NOTES CHAPTER 1. Quine is a philosopher and Davidson admires him.

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1 NOTES CHAPTER 1 See Prior (1954). 2 See the early sections of Prior (1955). See, in particular, Chapter 2 of Prior (1971), the earlier sections of Prior (1963b), and the section "Ramsey and the Later Wittgenstein" in Prior (1967). 4 We use 'referential' in the standard way. On this use, for a term to be referential it is not necessary that the object to which it refers actually exist. The term 'the man who first ascended Everest' is referential even if, as seems to be the case, no one was the first man to ascend that mountain, since it was first ascended by a pair of men. Or, proper names of fiction are referential even though the persons to which they refer to do not actually exist, e.g., as is the case with the name 'Sherlock Holmes'. We shall sometimes fall in with the common way of speaking illustrated by the statement that referential terms purport to single out some one thing, and may or may not succeed in doing so. 5 A similar situation obtains in relation to everyday names. One stage in the construction of the sentence 'Davidson admires the philosopher Quine' consists of affixing the term 'the philosopher' to the name 'Quine' to get a new designating term from that name. Clearly, 'Quine' and 'the philosopher Quine' both refer and indeed refer to the same person. It is also clear that the term 'the philosopher Quine' differs from the name 'Quine' in characterizing as well as referring to a certain person. These two functions are, of course, separable by paraphrase, e.g., as in the paraphrase Quine is a philosopher and Davidson admires him. Something similar will be possible in relation to 'John believes the proposition that snow is white'. For example, the following suggests itself as a quite natural paraphrase: That snow is white is a proposition and John believes it \ 12 Prior (1971), p. 19. Prior (1971), p. 19. Prior (1963b), p Prior (1963b), p Prior (1971), p. 17. Prior (1971), p. 16. Prior (1967), p

2 NOTES In later sections we will argue that the 'that' which sometimes comes between verbs and sentences is perhaps best seen as going with the subsequent sentence-- though not as an operator forming names from sentences. However, the important point, as we shall try to show, is that the intervening 'that' is entirely optional and that the verbs it sometimes follows already are "predicates at one end and connectives at the other". The key question, as we shall try to show, is whether in their occurrences after verbs like 'hopes', 'believes', 'predicts' and the like sentences serve as names. If they do, they do so independently of whether accompanied by a 'that'. And if they don't, then adding a 'that' will not change the situation. 14 Prior (1971), p Consider the generalization For some x, for some p, x went to the store and p. This sentence is formed by first forming, e.g., the sentence Tom went to the store and Bill went fishing and the replacing 'Tom' and 'Bill went fishing' by 'x' and 'p' respectively, thereby yielding the phrase x went to the store and p The initial sentence then results by prefixing the quantifier phrases. In this way the construction of the initial sentence leads to (and from) the term x went to the store and p and that marks this term as one which we not only could see as one from which a sentence is formed, but as one from which a sentence actually is formed. The same point could have been made, though not so elegantly, by beginning with the rather clumsy sentence Someone went to the store and there is a way things are. 16 This point will perhaps be evident to the reader. But we failed to recognize it for a long time and so think it may be useful to set out some cases sufficient to show that sentences certainly can yield names by quite ordinary and accepted linguistic operations. 17 We should sort the essential from the inessential in this discussion. As we see it, the key point for Prior is that nothing can name what a sentence says--that what a sentence says can only be said. If this holds, then there is no bar to allowing the 'that' to go with the sentence (with which it is said to go in everyday

3 392 NOTES grammar). For if what a sentence says cannot be named then it also cannot be named by sticking the word 'that' in front of it. 18 It is worth noting that the conclusion that prefixing 'that' to a sentence cannot yield a name of its sense (since 'naming what a sentence says' is nonsense) makes it far less important to argue that the 'that' which occurs between verbs and sentences must go with the verb and not with the sentence. 19 Prior (1967), pp Prior (1967), p Prior (1967), p Prior (1967), p This paragraph is inspired by what Prior wrote about facts in Prior (1967), especially the sections "Moore's Correspondence Theory" and "Russell's Correspondence Theory". 24 Prior (1967), p Prior (1967), p See Russell ( ) and Wittgenstein (1922), 2.202, 2.221,3.143, See Chapter 10, sections See Chapters See Chapters CHAPTER 2 Prior (1971), p. 3. Prior also suggests that "this distinction...is... paralleled in speech by that between what we say (e.g. again, that grass is green) and what we are speaking about (e.g., grass)" (p. 3). Since Prior would generalize from to 'Grass is green' says that grass is green and Tom believes that grass is green For some p, 'Grass is green' says that p and Tom believes that p it is clear that he does not in general distinguish between what sentences say and what people think. His view of course is not that everything which might be thought is said by some sentence or that anything said by some sentence is thought by someone. At most he would hold that what can be thought can also be said, and conversely. 2 We do not aim at completeness. For example, the view that attributions of thought express relations between objects--persons and propositions--but are somehow too obscure to figure in the serious talk of science (of Science), finds no place in our classification.

