier-proxy occurring immediately before  is the main operator-proxy of . As one would expect, the ‘scope’ of a quantifier-proxy in  an FP is then defined as the subformula-proxy of  in which that quantifier is the main operator-proxy. Finally, an occurrence of a variable-metavariable  in an FP  is ‘bound’ iff that occurrence lies within the ‘scope’ of an -quantifier-proxy; otherwise, it is ‘free’. Every occurrence of a variable-metavariable  in a TP of the form
[λ ] or
[§ ] counts as ‘bound’ by the initial occurrence therein. (The scarequotes are reminders that these are proxy notions.) Now let

[; ; ] range over TPs of the sort
[λ ] in which (i) at most  occurs ‘free’ in the formula-proxy , (ii) the ‘bound’ variable-metavariables in  itself are exactly 1 , . . . , r , (iii) the namemetavariables in  are exactly 1 , . . . , n , and (iv) , 1 , . . . , r , 1 , . . . , n are all distinct from one another. Then, for any term of the form
[§ν t φ] in which φ is a propositional formula (but not a primitive term of type p)4 , we stipulate that: A term-proxy
[; < 1 , . . . , r >; < 1 , . . . , n >] is a template for
[§ν t φ] under the substitution of primitive variables ν t , ω1 , . . . , ωr and terms δ1 , . . . , δn for , 1 , . . . , r and 1 , . . . , n respectively just in case: (a) none of the terms δ1 , . . . , δn is or contains any of the variables ν t , ω1 , . . . , ωr , and (b)
[§ν t φ] is recoverable from
[; ; ] simply by making the indicated substitution in the latter, replacing its initial ‘λ’ with ‘§’, and then de-boldfacing any remaining boldface symbols in it. A term-proxy
[; , ] is a minimal template for
[§ν t φ] under a given substitution of primitive variables for , 1 , . . . , r and terms for 1 , . . . , n just in case:
[; ; ] is a template for
[§ν t φ] under that substitution but no syntactically simpler TP
[; ; ]

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is a template for
[§ν t φ] under any substitution of variables ν, π1 , . . . , πk and terms γ1 , . . . , γm for , 1 , . . . , k and 1 , . . . , m respectively. Some examples may be helpful. The expression (22b) is a TP
[‘v; ; ] which is a template for (22a) under the substitution of ‘y’, ‘x’, ‘z’, ‘Human’, ‘Believes’, ‘Person’ for ‘v’,‘x’,‘z’,‘h’,‘b’,‘p’ respectively: (22)

a. [§yi (∀x)(Human(x) → Believes(x, [§z Person(z)]))] b. [λv (∀x)(h(x) →b(x, [§z p(z)]))] c. [λv (∀x)(h(x) →b(x, q))].

But (22b) is not a minimal template for (22a) under the indicated substitution, for there is a syntactically simpler TP
[‘v’; ; ]—viz., (22c)— which is a template (indeed, a minimal template) for (22a) under the substitution of ‘y’, ‘x’, ‘Human’, ‘Believes’, ‘[§z Person(z)]’ for ‘v’,‘x’,‘h’,‘b’,‘q’ respectively. Now consider (23a-c) : (23)

a. [§y (∃x)Believes(John, [§z Human(x)])] b. [λy (∃x)b(j, q)] c. [λy (∃x)b(j, [§z h(x)])].

Note that (23b) is not a template for (23a) under any admissible substitution of (23a)’s variables for ‘y’, ‘x’ and its terms for ‘b’, ‘j’, ‘q’. For, in violation of clause (a) in the definition of a template, the term in (23a) being put for ‘q’ (viz., ‘[§z Human(x)]’) would contain a variable (viz., ‘x’) that occurs bound in (23a) itself. Indeed, nothing syntactically simpler than (23c) could qualify as a template for (23a) under an admissible substitution. (23c) is thus a minimal template for (23a) under the substitution of ‘y’, ‘x’, ‘z’ for ‘y’, ‘x’, ‘z’ and ‘Believes’, ‘John’, ‘Human’ for ‘b’, ‘j’, ‘h’. Finally, consider (24a-b), in which (24b) is a minimal template for the (24a) under the obvious substitution: (24)

(z i , z i )] a. [§yi Hates c b. [λv h(a, b)].

Note that (24b) is insensitive to the repetition of ‘z’ in (24a). This is a feature of all templates, since they cannot contain multiple occurrences of a name-metavariable. Note also that (24a), unlike (22a) and (23a), contains free variables. Allowing such cases is crucial to our account of quantifying-in, in which ‘a’ and ‘b’ will range over (not necessarily distinct) Mentalese names of the value of the variable ‘z’. Note, finally, that no name-metavariable in (24b) corresponds to the contextvariable ‘c’ (24a). This too is a feature of templates in general. It is the job of the generalized canonical λt -profile (defined below) to use such templates to describe the way in which, e.g., ‘h’ having ‘Hatesc ’ as its value (for a given value c of ‘c’)

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further requires the Mentalese name over which ‘h’ ranges to be a sense-name of the sort «[p] » in which ↓() = CRc, . We now turn to the definition of the generalized canonical λt -profile. Suppose now that φ is a propositional formula (but not a primitive term of type p), ν t is a variable, δ1 , . . . , δn are terms (of respective types tδ1 , . . . , tδn ), ω1 , . . . , ωr are distinct primitive variables (of respective types tω1 , . . . , tωr ), and
[λ ] is a complex term-proxy
[; ; ] which is a minimal template for
[§ν t φ] under the substitution of ν t , ω1 , . . . , ωr , δ1 , . . . , δn for , 1 , . . . , r , 1 , . . . , n respectively. Then (where , 1 , . . . , r , 1 , . . . , n are assumed to be distinct from ‘w’ and ‘z’) we provide the following definition scheme for the Generalized Canonical λt -Profile for
[§ν t φ] (for short: CλP
[§ν t φ] ): CλP
[§ν t φ] =def . [λwyi z (∃)(∃1 ) . . . (∃r )(∃1 ) . . . (∃n ){w =E «[λ ]» & VarType(, t  , M y ) & VarType(1 , tω 1 , M y ) & . . . & VarType(r , tω r , M y ) & NameType(1 , tδ 1 , M y ) & . . . & NameType(n , tδ n , M y ) & z =E «[§ ]» & Val [tδ1 ,...,tδn ] (y; δ1 , . . . , δn ; 1 , . . . , n )}]. Let us illustrate this definition in connection with (23a). We saw that (23c) is a minimal template for (23a) under the substitution of ‘y’, ‘x’, ‘z’ for ‘y’, ‘x’, ‘z’ and ‘Believes’, ‘John’, ‘Human’ for ‘b’, ‘j’, ‘h’. So the following definition is an instance of the foregoing scheme: CλP ‘[§y (∃x)Believes(John,[§z Human(x)])]’ =def . [λwyi z (∃y)(∃x)(∃v)(∃b)(∃j)(∃h) {w =E «[λy (∃x)b(j, [§v h(x)])]» & VarType(y, i, M y ) & VarType(x, i, M y ) & VarType(v, i, M y ) & NameType(b, , M y ) & NameType(j, i, M y ) & NameType(h, , M y ) & z =E «[§y (∃x)b(j, [§v h(x)])]» & Val [tδ1 ,...,tδn ] (y; Believes, John, Human; b, j, h)}]. The Generalized Canonical λ-profile for (23a) is thus the relation between a Mentalese term w, an agent a, and another Mentalese term z the obtaining of which consists in w and z being terms in a’s Mentalese of the respective forms «[λy (∃x)b(j, [§z h(x)])]» and «[§y (∃x)b(j, [§z h(x)])]» for some Mentalese variables y, x, z and Mentalese names b, j, and h whose values for the agent are respectively the relation Believes, the individual John, and the property Human. As a corollary we have the generalization of the First CAλP Theorem (where δ1 , . . . , δn are understood as in the foregoing definition of
CλP
[§ν t φ] ): Generalized First CλP Theorem: CλP
[§ν t φ] is a λt[δ1 ,...,δn ] -Profile. The general axiom scheme for λ-sense terms of the form
[§ν t φ] may now be given. Where the Greek letters are understood as above in the definition of

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CλP
[§ν t φ]  and φ contains no ordinary term of the sort
(ια)ψ, the universal closure of every instance of the following scheme is an axiom:5

Generalized λ-Sense Principle (For t = i, the Generalized Thought-Content Principle): (∃R ){[§ν t φ] = (ιu )(∀F )(u  F ≡ F = ℘ (R)) & R = [λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & CλP
[§ν t φ] (w, y, z))] & ♦(∃xt )(∃yi )(∃u) R(x, y, u)}. Thus, e.g., the relevant instance of the Generalized Thought-Content Principle for (23a), fully spelled out, would read as follows: (∃R ){[§y (∃x)Believes(John, [§z Human(x)])] = (ιu )(∀F ) (u  F ≡ F = ℘ (R)) & R = [λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & (∃y)(∃x)(∃v) (∃b)(∃j)(∃h){w =E «[λy (∃x)b(j, [§v h(x)])]» & VarType(y, i, M y ) & VarType(x, i, M y ) & VarType(v, i, M y ) & NameType(b, , M y ) & NameType(j, i, M y ) & NameType(h, , M y ) & z =E «[§y (∃x)b (j, [§v h(x)])]» & Val [tδ1 ,...,tδn ] (y; Believes, John, Human; b, j, h))] & ♦(∃x ) (∃yi )(∃u)R(x, y, u)}. In other words, the thought-content [§y (∃x)Believes(John, [§z Human(x)])] is the sense which contains that (stipulated-to-be-exemplifiable) relation between a type property x, individual y, and term z of y’s Mentalese whose obtaining consists in z being the term «[§y (∃x)b(j, [§v h(x)])]» and the corresponding rewritten term «[λy (∃x)b(j, [§v h(x)])]»⊗ denoting x, for some Mentalese variables y, x, v and Mentalese names b, j, and h whose values for the agent are respectively the relation Believes, the individual John, and the property Human. Subject to the constraints on Greek letters adopted above for the definition of
CλP
[§ν t φ] , and assuming φ contains no ordinary term of the sort
(ια)ψ, the universal closure of any instance of the following scheme is an axiom—where, as above,
[λ ] is a term-proxy
[; ; ] which is a minimal template for
[§ν t φ] under the substitution of distinct variables ν t , ω1 , . . . , ωr for , 1 , . . . , r and terms δ1 , . . . , δn for 1 , . . . , n : Generalized Mentalese Denotation Principle: {VarType(, t  , M y ) & VarType(1 , tω 1 , M y ) & . . . & VarType(r , tω r , M y ) & NameType(1 , tδ 1 , M y ) & . . . & NameType(n , tδ n , M y ) & Val [tδ1 ,...,tδn ] (y; δ1 , . . . , δn ; 1 , . . . , n )} → {DenIn(«[§ ]», [§ν t φ], M y ) & DenIn(«[λ ]»⊗ , #[λν t φ]#, M y )}. This principle ensures that, e.g., if b, j, and h are names in an agent a’s Mentalese whose values therein are respectively the senses Believesc , Johnc , and Humanc , then a’s Mentalese sense-name «[§y (∃x)[b]1 ([j]2 , [§v [h]3 (x)])]» will denote the

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thought-content [§ν i (∃xi )Believesc (Johnc , [§z i Humanc (x)])] whereas a’s Mentalese λ-term «[λy (∃x)[b]1 ([j]2 , [§v[h]3 (x)])]»⊗ —which by definition of the rewrite operator is just «[λy (∃x)b(j, [§v [h]3 (x)])]»—will denote the propositional property [λvi (∃xi )Believes(John, [§z i Humanc (x)])]. Understanding the Greek letters as above in the definition of
CλP
[§ν t φ]  (and again assuming that φ involves no terms of the sort
(ια)ψ except those whose nonemptiness is guaranteed), the universal closures of the instances of the following schemes become theorems: Generalized Second CλP Theorem: CλP
[§ν t φ] is a #[λν t φ]#-determiner. Generalized Thought-Content Theorem ThtCon[δ1 ,...,δn ] ([§ν i φ])—i.e., [§ν i φ] is a thought-content having δ1 , . . . , δn as constituents. This completes our exposition of the full theory TC. 5.4

DOING WITHOUT EMPTY SENSES

TC conspicuously makes no provision for empty senses—i.e., senses that lack canonical objects. The reason was alluded to at the outset: viz., the EvansPeacocke-McDowell arguments for the object-dependence of certain senses, which are articulated and defended in Chapters 9-10. But it is worth pointing out that the apparatus already developed (or a slightly augmented version thereof) seems adequate to meet at least one major desideratum that has prompted philosophers to invoke empty senses, viz., the need to render intelligible our practice of explaining people’s behavior by their beliefs and other psychological attitudes when those attitudes are directed at kinds of things that don’t exist—ghosts, demons, witches, etc. Surely, one feels, we could not explain the behavior of superstitious and ignorant people unless we could truly say things like ‘They believed that there are ghosts’, ‘They believed that demons cause disease’, ‘They believed that a witch had cursed them’, etc. TC has no trouble accommodating beliefs ascribed in this particular way. For it treats properties and relations Platonistically—i.e., as capable of existing unexemplified. The mere fact that there are no ghosts, demons, or witches does not preclude recognition of the properties being a ghost, being a demon, and being a witch. So, e.g., (25a) can be given either the de re interpretation (25b) or the de dicto interpretation (25c), on either of which it could easily be true: (25)

a. Wanda believes that there are ghosts b. Believes(Wanda, [§xi (∃yi )Ghost(y)]) c. Believes(Wanda, [§xi (∃yi )Ghost c (y)]).

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Regardless of what context c is at issue, the sense Ghost c invoked in (25c) is not empty but has as its canonical object the (presumably unexemplified) property Ghost . In the foregoing cases, the beliefs were ascribed using common nouns that denote properties with empty extensions. But there are also the more problematic cases in which beliefs are ascribed using mass terms with empty extensions: e.g., ‘phlogiston’, ‘ectoplasm’, and the like. The need to provide an interpretation for (26) on which it could be true is presumably just as pressing as the need to provide such an interpretation for (25a): (26) Wanda believes that phlogiston is a fluid. Now if mass terms were always derived from independently intelligible count nouns, we could solve the present problem by reducing it to the previous one. But finding such prior count nouns for all cases is not a very inviting task. In the order of understanding, some mass terms seem primitive. However, for those primitive mass terms that can be thought of as having been introduced via Kripke-Putnam-style dubbings there is an alternative and more promising strategy. We could treat each such mass term as a type i name referring to the A-individual that encodes just the (possibly very complex) property involved in the historical dubbing by which the term was introduced. So if ‘Mi ’ is a mass term originally introduced as a name for whatever substance/trait/process has property P (e.g., is related in a certain way to such-and-such historical paradigms, explains such-and-such phenomena, etc.) then we could take (27) as an axiom scheme: (27)

Mi = the A-individual encoding just [λxi x is a substance/trait/process such that P(x)].

(Names to which (27) applies would of course not fall under the O-name Principle.) Let us say that an A-individual encoding a single property is ‘realized’ if something actually exemplifies the encoded property (the something in question being a ‘realizer’ of the A-individual). Then names like ‘Phlogiston’ and ‘Ectoplasm’ will be empty only in the sense that there are no Phlogiston- or Ectoplasm-realizers. For any context c, the senses Phlogistonc and Ectoplasmc are not empty but have the (unrealized) A-individuals Phlogiston and Ectoplasm as their respective canonical objects.6 This approach faces the obvious difficulty of interpreting the many predications involving kind-names that seem to attribute physical properties to the kinds in question. For if actuality involves presence in our physical world and abstractness precludes such presence, it is hard to see how a kind, qua A-individual, could exemplify any physical properties (as opposed to merely exemplifying the likes of A! and [λxi (∀F )(Fx ∨ ∼ Fx)]). What is required is a distinction between what we

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might call ‘kind-’ and ‘realizer-’ predications involving kind-names, i. e., between predications which are meant to characterize the kind itself and predications which are meant instead to characterize its realizers. To interpret kind-predication, ILAO already has on hand its primitive form ‘Fy’ of exemplification-predication, as well as the corresponding relation IsK of type that we could characterize by taking ‘(∀yi )(∀F )(IsK (y, F) ≡ Fy)’ as an axiom. To interpret realizer-predication we could add the relation IsR of type , so axiomatized that ‘IsR (x, F)’ is equivalent to x is not a sense but encodes just one property, something actually exemplifies the property x encodes, and anything that exemplifes the property x encodes will exemplify F. ‘Phlogiston is a fluid’ would thus be interpreted by ‘IsR (Phlogistoni , Fluid )’ and, so construed, would be false; for nothing realizes the kind Phlogistoni . (26) can accordingly be given either the de re interpretation (28a) or the de dicto interpretation (28b), on either of which it could easily be true: (28)

a. Believes(Wanda, [§xi IsR (Phlogistoni , Fluid )]). b. Believes(Wanda, [§xi IsR (Phlogistonc , Fluid )]).

The preceding discussion has dealt only with real-world discourse. We still need an account of fictional discourse and of the thought-contents appropriate to the various sorts of belief attributions that embed fictional names. Perhaps providing such an account will ultimately force us to revise our theory to admit empty senses, but that is an issue whose resolution must be left to another day. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER 5: THE FORMAL THEORY TC To facilitate cross-reference, we present below the full-dress formalization of TC (as emended in this Chapter). As it stands, TC makes no provision for indexical or demonstrative thought-contents, the accommodation of which would require a substantive enrichment of the notion of context thus far employed. The salient modifications are discussed in Chapter 6. A.1 Metalinguistic Conventions In the following synopsis, lowercase Greek letters are metavariables that range over the expressions of ILAO, and uppercase Greek letters are restricted metavariables that range solely over boldfaced expressions of ILAO (see below). In describing an encoding predication, we sometimes use the symbol ‘’ as a punctuation device to facilitate visual discrimination of the subject-term (on the left) from the predicateterm (on the right). φ is a propositional formula iff φ has no subformulas of the form

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βt  ψ  and no subformulas of the form
(∀αt )ψ in which αt is an initial term somewhere in ψ.7 An occurrence of a term τ in an expression σ is called a maximal occurrence of τ in σ iff it is not embedded within an occurrence of any term of the form
[§νt ψ] or
(ιαt )θ which is a proper part of σ. Where τ is any term distinct from σ and not of the sort
[§νt φ]: the expression
#σ# designates the result of replacing each maximal occurrence of τ in σ by an occurrence of
⎨τ ⎬.

A.2 Special Vocabulary of TC In addition to the boldfaced symbols, vergules, and various ad hoc names for particular relations introduced as examples in the text, TC adds to ILAO the following special vocabulary. Where α is a term designating an agent a,
M α  designates a’s language of thought, ‘’ is a restricted variable that ranges over sense-markers (juxtaposition of which with a simple Mentalese name of an object forms a name for a certain sense of that object), and the following predicates and operators are employed for discussing Mentalese syntax and semantics: Syntactic Predicates: VarType(, t, Mα ); NameType(, t, Mα ); TermType (, t, Mα ); OccursIn(, ); Formula(, M α ); Expression(, M α ); FreeIn(, ); and (  )() [read:
 is a result of putting  for one or more occurrences of  in  that lie outside any terms in  of the sort «[] » or «[§ ]»]. Syntactic Operators: (1 . . . n /1 . . . 2 ) [read: the result of uniformly substituting 1 . . . n for 1 . . . n in ]; and ⊗ [read:
the result of replacing every occurrence in  of a name of the sort «[] » by the name  itself and putting the operator λ for every occurrence in  of the operator §, except for those occurrences of «[] » and § that lie within a proper part of  of the form «[§ ]»]. Semantic Predicates: PrDenIn(, βt , Mα ) [read:  primitively denotes (directly names) βt in Mα ]; DenIn(, βt , Mα ) [read:  denotes βt in Mα ]; TrueIn(, Mα ); SelfName(, Mα ) [read:  is in Mα an active self-name for α]; and (for n ≥ 0) Val[t1 ,...,tn ] (χ i ; δ1t1 , . . . , δntn ; 1 , . . . , n ) [read: In χ ’s Mentalese, δ1t1 , . . . , δntn are the respective values of the type t1 , . . . , tn names 1 , . . . , n ]. Finally, the following theoretical predicates are provisionally taken as primitive. Theoretical Predicates: EntertainsIn ; Believes ; Registers ; ModEnt [read: is a mode of entertainment]; and B [read: the relation an event e bears to an agent u in being such that u authors e in u’s ‘belief-box’].

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A.3 Formation Rules for Special Terms of TC. (FR1)

For any primitive type t name α, the quotation name
‘α’ is a derived type name in which α does not count as occurring.

(FR2)

For any primitive type t name α, the dot-quotation name
•α• is a derived type name in which α does not count as occurring.

(FR3) Where αt is a primitive name and κ is a contextual parameter,
ακ  is a derived complex term of type t in which α does not count as occurring. (FR4)

Let φ be any propositional formula which is not a primitive term of type p and in which no variable occurs both free and bound. Then, for any variable νt having no bound occurrence in φ, the expression
[§ν t φ] is a complex term of type . In such a term
[§νt φ], the variable νt and every term in φ, but not φ itself, counts as occurring; and any occurrences of νt in φ are regarded as bound by its initial occurrence in
§νt .

(FR5)

For any type t term τ , the expression
|τ | is a type term.

(FR6)

For any type t term τ , the expression
⎨τ ⎬ is a type t term. A.4 Definitions in TC

[In the following definitions, a predicate whose definiens contains encoding predications or devices defined in terms thereof will be written in small capitals as a reminder that such a predicate cannot automatically be assumed to express a property or relation in its own right. Also, since (D38) is cited in the text, it is included here despite the fact that it is redundant in light of (D53).] (D1) Where ρ is a term of type and ν0 , ν1 , . . . , νn are distinct variables of respective types t1 , . . . , tn foreign to ρ: ℘ (ρ) =def . [λν0 (∃ν1 ) . . . (∃νn )ρ(ν0 , ν1 , . . . , νn )]. (D2) SimpleIn(, M α ) =def . ∼(∃e)((∃t)TermType(e,t,Mα ) & OccursIn(e, )). (D3)

<M α  =def . (∃t)(∃)( =E «[ ]») ∨ (∃v)(∃S)(VarType (v, i, Mα ) & Formula(,Mα ) &  =E «[λv S]» &  =E «[§v S]»).

(D4)

ωt -determiner(ρ ) =def . (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){ρ(w, y, z)→ (Agent(y) & NameType(w,t  , M y ) & DenIn(w⊗ , ω, M y ) & ∼(∃e)(w <M y e) & z <M y w)}.

(D5)

MPof(µ , ωt )=def . ♦(∃ut )(∃vi )(∃p)µ(u, v, p) & (∃D) {ωt - determiner(D) & µ = [λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)]}.

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(D6)

SenseOf(σt , ωt ) =def . (∃µ ){MPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}.

(D7)

Sense (σt ) =def . (∃ωt )SenseOf(σ, ω).

(D8)

CanObj(ωt , σt ) =def . SenseOf(σt , ωt ).

193

(D9) Where αt is a primitive name: α =def . [λz i (∃W )(W (z) & •α•(W ) &‘α’(z)].

 

(D10) Where αt1 , . . . , αtk are the primitive names of type t in canonical order: WordKind t =def . [λF F =E

 t α1

∨ . . . ∨ F =E

 t αk ].

(D11) Where t1 , . . . , tn are the types occupied by primitive names: WordKind =def . [λF WordKindt1(F) ∨ . . . ∨ WordKindtn(F)]. (D12) Where αt1 , . . . , αtn are the primitive names of type t in canonical order: Des(δ , ot ) =def . (δ =E ∨ (δ =E

 t αn & o





α1 t & o = α1 ) ∨ . . .

= αn ).

(D13) CptRelt  (ρ ) =def . (∀ui )(∀n)(∀w ){ρ(u, n, w) → (Agent(u) & NameType(n, t  , Mu ) & SimpleIn(n, Mu ) & WordKind (w))} & (∀ui )(∀n)(∀w ){(Agent(u) & NameType(n, t  , Mu ) & WordKind (w) & ρ(u, n, w)) → (∃ot )(PrDenIn(n, o, Mu ) & Des (w, o))} & (∀ui ) (∀n)(∀m)(∀w ){(Agent(u) & NameType(n, t  , Mu ) & SimpleIn (n, Mu ) & (NameType(m, t  , Mu ) & SimpleIn(m, Mu ) & WordKind(w) & ρ(u, n, w) & ρ(u, m, w)) → (∀f )(∀S)(∀S∗ )((ModEnt(f ) & Sentence(S, Mu ) & S(m ||n )(S∗ )) → (Registers(u, S, f ) ≡ Registers (u, S∗ , f )))}. (D14) TranslucentMPof(µ , ωt ) =def . MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)] → (∃J )(∃H ){CptRelt (J ) & WordKind (H ) & (∀w)(∀yi ) (∀z)(Dwyz → J (y, w, H )}}. (D15) TranslucentSenseof(σt , ωt ) =def . (∃µ ) {TranslucentMPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}. (D16)

TranslucentSense(σt ) =def . (∃ωt )TranslucentSenseOf(σt , ωt ).

(D17) OpIndt (ρ ) =def . CptRelt (ρ) & (∀F )(∀G )(∀ui )(∀n) {(WordKind (F) & WordKind (G) & ∼ (F ≈ G) & NameType(n, t, Mu ) & ρ(u, n, F)) → ∼ρ(u, n, G)}. (D18) OpqMPof(µ , ωt ) =def . TranslucentMPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)] →

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(∃J )(∃H ){OpIndt  (J ) & WordKind (H ) & (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z)(Dwyz → J (y, w, H ))}}. (D19) OpqSenseOf(σt , ωt ) =def . (∃µ ){OpqMPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}. (D20) OpqSense(σt ) =def . (∃ωt )OpqSenseOf(σt , ωt ). (D21) CRκ,t =def . (ιR )(CptRelt (R) & κ  ℘ (R)). (D22) λt -Profile(ρ ) =def . (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){ρ(w, y, z) → (∃f )(∃v)(Formula(f , My ) & VarType(v, t,My ) & (∀x)(∀t o )((VarType (x, t0 , My ) & FreeIn(x, f )) → x =E v) & w =E «[λv f ]» & z =E «[§v f ]»}. (D23) λ-MPof(µ , ω ) =def . MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, My ) & Dwyz)] → (∃L ){λt -Profile(L) & (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z)(Dwyz → Lwyz)}}. (D24) λ-SenseOf(σ , ω ) =def . (∃µ ){λ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}. (D25) λ-Sense(σ ) =def . (∃ω )λ-SenseOf(σ, ω). (D26) k-aryAtomicλt -Profile(ρ ) =def . (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){ρ(w,y,z) → (∃x)(∃d)(∃d1 ) . . . (∃dk )(∃t 1 ) . . . (∃t k ){VarType(x, t,My ) & TermType(d, , My ) & TermType(d1 , t1 , My ) & . . . & TermType(dk , tk , My ) & (∀v)(∀t0 )((VarType(v, t0 , My ) & FreeIn(v, «d(d1 , . . . , dk )»)) → v =E x) & w =E «[λx d(d1 , . . . , dk )]» & z =E «[§x d(d1 , . . . , dk )]»}}. (k ≥ 1) (D27) k-aryATMλ-MPof(µ , ω ) =def . λ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, My ) & Dwyz)] →  (∃L ){k-aryAtomic λt -Profile(L) & (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z) (Dwyz → Lwyz)}}. (D28)

k-aryAtmλ-SenseOf(σ , ω ) =def . (∃µ ) {k-aryAtmλ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}.

(D29) k-aryAtmλ-Sense(σ ) =def . (∃ω )k-aryAtmλ-SenseOf(σ, ω). (D30) Where τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn : λt[τ1 ,...,τn ] -Profile(ρ ) =def . (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){ρ(w, y, z) → (∃f )(∃v)(∃a1 ) . . . (∃an )(Formula(f , My ) & VarType(v, t,My ) & (∀x) (∀t0 )((VarType(x, t0 , My ) & FreeIn(x, f )) → x =E v) & NameType(a1 , t  1 , My ) & . . . & NameType(an , t  n , M y ) & SimpleIn(a1 , My ) & . . . & SimpleIn(an , My ) & OccursIn(a1 , f ) & . . . & OccursIn(an , f ) & (∀n)(∀t0 )((NameType(n, t0 , My ) & SimpleIn(n, My ) & OccursIn(n, f )) → (n =E a1 ∨ . . . ∨ n =E an )) & w =E «[λv f ]» & z =E «[§v f ]» & Val[t1 ...tn ] (y; τ1 , . . . , τn ; a1 , . . . , an ))}.

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(D31) Where τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn : λ[τ1 ,...,τn ] -MPof(µ , ω )=def . λ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ=[λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)] →  (∃L )λt[τ1 ,...,τn ] -Profile(L) & (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z)(Dwyz→Lwyz)}}. (D32) Where τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn : λ[τ1 ,...,τn ] -SenseOf(σ , ω ) = def . (∃µ ){λ[τ1 ,...,τn ] -MPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}}. (D33) Where τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn : λ[τ1 ,...,τn ] -Sense(σ ) =def . (∃ωt )λ[τ1 ,...,τn ] -SenseOf(σ , ω ). (D34) Where π , τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , tτ1 , . . . , tτn (k ≥ 1; 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1) and each of tτ1 , . . . , tτn is one of t1 , . . . , tk : k-aryAtomicλt[π ,τ1 ,...,τn ] -Profile(ρ ) =def . λt[π ,τ1 ,...,τn ] -Profile(ρ) & (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){ρ(w, y, z) → (∃x)(∃m)(∃d1 ) . . . (∃dk ) (∃n1 ) . . . (∃nn )(VarType(x, t, M y ) & TermType(m, , M y ) & TermType(d1 , t1 , M y ) & . . . & TermType(dk , tk , M y ) & NameType (n1 , tτ 1 , M y ) & . . . & NameType(nn , tτ n , M y ) & (∀v)(∀t 0 )((VarType(v, t 0 , M y ) & FreeIn(v, «m(d1 , . . . , dk )»)) → v =E x) & w =E «[λx m (d1 , . . . , dk )]» & (∀n)((n1 =E n ∨ . . . ∨ nn =E n)) → (d1 =E n ∨ . . . ∨ dk =E n)) & (∀d)((d1 =E d ∨ . . . ∨ dk =E d) → ((n1 =E d ∨ . . . ∨ nn =E d) ∨ d = E x)) & z =E «[§x m(d1 , . . . , dk )]» & Val [,tτ1 ...tτn ] (y; π, τ1 , . . . , τn ; m, n1 , . . . , nn ))}. (D35) Where π , τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , tτ1 , . . . , tτn (k ≥ 1; 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1) and each of tτ1 , . . . , tτn is one of t1 , . . . , tk : k-aryAtmλ[π ,τ1 ,...,τn ] -MPof(µ , ω ) =def . k-aryAtmλ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λxt yi z (∃w) (DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)] → (∃L ){k-aryAtomic  λt[π,τ1 ,...,τn ] -Profile(L) & (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z)(Dwyz → Lwyz)}}. (D36) Where π, τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , tτ1 , . . . , tτn (k ≥ 1; 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1) and each of tτ1 , . . . , tτn is one of t1 , . . . , tk : k-aryAtmλ[π ,τ1 ,...,τn ] -SenseOf(σ , ω ) =def . (∃µ ) {k-aryAtmλ[π ,τ1 ,...,τn ] -MPof(µ, ω) & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}. (D37) Where π, τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , tτ1 , . . . , tτn (k ≥ 1; 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1) and each of tτ1 , . . . , tτn is one of t1 , . . . , tk : k-aryAtmλ[π ,τ1 ,...,τn ] -Sense(σ ) = def . (∃ω )k-aryAtm λ[π,τ1 ,...,τn ] -SenseOf(σ, ω).

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(D38) Where π, τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , t1 , . . . , tn —τf (1) , . . . , τf (k) being (for k ≤ n) those of τ1 , . . . , τn which are distinct from the variable νt —and (for 1 ≤ j ≤ k) j is ‘v’ if τj = νt , and j is ‘df (j) ’ otherwise: CAλP
[§ν t π(τ1 ,...,τn )] = def . [λwyi z (∃v)(∃d)(∃df (1) ) . . . (∃df (k) ) {VarType(v, t  , M y ) & NameType(d, , M y ) & NameType (df (1) , tf (1) , M y ) & . . . & NameType(df (k) , tf (k) , M y ) & w =E «[λv d(1 , . . . , n )]» & z =E «[§v d(1 , . . . , n )]» & Val(y; π , τf (1) , . . . , τf (k) ; d, df (1) , . . . , df (k) )}]. (D39)

ThtConOf(σ , ω ) = def . λ-SenseOf(σ , ω ).

(D40) ThtCon(σ ) = def . (∃ω )ThtConOf(σ, ω). (D41)

OpnThtConOf(σ , ω ) =def . (∃µ ){λ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)] → (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){Dwyz → (∃f )(∃v)(VarType(v, i, M y ) & Formula(f , My ) & (∀x)(∀t)((VarType(x, t, My ) & FreeIn(x, f )) ≡ x =E v) & w =E «[λv f ]» & z =E «[§v f ]»} & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}.

(D42) OpnThtCon(σ ) = def . (∃ω )OpnThtConOf(σ, ω). (D43) ClsdThtConOf(σ , ω ) = def . (∃µ ){λ-MPof(µ, ω) & (∀D ){µ = [λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & Dwyz)] → (∀w)(∀yi )(∀z){Dwyz → (∃f )(∃v)(VarType(v, i, M y ) & Formula(f , M y ) & ∼(∃x)(∃t)(VarType(x, t, M y ) & FreeIn(x, f ) & w =E «[λv f ]» & z =E «[§v f ]»)} & (∀G )(σG ≡ G = ℘ (µ))}. (D44) ClsdThtCon(σ ) = def . (∃ω )ClsdThtConOf(σ, ω). (D45) k-aryAtmThtConOf (σ , ω ) =def . k-aryAtmλ-SenseOf (σ , ω ). (D46) k-aryAtmThtCon(σ ) = def . (∃ω )k-aryAtmThtConOf(σ, ω). (D47) Where τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types τ1 , . . . , τn : ThtCon[τ1 ,...,τn ] Of(σ , ω) =def . λ[τ1 ,...,τn ] -Sense Of(σ , ω ). (D48) Where τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types t1 , . . . , tn : ThtCon[τ1 ,...,τn ] (σ ) = def . (∃ω )Tht Con[τ1 ,...,τn ] Of(σ, ω). (D49) Where π , τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , tτ1 , . . . , tτn (k ≥ 1; 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1) and each of tτ1 , . . . , tτn is one of t1 , . . . , tk : k-aryAtmThtCon[π,τ1 ,...,τn ] Of(σ , ω ) = def . k-aryAtmλ[π,τ1 ,...,τn ] -SenseOf(σ , ω ).

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(D50) Where π, τ1 , . . . , τn are terms of respective types , tτ1 , . . . , tτn (k ≥ 1; 0 ≤ n ≤ k + 1) and each of tτ1 , . . . , tτn is one of t1 , . . . , tk : k-aryAtmThtCon[π,τ1 ,...,τn ] (σ ) =def . (∃ω )k-aryAtmThtCon[π,τ1 ,...,τn ] Of(σ , ω ). (D51) TrueOf (σ , ωi ) =def . ThtCon(σ ) & ⎨σ⎬(ω). (D52) Where ωi is a variable foreign to the term σ : True (σ ) =def . ClsdThtCon(σ ) & (∀ωi )TrueOf (σ, ω). (D53) Where (i) φ is a propositional formula (but not a primitive term of type p), (ii) ν t is a variable, (iii) δ1 , . . . , δn are terms of respective types tδ1 , . . . , tδn , (iv) ω1 , . . . , ωr are distinct primitive variables of respective types tω1 , . . . , tωr , (v)
[λ ] is a complex term-proxy
[; ; ] which is a minimal template for [§νt φ] under the substitution of νt , ω1 , . . . , ωr , δ1 , . . . , δn for , 1 , . . . , r , 1 , . . . , n respectively, and (vi) , 1 , . . . , r , 1 , . . . , n are distinct from ‘w’ and ‘z’: CλP
[§ν t φ]
=def . [λwyi z (∃)(∃1 ) . . . (∃r )(∃1 ) . . . (∃n ) {w =E «[λ ]» & VarType(, t  , M y ) & VarType(, tω 1 M y ) & . . . & VarType(r , tω 1 M y ) & NameType(1 , tδ 1 , M y ) & . . . & NameType(n , tδ n , M y ) & z =E «[§ ]» & Val[tδ1 ,...,tδn ] (y; δ1 , . . . , δn ; 1 , . . . , n )}]. (D54) ↑ (ρ ) =def . (ιβ )Marks(β, ρ). A.5 Axioms of TC [Since (A14) and (A15) are cited as axioms in the text, they are included here despite the fact that they become redundant once their generalizations (A20) and (A21) are adopted.] (A1)

Property-Reduct Principle. Every instance of the following is an axiom: (∀P )(∀Q ){(℘ (P) = ℘ (Q)) → (∀x1t1 ) . . . (∀xntn )(Px1 . . . xn ≡ Qx1 . . . xn )}.

(A2) O-Name Principle. For every primitive name αt borrowed from English, every instance of
O! (αt ) is an axiom.

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(A3) Mentalese Univocality Principle. Every instance of the following is an axiom: (∀ui )(∀n)(∀xt )(∀yt ){Agent(u) & NameType(n, t  , Mu ) & DenIn(n, x, Mu ) & DenIn(n, y, Mu )) → x = y}. (A4) Mentalese Actuality Principle. (∀xi )(∀yi )(∀n)((O!x & NameType(n, i, My ) & DenIn(n, x, M y )) → E!x). (A5) Context Principle. (∀ci ){Context(c) → (∀t)(∃!R ) ) . . . (∀R (E , κ, α, x) Refκ,α (E )L0 =def (ιxt )Refers< L0

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,i,i,t> Senκ,α (E )L0 =def (ιxt )Expresses< (E , κ, α, x) L0

—where, for each of the finitely many L0 -types t occupied by L0 is the appropriate relativized reference-relation and expressions, RefersL 0

the appropriate relativized expression-relation. The names ExpressesL 0

’ and ‘ExpressesL ’ are primitives of STC : no attempt will be ‘RefersL 0 0

or ExpressesL made here to reduce them—i.e., to equate RefersL 0 0 with relations specified in other terms. Since our current project is semantical rather than meta-semantical, it requires only that we specify the extension of these relations via-a-vis L0 , not that we provide a reductive account of them. Importantly, our theory will allow that what is expressed by E —viz., its sense—can always be identified apart from the expression-relation Expresses . The senses of primitive terms of L0 are specified by taking as semantical postulates6 of STC the universal closures of the following: Senc,f (‘is ’) = Ref c,f (‘is ’) (where t is i or or or ) Senc,f (‘believesk ’) = [believesk ]c Senc,f (V t ) = Ref c,f (V t )

(where t is i or or < i > or )

Senc,f (‘uk ’) = [I k ]c (∀xi )(x = Senc,f (‘ak ’) ≡ x = [youk ] )7 c

(∀xi )(x

= Senc,f (‘dk ’) ≡ x = [thisk ]c )

(∀xi )(x = Senc,f (‘hk ’) ≡ x = [hek ]c ) (∀xi )(x = Senc,f (‘sk ’) ≡ x = [shek ]c ) and by taking as semantical postulates of STC the universal closures of the finitely many instances of the scheme Senc,f (τ× k ) = [τk ]c i ∪ in which τ× k is the subscripted, de-italicized version of τ ∈ NAMES ∪ NAMES NAMES . Thus, e.g., the universal generalizations with respect to ‘c’ and ‘f ’ of the following equations will be semantical postulates of STC courtesy of this schema:

Senc,f (‘Wandak ’) = [Wandak ]c , Senc,f (‘redk ’) = [red k ]c , Senc,f (‘kicksk ’) = [kicksk ]c .

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Since, by hypothesis, the only relational types in L0 occupied by primitive expressions are , , and , the senses of the possible atomic predications
T0 (T1 ) and
T0 (T1 , T2 ) in which T0 is a primitive name in L0 are compositionally supplied by adopting as postulates of STC the universal closures of the following three formulas:8 (TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , i, L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
T0 (T1 )) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (T0 )(Senc,f (T1 ))]). (TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , i, L0 ) & TermType(T2 , i, L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
T0 (T1 , T2 )) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (T0 )(Senc,f (T1 ), Senc,f (T2 ))]). (TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , i, L0 ) & TermType(T2 , , L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
T0 (T1 , T2 )) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (T0 )(Senc,f (T1 ), Senc,f (T2 ))]). However, since L0 permits the formation of monadic abstracts of the sort
[V t |S ], which will be derived terms of type , STC will also need the additional three postulates of the form (TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , t, L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
T0 (T1 )) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (T0 )(Senc,f (T1 ))]), in which t is or or . The senses of complex terms and compound formulas of L0 likewise hold no surprises, being provided for in STC by postulates which are the universal closures of the following formulas (in which ‘V t ’ ranges over type t variables of L0 (t being, it will be remembered, either i or or or ) and f [xt /V t ] is the result of semantically substituting the object xt for the variable V t in the assignment f ): (∀y )(y = Senc,f (
[V t |S ]) ≡ y = [λxt Senc,f [xt /V t ] (S )]). (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
If S1 then S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (S1 ) → Senc,f (S2 )]). (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
not S) ≡ x = [λ ∼Senc,f (S )]). (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
S1 iff S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (S1 ) ≡ Senc,f (S2 )]). (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
S1 and S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (S1 ) & Senc,f (S2 )]). (∀xp )(x = Senc,f (
S1 or S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Senc,f (S1 ) ∨ Senc,f (S2 )]). FreeIn(V i , S ) → (∀y )(y = Senc,f (
thatV i S) ≡ y = [§xi Senc,f (
[V i |S ])(x)]). (∼OccursIn(V i , S ) → (∀y )(y = Senc,f (
thatV i S) ≡ y = [§xi Senc,f (S )]).

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(∀yp )(y = Senc,f (
(all V t )S) ≡ y = [λ (∀xt )Senc,f (
[V t |S ])(x)]). (∀yp )(y = Senc,f (
(some V t )S) ≡ y = [λ (∃xt )Senc,f (
[V t |S])(x)]). (∀yp )(y = Senc,f (
(the V t : S1 )S2 ) ≡ y = [λ (the xt : Senc,f (
[V t |S1 ])(x))(Senc,f (
[V t |S2 ])(x))]. The salient reference-postulates in STC for the primitive terms of L0 are the universal closures of the following: Ref c,f (‘is ’) = [λxt yt x =E y] (where t is i or or or ) Ref c,f (V t ) = f (V t )

(where t is either i or or or )

Ref c,f (‘uk ’) = [I ]c (∀xi )(x = Ref c,f (‘ak ’) ≡ x = [youk ]c ) (∀xi )(x = Ref c,f (‘hk ’) ≡ x = [hek ]c ) (∀xi )(x = Ref c,f (‘sk ’) ≡ x = [shek ]c ) (∀xi )(x = Ref c,f (‘dk ’) ≡ x = [thisk ]c ) Ref c,f (‘believesk ’) = Believes and the universal closures of the finitely many instances of the schema Ref c,f (τ× k)=τ in which, as before, τ× k is the subscripted, de-italicized version of τ ∈ i NAMES ∪ NAMES ∪ NAMES . Thus, e.g., the universal generalizations with respect to ‘c’ and ‘f ’ of the following equations will be semantical postulates of STC courtesy of this schema: Ref c,f (‘Wandak ’) = Wanda, Ref c,f (‘redk ’) = red , Ref c,f (‘kicksk ’) = kicks . The referents of the possible atomic predications
T0 (T1 ) and
T0 (T1 , T2 ) are compositionally supplied in STC by postulates which are the universal closures of the following (where t is either i or or or ): (TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , t, L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Refc,f (
T0 (T1 )) ≡ x = [λ Refc,f (T0 )(Refc,f (T1 ))]).

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Chapter 6

(TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , i, L0 ) & TermType(T2 , i, L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Ref c,f (
T0 (T1 , T2 )) ≡ x = [λ Ref c,f (T0 )(Ref c,f (T1 ), Ref c,f (T2 ))]). (TermType(T0 , , L0 ) & TermType(T1 , i, L0 ) & TermType(T2 , , L0 )) → (∀xp )(x = Ref c,f (
T0 (T1 , T2 )) ≡ x = [λ Ref c,f (T0 )(Ref c,f (T1 ), Ref c,f (T2 ))]). The postulates of STC specifying the referents of abstracts and compound formulas parallel those specifying their senses, being the universal closures of (∀y )(y = Refc,f (
[V t |S ]) ≡ y = [λxt Refc,f [xt /V t ] (S )]). (∀xp )(x = Refc,f (
If S1 then S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Refc,f (S1 ) → Ref c,f (S2 )]). (∀xp )(x = Ref c,f (
not S) ≡ x = [λ ∼Ref c,f (S )]). (∀xp )(x = Ref c,f (
S1 iff S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Refc,f (S1 ) ≡ Ref c,f (S2 )]). (∀xp )(x = Ref c,f (
S1 and S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Refc,f (S1 ) & Refc,f (S2 )]). (∀xp )(x = Ref c,f (
S1 or S2 ) ≡ x = [λ Refc,f (S1 ) ∨ Refc,f (S2 )]). (∀yp )(y = Ref c,f (
(all V t )S) ≡ y = [λ (∀xt )Ref c,f (
[V t |S ])(x)]). (∀yp )(y = Ref c,f (
(some V t )S) ≡ y = [λ (∃xt )Ref c,f (
[V t |S ])(x)]). (∀yp )(y = Ref c,f (
(the V t : S1 )S2 ) ≡ y = [λ (the xt : Ref c,f (
[V t |S1 ])(x))(Ref c,f (
[V t |S2 ])(x))]. An important difference between STC and a traditional Fregean semantics is that STC identifies the referent of a ‘that’-clause with the sense of the ‘that’-clause itself, and not (as Fregean semantic theories typically do) with the sense of the embedded sentence. STC ’s postulate for such clauses is thus the universal closure of the following: (∀y )(y = Ref c,f (
that X S) ≡ y = Senc,f (
that X S)). The referent simpliciter of a formula S of L0 in a context c (in symbols: Refc (S )L0 ) is defined in STC as the proposition (if any) that S denotes in c relative to every assignment f —i.e., STC has as a definition scheme Refc (σ) =def (ιxp )(∀f )(x = Ref c,f (σ)). (σ ranging over sentences of L0 .) Bearing in mind that our basic notion of truth, viz., truth-for-propositions, is defined in redundancy fashion by the axiom ‘(∀xp )(Tr(x) ≡ x)’ of TC, we may define STC ’s truth-predicate for L0 by the scheme

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TRUEc (σ)L0 =def Tr(Refc (σ)L0 ), according to which for a sentence to be true-in-L0 -in-a-context-c is just for it’s referent simpliciter in c to be a true proposition. The redundancy account of truth-for-propositions ensures that the sense- and reference-talk can ultimately be eliminated from the right-hand side of our T-sentences for L0 . Notice also that ∼(∃xt )(x = Refc (T )) → (∼TRUEc (S )L0 & ∼TRUEc (
not S)L0 ) is provable for any sentence S and term T of L0 -type t occurring therein. Since L1 , like English but unlike L0 , is a deictically and structurally ambiguous language, it is natural further to relativize sense and reference in L1 to a disambiguation for L1 under a frame assignment F—which, it will be remembered, is a function DF assigning to each sentence S of L1 a reading within the textual frame FS —i.e., to allow for the interpretation of a given L1 -sentence only within the reading provided by some disambiguation under some textual frame. The point of considering some univocal L0 -proxy as a reading of a given L1 sentence S is, of course, to provide one way of resolving syntactical ambiguity in the latter. The reason for further complicating this disambiguation by reference to some textual frame for S lies in certain difficulties in resolving deictic ambiguity via context. Often—e.g., when assessing arguments whose premisses and/or conclusions contain various sorts of context-dependent expressions—we wish simultaneously to evaluate several such sentences with respect to a given context, holding fixed the hypothetical utterer/arguer but allowing contextually determined items such as addressees and/or demonstrated objects to vary across those sentences. Obviously, the context-dependent L1 -sentences ‘jerk(he)’ and ‘not jerk(he)’ ought to be capable of being simultaneously true in a single context, if the utterer in that context is referring to two different people via the two occurrences of ‘he’. But, as is equally obvious, this natural demand could not be met if their L0 -counterparts had to be ‘jerk1 (h1 )’ and ‘not jerk1 (h1 )’. Instead, there must be a mechanism whereby the deictic terms in question can be indexed in a way that takes account of the fact (when it is a fact) that they are part of a larger corpus under evaluation. When no such wider corpus is relevant, each sentence S can be given the default frame <S >. (We have allowed as distinct textual frames for a given L1 -sentence S even those that differ only in the order of their members, but if necessary this could be tightened by imposing the further requirement that the order of sentences in a textual frame for S must be of some canonical sort, perhaps by magnitude of Gödel number or some such.) Relative, say, to the textual frame , the ingredient L1 -sentences ‘jerk(he)’ and ‘not jerk(he)’ would correlate with the L0 -sentences ‘jerk1 (h1 )’ and ‘not jerk2 (h2 )’, hence would acquire the respective truth conditions Jerk([he1 ]c ) and ∼Jerk([he2 ]c ), which may both obtain when c is such that [he1 ]c = [he2 ]c .

