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 | | Relations Between Rigidity and Associated Theories of Reference | |
Rigidity is generally discussed in the literature in connection with several theories about reference that were introduced or reintroduced or discussed feverishly about the time Kripke called attention to rigid designation. These theories address either the question of what it is that designating terms say or express or contribute to the content of propositions that they are used to articulate, or the question how it is that designating terms come to say or express or contribute the content they do. The relationship between rigidity and these other theories of reference, which is often blurred in the literature, can be brought into focus in a way that is fairly uncontroversial, in many instances.2.2.1 Direct ReferenceAbout the time Kripke named rigidity, Kaplan named the theory of “direct reference” (in “Demonstratives,” eventually published as 1989a: see 1989b, p. 571). As the theory is usually understood, it is the position that the semantic content of a name or other directly referring expression is nothing more than the referent: the referent is all that the name contributes to a proposition expressed by a sentence containing it. So there is no descriptive information semantically conveyed by a directly referring expression. If we think of propositions as “structured entities looking something like the sentences which express them,” as Kaplan invites us to do, we can think of directly referring terms as terms whose contribution to a proposition lacks the structure that characterizes the contribution of definite descriptions. In the case of a definite description, “the constituent of the proposition will be some sort of complex, constructed from various attributes by logical composition. But in the case of a singular term which is directly referential, the constituent of the proposition is just the object itself” (Kaplan 1989a, p. 494; see also the section relating possible worlds and structured propositions in the entry on structured propositions).Direct reference theorists (e.g., Soames 2002, pp. 240, 243), also called “Millians” after J. S. Mill, insist that ‘Hesperus = Phosphorus’ and ‘Hesperus = Hesperus’ express the same proposition or share the same content. At first glance, these statements appear to say different things, but if ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ contribute no descriptive information (like is a morning star or is an evening star) to the proposition expressed by either sentence, but only the referent, which is the same for each term, then the sentences have to say the same thing despite first appearances.It is generally acknowledged that rigidity cannot be identified with direct reference. That is because some expressions designate rigidly by means of describing the designatum: e.g., ‘The successor of 2’, which rigidly designates 3. Kripke calls designators like ‘The successor of 2’ rigid de facto, rather than rigid de jure: the description happens to be satisfied by the same object in every possible world and never anything else. Compare the intuitively distinct case of de jurerigidity in a name, like ‘Barack Obama’. Here the intent is to refer to this person in all possible worlds, whatever descriptions may designate him.Even though there are rigid designators that are not directly referential, it is plausible to suppose that all directly referential expressions are rigid designators (as Kaplan suggests: 1989b, p. 571). Rigid directly referential expressions would evidently be rigid de jure. According to some philosophers, it would be metaphysically possible to coin non-rigid directly referential expressions, by devising some means of assuring that they change their designatum from world to world. Teresa Robertson, for example, maintains “the possibility that a term that is nondescriptional is nonetheless stipulated to work in the following way: it designates Penelope Mackie at the actual world, Saul Kripke at some other possible world, and Hilary Putnam at some still other possible world” (Robertson 2009, p. 135; see also Salmon 1981, p. 33n.35). Others controvert this claim, modest as it is, being only a claim about possible languages rather than English, French, etc.—e.g., Arthur Sullivan: “What I deny is the possibility of an unstructured but nonrigid designator” (Sullivan 2012 p. 37; see also Balaguer 2011, p. 77; Soames 2002, pp. 264–5; King 2001, p. 311).Let me take stock briefly. Not all rigid expressions are directly referential; there are descriptions that are rigid de facto. But some philosophers say that all directly referential expressions are rigid and rigid de jure. There remain the questions of whether all terms that are rigid de jurewould have to be, and whether they are, directly referential.The theory of direct reference for names is so intimately associated with the theory that names are rigid de jure that some philosophers who deny that names are directly referential suppose that they are thereby compelled to deny that names are rigid de jure (see Fitch's 2004 discussion, p. 54). But there are reasons for supposing