4 NOTES 393 The conception we have in mind has also been called the "dyadic-relation theory" of attributions of thought. We regard this term--or the kindred "relational conception"--as every bit as well-chosen as our own. The relational conception of attributions of thought exactly coincides with what we have called the "referential conception" of such attributions. By whatever name, the view is that attributions of thought are of the form arb with 'a' and 'b' standing for terms of reference, and 'R' standing for a verb signifying some binary relation. Our main reason for choosing the phrase 'referential conception' is that many contemporary views, along with those Prior explicitly argued against (e.g., the "standard view" of chapter I) especially stress the referential character of the subordinate clauses following the verbs in attributions of thought. 4 Compare the type of mathematical nominalism which denies the existence of numbers, but affirms that number words are referential. On this view '2 is even' isn't true and 'Some numbers are prime' is flat-out false. 5 It is natural to feel that if there just aren't any objects to go with subjects and "fill out" the fact of their believing, then some story must be told of why we sospeak, and so seemingly ineliminably so. It might be suggested--as it may be that Quine has suggested--that our attributions of thought belong to a non-scientific domain of discourse which is irremediably unclear and whose ontology or lack thereof need not be taken seriously. If the aim which counts is the aim which science under a certain construal establishes for itself, that of saying how things actually are in certain terms and not others, then attributions of thought have some other use (not that of saying how things are)--and so one which need not demand referents for references. We are hesitant about 'reduction'. Suppose it is said that red is a certain reflectancy. Is this a reduction of red? Well, if red is that, then there is no reduction, just a correct specification. And if red isn '[ that, then what is the reduction supposed to be if not an error? We have recently been told that certain properties supervene on other properties and thus are in that sense reducible to those other properties. Well--if they are those properties, then there is no reduction, but again only specification. And if they aren't? Then reduction would simply be an error--or, perhaps, just another way of saying that such and such properties have this or that connection with other properties (supervene on other properties in this or that defined sense of 'supervene'). What often is required for a successful and specified "reduction" is the specification of a class of "favored" sentences and a "reduction" function f which associates each to-be-reduced sentence with some favored sentence in such fashion that certain traits of the to-be-reduced sentences hold for the favored sentences to which they are reduced. Logical consequence might be one such trait. Perhaps

5 394 NOTES another would be the relation between sentences which holds when the truth of one evidences the truth of the other. Or it might be that observatbns which support one support the other, and equally so. But now--if the class of traits preserved by the reduction function f are all traits save those of syntax, spelling and the like, then it seems there is no reduction at all. No more so than when one "reduces" the sentence' All men are mortal' to 'No man is not mortal'. And if there are traits in addition to the syntactic ones which are lost, then the reduction certainly does not "eliminate" the to-be-reduced sentences in favor of the favored sentences, and to suggest otherwise would be an error. And, in fact, reduction is rarely alleged to be complete. So what seems to lie in the background of talk of reduction is (i) a conception of certain types of sentences as really OK and the others as somehow not fully OK (at any rate); and (ii) a conception of purposes for which the only relevant traits are the preserved ones. If this is roughly right, then what we have called "reductionism" needs to be understood as including both such a claim as that what we think is a sentence likeobject in the brain, and such a claim as that for certain purposes (say, those of cognitive science) what we think is a sentence-like object in the brain. 7 Terminology is not at issue here. Materialists may deny the existence of propositions on the grounds that propositions are insufficiently material, but still regard belief as a relation between a material subject and some sentence-like part of its brain. This latter object, by whatever name it might go, is taken as the referent of the subordinate clause in an attribution of belief. And so the view fits our category. We place no importance on the label given to what we are alleged to be related to by belief. What is important for the reductionist is that belief be regarded as a relation to something suitably spatio-temporal. It nonetheless should be noted that some philosophers who take 'believes' as a relational verb which relates the subject to something--indeed, to something sentence-like in the subject's brain--may shy yet away from the idea that the something to which the subject is related is the referent of the subordinate clause. S And more recently as well. For example, in his paper "Frege's Hidden Nominalism" Gustaf Bergmann argues that though Frege held that predicative terms "stand for" unsaturated entities, his system goes against the claim that these entities are existents. If so, the system is nominalistic. That Frege's system recognizes all sorts of abstract objects (numbers, truth values, classes) is no count against Bergmann's assessment as he understands nominalism, namely as the view classically so-called--one which denies the existence of universals. Thus understood, nominalism is simply the view that whatever exists is an object. Thus, in this sense, Quine also is a nominalist and contrasts with the nominalist Goodman in differently weighing the ontological claims of abstract objects. See Bergmann (1958). 9 Goodman and Quine (1947), p. 105.