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Chapter 6

Our base semantics STC for L0 may now be extended to a simple proxy-semantics for L1 by adopting as further postulates the universal closures of the following two formulas (in which ‘S ’ ranges over L1 -sentences and ‘DF ‘ ranges over disambiguations for L1 under arbitrary frame assignments F for L1 ): (∀xp )(x = Senc,f ,DF (S )L1 ≡ x = Senc,f (DF (S ))L0 ). (∀xp )(x = Refc,f ,DF (S )L1 ≡ x = Ref c,f (DF (S ))L0 ). The univocal referent of a sentence S of L1 in a context c (in symbols: Refc (S )L1 ) is the proposition (if any) that S denotes in c relative to every assignment f and every disambiguation DF . This notion is introduced into STC by the postulate which is the universal closure of (∀xp )(x = Refc (S )L1 ≡ (∀f )(∀DF )(x = Refc,f ,DF (S )L1 )). It should be clear that the L1 -formulas with univocal referents are precisely the closed ones (sentences) which are devoid of ‘that’-clauses containing singular terms. The DF -disambiguated referent of a sentence S of L1 in a context c (in symbols: Refc,DF (S )L1 ) is the proposition (if any) that S denotes in c relative to every variable-assignment f and the particular disambiguation DF . This notion is introduced into STC by the postulate which is the universal closure of (∀xp )(x = Refc,DF (S )L1 ≡ (∀f )(x = Refc,f ,DF (S )L1 )). L1 -sentences with ‘that’-clauses which contain singular terms may have a variety of DF -disambiguated referents in a given context, but will have no univocal referent in that context. Finally, S ’s being true in L1 in a context c under a disambiguation DF (for short: DF -truec in L1 ) may be defined as its DF -disambiguated referent in c being a true proposition; and S ’s being univocally true in L1 in c may be defined as its being DF -true in c for every disambiguation DF : accordingly, STC will contain the definitions DF -TRUEc (S )L1 =def . Tr(Refc,DF (S )L1 ); TRUEc (S )L1 =def . (∀DF )(DF -TRUEc (S )L1 ), in consequence of which STC will have as theorems the desired equivalences (∀SL1 )(∀DF )(DF -TRUEc (S )L1 ≡ TRUEc (DF (S ))L0 ); (∀SL1 )(TRUEc (S )L1 ≡ (∀DF )TRUEc (DF (S ))L0 ). This completes our sketch of the sense-reference semantics STC for L1 and its account of truth-in-L1 relative to a context c.

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By way of illustration, let us briefly examine the consequences of the foregoing for the truth-conditions of a sample belief-ascription in L1 . Consider, e.g., the context-dependent sentence (8) of L1 : (8)

believes(I, that red(this))

(Here, and throughout what follows, we shall invoke our abbreviatory convention to suppress the subscripted variable on ‘that’ when the sentence that follows it contains no free variables.) Since no larger corpus is at issue here, we shall restrict our attention to disambiguation under the default textual frame F(8) = . Now within that frame, (8) will be ambiguous as between four non-equivalent readings, viz., the pure de dicto reading (9a), the pure de re reading (9d), and the mixed readings (9b-c): (9)

a. b. c. d.

believes1 (u1 , that red1 (d1 )) [Xi | believes1 (u1 , that red1 (X))](d1 ) [Y | believes1 (u1 , that Y(d1 ))](red1 ) [Xi | [Y | believes1 (u1 , that Y(X))](red1 )](d1 ).

Where D(8)/(9a) through D(8)/(9d) are disambiguations under F(8) assigning the readings (9a) through (9d) respectively to (8), STC yields (after some simplification by λ-conversion) the T-sentences (10a) through (10d): (10)

a. D(8)/(9a) -TRUEc (‘believes(I, that red(this))’) ≡ Believes([I ]c , [§xi [red 1 ]c ([this1 ]c )]). b. D(8)/(9b) -TRUEc (‘believes(I, that red(this))’) ≡ Believes([I ]c , [§xi [red 1 ]c ([this1 ]c )]). c. D(8)/(9c) -TRUEc (‘believes(I, that red(this))’) ≡ Believes([I ]c , [§xi red ([this1 ]c )]). d. D(8)/(9d) -TRUEc (‘believes(I, that red(this))’) ≡ Believes([I ]c , [§xi red ([this1 ]c )]).

Provided c is such that something counts as [this1 ]c , it can be shown that the truth condition laid down in theorem (10a) obtains just in case the utterer u in c B -registers   a sentence of M u of the kind «r(d[PO1 ]c )» in which [CR 1 ]c (u, r, red )—i.e.,   in which r is (by the lights of [CR1 ]c ) a c-salient counterpart of red for u in c (hence denotes red ) — and d[PO1 ]c is a demonstrative of M u denoting therein the object [this1 ]c (on which the percept [PO1 ]c is based). Similarly, and again provided something counts as [this1 ]c , it can be shown that the truth condition laid down by theorem (10b) obtains just in case the utterer u in c B -registers a sentence «r(a)» of M u in which r is (by the lights of [CR 1 ]c ) a c-salient counterpart of  red  for u in c and a in M denotes [this ] . And so on, mutatis mutandis, for the u 1 c truth conditions dictated by (10c) and (10d).

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Two things need to be noted here. First of all, choice of textual frame for (8) can affect the verdict on the truth conditions in c of its readings: had a wider frame than just been chosen, this might have necessitated a shift from talking about [this1 ]c and [this1 ]c to talking instead about [thisk ]c and [thisk ]c for some k = 1. This, however, should be no more disconcerting than the fact that whether we regard the k th item demonstrated by the utterer u in a context c as relevant to the truth in c of ‘Dog(this)’ as hypothetically uttered by u will depend on whether we think of the ingredient occurrence of ‘this’ as associated with u’s k th demonstration. Secondly, the truth conditions in question do not ineliminably mention A-objects. Indeed, the only A-object mentioned at all is the context c itself, but all mention of c is within definite descriptions like ‘the utterer u in c’, ‘[PO1 ]c ’, ‘[this1 ]c ’, and ‘[CR 1 ]c ’, hence is in principle eliminable by replacing these terms with designations of the particular person, percept, object, and counterpart relation in question that do not mention c. And though we might not have such designations at hand, there is no a priori reason why these ordinary items should not be thus independently specifiable. 6.4

SEMANTICS FOR MENTALESE—OR: SPEAK FOR YOURSELF!

The semantical theory STC we have provided for L0 and L1 is both finitely axiomatized and compositional. Now it is important to distinguish between, on the one hand, the demand for finite axiomatization of some subject-matter in the language of a certain theory and, on the other hand, the demand for a finite axiomatization of that theory itself. Thus, e.g., one might employ the language of a formal set theory like ZFS to provide a finitely axiomatized compositional semantics for a certain extensional first-order language L; but the fact that ZFS itself is not finitely axiomatizable would not detract in the least from one’s having met the initial demand regarding L. Similarly, the fact that STC is finitely axiomatized in the language of a theory TC whose own proffered axiomatization is not finite but essentially employs axiom schemata does not in itself show that we have failed to provide the desired sort of semantics for L0 and L1 . However, there is a special feature of STC which might occasion a related suspicion: viz., STC overtly and essentially appeals to the semantic properties of items in various languages of thought. It might be argued that (a) we have purchased the desired semantics for L0 and L1 at the cost of tacitly assuming that some finitely axiomatizable compositional story can be told about these Mentalese semantic properties, and (b) no such story is possible, so that (c) our victory over the truththeoretic skeptic is hollow. Now we obviously cannot refute this argument by giving here a finitely axiomatized compositional semantics for every thinker’s Mentalese idiolect. But there is no need to. For the skeptic’s premiss (a) is false: nowhere have we relied upon any assumption about the existence of finitely axiomatizable compositional semantical theories for languages of thought (though we have assumed

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that a semantics for Mentalese, whatever its shape, will yield certain theorems about terms of the sort «[λx S]» and «[§x S]»). On the contrary, we have made—and our project anent L0 and L1 requires—only the following five idealizing assumptions about languages of thought: (i) that they have the same basic syntactic structure as L0 ; (ii) that they contain counterparts of L0 ’s logical vocabulary among their primitives; (iii) that their primitive terms have determinate denotations identifiable in TC or some specifiable extension thereof; (iv) that a Mentalese demonstrative dx denotes the object x; and (v) that whatever semantics is appropriate for Mentalese will make its terms of the sort «[§x S]» obey the Mentalese Denotation and Truth Principles of TC. Of these assumptions, only (iii)-(v) are semantical. Of course, if every language of thought had a finitely axiomatized semantics of the sort we have explored, it is not hard to see how it might vouchsafe the truth of (iii)-(v). But this fact hardly shows that assuming (iii)-(v) amounts to presupposing the existence of such a theory! Nor is the skeptic’s premiss (b) very plausible, as may be seen by briefly considering what, subject to certain modest working assumptions about Mentalese, a finitely axiomatized compositional semantics for a language of thought might look like from the standpoint of TC. The needed assumptions about Mentalese are these: — that an agent u’s language of thought M u , in addition to containing finitely many primitive names in various M u -types, also permits the generation of derived coreferential names in those M u -types via (a Mentalese analogue of) numerical subscripting; — that a given name n in M u -type t and all the type t names «nk » thus derived from n are mutually interchangeable for u except inside sense-terms of M u ; — that M u contains sense-markers for counterpart and percept-correspondence relations and—where ‘’ and ‘@’ are metavariables of TC ranging respectively over these two kinds of sense-markers—uses them to generate sense-names of the sort «[nk ] » from (but only from) subscripted derived names «nk » and to generate sense-names of the sort «[dIx ]@ » from demonstrative-types «[dIx ]»; — that u’s tokenings of expression-kinds in M u are causally connected with u’s tokenings of expression-kinds in u’s public language L (if any) in such as way as to legitimize speaking of an expression-kind of L as the surface reflection (i.e., the standard externalization for u) of one or more expression-kinds in M u ; and — that a given primitive name n in M u and all of the redundant names «nk » derived from it have the same surface reflection in L. Then, provided u has a natural language at all, u can, in principle at least, give a context-relativized semantics for u’s own Mentalese M u according to the firstperson recipe given below (or its translation into u’s home language L in case L is not English). The language in which this recipe is stated is to be regarded as u’s own idiolect of English (or L as the case may be). Since idiolects of a language can and usually do diverge to some extent from the standard version of the language, u’s idiolectic formulation ‘n denotes N’(or its translation into L) might need adjustment

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if it is to remain true when considered as a sentence of Standard English (or L). Thus, e.g., ‘n denotes N’ might need to be replaced by ‘n denotes M’ when ‘N’ is an idiolect word the translation of which into Standard English is the distinct word ‘M’. (This point about idiolects will prove to be important in Chapter 8). The First-Person Recipe Where n is either a primitive nondemonstrative name in M I (my language of thought) or any name derived from one such via numerical subscripting, let $(n) be the surface reflection of n in my language; and where ‘f ’ is a variable ranging over assignments of O-objects to free variables of M I and  is a term of M I , let ‘DenInf ’ stand for the f -relativized version of the semantical relation DenIn. Finally, let
DENf () and
DEN () abbreviate
(ιxt )DenInf (, x, M I ) and
(ιxt )(∀f )DenInf (, x, M I ) respectively.9 Then I adopt the following semantical postulates for M I . 1. Postulates for variables. Every instance of the following scheme is a semantical postulate for M I : For any type t  variable v of M I and any assignment f of type t objects, DENf (v) = f (v). 2. Postulates for primitive nondemonstrative names. Where  is my canonical name or description of one of the (finitely many) primitive names in one of the (finitely many) occupied M I -types and σ = $() = $(«k ») for any numerical subscript k, each of the (finitely many) instances of the following two schemes are semantical postulates for M I : DEN () = σ .10 For any numerical subscript k, DEN («k ») = σ . 3. Postulate for primitive demonstrative names. For any individual x and type i term z of M I : if z = dIx for some x-based percept Ix and demonstrative tag d of M I , then DEN (z) = x. 4. Postulate for my special self-name I. DEN (I) = I. 5. Postulate for lambda-abstracts. The universal closures of the instances of the following scheme are semantical postulates for M I : (VarType(z, t  , M I ) & Formula(S, M I ) & FreeIn(z, S)) → (DENf («[λz S]») = [λxt DENf [x/z] (S)]).

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6. Postulates for Mentalese sense-terms.11 a. Non-demonstrative Sense-names. Where «k » is my canonical name or description of the k-subscripted version of one of the (finitely many) nondemonstrative names in one of the (finitely many) occupied M I -types and σ = $(«k »), each of the (finitely many) instances of the following scheme is a semantical postulate for M I : For any k ≥ 1, sense-marker  and counterpart relation C such that  =E ↑(C), DEN («[k ] ») = (ιν t )(∀F )(νF ≡ F = ℘ ([λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & [λrsi v Agent(s) & (∃1 )(1 =E ↑(C) & v =E «[r]1 ») & C(s, r, σ  )]wyz])). (From the standpoint of TC, the upshot is that DEN («[k ] ») = [σ k ]c for  any context c such that  =E ↑([CRtk ]c ).) b. Demonstrative Sense-names. The following is a semantical postulate for M I : For any individual b, b-based percept Ib , demonstrative tag d of M I , percept-correspondence relation R, and sense-marker @ such that @ =E ↑(R): DEN («[dIb ]@ ») = (ιν i )(∀F )(νF ≡ F = ℘ ([λxi yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & [λrsv Agent(s) & NameType(r, i, M s ) & (∃@1 )(@1 =E ↑(R) & v =E «[r]@1 ») & (∃d )(∃sb )(DemTag(d , M s ) & R(sb , Ib ) & r =E d sb )]wyz)])). (When δ = $(«dIb »), this postulate has the result that DEN («[dIb ]@ ») = [δ k ]c for any context c and k ≥ 1 such that both @ = ↑(Corc ) and [δk ]c = b.) c. Complex sense-terms. The universal closure of each instance of either of the following schemes (in which ‘f ’ ranges over assignments of type t objects) is a semantical postulate for M I : (Formula(S, M I ) & VarType(x, t  , M I ) & ∼OccursIn(x, S)) → DENf («[§x S]») = [§z t DENf (S)]. (Formula(S, M I ) & VarType(x, t  , M I ) & FreeIn(x, S)) → DENf («[§x S]») = [§z t DENf («[λx S]»)(z)]. 7. Postulates for k-ary Atomic Predications. For each k ∈ Int such that M I contains a primitive or derived k-ary relation name, the universal closure of each instance of the following scheme is a semantical postulate for M I : (TermType(f , , M I ) & TermType(a1 , t 1 , M I ) & . . . &

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TermType(ak , t k , M I )) → (∀xp )(x = DENf («f (a1 , . . . , ak )») ≡ x = [λ DENf (f )(DENf (a1 ), . . . , DENf (ak ))]). 8. Postulates for compound sentences. The universal closures of (a) and (b) are semantical postulates for M I : a. (Formula(S1 , M I ) & Formula(S2 , M I )) → (∀xp )(x = DENf («S1 → S2 ») ≡ x = [λ DENf (S1 ) → DENf (S2 )]). b. Formula(S, M I ) → (∀xp )(x = DENf («∼S») x = [λ ∼DENf (S)]). 9. Postulates for quantified sentences. The universal closures of the instances of the following scheme (in which ‘f ’ ranges over assignments of type t objects) are semantical postulates for M I : (Formula(S, M I ) & VarType(v, t  , M I ) & FreeIn(v, S)) → (∀xp )(x = DENf («(∀v)S») ≡ x = [λ (∀yt )DENf [y/v] (S)]). Finally, I adopt the the following definition scheme. For any sentence  of M I : M I -TRUE() =def Tr(DEN ()). [End of the Recipe] Because the postulate schemes appealed to in cases 1, 5, 6c, and 9 contain the type-schemata ‘t’ and ‘t  ’, they will generate as many instances as there are M I -types occupied by variables. Since it is reasonable to suppose that a person’s Mentalese has a finite primitive vocabulary, there is no evident need to populate it with variables of every possible type. Let us assume, then, that a person’s Mentalese contains variables of just finitely many Mentalese types, including at least those types that are occupied by one or more primitive names. Also, although we have so far needed to invoke only unary Mentalese lambda-abstracts, we might want to allow a person’s Mentalese to contain n-ary abstracts for some n > 1. But if we allow this for every n ∈ Int, then we will need infinitely many postulates from clause 7 to handle predications in which f is such a lambda-abstract (derived name). Let us further assume, then, that there is for each person a finite upper bound on the adicity of lambda-abstracts in that person’s language of thought. Subject to these two assumptions, one could by following the Recipe above give a finitely axiomatized denotational semantics for one’s Mentalese idiolect M I in which the notion ‘sense of an M I -expression’ plays no role at all (though of course certain of the objects assigned as denotata will be the kinds of A-objects called ‘senses’ in TC).

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Assumption (v)—that Mentalese terms of the sorts «[λx S]» and «[§x S]» obey the Mentalese Denotation and Truth Principles—would be vindicated at least where one’s own language of thought is concerned, for all the relevant instances of these Principles would now be theorems. That is to say, for k, n ≥ 1, one would be able to prove the likes of (∀1 )(∀2 )(∀c){(1 = ↑([CR ]c ) & 2 = ↑([CRin ]c )) → k (∀r)(∀s)(∀x){(NameType(«rk », , M I ) & NameType(«sn », i, M I ) & VarType(x, i, M I ) & $(«rk ») =  red  & $(«sn ») =  Spot  ) → DEN (« [§x [rk ]1 ([sn ]2 )]») = [§z i [red k ]c ([Spot n ] )]}} c

and (∀1 )(∀2 )(∀c ){(1 = ↑([CR ]c ) & 2 = ↑([CRin ]c )) → k (∀r)(∀s)(∀x){(NameType(«rk », , M I ) & NameType(«sn », i, M I ) & VarType(x, i, M I ) & DEN («[§x [rk ]1 ([sn ]2 )]») = [§z i [red k ]c ([Spot n ] )]) → (TRUE(«rk (sn )») ≡ (red (Spot))}} c

directly from one’s denotation postulates for MI , without invoking TC’s Mentalese Truth and Denotation Principles. This fact would also vindicate TC’s provisional adoption of those Principles in the first place by allowing each of us to show that their instances hold of his/her own Mentalese idiolect. 6.5

PROSPECTS FOR NATURALIZATION

Our constructions so far have assumed the existence of certain words-to-world relations designated in TC’s by variously typed versions of ‘DenIn’—semantical relations which not only connect certain Mentalese expressions to actual things but which also connect certain other Mentalese expressions to senses, which are non-actual objects. No attempt has been made, however, to reduce Mentalese denotation to any other sort of relation, let alone to one that could be described using only the vocabulary of the natural sciences. Indeed, the appeal to non-actual objects like senses as possible denotata of Mentalese expressions might seem to guarantee that no naturalization of Mentalese semantics is even possible, hence that TC is committed to a sort of Semantic Dualism in the form of irreducibly intentional denotation-relations. One reason for not being embarrassed by the primitive status of Mentalese denotation in TC is that intentional and semantic relations, even when their range is confined to ordinary things, have so far resisted every attempt to reduce them to ‘natural’ relations. The extant theories—whether appealing to causal chains, information structures, optimal conditions, conceptual roles, or natural

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teleology—either fail to account for all the relevant data (for principled reasons that resist any obvious fix) or manage to approach adequacy only by invoking notions whose status as non-semantic and non-intentional is open to serious question. As Barry Loewer puts it in his recent review of the relevant literature: As of now we don’t know whether semantic naturalism is true and, if it is true, we don’t know whether we can know, of any particular proposed naturalization, that it is correct; though, as we have seen, we can know of some [viz., all the current candidates] that they are incorrect (Loewer, 1997: 122). If semantic relations, like the proverbial bump under the rug, can be chased from place to place but not stamped out completely, then the fact that there is a semantic bulge under TC’s carpet is not by itself fatal. (It could of course be argued that some rival theory of belief meeting the relevent adequacy conditions is preferable on the ground that its semantical primitives involve only actual entities: some lumpy carpets are less unsightly than others. Deciding this issue would require a cost-benefit comparison of TC with all known alternatives—a project too vast to be undertaken here.) Even if semantic relations like Mentalese denotation could not in principle be reduced to natural relations involving only actual things, it would not follow that they are irreducible in every relevant sense. As Paul Horwich (1998) points out, it is a fallacy to infer, from the fact that ‘x means/denotes [the property] Dog’ contains the relational expression ‘x means y’, that whatever constitutes the property of meaning/denoting Dog must itself contain the relation of meaning/denoting or something that constitutes that relation. What is required for a relatively superficial property s(x) to be ‘constituted’ by an underlying property u(x) is, he maintains, that they should be coextensive and that the fact of their coextensiveness should provide the basic explanation for facts about s(x). Now the important point …is that these conditions do not require any commonality of logical form between ‘s(x)’ and ‘u(x)’; nothing preclude the possibility that the superficial property ‘s(x)’ be a relation—articulated as ‘s∗ (k,x)’—and that the underlying property ‘u(x)’ be monadic and not divisible into a part that constitutes k and a part that constitutes ‘s∗ (y,x)’ (Horwich, 1998: 25). Following this line, Horwich proposes that the semantic features of primitive words (whether in Mentalese or in a public language) are constituted by their use properties, where these can be spelled out (in non-intensional vocabulary) via a ‘wide’ version of conceptual/inferential role semantics, on which an agent’s uses of a given word are seen as grounded in facts about the agent’s dispositions to accept certain key sentences containing the word under such-and-such environmental conditions.

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If Horwich is right,12 it may be possible to naturalize TC’s talk of Mentalese denotation and the belief relation at least where ‘first-order’ beliefs are concerned. Thus, e.g., Tom’s belief that Fido is a dog, which TC construes as Tom’s bearing the relation believes to a certain thought-content, is coextensive with—and might be said in the above sense to be constituted by—Tom’s acceptance of a Mentalese sentence «d(f )» in which d and f are words of his Mentalese which respectively denote Fido and the property being a dog (and which may also be required to have use properties in his Mentalese that are related in certain ways to those of our own words ‘Fido’ and ‘dog’). But such a strategy breaks down when the beliefs in question are ‘higher-order’—beliefs about beliefs or other propositional attitudes. For in such a case TC requires the subject’s Mentalese to contain names of senses. And however plausible it may be that ‘x means/denotes [the property] Dog’ can be naturalized in the way Horwich envisages, no such plausibility attaches to the project of naturalizing ‘x means/denotes Dog c ’. But if the likes of ‘x means/denotes Dog c ’ cannot be naturalized, then the fact that bearing the belief relation to a thought-content is coextensive with accepting such-and-such Mentalese sentences, some of whose parts must denote senses, will be of no use in naturalizing the belief relation either. Assuming that TC does an overall better job than its rivals, especially as regards accommodating higher-order thoughts, semantic dualism may turn out to be the price we must pay for an adequate account of thought and its contents.

NOTES 1 Intuitively, the truth-theory in question is ‘interpretive’ of its object-language when the indicated truth conditions are those that flow from the meaning of the sentences in question: this is the intuition that underlies the Davidsonian requirement that knowledge of such a truth-theory for a language should enable one correctly to interpret (i.e., to understand ) utterances of its (declarative) sentences. 2 The idea would be to identify a context with an A-individual c such that, for some person U , time-interval T , place P, addressee assignment fA , object assignment fO , male assignment fM , female assignment fF , percept assignments gI , gA , gO , gM , gF , counterpart relation assignment CR and percept-correspondence relation Cor:

(a) the domains of fA , fO , fM , fF are subsets of Int respectively coinciding with those of gA , gO , gM , gF ; and (b) the value of gI for each k ∈ Int is one of U ’s a U -based percepts; and (c) the value of each of gA , gO , gM , gF for a given integer k in its domain is one of U ’s percepts based on the corresponding one of fA (k), fO (k), fM (k), fF (k); and (d) c encodes a property Q just in case: either Q is the property-reduct of Cor, or Q is the propertyreduct of a member of CR(t) for some Mentalese type t, or Q is the following complex type property: [λwi w is an expression token produced by U at T in P; and (for any individual x, x is demonstrated in the course of uttering w at T in P iff: either x =E fA (k) for some k ∈ Dmn(fA ), or x =E fO (k) for some k ∈ Dmn(fO ), or x =E fM (k) for some k ∈ Dmn(fM ), or x =E fF (k) for some k ∈ Dmn(fF )) and (for any percept ,  is associated with w at T in P iff:  =E gI (j) for some j ∈ Int, or  =E gA (j) for some j ∈ Dmn(gA ), or  =E gO (j)

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Chapter 6 for some j ∈ Dmn(gO ), or  =E gM (j) for some j ∈ Dmn(gM ), or  =E gF (j) for some j ∈ Dmn(gF ))]. (for short, ‘[(λwQ(w, U , T , P; fA , fO , fM , fF ; gI , gA , gO , gM , gF )]’).

Using this technical notion of a context as an A-individual encoding the aforementioned properties, it would then be a simple matter to define expressions of the kinds ‘[I ]c ’, ‘[now]c ’, ‘[here]c ’, ‘[youk ]c ’, ‘[thisk ]c ’, ‘[hek ]c ’, ‘[shek ]c ’, ‘[PI k ]c ’, ‘[PAk ]c ’, ‘[POk ]c ’, ‘[PM k ]c ’, and ‘[PF k ]c ’ via definite descriptions formed from the property abstract ‘[λwQ(w, U , T , P; fA , fO , fM , fF ; gI , gA , gO , gM , gF )]’. 3 Strictly speaking, the theorem should read as follows: [OSN =]

[Ntk ]c = (ιvt )(∀F ){vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & [λrsi v 



Agent(s) & (∃) =E ↑([CRtk ]c ) & v =E «[r] ») & [CRtk ]c (s, r,  N )]wyz])}. In the interest of clarity, however, λ-conversion has once again been used to simplify the description of the MP in question. 4 The mode of presentation contained in a sense must be an exemplifiable relation, so the definition scheme [DSN=] should, strictly speaking, be accompanied by a suitable axiom scheme guaranteeing this. 5 Strictly, [DSN=] should read as follows: [DSN =]

[Dk ]c =def (ιvi )(∀F ){vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λxi yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & [λrsv Agent(s) & NameType(r, i, M s ) & (∃@)(@ =E ↑(Corc ) & v =E «[r]@ ») & (∃d)(∃s[D ] )(DemTag(d, Ms ) & Corc (s[D ] , [Pk ]c ) & r =E ds[D ] )]wyz)])}. k c k c k c

Like [OSN=], it has been simplified by λ-conversion in the interest of readability. Also, what we take to be contextually determined is the required correspondence to the utterer’s percept [Pk ]c ; the question of how (if at all) the ‘style’ of the mental demonstrative (i.e., the value of ‘d’ in [DSN=]) is further determined is not germane to the opacity-transparency issue and will be ignored here. 6 The ‘semantical postulates’ discussed hereafter are of course not axioms of TC itself: they are postulates of a semantical theory STC formulated within TC. 7 Where deictic sense names formed from demonstratives are concerned, our underlying logic requires use of universally quantified biconditional forms like (i) rather than the simpler equational form (ii): (i) (∀xi )(x = Senc,f (‘ak ’) ≡ x = [youk ] ) c (ii) Senc,f (‘ak ’) = [youk ]c ). For both terms of the equation (ii) are formally defined using definite descriptions, for which ILAO has the axiom scheme [DescriptionsLR ]: [DescriptionsLR ]: Where ((ια )φ/ βt ) is any atomic or defined identity formula (or conjunction of such formulas) in which
(ιαt )φ replaces the variable βt in ψ, the following is an axiom: t

ψ((ια )φ/ βt ) → (∃!βt )φ(β /α ) & (∃βt )(φ(β /α ) & ψ). t

If (ii) were taken as a semantical postulate, one could then inappropriately deduce ‘(∃y )(y = [youk ] )’ even when k ∈ / Dmn(PAk ), despite the fact that in such a case the deictic sense term c ‘[youk ]c ’ should be empty or at least not demonstrably non-empty! Similar remarks apply, mutatis mutandis, to the reference-postulates employing demonstratives of STC .

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STC , as in ILAO, terms of type p also count as (propositional) formulas, so (e.g.) where we have
Senc,f (S1 ) = [λ φ] and
Senc,f (S2 ) = [λ ψ], the formula
Senc,f (S1 ) −→ Senc,f (S2 ) is strictly equivalent to
[λ φ] −→ [λ ψ], which is a well-formed formula having the same significance in STC as
φ −→ ψ. The same holds, mutatis mutandis, for
Ref c,f (S1 ) −→ Ref c,f (S2 ) where we have
Refc,f (S1 ) = [λ φ] and
Refc,f (S2 ) = [λ ψ]. A minor complication arises when an expression of the sort
[λ θ] −→ [λ ψ] occurs as a subformula of
[§ν φ] since the form of the corresponding Mentalese sentence posited by the Generalized Thought-Content Principle is a function of the form of φ. Unwanted clutter in the posited Mentalese sentences can be easily avoided by so restricting the definition of the template in the Generalized Thought-Content Principle that occurrences in φ of propositional λ-terms which are not arguments to predicates in φ will be treated as occurrences of the formulas which are their matrices insofar as construction of templates is concerned. 9 Since, as will emerge below, the only feature of contexts (as defined in S ) that matters for TC Mentalese is their specification of counterpart and percept-correspondence relations, and since we have made the idealizing assumption that Mentalese contains sense-markers for such relations, there is no need to mention contexts at all in our semantics for Mentalese. 10 For this postulate scheme to work properly, it must be supposed that the user of the Recipe employs a semantical metalanguage devoid of cotypical homonyms. Prior to using the Recipe, one would have to adopt some indexing scheme that distinguishes, e.g., between ‘bank’ as it applies to financial institutions and ‘bank’ as it applies to the sides of a river, perhaps by writing ‘[1] bank’ for the former and ‘[2] bank’ for the latter. Then, since one’s Mentalese is presumed to be a disambiguated idiom, one will be assured that there is a unique n such that $() = [n] α, so that one may safely adopt the postulate
DEN () = [n] bank . 11 Clause 6(a) makes use of the notion of denotation for an arbitrary person y’s Mentalese M —i.e., y presupposes that there is already a relation DenIn and proceeds to say which complex sense-terms of M I bear that relation to which items. This procedure is not circular in the present context, where what is at issue is the denotation of a simple name w in M y . For simple Mentalese names are assumed to primitively denote (directly name), and there is no reason to think that an account of primitive denotation for such names would presuppose an account of the denotation of complex Mentalese names, let alone ones of the sort «[k ] » under discussion. Nor is this procedure circular in general, since it is not presupposed that it has already been established which terms of M I bear that relation to which items. The user of the Recipe is not defining the relation DenIn but just characterizing part of its extension. 12 Horwich’s sample reductions do not inspire much confidence in his overall program. For he concentrates on the relatively easy cases for an inferential/conceptual role approach—e.g., logical particles and words for phenomenal properties—but does not indicate how to extend this treatment to such crucial cases as ordinary natural kind terms. 8 In

CHAPTER 7

MEETING THE SEMANTICAL ADEQUACY CONDITIONS

Chapters 4-5 illustrated the way in which the theory TC meets the ontological adequacy conditions laid down in Chapter 2. Chapter 6 then showed how, with the aid of TC, to construct a finitely axiomatized sense-reference semantics STC , hence a finitely axiomatized theory of truth, for a first-order indexical language L1 containing the verb ‘believes’ and displaying the full range of pure and mixed de re/de dicto readings of its belief reports. The present Chapter undertakes the task of demonstrating that STC also meets the semantical adequacy conditions imposed in Chapter 2. If this enterprise is successful—and if STC can be defended against salient objections—then, barring some revelation of a relevant disanalogy between L1 and natural languages, the truth-theoretic skeptic will have been roundly refuted. 7.1

DE DICTO / DE RE / DE SE

An adequate semantics for belief reports must systematically sort out the different truth conditions attaching to the various possible pure and mixed de re and de dicto readings of belief ascriptions in a way that captures the logical relations between these readings. The sample challenge posed in Chapter 2 was to show how either, both, or neither of two arguments—here translated into L1 as (1) and (2)—will prove to be valid depending on the various pure and mixed de re and de dicto readings of their ingredient belief reports: (1)

a. believes(Fred, that tyrant(Stalin)) b. is (Stalin, Iosif Dzhugashvili) ∴ c. believes(Fred, that tyrant(Iosif Dzhugashvili)).

(2)

a. believes(Fred, that tyrant(Stalin)) b. is ([Xi | tyrant(X)], [Xi | despot(X)]) ∴ c. believes(Fred, that despot(Stalin)).

235

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Relative to the default frames and , the shared first premiss (1a)/(2a) has the four L0 -readings (3a-d): (3)

a. b. c. d.

believes1 (Fred1 , that tyrant1 (Stalin1 )) [Xi | believes1 (Fred1 , that tyrant1 (X))](Stalin1 ) [Y | believes1 (Fred1 , that Y(Stalin1 ))](tyrant1 ) [Xi | [Y | believes1 (Fred1 , that Y(X))](tyrant1 )](Stalin1 ).

STC assigns to (3a-d) as their referents (hence as their truth conditions) in c four propositions that are equivalent by λ-conversion to (4a-d) respectively: (4)

a. b. c. d.

Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i

[Tyrant 1 ]c ([Stalin1 ]c)]) [Tyrant 1 ]c (Stalin)]) Tyrant([Stalin1 ]c )]) Tyrant(Stalin)]).

So, where D(1a)/(3a) through D(1a)/(3d) are disambiguations within either the frame or the frame that assign to the sentence (1a) the readings (3a) through (3d) respectively, it is provable in STC that (1a) is true in L1 in c under one of these disambiguations just in case the truth condition in c of the reading it assigns to (1a) obtains. In other words, we have as theorems the following: D(1a)/(3a) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i [Tyrant 1 ]c ([Stalin1 ]c )]). D(1a)/(3b) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i [Tyrant 1 ]c (Stalin)]). D(1a)/(3c) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i Tyrant([Stalin1 ]c )]). D(1a)/(3d) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i Tyrant(Stalin)]). Within their frames and , (1b) and (2b) each have just a single reading, on which they receive the truth conditions (5) and (6) respectively: (5)

Stalin =E Iosif Dzhugashvili.

(6)

[λxi Tyrant(x)] =E [λxi Despot(x)].

The conclusion (1c) has the possible readings (7a-d), whose referents (truth

Meeting the Semantical Adequacy Conditions

237

conditions) in c are propositions equivalent by λ-conversion to (8a-d) respectively: (7)

a. b. c. d.

Believes2 (Fred2 , that tyrant2 (Dzhugashvili2 )) [Xi | believes2 (Fred2 , that tyrant2 (X))](Dzhugashvili2 ) [Y | believes2 (Fred2 , that Y(Dzhugashvili2 ))](tyrant2 ) [Xi | [Y | believes2 (Fred2 , that Y(X))](tyrant2 )](Dzhugashvili2 ).

(8)

a. b. c. d.

Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i

[Tyrant 2 ]c ([Iosef-Dzhugashvili2 ]c )]) [Tyrant 2 ]c (Iosef-Dzhugashvili)]) Tyrant ([Iosef-Dzhugashvili2 ]c )]) Tyrant (Iosef-Dzhugashvili)]).

So, where D(1c)/(7a) through D(1c)/(7d) are disambiguations within the frame that assign to the sentence (1c) the readings (7a) through (7d) respectively, it is provable in STC that (1c) is true in L1 in c under one of these disambiguations just in case the truth condition in c of the reading it assigns to (1c) obtains. The following are thus theorems: D(1c)/(7a) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Iosif Dzhugashvili))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i [Tyrant 2 ]c ([Iosef-Dzhugashvili2 ]c )]). D(1c)/(7b) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Iosif Dzhugashvili))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i [Tyrant 2 ]c (Iosef-Dzhugashvili)]). D(1c/(7c) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Iosif Dzhugashvili))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i Tyrant([Iosef-Dzhugashvili2 ]c )]). D(1c)/(7d) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that tyrant(Iosif Dzhugashvili))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i Tyrant (Iosef-Dzhugashvili)]). The conclusion (2c) has the possible readings (9a-d), whose referents (truth conditions) in c are propositions equivalent by λ-conversion to (10a-d) respectively: (9)

a. b. c. d.

Believes2 (Fred2 , that despot2 (Stalin2 )) [Xi | believes2 (Fred2 , that despot2 (X))](Stalin2 ) [Y | believes2 (Fred2 , that Y(Stalin1 ))](despot2 ) [Xi | [Y | believes2 (Fred2 , that Y(X))](despot2 )](Stalin2 ).

(10)

a. b. c. d.

Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i Believes(Fred, [§z i

[Despot2 ]c ([Stalin2 ]c )]) [Despot2 ]c (Stalin)]) Despot([Stalin2 ]c )]) Despot(Stalin)]).

So, where D(2c)/(9a) through D(2c)/(9d) are disambiguations within the frame that assign to the sentence (2c) the readings (9a) through (9d) respectively, it

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is provable in STC that (2c) is true in L1 in c under one of these disambiguations just in case the truth condition in c of the reading it assigns to (2c) obtains. In other words, we have as theorems the following: D(2c)/(9a) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that despot(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i [Despot2 ]c ([Stalin2 ]c )]). D(2c)/(9b) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that despot(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i [Despot2 ]c (Stalin)]). D(2c)/(9c) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that despot(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i Despot([Stalin2 ]c )]). D(2c)/(9d) -TRUEc (‘believes(Fred, that despot(Stalin))’)L1 ≡ Believes(Fred, [§z i Despot(Stalin)]). Within their frames and , each of the arguments (1) and (2) admits of sixteen possible combinations of readings for its premisses and conclusion. Since, on our Latitudinarian view, the truth conditions of a de dicto belief report will always entail those of the corresponding de re report, both (1) and (2) will be valid arguments (in the sense of being truth-preserving in every context) on the pure de re interpretation of their conclusions, where (1c) is read as (7d) and (2c) is read as (9d). So four of the sixteen possible interpretations of each argument render it valid. However, either argument will fail to be valid on any of its twelve remaining interpretations, i.e., where its conclusion is given any of its other three possible readings. Now it might seem that this amounts to overkill, inasmuch as STC provides more ways than one might expect for these arguments to fail. Thus, e.g., one might be surprised that the validity of (1) cannot be guaranteed when (1c) is read as (7b), a reading on which ‘Iosif Dzhugashvili’ (but not ‘tyrant’) occurs transparently in (1c). The reason, of course, is that we have lifted our earlier simplifying assumption that a context specifies just one counterpart relation per Mentalese type. So although Fred’s having any sort of Mentalese name of Stalin entails Fred’s having a Mentalese name of Iosif Dzhugashvili, none of (1a)’s four readings (3a-d) is strong enough to ensure—as (7b)’s truth condition (8b) requires—that Fred predicates of Stalin a c-salient counterpart of  tyrant . For, however unlikely it may be in practice, the counterpart relation [CR 2 ]c relevant to the opaque occurrence of ‘tyrant’ in the conclusion could in principle differ from the counterpart relation [CR 1 ]c relevant to its opaque occurrence in the first premiss. (The same considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, to (2) when (2c) is construed in terms of (9c)/(10c).) Admittedly, such proliferation would be out of the ordinary; but, as we shall see below when we confront various puzzle cases from the literature, allowing for exotic contexts in which there is this divergence of counterpart relations is the price of being able to deal with those cases.

Meeting the Semantical Adequacy Conditions

239

Turning now to de se belief reports, we must ask whether STC captures what is distinctive about them and explains their relation to corresponding de re and de dicto belief report. The sample question concerned the belief reports (11) and (12), which translate into our target language L1 as (13) and (14) respectively: (11)

John believes that he himself is in danger.

(12)

John believes that John is in danger.

(13)

believes(John, that Xi InDanger(X)).

(14)

believes(John, that InDanger(John)).

Why does (11)/(13) seem logically stronger than (12)/(14) when (12)/(14) is taken de re with respect to the embedded name ‘John’ but logically independent of (12)/(14) when the latter is taken purely de dicto? Supposing the relevant textual frame to be , the sentence (13) has just the pure de dicto reading (15a) and the pure de re reading (15b), the truth conditions of which are respectively equivalent to (16a) and (16b): (15)

a. Believes1 (John1 , thatXi InDanger1 (X)) b. [Y | Believes1 (John1 , thatXi Y(X))](InDanger1 ).

(16)

a. Believes(John, [§xi [InDanger1 ]c (x)]) b. Believes(John, [§xi InDanger(x)]).

On the other hand, (14) has within this frame the four different readings (17a-d), the truth conditions of which are respectively equivalent to (18a-d): (17)

a. b. c. d.

Believes2 (John2 , that InDanger2 (John3 )) [Zi | Believes2 (John2 , that InDanger2 (Z))](John3 ) [Y | Believes2 (John2 , that Y(John3 ))](InDanger2 ) [Zi | [Y | Believes2 (John2 , that Y(Z))](InDanger2 )](John3 ).

(18)

a. b. c. d.

Believes(John, [§xi Believes(John, [§xi Believes(John, [§xi Believes(John, [§xi

[InDanger2 ]c ([John3 ]c )]) [InDanger2 ]c (John)]) InDanger([John3 ]c )]) InDanger(John)]).

Taking (14) as de re with respect to the embedded name ‘John’ means reading (14) as either (17b) or (17d), hence as having either (18b) or (18d) as its truth condition. (13) is then logically stronger than (14) in the following sense: each of the former’s readings (15a) and (15b) entails the latter’s reading (17d)—John’s Mentalese IJohn trivially counts as a term denoting him—but neither entails the reading (17b). However, the truth of the pure de dicto reading (15a) will at least

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guarantee that of (17b) in any context in which specifies just one counterpart relation per Mentalese type. Taking (14) as purely de dicto means reading it as (17a). So interpreted, (14) is indeed logically independent of (13) because (18a), the truth condition of (14)/(17a), is independent of both (16a) and (16b), the truth conditions of (13)’s two possible readings (15a) and (15b). Whether or not John predicates being in danger of himself via his Mentalese IJohn is independent of whether or not he predicates that property of himself via some Mentalese name that counts as a contextual counterpart of the name  John . And, of course, it is the fact that (13), on both its readings, involves John’s predicating being in danger of himself via his Mentalese IJohn that accounts for its distinctive behavior-explaining power. (13), but not (14), explains why John, suffering from amnesia and hence ignorant of his own identity, curls up in a ball at the sight of a charging grizzly bear. Only one’s active Mentalese self-name has the kind of functional role that internally links the first-person Mentalese sentences one entertains in various modes to one’s intentions to act. The influence of context on the relative interpretation of belief reports of the form ‘I believe that I am F’ and those of the form ‘N believes that I am F’ (where ‘N’ is a term other than ‘I’) poses no problem for STC . The context originally discussed was one where Bob (addressing Ted) first utters (19) and then utters (20): (19)

I believe that I am overweight.

(20) You believe that I am overweight. Here, it was said, it is natural to give the first sentence Bob utters a de se reading and to treat the second as a de dicto ascription to Ted of a belief which has the same truth condition (viz., Bob’s being overweight) as the belief Bob avows but which has a different thought-content. The counterparts of (19) and (20) in L1 are respectively (21a) and (22a), the salient readings of which (within the textual frame ) are the sentences (21b) and (22b) of L0 , which—given [I ]c = Bob and [you]c = Ted—have the corresponding truth conditions (21c) and (22c): (21)

a. believe(I, thatX overweight(X)) b. believe1 (u1 , thatX overweight1 (X)) c. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Overweight 1 ]c (x)]).

(22)

a. believe(you, that overweight(I)) b. believe2 (a1 , that overweight2 (u2 )) c. Believes(Ted, [§xi [Overweight 2 ]c (I c )]).

As thus represented, we get the desired result: Bob avows in his utterance of (19) the belief that he-himself is overweight, but in his utterance of (20) he ascribes to Ted the distinct belief that he [Bob-the-utterer-as-contextually-identified] is overweight.

Meeting the Semantical Adequacy Conditions

241

(Assuming that Bob is not equivocating on ‘overweight’, the context c is presumably such that [Overweight 1 ]c = [Overweight 2 ]c .) The condition (21c) obtains only if Bob accepts a Mentalese sentence whose subject term is IBob , and (22c) obtains only if Ted accepts a Mentalese sentence whose subject term is a demonstrative of Ted the sort dTed Bob in which Bob is a Bob-based percept of Ted’s that is c-saliently similar to [PI1 ]c (the contextually supplied Bob-based percept belonging to Bob qua utterer). Nor (still assuming that Bob is not equivocating on ‘overweight’) is there any difficulty in reading both sentences as de dicto reports of beliefs with the same thought-content, viz., that he [Bob-as-contextually-identified] is overweight—as, e.g., in (23) and (24): (23)

a. believe(I, that overweight(I)) b. believe1 (u1 , that overweight1 (u2 )) c. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Overweight 1 ]c (I c )]).

(24)

a. believe(you, that overweight(I)) b. believe2 (a1 , that overweight2 (u3 )) c. Believes(Ted, [§xi [Overweight 2 ]c (I c )]).

Correlatively, given a context c in which Bob is the utterer of (19) and a distinct context c in which Ted is the utterer of (19), the translation-reading-truth-condition triplets (25) and (26) provide for the sense in which the beliefs they express have the same content despite being about different people: viz., in which each man expresses in his own context the belief that he-himself is overweight. (25)

a. believe(I, thatX overweight(X)) b. believe1 (u1 , thatX overweight1 (X)) c. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Overweight 1 ]c (x)]).

(26)

a. believe(I, thatX overweight(X)) b. believe1 (u1 , thatX overweight1 (X)) c. Believes(Ted, [§xi [Overweight 1 ]c (x)]).

(assuming, of course, that [Overweight 1 ]c = [Overweight 1 ]c , i.e., that c and c do not invoke different counterpart relations). In contrast, the de dicto reading of their two utterances on which the beliefs they express differ in content—the reading on which Bob is avowing the belief that he [Bob-as-contextually-identified-in-c] is overweight, but on which Ted’s utterance avows the belief that he [Ted-ascontextually-identified-in-c ] is overweight—is provided for in the triplets (27) and (28), where [I ]c = Bob and [I ]c = Ted: (27)

a. believe(I, that overweight(I)) b. believe1 (u1 , that overweight1 (u2 )) c. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Overweight 1 ]c (I c )]).

242 (28)

Chapter 7

a. believe(I, that overweight(I)) b. believe1 (u1 , that overweight1 (u2 )) c. Believes(Ted, [§xi [Overweight 1 ]c (I c )]). 7.2

ITERATED BELIEF REPORTS

STC has no difficulty handling the various readings of iterated belief-ascriptions in L1 . Consider, e.g., the sentence (29)

believes(Bob, that believes(Alice, that red(Spot))).

