I will try to say something about a profound confusion or blindness which occurs in connection with the notion of mind-independence. What I will say will be reminiscent of some of Wittgenstein's ideas from his mid-late period, especially the ones which influenced Waismann's work on 'language strata' (see references).
This post was prompted by a recent lecture of David Macarthur's, wherein he emphasized that propositions were not linguistic items for Moore and Russell. (Nor, I would add, were they linguistic items (signs) in a projective relation to the world, as in the early Wittgenstein.) Instead, they were supposed to be abstract objects1 which do not in general depend on minds or on language for their existence. This aspect of Moore and Russell's early post-Hegelian thought is often labelled 'Platonism' or 'Platonic realism'. Macarthur wanted to emphasize that this is quite a difficult idea - i.e. to think of propositions as being 'so completely language-independent' (I think he used some such expression).
I want to say: no, not necessarily - this last statement has to be qualified, although it is appropriate enough in connection with the philosophical views of Moore and Russell. I will try to explain what I mean.
We talk of concepts, meanings, propositions, statements and the like. Our talk about these things has a certain logic and grammar; it makes sense to say that a concept is used by somebody, but it makes no sense to say that a concept is three metres away from somebody. It makes sense to call a proposition true, but not red.
I think it is plausible to think of the notion of a proposition, or statement - in something like the sense of 'that which is asserted by a meaningful declarative sentence' - as ordinarily not coming into direct contact with the notion of dependence as it applies to minds and spatiotemporal things. In Wittgensteinian-Waismannian terms, the relevant notion of dependence is part of one stratum of language, and the notion of a proposition is part of another. We don't talk of a proposition depending for its existence on this or that mind, thing, process, etc., any more than we talk of a house being tautological.
At least, this is how it is in the ordinary, or primary language-game. (I think the term 'primary' is perhaps better, since I don't mean to imply that there is anything especially folky about the primary language-games we play with the word 'proposition'.) And this, I believe, is what - in the first instance - makes it correct to say 'Propositions do not depend for their existence on minds', just as it is correct to say 'Houses do not themselves possess arithmetical properties'.
But there is something which makes the statement about propositions significant to us, in a way which the statement about houses is not likely to be. As a piece of grammar, this statement can be said to warn us against a mixing up of language strata which – for reasons which I will not inquire into here – we are especially prone to when philosophizing.
However, 'Propositions do not depend for their existence on minds' is not a reliable guard against this confusion, due to its superficial similarity to non-grammatical statements such as 'The nobility in fourteenth century England did not depend for their existence on the King'. This leads to what might be called a Platonic interpretation of this statement. Rather than being taken as a grammatical warning or prohibition against bringing the mind-(in)dependence concept into direct contact with the proposition concept, these concepts are brought together, and propositions are thought of as, so to speak, being positively independent.
This supports, and is supported by, strange uses of “pictures” of propositions which resemble our pictures of physical objects, ideas of durability and hardness being applied to propositions, Plato's Heaven, and the like. (This is of course very loose talk.) Also, consider the expressions used in this remarkable statement of Russell's in the Logical Atomism lectures: 'To suppose that in the actual world of nature there is a whole set of false propositions going about is to my mind monstrous.'
We should be careful not to confuse the grammatical sense of 'Propositions do not depend for their existence on our minds' with an apparently material sense which arises from a confused mixing of levels (or from a language-game which goes beyond the primary ones we play with 'proposition' and related words).
In the primary game, we simply don't talk about existential dependence on minds in relation to propositions, and this is perfectly in order. That is what is hard to see.
The idea that we simply don't, or can't, talk about propositions (in the ordinary or primary sense) depending on this or that mind, may have an air of quietism and renunciation about it. 'Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent' etc. Even worse, it might seem depressingly parochial and conservative. To a great extent, this would be a mistaken reaction. We are not prevented at all from talking about 'propositions' 'depending' on minds - however, if we do so, and if this is anything more than a mere grammatical confusion, then we are simply not playing the primary game.
Despite the anti-metaphysical political stance of the historical antecedents for this sort of view (particularly in the Vienna Circle), I don't see these points as being hostile to philosophical speculation, or the development of new ways of thinking. And perhaps a lot of what is called 'metaphysics' can be thought of as an attempt to develop such new ways of thinking (and talking) about the world. (None of this, by the way, should be taken to imply any sort of Rortian antirealism, excluding considerations of objectivity and correspondence to reality, or anything like that.)
Consider in this connection the growing attention paid by metaphysicians to the way they are using language, especially quantifiers and terms like 'real' and 'exists' (e.g. Hofweber) and also - more relevantly - terms like 'depends on' and 'grounds' (e.g. Schaffer). Investigations into such matters are increasingly common, and often go under the headings 'metametaphysics' and 'metaontology'.
The remarks above are not very well-made, nor are they particularly original. I make them anyway because they seem to embody an important sort of consideration which seems somewhat neglected in contemporary post-linguistic-turn philosophy (although hopefully this is changing).
The relative obscurity of this sort of consideration today has, of course, to do with the fact that it involves something like an analytic-synthetic distinction, or perhaps more like Wittgenstein's arguably non-exhaustive distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions. Such distinctions sit under a dark cloud today. This in turn has to do with the ideas of Quine in 'Two Dogmas' and 'Truth by Convention', and a shift in emphasis toward certain modal notions, arising from Kripke's clear isolation of them.
Tristan Haze
Cf. this freely available copy of Waismann's article, 'Verifiability', which has some material on language strata. (Note however that one can use the notion of language strata without accepting a verificationist view of meaning.)
References:
Thomas Hofweber (2005). A puzzle about ontology. Noûs 39 (2):256-283.
Thomas Hofweber (2007). Innocent statements and their metaphysically loaded counterparts. Philosophers' Imprint 7 (1):1-33.