6 NOTES Quine (1960), p We take it that Quine here indicates an awareness of the historical use of "realism" to stand for the view that there are universals rather than for the view that there are abstract particulars. 11 It is not the only one. For example, the view that the verbs in attributions of thought "coalesce" with the succeeding clause to form a logically simple predicate is a non-referential view of attributions of thought quite different from Prior's. See the discussion of the fusion view in Chapter Prior (1963b), p Prior (1968), p Prior (1968), p Prior (1968), p Prior (1968), p Of course, some names can intelligibly follow 'believes' --namely, names of thinking things. But, then, what is believes (in believing e.g., the President) is still put into words not by a name, but by a sentence. So we might somewhat more exactly state Prior's point as follows: A sentence of the form 'x believes n', for referential terms x and n is, unless it is elliptical for something like 'x believes what n says', is senseless. So he would take it, not that 'Bill believes the President' is senseless but that it makes sense by being elliptical for something along the lines of 'Bill believes what the President says'. 18 If b is a simple name, then the overall sentence will be, presumably, neither true nor false, and thus not true. If b is a definite description, then either we assimilate it to the case of a simple name (as did Frege), in which case the sentence again is not true, or we treat it in the manner of Russell, in which case the sentence is simply false, and thus again not true. The same result--iack of truth--would result even if we were to adopt the view once urged by Strawson. For when the "presupposition" of a single satisfier for the contained description fails, the sentence again is neither true nor false, and thus not true. The cases in which we use a singular term with some overt or implied "gesture" of ostension are not in point for our discussion. 19 It is not even required that the sentence following 'believes that' itself have a truth value. It will be enough that it has a sense of a kind which could be true or not. For example, let s be a sentence which says of some particular tree that it is in the Black Forest, e.g., a sentence of the form The tree which is A is in the Black Forest It may be that the tree thus designated is so-situated as to neither definitely be in nor definitely not be in the Black Forest. Then the sentence is neither true nor false. For all that, a person might believe that the tree which is A is in the Black Forest.

7 396 NOTES To see that the sentence about the tree and the forest could have a truth value it is enough to note that the Black Forest could have been more extensive than it actually is, in which case that tree would quite definitely have been within it. CHAPTER 3 Prior (1971), p. 11. Also see Ramsey (1931), pp Prior (1971), pp CHAPTER 4 2 Frege (1892), p. 58. Frege (1892), p We also construct such sentences as The sentence 'snow is white' has three words and even 'Snow is white' has three words and here we are much inclined to say that the quotation marks go with the enclosed letters and spaces to form a new name. If Frege is right, however, no new names occur in these sentences. Rather, a sentence, the very one which appears within the marks, newly names. What then is the role of the quotation marks? Surely they in part indicate which words within the overall sentence now name what they otherwise would express. Are we also to assign them the function of shifting the sense and reference of the enclosed terms? We could, but it seems more natural to assign that function to the predicate 'has three words'. And in fact no one stumbles on a sentence like Snow is white has three words and the only problem with Tom thinks that grass is green has several words is that of determining whether the overall sentence tells us something about what Tom thinks or tells us only about some sentence. Here a scope devise is needed, and quotation marks (or underlining, or italization, or, in speech, vocal stress) comes to our aid. But also, with a different phrase we could again dispense with anything like quotation, e.g., we could write

8 NOTES 397 for one reading and write Tom thinks there are several words in grass is green There are several words in Tom thinks that grass is green for the other. Frege (1892), p. 65. Frege (1892), p. 66. Frege (1892), p. 66. Frege (1892), p. 66. Frege (1892), p Frege (1892), p Frege (1892), p. 66. CHAPTER 5 Prior (1962). 2 Prior (1962), p Frege (1891), p. 41. Bealer (1993), p. 9, footnote 8. On the prosentential theory see Grover, Camp and Belnap (1975). 5 Bealer (1993), p. 7. Bealer (1993), p. 9, footnote 8. Bealer (1993), p. 9, footnote 8. Bealer (1993), p. 9, footnote 8. 9 We have been warned that not everyone will be content with the idea that we fall short of sense in linking a name of a human being with the word 'God' using the "is" of identity. But it would be easy enough to switch to another example. Let Bill hear of the Queen and her spritely ways, and hear as well that waltzes are spritely. He then comes up with the words 'I think the Queen is a waltz', and shows the usual signs of seriousness and conviction and has whatever feelings ordinarily accompany his serious expressions of conviction. What's going on here? And now we would repeat the discussion found in the text. CHAPTER 6 2 Fodor (1978), p Fodor (1978), p Fodor (1978), p Richard (1990), p. 5. Richard (1990), p. 5.