Restricting our attention to disambiguation under the default textual frame (in this case, ), our account yields a total of sixteen non-equivalent L0 readings within this frame, corresponding to the various ways in which all, only some, or none of terms ‘believes2 ’, ‘Alice1 ’, ‘red1 ’, and ‘Spot1 ’ might occur opaquely in (29). These readings are listed as the (a)-sentences of (30)-(45) below, the corresponding (b)-sentences giving their truth conditions according to STC : (30)

a. believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Alice1 , that red1 (Spot1 ))) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c ([Alice1 ]c , [§yi [red 1 ]c ([Spot 1 ]c )])])

(31)

a. [Xi | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Alice1 , that red1 (X)))](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c ([Alice1 ]c , [§yi [red1 ]c (Spot)])])

(32)

a. [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Alice1 , that X(Spot1 )))](red1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c ([Alice1 ]c , [§yi red ([Spot 1 ]c )])])

(33)

a. [Yi | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Alice1 , that X(Y)))] (red1 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c ([Alice1 ]c , [§yi red (Spot)])])

(34)

a. [Yi | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 )))](Alice1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c (Alice, [§yi [red1 ]c ([Spot1 ]c )])])

(35)

a. [Xi | [Yi | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that red1 (X)))] (Alice1 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c (Alice, [§yi [red1 ]c (Spot)])])

(36)

a. [X | [Yi | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that X (Spot1 )))] (Alice1 )](red1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c (Alice, [§yi red ([Spot1 ]c )])])

(37)

a. [Zi | [X | [Yi | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that X(Z)))](Alice1 )] (red1 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c (Alice, [§yi red (Spot)])])

Meeting the Semantical Adequacy Conditions

243

(38)

a. [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Alice1 , that red1 (Spot1 )))] (believes2 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes([Alice1 ]c , [§yi [red1 ]c ([Spot1 ]c )])])

(39)

a. [Yi | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Alice1 , that red1 (Y)))] (believes2 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes([Alice1 ]c , [§yi [red1 ]c (Spot)])])

(40)

a. [Y | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Alice1 , that Y(Spot1 )))] (believes2 )](red1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes([Alice1 ]c , [§yi red ([Spot1 ]c )])])

(41)

a. [Zi | [Y | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Alice1 , that Y(Z)))] (believes2 )](red1 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes([Alice1 ]c , [§yi red (Spot)])])

(42)

a. [Yi | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Y, that red1 (Spot1 )))] (believes2 )](Alice1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes(Alice, [§yi [red1 ]c ([Spot1 ]c )])])

(43)

a. [Zi | [Yi | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Y, that red1 (Z)))] (believes2 )](Alice1 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes (Alice, [§yi [red1 ]c (Spot)])])

(44)

a. [Z | [Y | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Y, that Z (Spot1 )))] (believes2 )](Alice1 )](red1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes(Alice, [§yi red ([Spot1 ]c )])])

(45)

a. [Y0 i | [Z | [Yi | [X | believes1 (Bob1 , that X(Y, that Z(Y0 )))] (believes2 )](Alice1 )](red1 )](Spot1 ) b. Believes(Bob, [§xi Believes (Alice, [§yi red (Spot)])])

As an example of how the derivations of truth conditions proceed, let us consider (34a). Here we have the following chain of identities: Refc, f (‘[Y | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 )))](Alice1 )’) = [λ Refc, f (‘[Y | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 )))]’) (Refc, f (‘Alice1 ’)] = [λ Refc, f (‘[Y | believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 )))]’)(Alice)] = [λ [λy Refc, f [y/‘Y’] (‘believes1 (Bob1 , that believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 )))’] (Alice)] = [λ [λy Believes(Bob, Refc,f [y/‘Y’] (‘that believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 ))’))](Alice)] = [λ [λy Believes(Bob, [§xi Senc,f [y/‘Y’] (‘believes2 (Y, that red1 (Spot1 ))’)])](Alice)] = [λ [λy Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c (y, Senc,f [y/‘Y’] (‘that red1 (Spot1 )’))])] (Alice)] = [λ [λy Believes(Bob, [§xi [Believes2 ]c (y, [§z i [Red1 ]c ([Spot1 ]c )])] )](Alice)] .

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By λ-conversion, the last member of this chain is strictly equivalent to the proposition (34b). The sixteen inequivalent propositions (30b)-(45b) encapsulate possible truth conditions the formulation of which does not ineliminably mention A-objects.1 7.3 A PROBLEM ABOUT REFLEXIVITY In his critique of Richard (1990), Mark Crimmins (1992b) alleges that (46)

Cyril believes that John is John’s father.

has a natural use that Richard’s semantics cannot capture, one on which it could be straightforwardly true even though Cyril is neither cognitively deficient nor a believer in science fiction. One might, e.g., use (46) to report the results of an ostensive misidentification on Cyril’s part: he is acquainted with both John and John’s father, but they look so much alike and Cyril’s eyesight is so bad that, while intending to identify John’s father, he has mistakenly pointed to John instead and announced ‘That is a John’s father’. In response, Richard (1993) maintains that (46) is equivalent to (‘on all fours with’) the reflexive construction (47): (47)

Cyril believes that John is his own father.

But (47) is most naturally heard as false, since it attributes to Cyril a belief that could only be possessed by someone who is cognitively deficient or a believer in science fiction. Intuition seems to favor Crimmins on this point. So it behooves us to look closely at what the semantic theory sketched above has to say about the relation between (46) and (47), not only because we want to ensure that our theory delivers the intuitively correct result—which is, of course, always the one that fits the intuitions of the author and his informants!—but also because (as Crimmins and Richard are both aware and as we shall see later) one’s treatment of (46) and (47) can have serious repercussions for one’s ability to handle certain examples involving iterated attitude ascriptions. To begin with, on the natural use of (46) to which Crimmins alludes, the first occurrence of ‘John’ therein, unlike the second, is more naturally heard as transparent than as opaque. This is attested by the intuitive validity of the inference from (46) so used and the identity ‘John is the mayor of Boston’ to ‘Cyril believes that the mayor of Boston is John’s father’. On this reading, (46) plainly seems not to entail (47), regardless of whether the sole occurrence of ‘John’ in (47) is heard as transparent or opaque. However, it is still possible to capture Richard’s ‘unnatural’ reading of (46) as attributing to Cyril an outlandish belief—i.e., the reading on which both occurrences of ‘John’ are opaque—without being forced to assimilate (46) to (47): contextual factors will determine whether (46), so interpreted, expresses in a given context the same proposition as (47). Let us now make good on these claims.

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As regards Crimmins’ ‘natural’ interpretation of (46), consider (48) and (49): (48)

a. believes(Cyril, that (the Y: father-of(Y,John))is(Y,John)) b. [Z | believes1 (Cyril1 , that (the Y: father-of1 (Y,John1 ))is(Y,Z))](John2 ) c. Believes(Cyril, [§xi (the yi : [FatherOf1 ]c (y,[John1 ]c ))(y =E John)]).

(49)

a. believes(Cyril, that [Z | (the Y: father-of(Y,Z))is(Y,Z)](John)) b. [X1 | believes2 (Cyril2 , that [Z | (the Y: father-of2 (Y,Z))is(Y,Z)](X1 ))] (John3 ) c. Believes(Cyril, [§xi [λz i (the yi : [FatherOf2 ]c (y, z))(y =E z)](John)]).

Here (48a) and (49a) are the translations into L1 of the sentences (46) and (47) respectively; (48b) and (49b) are their transparent readings in L0 within the textual frame ; and (48c) and (49c) are the context-relativized truth conditions assigned to these readings by STC (after simplification by admissible λ-conversions). To avoid irrelevant distractions from ‘father-of’, let us stipu ]c = [CR2 ]c , so that [FatherOf1 ]c = [FatherOf2 ]c . Then, late that [CR1 in effect, (48c) and (49c) respectively require that Cyril accept Mentalese sentences of the sorts «(the y: f (y, n))(y = m)» and «[λz (the y: f (y, z))(y = z)](o)» in which n is a counterpart for Cyril of  John according to [CRi1 ]c , and m and o are names in Cyril’s Mentalese that denote John. Since (48c) and (49c) leave completely open whether or not m = o, and contextual considerations have no effect on their identity (but at most on that of n), it is evident that Cyril could entertain «(the y: f (y, n))(y = m)» without ipso facto entertaining «[λz (the y: f (y, z))(y = z)](o)». So long as Cyril has at least two noninterchangeable mental names for John, the ‘natural’ reading of (46) will be one on which it does not entail (47). Indeed, even if it should turn out that Cyril has but one mental name j for John, he could still in principle entertain «(the y: f (y, j))(y = j)» without ipso facto entertaining «[λz (the y: f (y, z))(y = z)](j)», for the inference from the former to the latter requires the use of λ-conversion, and there is no guarantee that Cyril will be disposed to perform this logical operation in any particular case. As regards Richard’s ‘unnatural’ interpretation of (46), consider (50) and (51), in which (50a) and (51a) are once again the translations into L1 of the sentences (46) and (47) respectively, (50b) and (51b) are now their wholly opaque readings in L0 (within the same textual frame) and (50c) and (51c) are the context-relativized truth conditions STC assigns to these readings: (50)

a. believes(Cyril, that (the Y: father-of(Y,John))is(Y,John)) b. believes1 (Cyril1 , that (the Y: father-of1 (Y,John1 ))is(Y,John2 )) c. Believes(Cyril, [§xi (the yi : [FatherOf1 ]c (y, [John1 ]c ))(y =E [John2 ]c )]).

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a. believes(Cyril that [Z | (the Y: father-of(Y,Z))is(Y,Z)](John)) b. believes2 (C2 , that [Z | (the Y: father-of2 (Y,Z))is(Y,Z)](John3 )) c. Believes(Cyril, [§xi [λz i (the yi : [FatherOf2 ]c (y, z))(y=E z)]([John3 ]c )]).

Now with respect to a common context c, the truth conditions (50c) and (51c) are plainly not equivalent on our account: e.g., the former may obtain and the latter fail to obtain if, as may be the case, [CRi1 ]c = [CRi2 ]c = [CRi3 ]c (or, for that ]c ). What (50c) and (51c) require, inter alia, is ]c = [CR2 matter, if [CR1 that Cyril accept Mentalese sentences of the sorts «(the y: f (y, n))(y = m)» and «[λz (the y: f (y, z))(y = z)](o)» in which n, m, and o are counterparts for him of  John according to the (possibly different) standards of [CRi1 ]c , [CRi2 ]c , and [CRi3 ]c respectively. Nowhere, however, is it required that any identities obtain among the names n, m, and o themselves—unless, that is, [CRi1 ]c , [CRi2 ]c , and [CRi3 ]c happen jointly to entail that any counterpart of  John for Cyril must be identical to a certain name j in M Cyril (or satisfy a certain condition that j alone meets). So long, then, as the context c allows that o might be distinct from both m and n, (50c) can obtain in c while (51c) does not, even if—as presumably happens in the outlandlish case—contextual factors did entail that n = m. Indeed, even if those contextual factors required all of m, n, and o to be the very same Mentalese name j, it still would not follow from Cyril’s accepting «(the y: f (y, j))(y = j)» that he also accepts «[λz (the y: f (y, z))(y = z)](j)». For, once again, the transition from the former to the latter requires the use of λ-conversion, an operation Cyril may not be disposed to perform. In STC , even the existence of multiple opaque occurrences of a given name in the content-clause of a belief report does not force a reflexive interpretation of the sort Richard favors. 7.4

SAUL KRIPKE’S ORIGINAL PUZZLE

In Section 2.1 we encountered Kripke’s celebrated puzzle about Pierre the confused bilingual. Let us now examine the bearing of our semantic theory on (the L1 -counterparts of) the allegedly problematic belief ascriptions (52) and (53): (52)

Pierre believes that London is not pretty.

(53)

Pierre believes that London is pretty.

These translate into our regimented fragment L1 as (54a) and (55a) respectively, whose pure de dicto readings within the textual frame are the corresponding L0 -sentences (54b) and (55b), to which STC assigns the respective context-relativized truth conditions (54c) and (55c): (54)

a. believes(Pierre, that not pretty(London)) b. believes1 (Pierre1 , that not pretty1 (London1 )) c. Believes(Pierre, [§xi ∼[Pretty1 ]c ([London1 ]c )]).

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247

a. believes(Pierre, that pretty(London)) b. believes2 (Pierre2 , that pretty2 (London2 )) c. Believes(Pierre,[§xi [Pretty2 ]c ([London2 ]c )]).

Briefly, the result is this: if [CRi1 ]c = [CRi2 ]c and [CR 1 ]c = [CR2 ]c , then the truth conditions (54c) and (55c) cannot both obtain in a context c without imputing irrationality to Pierre, but both truth conditions might harmlessly obtain if [CRi1 ]c = [CRi2 ]c and/or [CR 1 ]c = [CR2 ]c . Matters fall out as follows. According to Kripke’s story, Pierre in effect keeps separate, individually consistent but jointly inconsistent ‘mental files’ under two independently acquired and employed Mentalese names of London—call them ‘LONDRES’ and ‘LONDON’—that respectively underlie his use of ‘Londres’ when speaking French and his use of ‘London’ when speaking English. The file labelled by a token of the kind LONDON contains the information conveyed by ‘is not pretty’, and the distinct file labelled by a token of the kind LONDRES contains the information conveyed by ‘is pretty’. Thus, supposing for convenience that Pierre has just these two primitive Mentalese names for London and that there is a single primitive term of Pierre’s Mentalese—call it ‘PRETTY’— that denotes the property being pretty and underlies his use of both ‘pretty’ in English and ‘jolie’ in French, Pierre presumably accepts both a Mentalese sentence of the kind «∼PRETTY(LONDON)» and a Mentalese sentence of the kind «PRETTY(LONDRES)». (By our earlier assumptions, Pierre’s Mentalese will also generate the redundant derived names «LONDONk », «LONDRESk », and «PRETTYk » for each k ≥ 1, but these are ex hypothesi interchangeable for Pierre with LONDON, LONDRES, and PRETTY respectively outside Mentalese sense-terms and so may be ignored in discussing the present puzzle.) Now each of the ascriptions (52)/(54a) and (53)/(55a) seems warranted at the point it initially occurs in Kripke’s story precisely because the story corresponds to a context c in which two different counterpart relations [CRi1 ]c and [CRi2 ]c are tacitly invoked—so that their truth conditions (54c) and (55c) are importantly different. On the one hand, [CRi1 ]c might be the relation (R1):

(R1)

[λunw n alone is a primitive type i name in agent u’s Mentalese that both denotes what the word kind w designates and is grounded in u’s direct experiences of w’s designatum].

[CRi2 ]c , on the other hand, might be the relation (R2): (R2)

[λunw n alone is a primitive type i name in agent u’s Mentalese that both denotes what the word kind w designates and is grounded solely in u’s second-hand verbal (mis)information about w’s designatum].

(For type names on the other hand, we may presume that [CR 1 ]c = [CR ] .) By the lights of (R1), a Mentalese name of London would count c 2

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as a counterpart of  London for Pierre only if grounded in actual perception of London, a condition which admits LONDON but excludes LONDRES. But according to (R2), a Mentalese name of London would count as a counterpart of  London for Pierre only if grounded solely in second-hand verbal (mis)information about London, a condition which admits LONDRES but excludes LONDON. So (54c) and (55c) may both obtain with respect to such separate counterpart relations, and nothing in this possibility poses the slightest threat to Pierre’s rationality, since the sentences «∼PRETTY(LONDON)» and «PRETTY(LONDRES)» are not formal contradictories. Now if (52) and (53) have separate readings which can simultaneously be true in a certain context c without threatening Pierre’s rationality, then their conjunction (56) should have a reading which could be true in c without threatening his rationality: (56)

Pierre believes that London is not pretty, and Pierre believes that London is pretty.

Admittedly, however, when (56) is taken purely de dicto, one does tend to hear it initially as implying that Pierre irrationally believes a formal contradiction. This is because ‘normal’ contexts, which do not involve the contrived puzzle-inducing scenarios that delight philosophers, typically invoke just a single counterpart relation for each Mentalese type t (i.e., [CRtj ]c = [CRtk ]c for j, k ≥ 1). If the context involved in the story of Pierre were normal in this sense, (56) would have no pure de dicto reading on which it could be true in some context.2 But, as Crimmins (1995) points out, we can build the interpretive story into the conjunction so as to obtain something like (57): (57)

Pierre (when thinking of London as ‘London’) believes that London is not pretty, and Pierre (when thinking of London as ‘Londres’) believes that London is pretty.

It is natural to hear (57) as saying something that might be harmlessly true; so, treating the parenthetical material as background, one ought to be able to provide a similar reading for (56), even if that reading is not the one that springs first to mind. STC immediately provides for such a reading. The corresponding L1 -sentence would be (58a), having the L0 -reading (58b) and hence the truth condition (58c), which will obtain when (54c) and (55c) simultaneously do: (58)

a. [believes(Pierre, that not pretty(London))] and [believes(Pierre, that pretty(London))] b. [believes1 (Pierre1 , that not pretty1 (London1 ))] and [believes2 (Pierre2 , that pretty2 (London2 ))] c. Believes(Pierre, [§xi ∼[Pretty1 ]c ([London1 ]c )]) & Believes(Pierre, [§xi [Pretty2 ]c ([London2 ]c )]).

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Kripke’s ‘Paderewski’ example is handled in parallel fashion. The extra wrinkle in this case is the fact that the subject, Peter, expresses his confusion about the identity of Paderewski via tokens of the single name-type ‘Paderewski’. In discussing famous musicians, Peter says ‘Paderewski is a pianist’, but in discussing prominent politicians he says ‘Paderewski is not a pianist’, taking himself to be referring to two different individuals who merely happen to share a name. The metaphor of mental files is once again useful. Peter’s supposition that there are two Paderewskis in question amounts to his maintaining separate mental files for Paderewski-the-politician and Paderewski-the-musician. But no filing system can operate coherently unless its files are uniquely indexed. In short, whatever labels Peter puts on these files must be tokens of distinct Mentalese types—call them ‘PADEREWSKI’ and ‘PADEREWSKI∗ ’—that are not interchangeable for Peter. (Indeed, Peter presumably accepts the inequality «PADEREWSKI = PADEREWSKI∗ » outright.) Moreover, tokens of PADEREWSKI and PADEREWSKI∗ must differ in their physical properties, since they presumably have different causal powers. (How else could his beliefs about Paderewski-the-politician have different behavioral consequences than his beliefs about Paderewski-the-musician?) In effect, the surface reflections of PADEREWSKI and PADEREWSKI∗ are homonyms in Peter’s English idiolect. We (who are not confused about the matter) may correctly report Peter’s confused beliefs de dicto by exploiting some device for signalling intended contextual restrictions on the subject’s internal representations. One way in which English conventionally accomplishes this with parenthetically qualified phrases of the form ‘N (the F)’—as, e.g., in the pair (59)–(60): (59)

Peter believes that Paderewski (the musician) is a pianist.

(60)

Peter believes that Paderewski (the politician) is not a pianist.

In effect, the parenthetical qualifications in (59) and (60) are words spoken aside, falling outside the scope of ‘believes’ and serving, against the background of the story about Peter’s confusion, to invoke the different Mentalese names Peter presumably uses to organize the information he gleans from his meetings with Paderewski on musical and political occasions. STC accommodates this fact in (61) and (62), where the (a)-sentences are the L1 -translations of (59) and (60) respectively, the (b)-sentences are their pure de dicto readings within the texual frame , and the (c)-sentences provide their truth conditions: (61)

a. believes(Peter, that pianist(Paderewski)) b. believes1 (Peter1 , that pianist1 (Paderewski1 )) c. Believes(Peter, [§xi [Pianist1 ]c ([Paderewski1 ]c )]).

(62)

a. believes(Peter, that not pianist(Paderewski))

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b. believes2 (Peter2 , that not pianist2 (Paderewski2 )) c. Believes(Peter, [§xi ∼[Pianist2 ]c ([Paderewski2 ]c )]). For we allow that c might involve distinct counterpart relations [CRi1 ]c and [CRi2 ]c such that, by the lights of the former, PADEREWSKI is (hence PADEREWSKI∗ is not) a c-salient counterpart for Peter of Paderewski , whereas by the lights of the latter counterpart relation PADEREWSKI∗ is (hence PADEREWSKI is not) a c-salient counterpart for Peter of  Paderewski . (For example, [CRi1 ]c might be the counterpart relation [λunw n alone is a primitive name in agent u’s Mentalese that both denotes what the word kind w designates and is grounded in u’s musical interactions with w’s designatum]; and [CRi2 ]c might be the counterpart relation [λunw n alone is a primitive name in agent u’s Mentalese that both denotes what the word kind w designates and is grounded in u’s political interactions with w’s designatum]. As in the case of Pierre, there will be a corresponding reading of the conjunction of (59) and (60) on which it will be true in c if (59) and (60) are separately true in c, though this reading will for obvious reasons not be the one that first comes to mind. 7.5

KRIPKE’S PUZZLE AND ITERATED BELIEF REPORTS

It is important to see that our treatment of Kripke’s puzzle does not jeopardize our ability to handle ascriptions to unconfused people of beliefs about the beliefs of confused people. Consider, e.g., the belief ascription (63) that embeds (53): (63) Tom believes that Pierre believes that London is pretty. Concerning this iterated belief report, Mark Crimmins writes: Assume Tom knows that Pierre has two representations of London, and that Tom himself, not being confused, has only a single representation of London. Corresponding to Pierre’s two representations of London, there should be two readings [i.e., interpretations] of my [(63)]: I may mean that Tom’s belief is about Pierre’s travel-brochure representation, or Pierre’s home-town representation. (Crimmins, 1992: 192) Assuming for convenience that only (63) is under evaluation, so that the textual frame is just , there will be the reading (64b) within that frame, with the

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truth condition (64c) for arbitrary context c: (64)

a. believes (Tom, that believes(Pierre, that pretty(London))) b. believes1 (Tom1 , that believes2 (Pierre1 , that pretty1 (London1 ))) c. Believes(Tom, [§yi [Believes2 ]c ([Pierre1 ]c , [§xi [Pretty1 ]c ([London1 ]c )])]).

Providing the two interpretations Crimmins wants will require us to distinguish two different contexts c and c as values of ‘c’ in (64c) such that [CRi1 ]c = [CRi1 ]c . The problem Crimmins sees, as it applies to our account, is that if [CRi1 ]c and [CRi1 ]c are incompatible counterpart relations like those invoked above to handle Kripke’s puzzle, then no single Mentalese name of Tom’s could satisfy both, as it would have to if we are to obtain the two desired interpretations of (63)/(64a)! Formally at least, this is not a problem for our view. For the case in which c = c (64c) requires that, for some 1 and 2 respectively denoting [CR 1 ]c    1 2 and [CR1 ]c , Tom tokens a sentence «b(a, [§v [p] ([r] )])» of M Tom such that r is a type i name in M Tom that denotes London and [CRi1 ]c (Tom, r,  London ). And for the case in which c = c (64c) requires that, for some i 3 and 4 respectively denoting [CR 1 ]c and [CR1 ]c , Tom tokens a sen  tence «b(a, [§v [p] 3 ([s] 4 )])» of M Tom in which s is a type i name in M Tom that denotes London and is such that [CRi1 ]c (Tom, s, London ). But nothing in our account requires that r = s, much less that «[r]2 » = «[s]4 ». The fact that Tom is not confused and hence has a ‘single representation of London’ in the sense of having just one primitive Mentalese name of London, call it ‘∗ London’, does not prevent his Mentalese from containing the redundant derived names ∗ London1 and ∗ London2 , which would be interchangeable for him outside sense-terms but which, in practice, he reserves for the formation of distinct sense-names «[∗ London1 ]1 » and «[∗ London2 ]2 » that are potentially non-interchangeable inside sense-terms of the sort «[§v S]» (viz., when the denotations of 1 , 2 , . . . differ) and that represent someone else’s variously restricted Mentalese names of London.3 The sense of ‘represents’ here is defined in (RepDf) (‘F’ being schematic for a restriction on Mentalese names): (RepDf ) nk (of M u -type t  ) represents a Mentalese name of Nt as being F =def . n is reserved in M u for forming expressions of the form «[n]r » in which r denotes a relation D such that, for any person y and names w and z in M y : D(w, s, z) entails that w denotes N in M y and F(w).4 So although the nature of the case requires Tom’s names r and s to be such that r = ∗ Londonj and s = ∗ Londonk for some j and k, it does not rule out the possibility that j = k and that ∗ Londonj and ∗ Londonk have been reserved for use

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in the sense-names «[∗ Londonj ]i » and «[∗ Londonk ]k », which may play very different representational roles for Tom. (Indeed, as we saw in Section 6.4 of the previous chapter, these sense-names will differ in denotation whenever j and k do.) The truth condition of Tom’s Mentalese ascription «b(a, [§v [p]1 ([r]2 )])» involves Pierre’s tokening a sentence «f(m)» of M pierre in which m is a type i name in M Pierre that denotes London and is such that [CRi1 ]c (Pierre, m,  London ). And the truth condition of Tom’s Mentalese ascription «b(a, [§v [p]3 ([s]4 )])» involves Pierre’s tokening a sentence «f(o)» of M Pierre in which o is a type i name in M Pierre that denotes London and is such that [CRi1 ]c (Pierre, o, London ). In the story of Pierre, m = LONDON and o = LONDRES. So we need to say something about what the relevant counterpart relations [CRi1 ]c and [CRi1 ]c might be for Tom’s name r and Pierre’s name LONDON (but not his LONDRES) to count as counterparts of  London under the first, and for Tom’s name s and Pierre’s name LONDRES (but not his LONDON) to count as counterparts of  London under the second. If we stipulate that Tom’s Mentalese contains just one primitive name of Pierre, call it ‘∗ Pierre’, we could let [CRi1 ]c and [CRi1 ]c be the highly specific relations (R3) and (R4) respectively: (R3)

[λunw [w =E  London & ((u =E Pierre & n =E LONDON) ∨ (u =E Tom & n =E ∗ London1 ))] ∨ [w =E  Pierre & u =E Tom & n =E ∗ Pierre]]

(R4)

[λunw [w =E  London & ((u =E Pierre and n =E LONDRES) ∨ (u =E Tom and n =E ∗ London2 ))] ∨ [w =E  Pierre & u =E Tom & n =E ∗ Pierre]]

(That these are counterpart relations for Mentalese type i follows from the details of the foregoing story about Pierre’s two names LONDON and LONDRES and Tom’s four names ∗ London, ∗ London1 , ∗ London2 , and ∗ Pierre.) Alternatively, courtesy of (RepDf) above, there are non-specific counterpart relations that will fill the bill as well. Thus, e.g., [CRi1 ]c and [CRi1 ]c might be the generic counterpart relations (R5) and (R6) respectively: (R5)

[λunw [(n alone is a primitive type i name in M u that both denotes w’s designatum and is grounded in u’s perception of w’s designatum) ∨ (M u has just one primitive type i name a denoting w’s designatum, and n is one of the redundant derived names «ak » that represents a Mentalese name of w’s designatum as being based on perception of it)] ∨ [n is the only primitive type i name in M u that denotes w’s designatum]]

(R6)

[(λunw [(n alone is a primitive type i name in M u that denotes w’s designatum and is grounded solely in u’s second-hand information about w’s designatum) ∨ (M u has just one primitive type i name a denoting w’s designatum, and n is one of the redundant derived names «ak » that

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represents a Mentalese name of w’s designatum as being based solely on second-hand information about it)] ∨ [n is the only primitive type i name in M u that denotes w’s designatum]]. Similarly, corresponding to (56) is the belief report (65) that embeds it: (65) Tom believes that (Pierre believes that London is not pretty, and Pierre believes that London is pretty). Just as the triplet (58) captured the interpretation hinted at by (57), so too the interpretation of (65) adumbrated in (66) is captured on on account via the triplet (67): (66) Tom believes that (Pierre [when thinking of London as ‘London’] believes that London is not pretty, and Pierre [when thinking of London as ‘Londres’] believes that London is pretty). (67)

a. believes(Tom, that [believes(Pierre, that not pretty(London))] and [believes(Pierre, that pretty(London))]). b. believes1 (Tom1 , that [believes2 (Pierre1 , that not pretty1 (London1 ))] and [believes3 (Pierre2 , that pretty2 (London2 ))]). c. Believes(Tom, [§yi [Believes2 ]c ([Pierre1 ]c , [§xi ∼[Pretty1 ]c ([London1 ]c )])& [Believes3 ]c ([Pierre2 ]c , [§xi [Pretty2 ]c ([London2 ]c )])]).

As one would expect, the relevant counterpart relations [CRi1 ]c and [CRi2 ]c may be identified either with (R3) and (R4) respectively or with (R5) and (R6) respectively. Needless to say, the same approach automatically enables us to provide an interpretation of (68) on which its truth would be consistent with Tom’s rationality: (68) Tom believes both that (Pierre believes that London is pretty) and that (it is not the case that Pierre believes that London is pretty). 7.6

DAVID AUSTIN’S ‘TWO TUBES’ PUZZLE

Austin’s formulation of the ‘Two Tubes’ puzzle involves the two demonstratives ‘this’ and ‘that’, whereas L1 , as initially constructed, has only the one impersonal demonstrative ‘this’. In order to formulate the puzzle in terms of our semantics STC for L1 , let us make the following, purely cosmetic5 changes. First, we equip L1 with a second impersonal demonstrative ‘that’ (not to be confused with the complementizer
thatV  in L1 ). Second, we expand the list of type i deictic names in L0 to include ‘dk+ ’ for each k ∈ Int. Third, we supplement our account of contexts with an additional demonstrated objects assignment Oc+ and percept assignment POc+ such that Dmn(POc+ ) = Dmn(Oc+ ) ⊆ Int and, for each k ∈

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Dmn(POc+ ), POc+ (k) is an Oc+ (k)-based percept belonging to [I ]c . The expressions
[thatk ]c  and
[POk+ ]c  will then be our canonical abbreviations for the (possibly empty) definite descriptions
(ιy)(y = Oc+ (k)) and
(ιy)(y = POc+ (k)) respectively. Given these minor adjustments, Austin’s puzzle can now be formulated in terms of our semantics STC for L1 . Consider (69)-(73): (69)

a. believe(I, that is(this, this)) b. believe1 (u1 , that is(d1 ,d2 )) c. Believes([I ]c , [§xi [this1 ]c =E [this2 ]c ]).

(70)

a. believe(I, that is(that, that)) b. believe2 (u2 , that is(d1+ , d2+ )) c. Believes([I ]c , [§xi [that 1 ]c =E [that 2 ]c ]).

(71)

a. believe(I, that red(this)) b. believe3 (u3 , that red1 (d3 )) c. Believes([I ]c , [§xi [Red 1 ]c ([this3 ]c )]).

(72)

a. believe(I, that red(that)) b. believe4 (u4 , that red2 (d3+ )) c. Believes([I ]c , [§xi [Red 2 ]c ([that 3 ]c )]).

(73)

a. not believe(I, that is(this, that)) b. not believe5 (u5 , that is(d4 , d4+ )) c. ∼Believes([I ]c , [§xi [this4 ]c =E [that 4 ]c ]).

Here the (a)-sentences reflect what Smith (the subject of the Two Tubes experiment) would say about the case (if he spoke L1 ). The salient textual frame is presumably (or some sequence of which this is a segment). Each (b)-sentence then captures the pure de dicto reading of the corresponding (a)-sentence within this textual frame, and each (c)-sentence encapsulates the context-relativized truth conditions which STC assigns to the corresponding (a)-sentence as thus disambiguated. The puzzle evaporates once it is seen that the five (c)-sentences in (69)-(73) could perfectly well be simultaneously true—as could the beliefs they respectively affirm or deny—relative to a context c with the following six features: (i) [I ]c = Smith. (ii) [Red 1 ]c = [Red 2 ]c . (iii) [this1 ]c = [this2 ]c = [this4 ]c = [this4 ]c = Spot (the single red spot on the wall). (iv) [this1 ]c = [this2 ]c = [this3 ]c = [this4 ]c . (v) [that 1 ]c = [that 2 ]c = [that 3 ]c = [that 4 ]c . (vi) [this4 ]c = [that 4 ]c .

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There is certainly no mystery about how (i)-(iii) could simultaneously obtain. By the definition scheme [DSN= ] of Section 6.1, the equations (iv)-(v) merely require the percept identities [POj ]c = [POk ]c and [POj+ ]c = [POk+ ]c for 1 ≤ j, k ≤ 4. Since one and the same percept can index several demonstrative tag-tokens, these percept identities are unproblematic. Indeed, as was pointed out earlier, this multipleindexing phenomenon explains why some identity-beliefs—like the one that Smith reports via (69a) and (70a)—are true but uninformative, for each involves Smith’s entertaining a Mentalese equation-token whose terms are both tokens of a demonstrative tag indexed by the very same Spot-based percept. Now the statement of the puzzle involves two distinct Spot-based percepts, one (call it ‘Lefty’) involving Smith’s left eye and other (call it ‘Righty’) involving his right eye. The crucial nonidentity (vi) requires only that the Spot-based percepts [PO4 ]c and [PO4+ ]c be distinct, so we may accordingly let [PO4 ]c = Lefty and [PO4+ ]c = Righty (or vice versa, since what matters is only their distinctness, not which is which). Then there is no reason why (73a)/(73b)’s truth condition (73c) cannot obtain simultaneously with (69c)-(72c), since, as one may verify by inspection, there is nothing in the truth conditions (69c)-(72c) that requires Smith to affirm (or be willing to affirm) a Mentalese equation-token whose terms are demonstrative tag-tokens indexed by his distinct percepts Lefty and Righty. This, of course, is why Smith can intelligibly ask himself ‘Is this really that?’ (or even ‘Is this really this?’, so long as distinct percepts are involved).6

7.7

PRAGMATICS VERSUS SEMANTICS

Several philosophers have contended that belief reports containing indexicals and demonstratives generate certain opacity phenomena which belie the existence of compositional semantical theories for the languages containing these reports. The opacity phenomena in question have to do with the fact that the truth conditions of de dicto belief-ascriptions whose ‘that’-clauses contain indexicals and demonstratives appear to be sensitive to the way in which the believer is designated and to contextual facts about relations among speaker, addressee(s) and other parties, contrary to the assumption in standard compositional semantical theories that the subject-position in belief-ascriptions is always transparent, sensitive only to the reference of the term which occupies it. It therefore behooves us to see how our theory can accommodate the data without abandoning this standard assumption. It is important, however, to distinguish the troublesome semantic opacity phenomena from the quite different—and already explained—kind of truth-conditional shift which attends the passage from one to another of the various pure or mixed de re/de dicto readings of belief-ascriptions in L1 . That one such reading of a belief-ascription rather than another—hence one truth condition for it rather than another—is the favored one in such-and-such cases no doubt has a plausible pragmatic explanation in terms of certain environmental factors suggesting (in Gricean

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fashion) the intended identity of the structural disambiguation parameter. This may be illustrated as follows. Suppose it is claimed that, relative to the two parenthetically indicated utterance situations below, the occurrences of the deictic ‘he’ in (74)

Mary believes that he is a jerk. (Uttered by someone other than Mary while demonstrating Tom as ‘he’ is pronounced.)

and (75)

I believe that he is a jerk. (Uttered by someone who demonstrates Tom as ‘he’ is pronounced.)

require different semantical treatment on the alleged ground that (75), in virtue of its first-person character, semantically implies that its subject thinks of Tom under a certain demonstrative mode of presentation whose content is determined by the particular way that the subject is perceptually related to Tom on that occasion, whereas the third-person ascription (74) is supposedly noncommittal regarding its subject’s way of thinking of Tom. Now (74)-(75) translate into L1 as the (a)-sentences of (76)-(77) respectively, where the corresponding (b)- and (c)-formulas are respectively their opaque and transparent readings in L0 within the textual frames and : (76)

a. believes(Mary, that jerk(he)) b. believes1 (Mary1 , that jerk1 (h1 )) c. [Y | believes1 (Mary1 , that jerk1 (Y))](h1 ).

(77)

a. believes(I, that jerk(he)) b. believes1 (u1 , that jerk1 (h1 )) c. [Y | believes1 (u1 , that jerk1 (Y))](h1 ).

Our semantics STC for L1 allows that the transparent reading (76c) and the opaque reading (77b) would indeed have the alleged special implications and be the ones L1 -speakers would often tend to hear. But it is important to realize that the other reading of each (a)-sentence is semantically legitimate and capable of being the pragmatically favored one when the utterance-situation is of a suitable kind. In this respect, the difference between the two readings of each (a)-sentence is like that between the reading we would accord to an utterance of ‘Yes, visiting relatives can be boring’ which occurred in response to ‘I hate visiting my relatives’ and the reading we would accord to it when it occurred in response to ‘I hate visits from relatives’. To confirm this, let us consider the examples in the order given (pretending throughout that all parties are L1 -speakers). Not surprisingly, which way a hearer is likely to disambiguate an utterance of (76a) depends on his/her antecedent beliefs about the parties involved and their

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relations to one another. On the one hand, the opaque (76b) is likely to be the favored reading of (76a) when it is (or the hearer takes it to be) mutually obvious to speaker and hearer/addressee that Mary is present and currently perceiving Tom. Thus, e.g., imagine that Alice and Bob are seated together at a cocktail lounge idly watching the other patrons. An anonymous drunk at the bar (Tom) has begun to scream at the bartender and is attracting everyone’s attention. Suddenly Alice and Bob notice their friend Mary sitting alone in a distant booth staring at Tom and being visibly upset at his drunken behavior. Alice nudges Bob, discreetly gestures at Tom and whispers (76a). In these surroundings, surely Bob—or virtually any L1 -speaker so situated—would hear the utterance as ascribing to Mary a (visual/auditory) demonstrative belief of the sort she might express in L1 by uttering ‘jerk(he)’ while pointing at Tom. On the other hand, a more typical scenario would not have all the salient characters and special overt perceptual links between them simultaneously in place, in which case an utterance of (76a) would likely be heard as having the transparent (76c) as its intended reading. Thus, e.g., imagine that (unbeknownst to Bob) Mary has recently said to Alice ‘jerk(he)’ while angrily brandishing a copy of Tom’s new book (as a vehicle of deferred ostension of its author). Later, Alice and Bob visit the book store and happen upon an author’s book-signing party starring Tom, who is touting his new book. Alice discreetly points at Tom and whispers (76a). Since Mary is not present and Alice has given Bob no clues about Mary’s connection with this author, there is nothing to suggest that Mary has the alleged belief under any particular mode of presentation of Tom. Bob—or virtually any L1 -speaker so situated—would hear the reading (76c), which transparently ascribes to Mary a belief de Tom.7 That intuitions about (77a) would work in the opposite direction, favoring the opaque over the (equally legitimate) transparent reading, should not be surprising. Normally, a person u who demonstrates an object x in the course of an utteranceact cannot help thinking of x via a token of some Mentalese demonstrative-type dux in the course of performing the demonstration. But in an utterance of (77a), not only are utterer and subject identical, but the use of ‘I’ in subject-position conventionally indicates the utterer’s awareness of that identity, thus suggesting that dux or something saliently similar is also the Mentalese demonstrative-type tokened by the subject in having the belief about Tom. This explains our normal inclination towards the opaque reading (77b) on which, according to our theory, (77a) would be true as hypothetically uttered by Alice in a context c just in case Alice mentally affirms a sentence of MAlice of the sort «j(h)» in which j is a c-salient counterpart of  Jerk  for her and in which h is a mental demonstrative of the type dAlice Tom (in consequence of which her token of h will consist of a token of the demonstrative tag d indexed by her percept Alice Tom ). But however natural it might be to think that the utterer’s demonstrative way of picking out Tom for us is also incorporated in his/her own way of thinking of it, this conclusion is not inevitable. It is perfectly possible to bring the transparent

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reading (77c) to the fore by imagining a rather unusual demonstrative setting—e.g., an ‘over-the-shoulder’ demonstration, involving a conventional gesture towards a person (Tom) with whom the utterer is not in perceptual contact. Suppose Alice, who already thinks that Tom is a jerk, believes on purely general grounds that Tom is now standing directly behind her (she’s at a party and Tom is always lurking behind her at parties). Asked by Mary whether there is anyone present whom she holds in low esteem, Alice uses a thumb-over-the-shoulder gesture to indicate the person standing behind her, uttering (77a) while so doing. Suppose further that it is a matter of mutual knowledge between Mary and Alice that Alice’s belief that Tom is now standing directly behind her is based only on the general ground indicated. Then it is most likely that Mary will hear the transparent reading (77c) as the intended one, and (77a) thus disambiguated will be true in the envisaged context if and only if Alice mentally affirms a sentence-token of the sort «j(t)» in which j is a c-salient counterpart of  Jerk  for her and t is merely some Mentalese term or other denoting Tom. 7.8

MARK RICHARD’S PUZZLE

In contrast to the foregoing, the potentially troublesome semantic differences arise in connection with what are stipulated to be purely de dicto readings of beliefascriptions. That is, the contexts are so described that no other reading is intuitively plausible, and it is then argued that analogous truth-conditional asymmetries still arise. Let us look now at a version of Mark Richard’s classic example (Richard, 1983)—aptly called by Crimmins and Perry (1989: 695-6) ‘the ultimate doxastic puzzle case’. Consider the occurrences of ‘I’in (78) and (79), which seem in certain contexts to have divergent semantic implications about how the believer thinks of the utterer: (78)

Mary believes that I am watching her. (Uttered by someone other than Mary to a third party or in soliloquy).

(79) You believe that I am watching you. (Uttered to Mary over the telephone.) The sentences (78)-(79) translate into L1 as (80)-(81) respectively: (80)

believes(Mary, thatX watch(I, X)).

(81)

believe(you, thatX watch(I, X)).

The only significant difference between (80) and (81) lies in their having distinct but hypothetically coreferential subject-terms (the difference in grammatical person between the reflexive pronouns ‘her’ and ‘you’ is not semantically significant given their co-reference), yet it seems that an utterance of (80) would be true while an utterance of (81) would be false given the following sort of scenario. Mary is at

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the airport talking on a public telephone to someone whom she supposes to be far away and whom she does not know by sight; at the same time she is looking at the bank of telephones on the opposite side of the terminal building, where she notices a strange man who is staring intently at her while speaking into one of the telephones. Unbeknownst to her, of course, the man with whom she having the telephone conversation is the very man she sees watching her from across the room. Now suppose [Case 1] the stranger utters the second-person sentence (81) to Mary through the telephone: she presumably would sincerely deny having any such belief, in consequence of which the ascription would seem to be false. But if [Case 2] the stranger, covering the mouthpiece of his handset, were to mutter the third-person sentence (80) to himself (or to a suitably knowledgeable third party), it seems he would be speaking truly; for Mary is by hypothesis watching him watch her. Since in Case 1 (81)’s occurrence of ‘I’ would be heard as opaque, as would (81)’s occurrence of ‘I’ in Case 2, the only readings pragmatically at issue in these two cases are their de dicto readings. STC accommodates these semantic intuitions via disambiguation under a textual frame assignment. The relativization of their disambiguations to a suitable overarching textual frame—in this case presumably the frame —automatically allows us to correlate (80) with (82)

believes1 (Mary1 , thatX watch1 (u1 , X))

and to correlate (81) with (83)

believe2 (a1 , thatX watch2 (u2 , X))

as their de dicto readings within that frame, hence to accommodate the possibility that a single context c in which [I ]c = Mary, [you1 ]c = Mary, and [Watch1 ]c = [Watch2 ]c may incorporate both the facts of Case 1 and those of Case 2. For c might involve different [I ]c -based percepts [PI1 ]c and [PI2 ]c on the part of [I ]c —e.g., (corresponding to Case 1) [PI2 ]c might be one of the utterer’s auditory representations of himself qua listener to the addressee, and (corresponding to Case 2) [PI1 ]c might be one of the utterer’s visual representations of himself qua watcher of the addressee. In such a context c, Senc (‘u1 ’) = Senc (‘u2 ’) despite the fact that Refc (‘u1 ’) = Refc (‘u1 ’). STC then delivers the desired truthc -conditions (84) and (85) for (82) and (83) respectively: (84)

Believe(Mary, [§xi [Watch1 ]c ([I 1 ]c , x)]).

(85)

Believe([you1 ], [§xi [Watch2 ]c ([I 2 ]c , x)]).

Suppose u is the hypothetical utterer of both (80) and (81). Then (81)/(83) is true in c just in case the addressee (Mary) mentally affirms a sentence «f (h, IMary )»

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of MMary in which f is a c-salient counterpart for her of  watch and h is a Mary for some demonstrative tag d and demonstrative in MMary of the kind du Mary which is c-saliently similar to u’s own u-based auditory u-based percept u Mary be an audipercept [PI2 ]c —which similarity requires, by (Simc -2), that u tory percept. In contrast, (80)/(82)’s truth condition in c differs only in that Mary the u-based percept u in question must instead be c-saliently similar to u’s u-based visual percept [PI1 ]c —which similarity requires, again by (Simc -2), Mary that u as well must be a visual percept. Given the details of Cases 1 and 2, the desired truth-values now ensue for (80)/(82) and (81)/(83). On the one hand, (81)/(83) will not be true in c: Mary would presumably fail to accept any such Mentalese sentence involving such an auditory perceptual representation of u. On the other hand, (81)/(83) will be true in c: Mary, who is watching u watch her, presumably will accept some such Mentalese sentence involving a visual perceptual representation of u. In the previous case, the trouble arose within the scope of psychological verb, where opacity is the norm. But the subject-position of the highest psychological verb is traditionally supposed to be transparent. Yet Crimmins and Perry claim that the telephone case, suitably embellished, refutes this supposition by showing that there can be a single context c relative to which (87) would be false even though (86) were true and the utterer in c = the man watching the addressee in c (so that ‘I am the man watching you’ is true in c): (86)

The man watching you believes that you are in danger.

(87)

I believe that you are in danger.

This, they claim, shows that the prospects are dim for even a context-relativized doxastic logic. Consider our original scenario anent Mary, the stranger, and the telephone. Suppose in addition, however, (a) that each fails to realize that the one he/she sees is the one with whom he/she is conversing on the phone, and (b) that the man watching her does in fact believe that she (the woman he is watching from afar) is in danger (he sees a runaway baggage cart hurtling towards her from behind). Given (b), the man waves frantically at Mary; but given (a), he says nothing on the phone. Then Mary, seeing the stranger’s urgent waving, says into the phone, ‘The man watching me believes that I am in danger’ whereupon the stranger, hearing this but not realizing that she refers to him, simply echoes her by uttering (86). Yet, given (a), he still would not utter (87) over the phone—indeed he would deny it if the voice on the phone were to ask ‘Do you think that I am in danger?’ What are we to make of this ingenious scenario? It is no part of this book’s project to defend doxastic logic, context-relativized or not. But once disambiguation has been relativized to a textual frame, STC has no

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difficulty in explaining the intuitive invalidity of the inference from (86) and ‘I am the man watching you’ to (87). These three sentences respectively translate into L1 as (88a-c): (88)

a. (the X: man(X) and watching(X,you))believes(X, that in-danger(you)) b. (the X: man(X) & watching(X,you))Is(I, X) c. believe(I, that in-danger(you)).

Since the pure de dicto readings of both belief-ascriptions are stipulated, the relevant L0 -counterparts relative to the textual frame are (89a-c): (89)

a. (the X: man1 (X) and watching1 (X,a1 ))believes1 (X,that in-danger1 (a2 )) b. (the X: man2 (X) & watching2 (X,a3 ))Is(u1 , X) c. believe2 (u2 , that in-danger2 (a4 )).

STC provides (89a-c) the context-relativized truth-conditions (90a-c) respectively: (90)

a. (the xi : Man(x) & Watching(x, [you1 ]c ))Believes(x, [§z i [InDanger1 ]c ([you2 ]c )]) b. (the xi : Man(x) & Watching(x, [you3 ]c )([I ]c =E x) c. Believes([I ]c ,[§z i [InDanger2 ]c ([you4 ]c )]).

