COLLECTED PAPERS GARETH EVANS CLARENDON PRESS - OXFORD 1985AWOLerr 94/ b Aga / as ie, Osford Unierity Pres, Walton Src, Oxford OX2 6DP (Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Celatebadas Kersh ‘sais Lumpur Sinaapore Hong Rong Tokyo bob Dare Sls Cpe Town Melbourne Auctiend snd asocsted companies in erat Bern Tedon Nicos Oxford tsa rade mark of Oxford Unversity Pres Publhed nthe United States 1 Oxford Unrray Pre, Nee York © Antone Pits 1985 Arihsrexved, No part ofthis pubetion may be reproduced, Stored ine rea steno tonite ‘any form or by any means ‘etonc, mechan photocopying, recording, other, wiht ia her ther than thar nhc ‘cling thie coniton' Th book of rade oven ‘the Dror permission of Oxfod Unteriy Pres {eld abet tthe condition tht thal not, by wa ther, Dent, Weald, hed ou or other red ror consent ian frm of Binding ot cover, 1 pbuh and without sl consi be iponed on he subiegucnt pacha Sth Ltr align Pabeston Dt en Cath 348- ele pe 1. An copy 1 Title 4 10:54 amas 1900 0-15.826737.0 Se sets Acts se Lint. 0 einted n Gree Brin cn 10h Unive Bea by David Stanford vers Pinierto the tne Foreword ‘Of the thirteen papers by Gareth Evans included here all but two have been published before, either in journals or in collections; several of them appeared posthumously, although submitted for publication by the author. The most natural arrangement for these papers seemed to be a chronological ‘one, not least because the suggestion that each paper equally reflects Evans's latest views is avoided. It is probable that he would have made some revisions, had he been preparing the collection himself. None but the most minor editorial altera- tions has been made to the published texts; of the wo Previously unpublished papers, only one, ‘Does Tense Logic Rest Upon a Mistake”, was submitted for publication by Evans. The other, ‘Molyneux’s Question’ i a first draft, and would not have been published by Evans as it stands. Even 50, I have left it as he left it, merely correcting misquota tions and the occasional infelicity of prose. Two appendices have been added. The first reprints a brief reply to a paper by Jerry Fodor, while the other provides an afterthought to “Semantic Structure and Logical Form’ communicated in a letter to David Wiggins. Had it been possible to sift through letters and notebooks in a systematic way, doubtless other such afterthoughts would have come to light ‘A number of people have generously offered advice and assistance in preparing this collection, for which Iam grate- ful: John McDowell, Colin McGinn, Galen Strawson, David Wiggins and Bruce Vermazen. My thanks are also due to the Staff of Oxford University Press, who have been both helpful and patient. ANTONIA PHILLIPSu ry 13 Contents ‘The Causal Theory of Names Identity and Predication ‘Semantic Structure and Logical Form Pronouns, Quantifiers, and Relative Clauses (1) Pronouns, Quantifiers, and Relative Clauses (II) Can There Be Vague Objects? Reference and Contingency Pronouns ‘Things Without the Mind—A Commentary upon Chapter Two of Strawson’s Individuals Understanding Demonstratives ‘Semantic Theory and Tacit Knowledge Does Tense Logic Rest upon a Mistake? Molyneux’s Question Appendix I: Commentary on Jerry A. Fodor's “Methodological Solipsism’ Appendix Il: A Further Reflection on Semantic Structure and Logical Form Index 25 49 16 153 176 178 214 249 21 322 343 364 400 405,‘The Causal Theory of Names 1. In a paper which provides the starting-point of this enquiry Saul Kripke opposes what he calls the Description ‘Theory of Names and makes @ counter-proposal of what I shall call the Causal Theory.! To be clear about what is at stake and what should be the outcome in the debate he initiated seems to me important for our understanding of talk and thought about the world in general as well as for our understanding of the functioning of proper names. 1 am anxious therefore that we identify the profound bases and likely generalizations of the opposing positions and do not content ourselves with counter-examples. I should say that Kripke deliberately held back from presenting his ideas as a theory. 1 shall have to tighten them up, and I may suggest perhaps unintended directions of generalization; therefore his paper should be checked before the Causal Theory I consider is attributed to him. There are two related but distinguishable questions con- cerning proper names. The first is about what the name denotes upon a particular occasion of its use when this is understood as being partly determinative of what the speaker strictly and literally said, 1 shall use the faintly barbarous coinage: what the speaker denotes (upon an occasion) for this notion. The second is about whar the name denotes; we want to know what conditions have to be satisfied by an expression and an item for the first to be the, or a, name of the second, There is an entirely parallel pair of questions concerning general terms. In both cases it is ambiguity om ASSV 47 (1973), pp, 187-208. Reprinted by pemision ofthe Aratoteh SUA, Kripke, ‘Naming and Neceaiy nD. Dassen and G. Harman eds. Semantics of” Natural Language (Dordrcht= Reifel 1972), pp. 283388 ("appenats2 The Causal Theory of Names sic prevents anny ane of he fn n tems of he thing which is x's name, ion Gonquety thee are two Description Theories, not distinguished by Kripke? The Description | Theory of speaker's. denotton hos tat «name NN denotes apon sparc lar octsion ofits se by a speaker Stn canes ual at which sss al or mest of te descnpions 6 ek tha would ase to NN ie (or ‘Th NN ie) Cade the cer of iformation Shas sss withthe mae M the speaker has no invduating informatie he fet ntaing Desition Theory of what name denotes holds sociated wth each name a sed ya tov of spoon who ele and intend that they are ng te gape ee sume denotation is decnion ft of dectng calabe fom thc baich wich an iem hoe torent be the bearer ofthe name. This deerpion hosed eso tle of the name i exon ientiy and ea by means commited 0 the ih dunnton ena a ah 8 Foe ea re ot eben ttc ea eee SE he description will figur s et cin yh et kes by; most’ conspicuously. "ne 7 oor i a ‘Mane es ofan ict of Soe ee isa Paper passes this latter theory charge that the Description acter of naming. I shall not hing he Decotion Thewy os that don eliminating on Thera cure do nt 1 espoue bot 8 1989) pt yer, nd ma ‘non’ Meth The Causal Theory of Names 3 Kripke's direct attacks are unquestionably against the first Description Theory, He argues: (a) An ordinary man in the street can denote the physicist Feynman by using the name ‘Feynman’ and say something true or false of him even though there is no description uniquely true of the physicist which he can fashion. (The conditions aren’t necessary.) (b) A person who associated with the name ‘Godel’ merely the description ‘prover of the incompleteness of Arithmetic’ would none the less be denoting Godel and saying something false of him in uttering ‘Godel proved the incompleteness of Arithmetic’ even if an unknown Viennese by the name of Schmidt had in fact constructed the proof which Gédel had subsequently broadcast as his own. (If it is agreed that the speaker does not denote Schmidt the conditions aren't sufficient; if it is also agreed that he denotes Godel, again they are not necessary.) ‘The strong thesis (that the Description Theorist’s con- ditions are sufficient) is outrageous. What the speaker denotes in the sense we are concerned with is connected with saying in that strict sense which logicians so rightly prize, and the theory’s deliverance of strict truth conditions are quite unacceptable. They would have the consequence, for ex- ample, that if I was previously innocent of knowledge or belief regarding Mr Y, and X is wrongly introduced to me as Mr Y, then I must speak the truth in uttering °Mr Y is here* since 'X satisfies the overwhelming majority of descriptions L would associate with the name and X is there. I have grave doubts as to whether anyone has ever seriously held this thesis It is the weaker thesis—that some descriptive identifica tion is necessary for a speaker to denote something—that it is important to understand. Strictly, Kripke’s examples do not show it to be false since he nowhere provides convincing reason for not taking into account speakers’ Possession of descriptions like ‘man bearing such-and-such name’; but I too think itis false. It can be seen as the fusion of two thoughts, First: that in order to be saying something by uttering an expression one must utter the sentence with4 The Causal Theory of Names cei intentions; thi i elt to requ, in the case of sem tenes containing names, that one be shmig at something wih one's st of the name, Socondly—and this where the Underpinning fom ‘certain Phiosophy of Mind becomes aparent—to have an intention or belie concerning some item hich one isnot in'@ poston to demonstately ienity) one must bein poseson of description nigly "eof it. Both strands deserve atest momentary sree eat pone opus oo aul trom the obacration at neither parts nor the windy things ote conclusion tat ‘ony that preques tat one must intend toes tn oad theo to speak, be ale to ently nderenaendy ot one's seience, But the most we are ened fo conclude thao ay something one mus intend toy comeing by ering one's sentence Cone: normal wl intend toto what S99), The application athe ster enaitonent would leads to relate too mach of our diacouts the ats of mee mouthing We constantly ane wenger eh of whos sasfactioncondtions we have but Ue orem ey “Mcobiclogs' chlorine" (ihe su in suis noch ncotne’ (the stuff in carts) these and eee oe words we cannot define nor offer remarks wi ned us Say nothing by uteringsentone son eth DFENS, even if we reo fromm the resis, from saying that what we do sj ctermined by those hazy ideas an ee Wy tose hazy ideas and haldentiicnions oe ee Be Phony of Win is made perfec explicit Ion S believes. tee tenoot turiously popular but rarely ld by anyone who holds tha that ais Fifand only it) YON" WhO holds that 2015 believes Snide & Wy) (4y +x = 5) & Fey) ago & (ey +y =a) 160 pr Gana SPE A Camber: Cambs Unter Ps Saletan oe ot feet tet rw ith Sega mm xl Pinhal op 3%, Di Bal Nocene et Osa Veeder ow The Causal Theory of Names s Obvious alterations would accommodate the other psycho- logical attitudes. The range of the property quantifier must be restricted to exclude such properties as ‘being identical with a’, otherwise the criterion is trivial’ The situation in which @ thinking, planning or wanting human has some item Which is the object of his thought, plan or desire is repre- sented as a species of essentially the same situation as that Which holds when there is no object and the thought, plan or desire is, as we might say, purely general. There are thoughts, such asthe thought that there are eleven-fingered men, for whose expression general terms of the language suffice The idea is that when the psychological state involves an object, a general term believed to be uniquely instantiated and in fact uniquely instantiated by the item which is the Object of the state will figure in its specification. This idea may be coupled with a concession that there are certain privileged objects to which one may be more directly related; indeed such a concession appears to be needed if the theory is to be able to allow what appears an evident possibility: object-directed thoughts in a perfectly symmetrical or cyclical universe This idea about the nature of object-directed psychological attitudes obviously owes much to the feeling that there must be something we can say about what is believed or wanted even when there is no appropriate object actually to be found in the world, But it can also be seen as deriving support from 4 Principle of Charity: so attribute objects to beliefs that true beliet is maximized. (I do not think this is an acceptable Principle; the acceptable principle enjoins minimizing the attribution of inexplicable error and therefore cannot be Operated without a theory of the causation of belief for the creatures under investigation.) We cannot deal comprehensively with this Philosophy of