that an expression could be rigid de jure without being directly referential (as some direct reference theorists agree: e.g., Kaplan 1989b, p. 577n.25; cf. Salmon 2003, pp. 486–7; see also Stanley's 1997a discussion: 570–1). If expressions could be rigid de jure without being directly referential, then even if names are not directly referential, they might be rigid de jure.Here are some considerations in favor of saying that an expression could be rigid de jure without directly referring to its designatum. Suppose that ‘Petrarch’ is, contrary to direct reference theorists, a disguised description, shorthand for ‘The famous humanist most closely associated, in α, with the Italian Renaissance’, where ‘α’ is a name for the actual world. This is one simple, though perhaps not highly plausible, account available to opponents of the theory of direct reference: it will do for illustration of this point.[7] If this descriptive account is correct, then ‘Petrarch’ is rigid: in any other possible world w, ‘Petrarch’ designates the entity that, in α (notw), is the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance. That person is Petrarch. ‘Petrarch’ refers to the same individual in all possible worlds and never to any other individual, so it is rigid. Plausibly, in this circumstance ‘Petrarch’ is also rigid de jure and not de facto: after all, it is by stipulation or design that the term refers, in all possible worlds, to the same item. This term is assigned the task of picking out in any world the item that meets certain world-indexed descriptive requirements (for discussion of world-indexed properties, see Plantinga 1974, pp. 62–5). The designatum must first be picked out in α by whether it meets the descriptive requirements (with or without the indexing) there in α: but the purpose of the indexing is to keep the term referring, with respect to other worlds, to that same item picked out originally in α by virtue of meeting the right requirements there.If the above considerations are sound, then there could be rigid de jure terms that fail to be directly referential. Whether there are in fact any rigid de jure terms that fail to be directly referential, in natural language, is another question. Ordinary names like ‘Barack Obama’, ‘Petrarch’, or ‘Italy’, which are commonly supposed to be rigid de jure if any expressions are, are going to remain controversial examples as long as the theory of direct reference for these expressions is controversial. Typical “descriptivists,” who oppose direct reference, hold that ordinary proper names and the like are not directly referential. They may hold furthermore thatno terms are directly referential, perhaps doubting the coherence of direct reference on grounds, say, that direct reference “leaves no room for a coherent conception” of how thoughts or words could be hooked up with the right “particulars otherwise than by specification” (McDowell 1994, pp. 106-7).By contrast, typical direct reference theorists hold, naturally enough, that ordinary proper names and the like are directly referential. Many direct reference theorists seem furthermore to think that all rigid de jure expressions whatsoever are directly referential, but again this further step should not be accepted as a matter of course, because even if ordinary names and the like are directly referential, there may well be other expressions that are not directly referential by anyone's lights but that are still rigid de jure (literature on all of this may be gathered from surveys cited in note 7).So, while opponents of the theory of direct reference are free to deny that names are rigid or rigid de jure (as, e.g., Rosenberg does: 1994), it is hardly clear that this is a general requirement for accounts opposed to direct reference. Many opponents of the theory of direct reference maintain that names are rigid or rigid de jure (Plantinga 1985, pp. 82–7; Sidelle 1992; 1995; Justice 2003). Kripke remains uncommitted one way or the other about the theory of direct reference (1979; 1980, pp. 20–21), but of course he is the first to come to mind among those committed to the position that proper names are rigid de jure (1980, p. 21n.21).2.2.2 Causal GroundingAnother theory of reference that was named about the time ‘rigid designator’ was coined, and that is widely associated with rigid designation, is the causal theory of reference. All that is relevant here is one method of term dubbing associated with that theory. According to a typical causal theorist, many terms are coined in a “baptismal ceremony,” during which the dubber points at an object in her perceptual field (hence, the object's causal role), and establishes reference by appeal to this object. The baptismal object might become the referent, if the term's coiner says something to this effect: “Term t is to be used for that object.” The baptismal object might also be a sample of a substance that becomes the referent, if the term's coiner says something to this effect: “Term t is to be used for the substance instantiated by that object.” Or the object might have some other connection to the referent, as might happen if the term's coiner says something to this effect: “Term t is to be used for the ceremonial function of that ancient artifact,” or “Termt is to be used for the leader of that wolf pack.” Most of these examples involve a definite description, which is used to “fix the reference” (Kripke 1980, pp. 54–6, 135), and not as a synonym: the term is to apply to the designatum even with respect worlds in which it does not satisfy the description. In all of these examples, whether the relevant term designates in a given instance depends on the properties of the object used to ground reference in the baptismal ceremony. The relevant properties may not be known to the term's coiner.Some philosophers seem to think that rigid terms are just those coined in accordance with a baptism like the above.