Even without plodding through the derivation, it should be clear by now that there could be a context c in which (90b) obtains and [you1 ]c =[you2 ]c =[you3 ]c = [you4 ]c =Mary, but in which [you2 ]c = [you4 ]c . (Indeed, the story about what the stranger would or would not say into the phone or shout to Mary suggest what the utterer’s distinct Mary-based percepts [PA2 ]c and [PA4 ]c might be, in virtue of which [you2 ]c = [you4 ]c .) So there is no obstacle to (89a) and (89b) being true in a context in which (89c) is false. STC has been shown to meet all the semantical adequacy conditions imposed in Chapter 2. It is now time to consider, and to attempt to rebut, a variety of objections that have been or could be raised against STC in particular or against semantical theories of its Fregean ilk. This will be the burden of the next Chapter. NOTES 1 Each of (30b)-(45b) is equivalent to a condition that involves Bob’s harboring a Mentalese sentence that contains certain c-salient counterparts of our words and a Mentalese sense-name of the sort «[λv S]» that may itself contain one or more sense-names. These conditions do not overtly mention any A-objects other than c (mention of which is, as we saw earlier, eliminable in principle). But, from the standpoint of TC, they do ‘involve’ A-objects inasmuch as TC presupposes a semantics for Mentalese on which its sense-names denote senses, which TC identifies with certain A-objects.

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2 Suppose [CRi ] = [CRi ] , i.e., that just one counterpart relation is at issue for type i Men1 c 2 c talese names. But (58c) in the text entails that Pierre assertively tokens both «PRETTY(n1 )» and «∼PRETTY(n2 )», where n1 and n2 are (not necessarily distinct) type i names for London in his

Mentalese that are c-salient counterparts for him of  London . Since we have assumed LONDRES and LONDON to be Pierre’s only Mentalese names for London, this means that at least one of four things would be have to be the case: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

Pierre affirms both «PRETTY(LONDRES)» and «∼PRETTY(LONDRES)»; or Pierre affirms both «PRETTY(LONDON)» and «∼PRETTY(LONDON)»; or Pierre affirms both «PRETTY(LONDON)» and «∼PRETTY(LONDRES)»; or Pierre affirms both «PRETTY(LONDRES)» and «∼PRETTY(LONDON)».

If (i) or (ii) obtains, then Pierre would obviously be irrational by dint of affirming an explicit contradiction. But the obtaining of (iii) or (iv) is equally incompatible with the assumption of his rationality. For (assuming that Pierre, if rational, accepts the self-identities «LONDON = LONDON» and «LONDRES = LONDRES») our definition of the counterpart relation immediately yields the following theorem: If LONDON and LONDRES are both c-salient counterparts for Pierre of  London and Pierre is rational, then Pierre [is disposed as one who] affirms «LONDON = LONDRES», a trivial corollary of which is If LONDON and LONDRES are c-salient counterparts for Pierre of  London but it is not the case that Pierre [is disposed as one who] affirms «LONDON = LONDRES», then Pierre is not rational. Now in the context of Kripke’s story, it is crucial that Pierre fails to believe that London = Londres, i.e., is not disposed as one who accepts «LONDON = LONDRES». Moreover, if (iii) or (iv) obtains, LONDON and LONDRES would both have to be c-salient counterparts for him of  London , in which case it follows from the corollary above that Pierre is not rational. So if Pierre is rational and [CRi1 ]c = [CRi2 ]c , then none of (i)-(iv) is the case, hence (58c) does not obtain and (58a) is false in c. 3 It should be noted that the boldface numerical subscripts appearing on ∗ London1 , ∗ London2 , . . . and hence on «[∗ London1 ]1 », «[∗ London2 ]2 », . . . are semantically inert: in the former list, all the terms have the same denotation that ∗ London does, and in the latter list any difference in denotation would owe solely to a difference in the counterpart relations named by 1 and 2 . This latter fact gives us a clear sense in which, for a fixed counterpart relation , ∗ Londonj and ∗ Londonk are even mutually interchangeable within «[∗ Londonj ] » and «[∗ Londonk ] »; but the strictures on the formation of Mentalese sense-names prevent their interchange with ∗ London therein. This, of course, does not compromise the demand that counterparts of  London must be interchangeable for the subject outside Mentalese sense-terms. 4 Note that the definiens presupposes nothing about what, if anything, «[n]r » itself denotes. 5 As will become clear from our discussion of the puzzle, the fact that it involves two distinct demonstrative-types like ‘this’ and ‘that’ is inessential to the nature of the problem and to its solution. 6 Our solution to Austin’s puzzle is thus an implementation of the strategy originally suggested in Levine (1988). 7 The transparent reading of (76a) can continue to dominate even when the utterer is Mary—e.g., for a hearer who is unaware of this identity! As a matter of convention, people are normally expected to

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use the first-person form when consciously referring to themselves unless—as sometimes happens— there is some special reason for a different style of reference to oneself (as, e.g., when parents use ‘Daddy’ or ‘Mommy’ instead of ‘I’ in talking about themselves to their toddlers, who presumably have not yet fully mastered the use of indexicals). Absent any indication of such a special stylistic reason, an utterance of (76a) by Mary would conversationally implicate that Mary takes herself to be ascribing a belief to someone else.

CHAPTER 8

OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES

No matter how beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. —Winston Churchill

8.1

SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS TO OUR SEMANTICAL THEORY

We begin by considering three possible lines of attack on STC . The first cites the failure of STC to validate traditional argument forms. The second focuses on a difficulty in translating STC from meta-English into another semantical metalanguage. And the third questions the ability of STC to shed any light on the cross-world behavioral similarities that figure in Putnam-style Twin-Earth scenarios. In each case it is shown that the objection is either misguided or capable of being turned aside via natural modifications of our technical apparatus. 8.1.1 Belief Reports and Valid Arguments As a result of the role that context plays in our semantics for de dicto belief reports, classically valid argument forms cannot be relied upon to preserve truth in every context when instantiated by sentences containing such reports. Thus, e.g., even (1), the humblest such argument form, can fail to preserve truth in instances like (2) when its premiss and conclusion are taken purely de dicto: (1)

φ φ.

(2)

Pierre believes that London is pretty. Pierre believes that London is pretty.

For as we saw in connection with Kripke’s puzzle about Pierre, STC gives the opaque readings of (2)’s premiss and conclusion (relative to the textual frame constituted

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by the argument itself) the respective truth conditions (3a) and (3b): (3)

a. Believes(Pierre, [§xi [Pretty1 ]c ([London1 ]c )]) b. Believes(Pierre, [§xi [Pretty2 ]c ([London2 ]c )]).

But it also allows the possibility of a context c in which the requirements imposed by the counterpart relations [CRi1 ]c and [CRi2 ]c for a Mentalese name of London to count as a c-salient counterpart of  London differ in such a way that (3a)’s obtaining will not guarantee that Pierre accepts a Mentalese sentence of the right sort for (3b) to obtain. Belief-specific argument forms like (4) fair no better in this respect: (4)

Everything α believes, β believes. α believes that φ. β believes that φ.

For consider the instance (5) of (4): (5)

a. Everything Julius believes, Antonia believes. b. Julius believes that Cicero is a Roman. c. Antonia believes that Cicero is a Roman.

The pure de dicto readings of (5b) and (5c) receive the respective truth conditions (5b ) and (5c ): (5b ) Believes(Julius, [§xi [Roman1 ]c ([Cicero1 ]c )]). (5c ) Believes(Julius, [§xi [Roman2 ]c ([Cicero2 ]c )]). But, just as with (3a) and (3b), there can be a context c in which (5b ) obtains but (5c ) does not. Interestingly, if we restrict attention to what were earlier called ‘normal’ contexts—i.e., contexts which supply just one counterpart relation for each Mentalese type—both (2) and (5) remain truth-preserving. If, however, the relevant premisses and conclusions are taken purely de re, the inferences go through without the need for any special provisos. Transparently construed, both the premises and the conclusion of (2) have exactly the same truth condition: viz., Believes(Pierre, [§xi Pretty(London)]). And a wholly transparent reading of (5) yields the truth conditions (6a-c) for its premisses and conclusion,

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where (6a) and (6b) jointly entail (6c): (6)

a. (∀Q )(Believes(Julius,Q) → Believes(Antonia,Q)) b. Believes(Julius, [§xi Roman(Cicero)]) c. Believes(Antonia, [§xi Roman(Cicero)]).

Of course, when indexicals and demonstratives are added to the mix, neither a restriction to instances involving only de re belief reports nor a restriction to ‘normal’ contexts will avail. The arguments (7) and (8) are invalid either way: (7)

Pierre believes that this is pretty. Pierre believes that this is pretty.

(8)

Everything Julius believes, Antonia believes. Julius believes that he is a Roman. Antonia believes that he is a Roman.

For a de re reading of (7) and (8) cannot rule out the very real possibility that [this1 ]c = [this2 ]c and [he1 ]c = [he2 ]c . And on a de dicto reading, even a ‘normal’ context c may allow that [this1 ]c = [this2 ]c and [he1 ]c = [he2 ]c , for it may be the case that [PO1 ]c = [PO2 ]c and [PM1 ]c = [PM2 ]c even though [CRik ]c is held constant for every k ≥ 1. What conclusion should be drawn from all this? It has long been recognized that any argument form, specified purely syntactically, may have instances in which the premisses are true but the conclusion is false owing to the presence in them of context-dependent devices such as indexicals and demonstratives. But traditionally this has not been seen as cause for alarm. Such cases are acknowledged at the beginning of elementary logic textbooks and then excluded from further consideration by the blanket stipulation that all occurrences of a given term or predicate in an argument under discussion must be understood in the same way, i.e., taken to have the same semantical value throughout. (This could be construed as an edict that propositional attitude constructions, if allowed at all, are to be read purely transparently or else treated as unstructured.) So textbook claims about the validity of certain argument forms are insulated from counterexamples involving deictic terms by dint of the author’s legislating that, when an instance of an argument form involving such terms is considered, its premisses and conclusion must be tacitly relativized to a special sort of context: viz., one in which every occurrence of a given deictic term receives the same interpretation. The traditional notion of a valid argument form as one which is

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truth-preserving—in the sense of having no instance with true premisses and a false conclusion—does not overtly mention context simply because the foregoing sort of context-relativization has already been presupposed in talk about the truth-values of premisses and conclusion. But on this conception of validity, (1) and (4) are still not valid as long as they are allowed to have instances involving de dicto belief reports. Suppose we say that a context c is ‘homogeneous’ just in case conditions (a)-(c) obtain for j, k ≥ 1: (a)

every occurrence of a given deictic term is assigned the same referent in c (i.e., [youj ]c = [youk ]c , [thisj ]c = [thisk ]c , [hej ]c = [hek ]c , and [shej ]c = [shek ]c );

(b)

c is ‘normal’: each Mentalese type is assigned just one counterpart relation for that type (i.e., [CRtj ]c = [CRtk ]c ); and

(c)

c is ‘deictically uniform’: there is no variation in percept assignments across occurrences of a deictic term (i.e., [PIj ]c = [PIk ]c , [PAj ]c = [PAk ]c , [POj ]c = [POk ]c , [PMj ]c = [PMk ]c , and [PFj ]c = [PFk ]c ).

Where proper names and deictic terms are concerned, homogeneous contexts are probably the ones appropriate for the evaluation of most ordinary arguments involving deictic terms and/or belief ascriptions. This suggests that we might abandon the idea of there being any useful notion of validity as truth-preservation in all contexts, and settle instead for a notion of ‘h(omogenous)-validity’ that we could define as follows: an argument form is h-valid iff it is truth-preserving in all homogeneous contexts. (1) and (4) are certainly h-valid: that they have instances involving de dicto belief reports is no longer problematic. What is perhaps still unsettling is the need to retreat to h-validity occasioned by the fact that arguments like (2), (5), (7), and (8) fail in non-homogeneous (because non-normal and/or non-uniform) contexts on the pure de dicto readings of their ingredient belief reports. But perhaps even this should not surprise or alarm us. We can take solace in the following thought: the de dicto interpretations of certain belief reports—for whose systematic evaluation our semantic theory had recourse to non-normal and/or non-uniform contexts in the first place—are not mere artifacts of that theory but are instead intuitive data which, if trustworthy, show that there are genuine counterexamples to the argument forms (1) and (4). One may object to our account of contexts and/or to the way STC represents the context-relativized truth conditions of the sentences in those counterexamples, but it is not an objection to STC that it fails to make (1) and (4) truth-preserving on every legitimate interpretation of those instantiating sentences—unless, that is, one can establish that the intuitive data are untrustworthy as regards what counts as a legitimate interpretation.

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8.1.2 The Problem of Translating our Semantical Metalanguage ‘Look’, the critic says, ‘you’ve exploited the fact that your semantical metalanguage in effect contains the object-language L1 . But you won’t be able to translate your theory into a foreign metalanguage, say German, since the sense assignments your theory makes for L1 are parasitic on word kinds of your English metalanguage. If a monolingual German-speaker were to attempt to copy your TC-based approach to L1 , he would end up giving different sense-assignments than you do. But then at least one of you must be wrong about L1 ! And essentially the same problem would arise if you attempt to wield your apparatus in an English metalanguage to give a semantics for a corresponding fragment of German.’ As things are currently set up, the critic’s point is valid. If, while speaking English, we try to apply our apparatus to a German version of L1 , we will of course be able to say things like Refc (‘Hundk’)German = Dog but cannot intelligibly say Senc (‘Hundk’)German = [Hund k ]c because ‘Hund ’is not a word of English, hence ‘ Hund  ’and ‘[Hund k ]c ’would be undefined expressions. The best we could come up with would be something like Senc (‘Hundk’)German = [Dog k ]c . This might at first glance seem unobjectionable, but if what it says is correct, it should agree with what a German who used our appartus would say about his own language, viz., Senc (‘Hundk’)Deutsch = [Hund k ]c . Now the problem is obvious. By [OSN =] we have in our English metalanguage the postulate [Dog k ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) ]c ) & NameType(w, , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, My ) & (∃)( =E ↑([CR k    & z =E «w ») & [CRk ]c (y, w, Dog )])),

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whereas our German colleague has in his German metalanguage the postulate [Hund k ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(BedeutetIn (w⊗ , x, M y ) & NamenTyp(w, , M y ) & EinfachIn(w, M y ) & (∃)( =E ]c (y, w, Hund  )])). ↑([CR ]c ) & z =E «w ») & [CR k k But ‘ Dog  ’ in meta-English and ‘ Hund  ’ in meta-German pick out distinct word-kinds, hence both the relations and encoded property-reducts alluded to in these postulates are presumably distinct, in which case we would expect ‘[Dog k ]c ’ in meta-English and ‘[Hund k ]c ’ in meta-German to pick out distinct objects for any given value of ‘c’(and we certainly could not prove otherwise in TC even if we added  Hund  as a word-kind of our metalanguage). As a result, we do indeed end up disagreeing with our German colleague about the identity of the sense of his word ‘Hund ’—which is embarrassing, since his metalanguage, by dint of containing his object-language, ought to put him in a position to render an authoritative verdict. Fortunately, the objection in question is not fatal. The difficulty which generates it is a mere artifact of the particular way we chose in Chapter 4 to formulate the notion of a counterpart relation. In the interest of not further complicating an already very complex exposition, we chose there to treat counterpart relations as directly connecting Mentalese words with word-kinds of our language. But this is by no means obligatory. A more general approach would treat counterpart relations as connecting an agent u and expression n of u’s language of thought M u not to a word-kind  N of ours but to its abstractly specified linguistic role (symbolized ‘• N• ’). The linguistic role • N• would be functionally defined, say, in terms of the normative interrelations created by our relevant social practices anent ‘N’—e.g., by its conventional contribution to the inferential potential and conditions of warranted assertibility attaching to the natural language sentences containing it. The connection between n and • N• would run through the conceptual role of n in M u (symbolized ‘nM u ’), functionally defined in terms of the pattern of n’s psychological interrelations with other elements of M u , in particular its systematic contribution to u’s dispositions to produce and react to inner tokens of Mentalese sentences containing it in response to perceptions and in making inferences. (Ontologically, we could construe both linguistic and conceptual roles as complex relational properties of type .) The obtaining of a counterpart relation between n, u, and • N• would minimally require that nM u be in conformity with • N• —i.e., to put it crudely, that n’s causal contribution to u’s private inner language game should mirror the conventional contribution made by ‘N’ to the public language game of which it is a part. (Although this notion of conformity obviously needs further refinement, it is clear enough for the modest use to which it will be put here.) Different counterpart relations for n’s Mentalese type would then specify different ways in which nM u might

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consistently extend • N• —additional features that nM u must have over and above the baseline profile ensured by conformity to • N• . A bit more precisely, on the new proposal a ternary relation C will be a counterpart relation for Mentalese type t  iff (a )-(c ) hold: (a )

For any xi , y and y : C(x, y, z) entails that x is an agent, y is a type t  name in M u , and z is a linguistic role such that yM x conforms to z.

(b )

For every agent u, word-kind  N and simple type t  name n in M u : C(u,n,• N• ) entails that there is an object ot such that n denotes o in M u and  N designates o.

(c )

For every agent u, simple type t  names n and m in M u and word kind  N : C(u,n,• N• ) and C(u,m,• N• ) jointly entail that, for any sentence S of M u and mode f of entertainment, u f -registers S iff u f -registers S(n m )— where S(n m ) is the result of putting n for one or more occurrences of m in S that lie outside sense-terms in S. 

Where [CRtk ]c is the k th counterpart relation specified by c for Mentalese type t  , we  will read the formula ‘[CRtk ]c (u,n,• N• )’ as saying that the conceptual role nM u is a counterpart to • N• in the k th c-salient way. The key elements in our earlier account of opacity-inducing counterpart relations will carry over mutatis mutandis. Thus, e.g., we have the obvious analogue of Chapter 4’s Opacity Theorem: there will be a context c such that, for any simple type t  name in M u and distinct type  t words ‘N’ and ‘M’ of our language: [CRtk ]c (u,n,• N• ) only if it is not the case 

that [CRtk ]c (u,n,• M• ). For, where ‘N1t ’,…,‘Nkt ’ is TC’s canonical list of primitive type t names, any relation of the following disjunctive sort is easily shown to be opacity-inducing for t  :
[λui nr 1≤j≤k {(∀x )(r(x) ≡ • Njt • (x)) &  Njt  is the surface reflection of n in agent u’s natural language & nM u conforms to r & (∃ot )( Njt  designates o & n is the only simple type t  name in M u that denotes o)}]. The difficulty about translation now disappears. Linguistic roles, even if not shareable by distinct word kinds within a language, are in principle shareable by words of different languages. While, e.g., it remains the case that ‘ Dog  ’ in metaEnglish and ‘ Hund  ’ in meta-German pick out distinct word kinds, this does not require that the role name ‘• Dog • ’ in meta-English and the role name ‘• Hund • ’ in meta-German have distinct referents, despite the fact that ‘ Dog  ’ and ‘ Hund  ’ are used to define them. For we may adopt a functional definition of the form (9)

•

Dog • = def . [λW · · · W · · · ],

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whereas our German colleague may adopt functional definition of the corresponding form (10)

•

Hund • = def . [λW —W —]

in which ‘—W —’ is replaced by the German translation of whatever abstract roledescription replaces ‘· · · W · · · ’ in (9). Then—since presumably neither ‘ Dog  ’ nor ‘ Hund  ’ will occur in functional definitions of the relational properties in question—there is no reason in principle why the right-hand sides of (9) and (10) could not also co-refer. Given this emended notion of counterpart relations, we will then have in our English metalanguage the schematic postulate [Dog k ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) ]c ) & NameType(w, , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, M y ) & (∃)( =E ↑([CR k  & z =E «w ») & [CRk ]c (y, w, • Dog • )])),

while our German counterpart will have in his German metalanguage the postulate [Hund k ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(BedeutetIn (w⊗ , x, M y ) & NamenTyp(w, , M y ) & EinfachIn(w, M y ) & (∃)( =E ↑([CR ]c ) & z = E «w ») & [CR ]c (y, w, • Hund • )])). k k So, since it might be the case that ‘• Dog • ’ in meta-English and ‘• Hund • ’ in metaGerman co-refer, it could equally turn out that our sense-name ‘[Dog k ]c ’ and the German theorist’s sense-name ‘[Hund k ]c ’pick out the very same A-object for every common value of their contextual parameter ‘c’. So it may turn out, as college deans are fond of saying, that we are all saying the same thing. 8.1.3

Twin Earth Semantics

The foregoing discussion of translation also suggests a way of dealing with a possible objection to basing our semantic theory on TC which is raised by Putnam’s famous Twin-Earth example (Putnam, 1975). The objector notes that a Twin-Earth semanticist, whose semantic theory (if we are right) will be based on Twin-TC, will give postulates like (11) and (12) (in which non-logical vocabulary of TwinEnglish appears in script to distinguish it from the similarly pronounced vocabulary of English): (11)

[Tigerk ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn (w⊗ , x, M y ) & NameType(w, , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, M y ) & (∃) ]c ) & z=E «w ») & [CR ]c (y, w, • Tiger• )])). (=E ↑([CR k k

Objections and Replies

(12)

273

[Waterk ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn (w⊗ , x, M y ) & NameType(w, , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, M y ) & ]c (y, w, • Water• )])). ]c ) & z =E «w ») & [CR (∃)( =E ↑([CR k k

(It seems safe to assume that the microstructural physical differences between Earth and Twin-Earth do not effect the interpretation of the syntactic and semantic vocabulary of Twin-TC—hence, e.g., that ‘DenIn’ and ‘DenIn’ denote the same relation in their home languages.) Now although English-speaking and Germanspeaking semanticists (here on Earth) might use words of their respective languages to pick out the very same senses, this will not be the case with the English-speaking semanticist on Earth (call him ‘Oscar E ’) and the Twin-English-speaking semanticist on Twin-Earth (call him ‘Oscar TE ’). For according to TC and Twin-TC, every sense is a sense of exactly one object: distinct objects cannot have the same sense. But, by hypothesis of the Twin-Earth case, the kind and substance respectively denoted by ‘Tiger’ and ‘Water’ in Oscar E ’s mouth are distinct from the kind and substance respectively denoted by ‘Tiger’ and ‘Water’ in Oscar TE ’s mouth. Therefore, the objector observes, the senses Oscar E refers to by ‘[Tigerk ]c ’ and ‘[Waterk ]c ’ cannot be the senses that Oscar TE refers to by ‘[Tiger ]c ’ and ‘[Waterk ]c ’—hence, e.g., the k thought-content that Oscar E refers to by ‘[§x [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )]’ cannot be the same as the thought-content that Oscar TE refers to as ‘[§x [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )]’. Now the objector moves in for the kill. A scientifically innocent Earthman and his Twin-Earth counterpart are supposed to behave exactly alike with respect to their phenomenologically indiscernible but microstructurally distinct environments. So one would expect their identical patterns of behavior (qua identical patterns of bodily motions) to receive the same explanations. De dicto attitude ascriptions to an agent, unlike their (purely) de re brethren, are supposed to play a major role in explaining such bodily motions. According to TC (and Twin-TC), what a de dicto attitude ascription reports is a certain relation to a de dicto thoughtcontent, one comprised wholly or partly of senses. But the allegedly believed thought-contents provided by TC to explain Oscar E ’s behavior towards water will be items like [§x [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )], while those provided by Twin-TC to explain Oscar TE ’s isomorphic behavior towards Twin-water will be corresponding items like [§x [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )], yet we have just seen that these cannot be the same thought-contents! The objector concludes from this that TC has nothing to offer by way of explaining the cross-world behavioral similarities in question in as much as ‘Believes(OscarTE , [§x [Wet k ]c ([Water k ]c )])’ and the like will all be false in every context c by dint of implying something false, viz., that the Twin-Earth agent’s language of thought possesses a name for a certain Terrestrial substance or kind that is nowhere to be found on Twin-Earth (such local availability being, we may concede, a necessary condition for the Twin-Earther’s possessing such a Mentalese name). It is, of course, true that TC enshrines the intuition that natural language attitudeascriptions are semantically anchored to the ascriber’s own environment, the

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intuition that we Earth-folk cannot truly say (de re or de dicto) ‘Oscar TE believes that water is wet’. Although Oscar TE sincerely utters Twin-English sentences like ‘Water is wet’ and meta-Twin-English sentences like ‘“Water” denotes water’, he simply is not talking about water or expressing a belief about water. But the objection at hand can be met without abandoning the intuition in question, and without adopting any dubious notion of ‘narrow content’ (as in Fodor (1987)). Initially, three small changes in our apparatus need to be made. First, let the denotation clause from the previous Section’s redefinition of counterpart relations be deleted and the remainder be taken to define the notion of a ‘reference-neutral’counterpart relation. In other words, let us now say that a ternary relation C is a reference-neutral counterpart relation for Mentalese type t  iff (i)-(ii) hold: (i) For any xi , y and y : C(x, y, z) entails that x is an agent, y is a type t  name in M u , and z is a linguistic role such that yM x conforms to z. (ii) For every agent u, simple type t  names n and m in M u and word kind  N : C(u,n,• N• ) and C(u,m,• N• ) jointly entail that, for any sentence S of M u and mode f of entertainment, u f -registers S iff u f -registers S(n m )—where S(n m ) is the result of putting n for one or more occurrences of m in S that lie outside sense-terms in S. Second, let us replace all the appeals in TC to counterpart relations with appeals to the newly defined reference-neutral ones. And third, let us add to the definition of a sense of an object a separate clause specifying that the Mentalese expression in question denotes that object. As a result of these modifications, writing ‘[- CRtk ]c ’ for ‘the k th reference-neutral counterpart relation specified by c for Mentalese type t’, [OSN =] would be recast as [- OSN =]: [- OSN =]

[Ntk ]c = (ιvt )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λxt yi z (∃w)(DenIn(w⊗ , x, M y ) & NameType(w, t  , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, M y ) & (∃)( =E  ↑([- CR ]c ) & z =E «w ») & [- CRtk ]c (y, w, • N• ) & DenIn k (w⊗ , N, M y )])).

Then, for each type t and each functionally defined linguistic role rt whose occupants must be expressions of that type, the key notion of an rt -constraint may be schematically defined as follows: rt -constraint (ρ ) =def . (∃!R ){- CptRelt  (R)&(∀xt )(∀yi ) (∀z)(ρ(x, y, z) → (∃w)(NameType(w, t  , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, M y )&(∃)( =E ↑(R) & z =E «w ») & R(y, w, r))}. (here ‘- CptRelt  ’ abbreviates ‘is a reference-neutral counterpart relation for Mentalese type t  ’). By this definition, every type mode of presentation is an rt -constraint.

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Since it is perfectly possible that the linguistic role Oscar TE refers to by ‘• Water • ’ is identical to the linguistic role Oscar E refers to by ‘• Water • ’—indeed, their identity is assured by the description of the Twin-Earth case—it is possible (indeed, the case) that the distinct senses which Oscar E refers to by ‘[Water k ]c ’ and Oscar TE refers to by ‘[Waterk ]c ’ have something objective in common: viz., both may (in our language) correctly be called • Water • -constraints in the foregoing sense. (Correlatively, Oscar TE can truly say in Twin-English ‘The distinct senses which my Twin refers to by “[Waterk ]c ” and I refer to by “[Waterk ]c ” are both • Water• -constraints’.) Applying the foregoing to pure de dicto atomic thought-contents (generalization to arbitrary thought-contents is possible, but the details are irrelevant here), we can schematically define a useful notion of two (possibly distinct) such thoughtcontents ‘having the same behavior-explanatory content’. Where, for each j (0 ≤ j ≤ n; n ≥ 1), αj and βj are cotypical sense-terms of type tj (t0 being ), every instance of the following scheme will be a definition: [§γi αt00 (αt11 , . . . , αtnn )] and [§γi βt00 (βt11 , . . . , βtnn )] have the same behaviorexplanatory content =def . &(0≤j≤n;n≥1) {For some functionally defined linguist t tic role rtj : αjj and βjj both contain modes of presentation that are rtj -constraints}. Thus, e.g., since ‘[Wet k ]c ’, ‘[Water k ]c ’, ‘[Wetk ]c ’ and ‘[Waterk ]c ’ all denote senses, saying The thought-contents [§xi [Wet k ]c ([Water k ]c )] and [§xi [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )] have the same behavior-explanatory content is equivalent to saying For some functionally defined linguistic role r , the senses [Wet k ]c and [Wetk ]c both contain modes of presentation that are r -constraints; and, for some functionally defined linguistic role ri , the senses [Water k ]c and [Waterk ]c both contain modes of presentation that are ri -constraints. The usefulness of this notion of two thought-contents’ having the same behaviorexplanatory content lies in the fact that its application to the thought-contents [§xi [Wet k ]c ([Water k ]c )] and [§xi [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )] ensures that, despite the difference in their truth conditions in any given context c, they impose the importantly similar requirements on the conceptual role of the Mentalese sentence registered by anyone who believes them. For although TC does not regard the thought-contents [§xi [Wet k ]c ([Water k ]c )] and [§xi [Wetk ]c ([Waterk ]c )] respectively entertained by Oscar E and Oscar TE as numerically the same, the very nature of those distinct thought-contents, as TC now conceives them, already makes evident the behaviorexplaining power they share. With respect to a given context c, Oscar E and Oscar TE

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are alike in B -registering atomic sentences «f (a)» and «g(b)» of their respective languages of thought such that the conceptual roles of f in M OscarE and g in M OscarTE are both counterparts in the k th c-salient way to the linguistic role • Wet • (= • Wet• ), and the conceptual roles of a in M OscarE and b in M OscarTE are both counterparts in the k th c-salient way to the linguistic role • Water • (= • Water• ). Regardless of which particular counterpart relation the context provides, satisfaction of the core requirement that the conceptual roles of the agents’ Mentalese names a and b be in conformity with the linguistic role • Water • (= • Water• ) already predicts a wide variety of isomorphic behaviors—e.g., that Oscar E and Oscar TE will mentally apply their respective Mentalese names of these substances to something only under the (shared) justification conditions for calling something ‘water’ (or ‘Water’). Spelling this out in detail would require a much more elaborate account of conceptual and linguistic roles than can be given here, but even this brief sketch may serve to dispel the worry that TC contains nothing relevant to explaining the cross-world behavioral similarities that figure in Twin-Earth cases.1 8.2

GENERIC OBJECTIONS TO ‘FREGEAN’ SEMANTICS

We turn now to indirect attacks on STC that rely on guilt-by-association. These are criticisms aimed not at STC per se but at the broadly Fregean company it keeps. It will be argued that, whatever the fate of its Fregean kin, STC is immune these objections. 8.2.1 Stephen Schiffer’s Critique Stephen Schiffer2 complains that Fregeans never get past their ‘functional’ definition of senses to an intrinsic characterization of them. Now surely it cannot reasonably be required that sense-candidates be empirically given objects as opposed to theoretical posits: senses are officially abstracta of some sort, and (barring a magical Inner Eye) the only access we have to such entities is through the theories that characterize them. It would, e.g., be unreasonable to insist that the mathematical notion of a set is somehow illegitimate unless sets are ‘intrinsically describable’ if that meant ‘characterizable in other than set-theoretic terms’, since (as Schiffer admits) being a set is an essential and individuating property of sets. However, it would be perfectly reasonable to ask about the existence- and identityconditions for sets, and these are questions for which set-theories provide answers. Similarly, it would be unreasonable to complain that the A-objects we propose as sense-candidates are given only through the theory TC, since being an A-object is an essential and individuating property of A-objects; but would be perfectly reasonable to ask about their existence- and identity-conditions—which, as we have seen, are fully specified in TC. The real substance of Schiffer’s worry derives from Russell’s famous complaint against Frege that a Fregean sense can only be specified ‘through the phrase’, i.e.,

Objections and Replies

277

only as the (actual or potential) sense of an expression of some language. For at least some of our sense-candidates—viz., the senses of those primitive terms T of L0 for which it was stipulated that Senc,f (T ) = Refc,f (T )—it is obvious that this objection fails. Thus, e.g., the sense of ‘is ’in L0 is precisely identified in STC via the theorem (13) on the right-hand side of which there is no mention of any words: (13)

Senc,f (‘is ’)= [λxi yi x =E y].

It might, however, be objected that although the postulate (14)

Senc,f (
red k ) = [red k ]c )

mentions no words of L0 on its right-hand side, the A-object [red k ]c invoked in (14) is itself identified in TC via the theorem (15)

[red k ]c = (ιv )(∀F )(vF ≡ F = ℘ ([λx yi z (∃w)(DenIn (w⊗ , x, M y ) & NameType(w, , M y ) & SimpleIn(w, M y ) & ]) & z =E «w ») & [CR ]c (y, w, red  )])), (∃)( =E ↑([CR k k

which indirectly involves mention of the metalinguistic term ‘red ’ of TC because (as it happens) this term is mentioned in specifying the intended interpretation of the clause
[CR ]c (y, w, red ) in (15). In short, it might be objected that k our description of Senc,f (
red k ) is still somehow metalinguistically ‘through the phrase’. How serious is this? Well, there is certainly no problem of ineliminable sensetalk in STC . Neither (14) nor (15) identifies the sense of ‘red’ in L0 with the sense of anything! On the contrary, the sense of ‘red’ in L0 is held to be a certain A-object whose specification involves no sense-talk but may indirectly involve mention of the metalinguistic term ‘red ’ in the aforementioned way. So if there is anything objectionable here, it must be that the sense of a word in an object language has been identified with another entity defined (sans sense-talk) in terms of a word in our metalanguage. It is hard to see why anyone should take offense at this, even in the special case where the metalanguage contains the object-language. Thus, e.g., a theory (in meta-English) which, for some equivalence-relation R defined without sense-talk, contains the set-theoretic claim The sense of the English word ‘red’ = {x | R(x, ‘red’)} may well be false and wrongheaded but certainly is not cognitively vacuous in the way Russell and Schiffer allege sense-theories to be. The harmlessness would be even more apparent if the object-language were, say, German and claim were The sense of the German word ‘rot’ = {x | R(x, ‘red’)}.

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But, except for the use of A-objects instead of sets, this is essentially the situation vis-à-vis [red k ]c and ‘red ’ in STC ! If there is still a residual worry here, it is most likely the translation objection that was advanced and rebutted in Section 8.1.2 above. According to Schiffer, the Fregean has trouble with belief-ascriptions like (16) All who see Wanda believe that Wanda is beautiful because, on the plausible assumption that (16)’s ‘that’-clause is univocal, a Fregean semantics would have the wildly implausible consequence that (16) is true only if all the people who see Wanda hold this belief about her under exactly the same mode of presentation. It is easily demonstrated, however, that our theory has no such untoward consequence. (16)’s counterpart in L1 would be (17)

(All X)(If sees(X, Wanda) then believes(X, that beautiful(Wanda))).

For the sake of argument, let us suppose that the fully opaque reading of the beliefclause is contextually at issue, so that (17) will have the L0 -formula (18) as its reading within the default textual frame : (18)

(All X)(If sees1 (X, Wanda1 ) then believes1 (X, that beautiful1 (Wanda2 ))]).

Now according to STC , (18)’s context-relativized truth condition is the proposition (∀xi )((Sees(x, Wanda) → Believes(x, [§z i [beautiful 1 ]c ([Wanda2 ]c )])). And, to cut a long story short, this condition will obtain if and only if each person x who sees Wanda (is disposed as one who) affirmatively tokens a sentence «b(w)» of i x’s own Mentalese in which (by the lights of [CR 1 ]c and [CR2 ]c ) b is a c-salient counterpart for x of  beautiful  and w is a c-salient counterpart for x of  Wanda . Here there is manifestly no requirement that the Mentalese sentence tokened in foro interno by one person should intrinsically resemble that tokened by any other! A similar result obtains, mutatis mutandis, for a demonstrative version of (16) such as (19): (19) All who see her believe that she is beautiful. The translation of (19) in L1 is (20a), which, opaquely construed, has the reading (20b) in L0 within the default textual frame and hence inherits the truthcondition (20c): (20)

a. (All X)(If sees(X, her) then believes(X, that beautiful(she))) b. (All X)(If sees1 (X, s1 ) then believes1 (X, that beautiful1 (s2 ))) c. (∀xi )((Sees(x, [she1 ]c )) → Believes(x, [§z i [beautiful 1 ]c ([she2 ]c )])).

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279

Relative to a context c in which [she1 ]c = [she2 ]c = Wanda, the condition (20c) obtains iff each person x who sees Wanda (is disposed as one who) mentally affirms a token of a sentence-type «b(dxWanda )» of M x in which b is a c-salient counterpart of  beautiful  for x and d is a demonstrative tag of M x and xWanda is a Wanda-based percept belonging to x which is c-saliently similar to [PF2 ]c —in consequence of which x’s token of «b(dxWanda )» will, by definition, consist of a token of b concatenated with a token of d indexed by some Wanda-based percept of x’s that is c-saliently similar to [PF2 ]c . But it need not (because it metaphysically could not) be the same Wanda-based percept for each such person x! Thus, e.g., [PF2 ]c might be one of [I ]c ’s auditory representations of Wanda, while the various persons who hear Wanda enjoy c-saliently similar but numerically and qualitatively distinct auditory experiences of her as elements of their demonstrative thoughts about Wanda. Schiffer further maintains that a problem about ‘believed identity’ arises for hybrid theories which (a) construe propositions as structured entities composed of individuals and relations, (b) invoke languages of thought and (c) identify senses with the functional roles of Mentalese expressions. Since we have done neither (a) nor (c), the problem does not arise for us in its original form. It is important, however, to see why no analogue of it can be used against STC . In a nutshell, the alleged problem is this. Suppose Tom, a prolific novelist, writes only under the pen-name ‘Ugo’. Suppose that Lloyd, who is Tom’s publisher and a fully rational person to boot, is the only other person who is aware of Ugo’s identity. In particular, Lloyd is aware that his friend Alice has read the Ugo novels but has never met their author. Then (21)-(23) would, it seems, be simultaneously true on their fully opaque readings: (21)

Lloyd believes that Tom is Ugo.

(22)

Lloyd believes that Alice believes that Ugo is a novelist.

(23)

Lloyd believes that Alice doesn’t believe [i.e. fails to believe] that Tom is a novelist.

The challenge is to accommodate this fact about (21)-(23). The functional-role theorist, Schiffer argues, is thwarted by an inherent commitment to the following rationality principle (where «S(a)» is a Mentalese sentence of X ’s containing the term a and «S(b)» is the result of replacing a in «S(a)» by b): (RP)

If X is rational and affirms both «S(a)» and «∼S(b)» then X affirms «∼(a = b)».

Be that as it may, STC is not similarly thwarted. The sentences (21)-(23) translate into L1 as (24a)-(26a), with the pure de dicto L0 -readings (24b)-(26b) within the

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textual frame , and with the STC -conferred truth conditions (24c)-(26c): (24)

a. believes(Lloyd, that is(Tom, Ugo)). b. believes1 (Lloyd1 , that is(Tom1 ,Ugo1 )). c. Believes(Lloyd,[§yi [Tom1 ]c =E [Ugo1 ]c ]).

(25)

a. believes(Lloyd, that believes(Alice, that novelist(Ugo))). b. believes2 (Lloyd2 , that believes3 (Alice1 , that novelist1 (Ugo2 ))). c. Believes(Lloyd,[§yi [Believes3 ]c ([Alice1 ]c ,[§z i [Novelist 1 ]c ([Ugo2 ]c )])])

(26)

a. believes(Lloyd, that not believe(Alice, that novelist (Tom))). b. believes4 (Lloyd3 , that not believe5 (Alice2 , that novelist2 (Tom2 ))). c. Believes(Lloyd,[§yi ∼[Believes5 ]c ([Alice2 ]c ,[§z i [Novelist 2 ]c ([Tom2 ]c )])]).

By the lights of TC, however, (24c), (25c) and (26c) form a perfectly consistent triad. Indeed, this is just a variant of the case of Tom and Pierre considered in our earlier discussion (Section 7.5) of Kripke’s puzzle and iterated belief-ascriptions—viz., an ascription to an unconfused subject of a belief about the beliefs of a confused person—and is to be handled in essentially the same way. Suppose, e.g., that Lloyd’s Mentalese contains just two primitive names of Tom (call them ‘Tom’ and ‘Ugo’) and just one primitive name apiece for Alice, the property being a novelist, and the relation believes (call them ‘Alice’, ‘Novelist’, and ‘believes’). By hypothesis, Lloyd affirms «Tom = Ugo» and is rational. But according to the full theory TC of Chapter 5, Mentalese creates sense-names not with primitive names like Tom and Ugo but with the redundant subscripted names derived from them, which it reserves for use in sense-names that represent other people’s Mentalese names as having such-and-such features. So Lloyd affirms «believes(Alice, [§v [Novelist1 ]1 ([Ugo2 ]2 )])» for some sense-markers 1 and 2 and «∼(believes(Alice, [§v [Novelist2 ]3 ([Tom2 ]4 )]))» for some sense-markers 3 and 4 (where 2 and 4 both denote the counterpart relation [CRi2 ]c ). Of course, for k ≥ 1, Ugo and Ugok are interchangeable for Lloyd, as are Tom and Tomk , but only outside sense-names (which include terms of the form «[§v S]»). For the names «[Ugo2 ]2 » and «[Tom2 ]4 », though formed from names of Ugo/Tom, do not themselves denote him; instead they denote the senses [Ugo2 ]c and [Tom2 ]c , which may well be distinct from one another, inasmuch as

the requirements imposed by the counterpart relation [CRi2 ]c on being a c-salient counterpart for Lloyd of  Ugo could in principle be incompatible with those imposed by [CRi2 ]c on being a c-salient counterpart for Lloyd of  Tom . In other words, Schiffer’s principle (RP) need not and does not hold in TC with full generality. Since we are not committed to the idea that senses are functional roles (though construing counterpart relations as in Section 8.1.2 above would

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involve mention of such roles), we are free to allow, as we did earlier, that (RP) does not hold when «S(a)» is a Mentalese belief-ascription in which a lies within a Mentalese sense-term, as would be the case on our theory if (25c) and (26c) were true. Schiffer also maintains that sense-theorists face a serious problem about meaning and intending. Stated in terms of our toy language L1 , the difficulty would supposedly arise as follows. Suppose Dora (an L1 -speaker) assertively utters the L1 -sentence (27) and means what she thereby says: (27)

believes(Lloyd, that snores(Fido)).

Then, Schiffer complains, any theory which posits as sense of (27) a proposition P containing additional senses or sense-modifying elements e1 , . . . , en having no overt linguistic counterpart in (27) will be unable to provide Dora with an appropriate completion of
meant-by(I, (27), that V S ) in which
that V S explicitly refers to P.3 The idea behind the complaint is that if such a proposition P were the sense of (27) and Dora meant what she said in uttering (27), then she must thereby have meant P. If so, then it must be possible for her to say what she meant in a way that makes explicit the involvement of e1 , . . . , en . But by the lights of any ‘hidden elements’-theory she supposedly could not do this by asserting (a suitably tensed version of) the corresponding L1 -sentence (28): (28)

mean-by(I, (27), that believes(Lloyd, that snores(Fido))).4

This task could only be accomplished by supplanting the higher ‘that’-clause in (28) with some other clause
that X S such that every constituent in the sense of (27) is determined by some overt constituent(s) of S . But, Schiffer argues, plausible candidates for S do not seem to be available. Whatever the case may be with other theories, STC faces no such embarrassment. It must be kept in mind that STC is importantly different from standard Fregean approaches in three relevant respects. First, it identifies the referent of
that X S not with the sense of S itself but rather with the sense of the phrase
that X S. Second, the sense of the phrase
that X S—viz., a thought-content—does not in any literal fashion have additional senses or sense-modifying elements as parts. By the lights of TC, to say that thought-contents ‘contain’ modes of presentation is merely to say that the former encode the property-reducts of the latter, but encoding predications do not generate additional relations. (And to say that the thought-content denoted by
[§z i φ] has a certain sense as a ‘constituent’ is merely to say that sense is denoted by a maximally occurring term in φ.) Third, the modes of presentation contained in a thought-content add no descriptive material to one’s thought: that someone’s Mentalese name for an entity bears a certain counterpart relation to a word of our language is not itself represented in the Mentalese sentences in which the name occurs.

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Assuming that the fully opaque reading (29) of (28)—within the default frame —is at issue, the referent in a given context c of its higher ‘that’-clause will be the thought-content (30): (29)

mean-by(u1 , (27), that believes1 (Lloyd1 , that snores1 (Fido1 )))

(30)

[§xi [Believes1 ]c ([Lloyd 1 ]c , [§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )])].

Admittedly, (30) is not identical with the object that STC supplies as the sense in c of (27); but we have seen that STC , unlike Frege’s semantic theory, requires no such identity to vouchsafe the truth in c of a fully opaque reading of (28). On the contrary, restricting our attention to L1 (and suppressing temporal parameters), we may provide the following axiom for the triadic predicate ‘SayByL1 ’: [SayByL1 ] (∀xi )(∀S ∈ L1 )(∀c)(∀DF )(∀z )(SayByL1 (x, <S , c, DF>, z) ≡ (ActLang(L1 , x) & Utters(x, <S , c, DF>, L1 ) & [I ]c = x & [§z i Senc,DF (S )L1 ] = z)). Here DF is a disambiguation for L1 under a frame assignment F and ‘<S , c, DF >’ represents S as interpreted under DF with respect to context c (i.e., a ‘sentenceunder-analysis’). ‘SayByL1 ’ denotes the relation whose obtaining between a person x, sentence-under-analysis y of L1 , and thought-content z makes it the case that x, in uttering y as such, conventionally counts as saying z. ‘ActLang’ denotes the actual language relation, and ‘Utters’ denotes the relation whose obtaining between a person x, sentence-under-analysis <S , c, DF >, and language L constitutes x’s tokening S qua sentence of L subject to c and DF . (A more general version of [SayByL1 ], not restricted to sentences of L1 and STC ’s assignments of senses thereto, could certainly be provided, but the current point requires no such generalization.) Consequently, there is no difficulty in passing from the hypothetical facts of the case—viz., that, for some disambiguation DF providing the fully opaque readings of (27) and (28) and some c in which Dora = [I ]c , Dora uttered the sentenceunder-analysis of her actual language L1 , with respect to which the equation [§xi Senc,DF ((27))] = [§yi [Believes1 ]c ([Lloyd 1 ]c ,[§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )])] holds—to the truth of SayBy([I ]c , , [§yi [Believes1 ]c ([Lloyd 1 ]c , [§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )])]). (It is assumed here that we are dealing with the fully opaque reading of (27) within the default frame , viz., ‘believes1 (L1 , that snores1 (F1 ))’.) But this, together with the stipulation that what she meant by uttering (27) is what she

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said thereby—viz., (ιz )(Say-by([I ]c , , z)=(ιz )(MeanBy([I ]c ,, z) —entails the truth of MeanBy([I ]c , , [§yi [Believes1 ]c ([Lloyd 1 ]c , [§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )])]), which is precisely the proposition assigned by STC as the truthc -condition (i.e., the referentc ) of (29), the fully opaque reading of (28). Bearing in mind our earlier discussion of the Paradox of Analysis, there should be no temptation to object that Dora could believe that Lloyd believes that Fido snores without believing that Lloyd is related to a thought-content like [§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )]. For our claim is only that the L0 -formula which is the fully opaque reading of (31)

believes(Dora, that believes(Lloyd, that snores(Fido)))

within the default frame —viz., ‘believes1 (D1 , that believes2 (L1 , that snores1 (F1 )))’—is truec in L0 iff Dora bears the relation Believes to the thoughtcontent (32): (32)

[§yi [Believes2 ]c ([Lloyd 1 ]c , [§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )])].

And Dora will bear Believes to (32) when and only when she affirms a certain kind of Mentalese belief-ascription, one which is truec -in-her-Mentalese iff Lloyd bears the relation Believes to the thought-content (33): (33)

[§z i [Snores1 ]c ([Fido1 ]c )].