Saul A. Kripke (1980). Naming and Necessity. Harvard University Press.
Willard Van Orman Quine (2010). Two dogmas of empiricism. In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel (eds.), Arguing About Language. Routledge.
Willard Van Orman Quine (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. Philosophical Review 60 (1):20-43.
Jonathan Schaffer (2009). On what grounds what. In David Manley, David J. Chalmers & Ryan Wasserman (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford University Press.
Friedrich Waismann (1946). The many-level-structure of language. Synthese 5 (5-6):221 - 229.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1975). Philosophical Remarks. University of Chicago Press.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1974). Philosophical Grammar. Blackwell.
1 Or at least partly abstract objects; Russell thought propositions about concrete objects had those concrete objects as constituents.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Quine and Lewis on Semantic Relativity
This post is by guest author Timothy Scriven.
In 'Ontological relativity' Quine suggests that the linguist's translation of a term into another language is radically indeterminate. Neither the intension nor the extension of terms can be deduced from behavior alone. In his famous example “Gavagai” might refer to a rabbit, an undetached rabbit part, a time slice of a rabbit or any number of other entities. This under-determination is not merely an epistemological problem (perhaps one we could solve via inference to the best explanation), for if anything is meaning constitutive, it is behaviour.
Quine does concede that the linguist is likely to make certain sorts of translations and not others. Quine says that “Enduring and relatively homogenous object[s]” which “[move] as a whole against a contrasting background” are likely to be selected as the translations for short expressions. We might call this “the rule of moving blocks” (RMB). Surely though there will be other rules that linguists tend to use to resolve indeterminacy, let’s call these rules R collectively.
Imagine a linguist considering lexicons from a variety of languages, and noticing a pattern of R-preserving meanings. For example, languages tend to have words for “Horse” but not “The undetached lower half of a horse”. A linguist might think that they have uncovered a human universal in RMB, and in whatever other rules they may extract. Quine, however, thinks this is purely an artifact of our interests, and the way we do linguistics. Roughly speaking, translations consistent with R rules tend to be more natural.
Quine thinks that if we are being purely philosophical and bracketing our values and interests, we cannot make a choice between the alternative translations, one of which preserves R as much as possible, and one of which disregards R. Only facts about our interests determine which translation it is best to adopt. Quine says that he would recommend adopting the semanticist’s practice of sticking with R-friendly or natural translations to anyone. But this is only for practical reasons, from what we might think of as a purely theoretical perspective, we’re stuck with massive indeterminacy.
There’s a ruffle in the carpet for Quine’s view that isn’t urged by commentators often enough. Quine sets up a dialectic in which he is being philosophical, refusing to attend to pragmatic interests at least for a while, and considering alternative translations schemas without referring to human interests. The semanticist on the other hand attends to the mucky practical requirements of her field. What she should say is relative to her interests. Not her pecuniary, ethical or emotional interests, but certain cognitive interests- simplicity, tractability etc. No blame falls on the semanticist for this, but the projects of the philosopher and the semanticist are clearly divergent.
How does Quine come to the view that semanticists typically make assignments on the basis of adjoining words to natural things or types? Why, by parsing the semanticist’s language of course. Presumably he reaches his understanding of the semanticist’s language through an interpretive theory, but either this theory is incomplete and does not uniquely select an interpretation, or it is laden with interests. Thus Quine “shows” that linguists interpret relative to a set of pragmatic concerns, but he can only show this by smuggling in pragmatic concerns of his own, inferences about meaning beyond what his cherished behavioral data would permit. There is no strict self-refutation here, but it is surely compromising nonetheless.
Lewis is famous for expounding the view that natural properties play a vital role in fixing meaning (c.f. 'New work for a theory of universals'). For Lewis, it’s not that, as a contingent psychological matter, people tend to refer to natural properties instead of unnatural properties. Instead it’s part of the meaning of “meaning” that translation schemes which are “higher scoring” with respect to certain virtues, like mapping onto natural properties, win out over lower scoring schemas.
At heart, these views have very little separating them. Perhaps this is unsurprising. In my view, Lewis can be read as Quine, with greater respect for Moorean facts.1 Both Quine and Lewis acknowledge the role of something like naturalness in deciding our theories of meaning. Quine just insists that naturalness gets a role for “pragmatic reasons”. When the difference is put so, I think it becomes difficult indeed to give a reason to be a Quinean rather than a Lewisian. One might insist that Quine has one less ontological commitment than Lewis, he doesn’t need to hold there is anything actually like natural properties. But if Quine can do without these properties in his semantics and metaphysics, I think we can reconfigure the Lewisian thesis as simply stating that the correct meaning theory is the competitor that preserves naturalness the best2. as captured by R, without a commitment to any particular ontology.
It is not even clear that there is a material difference between the views. One could talk about the set of meaningsQ and the set of meaningsL. The meaningsQ of a word W are those that are compatible with all available data on F that Quine would consider acceptable. The meaningsL of a word W are those that are compatible with all available data on W that Lewis would consider acceptable. The set of MeaningsL for W will hopefully consist in just one meaning, since, unless there are ties, there will only be one top ranked meaning for each term, accounting for all of Lewis’s ranking criteria. MeaningQ is underdetermined, meaningL is not, so we are inclined to use meaningL.
Timothy Scriven
Quine does concede that the linguist is likely to make certain sorts of translations and not others. Quine says that “Enduring and relatively homogenous object[s]” which “[move] as a whole against a contrasting background” are likely to be selected as the translations for short expressions. We might call this “the rule of moving blocks” (RMB). Surely though there will be other rules that linguists tend to use to resolve indeterminacy, let’s call these rules R collectively.