Mind here, My objections to it are essentially those of Wittgenstein. For an item to be the object of some psycho: logical attitude of yours may be simply for you to be placed ina context which relates you to that thing. What makes it one rather than the other of a pair of identical twins that you are in love with? Certainly not some specification blueprinted 1 Tw this observation to G. Haan6 ‘The Causal Theory of Names in your mind; it may be no more than this: it was one of them and not the other that you have met. The theorist ‘may gesture to the description ‘the one I have met’ but ccan give no explanation for the impossibility of its being Outweighed by other descriptions which may have been ‘acquired as a result of error and which may in fact happen to fit the other, unmet, twin. If God had looked into your ‘mind, he would not have seen there with whom you were in love, and of whom you were thinking, With that I propose to begin considering the Causal Theory. Perticee maine to offer some new The Causal Theory of Names 7 the Description Theory since the scraps of information which he picked up during the conversation might involve some distor- tion and fit someone else much better. Of course he has the description ‘the man they were talking about" but the theory has no explanation for the impossibility of its being out- weighed, The Causal Theory can secure the right answer in such a ease but I think deeper reflection will reveal that it too involves a refusal to recognize the insight about contextual determination | mentioned earlier. For the theory has the following consequence: that at any future time, no matter how remote or forgotten the conversation, no matter how alien the subject-matter and confused the speaker, Swill denote one particular Frenchman—perhaps Louis XIlI— so long as there is a causal connection between his use at that time and the long-distant conversation. It is important in testing your intuitions against the theory that you imagine the predicate changed—so that he says something like ‘Louis was a basketball player’ which was not heard in the conversation and which arises as a result of some confusion. This is to prevent the operation of what I call the “mouthpiece syndrome’ by which we attach sense and refer- fence to a man’s remarks only because we hear someone else Speaking through him:as we might with a messenger, carrying a ‘message about matters of which he was entirely ignorant. Now there ix no knockdown argument to show this Consequence unacceptuble; with pliant enough intuitions you can swallow anything in philosophy. But notice how little Point there is in saying that he denotes one French king rather than any other, or any other person’ named by the ame. There is now nothing that the speaker is prepared to Say or do which relates him differentially to that one king This is why it is so outrageous to say that he believes that Louis XIII is a basketball player. The notion of saying has simply been severed from all the connections that made it of interest. Certainly we did not think we were letting Ourselves in for this when we took the point about the conversation in the pub, What has gone wrong?* * Kripke expresses doubts about the sllicency of the condition fo hs sort oF reaon, ee opt p. 303,8 The Causal Theory of Names The Causal Theory agin ignores the importance of sur ‘ounding context, and rgutds the capeciy to denote some. thing 8 8 magic tack wich ha somehow been pased on and once pased on cannot Pe fos. We should rather soya Situ of the context in which the man found Rimsll the tan’ Gispoitions were bent towards one parr an ~ Louis XILI—whose sates and doings alone he would count serving to verily remarks made nthe content sna the name. And of coune that context can persist Yor the convention can ite be adverted to subsequently, But can ao disappear so that the speaker simply not senitve wth atone fay eto reeding te fh ot detached, and uninteresting. _ {iis worth observing how ambivalent Kripke is on the ‘elton between denoting and belcung whee the coanes ton favours him he ses we are remind for everest oiary man has a Take Bele about Code eed nota te ele aout Schmidt. But tis obvious that te eae G the ‘who are they believing about?" criterion are bound ‘ocome damaticaly apart tom te wulisaltae here ibe orinal bearer ofthe name? criterion irforne other mace thatthe former mt ‘ppl. When tis happens ‘Krier and x sages The Causal Theory of Names 9 appropriately be used to say that q and that r and that s in addition? Two obvious alternative answers are. {a) the extent to which it is reasonable for his audience to conclude that he was saying that p (b)his intending to say that p and neither is without its difficulties, We can therefore imagine someone is hoping for a natural extension of the Causal Theory to general terms which would enable him to explain for example how a child who did not have deter- minative intentions because of the technical nature of the subject-matter may still say something determinate using a sentence which isin fact ambiguous. touch upon this to ensure that we are keeping the range of relevant considerations to be brought to bear upon the debate as wide as it must be. But I think little general ad- vantage can accrue to the Causal Theory from thus broaden- ing the considerations, The reason is that it simply fails to have the generality of the other two theories; it has no obvious application, for example, to syntactic. ambiguity oF to ambiguity produced by attempts to refer with non- unique descriptions, or pronouns. It seems inconceivable that the general theory of disambiguation required for such cases would be inadequate to deal with the phenomenon of shared names and would require ad foc supplementation from the Causal Theory want to stress how, precisely because the Causal Theory jnores the way context can be determinative of what gets Said, it has quite unacceptable consequences. Suppose, for example, on a TY quiz programme I am asked to name @ capital city and 1 say “Kingston is the capital of Jamaica | should want to say that I had said something strictly and lierally true even though it tums out that the man from whom T ha picked up this serapof information wa actuely Feferring to Kingston upon Thames and making & racis observation, . : It may begin to appear that what gets suid is going to be determined by what name is used, what items bear the name, and general principles of contextual disambiguation. The10 The Causal Theory of Names causal origin.of the speaker’s familiarity with the name, save in certain specialized ‘mouthpiece cases’, does not seem to hhave a critical role to play. This impression may be strengthened by the observation that a causal connection between my use of the name and use by others (whether or not leading back ultimately to the item itself) is simply not necessary for me to use the name {0 sty something. Amongst the Wagera Indians, for example, ‘newly bom children receive the names of deceased members (of their family according to strict rules. . . the first bor takes on the name of the paternal grandfather, the second that of the father’s eldest brother, the third ‘that of the maternal grandfather’.* In these and other situations (names for streets in US cities etc.) @ knowledgeable speaker may Picofitate a name and use it to denote some item which peas it without any causal connection whatever with the use by others of that name. jIhese points might be conceded by Kripke while main- {ining the general position that the denotation of a name in 4 community is still to be found by teference preserving links back theory that I now tum, 3. Suppose a parallel theo: of general terms (not j Would reply as follows, ry were offered to explain the sense ust terms for natural kinds). One “There aren't two fundam involved in a w that a word ak ‘mechanism — reserved. Th 0 lentally different mechanisms ord's having a meaning: one bringing it about waes @ meaning, and the other—a causal Wich operates to ensure that its meaning i Mince? Processes are operative all the tines its meaning also explains Indeed such a theory n of a word's changing this to happen without The Causal Theory of Names u of the mesning of general terms, Change of denottion i Silay dechle apa the Cau Theo of Names: Rot only are changes of denotaton imainale, but appears that they actualy occur. We lem from uaa Taylor's Nomes and their History (1898) or Arab sllors In the case of ‘Madagascar’ a hearsay report of Malay or misundrsood ty Marco Polo has had the effet of transferring 8 comupt form of the name ofa portion ofthe African mainland tot teat African Island, the speakers to use the name to refer to something must 20% Goliath? For although thi hes never eon expic ty weg Sgn st pny merely that ‘Goliath was the Philistine David slew’ this ons And if we simultaneously thought that the name Hd denote the Philistine slain by Elhannan then both — mi Deckwort, 1940. full W. Robinon, The History of Hae! (London pum2 The Causal Theory of Names Theo ofthe denotation of name ae reeeted, This the ‘ase Kripke should have argued but didn’ 4: Before sing onto sketch auch a theory inthe second pr of ths apr me suney the pontn ard ane te ome 8 summary sttment the yorting [wah om ny Salement of the postion wih i We can soe the unifrentitea the expression of two thoughts. gad te (2) The denotation of a name is determine: what ean intend to refer to by using the name. of nalt) TM Objet a speaker Intend torte to by his use ofa © that which sites ofits the majorhy of deseie tons whch make ap ‘Speaker has associated with the name. a We have seen increta at OF the pheno changing it, suggests that ; 13s in (by tha Eaten ee a weakness les: the bad old Philo- 2 oro eh th the intended setorent eee ne plicated wa ion, but the spoon sat&4 Way by the associated informa. to take: ar Tie form the determination wes supoened The Causal Theory of Names 13 of the causal relation between the item concerned and the speaker. But it seems to me that he has mislocated the causal relation; the important causal relation lies between that item's states and doings and the speaker's body of informa tion—not between the item's being dubbed with «name {nd the speaker's contemporary use of it Philosophers have come increasingly to realize that major concepts in epistemology and the philosophy of mind have causality embedded within them. Seeing and knowing are both good examples. ‘The absurdity in supposing that the denotation of our contemporary use of the name ‘Aristotle’ could be some unknown (n.b.) item whose doings are causally isolated from our body of information is strictly parallel to the absurdity in supposing that one might be seeing some- thing one has no causal contact with solely upon the ground that there is a splendid match between object and visual impression, ‘There probably is some degree of fit requirement in the se of seeing which means that after some amount of distortion or fancy we can no longer maintain that the causally operative item was still being seen. And I think itis likely that there is a parallel requirement for referring. We ‘earn, for example, trom E. K. Chambers's Arthur of Britain that Arthur had a son Ani¢ ‘whom legend has perhaps con- {used with his burial place’. If Kripke's notion of reference fixing is such that those who said Anir was a burial place of Arthur might be denoting a person it seems that it has litle {0 commend it, and is certainly not justified by the criticism be makes against the Description Theory. But the existence GF nature of this “degree of fit” requirement will not be Something I shall be concerned with here. fe must allow, then, that the denotation of a name in the community will depend in a complicated way upon what these who use the term intend to refer to, but we wills understand ‘intended referent? that typically a mecessr (but not sufficient) condition for x's being the intended GEERE of S's use of a name s that x shouldbe the sours of aust origin Jody of information that S has associate wat ita ofthe body of in4 The Causal Theory of Names 1 ais aim have sot