And Lloyd in turn will bear Believes to (33) when and only when he affirms a certain kind of sentence of his Mentalese predicating snoring of Fido. Nothing in this scenario has any unwelcome consequences about the contents of Dora’s beliefs. One might, however, complain that we have violated some independently plausible methodological constraint on semantical theories that invoke languages of thought. Where ‘J’ ranges over such theories, the envisaged constraint would presumably be something like (MC)

For any sentence σ of a language L, if reference to or quantification over Gs occurs in every φ such that J yields
L-True(σ) ≡ φ, then Gs must somehow be explicitly represented in any Mentalese sentence which J

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requires to be affirmed by one who satisfies the open formula
believes (α, that σ) of L. One could certainly quibble about the plausibility of (MC). Thus, e.g., suppose J were a theory which (unlike STC ) employed quantification over possible worlds, so that every T-sentence provable in J would have the form
L-Truew (σ) ≡ φ in world w. Does this mean that J is duty-bound to regard all beliefs about modal matters as beliefs explicitly about possible worlds—in the sense of involving the affirmation of Mentalese sentences containing overt talk of possible worlds? An affirmative answer does not seem inevitable. Fortunately, we need not become enmeshed in this issue. We avoid any confrontation with (MC) by virtue of the fact that (MC) is vacuously true for the case in which J = STC and the Fs in question are A-objects. The reason is simple: our sense-reference semantics STC for L0 and L1 , together with our denotational semantics for Mentalese, jointly ensure that every instance of the conditional (MC) for the case in question will have a false antecedent. For any overt references to A-objects can ultimately be eliminated so as to obtain T-sentences for iterated belief-ascriptions in L0 and L1 which mention no A-objects at all—though of course they will mention Mentalese sentences some of whose ingredient terms might, by the lights of TC, turn out to denote various A-objects, a fact which is irrelevant to satisfying (MC). 8.2.2 The Problem of Negative Existential Generalization In criticizing the theory of belief ascription put forward in Richard (1990), Theodore Sider (1995) poses a problem that is alleged to confront any theory of belief reports that is both Fregean in the sense of accepting (i) and logically orthodox in the sense of accepting (ii) and (iii): (i) Where α and β are distinct but coreferential proper names, demonstratives, or indexicals, there is some context in which corresponding sentences of the forms
A believes that · · · α · · · and
It is not the case that A believes that · · · β · · · can both be true. (ii)
Something is such that A believes that · · · it · · · is true iff the open sentence
A believes that · · · it · · · is true under some assignment of an object to ‘it’. (iii) For any context c and assignment f , the open sentence
It is not the case that A believes that · · · it · · · is true in c under f iff the open sentence
A believes that · · · it · · · is not true in c under f . Quite simply, the problem is this: any theory that accepts (i)-(iii) cannot, on pain of inconsistency, validate both of the argument-forms (34) and (35): (34)

a. α is an F and A believes that · · · α · · · . Therefore: b. Something is such that it is an F and A believes that · · · it · · · .

Objections and Replies

(35)

285

a. β is an F and it is not the case that A believes that . . . β . . . . Therefore: b. Something is such that it is an F and it is not the case that A believes that . . . it . . . .

(To see this, just replace the dummy predicate ‘is an F’ in (34) and (35) by an identifying predicate of the form ‘is the F’. Suppose (34) is valid. By (i) both (34a) and (35a) can be simultaneously true, in which case (34b) would also be true, hence by (ii) ‘A believes that · · · it · · · ’ is true under some assignment to ‘it’. But only one such satisfying assignment is possible—namely the one, call it ‘f0 ’, that assigns to ‘it’ the object that is uniquely F. But by (iii), ‘It is not the case that A believes that . . . it . . .’ will be false under f0 , as will the conclusion (35b). So from the Fregean assumption (i) it follows that if (34) is valid then (35) is not.) A logically orthodox Fregean account of belief reports is thus forced to choose between rejecting exactly one of (34) and (35)—thereby creating a curious asymmetry—or rejecting both. Sider maintains that this result constitutes a serious objection to such theories on the ground that there is some intuitive backing for the claim that both (34) and (35) are valid—and even greater intuitive support for the weaker claim that one is valid if and only if the other is.5 It behooves us to consider the impact of Sider’s argument on our own account. Consider, e.g., the following instances of (34) and (35) in our regimented language L1 : (36)

a. Is(Cicero, Marcus) and believes(Wanda, that Roman(Cicero)) Therefore: b. (Some Y)(Is(Y, Marcus) and believes(Wanda, that Roman(Y))).

(37)

a. Is(Tully, Marcus) and not believes(Wanda, that Roman(Tully)). Therefore: b. (Some Y)(Is(Y, Marcus) and not believes(Wanda, that Roman(Y))).

Clearly, assumption (i) can obtain only when the corresponding sentences (36a) and (37a) are so interpreted that the positions occupied by the two italicized names are opaque. To avoid any problems about contextual equivocation on the sense of ‘Roman’, we need to consider the mixed readings on which the two term-positions in question are the only opaque ones involved. These are the readings (38a-b) and (39a-b) of (36a-b) and (37a-b) respectively within the textual frames and : (38)

a. [Z| Is(Cicero1 , Marcus1 ) and believes1 (Wanda1 , that Z(Cicero2 ))] (Roman1 ). b. (Some Y){[Z| Is(Y, Marcus2 ) and believes2 (Wanda2 , that Z(Y))] (Roman2 )}.

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a. [Z | Is(Tully1 , Marcus1 ) and not believes1 (Wanda1 , that Z(Tully2 ))] (Roman1 ). b. (Some Y){[Z | Is(Tully3 , Marcus2 ) and not believes2 (Wanda2 , that Z(Y))](Roman2 )}.

STC will accord (38a-b) and (39a-b) truth conditions equivalent to (40a-b) and (41a-b) respectively: (40)

a. Cicero = Marcus & Believes(Wanda,[§z Roman([Cicero2 ]c )]) ∴ b. (∃x)(E!x & x = Marcus & Believes(Wanda,[§z Roman(x)]))

(41)

a. Tully = Marcus & ∼Believes(Wanda,[§z Roman([Tully2 ])c ]) ∴ b. (∃x)(E!x & x = Marcus & ∼Believes(Wanda,[§z Roman(x)])).

By the lights of TC as originally set forth (and assuming the truth of ‘E!(Marcus)’), (40a) entails (40b) in every context c, so by Sider’s argument it follows that (41) (hence also (37)/(39)) must be invalid. It is not clear how upset we should be by this result. If, on the one hand, we could provide no reason for rejecting the form (35) independently of Sider’s argument from (i)-(iii) and the presumed validity of the form (34), and, on the other hand, we were committed to the validity of the form (34) come what may, then there might be cause for alarm, since the resulting asymmetry would seem curious. But neither of these antecedent conditions obtains. In the first place, TC does provide an independent reason for regarding the argument form (35) as invalid: viz., that TC’s account of thought-contents and the belief relation—grounds for accepting which are provided, inter alia, by TC’s problemsolving ability—already ensures that an instance of (35) like (37)/(39) can have a true premiss and a false conclusion. According to TC, the truth condition (41a) of the premiss will obtain and the truth condition (41b) of the conclusion will fail to obtain in any context c in which Wanda has a mental name n of Cicero/Tully/Marcus for which she accepts «r(n)» (r denoting the property being a Roman) but in which none of her mental names for him are c-salient counterparts of Tully . And such a context is surely possible. (E.g., the relevant standard of salience might require her c-salient counterparts of  N to be names of N in her Mentalese whose surface reflections in her public language are cognate with  N .) In the second place, TC’s initial commitment to the validity of (34) in general and of (36)/(38) in particular is inessential to its apparatus: it is merely an artifact of our initially Latitudinarian attitude towards the requirements for de re belief. If, as some philosophers believe, the legitimacy of quantifying-in really does require that the subject be en rapport with the object in some special way over and above whatever is involved in possessing a mental term that denotes it, this extra relation could simply be specified in clause (ii) of TC’s Valuation Principle. Once that were

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done, however, a believer’s c-salient counterpart of  N , though still guaranteed to denote N, would not be guaranteed to relate the subject to N in this further special way; hence de dicto belief ascriptions would no longer entail their de re relatives. So, when the affirmative and negative belief reports in the premisses of (34) and (35) are so construed that the positions marked by ‘α’ and ‘β’ are opaque, TC could readily be adjusted to invalidate both (34) and (35) rather than just (35). Although TC admittedly cannot validate both (34) and (35), it could easily be adjusted to invalidate both. In opposition to the ‘reject both’ strategy, Sider writes that One wonders here why existentially quantified sentences like [(34b) and (35b)] make sense at all if they never follow from particular instances; after all, one teaches the use of the existential quantifier by pointing out that any instance whatever is logically sufficient for the truth of an existential sentence. (Sider, 1995: 508) Clearly, the key word in this objection is ‘instance(s)’. Consider the patently invalid argument (42): (42)

a. ‘Cicero’ (in English) refers to Cicero. Therefore: b. (∃x)(‘x’ (in English) refers to x).

Even if (like Frege) one regards ‘Cicero’ as occurring in the quotation name “Cicero”, one still will not count (42a) as an ‘instance’ of (42b)—hence will not regard the obvious invalidity of (42) as a counterexample to existential generalization—because, when so occurring, ‘Cicero’ does not have the same semantical value as its other, unquoted occurrence in (42a). Similarly, one will not count (43a) below as an ‘instance’ of (43b)—hence will not regard the fact that (43a) can be true when two different Aristotles are involved as emperiling the validity of existential generalization—unless one assumes that the two occurrences of ‘Aristotle’ in question are to be understood as co-referential: (43)

a. Aristotle = Aristotle. b. (∃x)(x = x).

In general, the statement of formal inference rules presupposes that every token of a given expression-type in the sentences involved, regardless of its linguistic environment therein, has the same semantical value. In application to the L1 -sentences (36a-b) and (37a-b), the point is that their partly opaque readings (38a) and (39a) are not ‘instances’ of quantified formulas (38b) and (39b); neither are their wholly opaque readings (44a) and (45a) ‘instances’ of the quantified formulas (44b) and (45b) respectively: (44)

a. is(Cicero1 ,Marcus1 ) and believes1 (Wanda1 , that roman1 (Cicero2 )). b. (Some Y)(is(Y,Marcus2 )and believes2 (Wanda2 , that roman2 (Y))).

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a. is(Tully1 ,Marcus1 ) and not believes1 (Wanda1 , that roman1 (Tully2 ). b. (Some Y)(is(Y,Marcus2 ) and not believes2 (Wanda2 , that roman2 (Y))).

To be sure, this is not the utterly trivial observation that the twin occurrences of ‘Cicero’ in (44a) and of ‘Tully’ in (45a) happen to carry different subscripts: this use of subscripts as occurrence-counters is a mere artifact induced by our desire to allow for contexts in which multiple counterpart relations are involved for the same Mentalese type. The point about ‘instances’ can be made even if we drop the subscripts and assume, as we did for expository simplicity in Chapters 4-5, that each context involves but a single counterpart relation for each Mentalese type: on our semantics STC , ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’(whether subscripted or not) must have different values in their two occurrences in (44a) and (45a) respectively, namely Cicero/Tully in the first but a sense containing a mode of presentation of Cicero/Tully in the second. On the other hand (continuing our temporary suspension of subscripting) the sentences (46a) and (47a) below—which embed purely de re attributions and denials of belief—are genuine instances of (46b) and (47b) respectively, and the corresponding inferences from the former to the latter by Existential Generalization are valid, since STC gives ‘Cicero’ the same semantical value in both occurrences in the (a)-sentences (these occurrences being transparent): (46)

a. is(Cicero,Marcus) and [Y | believes(Wanda, that roman(Y))](Cicero) b. (Some Z)(is(Z,Marcus) and [Y | believes(Wanda, that roman(Y))](Z))

(47)

a. is(Cicero,Marcus) and not [Y | believes(Wanda, that roman(Y))](Cicero) b. (Some Z)(is(Z,Marcus) and not [Y | believes(Wanda, that roman(Y))](Z)).

The moral of these comparisons is that, Sider to the contrary notwithstanding, choosing to regard both (34) and (35) as invalid does not entail abandoning the relation between an existential quantification and its genuine instances through which we learned the meaning of the existential quantifier in the first place. 8.2.3 Saying, Meaning, and Believing In general, Fregean accounts encourage the expectation that the opacity of psychological attitude contexts and the opacity of indirect discourse contexts will have a unified explanation in which believing and saying are treated merely as two different relations that a person may bear to a thought-content. The intuitive validity of inferences like (48), which mix belief ascription with indirect discourse, certainly seems to support such a treatment: (48)

Mary says that Venus is a planet; Tom believes that Venus is a planet. /∴ Tom believes something that Mary says.

Objections and Replies

289

As was pointed out in Chapter 2 in connection with adequacy condition II, it would be a mark in favor of TC if it could be shown to facilitate such a unified explanation. However, Forbes (1997) argues that the thought determined by the content sentence of a belief report is not so obviously relevant to the truth condition of the corresponding speech report. There can, he alleges, be cases in which a speaker strictly and literally says that P without grasping/entertaining the thought that P, hence without believing (or bearing other psychological attitudes towards) the thought that P. Forbes takes this to show that belief ascription and indirect discourse cannot be analysed merely in terms two different binary relations that a person may bear to a content. So if TC is to be extended in the envisaged way, we must defuse this defeatist conclusion. Forbes draws attention to the following kind of situation. On the one hand, where Mr. B mistakenly takes ‘fortnight’ to be synonymous with ‘period of ten days’, and (having just read it in a book) repeats the sentence ‘The seventh consulate of Marius lasted more than a fortnight’, most people judge the indirect discourse report (49) to be true and the corresponding belief report (50) to be false: (49)

B said that the seventh consulate of Marius lasted more than a fortnight.

(50)

B believed that the seventh consulate of Marius lasted more than a fortnight.

Yet, on the other hand, in Tyler Burge’s famous ‘arthritis’ case (Burge 1979), where what B utters is ‘Mary has arthritis in her thighs’, most people’s intuitions are that both the indirect discourse report (51) and the corresponding belief report (52) are true: (51)

B said that Mary has arthritis in her thighs.

(52)

B believes that Mary has arthritis in her thighs.

Forbes’s diagnosis of this difference in intuitions—which seems entirely plausible—is that, in the ‘fortnight’ case but not in the ‘arthritis’ case, the speaker’s referent of B’s term has come apart from its semantic referent. In the ‘fortnight’ case, B initially acquired the word in the wrong way (via misidentification), so that for him it does not speaker-refer to a fortnight (=its semantic referent) but instead speaker-refers to a period of ten days. In the ‘arthritis’ case, however, B initially acquired the name in the normal way (without misidentification)—so that for him it does speaker-refer to arthritis (=the semantic referent)—but has also subsequently acquired some misinformation in connection with it. So, Forbes concludes, ‘speaker reference is germane to belief reports in a way that it is not to speech reports’ (1997: p. 317). Moreover, he maintains that beliefs involving empirical confusions of the sort exemplified in the ‘arthritis’ case can be truly reported in ways that beliefs involving conceptual confusions of the sort exemplified in the

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‘fortnight’ case cannot. Thus, e.g., he claims that (53) is true but (54) is strictly false: (53)

B believed that arthritis is a disease affecting both muscles and joints.

(54)

B believed that a fortnight is a period of ten days.

TC can account for all this straightforwardly by (a) construing speaker-reference in terms of the denotation of expressions in a speaker’s Mentalese (i.e., what the speaker’s own mental representations are ‘of’) and (b) construing semantic reference in terms of the denotation of expressions in the speaker’s natural language. Any reason for thinking that speaker-reference has come apart from semantic reference for an L-speaker x will thus provide a reason for thinking that the denotation of an expression e in M x diverges from the denotation in L of e’s surface reflection or correlate in x’s speech. On our account, x’s Mentalese is representationally basic in the sense that its representational powers can presumably be relied upon without any vicious regress of appeals to further propositional attitudes on x’s part. Any other representational system x employs is representational for x only because it is an embodiment of M x . Thus, e.g., the fact that x speaks a natural language like English is to be explained in terms of x’s being a party to certain conventions in a certain community, which is turn is to be explained in terms of patterns of propositional attitudes among members of the community, where the possession of these attitude is explained in terms of various relations to thought-contents (in our sense). In Section 6.4 we sketched a format for giving an autobiographical semantics for one’s own language of thought. That format appealed to the presumed surface reflections of one’s Mentalese words in specifying what the latter denote. To avoid the appearance of contradicting here what was said there, it must be remembered that in the discussion of Mentalese semantics ‘surface reflection’ meant ‘surface reflection in the speaker’s idiolect’. It is entirely appropriate for a speaker x to employ an expression ‘E’ to state (in x’s own idiolect) the denotation of an expression e of M x when e is what underlies x’s usage of ‘E’ in the first place! In such a case, the speaker’s referent of ‘E’ for x just is the denotatum of e in M x . But x’s claim ‘e denotes E’, while true qua sentence of x’s idiolect, may not be true qua sentence of the shared language L to which that idiolect belongs. For u’s idiolect may enshrine a non-standard use of the expression ‘E’ of L. The semantic referent of ‘E’ in L itself, however, is determined by factors that involve more than just x’s (possibly idiosyncratic) usage. It is in this sense of ‘in L’, which adverts to x’s public language rather than x’s idiolect thereof, that the denotation of e in M x may diverge from the denotation ‘in L’ of e’s surface reflection for x. To progress further, we need the notion of a (syntactically identified) sentence conventionally ‘meaning’ a certain thought-content in a certain linguistic community. For working purposes, let us adopt from Blackburn (1984) the informally

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stated principle [MIG ] to govern a ternary relation MeansIn: [MIG ]

For any S, T and C, MeansIn(S,T ,C) iff: S is a (syntactically identified) sentence, C is a community of agents, T is a thought-content, and there prevails in C a convention to the effect that any member x of C who utters S with conventional indications of assertive force counts as (may be taken as) being such that Believes(x,T ).

In ways familiar from Lewis (1969), this talk of conventions prevailing in communities can itself be analyzed in terms of complex patterns of overlapping expectations and preferences among member of the community, hence in terms of further psychological attitudes whose iterated ascriptions can be represented in TC as the entertaining of thought-contents in various modes. Hence, for relations such as saying, TC could be extended by adding axioms like [Say]: [Say]

(∀xi )(∀T ){Says(x,T ) ≡ {Agent(x) & ThtCon(T ) & (∃S)(∃C) (Sentence(S) & Utters(x,S) & Community(C) & MeansIn(S,T ,C) & BelongsTo(x,C))}}.

This captures the strict and literal sense of ‘say’ in which the utterer u of a sentence S counts as saying whatever S means in any linguistic community to which u belongs, i.e. to whose conventions u subscribes or at least defers.6 No doubt further relativization to an utterance context is needed to allow for a multilingual person to speak on a particular occasion qua member of one rather than another of the various linguistic groups to which he/she might belong. But we shall ignore the additional wrinkles, since all that matters here is that some relevantly similar account of saying is possible. The upshot is that (54)—whether taken as a purely de dicto belief report or not— will indeed be false so long as it is taken to imply its pure de re reading, whose truth condition is (55): (55)

Believes(B, [§yi (∀x)(Fortnight(x) ≡ PeriodOfTenDays(x))]).

For (55) requires that B should assertively entertain in his Mentalese a formula of the sort «(∀x)(f (x) ≡ p(x))» in which f and p respectively denote the properties being a fortnight and being a period of ten days. But given the deviant way in which B supposedly acquired the concept he overtly expresses with ‘fortnight’, his Mentalese predicates f and p will presumably both denote the property being a period of ten days, which is distinct from the property being a fortnight! And (50) will be false for essentially the same reason that (54) is. What, however, would happen if we embraced the possibility, contemplated in Section 8.2.2, of rearranging matters so as to break the implicative link between corresponding de dicto and de re reports? In that case, we could rely on counterpart

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relations and the nature of the context in question to argue that the truth condition (56) fails: (56)

Believes(B, [§yi (∀x)(Fortnight c (x) ≡ PeriodOfTenDaysc (x))]).

For on the approach adumbrated in Section 8.1.2, (56) would require that B entertain a Mentalese formula of the sort «(∀x)(f (x) ≡ p(x))» in which the private conceptual roles of f and p for B are in conformity with the public linguistic roles • Fortnight • and • PeriodOfTenDays• . But this requirement pretty clearly is not satisfied by B, who by hypothesis has no Mentalese name whose conceptual role for him conforms to the public linguistic role • Fortnight • . With or without the implicative link, then, (54) will come out false, just as desired. Consider, finally, our formal rendering (57) of the inference (48): (57)

a. Says (Mary, [§ν i Planet(Venus)]) b. Believes (Tom, [§ν i Planet(Venus)]) ∴ c. (∃x )(Says (Mary, x) & Believes (Tom, x)).

Given the axiom [Say], TC will validate the argument from (57a-b) to (57c). Nor would it make any difference to its validity if ‘Planet’ were replaced by ‘Planetc ’ and/or ‘Venus’ were replaced by ‘Venusc ’ in both (57a-b), provided that the range of ‘c’ is restricted to ‘normal’ contexts (those specifying only one counterpart relation per Mentalese type). NOTES 1 Quite apart from the special features of Twin-Earth cases, the core ‘counterpart’ requirement—that

the conceptual role of the agent’s Mentalese terms should conform to the indicated linguistic roles— will be the basis for much of the behavior-explaining power of any de dicto belief ascription. In terms of the earlier formulation employed in Chapters 4-6, on which counterpart relations were taken to obtain between an agent u, a name n in M u , and one of our word-kinds  N , the role-conformity requirement could have been invoked at the level of particular counterpart relations supplied by the context (i.e., the conformity of nM u to • N• could have been regarded as one way in which n might

be a c-salient counterpart of  N .) This would have made the behavior-explaining potential of a de dicto belief report depend on special features of the context rather than on the mere fact that the report is de dicto. 2 The following objections are gleaned from Schiffer (1987a, 1987b, 1990 and 1992). Those of his objections to other Fregean theories which have no analogue as regards our own are ignored here. 3 Schiffer’s target here is the so-called Unarticulated Constituents Theory proposed in Crimmins and Perry (1989) and further developed in Crimmins (1992a). 4 In specifying the vocabulary of L and L , we included ‘believes’ as the only verb of propositional 0 1 attitude. But in light of our remarks in Chapter 4 about modes of entertainment, we could add to TC an Intention Principle and a Desire Principle parallel to the Belief Principle adopted there. We could then enrich L0 and L1 with ‘intends’ and ‘desires’, specifying their senses and references using the TC-terms ‘intendsc ’ and ‘desiresc ’ on the one hand and ‘intends’ and ‘desires’ on the other. The

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term ‘mean-by’ could then be thought of as introduced into L0 and L1 by a definition based on some Gricean belief-intention analysis. None of this would beg any questions currently at issue, since it is clearly some such analysis of speaker-meaning that Schiffer has in mind. 5 Presumably Sider’s ‘if and only if’ here is not meant to be symbolized as ‘≡‘, since one horn of the alleged dilemma—viz., concluding that both (34) and (35) are invalid—would of course entail ‘(34) is valid ≡ (35) is valid’. So one could avoid the full force of the objection just by grasping that horn of the dilemma. What Sider undoubtedly means is that stronger intuitions support the claim that ‘(34) is valid’ is logically equivalent to ‘(35) is valid’. (Compare the two inference-forms ‘Fα/ ∴ (∀x)Fx’ and ‘(∃x)∼Fx/ ∴ ∼Fα’: both are invalid but, on purely logical grounds, if either were truth-preserving the other would be too.) 6 [Say], of course, must not be confused with the specialized principle [SayBy ] enunciated in L1 Section 8.2.1 above. Given suitable analysis of the connection between [MIG ] and the ‘actual language’ relation (cf. Peacocke (1976)), [SayByL1 ] could be derived from [Say] and [MIG ]. But we shall not pursue the analysis or the derivation here.

PART IV

REAR-GUARD ACTION

CHAPTER 9

THE CASE FOR OBJECT-DEPENDENT THOUGHTS

In Chapter 4 it was acknowledged that TC’s ontological treatment of senses, thoughtcontents, and the belief relation gives rise to a sort of object-dependence that may seem counterintuitive: specifically, thought-contents regarding particular, contingently existing individuals will be available and thinkable only if those individuals exist. Thus, e.g., each of the various de re or de dicto thought-contents that might be involved in thinking that Fido is a dog will exist only if Fido does and will be entertainable only if Fido is denoted by certain items in the thinker’s language of thought. A similar result attends the de re or de dicto thought-contents that might be invoked by one who assertively utters ‘This is a dog’, using ‘this’ deictically: if the demonstrative reference fails, there is no corresponding thought-content that this is a dog which was ‘meant’—hence no possibility of ‘knowing what was meant’. In the interest of getting on with the development of the core theory, we begged off defending these consequences there. Now that the dust has settled, however, an effort must be made to remove residual misgivings. This Chapter examines the independent case for object-dependence made by its chief contemporary proponents, the so-called British neo-Fregeans (most notably: Gareth Evans, John McDowell, Christopher Peacocke and Martin Davies). After briefly explaining their central theses, it lays out some arguments supporting these claims and then attempt to turn aside various objections. For the most part, it will be concerned with the role of certain special ways of thinking of particular individuals—so-called singular modes of presentation—in connection with the use of demonstratives and proper names. But in the final section it will be argued that the object-dependence of these modes of presentation has an analogue in the case of ways of thinking of properties and relations as well, hence that the senses of general terms also exhibit a species of object-dependence (in a suitably wider sense of ‘object’). 9.1 THE CENTRAL THESES Suppose an agent A utters in a context c an indicative sentence of his/her language L having the logical form ‘R(T1 , . . . , Tn )’, in which ‘R’ is a univocal simple predicate 297

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and each of ‘T1 ’, . . . , ‘Tn ’ is either a purely designational (i.e., non-attributive) name in L for some object or a deictic demonstrative phrase referring in c to some object. Then there presumably is a unique something, , such that A’s utterance ‘R(T1 , . . . , Tn )’ in c conventionally says or means —in the generic sense (presupposed in what follows) that the linguistic conventions of A’s speech community dictate that any member thereof who utters ‘R(T1 , . . . , Tn )’ in c with conventional indicators of assertive force may be taken as believing . And what A’s utterance says or means—i.e., the  such that A’s utterance says/means  in this generic sense—could in principle be understood by anyone who is suitably situated with respect to c. Indulging for the moment in the neo-Fregeans’ jargon, let us call what is thus said/meant a ‘thought’ (or ‘proposition’); and, since it merely concerns how the particular individuals T1 , . . . , Tn stand with respect to one another, let us further call this thought ‘singular’ by way of constrast with the ‘general’ thought that would have been expressed had the logical form of A’s utterance been, say, ‘(∃x1 ) . . . (∃xn ) R(x1 , . . . , xn )’ instead. Now an idea which figured prominently in Russell’s early work is that one’s singular thoughts about individuals are, unlike any general thoughts that might uniquely describe them, so intimately about their objects as to be impossible for one to entertain in the absence of those individuals. For Russell, the only individuals that could figure in one’s singular thoughts were those with which one could become acquainted—one’s momentary sense-data (and perhaps the Self which is aware of them). Thoughts about individuals of any other kind had to be (at least in part) general thoughts in which those individuals were uniquely described. In recent years, the British neo-Fregeans have daringly extended this idea about the essentially contextual, not-purely-conceptual, de re character of singular thoughts to include those pertaining to contingent, extra-mental objects other than oneself and the present moment. Moreover, they have attempted to reconcile this Russellian idea with the Fregean picture of thinking as a dyadic relation between a person and a thought by discerning within singular thoughts tokens of allegedly objectdependent or de re types of singular mode of presentation. These de re types are construed as essentially context-bound ways of thinking of individuals which are available to (i.e., can be tokened by) a subject A for thinking about a particular individual only in situations where that individual exists and bears a certain special (e.g., perceptual) relation to A, that relation being constitutive of the type in question. The result of these moves is the distinctive neo-Fregean position according to which: (a) all thinking involves bearing attitudinal relations towards thoughts; (b) singular thoughts contain de re singular modes of presentation; (c) purely designational names and deictic demonstrative phrases are conventionally associated with such de re types of singular mode of presentation, tokens of these term-types having as their senses in a given context tokens of the associated type of mode of presentation (if such mode of presentation tokens are available in that context); (d) ‘that’-clauses designate thoughts containing the senses of their ingredient words. Together, these theses yield the key conclusions (ODT-1) and (ODT-2) about

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object-dependent thoughts: (ODT-1)

Singular perceptual-demonstrative thoughts are object-dependent. (Specifically, there will be a thought  such that a speaker A’s perceptually-based demonstrative remark ‘That G is F’ says/means  in a given context c—hence there can be such a thing as believing, knowing or understanding ‘what A’s remark said/meant in c’ (viz., )—only if ‘that G’ in A’s mouth refers in c to some existing individual.)

(ODT-2) The thoughts ascribed to people in English by means of ‘that’-clauses containing nonempty, designationally used proper names are objectdependent. (Specifically—where ‘V’, ‘Fk ’ and ‘N1 ’, . . . , ‘Nk ’ are respectively schematic for an attitude-verb, a k-ary predicate, and k purely designational (i.e., non-attributive) proper names in English— the predicate ‘Vs that Fk (N1 , . . . , Nk )’ is satisfiable in a world only if N1 , . . . , Nk exist in that world.) The question before us is not whether every aspect of neo-Fregean ontology and semantics can be defended but whether we can find independent reasons for accepting its particular consequences (ODT-1) and (ODT-2). The neo-Fregeans have put forward several motivational arguments designed to provide such independent support (ODT-1) and (ODT-2). Our plan is to justify TC’s own commitment to objectdependence by enlisting these arguments (with modifications where necessary) and trying to rebut various counterarguments. There are, however, some obvious differences between the neo-Fregeans’ underlying ontological and semantical views and the position set forth in TC and STC , and these differences might seem to pose an obstacle to the proposed alliance. The neo-Fregeans take that which is expressed by an utterance of an indicative sentence and that towards which one bears an attitudinal relation to be a ‘thought’ or ‘proposition’, which they construe in Fregean fashion as a structured entity composed of modes of presentation and possessing an absolute truth-value. They typically equate these modes of presentation with senses, or else identify senses with those modes of presentation that have become attached to appropriate bits of language. Moreover, they follow Frege in taking the referent of ‘that S’ in ‘A believes that S’ to be the very thought/proposition expressed by ‘S’. Our own view, of course, rejects the letter if not the spirit of all these assumptions. By the lights of STC , the referent of ‘that S’ in ‘A believes that S’—i.e., that towards which A bears the belief relation—is a thought-content, which according to TC is not a proposition of any sort but is instead an A-property. STC associates each indicative sentence of its object-language with two propositions, one of which it expresses (as its sense) and the other of which it denotes (as its reference or truth condition). And TC distinguishes ontologically between modes of presentation and the senses that contain them.

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Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, these admitted doctrinal dissimilarities do not prevent us from pressing the neo-Fregeans’ arguments into service. For their arguments (and their critics’ counterarguments) can be understood and assessed independently of our divergent views about the ontology of content and the semantics of its ascription (in the way that, e.g., one can independently gauge the plausibility of a claim like ‘If a person believes that Cicero was a Roman then that person believes something about Cicero’). As we shall see below, the arguments for (ODT-1) and (ODT-2) will not depend on whether the so-called thoughts to which they allude are ultimately construed as Fregean propositions or as TC’s thoughtcontents—nor will they depend on taking sides with respect to any of the other semantical or ontological differences mentioned above. Consequently, we shall for the most part retain the original neo-Fregean jargon in this and the following Chapter. 9.2

GARETH EVANS’ FIRST ARGUMENT FOR (ODT-1)

We begin with a modified version of Gareth Evans’ ‘Argument from Understanding’1 . For technical reasons having to do with indexicality and the employment of substitutional quantification, the argument will be reconstructed here as a schematic piece of first-person reasoning which the reader is invited to instantiate upon being addressed by any person A with a remark of the form ‘That G is F’ such that (a) ‘that G’ is employed by A in the familiar perception-based way and (b) the reader understands the remark in question. One then proceeds to reason as follows. [Beginning of Argument-Scheme] Since I do understand A’s remark and since, for any hearer H, both (α1)

H cannot understand A’s (referentially intended perception-based) remark ‘That G is F’ unless H possesses, and brings to bear upon the interpretation of A’s remark, the perceptual information ‘G1 , . . . , Gn ’ about the (appearance of) the shared environment invoked by A’s use of ‘that G’.

and (α2)

In order for H to bring to bear this perceptual information upon the interpretation of A’s remark, H must use this information to justify H’s belief that (α2a)

If what A’s remark says/means is true, then (∃x)(G1 x & . . . & Gn x & Fx).2

independently of any justification that H might have for believing that (∃x)(G1 x & . . . & Gn x & Fx) or for believing that what A’s remark says/means is not true.,

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I must have appropriate justification for my belief that (α2a). This justification could only reside in my tacitly reasoning in a way relevantly like (i)-(vi) below (where ‘c’ is to be thought of as having been replaced by my specification of the current context of A’s utterance and ‘T’ by whatever singular term of my idiolect actually figures in my tacit reasoning): (i) True(What is meant in c by A’s remark ‘F(that G)’) (ii) True(What is meant in c by A’s remark ‘F(that G)’) iff (∃x)(x = What A referred to in c by ‘that G’ & Fx) (iii) (∃x)(x = What A referred to in c by ‘that G’& Fx) (iv) G1 (T) &…& Gn (T) (v) T = What A referred to in c by ‘that G’ (vi) (∃x)(G1 x & . . . & Gn x & Fx)

[supposition] [semantic premiss] [from (i) and (ii)] [perceptual premiss] [pragmatic premiss] [from (iii)-(v)]

Moreover, I accept the principle that (P1)

For any person H, if H is justified in a certain belief and H’s justification is essentially based upon a certain argument, then every premiss H uses in that argument must say something that H believes.,

to which, provided that all starred quantifers below are construed substitutionally with respect to the singular terms of my idiolect, I may harmlessly add the following plausible principles (where, of course, ‘T’ is replaced by that singular term of my idiolect which actually figures in (v) above): (P2)

If my premiss (v) says something that I believe, then, I believe that T = what A referred to in c by ‘that G’.3

(P3)

If I believe that T = what A referred to in c by ‘that G’, then for some∗ x, I believe that x = what A referred to in c by ‘that G’.

But if my justification for believing (α2a) essentially consists in (i)-(vi), then it follows from (P1)-(P3) that, for some∗ x, the belief which I express by (v) must be a belief that x = what A referred to in c by ‘that G’. So I conclude that (α3)

I cannot come justifiably to believe that (α2a) unless, for some∗ x, I believe that A is referring to x.

From (α1)-(α3) it trivially follows that (α4)

I cannot understand A’s referential remark ‘That G is F’ unless, for some∗ x, I believe that A is referring to x.

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Let a truth-conditional property of thoughts be defined as a thought-property F such that it is impossible for one member of a pair of necessarily equivalent thoughts to exemplify F unless the other does too; and let a truth-conditional thought be defined as a thought that involves the truth-conditional properties of some other specified or unspecified thoughts.4 Then, abbreviating ‘I know…’ and ‘I understand…’ by ‘KI . . .’ and ‘UI . . .’ respectively, taking ‘⇒’ and ‘⇔’ to signify entailment and mutual entailment respectively, and restricting the range of the variables ‘p’ and ‘q’ to exclude truth-conditional thoughts, I obtain, as corollary to (α4): (α5)

(∀p){p is true ⇒ {[KI p ⇔ UI (A’s remark ‘That G is F’)] ⇒ [KI p ⇒ (∃∗ x)BI (A is referring to x)]}}

I now assume for reductio: (α6) ∼(∃x)(A is referring to x) & (∃q)(A’s remark ‘That G is F’ says/means q). I am entitled to the conditional claim that (α7)

[∼(∃x)(A is referring to x) & (∃q)(A’s remark ‘That G is F’ says/means q)] ⇒ (∃p)[p is true & [KI p ⇔ UI (A’s remark ‘That G is F’)]],

as may be seen by simply existentially instantiating ‘(∃q)’ in (α6) by ‘q ’ and letting p be the proposition that A’s remark ‘That G is F’ says/means q .5 And so I may conclude from (α6) and (α7) that (α8)

(∃p) [p is true & [KI p ⇔ UI (A’s referential remark ‘That G is F’)]].

And from (α8), (α5), and (α6) it follows that (α9)

(∃p) {p is true & [KI p ⇒ (∃∗ x)BI (A is referring to x)]} & ∼(∃x)(A is referring to x),

which, given the entirely plausible suppressed premiss (α10)

[(∃∗ x)BI (A is referring to x) & ∼(∃x)(A is referring to x)] ⇒ (∃p)[p is false & BI (p)],

implies (α11)

(∃p1 )[p1 is true & (KI p1 ⇒ (∃p2 )(p2 is false & BI p2 ))].

Invoking what Evans calls ‘the axiom of the seamlessness of truth’, viz. (α12) :6

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(α12) ∼(∃y)(∃p1 )[p1 is true & (Ky p1 ⇒ (Ep2 )(p2 is false & By p2 ))], I infer from the ensuing contradiction with (α11) the falsity of my reductio assumption (α6), i.e., (α13)

∼[∼(∃x)(A is referring to x) & (∃q)(A’s remark ‘That G is F’ says that q)];

or, equivalently: (α14)

If nothing is referred to in A’s referentially intended remark ‘That G is F’, then no thought p is such that A’s remark says/means p.

Since, ex hypothesi, I am applying the foregoing considerations to a remark which I understand, and since by (α14) there would be nothing for me to understand if there were no referent, I conclude that the thought  such that A’s utterance says/means  is a thought which is object-dependent. [End of Argument-Scheme] By repeatedly applying the foregoing argument scheme to perceptualdemonstrative remarks which one understands, one can convince oneself that (ODT-1) holds in at least those cases. This fact would seem to support concluding, via inference to the best explanation, that (ODT-1) holds in general. 9.3

CRITIQUE AND DEFENSE OF EVANS’ FIRST ARGUMENT

Simon Blackburn7 levels two criticisms at Evans’ argument from understanding. On the one hand, he alleges that (α12)—the Axiom of the Seamlessness of Truth— is dubious as regards the appreciation of psychological truths (e.g., truths about ‘what it is really like to enjoy the music of Wagner’, etc.). Blackburn offers no real argument for this claim but proceeds, on the other hand, to attack the interim conclusion (α4), which he takes to be refuted by the following example: Suppose one astronomer voices ‘I will compute the orbit of [that] planet, and plot its reappearance’. Suppose he is heard by a colleague who has himself observed the matter, and knows perfectly well why it is thought that there is a new planet there, but is himself bewildered or agnostic. He cannot bring himself to believe that they have really seen a new planet, but has no other explanation of what is going on. Is it really true that such a person cannot understand his more credulous colleague’s utterance? He himself might fall naturally into using the singular term: ‘Well, it’s highly unlikely that there is a planet there—still, you get the radio onto it and I’ll do the sums.’ It is not belief which is necessary for understanding but . . . knowing why the speaker is making that remark, and why he is right to choose those words to do so.8

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Let us consider these criticisms in the order mentioned. First of all, Blackburn’s objection to the Axiom of the Seamlessness of Truth is seriously flawed. He equivocates on ‘appreciation’ in the informal statement of the Axiom—viz., ‘…there can be no truth which it requires acceptance of a falsehood to appreciate.’9 —forgetting that it is a technical term for Evans. Since we have reconstructed Evans’ argument in such a way that ‘appreciate’ does not occur in (α12), the formal statement of the Axiom, let us see what Blackburn’s objection comes to in terms of (α12). In the ordinary sense, ‘He knows what it is really like to enjoy X’ is either (a) a way of talking about the subject’s capacity to enjoy X, or else (b) a way of talking about his demonstrative knowledge, of the sort he might express by saying to himself ‘This is what it is really like to enjoy X’ or (when the fun is over) ‘That was what it was like to enjoy X’—which knowledge he presumably derives from coming to enjoy X and consciously reflecting on (and subsequently remembering) the experience. But it seems plainly to be at best a matter of psychology, not of logic or metaphysics, that he might not have been able to enjoy X, and hence not able to know ‘This is what it is really like to enjoy X’, without having some false beliefs. If we are dealing with a (b)-type case in which ‘enjoy X’ is replaced by some verb phrase expressing, e.g., an alien sensory experience, then there may well be reasons of a Nagelian sort for saying that we are not dealing with a kind of objectively available knowledge10 ; but these are cases where our inability to know would not be remedied by any bunch of false beliefs that we are humanly capable of having! Blackburn’s objection to the interim conclusion (α4) is clearly the more serious one. To deal with it, we should carefully distinguish among the following three senses in which H might be said to ‘understand’ A’s deictic remark, ‘That G is F’: (U1)

H knows the linguistic meaning that attaches to the sentence-type ‘That G is F’ in abstraction from any context of use (something which is true of every competent English-speaker who happens to have the ingredient words in his or her vocabulary).

(U2)

In the context of its occurrence, A’s utterance of ‘That G is F’ conventionally counts as the making of a certain assertion, and H knows what assertion that is, i.e., knows what was asserted.

(U3) There is a certain thought which A entertains and wishes to communicate to H (in perspectivally adjusted form, if need be) simply by virtue of H’s knowledge of the context and the language. (One reason given by Evans for not identifying (U2) and (U3) is that one may count as having asserted something which one is not in a position to think: e.g., in the ‘over the shoulder’ use of demonstratives).

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Now we may freely grant that, in Blackburn’s example of the astronomers, the deluded party A’s utterance of (1)

I will compute the orbit of that planet, and plot its reappearance.

is understood by H in sense (U1). But that is plainly not a counterexample to anything Evans has said. On the other hand, claiming understanding in sense (U2) seems highly tendentious, even if we grant A’s success at reference and assertion. If H is agnostic about the referential status of ‘that planet’, how can he believe that A has asserted anything? And if H is also alleged to be agnostic about A’s having asserted anything, what sense can we make of saying that H knows ‘what’ A has asserted? None, it seems. If H could be persuaded to reveal to us the putative contents of his alleged understanding—i.e., to venture a claim of the form ‘I understand A to have said that p’—it seems a safe bet that, in the context of its occurrence, A’s utterance of (1) will not conventionally count as an assertion that p. For p presumably cannot be such as to imply the existence of anything of which A said that he would compute its orbit and plot its reappearance. Finally, even attribution of understanding in sense (U3) seems tendentious. Ordinarily, when we wish to communicate a perceptual demonstrative thought to others (possibly in perspectivally adjusted form), we exploit their knowledge of the language and perceptual context in a way that involves their recognition of what we have asserted being part of the Gricean process which eventuates in their entertaining the intended thought (and doing so at least in part because they recognize that we entertain a perceptually related one, and so on). Obviously this cannot be what Blackburn envisages for the two astronomers. So he seems to be left with a very tenuous notion of ‘agnostic understanding’ according to which H grasps some mysterious ‘thought’ which H cannot consistently formulate for us but is nonetheless somehow able to extract from A’s utterance of (1) without the normal assumption of the existence of an object of which A is speaking. Since, relativized to the reasoner H, (α4) is a simple logical consequence of (α1)-(α3), Blackburn presumably rejects H’s right to one of these premises; but which one? In the case at hand, one suspects he would claim that (α3 ), the salient instance of (α3), would be false in H’s mouth: (α3 )

I cannot come justifiably to believe that (α2a )

If what was said by A’s remark ‘F(that planet’) is true, then there is a planet perceptually presented in such-and-such a place and A will (or intends to) compute its orbit and plot its reappearance.

unless, for some∗ x, I believe that A is referring to x.

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But given the holistic character of understanding, surely H’s understanding or grasping what was allegedly said or expressed by the utterance of (1) does require H to have a minimal grasp of the consequences of its truth—e.g., the justified belief that (α2a ). If the unconvinced astronomer H expressed disbelief or agnosticism about (α2a ), then he could scarcely claim to have understood (appreciated the import of) his colleague A’s remark (as opposed to the linguistic meanings of his words, etc.). Such ‘what if’-tests are, after all, one standard test teachers use on students who claim to have understood remarks made in their lectures. But what justifies the listening astronomer H’s belief that (α2a ) if not selfapplication of something relevantly like (i)-(vi) in our Argument Schema—viz., the likes of (i )-(vi ) below (where c is the context of utterance, ‘T’ is a singular term, and we pretend for convenience that H thinks in regimented English): (i ) True(what is expressed in c by (1))

[supposition]



(ii ) True(what is expressed in c by (1)) iff (∃x)(x = what is referred to in c by ‘that planet’ & the speaker in c will compute x’s orbit and plot x’s reappearance) [theorem] (iii )

(∃x)(x = what is referred to in c by ‘that planet’ & the speaker in c will compute x’s orbit and plot x’s reappearance) [from (i )-(ii )]

(iv ) T is a planet perceptually presented in such-and-such a way in c. [premiss] (v ) T = what is referred to in c by ‘that planet’.

[premiss]



(vi ) (∃x)(x is a planet perceptually presented in such-and-such a way in c & the speaker in c will compute x’s orbit and plot x’s reappearance) [from (iii )-(v )] If, as seems likely, the answer is ‘nothing’, then we cannot avoid Evans’conclusion. For if H’s justification for believing (α2a ) essentially consists in (i )-(vi ), then it follows from the truistic principles (P1)-(P3) that, for some∗ x, the belief which H expresses by (v ) must be a belief that x = what A referred to in c by ‘that planet’, in which case H may indeed truly assert (α3 ). But what, then, of Blackburn’s claim that It is not belief which is necessary for understanding but…knowing why the speaker is making that remark, and why he is right to choose those words to do so.? Blackburn is certainly right that, in the imagined case, the doubting colleague knows why the speaker is making that remark and why he is right to choose those words to do so. But to avoid the foregoing argument we would have to credit the doubter with ‘understanding what was asserted or expressed’ by his credulous colleague, and hence with the ability to arrive at a certain justified belief about the

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consequences of the truth of the colleague’s remark, despite the fact that he (the doubter) lacks any singular reference-belief of the sort crucial to that justification, i.e., despite the fact that he allegedly would be in the position of being able to reason his way to accepting (α2a ) while being unable satisfactorily to answer the question ‘Why do you think that?’! Part of what makes Blackburn’s case look appealing, apart from any confusion over (U1)-(U3), is his trading on a different notion of understanding altogether, viz., the one in which we say that we understand people (or other creatures), i.e., know what motivates them, what ‘makes them tick’. The agnostic astronomer certainly knows, in virtue of his own, similar experience at the telescope, what motivates his credulous colleague and guides the latter’s choice of words—viz., an experience as of seeing a planet of such-and-such a sort. But understanding the speaker in this sense is compatible with the speaker’s utterance failing to assert or express anything—indeed, is compatible with the utterance failing to have any linguistic meaning at all! Suppose that, after sampling some hallucinogenic mushrooms, A exclaims ‘The meaning of life is . . . [dramatic pause] . . . BLUE FISH!’. A nearby anthropologist, himself well-acquainted with the effects of such mushrooms, says ‘Yes, I understand completely: that’s just how I felt when I first sampled the sacred mushrooms!’. Now the anthropologist, in virtue of his similar experiences, may be supposed to know why A ‘made that remark’—viz., because he ate the mushrooms—and even to know why A is right to choose those words to do so— viz., because the experience is one as of God revealing the meaning of life via that very sentence (or perhaps a vision of God as a giant blue fish). But has the anthropologist understood anything at all in the sense relevant to Evans’ argument? Surely not. When irrelevant senses of ‘understand’are suppressed, as they are in this example, there seems to be nothing left. (Notice that the two parties in the example could unproblematically go on to trade utterances containing ‘that revelation’.) Blackburn further says, Notice that the agnostic astronomer does not pretend that there is a planet there when he talks about plotting it: he merely supposes that there is one, for the sake of planning what to do.11 The point of this remark is to head off the reply that this is an example of the ‘conniving’ use of empty terms, hence subject to analysis via Evans’ theory of games of pretense (discussed below in Section 9.6) as a case of ‘quasi-understanding’. Blackburn may be right about this not being a case of pretense, but in raising the contrast with ‘supposition’ he unwittingly undermines his own critique. For although Evans does not explicitly discuss cases of mere supposition, there are independent reasons for thinking that they should be excluded from the scope of the Argument from Understanding. For the Argument explicitly deals with referential remarks—i.e., in the case at hand, utterances of the form ‘That G is F’, where ‘That G’ is deictic—and, for obvious reasons, was never intended to apply

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to attributive remarks or to anaphoric remarks parasitic upon them. But certain work in the theory of pronouns12 makes it doubtful that the envisaged suppositiongoverned occurrences of ‘that planet’, ‘the planet’, ‘it’, and so on, have the requisite deictic character required to support Blackburn’s counterexample. Without going into technical details, the basic idea is just that such suppositiongoverned terms are the informal analogues of the so-called individual parameters13 used in certain systems of Natural Deduction—i.e., quasi-terms which, in the context of restricted subordinate derivations, have either an existential interpretation on which they schematize reference to an arbitrary thing of a certain kind, or a universal interpretation on which they schematize reference to each thing of a certain kind. The anaphoric chains in which sentences containing such terms are linked together in ordinary discourse are, in point of their effect on the interpretation of the linking terms, the analogues of the restricted subordinate derivations themselves, which determine the range of reference and mode of generality assigned to occurrences of the individual parameters in question. Now it is clear that understanding sentences containing analogues of individual parameters is parasitic both on recognizing that they are functioning as such in those sentences and on grasping the anaphoric connections among the sentences—neither of which need involve belief in the occurrence of genuine singular reference to anything. But it should be equally clear that this offers no comfort to Blackburn’s critique. 9.4

EVANS’ SECOND ARGUMENT FOR (ODT-1)

Turning now to Evans’ second main argument14 , consider the following principle: (ComCond) If information-based communication in the empty (i.e., objectless) case is held to consist in the obtaining of some circumstance C, then C should be deemed to be at least a necessary condition for communication in the non-empty case, where the parties’ information is based upon the same object. If (ComCond) were not true, then the analysis of (i.e., full necessary-and-sufficient condition for) information-based communication in general would be non-unitary, in the sense of having the form (There is an object & C1 obtains) ∨ (There is no object & C2 obtains), where ‘(There is an object & C1 obtains)’ does not imply ‘C2 obtains’. But, as a matter of methodology, an acceptable analysis of information-based communication should be unitary, not an ad hoc patchwork of disjuncts. So we have, at least prima facie, some reason to accept (ComCond). This gives us the initial premiss

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(β1) of Evans’ second argument: (β1)

(ComCond) is true.

