Brains, Persons, and Society *** ABSTRACTS    Cervelli, Persone e Società ***ABSTRACTS

On an argument of Segal’s against singular object-dependent thoughts

On most truth-conditional semantic treatments, sentences containing proper names are ascribed singular and object-dependent truth-conditions. This view on proper names can be formulated in terms of thought expression. This is the thesis of the singularity and object-dependency of thoughts (SOT): singular thoughts about different individuals are different singular thoughts, and if there is no individual thought about, there is no thought to be entertained.

Reference failure seems to be problematic because of the conflict between two requirements. Firstly, there is the fact that, if SOT thesis is correct, vacuous names do not contribute to truth-conditions, and it seems that in the absence of truth-conditions we simply fail to have expressible content. Secondly, reference failure also seems to be problematic because there is a strong intuition that people nonetheless understand utterances of sentences with vacuous names, take them to be true and use them to express their beliefs, thoughts, desires, etc. There are arguments to the effect that proper psychological and behavioural explanations require the same content to be ascribed as the content of beliefs and thoughts, whether or not reference to an object is successful. The two requirements seem irreconcilable.

This paper discusses and criticizes Gabriel Segal’s (1989) argument against the SOT thesis and in favour of allowing the expression of thought content irrespectively of the identity or existence of a particular object. Segal’s argument is simple: the SOT theorist must explain the behaviour of the subjects who take themselves to, mistakenly, refer to an object. If the SOT theorist can account for the behaviour of the mistaken subjects without positing object-dependent singular thoughts, then that explanation is also sufficient to explain the actions and beliefs of non-mistaken subjects. If so, the ascription of singular object-dependent thoughts is explanatorily redundant. So, the SOT theorist cannot explain the behaviour of the subjects who take themselves to, mistakenly, refer to an object, or at least cannot do so without undermining the SOT thesis.

Segal’s argument is meant to support the claim that the same (type of) singular content must be ascribed, whether or not reference to an object is successful, thus denying SOT. What Segal wants to hold is not simply that some set X of beliefs is sufficient for psychological and behavioural explanation of mistaken and non-mistaken subjects, but that both groups of natives have the relevant singular belief.

My criticism of Segal’s argument has two parts. First, the argument only succeeds in establishing a common explanation for those aspects of mistaken and non-mistaken subjects that are common. Secondly, Segal’s view on singular thoughts is at odds with his view on the semantics of proper names. His views on the semantics of proper names favours the singularity and object-dependency of the truth-conditions of sentences in which they occur; but he wants vacuous names to make a ‘meaningful contribution’ to such sentences. However, it is not possible to hold both these claims together with the assumption that truth-conditional semantics can adequately account for all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence in the use of proper names.  Therefore, either vacuous names do not make any ‘meaningful contribution’ to sentences in which they occur, as held by some strong versions of SOT theory, or the semantic treatment of proper names should not ascribe to them conditions of application that are singular and object-dependent, or we must abandon the assumption that all aspects of speakers’ linguistic competence with the use of names can be accounted for in terms of the truth-conditions of sentences in which the names occur.

 
References

Evans, Gareth (1973). The Causal Theory of Names. Aristotelian Society suppl. vol. 47, 187-208. Reprinted in Collected Papers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1-24.

_____ (1982). The Varieties of Reference. J. McDowell (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press

Frege, Gottlob (1892). On Sense and Meaning. In P. Geach and M. Black (eds.) Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. (3^rd Edition), Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Basil Blackwell, 56-78.

Grice, Paul (1969). Vacuous Names. In D. Davidson and J. Hintikka (eds), Words and Objections. Dordrecht: Reidel, 118-45.

Kripke, Saul (1980) Naming and Necessity. Oxford UK and Cambridge USA: Basil Blackwell.

Larson, Richard and Gabriel Segal (1995). Knowledge and Meaning, an Introduction to Semantic Theory. Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press.

McDowell, John (1977). On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name. Mind 86, 159-85.

_____ (1982). Truth-Value Gaps. In L. J. Cohen, J. Łoś, H. Pfeiffer, I. P. Podewski (eds.) Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science VI. Amsterdam, New York and Oxford: North-Holland Publishing Company, 299-313.

_____ (1984). De Re Senses. in C. Wright (ed.), Frege: Tradition and Influence. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 98-109.

Segal, Gabriel (1989). The Return of the Individual. Mind 98, 39-57