Imagine a linguist considering lexicons from a variety of languages, and noticing a pattern of R-preserving meanings. For example, languages tend to have words for “Horse” but not “The undetached lower half of a horse”. A linguist might think that they have uncovered a human universal in RMB, and in whatever other rules they may extract. Quine, however, thinks this is purely an artifact of our interests, and the way we do linguistics. Roughly speaking, translations consistent with R rules tend to be more natural.
Quine thinks that if we are being purely philosophical and bracketing our values and interests, we cannot make a choice between the alternative translations, one of which preserves R as much as possible, and one of which disregards R. Only facts about our interests determine which translation it is best to adopt. Quine says that he would recommend adopting the semanticist’s practice of sticking with R-friendly or natural translations to anyone. But this is only for practical reasons, from what we might think of as a purely theoretical perspective, we’re stuck with massive indeterminacy.
There’s a ruffle in the carpet for Quine’s view that isn’t urged by commentators often enough. Quine sets up a dialectic in which he is being philosophical, refusing to attend to pragmatic interests at least for a while, and considering alternative translations schemas without referring to human interests. The semanticist on the other hand attends to the mucky practical requirements of her field. What she should say is relative to her interests. Not her pecuniary, ethical or emotional interests, but certain cognitive interests- simplicity, tractability etc. No blame falls on the semanticist for this, but the projects of the philosopher and the semanticist are clearly divergent.
How does Quine come to the view that semanticists typically make assignments on the basis of adjoining words to natural things or types? Why, by parsing the semanticist’s language of course. Presumably he reaches his understanding of the semanticist’s language through an interpretive theory, but either this theory is incomplete and does not uniquely select an interpretation, or it is laden with interests. Thus Quine “shows” that linguists interpret relative to a set of pragmatic concerns, but he can only show this by smuggling in pragmatic concerns of his own, inferences about meaning beyond what his cherished behavioral data would permit. There is no strict self-refutation here, but it is surely compromising nonetheless.
Lewis is famous for expounding the view that natural properties play a vital role in fixing meaning (c.f. 'New work for a theory of universals'). For Lewis, it’s not that, as a contingent psychological matter, people tend to refer to natural properties instead of unnatural properties. Instead it’s part of the meaning of “meaning” that translation schemes which are “higher scoring” with respect to certain virtues, like mapping onto natural properties, win out over lower scoring schemas.
At heart, these views have very little separating them. Perhaps this is unsurprising. In my view, Lewis can be read as Quine, with greater respect for Moorean facts.1 Both Quine and Lewis acknowledge the role of something like naturalness in deciding our theories of meaning. Quine just insists that naturalness gets a role for “pragmatic reasons”. When the difference is put so, I think it becomes difficult indeed to give a reason to be a Quinean rather than a Lewisian. One might insist that Quine has one less ontological commitment than Lewis, he doesn’t need to hold there is anything actually like natural properties. But if Quine can do without these properties in his semantics and metaphysics, I think we can reconfigure the Lewisian thesis as simply stating that the correct meaning theory is the competitor that preserves naturalness the best2. as captured by R, without a commitment to any particular ontology.
It is not even clear that there is a material difference between the views. One could talk about the set of meaningsQ and the set of meaningsL. The meaningsQ of a word W are those that are compatible with all available data on F that Quine would consider acceptable. The meaningsL of a word W are those that are compatible with all available data on W that Lewis would consider acceptable. The set of MeaningsL for W will hopefully consist in just one meaning, since, unless there are ties, there will only be one top ranked meaning for each term, accounting for all of Lewis’s ranking criteria. MeaningQ is underdetermined, meaningL is not, so we are inclined to use meaningL.
Timothy Scriven
The University of Sydney
References
1 Compare for example Quine’s reasons for accepting Platonism, and Lewis’s reasons for accepting modal realism. Of course Lewis is a modal realist, but even this position was reached by trying to respect deep principles of commonsense.
References
David Lewis (1983). New work for a theory of universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61 (December):343-377.
Quine, W. V. (1968). Ontological relativity. Journal of Philosophy 65 (7):185-212.
1 Compare for example Quine’s reasons for accepting Platonism, and Lewis’s reasons for accepting modal realism. Of course Lewis is a modal realist, but even this position was reached by trying to respect deep principles of commonsense.
2 Of course there may be other criteria.
Monday, 18 July 2011
Philosophers' Carnival - July 18, 2011
Welcome to the July 18, 2011 edition of Philosophers' Carnival. Marvel at the range of different topics discussed! No analytic-continental divide here!
Crazyism - Eric Schwitzgebel of The Splintered Mind introduces the concept of crazyism about some given area of inquiry - the view that something crazy (in a certain sense) must be true about that area. (I think the 'must' here is just epistemic, but I may be wrong.)
Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics - by Aaron Kenna of the Florida Student Philosophy Blog.
Constitution - Kevin Somerville of dthat discusses the relation 'x constitutes y' in connection with the philosophy of mind.
Atheism, agnosticism and theism 2: What it is to have a belief - by John Wilkins of Evolving Thoughts.
Where I am at with Hume's is-ought distinction - by Maryann Spikes of Ichtus77.
The Open Question Argument - Richard Yetter Chappell of Philosophy, et cetera issues a call for objections to a defence of the Open Question Argument. Please try to refute him as soon as possible.
Kevorkian's Legacy And The Right To Die - by David Fryman of The Bennett Commentary.
Paradoxes for "expresses the proposition" - Wolfgang Shwarz of wo's weblog discusses a Liar-related paradox which arises when propositions are treated as sets of possible worlds. Dustin Tucker has made some detailed and learned comments.
Public sector pension reform: my advice to the Prime Minister - thanks to Thom Brooks of The Brooks Blog for giving me the unexpected pleasure of posting a link, on this blog, to an article in which a philosopher gives advice to a head of state. I mean this in the best possible way.