9 398 NOTES Horwich (1990), pp It has been suggested to us that a phrase like 'the proposition that it will rain' is no more "syntactically coherent" than is, say, 'the sake of the children'. If the idea is that 'the proposition that' is as much wedded to such forms as 'believes the proposition that' as 'the sake of is wedded to such forms as 'done for the sake of, we are not inclined to agree. For the fact is that we have familiar and unstrained uses of 'proposition' in ever so many quite standard noun positions e.g., 'Some propositions are not worth the words used in making them', 'Every proposition expressed in this paper is well-evidenced' etc. But to talk in analogous fashion of "every sake" or "some sake' is strained at best. Fodor (1978), p Fodor (1978), pp Fodor (1978), p. 337, footnote 2. II Wittgenstein (1922). See and Frege held that a vast array of expressions, both logical and non-logical have both sense and reference. In 'On Sense and Reference' he argues that, in particular, sentences not only have sense, but reference as well, and that names not only have reference, but sense as well. Against this Wittgenstein holds that sentences have no reference and that names have no sense. 12 Davidson (1968-9). See Chapter 7 for a discussion of Davidson's analysis. CHAPTER 7 Prior (1971), p. 60. Prior (1971), p. 60. Prior (1971), pp Davidson (1979), p. 90. Davidson (1979), p Davidson (1979), p. 90. Davidson (1979), p. 91. Davidson (1968-9), p Davidson (1968-9), p Davidson (1968-9), p II Davidson (1968-9), p In "Reply to Foster" (Davidson [1976], pp ) Davidson says that on his analysis of 'Galileo said that the Earth moves' it consists of "the utterance of two sentences": and Galileo said that

10 NOTES 399 The Earth moves where "The 'that' refers to the second utterance, and the first utterance is true if and only if an utterance of Galileo's was the same in content as (,translates') the utterance to which the 'that' refers" (p. 177). If so, the 'said' expands to 'uttered something the same in content as'. 13 Prior (1963b), p Prior (1971), pp Davidson (1968-9), p We borrow this exact way of putting the matter from Davidson's own wording in his "Reply to Foster" (Davidson (1976], p. 177). 17 Foster had objected that Davidson's analysis "fails a translation test". His idea was that of the following two sentences Galileo uttered something the same in content as that: The earth moves. Galileo a dit quelquechose avec la meme content que ca: The earth moves. the second is the translation into French of the first, but that the second sentence will not "convey to a French audience anything about the content of Galileo's remark". (See Foster [1976]; we use Davidson's wording in Davidson [1976], p. 177.) Indeed it need not, and will not to any French speaker innocent of English. But the key point is independent of translation. Our English sentence Galileo said that the Earth moves purports to tell us what it is that Galileo said. It does not purport to tell us what words he used, or that his words were similar in content to any of ours. It says, whether truly or not, what it is that Galileo said. The perfectly good piece of English which Davidson provides, namely Galileo uttered something the same in content as that: The Earth moves does not purport to tell us what it is that Galileo said. 18 Or so we think. We should here note that we do not regard There is exactly one inhabited planet in our solar system and Galileo said of it that it moves as bringing out any sense of

11 400 NOTES Galileo said that the only inhabited planet in our solar system moves, though it might well do so for Galileo said of the only inhabited planet in our solar system that it moves. Of the sentences just displayed the first and third are ones Prior might have held true had Galileo one day, and with a sweeping gesture, said something which is translated by our English sentence This planet of ours moves. For Prior held that in this and many other cases there is a distinction to be made between that to which we refer and of which we then predicate something, and the means we enlist in trying to effect that reference. In certain cases, he held, our means of effecting reference do not themselves contribute to what we say. In many cases involving ostension, he held, what we say involves just what we predicate and the object we manage to ostend. That our means of reference is, say, a gesture plus a word or phrase ('this man' plus pointing, or 'this planet of ours' plus a sweeping gesture) no more makes our words or their meanings part of what we say, than it makes the gesture a part of what we say. As he saw it, when our means of reference are not part of what we say, it is not even required for effecting reference to the thing we refer to that our accompanying words or phrases be true of the thing to which we refer, much less true of it alone. In full effect, the referential/attributive distinction which later became a commonplace in the philosophy of language is one Prior both noted and made much of in his work on reference. So, had Galileo said "And this earth of ours moves" in a suitably ostensive manner, then both and Galileo said of the earth that it moves Galileo said of the only inhabited planet that it moves would, according to Prior, have gotten things right. For in these sentences we use the terms 'the earth' and 'the only inhabited planet' only as means for securing reference to the very thing to which Galileo referred with his different means and what we say he said of that object is indeed what he said--namely that it moves. But none of this means that Prior would not have agreed with Davidson on the case at hand, or, for sure, on many other cases clearly of the kind here intended.

12 NOTES 401 For example, consider Bill who, while sitting in his office and reading reports, says to the inspector 'The thief entered by the back door' having no idea who that person was, though taking it that there was a thief and just one. We may then correctly report what he said as follows: Bill said that the thief entered by the back door but would not correctly report what he said by such sentences as or Bill said of the thief that he entered by the back door There was exactly one thief and Bill said that he entered by the back door. Now consider this report on what Bill said to the inspector: Bill said that the person who reported the crime entered by the back door. This report might well be false. For example, Bill may not have said any such thing precisely because he was under the impression that just one person reported the crime and that he was a passerby, not a thief, who, interested in purchasing a camera, walked in the front door to fmd the owner unconscious on the floor beside a display case empty of merchandise. So the third of our just displayed sentences may be false though the first is true. And still, they may differ only in respect to co-referential terms. For consistent with the story just told is the circumstance that there indeed was just one thief and that he reported his own crime Davidson (1968-9), p. 94. Davidson (1968-9), p. 94. Davidson (1968-9), p CHAPTER 8 Davidson (1973), p Davidson (1973), p. 65. Davidson (1969), p Davidson (1969), p. 38. Prior would object to this way of labeling the view at hand. His own view was that a sentence and its double negation do not "express the same proposition".