Using obvious examples, Evans proceeds to defend the claim (β2): (β2)

Successful information-based communication is possible in non-empty cases even when speaker and hearer think of the object which is the source of their information in very different ways.

It follows, then, that (β3) We are allowed to recognize, in non-empty cases, a diversity of informational relations as possibly obtaining between the information of a speaker and a hearer who engage in information-based communication. And it further follows from (β1) and (β3) that (β4) Any acceptable analysis of information-based communication must both (a) allow the truth of (β3) and (b) be compatible with (ComCond). Evans further claims that (β5) Any coherent unitary analysis of information-based communication which does not require the existence of a common object would fail to satisfy (β4a) if it meets (β4b)., on the ground that there appears to be only one candidate analysis, viz. that a sufficient condition for such communication in the empty case is that speaker and hearer purport to identify the object in the same way. (β4) and (β5) then yield the desired conclusion that (β6) Any acceptable analysis of information-based communication will make the existence of a common object a necessary condition for the occurrence of such communication. In other words, the thoughts which are thus shared are object-dependent. 9.5

CRITIQUE AND DEFENSE OF EVANS’ SECOND ARGUMENT

Michael Devitt15 objects that Evans’ support for (β5) is weak, since it overlooks another possible candidate for explaining how the speaker’s and hearer’s thoughts get the ‘right focus’ in the empty case: viz., in virtue of having the same ultimate source. Devitt writes,

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For example, a speaker’s demonstrative utterance that purports to refer to a person but is caused by a shadow can be understood by someone who has a thought which is also based on the shadow. So the only difference between the empty and non-empty cases is that in the latter the source also qualifies as the referent. Evans’ objection to his candidate explanation [viz., that it cannot allow for differences in the ways of identifying permitted to speaker and hearer when there is a referent] does not count against this one [presumably because no restriction is thereby put on the subjective ‘ways of identification’involved]. Blackburn in turn offers what is essentially just the ‘historical explanation’ version of Devitt’s ‘causal source’ objection. Referring back to his putative counterexample to Evans’ first argument), Blackburn writes: Our two astronomers are so related that had their information been veridical, they would have been thinking of the same object. In general, if the same illusion, or fiction, or cause of hallucination, explains why you and I take ourselves to be talking of the same thing, then we communicate. The condition is that there should be an identity (or at least a sufficient overlap) in the explanation of why we are each saying what we are. This is just the condition which is met by ordinary communication when there is an object.16 Let us again take the objections in the order given. When Devitt says ‘same source’ in his example, he means same external thing or phenomenon as ground—e.g., the shadow seen by both people who use ‘that man’ in connection with it. But this kind of case is liable to the objection that it confuses demonstrative misidentification of something (e.g., misidentification of the shadow as a man) with failure demonstratively to identify anything at all. Surely one can, at least sometimes, succeed in demonstratively identifying something while being wrong about the kind of thing it is. Evans17 suggests in passing that a plausible necessary condition for demonstrative identification of an F (at least where basic sortals are involved) is that one’s information-link with the ‘object’ should present one with enough F-ish characteristics for one to be said to see the object as an F. But, failing that, if one merely sees something which one is prepared to believe is an F, then the identification one expresses by ‘that man’ is partly descriptive. So we might say that in Devitt’s example, where one party utters, say, ‘That man is fat’, we are dealing with a partly descriptive thought Fat((ιx)[Man(x) & x = that]), in which ‘that’ refers to the shadow. Since there is a genuine thought involved, there is no a priori impediment to communication. Devitt fails to see this because he maintains18 that a token of ‘that F’ cannot designate a non-F. One could take bare demonstratives as primitive and hold that ‘G(that F)’ is always equivalent to

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‘G((ιx)[F(x) & x = that])’, thus preventing any case of Devitt’s type from counting as an empty case—since ‘that’, by Devitt’s own lights, will refer to the ‘external causal source’ (the shadow or whatever) about whose properties the speaker may be mistaken. This hard line on complex demonstratives is not unproblematic19 , but at least provides a coherent escape route from Devitt’s objection. In any event, Blackburn’s version of the objection is purer, since it does not involve positing a common external thing as ‘source’. Devitt is able to cope with (ComCond) because the (allegedly sufficient) condition of there being a common external thing which grounds the misperception in (what he tendentiously takes to be) an empty case also is a necessary condition in any non-empty case. Blackburn too says (Comcond) would be met, because The condition [alleged to be sufficient for communication in the empty case] is that there should be an identity (or at least a sufficient overlap) in the explanation of why we are each saying what we are. This is just the condition which is met by ordinary communication when there is an object. But is the proffered condition really everywhere necessary for communication in non-empty cases involving information from the same object? To be sure, some degree of ‘overlap of explanations’ clearly is necessary in a non-empty case, simply because the existence of a common object ensures that the explanations will overlap in talking about the (possibly diverse) causal activity of that object on the various parties. But—and this is the crucial point here—what the critic deems sufficient for communication in the empty case is not just ‘some’degree of overlap but substantial overlap of a specific kind, viz., in those parts of the respective explanations that pertain to the causes of the parties’ relevant behavior but stop short of anything that would count as ‘the object’. The critic is able to make it look as if genuine information-based communication is going on in the empty case because he concentrates on examples in which, though there is no appropriate referent, the parties nevertheless have fairly rich, internally similar background stories, or the perceptual analogues thereof, which are externally connected in the sort of way they would have been had they been based on a common object. Thus, e.g., even an atheist might be jollied into conceding that, at least prima facie, Jews and Christians engage in genuine information-based communication ‘about God’ simply because they have in common the Old Testament stories as a frame of reference. For here both ingredients are exemplified: their respective background lore is substantially based on exactly the same documents, thus guaranteeing sameness of source(s) at least for what is thus shared. But notice how this compliant intuition about empty cases begins to slip when these contingent background props are removed. When the parties’ bodies of information, though perhaps very similar, are historically unrelated, information-based communication is, at least initially, in doubt. The parties would take themselves to be communicating, but in an important sense they would not be, for essentially the same reason that one who, attempting to reach his uncle, unwittingly dials a wrong

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number and chats with the unrelated party at the other end about ‘his wife’s health’ would not be engaging in genuine information-based communication on that topic. On the other hand, historically related but wildly dissimilar bodies of information also seem to put information-based communication in doubt. What if the two astronomers in Blackburn’s example had had quite different experiences when peering through the telescope? Suppose, e.g., one has an experience as of seeing a meteorite but the other, being a paranoid sort, has an experience as of seeing an incoming ICBM—both experiences ultimately being causally grounded in a tiny flaw in the lens, the optical irradiations resulting from which occasioning, via different mind-sets, different ‘as of’ contents in the parties’ experiences. If the paranoid astronomer A then shouts ‘Run for your life! It will wipe out the whole town when it impacts!’ and his colleague B replies ‘Calm down! It will burn up in the atmosphere long before it reaches us.’ and A responds by saying ‘Are you crazy? It’s too big for that!’, and so on (all the tokens of ‘it’ being ex hypothesi empty), then it is far from obvious that they are communicating in the relevant sense. So it does appear essential to the intuitive appeal of the critic’s argument anent empty cases that there is overlap of these sorts. Now the question is: can (ComCond) really be satisfied in the way the critic envisages? That is, can we accept the following condition? (NC) A necessary condition for all information-based communication regarding a common object is that there is substantial overlap in that part of the explanations which does not mention the object but pertains to the causes of the parties’ saying what they do. (The idea being, roughly, that if we took the various explanations of the causes of the relevant verbal behaviors and excised any mention of the object’s existence or identity, the results would be ‘illuminatingly similar’.) The answer must be ‘No!’, and for reasons given by Evans himself20 . For when we turn from present-tense demonstratives to, e.g., their past-tense kin, the plausibility of (NC) begins to evaporate. If A, leaving the Auto Show where he just spent the day, meets for the first time in weeks a friend B who is apparently (and actually) doing likewise, A might, after greeting B, say ‘Did you see that red Lamborghini? My brother owns one just like it!’, and B might respond with ‘Yes, I did. Would your brother let me drive his sometime?’. Here A presumes in B, and accordingly invokes, stored visual information about the automobile deriving from B’s recent experience of it; and B understands A’s referential remark in virtue of bringing to bear upon its interpretation information of just this sort. There is nothing at all recherche about this case, and it would seem to be a counterexample to (NC). Apart from involving ultimate grounding in the same automobile, the details regarding the content and provenance of their respective bodies of stored visual information (which in turn contribute to explaining their subsequent verbal behavior) can be as dissimilar as one wishes: e.g., they saw it on different occasions and at different (disjoint)

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locations during the Show; they saw different, dissimilar-looking parts of it; one of them suffers from inverted spectrum; and so on and so forth. So it appears that we can after all grant one thing Devitt and Blackburn insist upon—viz. that the conditions for information-based communication must take into account the origin or pedigree of the information on which speaker’s and hearer’s thoughts are based — while still maintaining that such an account will violate (ComCond) and hence be false if it fails to require that the information of the speaker and hearer must derive (in ways that typically produce knowledge) from the same object. This being so, we again arrive at Evans’ conclusion that the conditions for information-based communication will require the existence of an object from which speaker’s and hearer’s information do so derive. So far, then, Evans’ case for object-dependent thoughts has proved more durable than its critics have supposed. But there is still a large lacuna, to the closing of which we must now attend. 9.6 THE PROBLEM OF NEGATIVE EXISTENTIALS INVOLVING EMPTY SINGULAR TERMS Any proponent of object-dependent thoughts clearly has to face up to the fact that we ordinarily and without the slightest hesitation ascribe truth-values to at least some kinds of sentences which we know to contain empty singular terms. The most prominent examples are negative existentials like ‘Santa Claus does not exist’ and statements about fiction like ‘Sherlock Holmes was addicted to cocaine’. In the following passage Evans gives a clear statement of his general strategy for coping with such ‘conniving’ uses of empty singular terms: The fundamental idea is to regard utterances containing empty terms used connivingly as moves in a linguistic game of make-believe. We make believe that there is an object of such-and-such a kind, from which we have received, or are receiving, information, and we act within the scope of that pretence. . . . And just as a deliberate initial pretence on the part of a story-teller or film-maker can provide people with the informational props which encourage them to continue the make-believe, so those props can be provided by shared illusions (current or remembered), or mistaken testimony, not originally the product of any artistic or imaginative process.21 Evans builds on Kendall Walton’s account of games of make-believe22 , on which make-believe truths (created by the game) are a kind of fictional truth, differentiated by their foundation in actual fact (other than facts of stipulation or imagination that it be so) and such that one can discover P to make-believedly be the case (i.e., in Walton’s notation, discover that ∗ P∗ ). Games of make-believe are, according to Evans, governed by three basic kinds of principles. First, there are ‘basic’principles, which stipulate outright some (possibly infinite) basic set of make-believe truths—e.g., in the conniving use of empty terms, that

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certain information, which is in fact deceptive, is information from actual objects and events. Second, there is the ‘incorporation’ principle: viz., If Q is true, and there are no P1 , . . . , Pn such that both ∗ P1 ∗ , . . . ,∗ Pn ∗ and the counterfactual If P1 , . . . , Pn were true, then Q would not be true. is true, then ∗ Q∗ . Third, there is the ‘recursive’ principle: viz., If ∗ P1 ∗ , . . . ,∗ Pn ∗ and the counterfactual If P1 , . . . , Pn were true, then Q would be true. ∗ ∗ is true and there are no P1 , . . . , Pn such that ∗ P∗ 1 , . . . , Pn and the counterfactual

If P1 , . . . , Pn were true, then Q would not be true. is true, then ∗ Q∗ . Some provision must be made for ascription of beliefs and other psychological attitudes within the game, since many of the make-believe actions the players perform are, make-believedly, actions which can only be performed by someone who has appropriate beliefs and intentions. Hence, Evans adopts the ‘attitudeascription’ principles: viz., (∀x)(If x believes that ∗ P∗ then ∗ x believes that P∗ ); (∀x)(If x intends that ∗ P∗ then ∗ x intends that P∗ ). Having provided for make-believe attitudes, Evans completes his account of the ‘conniving’use of empty singular terms by showing how we can, in Gricean fashion, introduce make-believe linguistic actions. These, together with the pretense that certain non-existent things actually do exist and that things are as the ‘information’ we share presents them as being, enables us to have make-believe thoughts about such objects and make-believedly to refer to them. The crucial point for our purposes is that games of make-believe which transpire against a backdrop of shared information permit the make-believe occurrence of the kind of referential communication which is secured by the normal informationinvoking use of singular terms. The ‘merely apparent’ sufficient conditions for genuine referential communication—viz., possession of information derived in knowledge-preserving way from common source (story-teller, novel, misperceived object, etc.)—turn out, Evans says, to be sufficient and necessary conditions for make-believe referential communication, at least within the game of make-believe resting upon a shared informational backdrop! Such make-believe communication involves make-believe understanding, or quasi-understanding as Evans calls it,

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which requires having make-believe thoughts one can only have by suppressing the impact of disbelief and engaging in the operative pretense. In particular, such cases involve the participants’ having ∗ thoughts about an object∗ which we can report only by engaging in the game ourselves—e.g., ∗ demonstrative thoughts about that pink elephant∗ . Subsequently, games of make-believe can be exploited to enable us to make serious statements about the game and what is make-believedly the case within it, as according to Evans we do when we talk about works of fiction. Devitt23 has objected that the notion of make-believe- or quasi-understanding will not distinguish the case of understanding a make-believe assertion involving a make-believe reference to a make-believe character from the quite different case of merely pretending to understand some gibberish (which the utterer pretends is in a foreign tongue). As against this, we should emphasize that quasi-understanding must not be equated with merely pretending to understand. Pretending to understand is, presumably, merely pretending to do those things in which real understanding consists. In contrast, quasi-understanding involves really doing some of the things constitutive of genuine understanding (e.g., bringing to bear shared information derived in typically knowledge-preserving ways from a common ‘source’)—only in the absence of a real object and within the scope of a certain pretense (e.g., that there is an object from which the information appropriately derives). Devitt, it seems, has overlooked the fact, stressed by Evans, that doing such-and-such within the scope of a pretense does not exclude really doing such-and-such. The lonely widow who ‘talks with her cat’, answering its timely meows by saying things like ‘How true’ and ‘I agree’, is (if sane) merely pretending to understand. Or again, the hard-of-hearing person who can’t quite make out the speaker’s words but who tries to save face by nodding and muttering agreement is similarly feigning understanding. But neither of these cases is one of quasi-understanding. Devitt further objects to Evans’ treatment of discourse about novels, etc. as involving a continuation of the author’s pretense. For this, Devitt claims, groups statements about the novel with statements in the novel, which is implausible. Moreover, he avers, it allows us only quasi-understanding of such statements about fiction, whereas we seem to understand them quite well. Let us take Devitt’s two points in order. First of all, the speaker makes the statement, e.g., that Sherlock Holmes was a consulting detective, by ∗ making the statement that Sherlock Holmes was a consulting detective∗ , where this move within the game is so made as to manifest his intention that his utterance should be up for assessment as (really) correct or (really) incorrect according to whether or not ∗ the statement he makes is correct or incorrect∗ . The speaker manages thereby to say something absolutely true or false by ∗ saying something true∗ or ∗ saying something false∗ . Now it seems clear that this account does distinguish statements ‘about’ the novel from statements ‘in’ the novel. For although the pretense is operative in both kinds of statements, the former do but the latter do not involve the game-based evaluative intentions in question, whereby the former can be genuinely true while the latter generally are only ∗ true∗ or ∗ false∗ . It would of course be implausible to claim that the literary critic is talking

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in the same logical tone of voice as was the novelist he is reviewing; but Evans’ account, as we have seen, requires no such thing. Devitt’s second point—that Evans allows us ‘only’ quasi-understanding of statements about fiction, whereas we seem to ‘understand them quite well’—is harder to assess. Evans is clear that understanding discourse ‘about the novel’ requires two things. First, the hearer must quasi-understand the utterance—i.e., possess appropriately derived information which, within the scope of the pretense, he brings to bear on the interpretation of the remark. And second, the hearer must at least tacitly recognize that the utterance is absolutely true iff ∗ he has, in quasi-understanding it, thought something true∗ . Perhaps Devitt is alluding to some phenomenological difference between understanding and quasi-understanding. But nothing in Evans’ account requires any particular difference between the two at the conscious level, though it presumably requires that people could, given sufficient reflection on what they are routinely doing when they talk about works of fiction, be brought to notice the connection with pretense and the link between truth and ∗ truth∗ . One suspects that Devitt is simply repeating the idea that what Evans deemed ‘merely apparent’sufficient conditions for genuine referential communication really are sufficient. Since we have dealt with this in connection with Evans’ second argument, we need not pursue the matter further here. As regards the problem of singular negative existentials, Evans lays down two plausible constraints on any putative solution (the motivation for which need not distract us here): first, the analysis of such sentences—i.e., their alleged logical form—must not represent them as metalinguistic24 ; and, second, the analysis must represent such sentences as containing ‘exists’ as a basic first-level predicate ‘E( )’ which is true of everything.25 As before, his guiding idea is that . . .Asingular negative existential statement involves a make-believe reference, which must bring with it the possibility of make-believedly having or soliciting an answer to the question . . . ‘Which one is it . . . that you are saying does not really exist?’ And giving an answer . . . inevitably draws one into the pretence.26 Accordingly, he proposes that the logical form of
τ does not exist is the same as that of
τ doesn’t really exist, namely
Not[Really(E(τ))], in which the deepstructure sentential operator ‘Really’ is interpreted by the following rule: For any sentence σ, an utterance of
Really(σ) is true (absolutely) iff (∃p)(p is true (absolutely) & σ expresses p when σ is uttered as a move in the relevant game of make-believe).27 What was said earlier about ‘understanding’ statements about fiction applies here as well: if someone is to understand an utterance of
Really(σ), he must quasiunderstand σ (i.e., it must be true that ∗ he understands σ∗ ) and realize that the whole utterance is absolutely true iff, in quasi-understanding σ (i.e., in ∗ entertaining a thought as expressed by σ∗ ), he is in fact entertaining a thought which is true.

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Devitt objects that this account is highly counterintuitive and totally ad hoc, presumably from the non-question-begging standpoint of untutored common sense. It is difficult to resist the ad hominem reply that the sort of truth condition proposed for singular negative existentials by both Devitt28 and Donnellan29 —in effect, that
τ does not exist is true iff τ is empty—severs the normally implicative link between meaning and truth-conditions (i.e., between ‘σ means that p’ and ‘σ is true iff p’) in a way that is no less counterintuitive from the standpoint of untutored common sense, which tends to view negative existentials as being ‘about things that don’t exist’. Moreover, Devitt runs afoul of the widely shared assumption that possession of a correct truth-theory for a language L couched in one’s home language should, in concert with a similarly couched theory of force for the mood indicators of L, give one some understanding of the speech acts performed in particular utterances of sentences of L.30 For imagine a culturally deprived English-speaker, A, who has no familiarity with story-telling (having been home-schooled by parents who regarded fictionalizing as sinful) and whose only knowledge of the French language comes from learning a correct truth theory  for French which canonically yields the T-sentence ‘P`ere Noël n’exist pas’ is true (in French) iff ‘P`ere Noël’ is empty. Precisely because of his lack of appreciation of games of pretense (in particular, the ones in which ‘P`ere Noël’ figures), it is questionable whether A, on first exposure to an utterance of ‘P`ere Noël n’exist pas’—say, one overheard between Frenchspeaking parent and child—understands what the speaker has just asserted. Since the apparatus of games of pretense applies not only to negative existentials but to discourse about fiction and within shared illusions as well—i.e. applies to conniving uses in general—the charge of ad hoc-ness seems to come to no more than this: if one did not believe in object-dependent thoughts in the first place, one would have no need for the game-of-pretense apparatus and a new logical form proposal to account for the intelligibility of negative existentials employing empty singular terms. This might be worrisome if there were no plausible arguments for the existence of object-dependent thoughts, but we have seen two such arguments already (and will encounter a third in Section 9.9 below.). Until all such arguments have been weighed and found wanting, Devitt’s charge seems, to say the least, a bit premature. 9.7 THE PROBLEM OF ATTITUDE-ASCRIPTIONS WITH ‘THAT’-CLAUSES CONTAINING EMPTY TERMS There is, however, one rather glaring gap in Evans’ treatment of conniving uses. Although he explains31 how we might treat utterances of sentences like ‘Zeus was powerful’—made during a contemporary discussion of Greek Mythology— as involving a kind of pretense on our part which is not the continuation of any

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pretense on the ancient Greeks’ part, he has very little to say about conniving uses in opaque environments such as (2): (2) The ancient Greeks believed that Zeus was powerful. Although these cases, like the former, do not involve the continuation of another’s pretense, they are much more problematic in that, unlike the former, they are intuitively capable of literal truth or falsity. After making some half-hearted suggestions, Evans leaves the matter dangling with the disquieting remark that such sentences ‘are not to be taken as literally true’!32 As one would expect, Devitt objects that (2) is literally true, irrespective of whether the name ‘Zeus’ refers. Here it seems we must concede the point. But all is not yet lost. Let ‘N’ be schematic for names and/or demonstrative phrases of English, and let ‘F’ be schematic for verb phrases of English other than ‘exists’ and its cognates. Then, since an instance of (3) can on Evans’ view make a genuine statement, so too can an instance of (4): (3)

N does/doesn’t really exist.

(4) A believes that N really does/doesn’t exist. We could then maintain that if ‘N’ is connivingly used by an utterer U in connection with a game of pretense to which A is not regarded as a party, U’s utterance of an instance of (5) should be paraphrased as, or at least regarded as truth-conditionally equivalent to, the corresponding instance of (6): (5) A believes that F(N). (6) A takes A-self’s belief that N really exists to be about something such that F(it). The paraphrase (6) reports a belief whose object is not the non-existent referent of ‘N’ but rather A’s own (regrettably false) belief that N really exists. This proposal allows for the problematic attributions of belief by a non-believer to be literally true or false, while still withholding literal truth-values in other cases of conniving use. In defense of this suggestion, we can at least offer a palliative for any twinges of ad hoc-ery. First of all, the paraphrase (6) describes, not some bizarre, sui generis sort of belief, but rather a kind of belief which at least tacitly accompanies ordinary singular beliefs about real objects. One who, e.g., believes that Timbuktu is pretty at least tacitly takes his/her belief that there is such a city to be about a pretty place. (Notice the practical—though not stylistic—interchangeability of ‘Is it a pretty place?’ with ‘Is the place you’re talking about pretty?’ as responses to ‘There is such a place as Timbuktu’.) The idea is that, in the special case at hand, only

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the ‘accompanying’ belief is available to be reported, since, strictly speaking, the ancient Greeks expressed no complete thoughts by uttering the relevant theological sentences of their language. Secondly, (against the backdrop of what we condescendingly call Greek Mythology) the paraphrase manages to capture the explanatory role of saying things like (2). Why, for example, did the ancient Greeks sincerely utter certain sentences, build certain temples, perform certain rites of propitiation, and so on? We need not suppose that their theological sentences expressed genuine thoughts in order to explain why those sentences were uttered. They were uttered because the ancient Greeks took themselves (mistakenly, as it turns out) to have singular thoughts about beings with such-and-such properties and believed those sentences to express such thoughts.33 They built the temples and performed the propitiatory rites because, as we can say, they thought that Zeus really exists, took themselves thereby to be thinking of a powerful being, and believed such things as that powerful beings ought to be kept happy! Gabriel Segal (1989) has objected that this meta-belief strategy renders the allegedly object-dependent thoughts alluded to in (ODT-1) and (ODT-2) explanatorily redundant, since all the same behavior-explaining work would be done by the corresponding meta-beliefs, which one could possess regardless of whether the object in question exists or not. Thus, e.g., ‘Booth believed that he should kill Lincoln’ would contribute nothing to the explanation of Booth’s actual behavior beyond what is contributed by ‘Booth believed that Lincoln really existed’ and ‘Booth believed that his belief (that Lincoln really existed) is a belief about someone whom he himself should kill’. The quick-and-dirty version of our answer is that it is by no means obvious that possession of a set of purely object-independent beliefs, together with contingent facts about the existence of particular objects in an agent’s environment, can suffice to explain the agent’s intentional action upon those objects (such as, e.g., Booth’s intentionally killing that man/Lincoln—as opposed to Booth’s firing a shot the trajectory of which passed through a region of space that happened to be occupied by Lincoln’s head). The more articulate and compelling version of this answer must wait until Chapter 10, where the underlying view that motivates the objection is laid out and criticized. It might be also objected that the paraphrase (6) would attribute too much conceptual sophistication to the subject(s) — i.e., that we could still truly report the ancient Greeks theological beliefs without having to assume that they were capable of meta-beliefs about their own (or others’) beliefs. Perhaps there is no knock-down rebuttal of this. But the capacity for at least some such meta-beliefs seems to be a necessary condition of being able to be party to genuine conventions (especially if the existence of a convention in a community is analyzed along the well-known lines laid down by David Lewis (1969)). And the sorts of beliefs whose ascription is under review do seem to involve the subject’s having a public language, hence being party to such general conventions as are constitutive of having a public language as well as to certain specific conventions, such as those regarding the use of the

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Greek counterpart of ‘Zeus’ as a name. (Children can believe that Santa Claus will bring them goodies; it is doubtful that the family dog could have any such belief.) 9.8 A PROBLEM ABOUT CERTAIN CONDITIONALS Finally, we must address an objection based on the behavior of certain conditionals in English.34 One might try to dismiss Evans’ worries about the existence of a referent as pertaining not to the existence of that which is said and understood, but rather to the existence of mere Gricean conversational implicatures generated by what is already said and understood. The idea would be that such referential implicatures are not only cancelable in principle but are in fact explicitly cancelled by the ‘if’-clauses of conditionals of the form (7)

That’s the F, if such a thing exists.

—instances of which seemingly can be used to make perfectly understandable remarks even when the italicized demonstrative is empty (e.g., in cases of hallucination). But, the objector concludes, if the hearer can understand what is expressed by such conditionals in empty cases, then he can certainly understand what is expressed by their consequents in such cases. Now if the foregoing objection is supposed to proceed along strictly Gricean lines, it is hard to see how it can avoid begging the question. For the canonical account of an utterance’s conversational implicatures found in Grice (1975) presupposes a determinate prior notion of ‘what was strictly and literally said’ by that utterance, and the point at issue is precisely whether anything was strictly and literally said! We need not press this point, however, inasmuch as the objector may have in mind a different style of pragmatic explanation that does not rely on the presupposition in question. And in any event, without abandoning Evans’ Argument from Understanding, it is still possible accept the alleged datum that some conditionals of the form (7) do indeed express thoughts even though their ingredient demonstratives are empty. One way to do this is to read such instances of (7) as ‘illocutionary conditionals’, whose logical form involves parataxis. Following Davidson’s well-known suggestion35 , we could represent (7) as follows: If such a thing exists, then [I say that].

[assertive component]

↓ That’s the F.

[display component]

In illocutionary conditionals thus analyzed, the antecedent of the assertive component concerns a condition—in this case what Searle (1969) calls a ‘propositional content condition’—necessary for the successful and non-defective performance of the speech act named by the illocutionary verb in the (possibly

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suppressed) consequent ‘I say that’ (in which ‘that’ is a demonstrative referring to the utterance of the display component). The important point for present purposes is just that the assertive component of such a conditional does straightforwardly express a thought and is understandable on Evans’ grounds regardless of whether the overt demonstrative in the display component successfully refers. (Related conditionals of the form ‘If that (really) exists, then it’s the/an F’ are amenable to the same treatment. However, the foregoing discussion of existential claims obviously provides an additional way of construing such conditionals in terms of games of pretense.) Clearly, adopting this strategy of illocutionary parataxis for the likes of (7) does not commit us to accepting a Davidsonian paratactic analysis of indirect discourse constructions in general, let alone to a paratactic analysis of attitude ascriptions.36 Nor does the existence of conditionals requiring such treatment threaten anything in TC or STC . Moreover, the suggested treatment of (7) is not ad hoc, since there are related constructions which involve other singular terms and even general terms and which invite similar treatment. Consider, e.g., (8) and (9): (8)

If ‘Smefnark’ is the name of this place, then we’re in Smefnark.

(9)

If ‘slithy tove’ denotes a kind of tomato worm, then we have slithy toves in our garden.

In each case the conditional as a whole makes perfectly good sense and the sentence could be used to say something true or false. But there is no such name as ‘Smefnark’ and no such English word as ‘slithy’ or ‘toves’. Since a meaningful sentence presumably cannot have any meaningless parts, (8) and (9) cannot be unitary conditional sentences composed merely of the overtly visible items—‘We’re in Smefnark’ and ‘We have slithy toves in our garden’ are not even genuine sentences. The illocutionary parataxis approach recommended for (7) smoothly and naturally accounts for the meaningfulness of (8) and (9) by analyzing them as (10) and (11) respectively: (10)

If ‘Smefnark’ is the name of this place, then [I say that.] ↓ We’re in Smefnark.

(11)

If ‘Slithy toves’ denotes a sort of tomato worm, then [I say that.] ↓ We have slithy toves in our garden.

In default of an agreed-upon analysis of sentences like (7)-(9), it is simply fallacious to argue, as the critic does, that the fact that (what appears to be) a unitary conditional expresses a thought shows that its (apparent) consequent does so as well.37

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9.9 AN ARGUMENT FOR (ODT-2) YIELDING (ODT-1) AS A COROLLARY We now turn to a broader and more ambitious argument (inspired by Davies (1981)) which, if successful, will deliver both (ODT-1) and (ODT-2). The argument depends in part upon the following thesis about proper names, famously defended in Kaplan (1977): A nonempty proper name is an obstinately38 rigid designator—i.e., it denotes its actual-world referent with respect to every possible world W , regardless of whether that object happens to exist in W . The argument also makes some common assumptions about the nature of utterancecontexts and interpreted languages. On the one hand, it treats an utterance-context as a series of items that includes not only such familiar coordinates as a speaker, time, place, etc., but a possible world as well. Since for the purposes of the argument only the identity of the world-coordinate W really matters, the others will be ignored and utterance-contexts will be represented in the abbreviatory style ‘<W , . . .>’. On the other hand—elaborating on the linguists’ maxim that languages are ‘devices for pairing meanings and sound sequences’—the argument adopts a certain picture of what an interpreted indicative language is and what it means for such a language to treat a name as empty. Specifically, (i)-(iii) are adopted as definitions and (iv) is taken as axiomatic: (i) An appropriate content for an indicative sentence σ is a relation (alternatively: a propositional function) whose adicity matches the number n of distinct symbol types having occurrences in σ that are identified as free variables. (An appropriate content for a closed indicative sentence, where n = 0, will thus be a thought/proposition). (ii) An appropriate character for an indicative sentence σ is a (possibly partial) function f from utterance-contexts such that, for any context c, f (c) is an appropriate content for σ. (iii) An interpreted indicative language is a function L from set  of syntactically identified symbol-strings (the indicative sentences of L) such that, for any σ ∈ , L(σ) is an appropriate character for σ. In particular, the indicative fragment of English is that assignment LE of appropriate characters to our indicative sentences which captures the meaning those sentences actually have for us. (iv) A interpreted indicative language L spoken by some community in a world W treats a singular term τ as an empty name iff: for any individual variable ν, L(
There is an object which, necessarily, is ν ) = LE (
There is an object which, necessarily, is ν)—i.e., the quoted open sentence means in their language exactly what it means in actual English—only if either

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(a) L(
There is an object which, necessarily, is τ)(<W , . . .>) is a thought/proposition which is false in W , or (b) L(
There is an object which, necessarily, is τ) is a partial function which is undefined for any context <W ∗ , . . .> such that τ denotes nothing in W ∗ . Since a given sentence might belong to various different interpreted indicative languages in the actual world or in some other possible world, the following convention for tracking language-membership is adopted: the result of subscripting the name of a sentence ‘S’ with the name of an interpreted indicative language L is an expression referring to ‘S’ qua sentence of L (i.e., as having the character L(‘S’). So much, then, for the preliminaries—now for the argument! Let W0 be any possible world in which Neptune does not exist, and let L1 , . . . , Ln be the interpreted indicative languages (if any) spoken by the denizens (if any) of W0 . Our first goal will be to establish a key premiss of the argument for (ODT-2): viz., that none of the languages L1 , . . . , Ln spoken in W0 is LE ! Consider, then, the sentence (12): (12) There is an object which, necessarily, is Neptune. Notice first of all that the sentence (12)LE , as hypothetically uttered in context <W0 , . . .>, is true in W0 —i.e., the value of the character LE ((12))) for the argument <W0 , . . .> is a thought/proposition which is true in W0 —since presumably ‘Neptune’ is in LE an obstinately rigid designator of Neptune (denoting that planet with respect to every possible world, whether or not Neptune happens to exist there). Now consider the open sentence (13): (13) There is an object which, necessarily, is x. For each Li among the interpreted indicative languages spoken in W0 , there are two possibilities: either [Case 1] Li ((13)) = LE ((13)) or [Case 2] Li ((13)) = LE ((13)). Trivially, Li must be distinct from LE in Case 1. Since ex hypothesi Neptune does not exist in W0 to be fixed by its inhabitants as the referent of ‘Neptune’ in any language spoken in W0 , there are in Case 2 only three possibilities to consider: either [2a] ‘Neptune’ is an empty singular term of Li , or [2b] speakers of Li in W0 have fixed the reference of ‘Neptune’ as some other object which does exist in W0 , or [2c] ‘Neptune’ is something other than a name in Li . If either [2b] or [2c], then once again Li is obviously distinct from LE . And if [2a], then (12)Li , as hypothetically uttered in context <W0 , . . .>, must be either false or truthvalueless with respect to W0 . That is to say, if Li ((13)) = LE ((13)) and ‘Neptune’ is treated by Li as an empty singular term, then by principle (iv) above the value of Li ((12)) for the context <W0 , . . .> is either a thought/proposition that is false in W0 or else Li ((12)) is only a partial function, undefined for <W0 , . . .>. Now

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if Li = LE then LE ((12))(<W0 , . . .>) = Li ((12))(<W0 , . . .>), in which case (12)Li , as hypothetically uttered in <W0 , . . .>, would be true at W0 , contrary to what was just established. Therefore, in any case: Li is distinct from LE . We are, then, in a position to assert the first premiss of our main argument for (ODT-2): (γ1) Any world in which Neptune does not exist is a world none of whose denizens speak LE . Now it seems independently plausible to say, with David Lewis (1975), that (γ2)

LE is an actual language of a population P in a world if and only if there prevails among members of P in that world a convention of trust and truthfulness in LE ,

It follows that (γ3) Any world in which Neptune does not exist is a world none of whose denizens observe a convention of trust and truthfulness in LE . But the existence in a world of such a convention consists in the existence of a regularity R of attempted truth-telling and imputed truthfulness in LE backed by certain complex overlapping propositional attitudes regarding R in that world among members of P. Let us collectively call the attitudes definitive of attempted and imputed truthfulness in LE , together with the supporting attitudes regarding R, ‘the LE -attitudes’. Then we may regard it as a definitional consequence of (γ3) that (γ4) Any world in which the object Neptune does not exist is a world in which no population P exhibits a regularity R involving their having the LE -attitudes. Now assume for reductio: (γ5) The availability to a population in a world of a regularity R involving their having the LE -attitudes is independent of the existence of Neptune in that world. But that is just to say that (γ6) There is a possible world in which Neptune does not exist but in which some population exhibits a regularity R involving their having the LE -attitudes.

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Since this contradicts (γ4), we may conclude that (γ7) The availability to a population in a world of a regularity R involving their having the LE -attitudes depends upon the existence of Neptune in that world. Now it appears that, in the envisaged circumstances, one could not in general ultimately blame the unavailability in question on anything but the unavailability, due to the nonexistence of Neptune, of the beliefs and other attitudes ascribable to the putative LE -speakers by means of sentences containing ‘Neptune’in appropriate ‘that’-clauses. If so, then we may conclude that (γ8) The best explanation of the truth of (γ7) is that the thoughts which are the contents of those LE -attitudes reportable by use of the term ‘Neptune’ in appropriate ‘that’-clauses are object-dependent. But what holds for ‘Neptune’ presumably holds for any other referential proper name, in which case it would follow that the thoughts which are the contents of the attitudes reported by the use of such terms in ‘that’-clauses are object-dependent one and all!39 (One might dispute the account of the actual language relation that we have borrowed from Lewis. Fine; nothing save pedagogic ease hinges on appealing to it rather than any of its competitors in the literature.40 For any plausible account of the actual language relation will presumably involve the members of an allegedly English-speaking population P having or being disposed to have such attitudes as the belief that a member of P wouldn’t utter ‘Neptune is a planet’ unless he or she meant that Neptune is a planet, or believed that Neptune is a planet, or unless it were true that Neptune is a planet, etc.) This completes the case for (ODT-2). The derivation of (ODT-1) as a corollary proceeds as follows. Consider any referentially intended and perceptually based utterance u of the form ‘G(this F)’ made at a time t by an actual-world English-speaker A who succeeds in referring by ‘this F’ to some perceived, contingently existing external object X, so that there is a perceptual-demonstrative thought X about X such that u says/means X . Let W be a world as much as possible like the actual world except that A (or his counterpart A∗ ) has at t in W a phenomenologically indistinguishable set of hallucinatory experiences and issues a referentially intended and perceptually based counterpart utterance u∗ in which the counterpart token of ‘this F’ is accordingly (and unwittingly) empty. Suppose for reductio that u∗ actually says/means X despite the contextual failure of A∗ ’s token of ‘this F’ to refer to anything in W. Then, in principle at least, nothing would prevent both A and A∗ from exploiting their respective perceptual settings to introduce into their counterpart languages a new proper name ‘N’ by means of the deictic formula ‘Let this F henceforth be named ‘N’’. Of course, the name thus introduced by A∗ in W would, ex hypothesi, be empty; but so long

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as A∗ is unaware of this fact the naming ceremony in W will be illocutionarily successful, albeit defective. And, again in connection with the same respective perceptual settings, A could proceed assertively to utter some monadic predication (14)

Q (this F called ‘N’),

and A∗ could proceed assertively to utter some counterpart thereof—call it ‘(14∗ )’. Now if, in the envisaged circumstances, A∗ ’s utterance u∗ of ‘G(this F)’ actually said/meant something (viz., the thought X ), so presumably would A∗ ’s subsequent assertive utterance of (14∗ ). Given our reductio hypothesis, then, it follows that A∗ ’s utterance of (14∗ ) in W does say/mean something. But if A∗ in W thus shares A’s actual thought X , then A∗ presumably must share the thought N which is meant by A’s utterance of (14). However, for one who introduces a name ‘N’ via a perception-based demonstrative ‘this F’ there will be a constitutive connection between what could be meant by his tokens of ‘Q(N)’ and what could be meant, immediately following the name-introduction, by his tokens of (14). This connection is mediated by the fact that, within the context of the introductory circumstances, (15) is axiomatic for the introducer: (15)

N = this F called ‘N’.

Consequently, if A∗ shares A’s thought N , A∗ must also share the thought meant by A’s tokens of ‘Q(N)’. But, by the lately established thesis (ODT-2), what is said/meant by A’s tokens of ‘Q(N)’cannot be entertained by A∗ : the thought thus available to A is not available to A∗ . Consequently, it is false that A∗ ’s utterance u∗ of ‘G(this F)’actually says/means X despite the contextual failure of A∗ ’s token of ‘this F’ to refer to anything in W . Thus we obtain (ODT-1) as a corollary of (ODT-2). NOTES 1 Evans (1982), §9.4. 2 Like Frege himself, the Neo-Fregeans are Actualists. So in this Chapter and the next, ‘(∃x)φ’ is

used with the force that ‘Some existing being is an x such that φ’ has in our non-Actualist jargon. 3 This principle is made true by our stipulation that all this reasoning is taking place (a) in the first person, (b) with respect to a singular perceptual-demonstrative remark which one understands, and (c) in the very perceptual context which forms the background for interpreting the remark. For the stipulated facts enable the reasoner simply to reuse the same (possibly context-dependent) term ‘T’ that figured in his or her ancillary reasoning (i)-(vi). 4 Thus, in particular, the thought that N has a true/false belief —i.e., that what N believes is true/false—would be a ‘truth-conditional’ thought, as would the thought that such-and-such thoughts have such-and-such logical properties or stand in such-and-such logical relations. The use of ‘involves’ in the definition could obviously be made more precise, but doing so is not necessary for the application of it made in this argument.

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5 The earlier restriction on the range of thought-variables does not exclude the thought that A’s remark

says/means q, since the property being meant by A’s remark is not a ‘truth-conditional’ property of a thought. 6 The earlier restriction on the range of variables is crucial here, for (α12) would be false if, e.g., p 1 were allowed to be the true higher-order ‘truth-conditional’ thought that H has some false belief. 7 Blackburn (1984), Ch. 9. Blackburn’s critique is directed at the Evans’ original, third-person formulation of the argument, not at our reconstructed version; but this fact affects neither the point of Blackburn’s objections nor the force of our replies. 8 Ibid., p. 319. 9 Evans, op. cit., p. 331. 10 See, e.g., Nagel (1974: 435-50). 11 Blackburn, op. cit., p. 319. 12 Cf. Wilson (1984). 13 See, e.g., Thomason (1970). 14 Evans, op. cit., Sec. 9.5. 15 In Devitt (1985: 216-32). 16 Blackburn, op. cit., p. 320. 17 op. cit., pp. 196-7. 18 Devitt (1981: 162). 19 The problem is that it would assimilate the individuative role of ‘F’in ‘That F is G’to the predicative role of ‘G’ therein. Cf. Davies (1982). 20 op. cit., p. 337. 21 Ibid., p. 353. 22 In Walton (1973, 1978). See Zalta (2000) for suggestions about how to reconcile Walton’s pretense theory with the apparatus of ILAO. 23 Devitt (1985: 221). 24 Cf. Evans, op. cit., p. 344. (It is not totally clear what he means by ‘analysis’ here: it seems most likely that he means ‘proposed logical form’, and that is how we shall understand him here. Yet his rejection (in the same breath) of Donnellan’s suggestion, which is only a proposed truth condition, suggests that he either meant truth conditions or was confused about what Donnellan was proposing.) 25 Ibid., p. 351. (As was made clear in Chapter 1, we do not follow Evans in insisting that ‘exists’, as a basic first-level predicate, must be true of everything; but this fact would not prevent us from adopting his general approach below to
τ does not exist , provided that the singular term τ is not a special name of one of the A-objects introduced in Chapter 4, the latter being the only non-existents to which we are ontologically committed in this work.) 26 Ibid., p. 369. 27 Ibid., pp. 369-70. 28 Devitt (1981: 186). (We ignore here the complications Devitt introduces to handle the alleged phenomena of partial designation and degrees of truth.) 29 Donnellan (1974: 3-31). 30 For a general discussion of this methodological assumption, see Platts (1979). 31 Evans (op. cit., p. 365) writes: The pretence may exist only in [speaker and audience’s] serious exploitation of it. The speaker and hearer who seem to see a little green man but doubt their eyes may find themselves expressing a serious disagreement about the nature of the illusion by uttering such sentences as ‘He’s a hunchback’ and ‘No! He’s carrying something’. This, Evans suggests (Ibid., p. 365, fn 37), is how we probably treat discourse about the Greek Gods (where the original story-tellers were not engaged in pretense).

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32 33 34 35 36

Ibid., p. 366n. Cf. McDowell (1977). This objection was raised by David Sanford in commentary on an ancestor of this chapter. Cf. Davidson (1969). And it is well that it does not, since such general paratactic accounts face very serious objections (cf., e.g., Schiffer (1987), Sections 5.4-5.6, and Burge (1986). 37 Of course, as Frege (1892a) long ago pointed out, not everything that superficially appears to be a free-standing conditional relating two thoughts is really such. Obviously, it would be fallacious to argue from (i) to (ii): (i) A thought is expressed by ‘If one spots a salesman, then one should avoid him’. (ii) Thoughts are separately expressed by ‘one spots a salesman’ and ‘one should avoid him’. It should be clear that we are not accusing the critic of committing this fallacy, for we concede that (7)-(9), when properly analysed, do involve free-standing conditionals. 38 This expression is borrowed from Nathan Salmon (1981: 34), who points out that the notion seems to have been anticipated in David Kaplan’s notion of ‘necessary denotation’ (Kaplan 1969: 222) and is built into the understanding of Kaplan’s indexical operator ‘dthat’ (Kaplan 1970). 39 This is not compromised by the concession of a sense in which an utterance of ‘The ancient Greeks believed that Zeus is powerful’ can be true absolutely, despite the non-existence of Zeus; for that concession pertains only to the special circumstance of a ‘conniving’ use by the utterer in connection with a subject not taken to be party to the game. 40 Cf. e.g., Davies (1981), Ch. I. Cf. also Peacocke (1976) and Loar (1976).

