Naming and Contingency

 

Let’s accept that names have no meaning, as a distinguished tradition contends.[1] They may have a reference or denotation but they have no sense or connotation. Names lack “descriptive content” and are not synonymous with definite descriptions. Predicates are alien to their semantic functioning. They belong to a different semantic category from descriptive phrases (or demonstratives). Then an elementary consequence follows: names cannot give rise to analytic truths. For analytic truth is truth in virtue of meaning, but names have no meaning: they lack the semantic dimension that generates analytic truth. Descriptions have this dimension, so they readily produce analytic necessities (“The bachelor standing in the corner is unmarried”), but names are devoid of the kind of content that could underlie such necessities. This seems confirmed by simple inspection: sentences of the form “ais F” are never analytically true (the point is often cited as an argument against description theories).  You can never generate an analytic truth from “Aristotle” by combining it with a predicate true of him, though this is easily done by combining descriptions of Aristotle with such a predicate.[2] A generalization thus appears indicated: names cannot give rise to analytic necessities—simply because they lack the property responsible for such necessities, viz. meaning (sense, connotation). Sentences containing names are always synthetic; analytic necessity never follows from the semantics of names. So names belong naturally with contingency not necessity. Descriptions, on the other hand, readily lend themselves to necessities in virtue of their intrinsic semantics, because they possess a content that generates necessities (they have definitions and constituent semantic structure).[3] A monograph entitled “Describing and Necessity” would be aptly so named, while “Naming and Necessity” would raise eyebrows if intended to suggest that names and necessity have anything much to do with each other. One might even prefer “Naming and Not Necessity”, because names are not capable of producing necessities in virtue of meaning, having none.

            However, plausible as all this may sound, there appears to be an obvious counterexample to the generalization stated, namely sentences of the form “a is a”. Aren’t such sentences analytic tautologies, as with “Hesperus is Hesperus”? Such a sentence is necessarily true, known a priori, and inferable from mere mastery of the name “Hesperus”. It has all the marks of analytic truth. But on reflection this verdict should strike us as paradoxical, since we have just seen that names lack the property necessary for conferring analytic necessity, viz. meaning. How can our sentence be true in virtue of the meaning of “Hesperus” if that word lacks meaning (the reference of the name can’t produce such necessary truths)? It therefore looks as if the alleged counterexample cannot be genuine, so something must be said to explain it away. That is not so hard to do. First, notice that “a is a” sentences are highly unusual and not part of ordinary language—no one ever says things like this (except in a philosophy class). Second, are they even about things like the planet Venus—if so, what are they saying about it? Third, it seems obvious that their purport is something like the following: “The thing called “Hesperus” is identical to the thing called “Hesperus”—which is a metalinguistic tautology containing two occurrences of a single definite description. That is not generally true of sentences containing “Hesperus” (unless we decide to make it our general theory of names), but in this case it is what the peculiar sentence is really saying. But then the analytic status of “Hesperus is Hesperus” traces to a hidden description, which of course has descriptive content: the sentence has the same logical form as, “The inventor of bifocals is the inventor of bifocals”. The name “Hesperus” is not here occurring as a used proper name but occurs quoted inside a definite description, so we don’t have a counterexample to our plausible generalization. This is simply a case of a logically misleading sentence that can be generated from a natural language (though it is not generally used as part of natural language). When names occur in propria persona they never give rise to analytic necessities (how could they given their lack of meaning?); but they can occur in a nonstandard way in certain types of sentence (as quoted expressions in a metalinguistic definite description). The case is not unlike the sentence “I’m John Smith” said by way of personal introduction: it clearly means something like “I’m called ‘John Smith’”, in which the name is mentioned not used. Strictly speaking, “Hesperus is Hesperus” is a non-sentence, a linguistic monster, but we easily hear it as a quick way to express the descriptive metalinguistic equivalent (compare “There are a lot of John Smiths in the world”).

            This point can be reinforced by asking whether names ever have synonyms. Analytic truths arise from synonyms, but where are the synonyms for ordinary proper names? They don’t even occur in dictionaries, let alone thesauruses: there is no list of synonyms for “John Smith”. Don’t say “John” is synonymous with “Johnny”: this is a matter of alternative versions of the same name not real synonymy of different names. Names are just tags or labels (as we are assuming) so they don’t have synonyms—words with the same meaning. Different words can express the same concept, but names don’t express any concept—so we don’t have the phenomenon of synonymy, i.e. different words for the same concept. Different versions of the same name are really pseudo synonyms, rather like abbreviations of common words in casual speech (e.g. pronouncing “living” without the “g” at the end). Nor would it be plausible to suggest that names are synonymous with themselves alone, so that “Hesperus is Hesperus” contains a synonymy: no word is ever synonymous with only itself, since synonymy requires identity of meaning and hence a meaning that can be otherwise expressed. Names don’t function like regular words (and arguably are not words at all), so they can’t do what genuinely meaningful words do, i.e. produce analytic truths. They look like words, but so do such non-words as “Ha” or “Boo” or “Um”. Names can be used by speakers to perform acts of reference, but that doesn’t qualify them as real semantic units—almost anything can be used to perform acts of reference (e.g. blinking).[4] In any case it would be wrong to try to assimilate names to other types of expression that participate in genuine synonymies.