myself, then, is modest; it is not to Frere, S Complete theory of the denotation of names. Mitout presenting a general theory to solve the problem of Sntity | cannot presenta theory of speaker's denotation, i will make remarks which prejudice that issue. [ propose merely to sketch an account of what makes an ro change te ye Tame for something that wl allow names The enterprise is more mod myself to an undefined not borrowing from the the explanation, ‘peak may have suceeded in communicating that ootioea teens P even though he cammuncating tha We uses a sentence which Ppvopiately be used to say that p. Presumably this his audience's having formed a belief eed not be the belief that the speaker strict sense that p, since the speaker feting Something acios despite tank 2 lest yet for 1 propose to help ed notion of speaker's reference by \eory of communication. But a word of intended to say in may succeed in win ted ion byt |e et (one may not thus denote x. PHO” that x does not satistys ‘and-such an item in the ceo, OF believe that 7 thsi uhere a8 Wodd and intend to veer to, Ad Of information the w(t 8eneral) the satistier of the body ‘makes it true that he eee, OY the speaker of which "unt esponible thant Pade of information, or dot se na ec th The Causal Theory of Names 1s ‘opposed to other psychological attitudes.) Let us then, very briefly, explore these two ideas: source and dominance. Usually our knowledge or belief about particular items is derived from information-gathering transactions, involving causal interaction with some item or other, conducted our- selves or is derived, maybe through a long chain, from the transactions of others. Perception of the item is the main but by no means the only way an item can impress itself on us; for example, a man can be the source of things we dis- cover by rifling through his suitcase or by reading his works. A causal relation is of course not sufficient; but we may borrow from the theory of knowledge and sey something like this. X is the source of the belief $ expresses by uttering ‘Fa’ if there was an episode which caused 5's belief in which X and S were causally related in a type of situation apt for producing knowledge that something F's (3x(Fx))—a type of situation in which the belief that something F-s would be caused by something's Fing. That it is a way of producing Knowledge does not mean that it cannot go wrong: that is why X, by smoking French cigarettes, can be the source of the belief $ expresses by ‘a smokes Greek cigarettes’. ‘Of course some of our information about the world is not so based; we may deduce that there is a tallest man in the world and deduce that he is over 6 feet tall. No man is the source of this information; a name introduced in rela- Yon to it might function ery much a the unamended scription Theory suggested. Legend and fancy cam create new characters, or add bodies of sourceless material to other dossiers; restrictions on the causal relation would prevent the inventors of the legends tuming out to be the sources of the beliefs their legends gave rise to. Someone other than the @ can be the source Of the belief S expresses by ‘a is the 9"; Kripke’s Godel, by claiming the proof, was the source of the belief people manifested by saying ‘Godel proved the incompleteness of Arithmetic’, not Schmidt. Misidentification can bring it about that the item which is the source of the information is different from the item about which the information is believed. 1 may form the belief about the wife of some colleague that she has nice leeste ‘The Causal Theory of Names Upon the basis of seeing someone else—but the gitl I saw is the source, Consequently a cluster or dossier of information can be dominantly of' an item though it contains elements whose Source is different. And we surely want to allow that per- sistent misidentification can bring it about that a cluster is dominantly of some item other than that it was dominantly of originally. Suppose 1 get to know a man slightly. Suppose then a Suitably primed identical twin takes over his position, and I ft to know him fairly well, not noticing the switch, Im mediately after the switch my dossier will still be dominantly f the onginal man, and I falsely believe, as | would acknow- ledge if i€ was pointed out, that he is in the room. Then | {ould pos through a period in which neither was dominant: { Mal ‘not misidentified one as the other, an asymmetrical {ction but rather confused them. Finally the twin could ile [over the dominant position; 1 would not have false beliefs about who isin the room, but fase beliefs about, for Guamele, when 1 first met the man in the room. These GUigfences seem to reside entirely in the differences in the felever’s teactions to the vatious discoveries, and domi- ‘ance is meant to capture those differences Deiminance is not simply a function of amount of informa Coane nas €¥en intelligible). Inthe case of persons, [ot Suarele, @ach man’s life presents a skeleton and the domi rant source may be the man who contributed to covering ‘most of it rather than the man who contrit most of the ‘Covering. Detail in a ewes ‘ sprvad Also the bel itemat alli weigh articular area can be outweighed bY levers reasons for being interested in the The Causal Theory of Names ” (ain Diagram 1) and we would say that they had false beliefs about who fought at Waterloo. If however the switch had occurred much earlier, it being an unknown Army Officer teing impersonated, then their information would be domi nantly of the later’ man (B in Diagram 2). They did not have false beliefs about who was the general at Waterloo, but ‘ather false beliefs about that general's early career. Diagram | Dusan 2 intends to | think we can say that tn general 2 speaker intents fy {tothe tem thatthe dominant sours of Be sere, 28 of information. Iti important to see that this wil nt hange from occasion to occasion depending Upon ‘alter. Some have proposed"! that if in case | the NVR 8 ‘Napoleon fought skifully at Waterloo’ it is the impose 8 who is the intended referent, while if he had said (Ht ext breath *. . unlike his performance in the Senate’ owl be a. This seems a mistake: not onl was wt Mg Sid fase, what he intended to say was false 100, Satna peta at Waterio, sgtons, in Davidson 11k 8: Donnelan, Proper Names and 1deatfying Deiter ‘aman (eda) opts 37118 The Causal Theory of Names With this background, then, we may offer the following tentative definition: “NN isa name of x if there is a community |. in which ts common knowledge that members of Chave in ther repertoire the procedure of using ‘NN’ to refer tox 2 tthe intention of retening tox) le ‘Success in reference in any particular case being Intended to rely on common knowledge between speaker and hearer that ‘NN’ has been used to refer to» by mem ber of C and not upon common knowledge of the sits faction by x of some predicate embedded in "NN’? {inorder to kep the defini to cover the sense in which ame isa name) This distinction between use-b and use upon other bases) Lingush dead fom lve metapy Sal on Which fo. dita of descriptions. ears ‘The definition does not have the consequence that the ‘ential device does not rely upon common knowl ition simple no attempt is made i unused institutionally approved ecause-(we know)-we-use-it just what is needed to dis- OFS; it seems to me the only ish referential functioning of ally be descriptions, from that 8 i about that a name gets m tention being manifest there icammon knovledge required Yor the practice an enelons ae more stringent than Kripke since fo as dubbed sols, bécomes a ame just so long as someone ge ne Mth it and thereby caused it to Bein pone Th Seems lite short of magical, Suppose RBs dubbed alte gil on holiday it i em a Sint eaersaceie a : sions ma foto of Lana (96, Ce SE ayo et omit ishere mae =aP cme ee DK. Lewis, Gonrention 65), and ihe sghly leet arendon Peay, 197 Mee Meaning, cap. V. The Causal Theory of Names 19 the vicinity ‘Goldilocks’ and the name caught on, However suppose that there were two identical twins the villagers totally fail to distinguish. 1 should deny that ‘Goldilocks’ is the name of either—even if by some miracle each villager used the name consistently but in no sense did they fall into two coherent sub-communities. (The name might denote the irl first dubbed if for some peculiar reason the villagers were deferential to the introducer of the name—of this more below.) Consider the following case. An umn is discovered in the Deed Sea containing documents on which are found fascinat- ing mathematical proofs. Inscribed at the bottom is the name ‘Ibn Khan’ which is quite naturally taken to be the name of the constructor of the proofs. Consequently it passes into common usage amongst mathematicians concemed with that branch of mathematics. ‘Khan conjectured here that .. "and the like, However suppose the name was the name of the Scribe who had transcribed the proofs much later; a small “id seripsit® had been obliterated Here is a perfect case where there is a coherent community Using the name with the mathematician as the intended feferent and a consequence of the definition would be that ‘thn Khan’ would be one of his names. Also, ‘Malachi’ would have been the name of the author of the biblical work of the fame name despite that its use was based upon & mis apprehension (‘Malachi’ means my messenger Speakers within such traditions use names under the mis- prehension that their use is in conformity with the use of other speakers referring to the relevant item. The names Would probably be withdrawn when that misapprehension is tevealed, or start a rather different life as ‘our’ names for the items (cf. ‘Deutero Isaiah’ etc.). One might be impressed by this, and regard it as @ reason for denying that those within these traditions spoke the literal truth in using the names. ¢ is vety easy to add a codicil to the definition which woul have this effect. Actually it is not a very good reason for den; speakers within such traditions are speaking th ¥ See 0. Fisted, The Old Textment: An Introduction (Orford: Oxford Valery Pet 965), pA ying that literal20 The Causal Theory of Names truth. But 1 do not want to insist upon any decision on this point. This is because one can be concessive and allow the definition to be amended without giving up anything of importance. Fist: the definition with its codicil will still allow many names to change their denotation, Secondly: from the fact that, in our example, the community of mathe- ‘aticians were not denoting the mathematician it obviously fails to follow that they were denoting the scribe and were ‘engaged in strictly speaking massive falsehood of him. Let me elaborate the first of these points There is a fainly standard way in which people get their ‘ames. If we use a name of a man we expect that it originated in the standard manner and this expectation may condition ut use of it, But consider names for people which are Qbvious nicknames, or names for places or pieces of music. fice there is no standard way in which these names ar bestowed subsequent users will not in general use the name Under any view as to its origin, and therefore when there is a liveeence between the item involved in the name's origin 3n4 ihe speakers’ intended referent there will be no mis- SPurchension, no latent motive for withdrawing the name, anu thus no bar to the name's acquiring a new denotation Pesce the amended definition. So long as they have no lve that the name has dragged any inform: ,Peakers will teat the revelation that the name 7 used to refer to something different with the Same sort of indifference a5 that with ohich een information that ‘meat™ The Causal Theory of Names 2 was a fish salesman and was never at Waterloo” show any- thing. The relevant question is: ‘Does this contradict the assertion that was made when the historians said “Napoleon was at Waterloo”?” To give an affirmative answer to this question requires the prior determination that they have all along been denoting a “We need one further and major complication. Althoush standardly we use expressions with the intention of