And now for two special sections, exclusive to this edition of the carnival:
Criticisms of Readings of Great Philosophers
Why Kant Was Not A Cognitive Scientist - Matt Whitlock of A Rigid Designator presents a criticism of Andrew Brook's reading of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
Nietzsche on Agency and the Will - the mysterious Carlos AKA Narziss criticizes an aspect of Brian Leiter's reading of Nietzsche.
Arguably Inappropriate Submissions
Deconstructing Godel (sic) - I include this post because it's about Goedel. It's essentially a short and maybe slightly dubious biographical sketch. (I don't think Goedel was ever actually part of the Vienna Circle, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) I feel bound by duty to inform the prospective reader that the title is a bit misleading; whatever it may mean to deconstruct Goedel, I'm pretty sure it doesn't occur here. Some may say this is for the best.
7 Reasons To Never Lie Again - by Kyle Warren of Follow the FLOW (indeed). I'm pretty sure this isn't meant to be a serious piece of philosophy, but it was submitted, and I include it because it made me laugh several times. It was posted over a year ago, which adds to the arguable inappropriateness.
That's all for this edition of the carnival. The next one is at the Blog of Noah Greenstein on August 8.
Thursday, 23 June 2011
Sketch of a Way of Thinking about Modality - Part 1
[This is old and my thinking on the subject has changed quite a bit (for the better I'm pretty sure). It may be of historical interest, or interesting if you're interested in how my ideas have developed. See my more recent 'Necessity as an Attribute of Propositions' - 22/10/15]
[UPDATE: This sketch, except for parts of part 2, will soon be made mostly redundant by a paper I am working on. I expect to make a draft of this paper available in early November. A link will appear here. - TH 13/10/2011]
[UPDATE 2: The paper mentioned above is here.]
[UPDATE 3, March 2013: What appears below has been left so far behind that I'm almost embarrassed about it. For my latest on these topics, see An Account of Subjunctive Necessity.]
This is the first installment of a two-part series of posts where I aim to sketch some ideas about modality which will feature in a book I am working on, Necessity and Conceptual Systems. The material is still very much under development, and I apologize for the obscurities which the reader will inevitably find in it. Comments and criticisms are very welcome.
[UPDATE: This sketch, except for parts of part 2, will soon be made mostly redundant by a paper I am working on. I expect to make a draft of this paper available in early November. A link will appear here. - TH 13/10/2011]
[UPDATE 2: The paper mentioned above is here.]
[UPDATE 3, March 2013: What appears below has been left so far behind that I'm almost embarrassed about it. For my latest on these topics, see An Account of Subjunctive Necessity.]
This is the first installment of a two-part series of posts where I aim to sketch some ideas about modality which will feature in a book I am working on, Necessity and Conceptual Systems. The material is still very much under development, and I apologize for the obscurities which the reader will inevitably find in it. Comments and criticisms are very welcome.
In this first part, I will introduce the approach, and indicate how it handles the necessary a posteriori, using 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' as a case-study. In part 2 I will discuss the notion of de re modality, of essence, and natural-kind examples such as 'Water is H20', as well as some more general issues which arise on my approach (especially to do with epistemic modality and ascriptions of intentional content).
In the Golden Age of analytic philosophy, necessarily true propositions were widely taken to be those which are satisfied by (or 'come out true' on) all configurations of some conceptual or linguistic system. Possibility was understood in terms of satisfaction by at least one configuration. Our conceptual system, our means of understanding the world, is here thought of as something like a model, or a machine, which has moving parts, and which can be put into various positions or configurations. Each configuration can be thought of as corresponding to, or satisfying, or even being, a set of propositions. (I have taken many liberties in the formulation of this description.)
Conceptual or linguistic systems of the kind in question were thought to be describable with "semantical rules" for a language, and necessary propositions were thus commonly taken to be a priori and true "in virtue of the meaning" of the terms involved (cf. Carnap's Meaning and Necessity, Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic). This yields a notion of necessity reminiscent of the notion of truth-functional tautologousness. (Earlier, in the Tractatus - which was a major inspiration to both Ayer and Carnap - this relationship is much closer than mere reminiscence.)
This sort of view was attacked by Quine in at least two ways (cf. his 'Truth by Convention', 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'). Quine's undifferentiated picture of language had a sobering or worrying effect, but it did not stop people carrying on with some version of the view in question. This is connected with the fact that it amounted to a kind of quietism or abstinence with respect to the relevant sorts of notions (semantic, modal), rather than a sustained attempt to attain positive insight about them.
The really decisive blow to the Golden Age view of modality came from Kripke. His fundamental contribution was to persuasively argue that the a priori does not coincide with the (metaphysically) necessary, and relatedly, that epistemic modality ("what could be the case") is to be distinguished from metaphysical modality ("what could have been the case" in a certain unrestricted sense). This contribution was closely bound up with Kripke's ideas concerning naming and reference, more on which in a moment. The recognition of the necessary a posteriori in particular, and the associated idea that conceivability doesn't entail possibility, has led to a reaction against views of modality of the Golden Age sort.
(About 'metaphysical modality': one sometimes hears it said of a philosopher that they countenance metaphysical modality, as though this indicates that the person holds some sort of doctrine, which may be quite esoteric. But 'metaphysical modality' is just a label for me - synonymous with 'subjunctive modality' - for a notion "detected" in the logic of language. That said, someone who felt this notion was, e.g., a trivial artifact of the way we happen to talk, rather than a deep artifact of the way we think, would probably not want to use this label.)
(About 'metaphysical modality': one sometimes hears it said of a philosopher that they countenance metaphysical modality, as though this indicates that the person holds some sort of doctrine, which may be quite esoteric. But 'metaphysical modality' is just a label for me - synonymous with 'subjunctive modality' - for a notion "detected" in the logic of language. That said, someone who felt this notion was, e.g., a trivial artifact of the way we happen to talk, rather than a deep artifact of the way we think, would probably not want to use this label.)