            It might be said that names admittedly never generate analytic necessities, but don’t they occur in sentences expressing synthetic necessities so that it would be wrong to dissociate them altogether from the concept of necessity? What about “Aristotle is a man” and “Paris is a city” and “Hesperus is Phosphorous”? I would not wish to deny that such sentences express necessities (non-analytic ones), but it doesn’t follow from their existence that the names in them have anything to do with the necessities stated. On the contrary, the necessities in question (“de renecessities”) can be reported using sentences of different semantic types, including descriptive sentences. The necessity doesn’t arise from the name but from the fact: facts of natural kind and facts of identity. The necessity reported has nothing intrinsically to do with the names used to report it but simply arises from the nature of the fact reported. So a monograph on de re necessity might be misunderstood if entitled “Naming and Necessity”, suggesting perhaps that the two topics are connected. Names have nothing to do intrinsically with either analytic de dicto necessity or synthetic de re necessity. Descriptions, on the other hand, have to do with both, since they are the ground of analytic necessity and they express de re essential properties of objects. For someone wishing to point up a connection between types of reference and types of modality, the titles “Naming and Contingency” and “Describing and Necessity” would be the best choices. Of course, the word “and” by itself entails no claim of connection (though it may conversationally imply it), being usable simply to make a list; but if it is desired to suggest a deep connection between language and modality, then the titles just mentioned would be appropriate. In particular, names are indissolubly connected to contingency in that they are incapable of generating necessary truth, whether analytic or synthetic.[5] Necessity either comes from concepts or from the world, but names express no concepts and are not part of extra-linguistic reality. They are merely convenient labels devoid of descriptive content and not integral to de re necessities: they cannot function as necessity generators (unlike concepts and properties). It is as if names have never even heard of necessity and want nothing to do with it. When God created names he still had more work to do to bring necessity into the world.

[1] I defend this position in “Naming and Knowledge”.

[2] There are such things as descriptive names (oxymoronic as it sounds), since we can simply stipulate that a name is to abbreviate a description, and these will give rise to analytic truths. But they are far from being the general case (Mill could have accepted their logical possibility).

[3] Demonstratives also feature in analytic truths in virtue of an appended predicate, as in “That bachelor is unmarried”. 

[4] It can even be argued that names lack reference as a matter of their intrinsic character: it is speakers who refer by using name not names themselves. But in the case of descriptions the words themselves contribute to determining reference; it isn’t just the speaker’s act that confers reference. This is why the content of a description can conflict with the speaker’s intention, which is not the case with names. The reference of a name is a matter of speaker stipulation alone, but a description carries its own reference-fixing content. Name reference is essentially pragmatic while description reference works via semantic content, i.e. meaning. (These are thorny issues, but I take it the basic contrast is plain enough.)  

[5] Someone may object that rigid designation can lie behind necessary truth, so names are logically connected to necessity, as in the necessary truth of “Hesperus is Phosphorus”. Both names designate the same object in every possible world; therefore the identity statement is a necessary truth. The same is not true for definite descriptions, which are non-rigid designators. But this is confused: descriptions can be rigid designators and thus generate necessary identity statements; and not all statements containing names yield necessary truths, e.g. “Plato taught Aristotle”. It is the necessity of the identity relation that lies behind the necessity of “Hesperus is Phosphorus” not the occurrence of names in this statement.  And we would get the same result by substituting rigid descriptions into the sentence (“the planet composed of such a such a chunk of matter”). Names are not distinctive of necessarily true identity statements; still less do they produce such necessities (identity itself does). 

 

 

Universals in Thought

 

We introduce the concept of the particular because we observe distinctness in the world. We introduce the concept of the universal because we observe similarity in the world. I see the cat as distinct from the computer and I conclude that particulars exist; if I didn’t I wouldn’t have much use for the concept of a particular. But I also see that several particulars are similar to each other and I conclude that there are respects of similarity, which I call universals; if I didn’t I wouldn’t have much use for the concept of a universal (suppose I live in a world without similarity). Thus the particular-universal distinction finds a foothold in our description of the perceptible world, from which it might fruitfully migrate: we use it in our general conception of the nature of objects.[1] We might say that it explains what we observe: we see distinctness because particulars exist, and we see similarities becauseuniversals exist. We describe the world as consisting of particular objects with shared properties (attributes, features, qualities, characteristics, forms). Evidently this is a sensible way to proceed, even if we subsequently disagree about what particulars and universals are (are particulars sets of universals or are universals sets of particulars?). But it is also true that we describe thoughts using the same distinction: they have a role in psychology as well as in ontology. For thoughts are about particulars and also about universals: the same duality pervades the mental world as the non-mental world. Why do we talk and think this way about thoughts? Why, in particular, do we think that thoughts have something in common analogous to universals—with the very same entity cropping up in different thoughts? It isn’t that thoughts instantiate universals as objects do (they are not red, square, etc.), so the rationale cannot be the same in both cases; we certainly don’t see that distinct thoughts share the same universal. So what is it that explains our readiness to postulate identity of universals across distinct thoughts? Hugely many different individual thoughts can concern the same universal—or so we suppose—so why do we insist that it is the same entity that crops up in each case? And why must this entity approximate to Plato’s conception of a universal? Why are universals considered an indispensable part of psychology?