13 402 NOTES On the other hand, he thought that a sentence and the one which results from affixing 'It is true that' to it do "express the same proposition". But at this point nothing turns on the point and we shall let it pass. 6 Davidson (1969), p. 38. The T -sentence theory and the double negation theory are both elimination proposals--one directed at the use of 'true' in sentences about sentences, the other directed at the use of 'true' in, as it were, its "indirect discourse" applications. 8 Davidson (1969), p. 38. Davidson (1969), p Davidson (1969), p Davidson (1969), p Davidson (1969), p Davidson (1969), p Davidson (1967), p Davidson (1967), p. 19. The argument (as Davidson traces its lineage) derives from Frege (1892) and then Church (1956), pp Is the argument correct? The argument, and others from Quine in certain ways similar to it, has been variously faulted. It has been pointed out that Davidson invokes the principle that logically equivalent singular terms are co-referential, but then applies the principle in justification of the claim that certain singular terms are equivalent though a proof of their equivalence turns on more than (first order) logic alone, requiring in addition certain truths about sets. But that is not a major problem since the principle that set theoretically equivalent singular terms are co-referential is as secure as is the same claim for logically equivalent singular terms. The principle that "a singular term does not change its reference if a contained singular term is replaced by another with the same reference" is more obviously open to criticism. After all, there are singular terms with non-extensional verbs. So, for example, if Bill accused Joe with the words 'You threatened Tom' and accused no one else with any such words, and then accused Bob with the words 'You threatened the Mayor' and accused no one else with any such words, and Joe and Bob are different men, then the terms 'the man Bill accused of threatening Tom' and 'the man Bill accused of threatening the Mayor' would seem to refer to different men, even if Tom and the Mayor are one and the same man. But then it is clear that the singular terms which playa role in Davidson's argument are entirely extensional. So he might limit his principle of interchange to such cases without harm to his argument. (And the principle, so limited, looks like a pretty good one.) So how might there be a problem in this argument? Considerations of scope, which have been thought to apply to certain somewhat similar arguments given by Quine, do not apply here. Indeed, we think not only that considerations of scope do not apply, but that what might seem to give rise such considerations, the use of singular terms, is actually a dispensable feature of the argument.

14 NOTES 403 After all, if Davidson's argument is a solid one, then there should be an anaiagous argument for a language in which definite descriptions are everywhere eliminated in favor of quantifications, in the manner suggested first by Russell. In that case the four sentences will be these: R (::JY)(X)((XEY=(X=X & R))&(z)((X)(XEZ=(X=X & R) ::::J z=y)&y=v) (::JY)(X)((XEY=(X=X & S))&(Z)((X)(XEZ=(X=X & S) ::::J z=y) & y=v) S (It is true that we here retain the singular term 'V'. We do this to avoid undue complexity in exposition. It will be easily seen that nothing turns on this.)the first two and the last two sentences are still set theoretically equivalent. So Davidson might still argue that if sentences refer the first two sentences co-refer and the last two sentences co-refer. But by reference to what principle might he seek to justify the claim that if sentences refer then the middle two sentences co-refer? It appears that the principle would have to be as follows: A singular term does not change its reference if a contained sentence is replaced by another the same in truth value presumably limited to singular terms free of non-extensional terms. So consider the singular term The x such that x is married to Marge or Marge is not married If 'Marge is not married' is true, then everyone satisfies the condition 'x is married to Marge or Marge is not married' and the singular term fails to refer. And the sarne holds for any singular term like this one except for having a different true sentence in for 'Marge is not married'. Now suppose that sentence is false. Then Marge is married. If to just one person, the singular term refers to it. If not to just one person, then again the term fails to refer. Now consider any singular term like this one except for having a different false sentence in for 'Marge is not married' e.g., the sentence 'Davidson learned nothing from Quine'. Then our singular term is this one: The x such that x is married to Marge or Davidson learned nothing from Quine. Well, something satisfies the contained predicate of this term only if it is married to Marge. If just one thing is, the term refers to it. If not just one thing is married to Marge, the term fails to refer. So the interchange of sentences the same in truth