CHAPTER 10

A CRITIQUE OF RIVAL ACCOUNTS OF SINGULAR THOUGHTS

10.1

KENT BACH’S THEORY OF ‘DE RE BELIEFS’

Kent Bach (1982)1 has proposed a treatment of singular beliefs (or ‘de re beliefs’ in his terminology) on which they are indeed essentially relational but not essentially ‘of’ their objects, i.e., not object-dependent in the sense defended in Chapter 9. According to Bach, de re beliefs can supposedly be accommodated within the confines of Methodological Solipsism.2 The inherent relationality of such beliefs lies in their indexical form: the mode of relation to their objects is part of their contents. But the object (if any) of a de re belief (token) is determined by its context, not by its content. The relevant part of the content, the mode of presentation, merely determines what the appropriate contextual relation is. Thus, when individuated ‘psychologically’ (by mode of presentation), de re beliefs are no more essentially about their objects than are descriptive beliefs. But when individuated ‘semantically’ (by object and predicative content in a context), a de re belief is essentially about its object, but only in a trivial sense. In specifying the content of a person N’s de re belief state, the operative de re relation R must be represented in the content of the belief via some mode of presentation MR , so as to determine how its predicative content is applied to an object. The belief’s total truth condition is supposedly represented by (DR) below, in which ‘Rx(MR N)’ is read as ‘x bears R to N’s mode of presentation MR ’) and ‘MR ’ and ‘Gx’ represent respectively the indexical and predicative contents of the belief-state): (DR)

G(the x such that Rx(MR N)) [taken as short for: (∃x){Rx(MR N) & (∀y)(Ry(MR N) → y = x) & Gx} ].3

In perceptual-demonstrative belief, Bach says, R would be the kind of causal relation essential to perceiving an object; and the mode of presentation MR would a percept ( = a way of being appeared to). In this case, MR need not be descriptive, for the object is already singled out perceptually. Since Methodological Solipsism demands that we characterize perceptual states in such a way that a person could 329

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be in the same perceptual state regardless of whether he is really perceiving a physical object or merely hallucinating, Bach adopts Chisholm’s adverbial method of perceptual content individuation (Chisholm 1966), whereby perceptual statetypes are individuated by how the perceiver is appeared to. Accordingly, where m is a sense modality, fx is a way of being appeared to by physical object x, and ‘Am fxN’ abbreviates ‘N is appearedm to fx-ly’, (PB) represents the truth condition of N’s belief of the object that appearsm f to him that it is G (i.e., the belief he might express with ‘this [f -appearingm thing] is G’): (PB)

G(the x such that CAUSESx(Am fxN)) [taken as short for: (∃x){CAUSESx(Am fxN) & (∀y)[CAUSESy(Am fyN) → y = x] & Gx}]4 .

The type of a perceptual-demonstrative belief-state is given by the type of its overall (and ex hypothesi non-propositional) content, where that content in turn may be specified in the form ‘’, in which ‘Am fx’ identifies the percept serving as mental indexical (= the perceptual [aspect of] content) and the open sentence ‘Gx’ identifies the conceptual [aspect of] content. Bach’s major positive aim is to present a conception of perceptual-demonstrative belief which ‘. . . reconciles with [Methodological Solipsism] the claim that perceptual beliefs are psychological states properly so-called’5 . He offers little by way of direct argument that we ought to think of singular beliefs in the way presented, perhaps because he tacitly assumes that only a view compatible with Methodological Solipsism could be correct and that his view is the only such view. Be that as it may, an independent argument for a position essentially like Bach’s has been put forth by Michael McKinsey (1986), so it behooves us to look at that argument before turning to internal criticism of Bach’s view. McKinsey alleges that there is linguistic evidence that not all instances of (1)

N assumes that an F (or just one F) is G, and N wishes that it is H.

can be read as (2)

N assumes that an F (or just one F) is G, and N wishes that the F which is G is H.

on the ground that (3)

Nob assumes that just one fish got away at t, and he wishes he had caught it at t

is a plausible ascription which imputes no inconsistency to Nob, whereas construing (3) on the model of (2) would yield

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Nob assumes that just one fish got away at t, and he wishes he had caught at t the fish that got away at t.,

which implausibly ascribes to Nob a self-contradictory wish! Since, McKinsey avers, there is no plausible construal of (3) in terms of ordinary bound variable anaphora either6 , the only alternative is to see the anaphoric pronoun ‘it’ in (3) as representing Nob’s attempt at a mental act of demonstrative reference, the actual referent (if any) of which would be fixed by some definite description contextually recoverable from prior discourse—in this case: ‘the fish that got away from Nob at t’. (3) must thus be distinguished from other instances of (1) and related constructions in which the anaphoric pronoun could be taken as simply going proxy for such a description. (The parallel with Kripke’s well-known remarks about reference-fixing versus synonym-fixing should be obvious.) McKinsey concludes (in effect) that in (3) and relevantly similar conjunctions the second conjunct ascribes a Bach-style de re thought, hence that there must really be thoughts of this kind since at least some of these conjunctions are true. The thoughts in question are not object-dependent, for sentences like (3) can be true regardless of whether the assumption ascribed by their first conjuct is true or not. Nor are these thoughts propositional, since the ingredient anaphoric pronoun cannot be replaced by any non-anaphoric singular term without manifestly altering the sense of the whole sentence. At first glance, McKinsey’s data do suggest a position like Bach’s. But while McKinsey is surely right that construing (3) on the model of (2) would be a disaster, it does not follow, as he claims, that no similar ‘proxy’-analysis is feasible. In fact, a minor tweaking of the apparatus of Chapters 4-5 produces an entirely adequate construal of (3) and its ilk. Since the thrust of the revisions is easy to understand, a brief sketch will suffice. Here is the basic idea. For any type property term ‘F’, let ‘í (ιxi )Fx î’ be a name for the A-individual that encodes just the property being uniquely F, and let ‘(ιxi )Fxc ’ be a new style of corresponding sense-name that is subject to the following axiom (from which the complications regarding sense-markers have been omitted in the interest of legibility): (ιxi )Fxc = the A-individual containing the (exemplifiable) relation [λxi yi z z denotes x in agent y’s Mentalese and, for some Mentalese type i variable v and type name f, z =E «(ιv)f (v)») and CRc,i (y, f ,
F  )]. Finally, let the Mentalese Truth and Denotation Principles be revised so as to ensure, on the one hand, that a Mentalese term of the new sort «(ιx)f (x)» in which f denotes the property F will itself denote the A-individual í (ιxi )Fx î and, on the other hand, that a Mentalese sentence «g((ιx)f (x))» in which g denotes

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the property G will be true-in-Mentalese iff something exemplifies what í (ιxi )Fx î encodes and G(it)—i.e., iff there is just one F-thing and it is G. (In effect, via the detour though the A-individual í (ιxi )Fx î, Mentalese is being treated as what Kripke (1977) calls a ‘weak Russell language’: descriptions appear as terms but the sentences in which they occur are given purely general truth conditions.) With the foregoing revisions, (ιxi )Fxc will be a sense of the A-individual í (ιxi )Fx î, and the thought-content [§v G((ιxi )Fxc )] will be a sense of the propositional property [λv (∃yi ){[(ιH )(í (ιxi )Fx î  H )](y) & Gy}]—i.e., the property being such that there is just one F-thing and G(it). So, as desired, the thought-content [§v G((ιxi )Fxc )] will be true iff there is just one F-thing and G(it). Now suppose we have at hand a suitable modal operator ‘Actually…’ (glossed by ‘In the actual world…’). Then in application to (3), the foregoing apparatus yields the truth condition (5): (5)

Assumes(Nob, [§xi (∃!y)(Fishc (y) & Actually{∼Caught-at-tc (x, y)})]) & Wishes(Nob, [§xi [λz Caught-at-tc (x, z)]((ιyi )(Fish(y) & Actually{∼Caught-at-t(x, y)}c ))]).

But there is nothing at all paradoxical about this truth condition. The first conjunct of (5) neither implies nor presupposes anything about the truth-value of Nob’s assumption. And, taking the boldfaced words below as our names for the counterpart words of Nob’s Mentalese with the obvious denotations, the second conjunct of (5) merely requires Nob to place on his Mentalese ‘wish-list’ the formula (6)

«[λz caught-at-t(INob , z)]((ιy)(fish(y) & actually{∼caught-at-t(INob , y)})».

The formula (6) is true in Nob’s Mentalese (relative to a world w) iff There is just one fish in w that Nob failed to catch at t in the actual world but Nob catches this fish at t in w. Far from being self-contradictory, this truth condition presumably does obtain in some possible world w! Of course, it cannot obtain in w if w = the actual world, so it would be irrational for Nob to believe the indicated thought-content—hence to put (6) in his belief-box—since the contents of one’s belief-box are supposed to reflect one’s picture of the actual world. But there is nothing at all untoward about Nob’s wishfully entertaining the indicated thought-content—hence putting (6) on his wish-list. For the point of Nob’s having (6) on his wish-list is not that it is actually true, but rather—to put it crudely—that he would be pleased if it were true (i.e., that Nob is pleased in every ‘nearby’ world w in which he manages to catch at t the fish that escaped him at t in the actual world).

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Moreover, senses of the sort (ιxi )Fxc are not merely ad hoc devices invented to handle special cases like (3). On the contrary, they are useful for providing a similar treatment of a wide range of cases involving anaphoric pronouns. Thus, e.g., a standard case like (7a)—taken purely de dicto—would receive the truth condition (7b): (7)

a. Hob believes that a witch has cursed him, and Nob believes that the witch who cursed Hob has also cursed Mary. b. Believes(Hob, [§xi (∃y)(Witchc (y) & Cursed c (y, x))]) & Believes(Nob, [§xi [λz Cursed c (z, Maryc )]((ιyi )(Witch(y) & Cursed (y, Hob))c )]).

The second conjunct of (7b) requires that Nob put into his belief-box a Mentalese sentence «[λz Cursed(z, Mary)]((ιy)(Witch(y) & Cursed(y, Hob)))», which, given our stipulations, is true in Nob’s Mentalese iff there is just one witch who cursed Hob and that very witch has cursed Mary as well. Having defused McKinsey’s argument, let us turn now to assessing Bach’s own remarks. First, a small point. Bach clearly assumes that the percept functioning as a mental indexical makes (or need make) no contribution to the conceptual content of the de re belief. This suggests that the overall content of a de re belief could be represented as a percept-concept pair . But surely, e.g., a type M of visual mode of presentation cannot contextually fix an object unless, in addition to the purely experiential element P, M also contains an appropriate spatiotemporal sortal concept F. Accordingly, it would be better to represent the alleged content of a de re belief by something like the nested pair . Perhaps Bach meant only that the individuative role of any conceptual ingredient F in the overall content must be carefully distinguished from the predicative role of C, in which case there is no quarrel between us.7 On to some larger difficulties. It appears from Bach’s account that, in addition to the traditional dyadic belief relation B between persons and thoughts/propositions, there is also supposed to be a triadic belief relation B∗ among persons, tokens of perceptual content-type , and tokens of predicative content-type C.8 This new, ‘narrow’ primitive relation B∗ , unlike the ‘wide’ primitive relation of de re belief invoked by others, does not involve the object, if any, contextually determined by the -token. Consequently, without the threat of serious question-begging, (8) cannot be translated by means of familiar, object-involving locutions such as ‘believes of’ or ‘believes to be’: (8)

N bears B∗ to a -token and a C-token respectively. [in symbols: ‘B∗ (N,,C)’].

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On the contrary, (8) has no ordinary English counterpart: no verb phrase of ordinary English expresses the alleged relation B∗ . Rather, it is the familiar locution ‘N believes x to be C’ and its kin which are to be explained in terms of the hybrid newcomer (9)

(∃P)(∃F)(B∗ (N,,C) & x is the cause of N’s having that experience of type ),

which in turn conveniently factors into a narrow component (=the first conjunct) and a wide, object-involving component (=the second conjunct). It will do no good to attempt to gloss ‘B∗ (N,,C)’ with anything like (10): (10)

N mentally predicates [or better: attempts mentally to predicate] C via (a token of) the mode of presentation .

For our grip on the notion of mental predication rests on an analogy with predication in overt speech acts. But, by the lights of traditional speech act theory, predication, unlike (speaker’s) reference, is not a separate speech act but only an abstraction from a whole illocutionary act. On Bach’s view, however, there would, in the case of de re belief, be no inner analogue of the ‘whole’ illocutionary act to support an analogous abstraction of mental predication. (This is one way in which the traditional problem of the unity of thought arises for Bach.) We are left, then, with the problem of how to understand this alien theoretical predicate ‘B∗ ’in an appropriately narrow way, i.e., Bach faces the task of explaining to us what obtains when B∗ (N, ,C) for some N,P,F and C without making reference to external objects contextually determined by the -token. The only way of doing this which comes to mind would be to attempt a purely functional definition, in which B∗ is characterized by the input conditions under which (given such-and-such conditions) an organism N comes to be so related to the appropriate entities, the relations between such B∗ -states of N and N’s other (narrowly specifiable) psychological states, and the relations of N’s B∗ -states and other (narrowly specifiable) psychological states to N’s (narrowly specifiable) behavior. What are the relevant principles? As we have seen, they cannot be folk platitudes involving ‘believes of’, ‘believes to be’, etc. Perhaps the relevant principles would be the narrow counterparts of these folk platitudes in some fancy, yet-to-be-formulated psychological theory. But this cannot be right. Ordinary de re attributions notoriously do not share the behavior-explanatory power which standardly accrues to de dicto attributions. So the relevant principles would either be the narrow counterparts of folk platitudes about de dicto belief or else would be principles peculiar to the yet-to-be-formulated psychological theory which embeds ‘B∗ ’. In the latter case, we have no idea what these proprietary principles might be; and, in the former case, although we folk know lots of platitudes about de dicto belief and other attitudes, we are left in the

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dark about how to extract narrow, non-propositional counterparts featuring ‘B∗ ’. Indeed, we have been given no reason to suppose that any well-defined, purely internal state of N is ascribed by the likes of ‘B∗ (N,,C)’! Bach’s account of the truth conditions of de re beliefs is equally puzzling. His detailed remarks about (DR) and (PB) are often equivocal as between (i) the view that empty de re beliefs, unlike their non-empty counterparts, have no determinate truth conditions9 and (ii) the view that empty de re beliefs have the very same truth conditions as their non-empty counterparts10 . Two internal considerations make it likely that (ii) is the intended view. First of all, if only a de re belief which actually is ‘de’ some res O enjoys a truth condition, surely its truth condition should intuitively pertain to facts about O in particular! In other words: what is intuitively necessary and sufficient for the truth of N’s belief, of an object O that visually appears f-ly to him, that it is a G, is that O alone causes N to be appeared to f-ly and O is a G—not the mere circumstance, invoked in (PB), that some G-thing or other is such that it alone causes the appearing in question. The very way in which (DR) and (PB) are formulated thus supports reading them as expressing (ii). Secondly, since the ‘contents’ of de re beliefs are, according to Bach, not fully propositional, truth can only be predicated of the de re belief-state-token (relative to the context of its occurrence): it is the belief-occurring-in-a-context, not ‘what is believed’, whose truth conditions are presumably at issue. But, since the existence of the de re beliefstate-token is allegedly independent of the existence of any appropriately related res, it is once more natural to read (DR) and (PB) as schematically providing the condition which any de re belief-state-token occurring in a context c must satisfy if it is to be true-in-c. Let us tentatively assume, then, that (ii) is Bach’s view. Then the following problem arises. If N, while the victim of a wholesale hallucination, were to utter (11) That pink elephant is wearing a tutu!, he would thereby count as expressing what Bach would regard as an empty de re perceptual thought 1 —i.e., he would be uttering a sentence which, in context, says/means 1 —where the content of 1 might be represented in the form . Now it is natural to suppose that the truth-value of an indicative sentence σ, as hypothetically uttered by N in a given context c, is the same as the truth-value of what σ conventionally says/means in such a circumstance. Accordingly, the truthvalue of N’s utterance of (11) would be that of 1 in the context. According to (PB), the thought 1 would be false in the envisaged situation, owing to the absence of an appropriate uniquely related object. So, as hypothetically uttered by N in that context, (11) would be false too. Now suppose, on the other hand, that N, still hallucinating, had instead uttered

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(12) That pink elephant is not wearing a tutu., thereby counting as expressing what Bach would regard as an empty de re perceptual thought 2 , the content of which we might represent as . By parity of reasoning, the absence of an appropriate uniquely related object would, in the envisaged context, make 2 false, and so (12), as hypothetically uttered by N therein, would also be false. So far, so good. But what if N, still hallucinating, had uttered (13) Either that pink elephant is wearing a tutu or that pink elephant is not wearing a tutu. instead of (11) or (12)? Being an instance of a tautology, (13) presumably cannot be false in N’s (or anyone’s) mouth (though it might be held to be truth-valueless). Yet, again by parity of reasoning, both disjuncts of (13) should be false in N’s mouth, and so (13) itself should be straightforwardly false in N’s mouth—hardly a welcome result! Short of abandoning classical logic for ‘or’ and ‘not’—the need for doing which would scarcely count in favor of Bach’s theory—only one way of avoiding this paradox comes to mind, and that is to insist upon a distinction between the external negation (EN)

It is not the case that: That F is such that it is a G. ‘∼(that F)z Gz’)

(In symbols:

and the internal negation (IN) That F is such that it is not a G.

(In symbols: ‘(that F)z ∼Gz’)

as possible logical forms for (12), maintaining that (12) is false under the circumstances only when read along the lines of (IN) but true when read along the lines of (EN). It is difficult to find any such distinction in surface syntax, but if a bit ad hoc-ness at the level of logical form is the only price to be paid for this solution, then Bach gets off the hook for a nominal fee. Alas, the price of pursuing this escape route turns out to be prohibitive. First of all, it severs the truth conditions of sentences of the form ‘That F is G’ from any plausible account of what the utterer of such a sentence asserts. For, intuitively, the utterer of ‘That F is G’ does not assert anything metalinguistic about the existence of a referent for his token of ‘that F’. Nor does he assert anything else that would prepare us for adoption of the truth-condition-schemata (14)-(16) which, in aid of

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semantically implementing the ‘internal/external negation’ ploy, would be foisted upon demonstrative utterances in virtue of the (DR)-style truth conditions of the de re thoughts they are alleged to express: (14)

Truec (‘(that F)z Gz’) ≡ (∃x)[Denc (‘that F’, x) & Gx]

(15)

Truec (‘∼(that F)z Gz’) ≡ ∼(∃x)[Denc (‘that F’, x) & Gx]

(16)

Truec (‘(that F)z ∼Gz’) ≡ (∃x)[Denc (‘that F’, x) & ∼Gx].

Worse still, another paradox looms. For, on Bach’s view, if N is in a perceptual situation in which he unwittingly hallucinates the presence of an F which is G, his utterance of ‘(that F)z Gz’ would express a de re falsehood, in consequence of which his utterance of ‘(that F)z ∼Gz’ would likewise express a de re falsehood. But what about the ‘objectless’ thought, , which would be expressed by N’s utterance of ‘∼ (that F)z Gz’ in that situation? Since ‘(that F)z Gz’ is held to express a thought, albeit a de re one, surely there is such a thought as , in which case  must be true. Then  cannot be a de re thought, since Bach’s view makes all objectless de re thoughts false. But—and here’s the rub— cannot be a de dicto thought either, unless Bach is willing to countenance the bizarre situation in which there can be a (true) de dicto thought ∼T without there being any such thing as the de dicto thought T ! So if the de re/de dicto distinction is exhaustive for thoughts about concrete objects other than oneself, Bach faces a flat contradiction. Positing a third category of such thoughts seems wildly ad hoc and of dubious intelligibility anyway, while denying the existence of  altogether seems equally unmotivated unless, like the neo-Fregeans but unlike Bach, one is prepared to deny the existence of any thought (of any sort) expressed by an empty occurrence of ‘(that F)z Gz’. In light of all this, it seems that Bach should abandon view (ii) in favor of view (i), which denies determinate truth conditions to empty de re beliefs, adopting instead of (DR) and (PB) a conditional formulation like (CF), in which ‘TRUE’ is the counterpart for de re belief-states of ‘True’ for sentences: (CF) (∀x) {(In c, x alone causes N’s being appeared to -ly) → [TRUEc (the state N is in when B∗ (N, )) ≡ Gx]}. (CF) would mesh neatly with the intuitively attractive truth-conditional schemata (17) and (18), on which the truth conditions of empty demonstrative utterances are simply left undefined: (17)

(∀x){Denc (‘that F’, x) → [Truec (‘G(that F)’) ≡ Gx]}

(18) (∀x){Denc (‘that F’, x) → [Truec (‘∼G(that F)’) ≡ ∼Gx]}.

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But, though formally workable as an account of sentential truth conditions, this approach is much less attractive as an account of the truth conditions of de re thoughts. On the one hand, it does not fit all that well with our folk notions about truth conditions of de re thoughts. There is some linguistic evidence that folk psychology inclines towards treating so-called de re beliefs as a species of de dicto beliefs. It equates ‘N believes M to be F’ with ‘N believes of M that he/she/it is F’, and (at least sometimes) allows both to be expressed as ‘N believes that M is F’, with ‘M’ occurring transparently. Folk psychology further identifies the truth conditions of de dicto beliefs with those of their dicta, i.e., with the truth conditions of ‘what is believed’. Thus, where the absence of an object makes it impossible to issue a true report in any of these forms, where ‘what is believed’ cannot be specified in the ‘that’-clause format, the intuitive verdict seems to weigh in favor of saying that truth conditions are absent simply because the subject has no such belief at all, as opposed to saying that the subject has an ineffable belief with no truth condition. To put the same point another way, the inference from (19) and (20) to (21) seems pretheoretically valid, yet Bach’s theory invalidates it where objectless de re beliefs are concerned: (19) There is nothing which N believes to be the case. (20) There is no object (or objects) and no property (or relation) such that N believes the former to have (or stand in) in the latter. (21)

N has no beliefs at all.

On the other hand, prospects look dim for Bach’s being able to ride roughshod over these folk intuitions in the mighty name of Real Science. For to pass off our gappy friend ‘TRUE’ (or any other contender) as the correct, scientifically anointed truth predicate for de re belief states, Bach must justify his choice of ‘TRUE’ on suitable grounds. And one condition which he himself places on such justification is that it must be consistent with purely solipsistic antecedent characterizations of beliefs, desires, experiences, ‘contents’, etc. It seems, however, that any such justification would have to rest ultimately on the obvious and crucial connection between perceptual input and the formation of observational de re beliefs, for it is here that a thing’s having a property and its being believed to have that property are most intimately connected. But the requirement of Methodological Solipsism prevents this characterization from taking the natural form For any object x and observational property G: If it were the case that G(x), and x alone caused N’s having an experience of type , then (under suchand-such ‘normal’ internal and external conditions) it would be the case that B∗ (N,,G).,

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forcing it instead to take the form If N were appeared to ‘G-ish -thing’-ly, then (under such-and-such solipsistically specifiable conditions) it would be the case that B∗ (N,,G) (where P,F, and G are likewise solipsistically specified). Only the former characterization, however, relates N’s B∗ -state to the situations in which ‘TRUE’ is supposed to apply to B∗ -states; the latter so divorces the characterization of B∗ -states from anything like the folk account of the truth grounds of de re beliefs as to make it totally mysterious how anything like (CF) could ever be justified by such a narrow account. Matters only become worse when we consider that the allowable ‘predicative content’ G( ) will be so narrowly phenomenal as to make problematic any solipsistic account of de re beliefs which are not purely phenomenal in content, as indeed most of our singular beliefs are not. Rather than attempt repairs to Bach’s account, which would surely begin with rejection of the stultifying burden of Methodological Solipsism, let us look instead at a rather different rival view of singular thoughts which is not thus handicapped at the outset. 10.2

HAROLD NOONAN’S THEORY OF DEMONSTRATIVE THOUGHTS

Harold Noonan (1986, 1991) has directed a number of criticisms against the neo-Fregean view in the course of proposing his own account of perceptualdemonstrative thoughts, an account not presupposing adherence to Methodological Solipsism. He begins by targeting two claims made by Christopher Peacocke in support of the claim that object-dependent thoughts are not psychologically redundant, viz.: (IT)

No set of attitudes gives a satisfactory psychological explanation of a person’s (transparently described) acting on a given object unless the content of those attitudes includes a demonstrative mode of presentation of that object.11

and the companion thesis that . . .[(IT)], if true, can contribute to an argument that the fact that a demonstrative type [of mode of presentation] is indexed with one object rather than another [i.e., the fact that one object rather than another is thought of in this demonstrative way] can feature in a propositional attitude explanation of why the thinker acts on one object rather than the other (Peacocke, 1983: 184).

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First, Noonan proposes and argues for the following thesis (R), which entails the falsity of either (IT) or the claim that demonstrative thoughts are object-dependent: (R) When an action is directed upon a concrete, contingent object other than its agent—in the sense that it is intentional under a description containing a term which denotes the object—then an adequate psychological explanation of it is available under a (possibly distinct) description containing a term denoting the object; and in this explanation the only psychological states of the agent referred to are ones whose existence is independent of the object’s existence.12 (R) bifurcates explanations of successful action into two parts: a purely psychological part, involving only object-independent attitudes of the agent; and a not-purely-psychological description of those features of the environment which underwrite the success of the action. The argument for (R) proceeds as follows. Suppose for reductio that there were a counterexample to (R). Any such counterexample would involve an action which had no explanation (under an appropriate description) that did not involve objectdependent attitudes. But in an appropriately similar situation where the agent is hallucinating and there is no object, the agent will perform the same bodily motions. But the neo-Fregean cannot explain why. No new psychological states are involved, and some of the previous ones (i.e., the object-dependent ones) are missing! So the action would be inexplicable in the hallucination case—which is absurd. Therefore, (R) is true after all, and so either (IT) is false or else demonstrative thoughts are not object-dependent.13 The key to resisting this argument lies in Peacocke’s distinction between action on the object (e.g., kicking Fido) and action at the location where the object happens to be (e.g., kicking whatever happens to be at that location), the former being the notion which figures in (IT). In the hallucinatory cases, there is no action on an object to be explained, but only action at the location where the object appears to be. Suppose that, in reaching out for the hallucinatory object, N happens to lay hands on a similar (but unperceived) real object, O. Ex hypothesi, N would not be in a position to think demonstratively about either the hallucinated object or about O. N would, of course, undoubtedly have attitudes towards thoughts of the sort (LocTht): (LocTht) The thing now located at such-and-such a bearing and distance from me is F. These attitudes would explain why N acted (reached) at that place (where O happened to be) but would not explain why N acted on O. In short, the neo-Fregean can explain why the hallucinating subject performs the same bodily motions even though the relevant demonstrative thoughts are not available to him, provided

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he holds that thoughts of the sort (LocTht) are standardly involved whether or not the relevant demonstrative thoughts are available. And this proviso seems harmlessly true. Noonan grants the intuition that the agent’s action in the hallucinatory case (involving only action at the place occupied by some unperceived object) is not explicable in quite the same way as in the veridical case (involving action on a perceived object) but argues against Peacocke’s assumption that the only explanation of this intuitive asymmetry is that the agent lacks certain demonstrative thoughts in the former case which he possesses in the latter. The real difference on which the asymmetry intuition is based is, Noonan alleges, that in the hallucinatory case the agent has only accidentally true belief, whereas in the case of veridical perception the subject has knowledge. Since knowledge generally provides a better explanation of successful action than does merely accidentally true belief, the intuited asymmetry is just a felt difference in the relative adequacy of the corresponding explanations. But since the same thing can be both believed and known, Noonan concludes that nothing in the nature of the case as described prevents us from saying that the subject does have the relevant demonstrative thoughts in the hallucinatory case too, though he does not know them to be true. This criticism rests upon a questionable diagnosis of the asymmetry intuition. The chief difference in explicability between the two cases could equally well be accounted for as follows. In the veridical case the correct explanation of, say, agent N’s grabbing object O would advert to certain of N’s attitudes K1 , . . . , Kn based upon N’s current experience of O, involving the operation of a perceptual information-link through which O feeds information to N and, so to speak, guides N and enables N to track O. By contrast, in the hallucinatory case—where there is no such information-link and the thing (if any) which is ‘victim’ of the action plays no role in guiding the subject to it—the correct explanation of N’s grabbing it would advert to certain of N’s attitudes B1 , . . . , Bk based upon N’s experience ‘as of’ O. Nothing so far implies (as Noonan’s putting the difference in terms of knowledge versus accidentally true belief would) that the Ki s and Bi s can coincide in thought, whereas already there is reason for suspicion that they can’t. For although it is surely correct that the agent has attitudes towards thoughts of the sort There is an object of kind F in location l., and that he knows such thoughts to be true in the one case, whereas they are for him merely accidentally true contents of belief in the other, it is far from obvious that the same holds for the crucial demonstrative thoughts in question. In the hallucinatory case, what sense can be made of the alleged demonstrative thought expressed by ‘That object is F’ being true at all, accidentally or otherwise? What fact, one wonders, is the truth-maker of this alleged thought? The only candidate available would be the fact, if it is a fact, that the ultimate victim of the action (the

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unperceived object, X) is indeed F. But there are two obvious reasons why this won’t do. First of all, X’s actually being F is not a general feature of such cases: even though the agent may have an hallucinatory experience as of a red rubber ball being before him, all the relevant features of his reaching, grasping, throwing, or whatever could be the same even if X were a green plastic ovoid. Secondly, even if X does happen to be F, our pretheoretic intuition is that this fact about it is utterly irrelevant to the truth-value of any supposedly ‘demonstrative thought about the object’ generated by the hallucination—irrelevant precisely because there is no intuitively appropriate sort of connection between X and the agent’s thoughts. In fact, these are just the intuitions standardly cited on behalf of Direct Reference theories: the case at hand is an analogue of Donnellan’s famous case of Thales and the hermit.14 A connected intuitive difficulty is that it seems impossible to specify in any direct way what the hallucinating agent is supposed demonstratively to believe. If we say, ‘He believes that that object is F’, we undertake an obligation to answer the question ‘What object?’. But, as we have seen, the answer cannot be ‘The unperceived object, X’; and, on pain of admitting a bizarre ontology of hallucinatory objects, dream objects, and the like, there is no other answer to be given. At this point there is a strong temptation to suppose that the relevant experiences in the two cases ‘must’ be factored into something like (i) plus (ii): (i) the appearance that an F is before me (the appearance whose sensational and representational content is supposedly the same in both cases and whose representational content (that an F is before me) provides the ‘common something’ that supposedly is known in one case but just luckily believed in the other) (ii) a causal story about the genesis of the experience (which story will differ in the two cases). But this is tendentious and potentially question-begging. The supposition is tendentious because it is open to us to say, with McDowell (1982), that the appearance that an F is before one can be either (in non-veridical cases) a mere appearance or (in veridical cases) the fact that an F is before one manifesting itself to one—an occurrence which enhances one’s epistemic status. Such a disjunctive conception allows that what is given to experience in the two cases may be the same in so far as it is an appearance that an F is before one. Moreover, the supposition is potentially question-begging insofar as it incorporates at the level of perception the very sort of representationalism which the neo-Fregean opposes at the level of thought. Noonan actually tries to show how demonstrative modes of presentation can be object-independent by claiming that a demonstrative mode of presentation of an object can be regarded as resting upon a disposition which can be possessed regardless of whether the object exists. He writes, e.g., that

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Whether I actually see an array of pills or merely hallucinate one,. . .I am capable of thinking the very same thoughts, since when my perception is veridical and I concentrate on one of the pills and think some demonstrative thought about it, my thought has the content it has because of what I am disposed to do—which would be the same if I were hallucinating or not—and it is a thought about that particular pill I am attending to because it is that pill on which, in fact, my dispositions are uniquely targeted.15 Noonan’s idea is that the right sort of dispositional connection with an object might be the ground for entertaining a demonstrative thought about it even though one has no information-link with the object. That there is a suitable object where the subject’s dispositions are targeted may be sheer coincidence, and whether such a coincidence obtains supposedly makes no difference to the availability of demonstrative thoughts. So the relevant dispositions of the subject are not founded upon (i.e., are not intrinsically relational with respect to) any particular object. Instead, we are told, . . . if one’s demonstrative thought seems to one to be a thought about a stationary object, they will be dispositions concerning a certain place, to direct actions to whatever object of a certain type is located there, and to evaluate one’s thought in light of information received from it. . . .If one’s demonstrative thought seems to one to be a thought about a moving object there will be no one place which will be the target of one’s dispositions over time, rather a sequence of places; but one’s dispositions-at-a-moment will remain the same as in the former case.16 We are then presumably in a position to explain actions in hallucination cases, for ‘. . . a demonstrative thought. . . , when it has an object, will be as much a thought about a place (or a connected series of places) as about an object, and can be a thought about a place even when it is not a thought about an object.’17 Now Noonan is not suggesting that we conflate (a) thoughts containing a demonstrative mode of presentation of an object with (b) thoughts which merely contain an egocentric mode of presentation of a place at which there happens to be an object. But he owes us an account of the difference between them. His answer is that the real distinction between (a) and (b) is that . . .one cannot have a demonstrative thought without one’s having information—its seeming to one—that one’s thought has an object, while one can have an egocentric thought about a place even though one has no information that there is an object at that place.18 It is important to remember that Noonan does not attempt to reduce demonstrative identification of spatially located things to the identification of locations

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in egocentric space—i.e., to replace ‘this F’ with ‘the F there now’ or the like. He thus avoids the powerful arguments Gareth Evans19 mounts against any such reduction. But there is another way of seeing what is wrong with Noonan’s proposal. Demonstrative modes of presentation are clearly associated with distinctive patterns of evidential sensitivity: in the case of thoughts involving perceptual demonstrative modes of presentation, the subject’s judgment of such thoughts must be sensitive in obvious ways to evidence concerning those properties of the demonstratively identified object which are responsible in the causally appropriate ways for the subject’s experience. While these patterns of evidential sensitivity are far too complex to permit of direct description, they can, as Peacocke20 has pointed out, be specified indirectly by exploiting the idea that one person can exhibit the same pattern of evidential sensitivity as another person with a richer conceptual repertoire without having to share in that richer repertoire. Peacocke calls this pattern the constitutive role of the mode of presentation in question and lays down the following necessary and sufficient condition for a description ‘The object which is C’ to specify the constitutive role of a type of mode of presentation, D: (a) any family of perceptions, beliefs and memories which would cause someone to judge a thought of the form ‘[Dx ] is F’ would also cause someone with the requisite concepts to judge ‘the object which is C is F’, and (b) any family of perceptions, beliefs and memories [not requiring possession of concepts beyond those required by D and forming the subject’s total informational state at the time] which would cause someone with the requisite concepts to judge ‘the object which is C is F’ would also cause him to judge ‘[Dx ] is F’.21 (A few words of explanation about Peacocke’s notation are in order. Where D is a singular term type, [D] is the type of mode of presentation conventionally associated with D; and, where x is an object, [Dx ] is the token of [D] with respect to x, i.e., [Dx ] is the particular mode of presentation which presents x in that way. Since [D] is object-dependent, it determines a token [Dx ] in a context only if x exists in that context; and a thinker N must be related to x in the [D]-constitutive way in order to employ [Dx ] in thinking (i.e., for there to be propositions containing [Dx ] towards which N can bear various attitudes). By ‘thought of the form ‘[Dx ] is F” Peacocke means an attitude towards the thought appropriately composed of [Dx ], the sense of ‘is’, and the sense of ‘F’.) Against this background, Peacocke proposes that (where ‘F’ is an appropriate sortal) the constitutive role of a visual demonstrative mode of presentation [that F] is specified by the attributive description (CR1): (CR1)

the F responsible, in the way required for perception, for the experience as of an F in that region of my visual field.

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Here the italicized ‘that’ obviously cannot, on pain of circularity, correspond to a demonstrative mode of presentation of the same type as [that F]: rather, it (and any similarly occurring demonstrative in a constitutive role specification) corresponds to that way of thinking of a particular current token conscious state which one enjoys simply in virtue of being in that state. (I.e., there is no need to think of the state in any other way than that given by what it is intrinsically like to be in that state.) In these terms, Noonan’s account of demonstrative thoughts seems to amount to the rival proposal that the constitutive role of a visual demonstrative mode of presentation, [that F], is given by something like the attributive description (CR2): (CR2)

the F occupying the place on which are targeted those of my dispositions that arise from the experience as of an F in that region of my visual field.

Assuming that Peacocke’s definition of constitutive role specification is a reasonable one, and noting that (CR1) appears to satisfy it with respect to [that F], the question then is whether (CR2) could also plausibly be taken to give the constitutive role of [that F]. If (CR1) specifies the constitutive role of [that F], then (CR2) is capable of doing so only if it is a priori equivalent to (CR1). But (CR2) is not a priori equivalent to (CR1), for there are epistemically possible circumstances in which corresponding instances are not satisfied by the same thing. Consider, e.g., a subject N with the sudden experience as of seeing a flashing firefly in an otherwise completely dark room, prompting some remark like ‘That firefly is pretty’. A feature of such experiences is that one often cannot immediately tell how far away the object is, in consequence of which the firefly responsible, in the way required for perception, for N’s experience as of a firefly in such-and-such region of his visual field may not be the firefly occupying the place on which are targeted those of N’s dispositions that arise from the experience as of a firefly in that region of his visual field. For the darkness-induced disorientation may bring it about that N’s dispositions arising from his experience are, at least initially, targeted on a certain place within arm’s reach, whereas the firefly causing his experience is, at the moment, much farther away—its unusual size and brightness compensating for the distance. Description (CR2) might not net anything, or it might net a non-flashing firefly accidentally within arm’s reach, but it would not be coextensive with (CR1). A view like Noonan’s not only distorts the constitutive role of (visual) demonstrative modes of presentation but also offers a false picture of the use of demonstratives in communication. On such a view, there is of course no obstacle to subjects N1 and N2 sharing the same perceptual-demonstrative belief when one or both fails to be appropriately related to any object, so long as N1 and N2 share the right sort of experiences and experience-induced dispositional connections with one and the same place. Nor does this view appear to offer any impediment in principle to each party knowing (or at least truly believing) that the other shares that

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perceptual-demonstrative belief. But if all this is so, then communication ought to be straightforwardly possible between N1 and N2 in such cases. For if, as he presumably can, N1 says to N2 something which expresses N1 ’s perceptual-demonstrative belief, and N1 brings it about via the normal Gricean mechanisms both that N2 comes to share this belief of N1 ’s and that each party knows (or at least truly believes) that his belief is thus shared, then surely N1 has communicated with N2 ! But imagine now a situation in which N1 and N2 are talking to one another by telephone while looking out the windows of their adjacent motel rooms at the same courtyard, in the center of which there appears to be a small brown rabbit, standing perfectly still. Suppose further that, although in fact the courtyard is empty, both N1 and N2 are (allowing for slight perspectival differences, etc.) having similar visual experiences, in virtue of which they enjoy similar dispositions, regarding such-and-such a place in the center of the courtyard, to direct their actions toward whatever rabbit-ish object is located there. Finally, imagine an extended conversation between N1 and N2 ‘about that rabbit’ in which there are many uses of ‘that rabbit’and related demonstrative phrases putatively referring to a jointly seen rabbit in the courtyard before them. On Noonan’s model, it seems that N1 and N2 could be genuinely communicating with one another via their utterances containing ‘that rabbit’. There is, however, a strong intuition to the effect that the lack of any common causal ground of the right sort—specifically, the lack of grounding in a common object—makes the alleged communication completely spurious in cases of the sort described. (Notice that the case above is stipulated to be one in which the parties suffer a common hallucination: it is not a case in which they merely mistake some common object—e.g., a rock in the center of the courtyard—for a small brown rabbit.) It is instructive to compare the joint hallucination case with a different scenario in which ‘failure to communicate’ is also the verdict of common sense: viz., the familiar situation of a conversation in which someone unwittingly dials a wrong number and proceeds to talk with the party at the other end (each mistaking the other for an acquaintance) until someone finally says something that betrays the mistake. Here there is likely to be massive failure of communication not through lack of objects überhaupt but through lack of common objects: the references of the parties’ respective tokens of given name and demonstrative phrase-types will (unbeknownst to them) be completely different. If, as this kind of case suggests, a necessary condition of information-based communication is the existence of common referents, it should come as no surprise that the joint hallucination case is not intuitively an instance of genuine communication!22

10.3 THE NARROW CONTENT OBJECTION Finally, we must consider a global external objection to virtually everything that we have so far defended—viz., the objection from so-called narrow content. In his critique of Evans, Devitt (1985) stresses that the functional role of someone’s

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putative singular thought token would stay the same regardless of whether it had an appropriate object. He concludes in general that . . . if thought tokens are classified as being of the same type, and [as] having the same content, by their narrow properties, the Russellian thesis is false. . . . Evans misses the point. His discussion reflects the. . .fact that, according to our ordinary view, thoughts, representations, and (much) behavior are thoroughly intentional: folk theory is ‘wide’. [But]. . . it does not follow that there could not be a narrow psychology as well. It seems that narrow psychology can do the job of explaining non-intentionally described behavior. If so, its notion of content is at least one satisfactory one.23 Devitt further maintains that both Evans’ distinction between ‘information-based’ (designative) and ‘purely descriptive’ (attributive) singular representations and the usual singular/general distinction must be drawable in terms of narrow psychology as well as in terms of wide psychology. Designative and attributive singular representations will be ‘narrowly’ differentiated in terms of different relations to peripheral inputs. The different ways of determining reference are different ways of relating a representation to peripheral inputs; most obviously, a designational representation differs from an attributive one in being directly linked to the sort of input caused, as a matter of fact, by the particular object that would be, in wide psychology, the referent of the representation. So what is internal to the mind determines whether a representation is designative or attributive. What is external to the mind determines whether, and to what, a representation of either sort refers.24 Supposedly, then, we can capture intuitions based on this distinction that led Evans to the Russellian Thesis without being committed to that thesis ourselves. In particular, Devitt claims, understanding utterances containing uses of (most) proper names, deictic personal pronouns and demonstratives does indeed require entertaining narrowly individuated designational thoughts, but not Russellian thoughts. Understanding in the narrow sense—requiring the hearer to have a thought with the appropriate narrow content—is unaffected by reference failure. . . . Folk psychology is wide and so. . . where there is a referent, it requires the hearer to have a thought about the right object in the right way. . . .[But, unlike Evans,] people ordinarily allow understanding if the hearer’s thought has the right ‘focus’, even if there is no referent.25 As against this, it should first be pointed out that Devitt’s claim that the designational/attributive distinction can in general be drawn on purely narrow (i.e., solipsistic) grounds is very dubious. For there appear to be anaphoric thoughts, where the anaphora is parasitic on other people’s discourse. But if, after hearing a conversation ostensibly about a newly discovered boy genius, one thinks anaphorically, ‘He is smart’, the classification of one’s thought as designational or attributive will surely depend on the status of the antecedent of one’s mental pronoun. The same would be true if one used in thought a name which one had picked up from such

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a discourse without knowing (or having any opinion about) whether it was being used designationally or attributively by one’s source. Devitt himself26 claims that things work this way where the subject’s overt speech is at issue, and he gives us no reason to suppose that matters are any different where the subject’s inner speech is at issue. Perhaps there are some narrowly specifiable features which distinguish the anaphoric from the deictic cases, but this is not enough: we need wide, nonsolipsistic information in order to apply the designational/attributive distinction to those cases falling on the anaphoric side. Turning now to the question of narrow content in general, it seems fair to say that Devitt has chosen a rather frail stick with which to batter the neo-Fregeans. For the whole notion of narrow content is subject to serious doubt. Since the ground here has been heavily trodden by others27 , we may be brief. According to classical functionalism there is a solipsistic functional definition of the generic folk-psychological attitude types of belief, desire and intention such that, where B∗ , D∗ , and I∗ are the corresponding functional state types, (i)-(iii) obtain: (i) There is a ‘semantic’ feature-type F such that a solipsistic description D of a person A’s total functional organization at time t uniquely determines a function M from the set of A’s possible B∗ -, D∗ -, and I∗ -states to features of type F; (ii) A’s being at t in a pair <s1 , s2 > of B∗ /D∗ /I∗ -states with the same satisfaction condition (wide content) does not entail M (s1 ) = M (s2 ); (iii) The narrow psychological explanation of A’s (narrowly described) behavior at t crucially invokes the fact that A’s B∗ -, D∗ -, and I∗ -states instantiate the F-tokens assigned by M . ‘Narrow content’is just a label for the alleged semantic feature-type F, which in turn is just the analogue for thoughts of Stephen White’s notion of ‘partial character’ for sentences (White, 1982). A partial character for a sentence is a function from historical contexts of acquisition (e.g., for names and natural kind terms) to what David Kaplan (1979) calls a ‘character’, itself a function from synchronic context to ‘contents’ (propositions). Indeed, if the functionalist embraces the Language of Thought hypothesis, the feature type F—and hence narrow content—might be identified with the partial character of the Mentalese sentences which are the relata of B∗ -, D∗ -, and I∗ -states. Now (iii) reflects the idea—dear to the heart of classical functionalists—that a narrow functionalist psychology will capture the essential, context-independent explanatory core of folk psychology’s homey propositional attitude explanations of wide behavior, thus vindicating the spirit if not the letter of this folk-psychological practice. To abandon (iii) is to give up any reason for caring about narrow content, and hence to throw doubt upon the reality of the propositional attitudes. We may assume, then, that (iii) is a nonnegotiable presupposition of Devitt’s objection. But a problem immediately arises about (iii). The explanation of behavior in terms of the possession by the agent of attitudes with certain thoughts has a canonical form

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in which ‘that’-clauses are used to specify these contents. But neither characters, partial characters, nor the underlying functional roles of Mentalese sentences seem to provide appropriate filler for such ‘that’-clauses. The reason is obvious: natural language vocabulary is heavily context-dependent. Natural languages provide no canonical way of expressing (full or) partial characters as opposed to expressing the thoughts/propositions they ultimately yield (except in the limiting case of purely general sentences devoid of tense, natural kind predicates and the like, where the fact that the partial characters are constant functions whose values are likewise constant functions allows us to ignore the character/content distinction). And it is highly implausible that (iii) could be satisfied using only the impoverished, contextindependent fragment of English.28 This specification problem, however, is not insuperable. For one could grant the context-dependency of ordinary attitude ascriptions but reject the glaring background assumption that so-called narrow content is a kind of content—holding instead, as Ned Block (1986) does, that it is merely the functionally determined non-relational ‘aspect’ or ‘determinant’ of the ultimate thought expressed by ‘that’-clauses, not itself something independently expressible by such clauses.29 But this raises a serious question about the role of such aspects or determinants in explanations of narrow behavior alluded to in (iii). On the one hand, these narrow explanations will, ex hypothesi, make no use of ordinary ‘that’-clauses; they will presumably be couched in some alternative jargon. On the other hand, they are supposed to be related to wide (context-bound, relational) belief-desire explanations in virtue of being their narrow (contextindependent, non-relational) counterparts. It is claim (i) which presumably allows narrow explanations to have both features. One way of spelling out the story (without the Language of Thought hypothesis) is to think of English sentences being mentioned in narrow explanations as complex classificatory indices of the subject’s various possible B∗ -states. Then, if (i) is correct, this labelling role will be connected with the contextualized use of these sentences in ordinary English attitude ascriptions via the induced valuation function M . In other words, where cs and cd are respectively the salient synchronic and diachronic contextual factors, a sentence of the form (22) A at t instantiates state-type B∗‘p’. in the narrow functional explanation and its counterpart of the form (23) A believes at t that q. in the folk explanation would be connected by the fact that ((M (B∗‘p’))(cd )) (cs ) = q. Indeed, the functionalist could paraphrase an instance of (23) relative to cs and cd as an instance of (24)

Instantiates (A, t, B∗‘p’) & ((M (B∗‘p’))(cd ))(cs ) = q;

or—if we add a Language of Thought and treat B∗ as a relation—as an instance of

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(25)