My approach to modality retains the view that necessity - metaphysical necessity - can be fruitfully understood in terms of invariance through all configurations of a conceptual system. But it also takes Kripke's separation of the a priori and the metaphysically necessary fully to heart. This latter point is one respect in which my approach differs from that of the two-dimensional semanticists. Another key contrast is that the possible worlds framework is not fundamental to my view.
Broadly speaking, I handle the necessary a posteriori by doing two things. Firstly, I work with a much more fine-grained notion of 'conceptual system' than did the logical empiricists. (The sense of 'fine-grained' here should become clearer in a moment.) Secondly, I embrace a certain kind of semantic externalism - roughly, the view that sense doesn't determine reference (other ways to put this which for me are roughly equivalent: intension doesn't determine extension, concept doesn't determine object).
I will illustrate how this works with respect to a classic example of the necessary a posteriori: 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'.1
I follow Kripke in holding that proper names do not have reference-determining senses (which hangs together with semantic externalism via Putnam's idea of Twin Earth), and also that proper names do not have a semantics which can be given in the form of general conceptual content such as definite descriptions, or clusters thereof (irrespective of whether this content can be said to determine reference).
I do not, however, accept the (to my mind very strange and confused) idea that proper names are 'mere tags' (Ruth Barcan Marcus's phrase), that all there is to the meaning of a name is its referent, etc. This idea is sometimes associated with Mill's claim that names have no 'connotation', only 'denotation', and also with the phrase 'direct reference'.2
We have individual concepts - concepts of individuals, of particular objects - and we often associate these with proper names. This sheds light on Kripke's rigid designation thesis (the thesis that a referring proper name designates the same object in all possible worlds at which that object exists). If names are associated with individual concepts - concepts of particular objects - then it is immediate that they will designate the same object in all possible worlds where that object exists; designating another object is out of the question, since we are holding fixed the associated individual concept. We may thus distinguish rigid designators such as ordinary proper names, which designate rigidly because they are directly associated with individual concepts, from other rigid designators such as definite descriptions in mathematics.
Once we recognize individual concepts in this way, we can say that when someone accepts that Hesperus is Phosphorus (having previously taken them to be distinct), there is a change in their conceptual system - in the relevant fine-grained sense. Of course, in a more coarse-grained (and more ordinary) sense, we can say that they have before and after the same conceptual system. The fine-grained change consists in the unification of two individual concepts. The original concepts, we might say, are not blended irrevocably but remain as aspect-concepts united under a common master. From now on, it should be kept in mind that conceptual systems will usually be individuated here in this fine-grained sense.
In the former conceptual system (call this 'the Babylonian system'), where the Hesperus-concept is separated from the Phosphorus-concept, the distinctness of Hesperus and Phosphorus is invariant through all configurations of the system; if one positively believes that Hesperus and Phosphorus are distinct, one will say that, although it might conceivably turn out that Hesperus is Phosphorus after all, given that it isn't, Hesperus could not have been Phosphorus. (And one will of course be wrong.) In the latter conceptual system (call this 'our system'), where the Hesperus- and Phosphorus-concepts are unified, the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus is invariant through all configurations of the system; when one knows that Hesperus is Phosphorus, one will say that, although it might conceivably turn out that Hesperus is distinct from Phosphorus after all, given that it isn't, Hesperus could not have been other than Phosphorus.
Now, with our fine-grained understanding of conceptual systems in place, I maintain that we can still say that all (metaphysically) necessarily true propositions are satisfied by all configurations of their host conceptual systems. We can even say that a truth is metaphysically necessary iff it is satisfied by all configurations of its host system. We just can't say that all propositions which are satisfied by all configuration of their host systems are necessary truths. So far, then, we can say what distinguishes necessary from contingent truths, but we can't say what distinguishes necessary truths from other proposition which are satisfied by all configurations of their host systems - we might call these 'false propositions of necessary character'. What can we say that will do this?
I think we can say something like: a proposition P is necessarily true iff it is satisfied by all configurations of its host system and the concepts involved in P are jointly adequate to their objects with respect to P.
First I want to say that I am not concerned to provide a reductive analysis of modal concepts. Relatedly, I am happy for the relevant modal notions and my ternary relation of 'adequacy' to be explanatory of each other; I do not suppose it is a one-way street, where my notion does all the explaining, nor do I take my notion to be more "fundamental" in any metaphysical sense. I am interested in showing (and making) connections.
I will make a start at explicating the above proposal by indicating how it applies to the 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' case. In the Babylonian system, the Hesperus-concept and the Phosphorus-concept are not unified (are taken to represent distinct objects), but they both have the same object, the same extension, and so together (jointly) they are inadequate to their objects with respect to 'Hesperus is not Phosphorus'. So their proposition 'Hesperus is not Phosphorus' fulfills the first condition given above, before the 'and' - it is satisfied by all configurations of their system - but it does not fulfill the second. Our Hesperus- and Phosphorus-concepts, which also have the same extension, are in contrast united, as aspect-concepts, under a common master concept (the concept of Venus). Hence they are adequate to their objects - or object - with respect to our proposition 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'.
I will make a start at explicating the above proposal by indicating how it applies to the 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' case. In the Babylonian system, the Hesperus-concept and the Phosphorus-concept are not unified (are taken to represent distinct objects), but they both have the same object, the same extension, and so together (jointly) they are inadequate to their objects with respect to 'Hesperus is not Phosphorus'. So their proposition 'Hesperus is not Phosphorus' fulfills the first condition given above, before the 'and' - it is satisfied by all configurations of their system - but it does not fulfill the second. Our Hesperus- and Phosphorus-concepts, which also have the same extension, are in contrast united, as aspect-concepts, under a common master concept (the concept of Venus). Hence they are adequate to their objects - or object - with respect to our proposition 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'.