15 404 NOTES value seems not to affect the reference of its containing singular term when that term is extensional throughout. So we are inclined to think that all is well with Davidson's argument in respect to the construction of the sentences it employs and the principles to which it appeals. This is not to say that we think the argument is a solid one. We are inclined to think that it actually falls short of sense--for, we suspect, the phrase "sentences refer" may be senseless despite the fact that it is grammatically OK and that its terms are undoubtedly meaningful. But that is another matter, and one not suitable for discussion at this point. 16 Prior (1971), p. 48. CHAPTER Quine (1966), p. 66. Prior (1971), p. 48. Prior (1963b), p Quine (1961), p. 13. Quine (1961), p. 13. Quine (1961), p. 13. Quine (1961), p. 13. Quine (1961), p Quine (1961), p Quine (1961), p Quine (1961), p Quine (1961), p Quine (1961), p. los. Quine (1966), p. 64-6S. Quine (1966), p. 6S. Quine (1966), p. 6S. Quine (1966), p. 6S. Quine (1966), p. 6S. Quine (1966), p. 6S. For what may be another instance of this argument see Quine (1960), p Quine (1961), p Quine (1961), p Quine (1970), p See Wittgenstein (1977). Prior (1971), pp Prior (1971), p. 34. Prior (1971), pp

16 NOTES 405 CHAPTER 10 Prior (1971), p The point is one noted by any elementary logic text. Quine has held that singular reference is dispensable in favor of first order quantification. If so, there could be certain general sentences for which there were no specifications. But in fact there are terms for singular reference--nfulles, for example--and so there are specifications for first order quantifications. Certainly Quine's point is true for certain "localities" within our language e.g., the sub-language of scientific English in which laws are stated. But it will not be true for scientific English as applied in the lab. Even if we should, as a kind of laborious game, eschew all proper names in the lab, we would still have to effect singular references via devices of ostension. It is also interesting to consider the sense of open sentences used in inference in first order languages lacking names, and the suggestion, found in Geach and Dummett, that in such occurrences free variables in some sense function as names. These philosophers also note that in a standard semantical account for first order languages a some-quantification, for example, is deemed true just in case the open sentence which results from deleting the some-quantifier is true for some assignment of a domain element to the variable used by that quantifier. Here their suggestion is that this makes a name of the free variable--namely a name of the domain element that assignment assigns to it. (See Geach (1968), pp and Dummett (1973), p. 164.) 4 Not all general sentences fit this pattern. For example, the general sentence Most everyone enjoys conversation neither implies nor is implied by its specifications e.g., Bill enjoys conversation. However, this does not mean that there are no inferential links between the general sentence just displayed and its specifications, for it is clear that this general sentence is implied by enough sentences appropriately more specific than it. It just is that what is enough for "most" both (i) varies from case and to case, and (ii) precludes a sharp demarcation in virtually every case ("virtually" since e.g., when there are just five, three will be enough for most but two will not). We shall not, however, be concerned with these sorts of, shall we say, "vague" general sentences, since our aim is to discuss generality in relation to those "quantitatively definite" general sentences of which the quantifications familiar to us from elementary logic are a particular type. S Philosophers sometimes speak as if quantification were something "invented". A certain notation may be someone's invention. Certainly, the notation found in Frege's logical writings was his invention, and the notation found in the writings

17 406 NOTES of various Polish logicians was their invention. But quantification is not one with its various notations. Or, as we might also put it, among its notations are the ones belonging to this or that natural language e.g., English. After all, it is not as if English lacked the sentence Something is such that it is a mountain prior to the onset of quantification theol)'. On the other hand, it is likely that none of us would have seen that this is a quantification prior to the onset of quantification theol)'. To say that Frege invented a way of seeing certain sentences (of spotting a certain class of sentences as forming a system of sentences) might not be so far from the truth. This third function will in some cases be partly or even fully carried out by the outlying pronoun e.g., as when we write Someone fixed the carburetor and then she drove the car to the store and use 'she' in the traditional manner (to indicate gender). 7 If some stretch of reasoning uses 'Something weighs two hundred pounds' wherever some other stretch of reasoning uses 'Someone weighs two hundred pounds' and does not otherwise differ, then the two stretches of reasoning are either both valid or both invalid. In this sense the two sentences have "essentially the same" inferential powers. 8 See Quine (1960), p See, for example, Quine (1961), p \0 Quine's view is not that sentences refer if sentential quantification is neither eliminable nor substitutional, but that they refer in their occurrences in the instances of such quantifications. So, an occurrence of Snow is white used on its own to make an assertion may, so far as Quine's claims are concerned, be non-referential. But, according to Quine, it will refer in its occurrence in if Bill believes snow is white For some x: Bill believes x is neither an eliminable nor a substitutional quantification. Now--there are sentential quantifications. How are they to be understood? One option is to argue that such quantifications are merely substitutional. This, as we shall urge in the next chapter, vel)' likely is not the case. Another option is to