(∃S){B∗ (A,t, S) & ((M (S))(cd ))(cs ) = q};

in which ‘S’ ranges over Mentalese sentences (qua syntactically identified entities). It must be kept clearly in mind that this defensive ploy requires that neither instantiating the state-type B∗‘p’ nor bearing the relation B∗ to Mentalese formula S is intrinsically characterizable as ‘thinking that such-and-such is the case’. ‘B∗ ’ is a purely technical term, not an analysans for ‘believes’ or any other natural language item. By the same token, ‘S’ in (25) must not question-beggingly be thought of as antecedently ranging over representations of anything for the subject. This in itself ought to give one pause over Devitt’s casual talk of ‘narrow understanding’, for the relevant narrow states will presumably stand to understanding as B∗ -states stand to belief. Narrow understanding will not be intrinsically characterizable as understanding ‘of’ or ‘that’ anything. Be that as it may, immunizing (iii) against the ‘specification’ objection shifts onto (i) the weight of supporting a notion of narrow content. Yet functionalists rarely have more to offer in its defense than ‘I don’t see why not’, accompanied by ritual offerings of a narrow range of observational beliefs as evidence for content-supervenience. Here, e.g., is essentially all that Block has to say about this crucial matter in his well-known and much-cited ‘Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology’: . . . what theory of reference is true is a fact about how referring terms function in our thought processes. This is an aspect of conceptual [i.e. solipsistically defined causal/functional] role. So it is the conceptual role of referring expressions that determines what theory of reference is true. Conclusion: the conceptual role factor determines the nature of the referential factor. . .[i.e.] determines the function from context to reference and truth-value. (Block 1986: 643–44.) The argument appears to be this: the stock objections to description theories of reference—e.g., that they produce unwanted instances of analyticity, aprioricity and necessity—are mirrored in the conceptual roles of terms; the only alternative theories of reference are causal/historical ones; so we can read off the need for a theory of the latter sort from inspection of conceptual roles. This argument is very weak. For to accept the exhaustiveness of the disjunction ‘description theory or causal/historical theory’ is, in effect, to endorse the idea that the only viable notion of reference is a realistic correspondence notion, as opposed, e.g., to a purely intralinguistic account of the sort proposed by Robert Brandom (1984, 1994). But it is a mystery how mere inspection of conceptual roles, a purely solipsistic affair, could rule out such an intralinguistic account, which is, after all, congenially solipsistic in its own way! Now let us ask the embarrassing question: What are the analogues for predicates of the ‘rival theories of reference’? We must bear in mind that by ‘theory of

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reference’ Block means a theory of what determines reference in the first place, not a particular system of reference assignments to Mentalese terms; the former presumably yields the latter when augmented with an account of the salient contextual facts. So rival theories of Mentalese predicate character would presumably be conflicting theories about what determines a Mentalese predicate’s context-relativized satisfaction conditions. Block gives no hint of what exhaustive disjunction of such theories he has in mind, nor any hint as to how to read off from the conceptual roles of predicates the falsity of all contenders other than conceptual role semantics. But even supposing that this gap could somehow be filled, we are still left completely in the dark as to how the conceptual role inspector, having triumphed over rival theorists on the question of what determines predicate character, could deduce a theory of context-relativized satisfaction conditions. In short, nothing that Block says gives us much reason to accept (i). Perhaps the problem lies in the harsh restrictions imposed by the Methodological Solipsism built into (i)-(iii). Perhaps, that is, the richer resources of a wide functionalism, which exploits in its input- and output-specifications properties exemplified by things external to the subject’s body, can provide an argument for a less stringent version of (i), viz.: (i∗ ) A wide description D of a person A’s total functional organization at time t uniquely determines a function M from the set of A’s possible B∗ -, D∗ -, and I∗ -states to the set of possible (full or partial) sentential characters. The only detailed argument ever given in this regard on behalf of wide functionalism is that given in Loar (1981: Ch. 8)30 , and even it aims not at (i∗ ) but at a thesis which is weaker still, viz.: (i∗∗ ) A wide description D of a person A’s total functional organization at time t, together with certain methodological constraints on admissible truthpredicates and certain wide explanatory desiderata pertaining to human activities in general, jointly determine an assignment of schematic (i.e., context-relativized) truth conditions to A’s possible B∗ -states which is unique at least up to strict equivalence of such conditions. The italicized clause is a tacit confession that assignments of narrow content do not strictly supervene even on functional organization widely construed, but are instead pragmatically determined by a combination of facts about the agent’s functional organization and the theorist’s need to explain things other than the agent’s bodily motions (whether narrowly or widely construed). The standard candidates for content-requiring explanada are such phenomena as the success and failure of action, facts about human reliability, the operation of teaching and learning, and

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the pointfulness of communication. Inasmuch as reliability seems to be involved in all the others, it will do to bring out the key criticism (which is due to Hartry Field31 ): viz., that the role played by the concept of truth in a reliability theory for the agent would appear to be adequately served by a purely intralinguistic, disquotational notion of truth. Neither a realist notion of truth-as-correspondence nor the notion of an utterance expressing a true proposition is required. If so, then even Block’s conciliatory talk of internal determinants or aspects of propositional content—perhaps the best hope for legitimizing the notion of narrow content—turns out to be gratuitous from the standpoint of functionalist psychology. It appears that Devitt and fellow functionalists who are not eliminativists with respect to intentionality simply have no principled concept of narrow content with which to abuse the neo-Fregean (who, of course, might happily endorse functionalism of an ultra-wide sort involving particularized, object-specific dispositions of the agent.) 10.4

OBJECT-DEPENDENCE AND THE SENSES OF GENERAL TERMS

Thus far we have defended the neo-Fregean view that perceptually based demonstratives and non-empty proper names have object-dependent senses, on the ground that the thoughts ascribed to people by means of ‘that’-clauses containing such singular terms are themselves object-dependent. But what about the senses of general terms and predicates constructed from them? Here it might seem that there is no analogue of the object-dependence of certain singular senses. For many perfectly meaningful general terms like ‘unicorn’ and ‘square circle’ are extensionally empty—i.e., apply to nothing whatever—and yet we all would accept an utterance of ‘Some goats look like unicorns’ or ‘Even an omnipotent being couldn’t make a square circle’ as saying something straightforwardly true or false. But a predicate phrase which is extensionally empty may nonetheless be intensionally non-empty in the sense that it does denote a property or relation, only in this case a vacuous one, a property or relation that fails to be exemplified. Given that our view of properties and relations in this book is broadly Platonic, we countenance the existence (indeed the necessary existence) of such vacuous properties and relations as well as their exemplified kin. On the neo-Fregean view, the sense of a general term, or of any predicate phrase, is a way of thinking of one or another (possibly vacuous) property or relation. In our case, Platonism about properties and relations goes hand in hand with acceptance of lambda-abstraction and hence of a theorem schemes like (∃R )(R = [λx1t1 · · · xntn (x1 · · · xn )]) and (∀y1t1 ) · · · (∀yntn ){[λx1t1 · · · xntn (x1 · · · xn )](y1 · · · yn ) ≡ (y1 · · · yn )},

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in light of which every meaningful predicate (open sentence
(x1 · · · xn )) may be regarded as denoting a certain property or relation, namely the one specified by its corresponding lambda-term—meaningfulness being so constrained (e.g., by a type theory) as to rule out as meaningless the likes of such paradoxical predicates as ‘is a non-self-exemplifying property’. So construed, the only intensionally empty predicates of English would be those ruled out on formal grounds as potentially paradoxical. And if English grammar bows to logical syntax, these potentially paradoxical predicates would be counted as ungrammatical, hence as not belonging to proper English at all. In short, from the perspective of (orthodox or neo-) Fregeanism, a meaningful predicate is one having/expressing a sense; and from the perspective of Platonism, s is the sense of a meaningful (logically well-formed) English predicate P if and only if there is a property or relation R such that s presents (is a way of thinking of) R. So, if we construe ‘object’ broadly enough to include properties and relations as well as individuals, then the sense sP of a proper English predicate P will indeed be object-dependent: there will exist a property or relation R (albeit possibly a vacuous one) such that sP presents R, which accordingly is the denotation of P. Of course, insofar as properties and relations are allowed to be necessary existents, this result is less interesting than the thesis (ODT-1) or (ODT-2) of Chapter 9. It should be noted in passing that in the case of predicates there is no analogous problem about negative existentials that requires special treatment. Although we certainly do say things like (26a-b), such utterances are not really parallel to (27): (26)

a. There is no such property as being a slithy tove. b. There is no such property as being a non-self-exemplifying property.

(27) There is no such individual as Santa Claus. For, insofar as proper names are counted as belonging to particular languages at all, ‘Santa Claus’ would be reckoned as part of English (and perhaps some other natural languages as well). In contrast, however, ‘slithy tove’ and ‘non-selfexemplifying property’ are not part of proper English: the former is pure gibberish and the latter, though composed of English words, is not a logico-grammatically admissible combination thereof. Accordingly, (26a-b) themselves must either be counted as nonsensical attempts to use non-English phrases in an English sentence, or (if they are to be granted a sense at all) regarded as confused versions of sentences like (28a-b), in which the offending expressions are merely mentioned: (28)

a. ‘Slithy tove’, not being a well-formed predicate, denotes no property. b. ‘Non-self-exemplifying property’, not being a well-formed predicate, denotes no property.

Insofar as we would utter (26a-b) with the intention of saying something literally true or false, (28a-b) would seem to capture their import, whereas, as we saw earlier,

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there is no corresponding need to take (27) as covertly metalinguistic in order to regard an utterance of it as expressing a thought. It is hoped that enough has been said to detoxify the idea of object-dependent ways of thinking of individuals, properties, and relations. If so, we may retroactively regard our theory’s commitment to object-dependent senses as a virtue rather than a vice.32 NOTES 1 This article also appears, in modified form, as Chapter 1 of Bach (1987). All page references are

to the article. 2 By ‘Methodological Solipsism’, Bach means Conceptual Methodological Solipsism, which is not confined to purely syntactic/computational properties of inner representations but allows talk of their ‘conceptual content’ as well, provided of course that the latter can be solipsistically specified. 3 Bach reads (DR) as ‘N represents as being G the unique object that bears R (the relation determined by MR ) to the belief state (token) that N is in.’ The version given here comes from Chapter 1 of Bach (1987). The original formulation in Bach (1982) is the logically weaker ‘(∃!x){Rx(MR N) & Gx}’. It will be assumed here that the later version captures Bach’s true intentions. 4 As with (DR), the present version of (PB), given in Bach (1987), diverges from that given in Bach (1982), where the author writes the logically weaker ‘(∃!x){CAUSESx(Am fxN) & Gx}’. Again, it will be assumed that the later formulation reflects Bach’s true view. 5 Bach, op. cit., p. 123. 6 This claim, however, is disputed in Pendlebury (1982). 7 Compare Bach’s remark (op. cit., p. 142) that ‘Thinking of a perceived object as this F does not require that the object be an F, only that it appears to be’. 8 Alternatively, B∗ could be construed as a dyadic relation between a person and a non-propositional ‘content’ . Either way, however, B∗ would be distinct from B. 9 Thus Bach writes: Suppose the belief token is about a certain object a under mode of presentation M and it ascribes the property of being G to that object, which in the context M determines to be a. . . . [A] token of the same belief-type might be about nothing at all, if in its context there is no object standing to it in the relation determined by M. The first belief-token is true iff a is G,. . . and the [latter], not having an object, seems to have no determinate truth-condition. (Ibid., p. 135 below - p. 136 above [my italics]) 10 Thus Bach says of (DR):

The entire schema represents the truth-condition of N’s de re belief. . . That is, N represents as being G the unique object that bears R. . . to the belief-state (token) that N is in. Since N could have been in just that state without there having been any such object. . ., (DR) does not [!] require that N’s de re belief have any object, much less the object it actually has. The object of that belief-token, that which must be G if the belief is to be true, is whatever object bears R to that belief token. (Ibid., p. 137 below) [Occurrences of ‘N’ here replace occurrences of ‘S’ in the original text.] This passage is very puzzling, for it seems to begin by supplying even empty de re beliefs with an existential truth condition and then denies that this condition requires such beliefs to have any object! One possibility is that the quoted reference to (DR) pertains only to the parts ‘MR ’ and ‘Gx’ representing

A Critique of Rival Accounts of Singular Thoughts

355

respectively the indexical and predicative contents of the belief-state, hence that what is being said is just that the ‘content’ (as opposed to the truth condition) of N’s de re belief requires no object. 11 (IT) is introduced and argued for in Peacocke (1981). 12 What is basically the same line of argument is presented in Segal (1989). Cf. Carruthers (1987). 13 Sarah Sawyer (forthcoming, 2003) attempts to discredit the argument’s central premiss—viz., (in contrapositive form) the claim that If the ‘object-directed’ actions performed by an agent who merely hallucinates an object have an explanation in terms of that agent’s psychological states ψ1 , . . . , ψn —an explanation which does not (because it could not) involve object-dependent attitudes—then such an explanation in terms of ψ1 , . . . , ψn must be available for the corresponding case in which the agent acts upon a genuinely perceived external object. This claim, she notes, appears to presuppose the legitimacy of inferring (iii) from (i)-(ii): (i) The hallucinating agent H possesses the explanatory psychological states ψ1 , . . . , ψn . (ii) Everything present in H’s situation is present in the situation of the non-hallucinating agent N. (iii) N also possesses ψ1 , . . . , ψn . But, she maintains, this inference is illegitimate since ‘it is a general truth that sufficient conditions for the instantiation of a property must involve absences’ and ‘the absence of a condition can itself be part of the minimal set of physical properties which suffices for possession of a set of psychological states’. Just as, e.g., the minimal sufficient condition for being pure corundum is the presence of the chemical constitution Al2 O3 and the absence of impurities (the presence of which may produce other mineral kinds such as rubies and sapphires), so the minimal sufficient condition for the possession of some of H’s explanatory psychological states ψ1 , . . . , ψn could include the absence of a genuinely perceived object. If so, then the truth of (i)-(ii) would not guarantee that the physical conditions minimally sufficient for H’s possession of ψ1 , . . . , ψn are duplicated in the situation of the non-hallucinating agent N, hence would not guarantee that (iii) is true. To escape this objection, Noonan would need either to argue that his central premiss does not really presuppose the legitimacy of inferring (iii) from (i)-(ii) or to provide reasons for thinking that H’s action-explaining psychological states ψ1 , . . . , ψn are an exception—that the minimal set of physical conditions sufficient for their possession does not involve the absence of an object. In effect, Noonan does the latter in his reply to Sawyer (Noonan, 2004). The difficulty of finding uncontroversial examples of ‘absence-dependent thoughts’ which would be available to H but not to N militates against putting much weight on Sawyer’s critique. 14 Donnellan (1970). 15 Noonan (1986), p. 82. 16 Noonan, ibid., p. 88. 17 Noonan, ibid., p. 88. 18 Noonan, ibid., p. 89. 19 Evans (1982), pp. 171-74. 20 Peacocke (1983), Chapter 5. 21 Ibid., p. 112. Greek letters in the original have been replaced with Roman letters. 22 The foregoing defense of object-dependent thoughts against Noonan’s critique originally appeared in Boër (1989). Subsequently, a somewhat similar defense has independently been advanced in Crawford (1998). 23 Devitt, (1985), p. 218. 24 Ibid., p. 219. 25 Ibid., p. 220. 26 Devitt, (1981), §2.6.

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27 The literature is vast. Nice overviews of the main issues can be found in Brown (1993) and Bach

(1998). Segal (2000) mounts a lengthy and spirited defense of narrow content. For powerful criticism see Stalnaker (1999). 28 For detailed discussion of this issue, see, e.g., LePore and Loewer (1986) and Baker (1985). 29 This move would undercut Evans’ objection that: The Methodological solipsist wants [having narrow attitudes] to be recognizably thinking—which requires at least that it be a representational state—but he wants to think of the object of the state as a schema [like an indexical sentence whose indexicals are not used to refer to anything]. . . . [But] it is of the essence of a representational state that, unlike a schema, it be capable of assessment as true or as false. (op. cit., p. 202). For one would no longer regard it as appropriate to say that being in such-and-such a B∗ -state counts, in the abstract, as thinking that thus-and-so. 30 See also Loar (1982a, 1982b). 31 Field (1984). 32 Additional defense of object-dependent thoughts can be found in Adams, Fuller and Stecker (1993, 1999) and Sawyer (forthcoming).

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INDEX

A abstract individuals 13, 14 abstract objects 14, 37, 116, 121, 124, 128 abstract property 14, 15, 117, 121 actual language relation 282, 325 Actualism 5, 7 Actualists 5, 6, 13, 26, 36, 37, 326 tolerant 5, 6 actuality 12, 36, 124, 189 Aczel, P. 78 Adams, F. 356 adequacy conditions 39, 82, 99, 104, 125, 141, 178, 182, 289 A-individuals (see also abstract individuals) 125, 148, 164, 189, 201, 207, 231, 232, 331, 332 analysis, paradox of 40, 283 anaphora, unbound 160 anaphoric pronouns 159, 331 A-objecthood 124 A-objects (see also abstract objects) 20, 124, 125, 127, 128, 136, 138, 139, 148–153, 157, 163, 175, 200, 224, 272, 276–278 A-properties 178, 299 see also abstract property

atomic thought-content 123, 130, 134–138, 141, 144, 145, 153–155, 158, 177, 179–183 Atomic Thought-Content Theorem 153 Austin, D. 42, 43, 51, 52, 75, 76, 253, 254, 262 Aydede, M. 118 B Bach, K. 329–331, 333–339, 354, 356 Baker, L.R. 356 Barwise, J. 78 behavior-determining relation 17, 21, 178 being-existence distinction 5, 12, 15, 16, 20 belief ascriptions/reports, iterated 42, 51, 54, 100, 101, 106, 242, 250, 280 Belief Principle 143, 144, 153, 176, 292 belief relation 4, 6, 20, 21, 35–37, 40, 46, 51, 53, 56, 57, 66, 82, 83, 108–110, 117, 122, 123, 231 belief-ascriptions, Mentalese 281, 283

363

364 belief-box 142, 191, 332, 333 beliefs higher-order 169, 179, 182 nested 40, 42, 99, 147, 169 see also beliefs, higher-order perceptual-demonstrative 329, 330, 345, 346 self-regarding 66, 67 tacit 57, 118 belief-states 3, 10, 21, 35, 39, 70, 71, 329, 337, 338, 354, 355 belief-state-token 335 belief-surrogates 90, 91 believing mechanics of 40, 52 notional versus relational 35, 66 Believing-Truly Principle 177 Bel-relations 81, 101, 102 Black, M. 77, 162 Blackburn, S. 290, 303–308, 310–313, 327 Block, N. 349–352 Boër, S. xviii, 355 Brandom, R. 350 B -registration 144, 145, 153–155, 165, 170, 178–182, 213, 223, 276 Brentano, F. 3 Brown, C. 356 Burge, T. 51, 78, 289, 328

C canonical atomic λ-profile (CAλP) 132, 134 canonical names of logical forms 101, 109 of thought-contents 129, 130, 135–137, 139, 152, 165, 169, 170 canonical object (of a sense) 129–132, 135, 137, 138, 157, 165, 175, 176, 189

Index

Canonical Object Theorem 129 Caplan, B. 166 Carruthers, P. 355 character 322, 323, 348, 349 partial 348, 349 Chisholm, R. xvii, 38, 39, 44, 65–76, 78, 111–113, 117, 119, 121, 123, 330 Chisholm-Lewis thesis about belief 112, 113, 117, 119, 121, 123 Church, A. 51 Churchill, W. 265 cognitive significance 52 communication 308–311, 314, 345, 346, 352 compositional truth-theories, correct 205 concept-dependence 7–10, 12, 15–17 concept-dependent relation 7–10, 16, 17, 20, 21, 39, 178 Conceptual Methodological Solipsism 354 conceptual role semantics 230, 351 conditionals, illocutionary 320 conniving uses of empty terms 307, 313, 314, 317, 318, 328 contents behavior-explanatory 275 direct 70, 71 indirect 71 narrow 274, 346–352, 356 predicative 329, 355 context deictically uniform 268 homogeneous 268 normal 268, 292 Context Principle 148, 149, 151 Context Theorem 151 contexts as A-individuals 148 see also utterance-contexts in formal semantics Contextual Counterpart Theorem 151, 155

Index

conventions xiv, 163, 167, 290, 291, 298, 319, 324 Correlate Principle 139, 140 counterpart relation 147, 148, 150, 151, 171, 173, 174, 206, 207, 224, 227, 231, 238, 240, 248, 250, 262, 270, 271, 274 Counterpart Relation Theorem 148 Crawford, S. 355 Cresswell, M. 54, 200 Crimmins, M. 118, 165, 205, 244, 245, 248, 250, 251, 258, 260, 292 c-salient correspondents 209 see also percept-correspondence relations c-salient counterparts 149, 152, 154–156, 182, 183, 206, 223, 238, 257, 258, 260–262, 266, 278–280, 286, 287, 292

D Davidson, D. 231, 320, 321, 328, 358 Davies, M. 118, 160, 297, 322, 327, 328 de dicto attitudes 154 belief reports/ascriptions 41, 43, 51, 66, 67, 182, 212, 238, 239, 255, 265, 268, 287, 291, 292 beliefs 35, 38, 67, 68, 71, 111, 170, 211, 334, 338 reading 41, 49, 60, 235, 246, 249, 258, 259, 261, 266, 268 thought-contents 36, 154, 273, 275, 297 de dicto/de re distinction 34, 63 de re belief 35, 69, 70, 73, 82, 86, 170, 286, 329, 333–335, 337, 338, 354, 355

365 reports/ascriptions 47, 53, 60, 66, 70, 85, 123, 267 reading 34, 54, 62, 144, 213, 223, 239, 267, 291 thought-contents 36, 154 de se belief reports/ascriptions 35, 36, 41, 47, 48, 62, 66, 70, 78, 81, 82, 110, 111, 115, 155, 239 beliefs 36, 38, 42, 66, 78, 111, 115, 123 reading 42, 155, 240 definite descriptions 27, 32, 33, 37, 45, 61, 62, 64, 76, 88, 110, 118, 139, 160, 163, 201, 224 demonstrative modes of presentation 256, 339, 342–345 demonstrative tags 208, 209, 213, 226, 227, 255, 257, 260, 279 demonstrative thoughts 51, 279, 305, 339–343, 345 demonstratives 21, 22, 27, 28, 43, 51, 63, 64, 78, 124, 148, 159, 208, 213, 232, 253, 255, 267 demonstrative-types, Mentalese 209, 225 Denotation Insurance Theorem 149, 155 denotation, Mentalese 138, 178, 229–231 denotation of a Mentalese term 94, 118, 147, 163, 171, 233, 290, 332 denoting terms (of English) 21, 22, 24–28, 30, 32–34 designation, disquotational notion of 147, 150, 271 Designational Uniqueness Theorem 147 designational/attributive distinction 347, 348 Designation-Specification Theorem 147, 149

366 designator, rigid 27, 37, 322, 323 Devitt, M. 309–311, 313, 315–318, 327, 346–348, 352, 355 Difference Theorem 146, 150 direct attribution 66–68, 70, 72 Direct Reference 52, 70, 159, 160, 342 Direction Problem 58, 59, 108 dispositions 145, 230, 270, 342, 343, 345, 346 Disquotation Principle 43, 63, 77 Donnellan, K. 317, 327, 342, 355 Dummett, M. 47, 50, 51

E egocentric spatial thinking 74 encoding 37, 81, 87, 116, 117, 121, 122, 124, 128, 148, 189, 190, 231, 281, 331, 332 encoding formulas 163, 201 encoding predications 190, 192, 281 entertaining 52, 67, 69, 73, 141–143, 147, 154, 172, 176, 178, 240, 255, 289, 291, 292, 304, 305 Entertainment Principle 142–144, 153, 154, 176, 199 essence 14, 70 individual 12–15 Etchemendy, J. 78 Evans, G. 78, 122, 160, 162, 188, 297, 300, 302–310, 312–318, 320, 321, 326, 327, 344, 346, 347, 355, 356 exemplification-predication 190 existence-independence 7, 10, 12, 15 existence-independent relations 7, 9–12, 15, 16, 20, 178 existents 6, 7, 15, 16, 36, 37, 353 explanation, narrow 349 Extensionality Principles 22, 27

Index

F fiction 310, 313, 315–317 fictional characters 13, 20, 26, 164 fictional properties 14 Field, H. 352 files, mental 247, 249 First CAλP Theorem 134 First Higher-order Belief Theorem 179 First Mentalese Truth Principle 178 First Redundancy Principle 210, 211 first-person thinking 111, 142 Fodor, J. 118, 142, 163, 274 Forbes, G. 40, 51, 289 formula propositional 163, 190, 201 pure 84, 95, 96, 98, 99, 102 frame 215, 223, 224, 236–239, 242, 249, 250, 259, 311 see also textual frame frame assignment 215, 216, 221, 222, 259, 282 frame, default 221, 236, 282, 283 Frege, G. xvii, 5, 36, 39, 44–55, 60, 62, 66, 77, 78, 112, 121, 143, 162, 276, 282, 287 Fuller, G. 356 functional definition 48, 96, 271, 272, 348 functionalism 348, 351, 352

G General Atomic Thought-Content Principle 137, 139, 175, 201 Generalized λ-Sense Principle 187 Generalized Mentalese Denotation Principle 187 Generalized Second CλP Theorem 188

367

Index

Generalized Thought-Content Principle 187 Generalized Thought-Content Theorem 188 grasping 52, 53, 78, 289 Grice, H.P. 320 Griffin, N. 56, 58 H haecceities 13, 14, 37, 48 he-himself 42, 75, 240, 241 Horgan, T. 205 Horwich, P. 230, 231, 233 h-valid 268 h-validity 268 hyper-intensionality 31–33 I identification demonstrative 310, 343 epistemic 69, 70 essential 69, 70 perceptual 69, 70 Identity of Indiscernibles 14 identity numerical 125 for O-objects 125 identity-conditions/criteria 40, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 69, 125, 276 ILAO (see also theory of abstract objects) 116, 117, 122–127, 157, 159, 163–165, 190, 191, 201, 232, 233, 327 illocutionary act 334 indexicals 21, 22, 37, 43, 51, 63, 78, 148, 160, 166, 190, 208, 213, 214, 255, 267, 355, 356 mental 330, 333 indexing with percepts 208, 209, 255 indirect attribution 67–71, 74–76 Indiscernibility of Identicals 8, 64 individuals

non-actual 14, 164 ordinary 14, 125, 164 Inequivalence Principle 146, 151, 155 information 45, 60, 148, 247–249, 308–315, 341, 343 information-based communication 308, 309, 311–313, 346 information-link 310, 341, 343 intensional on a reading 23, 27 intensional transitives xiv, xviii, 30, 37 intensionality 21 intensions 53, 54 intentional 3–6, 10, 20, 56, 178, 229, 340, 347 denotation-relations 229 objects 3 properties 22 relations 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 31, 68, 69, 72, 78 states 3, 4, 30, 36 intentionality 3, 7, 21, 39, 65, 70, 71, 111, 352 cognitive 3, 4 metaphysical 6 semantical 4 strong metaphysical 7, 10, 20, 178 traditional notion of 3, 4 weak metaphysical 6 interpretation of an English sentence, definition of 165 interpreted indicative language 322, 323 iteration problem 75 see also analysis, paradox of

J Jubien, M. 117 judgment 54–57, 60, 78, 81, 104, 109, 110, 344

368 judgment (continued) objects of 58, 83, 92 relations 59, 81 judgmental facts 57, 78 judicable content 54

K Kaplan, D. 47, 121, 128, 322, 328, 348 Kaplan-Sense Principle 128, 164 Kaplan-senses 128, 164 kind-names 189, 190 Kripke, S. 37, 42, 43, 50, 52, 63, 64, 75–77, 189, 246, 247, 249–251, 262, 265, 280, 331 Kripke’s puzzle about belief 42, 52, 63, 75, 76, 247, 248, 250–252, 262, 265, 280

L λ-MPs, varieties of 129, 134, 174 λ-profiles, varieties of 129, 134, 174 λ-Senses, varieties of 129, 134, 174 language of thought hypothesis (LOT) 92, 118, 121, 348, 349 Latitudinarian 155, 238, 286 Leibniz’s Law 8 LePore, E. 356 Levine, J. 262 Lewis, D. xiv, 37, 66, 67, 111–113, 117, 119, 121, 123, 291, 319, 324, 325 Linsky, L. 63, 64 Loar, B. 95, 328, 351, 356 Loewer, B 230, 356 logical forms see MRTJ, logical forms in logical mirages 60, 64, 158 LOT (see also language of thought hypothesis) 92, 93, 95, 98,

Index

104, 110, 112, 113, 115, 117–119, 121, 123, 125, 216 Lycan, W. xviii, 118

M make-believe, games of (see also pretense, games of) 307, 313, 314, 328 Maloney, J.C. 118 mass terms 21, 28, 119, 189, 200 Mates, B. 49, 63 maximal occurrence of a term 139, 191 McDowell, J. 122, 162, 188, 297, 328, 342 McIntyre, R. 7 McKinsey, M. 330, 331, 333 mental reference xiv–xv, xviii, 4, 6, 16, 20, 21, 70, 73, 74, 163, 178 mental representations 40, 81–83, 85, 87, 89, 91–93, 95, 97, 99, 101, 103, 105, 107, 111–113, 178 Mentalese Actuality Principle 125, 164 Mentalese demonstrative-type 209, 257 Mentalese Denotation Principle 136, 139–141, 143, 177, 180, 181 Mentalese (language of thought) 92 Mentalese self-name 112, 119, 123, 141, 142, 240 Mentalese sense-name/term 170–172, 174–176, 187, 227, 261, 281 Mentalese Truth Principles, revisions to 331 Mentalese Univocality Principle 125, 129, 198 mere possibilia 13, 69 see also merely possible individuals merely possible individuals 13, 14

Index

meta-beliefs 319 metaphysical constraints, list of 39, 40 Methodological Solipsism 329, 330, 338, 339, 351, 354, 356 Millean semantics 37, 52, 158, 159 Millikan, R.G. 119 minimal rationality constraints 165 misidentification 289, 310 mode of entertainment 67, 142, 191, 209, 292 mode of presentation 45, 51, 73, 77, 82, 112, 122, 127, 256, 257, 274, 275, 297–299, 329, 333, 334, 339, 342–345 MP (see also mode of presentation) 122, 123, 127, 128, 131, 132, 134, 137, 148, 149, 157, 162, 172–176, 180 MRTJ (see also multiple relation theory of judgment/belief) 55–57, 61, 78, 81–85, 87–93, 97–99, 101–110, 117, 118 logical forms in 59, 60, 81–83, 85–92, 94, 97–102, 104, 105, 107–110, 114, 116 reduction of 82, 96, 104, 109, 117 vindicating 81, 82, 92, 96, 99, 104 multiple relation theory of judgment/belief 78, 81, 84, 87, 89, 92, 93, 110

N Nagel, T. 327 names context-relativized 208, 211 deictic 214, 215, 253 naturalizing semantic relations 206, 229–231 Neale, S. 160 negative existentials 313, 316, 317, 353

369 neo-Fregeans 122, 298–300, 326, 339, 340, 342, 348, 352 non-actual entities/beings/items 20, 27, 37, 116, 124, 125, 178 Non-Actualism 5, 6, 12, 15, 26, 37 non-conceptual content 4 non-existents 5, 6, 16, 26, 37, 55, 56, 68, 78 Nonsense Problem 58–60, 108, 109 Noonan, H. 339–346, 355

O object-dependence 120, 122, 188, 297–299, 309, 325, 329, 331, 340, 344, 352, 353 object-dependent attitudes 340 object-dependent senses 122, 128, 352, 354 object-dependent thoughts 297, 299, 301, 303, 305, 307, 309, 311, 313, 315, 317, 319, 321, 323, 355, 356 objects, non-actual 36, 229 ODT-1 298–300, 303, 308, 319, 322, 325, 353 ODT-2 298–300, 319, 322–326, 353 O-individuals 125 O-Name Principle 127, 132, 189 O-objecthood 124 O-objects 124, 125, 127, 131, 132, 164 existence of 127 opacity 32, 34, 36, 42, 46, 48, 52, 60, 62, 63, 69, 110, 111, 150, 151, 158, 159, 255, 288 quantificational 33 substitutional 33, 40, 111, 112, 145, 148, 154, 157, 158 Opacity Theorem 150, 151, 271 opacity-inducing counterpart relations 150, 151, 271 relations 150, 151, 174, 209, 271

370 Opaque Atomic Belief Theorem 153, 155 opaque belief ascriptions 156 opaque occurrences 33, 64, 238 opaque senses 145, 150, 151, 154 opaque term positions 33 operator-proxy 184 O-properties 126, 127 see also ordinary properties ordinary properties 14, 15, 20, 86, 112, 113, 119, 122 orthographic kinds 126, 145

P parataxis, illocutionary 320, 321 participation-independence 6, 7, 15 participation-independent relation 5, 6, 20, 39 Peacocke, C. 4, 122, 162, 188, 293, 297, 328, 339–341, 344, 345, 355 Pendlebury, M. 354 percept-correspondence relations 207–211, 225, 227, 231, 233 percepts 16, 207–211, 223, 224, 231, 255, 257, 329, 330, 333 object-based 208–210, 226 percept-terms 208 perceptual content individuation, adverbial method of 330 perceptual-demonstrative thought 299, 325, 329, 330, 339, 345, 346 Perry, J. 51, 205, 258, 260, 292 Plantinga, A. 5, 13, 14 Platts, M. 327 Possibilism 16 possible worlds 13, 16, 27, 40, 53, 54, 119, 284, 322, 323, 332 predicate intensions 53, 54 predication, mental xviii, 73, 115, 334

Index

pretense 103, 256, 307, 313–318, 327 games of 317, 318, 321 primitive denotation 171, 233 primitive intentional relations 68 private self-identifying senses 48, 62 properties propositional 125, 135, 136, 140, 165 truth-conditional 302 ways of thinking of 113, 116, 297 Property-Attribution Theory 65 Property-Reduct Principle 127, 129, 164, 197 property-reducts 122, 128, 162, 164, 231, 281 propositional attitudes xiii, 3, 4, 10, 21, 27, 31, 32, 34, 36, 39, 56, 63, 92, 111, 231, 290, 348 propositional content condition 320 propositions 4–6, 23, 28–32, 34, 35, 55, 56, 66, 83, 116, 124, 125, 161, 162, 164–166, 220, 221, 236, 237, 278, 279, 298, 299 pseudo-reflexive 159, 160 psychological attitudes, contentful 39, 163 psychological explanation 111, 339, 340 narrow 348 psychological states 4, 330, 340, 355 psychology, folk 338, 347, 348 psychology, narrow 347 Putnam, H. 119, 272

Q Quantifier-Phrase Principle 158 quantifier-proxy 184 quasi-understanding 307, 314–316 Quine, W.V.O. 5, 21, 32, 76 quotation marks 145, 146 quotation names 40, 287

Index

R rationality principle 279 reading of an English sentence, definition of 119 realizers 189, 190, 201 Recanati, F. 37 reduction of MRTJ 81, 82, 87, 89, 104, 109 reference-neutral counterpart relation 274 registering 142, 147, 165, 172, 176, 178, 182, 191, 271, 274, 276 relations main 56, 58 multiple 44, 55, 57, 61, 82, 89, 90, 99 subordinate 56, 58, 60 Replacement Principles 22, 23, 27, 28 representations 8, 16–18, 21, 161, 178, 249, 347 Revised Sense-Marker Principle 211 rewrite operator 172, 173, 200, 211 Rey, G. 118 Richard, M. xviii, 162, 244, 245, 258, 284 role conceptual 163, 166, 230, 270, 271, 275, 276, 292, 350, 351 constitutive 344, 345 functional 4, 240, 279, 280, 346, 349 individuative 327, 333 inferential 93 linguistic 166, 270, 271, 274–276, 292 role-conformity requirement 292 Rosenkrantz, G. 37 Russell, B. xvii, 5, 27, 39, 44, 51, 54–57, 59–64, 69, 78, 81, 83, 84, 87, 88, 92, 276, 277, 298 Russellian belief-relations 110

371 Russellian proposition 44, 55 see also Bel-relations Russell’s theory of descriptions 27, 56, 60, 61, 63

S Salmon, N. xviii, 37, 88, 158, 159, 167, 328 Sanford, D. 328 satisfaction conditions xiv, 3, 4, 16, 17, 20, 21, 39, 70, 71, 176, 178, 351 satisfaction and truth for thought-contents 175 Sawyer, S. 355, 356 Schiffer, S. 50, 119, 205, 276–281, 292, 293, 328 seamlessness of truth, axiom of 302, 304 Searle, J. 320 Second CAλP Theorem 141 Second Higher-Order Belief Theorem 181 Second Mentalese Truth Principle 178 Second Redundancy Principle 211 Segal, G. 319, 355, 356 self-ascription 67–74, 76, 111–114, 116, 117, 121 self-entertainment 67 self-identification 69 Self-Name Principle 142 self-names, private 62 Sellars, W. 93 semantic dualism 229, 231 semantic reference 289, 290 semantic relations 123, 226, 229, 230 semantical constraints/adequacy conditions 235, 261 list of 41, 42 semantical metalanguage 205, 206, 233, 265, 269

372 semantics 40–42, 92–94, 119, 125, 158, 163, 170, 203, 206, 224, 225, 233, 235, 255, 265, 299, 300 context-relativized 112, 225 for Mentalese 138, 225, 229, 233, 290 Sense-Marker Principle 171 sense-markers 171, 172, 177, 182, 183, 225, 227, 233, 280 sense-names 171, 172, 175, 177, 181, 182, 186, 210, 212, 225, 252, 272, 280 context-relativized 149, 210 deictic 211, 212, 232 ordinary 211, 212 senses as A-objects 127, 128 empty 188, 190 indirect/oblique 48, 51 ordinary/direct 46–48, 304 sense-terms 176, 225, 271, 274 complex 227, 233 sentences extensional 21–23 intensional 21, 23, 32 sentence-under-analysis 282 shadow (of a pure formula) 94–96, 98, 99, 310 Sider, T. 284–288, 293 simple type theory 78, 83 singular beliefs 66, 318, 329, 330 mode of presentation 297, 298 propositions 35, 66 terms empty 307, 313, 314, 317, 323 genuine 60–62 thoughts 298, 319, 329, 331, 333, 335, 337, 339, 341, 343, 345, 347, 349, 351, 353 Smith, D.W. 7

Index

Soames, S. xviii, 88, 157, 159, 160, 162, 167 Soames’s Problem about unbound anaphora 159–162 speaker-meaning 293 speaker-reference 289, 290, 334 Special Atomic Thought-Content Principle 136, 137, 152 speech acts 317, 320, 334 speech, inner 82, 100, 112, 145, 348 speech reports 39, 289 Stalnaker, R. 356 state-of-affairs 4–6, 16, 18, 20, 65–69, 71, 74 Stecker, R. 356 Strong Disquotation Principle 63 Strong Existential Generalization Principle 22, 25–27 subformula-proxy 184 substitution failures xvi, xviii, 32, 88, 158, 159 substitutional quantification 9, 300 substitutional quantifiers 9, 16 Principle of Substitutivity of Identity 22, 24, 27–30, 34, 47, 60, 64, 82, 89, 107, 125, 158, 159 Broadened Version of Principle of Substitutivity of Identity 28–31, 34 surface reflection 36, 151, 225, 226, 286, 290 syntax, Mentalese 92, 93, 125, 129, 130, 181, 200

T Tarski schema 43, 77 Taschek, W. 52 template 184, 185 minimal 184–186 term position 32, 33, 35, 36, 60 term-proxy 184 terms, deictic 213, 215, 221, 267, 268

Index

textual frame 215, 216, 221, 224, 239, 240, 245, 246, 250, 254, 256, 260, 261, 265, 279, 285 default 223, 242, 278 theory of abstract objects 37 Third Higher-order Belief Theorem 182 thoats 14, 15 Thomason, R. 327 thought-contents xiii–xv, xvii canonical names of 169 closed 176, 177 constituents of xv, 112, 121, 123, 129–131, 133–136, 138, 141, 142, 145, 149, 151, 153, 154, 165, 178, 281 first-person 137 higher-order/nested 123, 165 Thoughts, Fregean 44–48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 77, 328 translation 43, 52, 77, 106, 119, 162, 225, 226, 245, 271, 272, 278 Translation Principle 43, 52, 77 Translucent Sense Principle 149, 174, 211 translucent senses 145, 148–151, 173 transparency 34, 36, 125 quantificational 32, 33 substitutional 32, 34 Transparent Atomic Belief Theorem 144, 145, 153 transparent occurrence 33 Transparent Sense Principle 157 Transparent Sense Theorem 157 transparent senses 124, 157–159, 161 transparent term positions 33 truth for belief-surrogates 91 elementary 57 for propositions 220–221 for thought-contents 175 truth-conditional property of thoughts 302, 327

373 truth-conditional thought 302, 326 truth-in-Mentalese 178 T-sentences 206, 221, 284, 317 Twin Earth Semantics 272–276 Twin-Earth 119, 120, 265, 272, 273, 276, 292 Twin-English 119, 272, 275 Twin-TC 272, 273 Two Tubes Puzzle 43, 44, 51, 76, 253, 254 type indices 83, 94, 124, 126 typed belief relations 82, 83, 104 U Unarticulated Constituents Theory 292 understanding 16, 89, 188, 189, 299, 300, 303, 305–307, 315–317, 320, 328, 347 utterance-contexts in formal semantics 206–208, 322 V validity 22, 23, 31, 41, 155, 238, 267, 268, 286, 287, 292 Valuation Principle 131, 137, 140, 144, 152, 154, 156, 161, 164–166, 175, 180, 181, 198, 286 valuation relations 129, 130, 151, 152 vergules 93, 126, 191 visual fields 43, 44, 76, 344, 345 vivid Mentalese name 128, 132, 140 Vocab, definition of 102 W Walton, K. 313, 327 way of thinking (of an item) 25, 51, 113, 114, 116, 117, 119–121, 162, 163, 256, 257, 297, 298, 345, 352–354

374 Weak Existential Generalization Principle 26, 27, 37 White, S. 348 Whitehead, A.N. 78, 206 Wilson, G. 327 wish-list 332 Word Kind Theorem 146

Index

word kinds 146–151, 172–174, 206, 269–271, 274, 292 Z Zalta, E. xvii, 26, 37, 116, 121, 124, 163, 164, 327

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Paul Weingartner (ed.): Scientific and Religious Belief. 1994

60.

Michaelis Michael and John O’Leary-Hawthorne (eds): Philosophy in Mind. The Place of Philosophy in the Study of Mind. 1994 ISBN 0-7923-3143-5

61.

William H. Shaw: Moore on Right and Wrong. The Normative Ethics of G. E. Moore. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3223-7

62.

T.A. Blackson: Inquiry. Forms, and Substances. A Study in Plato’s Metaphysics and Epistemology. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3275-X

ISBN 0-7923-1549-9

ISBN 0-7923-2595-8

63.

Debra Nails: Agora, Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy. 1995

ISBN 0-7923-3543-0

64.

Warren Shibles: Emotion in Aesthetics. 1995

ISBN 0-7923-3618-6

65.

John Biro and Petr Kotatko (eds): Frege: Sense and Reference One Hundred Years Later. 1995 ISBN 0-7923-3795-6

66.

Mary Gore Forrester: Persons, Animals, and Fetuses. An Essay in Practical Ethics. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3918-5

67.

K. Lehrer, B.J. Lum, B.A. Slichta and N.D. Smith (eds.): Knowledge, Teaching and Wisdom. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-3980-0

68.

Herbert Granger: Aristotle’s Idea of the Soul. 1996

69.

Andy Clark. Jesús Ezquerro and Jesús M. Larrazabal (eds): Philosophy and Cognitive Science: Categories, Consciousness, and Reasoning. Proceedings of the Second International Colloquium on Cogitive Science. 1996 ISBN 0-7923-4068-X

70.

J. Mendola: Human Thought. 1997

ISBN 0-7923-4401-4

71.

J. Wright: Realism and Explanatory Priority. 1997

ISBN 0-7923-4484-7

72.

X. Arrazola. K. Korta and F.J. Pelletier (eds): Discourse, Interaction and Communication. Proceedings of the Fourth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-4952-0

73.

E. Morscher. O. Neumaier and P. Simons (eds): Applied Ethics in a Troubled World. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-4965-2

74.

R.O. Savage: Real Alternatives, Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Choice. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5057-X

75.

Q. Gibson: The Existence Principle. 1998

76.

F. Orilia and W.J. Rapaport (eds): Thought, Language, and Ontology. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5197-5

ISBN 0-7923-4033-7

ISBN 0-7923-5188-6

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES 77.

J. Bransen and S.E. Cuypers (eds): Human Action, Deliberation and Causation. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5204-1

78.

R.D. Gallie: Thomas Reid: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Anatomy of the Self. 1998 ISBN 0-7923-5241-6

79.

K. Korta, E. Sosa and X. Arrazola (eds): Cognition, Agency and Rationality. Proceedings of the Fifth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science. 1999 ISBN 0-7923-5973-9

80.

M. Paul: Success in Referential Communication. 1999

81.

E. Fischer: Linguistic Creativity. Exercises in ‘Philosophical Therapy’. 2000 ISBN 0-7923-6124-5

ISBN 0-7923-5974-7

82.

R. Tuomela: Cooperation. A Philosophical Study. 2000

ISBN 0-7923-6201-2

83.

P. Engel (ed.): Believing and Accepting. 2000

ISBN 0-7923-6238-1

84.

W.L. Craig: Time and the Metaphysics of Relativity. 2000

ISBN 0-7923-6668-9

85.

D.A. Habibi: John Stuart Mill and the Ethic of Human Growth. 2001

86.

M. Slors: The Diachronic Mind. An Essay on Personal Identity. Psychological Continuity and the Mind-Body Problem. 2001 ISBN 0-7923-6978-5

87.

L.N. Oaklander (ed.): The Importance of Time. Proceedings of the Philosophy of Time Society. 1995-2000. 2001 ISBN 1-4020-0062-6

88.

M. Watkins: Rediscovering Colors. A Study in Pollyanna Realism. 2002 ISBN 1-4020-0737-X

89.

W.F. Vallicella: A Paradigm Theory of Existence. Onto–Theology Vindicated. 2002 ISBN 1-4020-0887-2

90.

M. Hulswit: From Cause to Causation. A Peircean Perspective. 2002 ISBN 1-4020-0976-3: Pb 1-4020-0977-1

91.

D. Jacquette (ed.): Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychologism. Critical and Historical Readings on the Psychological Turn in Philosophy. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1337-X

92.

G. Preyer. G. Peter and M. Ulkan (eds): Concepts of Meaning. Framing an Integrated Theory of Linguistic Behavior. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1329-9

93.

W. de Muijnck: Dependencies, Connections, and Other Relations. A Theory of Mental Causation. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1391-4

94.

N. Milkov: A Hundred Years of English Philosophy. 2003

ISBN 1-4020-1432-5

95.

E.J. Olsson (ed.): The Epistomology of Keith Lehrer. 2003

ISBN 1-4020-1605-0

96.

D.S. Clarke: Sign Levels. Language and Its Evolutionary Antecedents. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1650-6

97.

A. Meirav: Wholes, Sums and Unities. 2003

ISBN 1-4020-1660-3

98.

C.H. Conn: Locke on Esence and Identity. 2003

ISBN 1-4020-1670-0

99.

J.M. Larrazabal and L.A. Pérez Miranda: Language, Knowledge, and Representation. Proceedings of the Sixth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (ICCS-99). 2004 ISBN 1-4020-2057-0

ISBN 0-7923-6854-1

100.

P. Ziff: Moralities. A Diachronic Evolution Approach. 2004

101.

J.A. Corlett: Terorism: A Philosophical Analysis. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1694-8: Pb 1-4020-1695-6

ISBN 1-4020-1891-6

PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES SERIES 102.

K. Korta and J.M. Larrazabal (eds): Truth, Rationality, Cognition,and Music. Proceedings of the Seventh International Colloquium on Cognitive Science. 2003 ISBN 1-4020-1912-2

103.

T.M. Crisp, M. Davidson and D. van der Laar (eds): Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alwin Plantinga. 2006 ISBN 1-4020-4732-0

104.

S.E. Boër: Thought-Contents: On the Ontology of Belief and the Semantics of Belief Attribution. 2007 ISBN 1-4020-5084-4

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