Why do I not simply say that a proposition is necessarily true iff it is satisfied by all configurations of its host system and its concepts are jointly adequate to their objects? Why do I add 'with respect to that proposition'? I will explain this with an example. Assume for the sake of argument that Hesperus (Venus) is necessarily not intelligent - i.e. that Hesperus could not have been intelligent. Now, suppose someone believes that Hesperus is intelligent, and necessarily so - loosely speaking, that it is part of their concept of Hesperus that it is intelligent. In that case, their concept of Hesperus would not be adequate to its object with respect to 'Hesperus is intelligent'. But they may know, for all that, that Hesperus is Phosphorus, and so their concepts of Hesperus and Phosphorus might be jointly adequate to their object with respect to 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'.
Conversely, someone may know that Hesperus is necessarily not intelligent, while mistakenly believing that Hesperus is not Phosphorus, thus having an adequate conceptual situation with respect to propositions about the intelligence of Hesperus, but not with respect to propositions about the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus.
Speaking broadly, necessity is, on this understanding, not simply a matter of a proposition having a certain status in a conceptual system. It is, as well as that, a matter of the system being adequate to its objects with respect to that proposition. The adequacy of some set of concepts to their objects obviously depends on the identity (and nature) of those objects - and this is not in general determined by the system. (This is how semantic externalism fits in.) Hence you cannot, in general, tell simply by looking at a proposition in a system whether or not it is necessarily true - there are a posteriori necessities.
The compatibility of externalism with rigid designation
(Postscript added 14 August, 2011.)
It may look as though there is a tension between my externalist claim that the extension of an individual concept is not in general determined by the concept itself, and the claim that names rigidly designate: if names are tied to individual concepts, and individual concepts do not in general determine their extension, it looks like a given individual concept can have different extensions in different environments. This is so (at least, when we individuate concepts internally) but there is no real tension here: the rigidity applies to names in use - names tied to token individual concepts embedded in an environment. Individual concepts are not like general concepts: the whole point of them is to apply to one particular object. And so the contrast between names and definite descriptions remains: when we consider counterfactual scenarios and hold the meaning of our terms fixed, our names which are tied to individual concepts always refer to 'the same object'.
This is all perfectly compatible with the fact that the same concept, in a different environment, might be connected up to a different object. The extension of our individual concepts may in some cases even change over time: if an object we know is replaced with a substitute, and we don't notice, after a while it will become true to say that our individual concept has changed its extension. But we don't let the extension change "across possible worlds" when representing counterfactual scenarios using a particular individual concept in a particular environment.
The compatibility of externalism with rigid designation
(Postscript added 14 August, 2011.)
It may look as though there is a tension between my externalist claim that the extension of an individual concept is not in general determined by the concept itself, and the claim that names rigidly designate: if names are tied to individual concepts, and individual concepts do not in general determine their extension, it looks like a given individual concept can have different extensions in different environments. This is so (at least, when we individuate concepts internally) but there is no real tension here: the rigidity applies to names in use - names tied to token individual concepts embedded in an environment. Individual concepts are not like general concepts: the whole point of them is to apply to one particular object. And so the contrast between names and definite descriptions remains: when we consider counterfactual scenarios and hold the meaning of our terms fixed, our names which are tied to individual concepts always refer to 'the same object'.
This is all perfectly compatible with the fact that the same concept, in a different environment, might be connected up to a different object. The extension of our individual concepts may in some cases even change over time: if an object we know is replaced with a substitute, and we don't notice, after a while it will become true to say that our individual concept has changed its extension. But we don't let the extension change "across possible worlds" when representing counterfactual scenarios using a particular individual concept in a particular environment.
Part 2.
Individual concepts are under-discussed in contemporary philosophy. For further online reading on what they can do, see:
- My post at Philosophy, et cetera, 'An advertisement for individual concepts'
- A recent article by linguist Barbara Abbott, 'Support for Individual Concepts'.
- John McCarthy's article, 'First Order Theories of Individual Concepts and Propositions'. (Warning: arguably contains some use-mention confusion.)
Interestingly, neither of these authors are (primarily) philosophers.
Individual concepts are under-discussed in contemporary philosophy. For further online reading on what they can do, see:
- My post at Philosophy, et cetera, 'An advertisement for individual concepts'
- A recent article by linguist Barbara Abbott, 'Support for Individual Concepts'.
- John McCarthy's article, 'First Order Theories of Individual Concepts and Propositions'. (Warning: arguably contains some use-mention confusion.)
Interestingly, neither of these authors are (primarily) philosophers.
1 I pass over one well-known issue here, to do with the fact that Hesperus/Phosphorus might not have existed. There is a discussion of this on Greg Frost-Arnold's blog. If one is really worried about this, consider instead the example 'If Hesperus exists, then Hesperus is Phosphorus'.
2 It should be noted, however, that Mill's claim is appropriate if 'connotation' is interpreted to mean 'reference-determining sense' or 'general conceptual content', and likewise that the phrase 'direct reference' is appropriate if 'direct' is interpreted to mean 'not via general conceptual content' or 'not via reference-determining sense'.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Three True Semantic Externalisms
Putnam's catchphrase 'Meanings ain't in the head', and the associated label 'semantic externalism', are not without ambiguity, as many authors have pointed out. My aim here is not to separate and discuss everything which 'semantic externalism' could reasonably mean, or even everything it has meant to philosophers, but rather to identify three different true and insightful things it can mean. I believe that having all three insights, and having them separate, can pay big dividends in the philosophies of language and modality, but I won't try to make a case for that here.