            First, let us note the troubles of theories that try to do without them. Suppose we limit ourselves to particulars of various sorts—mental, linguistic, or even immaterial. Then we run up against the problem that we can’t capture the identity of the thought from one instance to another: I can’t think the same thing of two objects when I think that both are red, say. For the particulars in question will vary from instance to instance, according to time or person. If we try to circumvent this problem by appealing to types of particular, then we are back with universals. The general concept can’t be equated with a series of particular happenings; we need something in common between all the cases. We need, that is, the universal RED. Sameness of ascribed property means sameness of property ascribed.  We need something abstract and general to capture the commonality across thoughts. Nor will it help to bring in dispositions, since these vary over time depending on external circumstances and the thinker’s internal psychology. My disposition to use “red” in a certain way at time t need not be preserved to a later time at which I use the same word, despite the fact that I ascribe the same property at the later time. Dispositions to behave in certain ways don’t track meaning or attribute denoted, so they can’t play the role of universals as traditionally understood.[2] We need the robust identity provided by a traditional universal to explain how the same thing can be thought about different things, or about the same thing at different times. But why exactly do we need the same universal at any occurrence of the thought, so long as some universal is present? It can’t be a dated particular or a changing disposition, but why do we insist on invoking the very same universal whenever language appears to suggest it? Why must “red”, say, always be assigned the same universal? Couldn’t this be some sort of oversight or result of laziness? Why don’t we follow the example of “bank” and assign different universals in different contexts? True, that would be contrary to common sense, but it would be nice to know if the usual practice has anything further to recommend it. Why are we so wedded to the idea of universal invariance as between different thoughts and sentences? Why not a more anarchic approach?

            The answer is that logical reasoning requires it. Consider the classic example: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal. We have all been taught that for an argument to be valid there must be no equivocation in the premises and the conclusion. Thus the name “Socrates” must have the same meaning in the conclusion as it has in the second premise, i.e. it must designate the same particular. But the same is true of the predicates, and this requires that “mortal” must have the same meaning in the conclusion that it has in the first premise. That in turn requires that the same universal be assigned to it not some distinct universal (e.g. being vegetarian). So validity depends on constancy of universals through premises and conclusion. We can bring this out be rephrasing the argument using nominative forms: Anything that has humanity has mortality; Socrates has humanity; therefore Socrates has mortality. What we call a universal is just whatever is needed to render this argument valid, which it clearly is: it must not vary between premises and conclusion, as associated particulars and dispositions will. Thoughts occur in trains of logical reasoning and we need entities that will respect the prohibition on equivocation. Thus universals come into the psychological picture; they don’t just belong to the non-psychological world. They have a kind of double life, being related both to similarity among particulars and to validity of argument: we need them in both domains. Again, what they are exactly remains to be determined, but we can’t do without them in some form if we want to make sense of object similarity and argument validity. Postulating them is not some sort of gratuitous mysticism or ontological indulgence; it is warranted by facts that need explaining—the existence of similarity and logical validity. There cannot be logic without something like Plato’s universals, i.e. something constant across particular sentences or thoughts. This means that general concepts cannot be characterized without reference to universals. When we employ concepts we re-apply the same universal over time, which is what happens in a sequence of thoughts that form a logical argument. Token thoughts therefore share universals as particulars share universals—the former by means of intentionality, the latter by means of instantiation.

[1] The word “universal” is not ideal, entrenched as it is, since so-called universals are not universal—not all things have them. Not all things are red or square or even or good, only some are; so what are called universals are really partials, parochials. But there is no natural term that conveys the idea accurately: the closest I can find would be “shareables”, but that is not a felicitous expression. So we may as well stick to “universals” noting that the things in question are precisely not universally distributed. Notice too that the term “particular” is also not particularly descriptive and must be used in a technical sense: how “particular” is a grain of sand? These are both technical terms (not that there is anything wrong with that).

[2] I am here adverting to the kind of argument against dispositions voiced by Kripke in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.

The same point applies to our knowledge of propositional content: we don’t have impressions of the content of belief (even if we have impressions of the belief attitude itself). Our senses are not geared to propositions. Thus our knowledge of folk psychology is not explicable in classic empiricist style.