conform ing to the general use made of them by the community, Sometimes we use them with the overriding intention to conform to the use made of them by some other person or persons. In that case I shall say that we use the expression eferentially (with respect to that other person or group of Pessons). This is true of some general terms too: ‘viol, ‘minuet” would be examples, | should say, for example, that the man in the converst- tion in the pub used ‘Louis’ deferentially. This is not just 4 matter of his ignorance: he could, indeed, have an opinion 4 to who this Louis is (the man he met earlier perhaps) but Still use the expression deferentially. There is an important mp between the 65 intending to refer to the @ and believing that intending to refer tow for even when fe has an opinion as to who they are talking ato, and mot the he mt ea, tha he intended © sero Archaologsts might find a tomb inthe desert and claim erin the Bible, They could discover» get ea about the Bn inthe ton so tht he and ot he chase ble'was the dominant source of thet information, Buty fen the nature and pint of their enters the acho ‘ogists are using the name deferentially to the authors Ci e Bibi Shoulda thes tatty denote that man and 47 false things about him. Notice that in such a case there ‘Some point to this ee ovat cise fin act no dierent from any sit @ name is used with the ‘overriding intention of referring t tation in which2 The Causal Theory of Names something satisfying such-andsuch a description. Kripke fives the example of “Jack the Ripper’. Again, after the arrest of a man a not in fact responsibie for the crimes, g can be the dominant source of speakers" information but the intended referent could well be the murderer and Rot a: Again this will be productive of a whole lot of fale- Wwe do not use all names deferentially, least of all de- Eeemtaly to the person trom whom we picked them uP ey ample, the mathematicians did not use the name wp tan’ with the overriding intention of referring t0 Mocver bore that name or was referred to by some other Peton or community rihmt thus be careful to distinguish two reasons for Semeanite that would count as “withdrawing. sentences Containing the name’ a) © the items n ‘Malachi’ (©) the tem’s not being NN (the biblical archaeologists) {ital 2nd with an example that enables me to draw these threads together and summ, ‘A youth 4 leaves a small vill to seth his fortune Al willage inthe Scottish highlands 6 reas fortune having acquired the nickname “Turnip cor ao kd ‘hoosing a nickname is hope clear). Filly hermit over ate itt B comes to the village and Ives a ¢ the tine or il: The thre or four villager surviving rom lone-departeg cull’ departure believe falsely that this is ilar returned, Consequently they use the ‘mselves and it gets into. wider }ot bearing the name ‘NN* (‘Ibn Khan’, that See | should say that they use the iter tty denoting him, say false things ‘ting “Here is Turnip coming to get his 4 homogeneous community ‘The Causal Theory of Names 2B ting the name to refer to the man over the hill. I should say the way is clear to its becoming his name, The story is not ‘uch affected if the older villagers pass on some information whose source is A by saying such things as “Tumip was uite @ one for the girl’, for the younger villagers’ clusters would still be dominantly of the man over the hill. But its an important feature of my account that the informa- tion that the older villagers gave the younger villagers could be so rich, coherent, and important to them that 4 could te the dominant source of their information, so that they ‘eo would acknowledge ‘That man over the hill isn't Tumip alter all” A final possibility would be if they used the name deferen- tilly towards the older villagers, for some reason, with the tonsequence that no matter who was dominant they denote whoever the elders denote. §. Conclusion. Espousers of both theories could reasonably glam t0 be vindicated by the position we have arrived at. We have secured for the Description Theorist much that he Manted. We have seen that for at least the most fundamental GE of the use of names (non-deferentially used names) the idea that their denotation is fixed in a more or less com- Plated way by the associated bodies of information thet ie SOuld cull trom the users of the name tums out not to $0 wide of the mark. But of course thatthe fx is by causal Grain and not by fit crucially affects the impact this idea has Won the statement of the truth conditions of existential Or opaque sentences containing names, The theorist can also Bein to the idea of dominance as securing what he was trying, ainittedly crudely, to secure with his talk of the ‘majority lt deseriptions, and to the “degree of fit requirement’ as Blocking consequences he found objectionable. Causal Theorist can also look with satisfaction upon « {tsult, incorporating as it does his insight about the {MPortance of causality into a central position. Further, the {ital doctrines he was concerned to establish, for exaimple on-contingency of identity statements made with the of ames, are not controverted. Information is indi- ‘sted by source; if a is the source of a body of information Vidu4 The Causal Theory of Names nothing else could have been, Consequently nothing else could have been that a The only theorists who gain no comfort are those who, ‘gnoring Kripke’s explicit remarks to the contrary, supposed that the Causal Theory could provide them with a totally ‘norvintentional answer to the problem posed by names. But lam not distressed by their distress Our ideas also point forward; for it seems that they, of Some close relative, must be used in explaining the functio {ng of at least some demonstratives. Such an expression @ ‘hat mountaineer” in “That mountaineer is coming to town {onight’ ‘may avert to a body of information presumed in common possession, perhaps through ats is denotation. No one can be that mountaineer unless RE the source of that information no matter how serfectly ie sis M. and of cours someone can be that mountaineer is in such generality that and fail to fit quite a bit of it It defence of our ideas must lie ‘But with these hints 1 must leave the subject, Keioke, op. itp. 302, 2 Identity and Predication A of meaning another. Atanation is one thing, a theory of meaning anhe. mal of tansation sims to provide foreach eens the languoge understudy, 0 way ofaiving a «quoted =n soe of another langune, which has the Same eae cry of meaning, on the other hand, ental fr ech aes cristae tees eciarta stent of wt ites. A translator states no semana tuts 2 Po hse any need of the concepts of truth, dnotation, <0 Scion, "Semantical truths relate expressions 2, e vet, and' can be sated only by using not mention ne: Sma ac ae oor Ssh so imtaby in the construction ofa theory of MANN, Ty sutements of what a sentence means cam be made Gy sing an equivalent sentence ofthe theoy’s BNE te hor tobe fits, must be deduces signing semantical properties (0S APs. ants. Ceranly'a" manual ‘of translation must be Finke, tandations Tor sentences from correlations Of Te tence parts, but a translator may use any SEMEN, ‘tne he finds convenient. The finiteness deme Sy 4 cory of meaning, on the other Hand, EOE OT Neat of what its 8 theory of, since a langue tise is no finite theory of meaning is 3 cure tmeaeAndthe seman sme 10 une! on Pe onal of nphy 72,13 (78 19, 2 ea ‘Troon Tadeo ped Pe a CRN Coleg on ton nd sera, | Sat, Minin ter hud one Br Oe NF hcl det fo convention wi a sis Le {Se Danton, “Tests of Meng Late tdi phe ton, et ety Sans rhs 18 These poms o he 0" "Ney mecing sede fo Boon.26 Identity and Predication in the language that mirrors the competence speakers of the language have actually acquired. This does not mean that he aims to uncover a theory that he supposes his subjects know, in any acceptable sense of that word. It means merely this: if (but only if) speakers of the language can under- stand certain sentences they have not previously encountered, as a result of acquaintance with their parts, the semanticist ‘must state how the meaning of these sentences is a function of the meanings of those parts. He must assign semantical Properties to the parts and state the general significance of the construction in such a way that a statement of what those sentences mean is deductively entailed. There may be ‘more than one way of doing this. Even when a translator arrives at a translation of a sen- ince by way of its parts, his procedure is quite different. Since he is not using the expressions, his manipulations do Tot fave to be deductive. He can, for example, deliver translations of an infinite number of anish sentences by the simple rule: Spanish sents : Trans (‘Es necesai “Wis necessary that Nor is there any reason wi minimize ambiguity, but i Translation another, indeterminacy inthe theo uattelsome man who wo indeterminacy enterptie being so aga Rte constraints upon, that SF meaning another. It is a uld bicker with Quine over the 'Y of translation— fa oa Quine clearly intended his arguments to rmuments 1 4 though his arguments show, and wrote Identity and Predication 27 tad shown, indeterminacy in the concepts of reference denotation, extension —all concepts ofthe theory of meaning, And perhaps itis not difficult to see why it should be thought that indeterminacy in one is tantamount to indeterminacy in the other. For, after all, although not every translation manual provides the basis for a theory of meaning, every theory of meaning must provide the basis for a translation manual, since it must, in effect, pair sentences of the jungle language with equivalent sentences of the theory’s language And in so doing the semanticist must draw upon exactly the same data, of native assent, dissent, and unsolicited utterance, which are available to the translator. The possi- biity is thus raised that different theories of meaning could be constructed each of which entails semantical properties {or the totality of jungle sentences adequate to the data but which make quite different assignments of semantical proper- ‘itso those sentences’ parts That there is some such indeterminacy, even in the con- fiction of homophonic theories of meaning for English in Frelsh, seems to me to be a virtual certainty. However, in pis Paper I do not wish to consider the question in general, ut fo examine whether one particular argument of Quine’s Gn be used to establish the rather gross degree of indeter- utsey in theories of meaning. which it has so widely been thought to establish ihe tgument I have in mind runs lke tit? Some expresions [BM divide their reference differently (rabbit, rabbit stage’, ment Part?) and some expressions that do not divide their TaceRE® at all Crabbithood’, the rabbit fusion’ ‘rabbiteth’) incontestably the same stimulus meaning when used in "sword sentences. An expression may sensibly be regarded inangptedicate only if it interacts with “the apparatus of teustion’ (the identity predicate, plurals, numerals, snelelitte article), and the stimulus conditions that trigger at (0 the sentences in which such interaction occurs “ito and Object (Cambeiige, Mas: MIT Pres, 1960, pp S1-4, 68° "Onna Rents (Noe Vo eat ISN gee 50 on8 Identity and Predication Provide the only empirical evidence that bears upon what Extension the expeson, ts «predate, should be seeded 2 posses. But the identification of the apparatus of ng Viduation ia foreign language is empirically quite ‘under: determined; the expresion that one theory regards ts the identity predicate, for example, may, With suitable adjust tents, be tested by another aban expression for some stinct equivalence relation both theories asigting to whole sentences a sigifiince. completely in aesordance with the behavioural data. Consequently, whether an expres Son ba predate at allan, ifa predicate, whet extoeion af males undetermined By all aejual and posable observation Tine without end in Wn hs arument is Intended to show an indeterminacy in the theory of meaning, it must rest upon the Belle that th sol fesion a semantic can have for teting on eXPS San ata wis as