18 NOTES 407 argue that all such quantifications are false for the reason that the objects which would have to exist for the quantifications to be true (propositions?) don't exist. Yet a third option would be to argue that some such quantifications are true since there are such objects. Quine would probably accept none of the above. Rather he would urge that we not take such quantifications seriously since science can dispense with them. But is not taking something seriously because science can dispense with it a way of understanding anything? CHAPTER II We here assume that sentential quantifications bind letters in non-extensional positions. Otherwise, the account of choice would be an "elimination account" along the lines suggested by Quine in his Philosophy of Logic (1970), pp Horwich (1990), p. 5. In Horwich's book '&' occurs where we have 'v' in (5***), clearly a clerical error. 3 Prior (1971), p Prior (1971);p. 36. Suppose that what John alone believes can be put into words in French, though not in English. Then the French sentence Pour quelque chose x, suelment Jean croix que x is substitutionally true in French. And so we might count the English quantification also substitutionally true--at one remove, as it were. The idea would be that a quantification Q is substitutionally true in language L iff either it has a true instance in L or for some language K, some sentence S of K translates Q and S has a true instance in K. This suggestion (made to us by C.J.F.Williams) certainly is in the spirit of the substitutionalist conception of quantification. But it falls short of providing the generality needed for the case at hand. For it might be that what John alone believes is put into words only in a language lacking means for formulating generalizations. We might say: Once there was a man who believed something no one else ever has believed. We are much inclined to think this is true. Some ancient ancestor of ours, speaking a very simple language lacking generalization, forms a belief he alone holds. His language, we will agree, has some sentence for what he believes. But no generalization of which it is an instance. And, of course, there is the fact that we form perceptual beliefs for the expression of which some kind of indexicality is needed--some sort of "this" or "that". There are ever so many such beliefs, and ever so many indexical sentences to express them ifuttered in the right circumstances. But right circumstances come and go, and then are gone. So it frequently happens that there are beliefs which are in the circumstances of their formation unformulated--though then formulable--

19 408 NOTES and since those circumstances fail to endure (the tree bums down, the sunset is done with, now and forever) what was believed is never expressed. And so, since often enough people form perceptual beliefs in circumstances in fact never available to others, there are ever so many "unique" beliefs for vastly many of which the circumstances necessary for their expression simple cease to exist. 6 The "nominal" aspect certainly cannot derive from a requirement that the complements of 'believes','predicts' and the like be sentence nominalizations. For, as we have noted, there is no such requirement. 7 Put in Priorian fashion, we have a quantifier binding a sentential variable in an extensional occurrence and in a non-extensional occurrence. But if this is permissible, then, presumably, the same holds for variables in for names. But this is the kind of "quantifying in" against which Quine has argued and about which many urge caution. Prior's view will certainly be that e.g., For some x: x is happy and Bill believes x is happy is perfectly meaningful, and may quite well be true. Suppose for example that this sentence is true: Bob's dad is happy and Bill believes Bob's dad is happy Then, as Prior would have it, the quantification is true since it is simply a generalization on what is true. Quine says that the quantification is unwarranted. Why? Well, the occurrence of 'x' in 'x is happy' has people as its values. But the occurrence of 'x' in 'Bill believes x is happy' either has no values or has some sorts of "intensional objects" as values. On the first option the error is to bind a letter with no values. On the second option the error is to bind variables with different values. Prior does not go in for intentional objects. So he is left in the position of binding a non-variable. But why say that in its occurrence in 'Bill believes x is happy' the variable lacks values? Well--the position of 'x' in 'Bill believes x is happy' is nonreferential. To this Prior would reply that the position is as referential as it ordinarily is and in the same way. The "referential opacity" of which Quine speaks is not a matter of, as it were, the term ceasing to refer. Rather, the opacity noted by Quine comes to this: that in this context truth is not tied to reference. The 'x' in 'Bill believes x is happy' is a name variable with persons as its values just as always--only in this context these values are irrelevant to truth. But now consider a definite description such as 'Bob's dad'. It both has a meaning and refers to something. Just as the sentence 'Bob's dad is happy' both has a truth value and says something. In some cases what makes a difference to the truth value of the encompassing sentence is the truth value of its component sentence. Sometimes it is what it says. Similarly for definite descriptions. In some cases it is its meaning that makes a difference to truth value and sometimes it is its reference. So also for variables. Terms have various values--and variables in

20 NOTES 409 for terms similarly have various variable values. A variable in for a definite description is, as it were, a variable definite description. Its "ranges" are at least two--ranges of references and ranges of meaning. In certain contexts it is the referential range which yields values (Le., truth value determiners) and in others it is the meaning range which yields values. Similarly for variables in for sentences. So Prior would say that in the above quantification the quantifier binds two occurrences of a variable with the same ranges of values in both occurrences. So all is well with quantification. But 'believes' makes (for the case of definite descriptions) meaning and not reference the range of values relevant to truth value (just as, for the case of sentences, it makes sense and not truth values relevant to truth value). 8 Quine has often urged that a language contains predicates only if it also contains (non-substitutional) quantification or generality. This seems to us roughly right for what we might call complex predicates. Certainly, there are languages with truth functional complexity in which nothing corresponding to a complex predicate ever appears. And we might even say that what looks like a complex predicate e.g., walked or ran is such only given quantification (or generality). For we well might be said to understand e.g., as elliptical for Tom ran or walked with Jerry Tom ran with Jerry or Tom walked with Jerry. But we also construct sentences quite apart from quantification, using simple names or ostensions and simple predicates in all sorts of combinations and in relation to all sorts of activities. As we see it, simple reference and simple predication are present independently of quantification (generality). So it is not that there is reference and predication only where there is quantification (or some equivalent device for generality), but that there are complex references and complex predications only with quantification. 9 Prior (1971), p Tarski (1 956b ).