[8] But causal grounding is not closely tied to rigidity. Since many philosophers deny that rigidity applies to designators for kinds (see below), designators for other entities serve better to illustrate. First, designators that are rigid can fail to be causally grounded. ‘The successor of 2’, which is rigid de facto, may be a case in point. ‘3’ might be an example of a rigid de jure term that is not causally grounded. And there can evidently be terms for concrete objects that are rigid but not causally grounded. You coin ‘Joy’ in the following way: “‘Joy’ is to be used for the most joy-filled individual.” Here you use the description to fix the reference, not as a synonym: whatever individual is most filled with joy is the designatum, even when we are discussing worlds in which that same individual is glum. Reference is not secured by way of causal grounding; you never point to anything in a baptismal ceremony.[9] Yet the designator is rigid.So designators that are rigid might fail to be causally grounded. Designators that are causally grounded might also fail to be rigid. You find an old painting. After engaging in some convoluted discussion about legal ownership, you decide to clarify your terms: “Let the expression ‘Originalowner’ designate, for any possible world w, the original owner in w of that painting” (you point at the painting). You have causally grounded ‘Originalowner’ by means of a baptismal ceremony; but the referent varies from world to world, depending on who first owned the painting. The term is not rigid.2.2.3 DescriptivismNames might be disguised descriptions that are world-indexed. Of course, they might not be disguised descriptions that are world-indexed, too (nor descriptions that are otherwise rigidified: a popular objection to rigidified descriptivism is discussed below in §2.2.3.2; for more objections, see Soames 2002, pp. 39ff.); but the point here is that so far as the thesis that names are rigid designators is concerned, the matter could go either way. Sections (2.3.1.1) and (2.3.2.2) discuss strategies for maintaining descriptivism according to which a name like ‘Petrarch’ has the same content as a traditional, non-world-indexed description like ‘The famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance’.2.2.3.1 Names as Wide-Scope DescriptionsOne proposal to defend traditional, non-world-indexed descriptivism has taken the label “widescopism.” According to this proposal, the rigidity of names is or may be treated as a matter of scope. ‘Petrarch’, on this view, may be a disguised ordinary description meaning the same as ‘The famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance’. It is natural to think that ‘Petrarch’ cannot have this semantic content, since ‘Petrarch might not have been famous’ seems unambiguously true, but ‘The famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance might not have been famous’ has a false reading. It can have the same truth conditions as a scoped sentence something like, ‘It might have been the case that: for some x, x is the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance and x has never been famous’, which is false. But according to the proposal in question, the false reading for ‘The famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance might not have been famous’ does not show that ‘Petrarch’ fails to mean the same as ‘the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance’. The other reading is the relevant one. According to that reading, the name takes wide scope, and the truth conditions are the same as those for a sentence like, ‘For some x, x is the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance and it might have been the case that: x has never been famous’, which is true.Kripke (1980 pp. 11–15) points out that there are problems with this attempt to accommodate rigidity. Some sentences have no modal operators. When we evaluate these sentences with respect to other worlds, we do not seem to admit that the designatum changes, as it would if names were non-rigid descriptions taking the proper scope in modal contexts. Thus, we can describe a possible world in which Petrarch dies as an infant. With respect to such a world, would ‘Petrarch is never famous’ be true? It seems so. But on the proposal in question, the sentence would say the same as ‘The famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance is never famous’, which is false with respect to