deen be account for that expression’ interaction withthe (putative nap a“ Mf individuation. This, it seems to me, is ta identity {he empiica location of the scheme of predation by meare Of full secondary anchoring Not only i the eherne imchored independent, but the anchoring rovined othe Indivduatve apparatus i secure only betas eos fe he um fed tothe schemes primary roa disregard precisely thy notion its point. Identity and Predication 29 To see predication in this way is to see the intelligibility of Davidson's response? to the need to account for the way the truth conditions of adverbially modified sentences are deter- mined by their parts—his suggestion that such sentences involve predicates of runnings and whisthings. It was not the interaction of verbs like ‘whistle’ with devices from an already agreed to apparatus of individuation in such ad- verbially modified sentences which prompted his suggestion, for no such interaction there takes place. Certainly, Davidson has pointed to other, explicitly nominalized, sentences in which related expressions like ‘a whistling’ do interact with the apparatus of individuation,‘ but his case for discerning redication in the adverbially modified sentences did not, OF at least should not, rest upon these, For the same reason, it makes perfectly good sense to deny that we have pre- dicates of objects—voices—in sentences such as ‘He has a deep voice’, despite the perfectly healthy interaction that occurs elsewhere between the expression ‘voice’ and the apparatus of individuation (‘Thirty voices rang out’, etc). have said that to discern predicational structure in certain sentences is to provide a specific explanation of how their truth conditions depend upon their parts. Our questions must now be: What kind of explanation is afforded? What features ‘ust sentences exhibit to make that explanation appropriate? Wack he ht ed sty oe yo ie pein a's lt py at nse oe languages might be enriched to make it not only plausible but © ielng hepa ctu of pedatn By foc Im Sek cope hope bene ou te pm of clung obese oper semento=nd by seeing that point I hope we may see why certain lenguaees * See" ‘Action Sentences’, in N. Rescher (ed.), The Logic nT it tt NAS, ut pot agcentrilyconectnes “ge "The ndidetion of Event im N. Reser (ed) sys tx Honor of Goi G.empe (Dordrecht: Reidel 1970).30 Identity and Predication might demand explanation by mention of rabbits and their properties, and not of rabbit parts and their properties. In the final section I bring the general theory to bear more specific: ally on Quine’s arguments, by trying to show that Quine’s suggested alternative theories of meaning for a language, plausibly treated as speaking of rabbits, are not workable alternatives at all | have two final introductory points. First, when I speak of discerning reference to and predication of Gs, I have in mind treating sentences as involving quantification over the Gs (as in ‘A G is F", ‘Some G is F") as well as treating sen- fences as involving singular definite reference to a G, as in ‘This G is F’. My general argument will not assume that singular reference is behaviourally detectable’—I shall concentrate mainly upon indefinite sentences gaining refer fence to a particular location by conversio ad phantasmata.® Second, I want to acknowledge that in the body of the paper Iconcentrate upon rather simple, but obviously central, cases of discourse about observable spatio-temporal pheno Pans. In order to keep this paper of manageable proportions TARY nothing about more theoretical or abstract discourse. ave established to my own satisfaction that such discourse fin be fitted into the framework I develop in this paper, nthe oni SSUNCE is going to prevent a sense of unease in the reader when his eye turns from the vaunting structure tae, cxtmples upon which it is founded, As itis, I will not 'ew to everyone's satisfaction all I have bitten off, so there is nothing to do but make proceni® "0 4 but make this acknowledgement and 1. Let us begin by consid ‘meaning predication plays no part, There mi a sisted of eee 2 ateuags, oF quasttanguage, which con- commonicanite Aumber of uiterance types used to respond ively to the publicly observable presence of some [te on we FT Geach Mental Ace Yor Hamas ey feial 4e (London: Rowege & Kegan Pau; Now fering languages in whose theory of Identity and Predication 31 general condition of the environment. There might bean utter- ance type appropriately used whenever it is raining in the vicinity of the speaker at the time of utterance, another when ever a rabbit or rabbits are in the vicinity at the time of utter- ance, and so on. Here there is no question of assigning any expression an extension, or of identifying any construction as that of predication, for there are no constructions to be explained, ‘Suppose now that such expressions were not only stood on their own but could be compounded, so that we had expres- sions like ‘Red Water’, ‘Warm Fog’, “White Rabbit’, and so on. Assuming that these expressions are not leaned one by one, but are genuinely structured, we have a simple case of the general semantical problem. How are we to account for the significance of these compound expressions? ‘The answer depends, I think, upon what significance the compound sentences actually have. By trying these utter- ances out on the natives we might find that the compound sentences require for their truth merely a (reasonably sized) Spatial overlap (at the time of utterance) of the features of the environment required to prompt assent to the con- stituents standing on their own. Thus, Red Water?” isassented to provided there is a bit of water in the vicinity which is red, and ‘White Rabbit?” is assented to provided a decentsized bit of the rabbit stuff in the vicinity is white.” If these are indeed the truth conditions of the compounds, | would argue that it is a mistake to assign to the constituents Satisfaction conditions, and to explain the construction as Predication—thereby giving the sentences the overall import Of ‘There is @ red water here”, “There is a white rabbit here" To treat an expression as a predicate is to associate with it 4 certain condition, upon whose satisfaction by objects depends the truth of falsity of the sentences in which the expression occurs. If we are to treat an expression as a predi- cate, we must be in a position, as theorists, to indicate, at least roughly, what that satisfaction condition is. But being in 4 position to identify every one of the empirical conditions in "The conditions ned ot be ute snl th kes mh ish ‘prin om ite wine asd ith od a at 9 732 Identity and Predication which some obiect or obiects satisy the predicate doesnot Cnable us to deny such ¢ condition, or by itself that Information provide us with no” ue ts to what abject that fall to satsy the condition would be lke Ine cals Judgement ofthe form doe ot sai Fre oe eke upon such bass are thow whith ae enved from the Krowidge that nothing (here) afin F) The tsuble of cour, that we hive no cue as tothe ldeaip et te objets slsying the predieste In those seus a ohn were sssumed that thee me sone cee Inthe eae of the langage we arconidering, the se made of Rel doesnot enable fo m0. Ceo aah ate object that fis to tatty the predicate we he oenntly take itto be would be like, which means that we Pere nea of what an obs ht lies ie prdee eTs ‘consider. Some drops of red ink fall into a swimming-pool. ‘Red Water” Certainly But wiveh objet ie ee whose satisfaction of the Predicate ‘Red’ makes the remark tre? It the whole pool or fut the ater henna luting the ink, or one ofthe indetinte amet Se siteraties The language promdss ie tne ae in these questions, towtich ve mun oat fee if the construction is predication. The indeterminacy we find hatin the saistacton conditionsof Rear en nee ofan iat but the omequece osha J discern prediction ints eaters hen, to asin to°Red' andthe otherexpresiominthclangae ane ee There is a water here which is not red, There is a water here wine ete wir Rete WhIGh isnot fed and also a water Identity and Predication 3 Fe does not sem to me to require dedication to pemicious mental, or to 4 vow of the theory of meaning as an txereie in proeptic neurophysiology, to suppose That we Should refrain fom atbuing fo expresonsof the languages we study semantic properties for which thee absolutely no tvidence, even when iti posible to make such attributions without ‘attributing. to whole sentences resulting semantic Propertia that are actully inconsistent sith te avaiable i deh il the of such simple In deciding against predcational theories of such simple languages we are instep with Quin, for whom the excess semantic power stems ffom the absence ofthe indiviuative toperitiss However, le us proceed to consider language Without any such apparatus, yet whose compound sentences seem to demand explanation in terms of predation, 2.1 shall considera very elementary example. Lat us suppose that there are expresions Gy Ga, - Ge which when uttered as queries, are assented to when material objects of various kinds are presented to the informant They are, as one-word sentences, stimulussynonymous with ‘A rabbit!” (and, of course, ‘A rabbit part!"), ‘A mat “A hut!" and 50 on. There are also, we may suppose, expres sions Fi Fy. - Fy which, when queried, ae assented o when the environment manifesis the presence of certain gener features that do not require the presence of any specific Kind of object expressions stimuluesynonymous wit ‘White! “Warm", Furry! ‘Bloodstained!", and soon. ‘These expressions not only stand alone, and with a sent {al nation device, but enter into complex sentences coupl ing one of the F terms with one of the G terms. (We do m0 vena * How should we account for such compounds as we have aor oo scala tc Saag Se ec el Sale Senate Fang W Sem ea on an ca kta hee 9 a a may be difficulties of Prince jin the way of ‘roriting sith X woah ie a SPS a Theory dea ug ee Tele Punto ta ia ea een hai SS am Sree ocala eject maton or4 Hentity and Predication find any couplings of two G words.) In addition, we find the particle that produces sentential negation also occurring in concatenation withthe F term to. yield. an “internal” negation; (not-F G) is syntactically and. behaviourally distinguishable from Not(F 6). When we look at the assent conditions, the following picture emerges. We find that it is not sufficient for assent {o (F G), e., ‘White Rabbit’, that F and G both be assented 'o nor that there be an overlap between the features associated with F and with G. For example, ‘White Rabbit? can be dissented from even though some of the exposed rabbit stulf Son er indeed, though 2 deentsized (rabbitsized) inuous portion is white, as when, for example, several brown rabbits are’ so ‘orga fet ts $0 organized that’ their white tails are What is required for many of th F many of these compoun the # feature dstnbuted n'a chaactertie way anon to the boundaries of a single obj seewOundaries of a single object whose presence prompts wundaries of an object, for assent the ssciated feats ie ‘exposed surface of that object.? a ‘These facts are not ‘and they immediately, G term as a feat ‘accounting for the ‘mysterious or empirically inaccessible, rule out any hope of construing the 'ure-placing term, like ‘Rabbiteth’, ‘and Tb He asi to the Mi hy erage mmc damrinorece SRS i a Re sera Sar naa tment Identity and Predication 35 G term a significance the whole point of which is that it abstracts from the difference between one rabbit and two. We can, however, explain the sentences’ observed truth conditions by discerning predication. We can explain the contribution of the F term to any particular compound in a way consistent with is capacity to enter into couplings with ‘other G terms by supposing it to be associated with a particu lar condition requiring a certain distribution of a feature in relation to an object's boundaries. And we can explain the contribution of the G term by supposing it to be associated not merely with a recurrent feature (its criterion of applica- tion) but with a particular set of identity conditions— 