We can look at language and thought on three levels:
1. Local marks and noises, local neural and sensory events.
2. Sense; game and moves; conceptual system and configuration; intension; internal content.
3. Reference; extension; external content in abstraction from internal.
We can individuate thoughts and propositions according to 2 alone, 3 alone, or 2 and 3 together. For example, on 2 alone, 'I am here' is the same proposition when you an I utter it, or when I utter it in different locations - we are making the same sort of move in the same sort of language-game. On 3 alone, 'I am here' expresses the same proposition as 'John is at location X' when the former is uttered by John at location X - extension (reference) is the same. On 2 and 3 together, 'I am here' is distinct when uttered by different people and at different locations, due to difference in extension, and also distinct from 'John is at location X' when both are uttered by John at X, due to conceptual difference (difference in sense, intension, language-game).
To take another kind of example, on 2 alone, 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' is distinct from 'Hesperus is Phosphorus', but identical to the Twin Earthian thought or proposition 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' - call this thought or proposition 'Twin-"Hesperus is Phosphorus"'. On 3 alone, 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' expresses the same proposition as 'Hesperus is Hesperus', but not the same proposition as any thought about Twin Venus. On 2 and 3 together, 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' is distinct from 'Hesperus is Hesperus' (due to difference with respect to 2), as well as from Twin-'Hesperus is Phosphorus' (due to difference with respect to 3) and from Twin-'Hesperus is Hesperus' (due to difference with respect to both 2 and 3).
The three semantic externalisms which I want to identify and separate can all be seen as underdetermination theses. They are:
Wittgenstein externalism: 1 doesn't determine 2 (i.e. local happenings don't determine intension).
Intension-based Putnam externalism: 2 doesn't determine 3 (i.e. intension doesn't determine extension).
Happenings-based Putnam externalism: 1 doesn't determine 3 (i.e. local happenings don't determine extension).
Note that the first two externalisms don't imply the third - while the relation of determining is arguably transitive, the relation of not determining isn't. Note also that 'determine' here means 'always determine' or 'generally determine' - determination in some cases is not being ruled out. I should also say that I attach no great importance to the labels used here for the three externalisms.
Finally, note that the expression 'internal content' above is not supposed to express the problematic notion of narrow content. Narrow content is often thought of as a kind of minimal intension, sense or internal content which is determined by happenings inside an agent's brain or body. That problematic notion isn't being discussed here.
I am currently working on a book on modality, in which this separation plays a key role.
Tristan Haze
Suggested reading
For Wittgenstein externalism: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Also his Zettel, and other later work.
For the Putnam externalisms: Putnam's classic 1975 paper 'The meaning of 'meaning', published in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193, reprinted in The Twin Earth Chronicles: Twenty Years of Reflection on Hilary Putnam's ``the Meaning of `Meaning' '' edited by Andrew Pessin & Sanford Goldberg, 1996, published by M. E. Sharpe.
We can look at language and thought on three levels:
1. Local marks and noises, local neural and sensory events.
2. Sense; game and moves; conceptual system and configuration; intension; internal content.
3. Reference; extension; external content in abstraction from internal.
We can individuate thoughts and propositions according to 2 alone, 3 alone, or 2 and 3 together. For example, on 2 alone, 'I am here' is the same proposition when you an I utter it, or when I utter it in different locations - we are making the same sort of move in the same sort of language-game. On 3 alone, 'I am here' expresses the same proposition as 'John is at location X' when the former is uttered by John at location X - extension (reference) is the same. On 2 and 3 together, 'I am here' is distinct when uttered by different people and at different locations, due to difference in extension, and also distinct from 'John is at location X' when both are uttered by John at X, due to conceptual difference (difference in sense, intension, language-game).
To take another kind of example, on 2 alone, 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' is distinct from 'Hesperus is Phosphorus', but identical to the Twin Earthian thought or proposition 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' - call this thought or proposition 'Twin-"Hesperus is Phosphorus"'. On 3 alone, 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' expresses the same proposition as 'Hesperus is Hesperus', but not the same proposition as any thought about Twin Venus. On 2 and 3 together, 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' is distinct from 'Hesperus is Hesperus' (due to difference with respect to 2), as well as from Twin-'Hesperus is Phosphorus' (due to difference with respect to 3) and from Twin-'Hesperus is Hesperus' (due to difference with respect to both 2 and 3).
The three semantic externalisms which I want to identify and separate can all be seen as underdetermination theses. They are:
Wittgenstein externalism: 1 doesn't determine 2 (i.e. local happenings don't determine intension).
Intension-based Putnam externalism: 2 doesn't determine 3 (i.e. intension doesn't determine extension).
Happenings-based Putnam externalism: 1 doesn't determine 3 (i.e. local happenings don't determine extension).
Note that the first two externalisms don't imply the third - while the relation of determining is arguably transitive, the relation of not determining isn't. Note also that 'determine' here means 'always determine' or 'generally determine' - determination in some cases is not being ruled out. I should also say that I attach no great importance to the labels used here for the three externalisms.
Finally, note that the expression 'internal content' above is not supposed to express the problematic notion of narrow content. Narrow content is often thought of as a kind of minimal intension, sense or internal content which is determined by happenings inside an agent's brain or body. That problematic notion isn't being discussed here.
I am currently working on a book on modality, in which this separation plays a key role.
Tristan Haze
Suggested reading
For Wittgenstein externalism: Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Also his Zettel, and other later work.
For the Putnam externalisms: Putnam's classic 1975 paper 'The meaning of 'meaning', published in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193, reprinted in The Twin Earth Chronicles: Twenty Years of Reflection on Hilary Putnam's ``the Meaning of `Meaning' '' edited by Andrew Pessin & Sanford Goldberg, 1996, published by M. E. Sharpe.