any world. Also, it seems that we can make names appear inside the scope of a modal operator: “It might have been the case that: Petrarch never became famous.” This would apparently be impossible to do on the view in question, but we seem to be able to do it. On the basis of such considerations, Kripke rejects this proposal for accommodating rigidity within descriptivism.Kripke's arguments seem to have persuaded most of his audience (including Salmon 1981, p. 26n.28), and his principal target, Michael Dummett, has responded by making some modifications (1981, pp. xvii-xix). But the issue is not dead; more sophisticated versions of this basic Dummettian position continue to be defended by able philosophers (see, e.g., Sosa 2001; Hunter 2005; cf. Caplan 2005; Everett 2005; cf. Soames 2005; a good overview is provided by Noonan 2013, chap 13).2.2.3.2 Assertoric Content and Ingredient SenseAssuming that Kripke's arguments against widescopism are successful, it might appear that rigid and nonrigid designators differ in content. Thus, any statement S containing a proper name cannot have the same content as a statement S′ that differs from S just in the respect that a proper name in S is replaced by a non-rigid designator in S′. Following Stanley (whose precise formulations differ slightly from this and from each other: 1997a, pp. 568–9; 1997b, p. 135), we might call this the Rigidity Thesis.But Dummett has still another suggestion that, if successful, would refute the Rigidity Thesis (or at least one understanding of it). Consider the similarity between (1)–(4): - اقتباس :
- (1) The famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance wrote the epicAfrica
(2) The famous humanist now most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance wrote the epic Africa
(3) The famous humanist here most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance wrote the epic Africa
(4) The famous humanist in α most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance wrote the epic Africa. In some intuitive sense, it might seem that these statements share the same content. Thus, for example, what one believes when one assents to any of (2)–(4) might seem to be what one believes when one assents to (1). Even so, (1)–(4) contribute different semantic values to complex sentences in which they are embedded. What one believes when assenting to (1′) is not what one believes in assenting, say, to (2′): - اقتباس :
- (1′) It will always be the case that the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance wrote the epic Africa
(2′) It will always be the case that the famous humanist now most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance wrote the epic Africa. (1′) is dubiously true, at best. It might well be that Lorenzo Valla will overtake Petrarch at some future time, being a famous humanist more closely associated with the Italian Renaissance than Petrarch. And Valla did not write the epic Africa. On the other hand, (2′) is true, at least assuming, for the sake of an illustration, that (1) and (2) are true. On that assumption, it does not matter that Valla might overtake Petrarch later: that will be too late to affect their respective status as it isnow.Given that (1)–(4) make different semantic contributions to complex sentences in which they are embedded, must we reject the earlier suggestion that they share the same content? Here we might use a tip from Dummett to resist an affirmative answer. We might acknowledge that (1)–(4) share the same truth conditions, which amount to at least one bona fide use of ‘content’. Thus, for Dummett, a speaker who could classify sufficiently detailed possible states of affairs[10] into those that render any statement like these “correct and those that render it incorrect, may be said to know the assertoric content of the sentence” (1991, p. 48). And we might also acknowledge a distinct phenomenon that is responsible for different contributions (1)–(4) make to larger sentences in which they are embedded: Dummett calls this distinct phenomenon a sentence's “ingredient sense.” “Ingredient sense is what semantic theories are concerned to explain” (p. 48).Armed with the distinction between assertoric content and ingredient sense, we might reject the Rigidity Thesis. We might maintain that (1)–(4) have the same assertoric content and hence that they say the same thing: anyone who asserts one of these (or believes it, rejects it, and so on), also asserts the others. Where they differ is in ingredient sense.There are a number of lines of thinking that converge on the conclusion that (1)–(4) share the same assertoric content even though they differ in ingredient sense. As already suggested, some might find it natural to take (1)–(4) as expressing the same “semantic content” in some meaningful sense (perhaps the only meaningful sense): if so, Dummett's distinction indicates how one might coherently maintain that position. Such a position might be especially natural in view of “descriptive names,” like Evans’ famous ‘Julius’, which is a rigid designator for whoever invented the zipper (Evans 1979). It might seem natural to say that ‘Julius is an inventor’ has the same