4 particular divided reference. And we treat the mode of composition as predication yielding a sentence true if and only if at least one object (in the vicinity) of the G kind satisfies the condition associated with the F term. By speaking of “boundaries’ and of ‘identity conditions’ \e have introduced identity into our explanation of these compounds. But by what right do we speak of identity here? Is it not merely that assent to these compounds requites that the F feature come shaped in a way determined by the G term—that the white must come rabbitshaped? But this is ‘ot all; in order to account for these compound sentences we do have to suppose that the surface of the rabbit stuff 'pon which the incidence of the white feature is relevant to the truth of the judgement ‘White Rabbit’, must genuinely be a boundary that separates a single rabbit from things that are distinct. We are, as semanticists obliged to state how ‘White’ occurs ‘not-White’; the two expressions are clearly not associated wth independent conditions. The behavioural. evidence warrants, we may assume, this general principle for generating the semantcal contribution of ot" from that of 4: an object satisfies “not” ¢ if the object does not satisty @. It follows from this account'® that contradiction will result if both predicates are applied to the same object. Thus: the "OF course, hi may not be the only account (whi hus herent meri. a Tage sue of ong nal antral sso ot). But Ao of ‘ting which indicates that ti ther than te bares tear Fete wc nae tha hi anne36 Mentity and Predication distribution of whiteness throughout just that area is relevant to the judgements ‘White Rabbit’ and ‘not-White Rabbit™ precisely because either judgement affirmed upon an in- sufficiently extended survey is liable to be contradicted by the other judgement, warranted by the condition of, and made with respect to, the same rabbit. In other words, the line tracing the area of relevance delimits that area in relation to which one or the other, but not both, of a pair of contradic- tory predicates may be chosen, And that is what it is for a line to be a boundary, marking something off from other things. We touch here upon the deep connection between predica- tion and identity, and thus with the rest of the apparatus of individuation. Like all logical constants, the identity predi- vate can be identified only by the inferential connections between sentences containing it and other sentences of the language. No two-place predicate is the identity predicate lunless the way speakers use sentences containing it reveals 4 disposition to withhold contradictory predicates from the things identified —no matter how involved those sentences ‘may be in tituals that look like counting or pluralization, ine strongest form of the dependence of the apparatus of individuation upon the predicative structure in the rest of the language is espoused by one who believes with Quine that the ‘itentity predicate is definable in terms of that structure. But it is not necessary to have such a belief to accept this: that although we can recognize predication without identifying an identity predicate—for the structure of sentences may force such a recognition upon us—we could never recognize a identity Sentence save by its inferential relations to such Mth cutive sentences—in particular, its use in conformi Sot he precip ofthe nomentty of tinge 50 of course Quine was right to find the identification conte samity predicate underdetermined by the data he Sanailered: local samplings of the stimulus meaning of ‘ontredctorypredicats But, cone, if entity is tied (0 the rest of the lneueee, Sen ely: termination i a relatively insignticant mater sey Identity and Predication 37 suppose that what objects a language distinguishes and tks ahout ist matter embedded mush deeper than Quine’s alk of jiggling with the translation of the individuative apparatus: would lead us to believe These points; which will reemerge when. we come to disci Quine’s suggested altemative wandations in detall (se sections IUL3 and 4), explain why | believe Quine’ anchoring ofthe prediative scheme ls secondary. 3.We have considered how we might be able to explain the truth conditions of compound sentences ofthe form (FG) and (n0tF G), piven their manifest sensitivity to the identity conditions of rabbits, by suggesting that the sentences invol predicates of rabbits. (It is interesting t0 observe that we might be forced to this conclusion eventhough thete was no explicit G term of divided reference with whose significan we were concerned.) There are other kinds of compound sentences, which bresent similar problems and which require similar treatment. We might find utterances coupling two or more of the words with a G word, forming such expressions as (Fi Fa @) Gg, ‘Bloodstained White Rabbit) for assent to which its ot sufficient that (F, G) and (F, G) both be assented to, nor necessary that there be a spatial overlap between the features associated with Fi, Fy, and G. (No part need be both white and bloody.) “There must be some principle explaining in. general how Fi, Fa, and G here go together, and the truth conditions exciude an explanation either in tems of sentential conjunetion of i terms of merCE Compounding. These sentences are again sensitive to the (Fi F.G) is not merely that there be evidence such at Te Warrant the separate judgements (FG) and (F3 G), but such evidence pertain to the same G. oa Or, more generally, we find that there are tlenity con ditions we can associate with the @ term and satisfaction Conditions we may associate with the F terms so that con ound of the form (F;..» FG) s tue ifand only if sine object of the G-kind satisfies F, and satisfies Fi Satisties Fy, y con38 Identity and Predication {is on the basi of this attersort of evidence that we might Justify the claim that an expression F, demonstrably assented to upon the basis of a particular sensory modality, say the sense of smell, was a predicate of a material object accessible to several senses, and not merely a predicate of a smell, if a predicate at all. (Bvidence of the first kind, relating to the incidence or distribution of evidence in relation to the object's boundaries, would not help us here.) We would have to show {hat F occurred in compound sentences involving predicates applied upon the basis of the other modalities, 4, Our question was: ‘What is the point of introducing Objects and their properties into semantics”, and I hope that ‘One answer is becoming clear. The semanticist has to explain {he observed assent conditions of certain compound sentences ity conditions of those objects; or, that TacisiY: when the systematic mastery" of those sentences ren arastety of the identity conditions of those objects, sas W2Y Of putting the point is liable to be migender- stood. It is not open to dispute that Identity and Predication 9 ing canbe Ind to rest in The suspicion that we are cheating i the way that best wth al Sich Suspicons—by showing tht we need not chet, Al eae enti fo fhe we of the pre “tery of the identity conton of sn weak sense, in which it means the ability to make that tnston nthe world which maby ay sentence inl Syrnyious with "Tht isthe same Aas tha Butt i've ned Ii the fact thatthe compound sentences we he bon considering require mastery ofthe ety con Ghost rabbits in ths weak see that generates the femantcal ‘problem that dering reference 0. bis Ses, And the observation that thre re such sentences tot iva For, fom the fst tha thre sr ents whose Sptematic mastery requires, In this weal ses, mater of the entity conditions of bit, mpl dss nt flo hotter ae sentences woe sptematle matey rau in the vame weak sense, mastery ofthe identity ol of aboit parts or of rabbit stages. ae With that clnfeation, the poston we have aed # Wis, To sey that an expression fas = pata, diel serene mates sense only the context ofthe explanation ot sompound sentences To deci tata tem de Treo oet ain to cis that the ene in i occurs involve prdication of abhits. And to decide th 2setof sentence volves predation of bis ito ety the way. thowe ventence” sent conditions ae geetted from their parts as depending upon the leet me ett tabi and so systematic mastery of thse eyo the dentty ondtons af =DIS. | propose the following constraint: oe aan od cele uci precication of A in sentences of gen kid wes those sentences are such that their ea es mastery ofthe entity conditions oF AS ‘This constraint follows from the previ S onnciple that when these are taken together with the ae fa i Rohbits the atbution of semantic properties fr wich there is no evidence. As we have seen, to Cate Oni sion Ga particular way of dividing its reference i 1 TT Gut for interaction with ether expres ofthe, nae insuch a way that the truth or fait of thee40 Wentity and Predication {turns upon the distribution of evidence in relation to that division of reference. If there are such sentences, then their ‘mastery will be such as to require mastery of that division of reference. Therefore, if we have assigned to an expression 4 divided reference in defiance of the constraint, this can only be because there are no such sentences. And if there are no Such sentences, the claim that G divides its reference in Just that way must be entirely without foundation. It is the wholly empty claim that G would behave in a certain way it Phantom contexts—contexts that do not occur in the language, {do not think there is much room for argument over the claim that the ser entences of a language naively treated as speaking of rabbi expect at least 4 slight inclination to agree that this striking asymmetry has something to do with our readiness 10 a0 fetus OF eanin (0 Quine’s speciic illustrative alternatives, 216 concerned paalioM, let us suppose thatthe languane oe Hlementary Emule at elementary fragment of Eeaigh, mane re ytike" 4S speaking of rabbits enduring material objects, 1 will begin by discussing thy wil bean “Sing those semantical proposals on MEH “rabbit” is not construed as a pants at all, T will Identity and Predication 41 deal with them briefly, since they seem to be obviously thet properties because st contains sentences ike “Whi nbbit and ‘Bloodstained white rabbit’, which ee inthe required way to the identity condition of rabbits As fara can sey this straightaway eliminates the ete acing alternative, “abit since fl tose how tthe Sonditions that are. sensitiv to the dtnetion between one rabbit and two can be generated on the basis hat are no oo is treated a a singular term designating the univers, Rabbi hood, In order to. genenite an appropriate tat-ondition for the sentence “A. white rabbit?” of “A rabbit (her) ‘hie’ the expression "white has tobe reed a pe site sisted by an objec ff that object has a white instance, So that the whole. sentence ie rendered by the stimulus synonymous: "Rabbithood has a white instance (ete) But tow then are we to deal with the internally negated se fence, “A non-white rabbit!’, or ‘A rabbit (here) i" = aca The truth conditions cannot be generated by predicate Sezation out ofthe assignments made to "white and “ab Sha "way" we. ean produce only the truth-conitions, of ‘Rabbithood has no white instance nea a "nguists would say. i sharply nonsynonymous. eae a canto A boodstained white rabbit, oF ‘A white rabbit ee Bloodstsned out of the singular tem, “Rapbithood, =n the unbreakable predicates‘... has a white instance (he) tnd". «has a bloodstaned instance (ete We Rave no 84 of registering the requirement that one a be both white and bloodstained. re for the other cty the same icles ie in stove for the Oe ym which “rabbi” i treated 35 single erm, Oe time denoting the rabbit fusion, once we have adusted fhe RStaction conditions of ‘white’. But to what shows [er Be diustea? «it x has a white part’ $00 wets own rabbits with white feet, and iff x has a WATE. "bbitsized partis too weak, given the caller2 Identity and Predication with their contiguous white tails. The only condition I can think of is... if x has a part that is a white rabbit’, which is fuled out by the disposition of ‘white’ to couple with terms