21 410 NOTES CHAPTER 12 He says "coherently add" because not every addition of terms to a language will yield further sentences with sense when those terms are used to specify the generalizations in the language. For the sorts of first order languages advocated by Quine--ones lacking proper names--geach's view is that the variables of such a language are proper name variables, and he argues the point by examining the proof procedures of such a language. So adding them is "coherent": putting proper names in place of all free occurrence of proper name variables yields a sentence with sense. What would not be "coherent" would be e.g., to add sentences as substituends for the individual variables. It is the difference between, say, and Bill is wise Snow is white is wise for 'Bill' and 'Snow is white' as substituends for 'x' in 'x is wise'. 2 Geach (1980), p Geach's proposal is linked to his understanding of unrestricted quantification. As he understands such quantification "there will be no question which entities they 'refer to' or 'range over'" (page 182). Such questions, he argues, arise only in respect to quantifications restricted through the use of "substantives". So he rejects, and explicitly so, Quine's view that and For some man x:... For some x: x is a man and... are equivalent. His proposal applies only to constructions of the second type--one's using a quantifier free of restrictions to this or that domain of objects. Thus also, the logical category of the 'x' is not limited to the cases in which one might specify a domain with a substantive. Both and For some x: x is wise For some x: Bill believes that x are examples of unrestricted quantification though the variables stand in for terms of radically different logical types. Geach (1980), p. 184.

22 NOTES 411 We have spoken in tenns of "the substitutional ideal". But that puts things badly, for it makes it sound as if there were a goal we might approach. But here there no more is a goal than there is in everyday arithmetic as we count to ever higher numbers. Geach (1980), p See Teichmann (1992), p. 9 for a similar criticism of Geach. Also see Williams (1981), p Geach (1980), pp Also seefootnote 2. Geach (1980), p Geach (1980), p Geach (1980), p Geach (1980), p We do not here touch on the question of what it is for a number to have a name (e.g., for '3' to be a numeral for 3). But we caution against supposing that the picture of naming we frod natural for, say, people and their names has any application at all to the case of a number and its name. 13 Not that we would really grant the point. As we see it, there are two primary ways of getting truth out of a predicate. One way is to use it in connection with some fonn of singular reference. The other way is to quantify it. In both cases it is, in some vague and very general sense, "referred" to the world. At any rate, whether you get a sentence from a predicate by singular reference or by quantification you get something which is true or false depending on how things are ("the world"). Geach's view is that one of these ways of "referring" the predicate to the world--the way of singular reference--is fundamental. In lots of cases we would agree. But always? We are struck by what seems to be the vanishingly small role played by singular reference in "referring" the predicates of atomic theory to the world. Here what seems primary is quantification. On the other hand, we would not simply deny the point. We know ourselves not to know enough for that. 14 Geach (1980), p CHAPTER 13 Quine (1966), p. 67. Also see Quine (1970), pp Quine (1970), pp CHAPTER 14 Tarski (1956a), pp Quine (1961), p Tarski (1956b), pp We here use italicization in lieu of quasi-quotes. The usual readings are assumed (e.g., the result of putting v for 'v' and 'u' for u in 'Tvu').

23 412 NOTES CHAPTER 15 Horwich (1990), pp Davidson (1967), p. 19. Prior (1971), p Williams (1976), p. 38. CHAPTER 16 Putnam (1979), p Putnam (1981), p. 55. Putnam (1981), p. 56. Putnam (1981), pp Putnam (1981), p. 55. Putnam clearly understands an ideal inquiry as one carried out by creatures like ourselves. He writes: "Our conceptions of coherence and acceptability are, on the view I shall develop, deeply interwoven with our psychology. They depend upon our biology and our culture; they are by no means 'value free'. But they are our conceptions, and they are conceptions of something real. They define a kind of objectivity, objectivity for us, even if it is not the metaphysical objectivity of the God's Eye view. Objectivity and rationality humanly speaking are what we have; they are better than nothing." Putnam (1981), p. 55. CHAPTER 17 Dummett (1959), p. 97. Dummett (1959), p. 97. Most of 17.2 is taken from Hug1y and Sayward (1993). Prior (1971), p. 25. Horwich (1990), p Horwich (1990), p Horwich (1990), p. 84. Field (1994), p Field (1994), p Field (1994), p II Field characterizes his disquotational theory as a theory about utterances. He writes (Field (1994), p. 405): "Deflationism" is the view that truth is at bottom disquotational. I take this to mean that in its primary ("purely disquotational") use, (1) 'true' as understood by a given person applies only to utterances that that person understands, and

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