content as ‘Whoever invented the zipper is an inventor’, even though the former is contingent and the latter necessary. Evans himself suggests that such pairs of sentences “have the same content, despite their modal differences” (Evans 1979, p. 187n.10).There are other related considerations in favor of saying that (1)–(4) share the same assertoric content even though they differ in ingredient sense: here is a sketch of a couple of considerations from Stanley, who develops Dummett's suggestion in admirable detail in a series of interesting papers (1997a, 1997b, 2002). First, one might maintain that what one asserts, when one asserts (1), is simply true or false, and not true now but false later, true here but false in some other community where Valla is more highly esteemed than Petrarch, true in α but false in other possible worlds. Yet what (1) contributes to the likes of (2)–(4) is not simply true or false: it is rather something like a function from times, places, or worlds, respectively, to truth values. That function generates a different truth value depending on the argument (Stanley 1997a, p. 577; see also King 2003 §1; for related claims, see Lewis 1998). Hence, the line of thinking concludes, what is asserted, when one asserts (1), is assertoric content and not ingredient sense.Another line of thinking by which one might argue that (1)–(4) share the same assertoric content even though they differ in ingredient sense starts from general considerations about what kind of animal “content” is. For Stanley, the content of a statement is closely tied to what it is used to communicate in normal contexts, where “normal” has to do with the competence of speakers, their intentions to use words as others do, and so on (1997b, 136; 2002). In such contexts, he says, (1)–(4) are used to communicate the same thing. So they have the same content, the same meaning. Meaning, which facilitates communication in the right contexts, is constituted by presuppositions on the part of speakers. In contexts of modal evaluation, two sentences asserting the same thing can diverge in their contribution to larger sentences or diverge in truth value with respect to counterfactual worlds under consideration because “meaning-constituting presuppositions are irrelevant for modal evaluation. It is the purpose of modal evaluation to suspend presuppositions,” on this way of thinking about content (Stanley 2002, p. 338; see also 1997b, p. 155).If the distinction between assertoric and ingredient sense is tenable, and if (1)–(4) share the same assertoric content even though they differ in ingredient sense, so that the Rigidity Thesis is false, then this opens the door to holding that proper names share the same content as ordinary, non-indexed descriptions after all, even though names are rigid and ordinary, non-indexed descriptions are not rigid. In that case, something along the lines of the venerable descriptivism associated with Frege and Russell (see the subsection on description theories in the entry on reference and the section on descriptive theories of proper names in the entry on descriptions), which Kripke is widely thought to have devastated, survives. One way to develop a descriptivism along these lines would be to say that a name like ‘Petrarch’ is something like a disguised description that is shorthand for ‘the famous humanist most closely associated in α with the Italian Renaissance’. Although this description for which ‘Petrarch’ is shorthand is world-indexed, it shares the descriptive content of the non-indexed ‘the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance’. On this suggestion, since ‘Petrarch’ shares the content of the rigid description, it also shares the content of the nonrigid description.Kripke's reservations about descriptivism go deeper than arguments from rigidity or indeed arguments from any considerations pertaining to the metaphysics of modality: there are quite distinct worries about whether speakers would have to be in possession of the relevant descriptive information to use ‘Petrarch’, for example. Could not someone refer to Petrarch by ‘Petrarch’ if she supposed that Valla were the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance and she associated with ‘Petrarch’ only the description ‘a clergyman who criticized the Avignon papacy’? If so, a standard argument runs, the content of ‘Petrarch’ cannot be the same as that of ‘the famous humanist most closely associated with the Italian Renaissance’. There may be a few descriptive names of the relevant variety in natural language: Dummett adduces ‘St. Joachim’, which he takes to have been “introduced as denoting the father of the Blessed Virgin, whoever that may have been” (1991, p. 48), and Kripke adduces ‘Jack the Ripper’, introduced for the murderer of so and so (1980, 79–80). But it is unlikely that there are many such descriptive proper names in natural language. Still, it may be that more sophisticated descriptivisms appealing to more sophisticated descriptions could overcome worries like these further, non-metaphysical worries about typical names (see, e.g., Nelson 2002). | |
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