other than ‘rabbit’, 2. Taking ‘rabbit’ to divide its reference over rabbit parts fequites amending the satisfaction. conditions of the expressions with which it couples. For if we continued {o say, for example, that white things satisfied “white, then we could demonstrate that ‘rabbit’ cannot be tus of rabbit parts by citing the dissent to the query, White rabbit?” elicited by the presentation of a brown rabbit with @ white foot. However, the modification required appears simple: “white must be satisfied ‘only, by things which ate parts of @ white rabbit. Not cven the white foot ota brown rabbit ia part ofa white rabbit We now face one immediate, and fundamental, dif- ficulty. Having changed” the ex lent of @ single “rabbit, we have been ine gG,contrte 8 sentence with the same overall stimu: ie meaning only by incorporating an. indication "Of Re seauited incidence of whiteness into the satistaction Sandition of the predicate—hence, “> ae ie part hun MRM UBB’. But that prevents ‘white from counting with ‘other terms; when speakers of lementary English ite hut they"do" not meant eee ena hut part, is part ofa white rsbbi The dit iculty appears. trivi r surely we can manage something more general. Well," Ct + iff x is part of a white Wine will not do, since there are sachsen parts foot) hen the aie, thing (in this case, a. white “white rate ithitefooted brown rabbit is) present iiss MneycObIE” is dissented from. ‘The diftielte carburettor” © aecommodate such a remark a6 cA cea, COnditions jy 2g cust find a fitting @ in the sstistaction iff x is part of a clean @, Identity and Predication 43 aan this be, when we also have to accommodate “A clean engin!” and ‘A clean float chamber!” = However, 1 us wate this ifcly for another mor interesting diticulty emerges. The change we had to make in the tsfaction conditions of “whit” i required it gener, aly the satisfaction conditions of F were given by Use of the rediateW on the old scheme, they must be given bY use of the predicate “isa part of a W rabbit’ on the new. W should not be surprised to find the following consequence: Aiferent parts of the same rabbit are indistngusale by the predicates of the lanuate; Consequently, by Quine sholute and objective eiterion? of what tworplace predicate to count as the identity predicate, the predicate the theory stots to treat apis a pat of the same rabbi = hase sttutity property of and therefore, for Quine he identity predicate. It turns out to be no more aT wih Quine’ principles than i swith mine to discern tation of rabbit parts in this discourse. One does not have to accept the ientifiation of acemibles as an absolutely universal maxim of translaen’* 10 suppose tht this indstingushabity points 1 # mt, and the mistake it point to should be cleat from our canter discusion, We have associated with "abit criteria of dentty tat dispose it to eave in such a way that 2 senvene of the for "Arabi cher) is @ and abit (eS, may be true piven a certain distribution of _ “She wn unt one abi is present yt th dost rence betwen the jabs of the identification of in- sped SPs i a ane i ‘rune The tonto can say where Tyan () = 36.2 af Wt Bass Peo Takes a eon am Se Fe arg See ae te em eee ee eee ermane ‘Ney York: Rando Howse, 1966) . 178. fahment. The foc, ape Te dc maybe dai ein, Me ene ‘Seabees el hen be ony sce re a8 ee csrbles wil lead to construing a man a talking #004 MeO A po RLM the ‘opportunity to pain Hnowldge. Such coms yin ts coe44 Mdentity and Predication can never be exercised, since the language does not contain a suitable candidate for 6. Ik might be thought that this difficulty arises only because the language we have been considering is very elementary. For if the language also contained some unstructured ex Dressions whose satisfaction conditions were given on the old scheme by use of is partly red’ and ‘is partly green’, then, when we permute, it might be thought that these expressions could be given conditions satisfied by some but not all parts Of the same rabbit. Thus the sentence whose truth-conditions used to be given by ‘A rabbit here is partly red’ is now fendered by the use of ‘A rabbit part here is red’—which has {ncontestably the same stimulus meaning. ‘This theory, however, will not work if the old theory did. For the sentence A rabbit here is partly red and partly green’ ould occasionally elicit assent, inexplicable upon the new {heory. under which the sentence emerges as tru iff there is ‘rabbit part present which is both red and green. 3.10 is the occurrence, in Ele ‘mentary English talk involving the word ‘rabbit’, of compoun. i sentences of the form: ‘This rabbit was F, and will be F A rabbit is F, and will be F;, ‘ich requires and supports the supposition that ‘abbit” is these that divides its reference over persisting animals, For UREE compounds are manifestly sensitive ter the airbus tion, within the life of @ single rabbit, of the evidence associated with the F terms, Ho do these sentences fare when ‘rabbit’ i taken as true tence hit Sap? If we eliminate the context dcaccacnes of following te 08 familiar way,'5 we arrives in etfect at the ‘Howing general clauses (whee 1, is the tine of atecrance) ¥ satisfies is Pitt (x, 1) satisty & ¥ Satsfies ‘was iff (37 fore ty, t") and (ox, £9 ae ) [Before 44, ') and (Cx, of pestig hme “MME Metin ene as operator teque anontologY 5 Identity and Predication 4 withthe base clauses such as the following: (x, 0 satisfy ‘warm’ iff there is something warm at 1, of which x is a stage, ce that what oy such treatment again has the consequence that what Corb athrmed af one stage ofa abot tol ery oth aga f avoiding this diffi- Tit appr that thee i way of aon ths i cate We minty to" deal with time reference bY folowing clauses X satisfies is! F iff At(x, ty) and x satisfies F ; i satisfies was’ F iff (34 )[Before(t,,#°) an ’ ists F (3y) (Co-membered (x, y) and At(y, ¢”) and y satisfies F)] Then we would have base clauses ofthe form: X satisfies ‘warm’ iff x is a stage of a thing which is w while that thing is warm Now, it appears, we have predicate traly affirmed of some ‘taps which are not true of every stage in the life of hs Ste tinal. For example, only stages after a = Me of a rabbit are stages that satisfy ‘was Warm’ This ey however, does not appear ‘0 ee “was Siposing that ‘an object satis the tensed ores Wes ar iF isa sage later in the fife of som, obdeet Hat Some stage which saties the snipe predate. But ths dome fot et the truth conditions right "4 ebbit was runnin’ Py sue eventhough there sn stage of abit tr tha 9 "unning stage —the running stage might have hat yon arguments tt ht have to treat am impressed $1 have deliberately placed no weight up {St ePon the reasons a. semanticist might ftlences as containing singular terms, for | am impr 2y the fact that my case ean be made without them. 0% 2 Ht is worth remarking that the identification © 2BFesion as a demonstrative singular term, and te HT EERLIO the expression with which it coupes of pani ded reference, together serve to expla Which sentences are sensitive t0 identity.46 Identity and Predication FS ac SI te tae a from several that are. Quine acknowledges'* wa ent see gy ete ane oy the identity condit difficulties. fo1 se simple sentences manifest sensitivity tothe tons of, sy, rabbits, preens character the alemative semantic proposals upon erence diferente {wo fae assumptions. The fist 's accompanied by a pointin, ome oe ig Besture. The second is expressed ointed to a st ‘Point to a rabbit, and you have Point te sta8 of rabbit to an intepral pat of abit” (on some reckoninge You have thereby pointed to many arts and stages. Itetin te many, but anyway, many) Singular term and 18,89 be treated as a demonstrative DbIt parte ya eee 8 to divide its reference over dividing everyehing into eres: S0™e fixed principles for 2. Davidon and ny New Yor 2. Minka (eda) Words end Obj pss New York Humante Iogayt OSM) Identity and Predication 47 5. The last suggestion of Quine’s I wish to discuss also ‘concerns singular terms. Quine suggests'® that, from the point of view of the radical semanticist, there is no distinguishing the singular term ‘Ortcutt” from a general term true of Ortcutt’s several parts and stages—no distinguishing, that i, save by reference to the elusive apparatus of individuation. It is characteristic of names that they couple with other expressions of the language, and in so doing they exhibit two crucial and behaviourally detectable characteristics (1) We never find (F, Ortcutt) and (F; Ortcutt) assented to without the compound (F; F; Ortcutt) being assented to. (2) For those who are prepared to use the name, there is ‘no distinction between internal and external negation; we never find Not-(F, Ortcutt) receiving a different verdict from (not-F Ortcutt). Itis possible to explain these properties of the expression ‘Ortcutt” while treating “Ortcutt” as a general term true of several things, upon one assumption only: that whatever is tue of one Ortcutt is true of all. That is to say, expressions that are treated with reason as names may be treated as eneral terms true of several things only if those things are indiscernible by the predicates with which the expression couples, This seems to suggest that the indeterminacy here isalso illusory, Vv ‘There is a pattern in the difficulties encountered by Quine’s altemative semantic hypotheses. Ignoring, the seriously ‘adequate feature-placing suggestion, ‘abbiteth’ the nove theories cut the reference of “rabbit” either coarser or ner than i's cut on the orthodox theory, The coarser ere ppear not to work at all, The finer theories have 2,9 shance of working, but involve attributing © the speakers of the language unwarranted. dispositions. The difficulties °F the coarser theories stem from the presence of sentences No manifest dependence upon the identity and distine nes, Fe fabbits; the difficulties for the finer theories from vp 5248 Mentity and Predication absence of sentences manifesting a similar dependence upon the objects they discover, I do not pretend to have shown that a viable semantic theory based upon one of Quine’s suggestions cannot be constructed. Perhaps an ingenious person will show that the {ifficulties are less severe than they look, and thereby make something of Quine’s example of the indeterminacy of semantics. But I have been examining an argument of Quine’s for the indeterminacy of semantics ut subogus of our onnu,ntty, Bas and related apparatus.’ = * . and because of the j2'"oully structural and contextual considerations that could guide or mednae tandations of the English cluster of interelated device digetiduation ;«- t} ete seom bound to be systematic’ ory etent choles [ofthe semantic treatment of ‘yvaga' eof whi ceafUtiee £0 all dispositions to verbal behaviot ow the part ot all " have tried to show that this argument is not sound. "nthe Reson fr he Indeermiaacy of Tranaation’, Journal of Phi ‘enky 816 (26 March 1967) pp 1B ches Onto Reaiy, 38, 2 Semantic Structure and Logical Form The vat of some inferences i si to be expline by reeence fo the meanings of the particu expressions Securing tn them wile iat of shor ifrencer de, tier, fo the way inch the snr se contacted Oat oftheir ar Te nrence fom John ov that snow Ste’ Snow i whiten even a an example the st typeof nerence: fort ad tobe exianed by proving sntnaan ofthe nant prime gs Tene fom on ran reathlsy"to on anand tom abn ‘pe manta “ohn fea haw may, eae be en © Betranples of the second pe tute appeal andor tanya soe ae De ‘trying to provide a basis for it in harmony with what ei tat eis imponceThe date cented pon, ad Senay am aground pon the problem of eng 4 SC ot expen athe loge conte For we Series "to sy thatthe meen rom TP and Q¥ P is valid in virtue of structure, then the distinction bet ai itand the detachment inference with a must reside ii ‘oe ference hetyeen how anda Donald ‘Davideon, ‘has given the notion of aren ‘alid inference new life and importance by lorating See ‘highly suggestive theory of semantic theories. In 7 ri there appears to be support both for the conviction that thete is an important difference between the two type a Sp, ut nn: ay ei onan or Satara: a ay i ts ey sacle Pe ce siiacats Se re nar at SST Se ee rr andon nee ‘ik MeDowet a. F Suwon Spe thnk ae dB Tat sap renee ee el ee Sas50 Semantic Structure and Logical Form inference, and also for the view that, when an inference has been shown to be structurally valid, a deeper explanation of its validity will have been provided. He writes concern- ing one inference: By saving exactly what the role of [2 certain recurrent element) is and hat the roles of the other significant features of the sentence fe, We il Rue 4 deep explanation of why one sentence entalls the other: 32 saplanation that draws upon'a systematic account of how the ‘meaning ofeach sentence ia function ofits structure” My interest in the notion of structurally valid inference was wwakened by these writings of Davidson, and like him 1am GRbitious to make precise that distinction which underlies {he intuitions with which we began in such 3 way as would Suppo the ‘claim that, by showing an inference to be structurally valid, we thereby provide a deep explanation of its validity, . a2 In the first part of of structurally valid inference which Davidson's. writings We can distinguish two kinds of definition or explication in semantics which I shall label ‘imum, ae lanent® and ‘transcendent’ According to theory {*- One mrowidert retain deiition when the definition comtinr eset Felatvity 10 a theory wht ae Tif ators 98, then, what a theory vided with transcendent defini * b.Dawion, et Semantic Structure and Logical Form st will be right to treat an expression e as W (for such a term), tnd some wrong, this Be because some thot se fom or wrong overall, In so far as empirical considerations bear ‘upon the correctness of the claim that an expression is W, they bear globally upon the theory according to which it is W, and cannot be brought into any more direct relation with that feature of the internal constitution of the theory in virtue of which it may be said to be treating e as W. ‘An example of such a semantical term might be ‘is 2 designator’. If there is a theory of meaning, satisfying the total constraints upon such theories, which treats some ‘expression e as a designator, and another such theory which does not, there is, perhaps, no sense to the question ‘Is e really a designator? because, perhaps, no evidence can addi- tionally be brought to bear upon it. However, this is not always the case. Consider the notion ‘ei (Semantically) composite’. If the theories with which we are concemed are recursive definitions of truth, an immanent ‘efinition of this notion is readily obtainable: is semantically composite according to T iff (ive isa semantical unit according to T and ii) there is no base or recursive axiom assigning ¢ a ‘stmmantical property in T. But we should not rest content with such an immanent de tion, since there mt cemideation. which bear dtety {on the correctness of a theory's decision as to whether to {et an expression as semantically composite, It is this. Are the speakers of the language for which T is a semantical theory capable of understanding new expressions constructed E.the way ¢ is constructed, upon the basis of their under- Sanding of the (syntactic) parts of those expressions? This {Qideration provides materials for the construction of & {uscendent definition of the notion “e is semantically Composite’, Gktly, a question which we must constantly keep in mind orstether the notion of structurally valid inference admits seileutscendent definition; whether there are considerations ‘hich bear directly upon the correctness of decisions concern- *t ructural validity of inferences.52 Semantic Structure and Logical Form | shall not attempt to answer this question now. My present concem is with the way in which Davidson has made the notion of structural validity precise. It seems evident that he has provided an immanent definition, which I shall now try to make explicit. 1 ‘shall assume familiarity with Davidson's conception of a theory of meaning as a theory of truth. It seems clear from his work that @ semantic theory for any natural language would in his view have the following two tiers: (1) theory of truth, conforming to Tarski’s Convention for a suitably chosen, regimented, but still interpreted, language, which will probably be, in large part, a fragment Of the natural language, but could be a constructed language; (2) a set of translation rules mapping any sentence of the Talal language not provided with truth conditions at level (1) on toa sentence for which truth is defined directly, {howing an inference to be structurally valid has a slightly {iferent significance when the sentences concerned are it Ine ftagment for which truth is directly defined and when 2g, a1 not. I shall consider these in tumm, starting with the Gandamental case of sentences for which truth W direct funda ch truth is directly sfction” He continis: In an Oftheimmanenceofthedtinton, SA ease ore ore ete Semantic Structure and Logical Form 33 ‘Logical form, on this account, will of course be relative to the choice of a metalanguage (with its logic) and a theory of truth * Let us say that the conditional If Sis true, .. . , and Sr is true, then Sy is true’ is the validating conditional Of the inference S, .”. . S,-1 FS. I think Davidson's idea 's that an inference is structurally valid according to a theory T if and only if its validating conditional is a semantic Consequence of the theory's recursive clauses, Thus to take a perhaps excessively simple case, a theory of truth which has the clause for any sentences and S', Sand" is true if and only if Sis true and Sis true Ureits ‘and’ as a logical constant and attributes to it the Semantic property of forming truths when and only when Gonjoining truths. It is a (semantic) consequence of this Ghiistenzation, independent of the characterization, of kients given in the base clauses, that if 'P and Q° is ‘fue, then P is true. The theory thus treats the inference Pand Q” + Pasa structural inference ver. it appears possible to treat a great many ex- Besions which are not typically regarded as logical constants maCeursive clauses of the truth definition, (I ignore the fact ih. on this view, the standin semantic treatment of entity shows it not tw be a logical constant.) In particular, U2 2 treatment appears possible for an attributive adjec- re such as large’, The full details are given in the appendix, {the leading idea would be to have a clause in the defini ‘on of satisfaction along the lines of £2.21 (Possibly complex) monadic predicates 6, @ satis fies large” ¢ if and only ifais a large satsfer of 6 ch teatment takes seriously the grammatical status of duct, * Predicate modifier. We will of course need some “‘ustve machinery allowing for substitution within the scope cu Duin, "in Defense of Convention Tn H. Leblane (Tah, ca This way of inn tadality (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1973), p. 81. Aan lea comers a we aoa a M.A Emer Dackworth, t9T3) p22s4 Semantic Structure and Logical Form of the metalinguistic modifier ‘large’, if the semantical material introduced into the right-hand side is to be elimi- nated and a homophonic biconditional thus to be derived. But an obviously valid rule permitting merely the substitu tion predicates which are provably equivalent in the meta- language will suffice. ‘Then, such a theory will have shown the inference from (X is a large man’ to “X isa man’ to be formally valid. And if the theory were to treat ‘small’ in a parallel fashion, with its recursive clause, the same will hold for the inference from. X is @ large man’ to “X is not a small man’, since it would be a semantic consequence of the two axioms taken together with the axiom for ‘not’ that if an object satisfies “large mma’ also satisfies ‘nota small man ‘am not claiming that this is an admirable semantical Proposal. The point of the example is to cast doubt upon the idea that we have here captured the basis of the dis- tinction with which we started, even in its application to those cases (e6. the truth-functional connectives and. the ackground theory is more ortho- quantifiers) for which the bs dox. For we were surely en: Parallel recursive treatment heterogeneous modifiers as ‘ will suffice for such apparently ; ood" and rethesy an fo “ke which des not even sain hein ‘Semantic Structure and Logical Form 38 Thave interpreted Davidson’s talk of a theory’s entailing 4 validating conditional in terms of semantic consequence. But this i to render uninterpretable his own observation that what inferences count as structural will be relative to the logic of the metalanguage. I adopted this interpretation because to introduce mention of the deductive apparatus of the metalanguage simply invites the question: ‘How much is relevant to determinations of structural validity?” In fenerl, the inference pattern in the metalanguage which is necessty for providing the validating conditional. with Tespect to a certain object-language pattern of inference is that very same pattem of inference. If the logic of the meta language contains the detachment inference for the meta- lauistic modifier ‘ange’ we can validate the detachment inference in the object language, if not, not Pethas there ia limit upon metalingustic logic which would save the notion of structurally valid inference, inter- Preted in terms of what consequences are provable from the Xxioms, from free-wheeling entirely. Count a8 logic for deducing the relevant validating conditionals just the logic the theory requires for deriving its T-sentence theorems. Certainly this is far from arbitrary, but the results are Meagre, since very little logic is necessary. It is known that an Mdequate theory of truth fora first-order language susceptible Of a classical interpretation can be constructed in a meta- language whose logic is intuitionistic, and so, on this account, tot all classically valid inference patterns will be structural. roof of the T-entences requires, on the whole, substitu: tion inferences; it is certain that, provided the biconditional X undefined, neither the detachment inference with ‘and’, ‘or that with ‘large’, will be required for such proofs. "us now tum’ to the other way in which an inference Tt), on Davidson's view, be shown to be formally valid; hee the sentences concerned do not have their truth con- lions defined directly by the theory of truth, but are upped on to sentences which do. If F(S) is the sentence nit? ftagment on to which 5 is mapped by the translation tubs. then Sy... 5,_; formally entail Sy iff F(S,) - F(Sn-1) ormally entail FS) Since this manoeuvre rests upon the idea of Formally valid56 ‘Semantic Structure and Logical Form inference we have discussed, it clearly inherits any difficul ties we were able to point to in that idea. But there are ‘Aldtional questions and a slightly new perspective | do not think Davidson would want to claim that the methodology underlying this section of the semantic theory has been entirely worked out. What considerations should fuide ‘us in our choice of the background language which is {0 provide the kernel? Save for eschewing any commitment {o first-order languages, little has been said about this. Does the ‘chosen fragment even have to be a fragment of any natural language: and if not, what defence can be provided for, or significance attached to, the requirement that the semantics for a natural language be stateable asa homophonic truth theory? Is the relation between $ and (3) to. be incorporated ‘into the idea of semantic. theory as having joipething to do with how speakers understand a natural language, and iso, how? However. our immediate task is to consider the impact {he construction of this additional tier of our theory has ean the notion of formally valid inference. It appears at Tinthat HE must reinforce the impression of arbtrarinest aK we brought avay from our consideration of the lead: ing idea For consider again the sentence We decide that our fragment & to Tne Predicate modifies, it appears that we have the

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