Friday, 29 April 2011
Breckenridge and Magidor on Arbitrary Reference: An apparent counterexample
[This is an early draft of a paper which, since being posted, has grown and changed title. Email me if you would like a copy. - TH 9/4/15]
In an interesting paper forthcoming in Phil. Studies, Breckenridge and Magidor argue for this thesis:
Arbitrary Reference (AR): It is possible to fix the reference of an expression arbitrarily. When we do so, the expression receives its ordinary kind of semantic-value, though we do not and cannot know which value in particular it receives.
Their primary argument in favour of AR is that it can be used to give an attractive account of 'instantial reasoning' such as this (their 'Argument 1'):
(1) There is someone x such that for every person y, x loves y [Premise]
(2) Let John be such a person
(3) For every person y, John loves y [Existential Instantiation on 1]
(4) Let Jane be an arbitrary person
(5) John loves Jane [Universal Instantiation on 3]
(6) There is some person x such that x loves Jane [Existential Generalisation on 5]
(7) But since Jane was an arbitrary person, for every person y there is some person x such that x loves y [Universal Generalisation on 6]
I will not attempt to rehearse, or even summarize, their arguments, since they state them well and their paper is freely available on Magidor's website. My purpose here is to give an apparent counterexample to the claim that AR can be used to give an attractive account of instantial reasoning.
The following appears to be a logical truth:
(Unref) If (all unreferred-to objects are white and there is an unreferred-to object), then there is a white object.
(By 'unreferred-to object', I mean an object which is never referred to by anyone or anything.) Here is a quasi-formal argument for (Unref):
(1) All unreferred-to objects are white and there is some unreferred-to object. [Assumption]
(2) All unreferred-to objects are white. [Conjunction Elimination on 1]
(3) There is some unreferred-to object. [Conjunction Elimination on 1]
(4) Let O be such an object.
(5) O is white. [Universal Instantiation on 2]
(6) There is some white object [Existential Generalization on 5]
(Unref) now follows from (1) - (6) by conditional proof.
This seems to be a valid argument. But the theory of instantial reasoning advanced by Breckenridge and Magidor seems to imply that the expression 'O' above refers to an unreferred-to object, which is absurd.
Tristan Haze
The University of Sydney
Reference
Breckenridge, Wylie & Magidor, Ofra (forthcoming). 'Arbitrary reference'. Philosophical Studies.
There is a post about this paper on Ross Cameron's blog here.
In an interesting paper forthcoming in Phil. Studies, Breckenridge and Magidor argue for this thesis:
Arbitrary Reference (AR): It is possible to fix the reference of an expression arbitrarily. When we do so, the expression receives its ordinary kind of semantic-value, though we do not and cannot know which value in particular it receives.
Their primary argument in favour of AR is that it can be used to give an attractive account of 'instantial reasoning' such as this (their 'Argument 1'):
(1) There is someone x such that for every person y, x loves y [Premise]
(2) Let John be such a person
(3) For every person y, John loves y [Existential Instantiation on 1]
(4) Let Jane be an arbitrary person
(5) John loves Jane [Universal Instantiation on 3]
(6) There is some person x such that x loves Jane [Existential Generalisation on 5]
(7) But since Jane was an arbitrary person, for every person y there is some person x such that x loves y [Universal Generalisation on 6]
I will not attempt to rehearse, or even summarize, their arguments, since they state them well and their paper is freely available on Magidor's website. My purpose here is to give an apparent counterexample to the claim that AR can be used to give an attractive account of instantial reasoning.
The following appears to be a logical truth:
(Unref) If (all unreferred-to objects are white and there is an unreferred-to object), then there is a white object.
(By 'unreferred-to object', I mean an object which is never referred to by anyone or anything.) Here is a quasi-formal argument for (Unref):
(1) All unreferred-to objects are white and there is some unreferred-to object. [Assumption]
(2) All unreferred-to objects are white. [Conjunction Elimination on 1]
(3) There is some unreferred-to object. [Conjunction Elimination on 1]
(4) Let O be such an object.
(5) O is white. [Universal Instantiation on 2]
(6) There is some white object [Existential Generalization on 5]
(Unref) now follows from (1) - (6) by conditional proof.
This seems to be a valid argument. But the theory of instantial reasoning advanced by Breckenridge and Magidor seems to imply that the expression 'O' above refers to an unreferred-to object, which is absurd.
Tristan Haze
The University of Sydney
Reference
Breckenridge, Wylie & Magidor, Ofra (forthcoming). 'Arbitrary reference'. Philosophical Studies.
There is a post about this paper on Ross Cameron's blog here.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
On the Interpretation of the Propositional Calculus
I've just posted another (more recent) longer article on my homepage, On the Interpretation of the Propositional Calculus. The next post will be a short article, I promise.
Comments are welcome. Here is the abstract:
Comments are welcome. Here is the abstract:
The question considered is 'How can formulae of the propositional calculus be brought into a representational relation with the world?'. Four approaches are discussed: (1) the denotational approach, on which formulae are taken to denote objects, (2) the abbreviational approach, on which formulae and connectives are taken to abbreviate natural-language expressions, (3) the truth-conditional approach, on which truth-conditions are stipulated for formulae, and (4) the modelling approach, on which formulae, together with either valuation- or proof-theory, are regarded as an abstract structure capable of bearing (via stipulation) a representational relation to the world.
The modelling approach is developed here for the first time. The simple technical apparatus used for this is then applied to two issues in the philosophy of logic. (1) I demonstrate a corollary or converse to Carnap's result that certain 'non-normal' valuation-functions can be added to the set of admissible valuations of formulae without destroying the soundness and completeness of standard proof-theories. This sheds considerable light on a recent thread of the inferentialism debate which involves dialectical use of Carnap's result. (2) I show how the approach can be extended to quantification theory, by defining a model-theoretic notion of validity equivalent to the usual one, but making use of a proof-theoretic apparatus in place of the device of assigning values to formulae. This sheds light on the close relationship between proof- and valuation-theory.
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