The General Consensus - Essay Example

The General Consensus Introduction That language is used by persons when talking about the world is a fact. Indeed, there is the general consensus that what people say when talking about the world is usually true as well as meaningful. More often than not, this is the case when for instance someone assertively utters a phrase such as “Barrack Obama is a democrat”. Perhaps it is important to stop and ask how we are able to do these things in the first place. The fundamental question is how we see to it that we are able to talk about Barrack Obama and thus say truthful and meaningful things about him. Of importance to note is the fact that expressions such as Barrack Obama are known as proper names. Hornsby and Longworth, (2005), hold the view that proper names such as the aforementioned expression are generally regarded to be paradigmatic expressions of reference. Hence, this paper shall seek to answer the question as to why proper names are directly referential. By so doing, this paper shall delve into the mechanism of referencing. In a nutshell, this shall be approached from the standpoint of what do words of referring attach to individuals or objects. Furthermore, the paper shall seek to exhaust the relationship between meaning/sense and reference. Against this backdrop, some theories of proper names reference shall be used to provide a deeper insight into this topic. On the other hand, this paper shall also consider views which have been put forward by opponents in relation to reference. Theories of Reference of Proper names in Context As it has been stated above, there is the general consensus that proper names are paradigmatic expressions of reference. This can be attributed to the fact that they tend to have a distinct attachment to things in the World. Perhaps one might wonder what really constitutes proper names in the first place. For the purposes of this research paper, proper names shall be used in the context of all that is commonly known as names. Expressions such as Barrack Obama, New York or Mount Kilimanjaro fall within the category of proper names. Yet still, one might wonder what is common among all the three expressions. In essence, do they form a genuine group of linguistic expressions? A closer look at all the three expressions reveals that they are indeed syntactic expressions which are simple. In this regard, they refer or part of them refers to specific individuals and objects. Hence, ‘Barrack Obama’ refers to a specific man; ‘New York’ refers to a given city while Mount Kilimanjaro refers to a specific mountain. In order to have an exhaustive understanding of this concept of proper names, this paper shall look at the various theories of proper names out of the other several which have been advanced throughout the history of time. One of the said theories is the descriptive theory which is founded on the premise that proper names, as they are used by the respective speaker, often refer through this descriptive content which is associated by the speaker with respect to a particular name. Therefore, it is this descriptive content that is thought to bring to the fore the unique determination of the referent of the name in question. As a result when a given speaker opts to use for instance the name ‘K’; and in the process being able to successfully refer to a specific person or object ‘B’, he or she manages to do this since he/she holds the view that ‘K’ is in fact the unique F and ‘B’ is the unique F in question. Indeed, Russell and Frege, both of whom are descriptivist appreciate the fact that there could be significant variation in terms of content from one speaker to the other. According to Hornsby and Longworth, (2005), Russell is of the firm belief that this content is likely to vary subject to time for one as well as same speaker. Therefore, while one might associate Barrack Obama as to be the current president of the United States of America, his wife on the other hand is most certainly predisposed to associate this name with the connotation of ‘my husband’. To add to that, in the event that Obama is no longer serving as the president of America one’s identification content shall also change. At this time, Barrack Obama might be identified perhaps in the context such of the former president who increased funding for environmental conservation and concerns. In addition, in case Obama and his wife divorced, her descriptive content of identifying shall also change accordingly; to perhaps my ex-husband who was once the president of America. From the above cases, it is evident that irrespective of the case, the person in question; Barrack Obama has been singled out or picked by the respective descriptive content identifying speaker. According to Austin, (1975), the motivation behind this theory in relation to proper names is two-fold. First is the idea that this theory can easily be expanded into the plausible theories related to the meaning or semantic content. So expanded are these theories that they have been able to accommodate problematic cases as far as Millian accounts of proper names’ meaning is concerned. In particular, this has been able to bring to the fore the connection that exists between meaning and reference. The Millian theory postulates that the meaning of a proper name is only its bearer. This standpoint has in turn birthed a range of cases which cannot be proved by this theory. One of such cases is captured in terms of identity statements among the various co-referring names. The other case which the Millian theory has been unable to prove is when the speaker uses sentences which contain empty names. Absolute negative existential as well as attributions of propositional attitudes are the other cases that the Millian theory has been unable to prove up to date as presented by Hornsby and Longworth, (2005). In order to understand how these cases have emerged to be problematic to the Millian theory; which is based on the ideology that the meaning of a proper name is only in terms of its specific bearer, it is imperative to consider the following sentences. (1) Hesperus is Phosphorus (2) Santa Claus lives at the South Pole (3) Sapphire does not exist (4) Erick believes that Hitler, but not Klisman was German. It is these types of sentences that the Millian theory appears to be having problems with. Based on this theory therefore, suppose it is true that Phosphorous and Hesperus indeed refer to the same thing as it is the case since they all refer to the planet Venus. At the same time, suppose Sapphire and Santa Claus actually do not refer to anything while Erick on the other hand is known to be a rational agent in which case he is not predisposed to have such contradictory beliefs. With this in mind, the Millian would certainly be of the view that sentence 1, which is in fact very informative is trivial. With particular reference to sentence 2, Millianism would predict that although it seems meaningful, it is however meaningless. The concept of this phase being meaningless would be based on the account of it being subjective. Sentence 3 on the other hand would be predicted to be absurd despite the fact that it is indeed meaningful and institutively true. This assertion would be based on the standpoint that the sentence’s meaningfulness presupposes its existence which it actually denies to exist in the first place. In their attempt to address these concerns, Millian usually claims that intuitions which are brought to the fore by phrases or sentences such as 1 and 4 are usually occasioned by the process of mistaking that which is merely implicated or communicated in relation to the specific proposition that is literally expressed. In this regard, though what has been literally expressed by sentence is in fact trivial, what has been communicated by the said sentence is not. At the same time, although there might be no literal propositions which are expressed by sentences 2 and 3, they have nonetheless communicated propositions. Lastly, though the last sentence might express falsehood based on the assumption that Erick is actually a rational agent, utterance of this sentence might nevertheless communicate an item which is true. Contrary to the assertion by the Millian theory; which is based on explaining these wayward intuitions, descriptive theory has been able to embrace these intuitions to be accurate. According to Hale and Wright, (1999), this can be attributed to the ideology that descriptive theory stems from the argument that reference-fixing in relation to the descriptive content directly linked to that respective proper name constitutes its meaning. Hence, the phrase “the current president of the United States of America” determines Barrack Obama’s reference while at the same time it constitutes this name’s meaning in this context. On a positive rejoinder, Bach and Harnish, (1979), argue that in the event that one allows proper names which are co-referring to have distinct descriptive meanings, then it is possible to provide a valid justification of the informativeness of sentence 1. In addition, this would allow for one to account for this informativeness in sentence 4 since it ascribes consistency of beliefs to Erick. On the other hand, suppose that it is agreed that Hesperus is the world’s brightest evening star while Phosphorus is known to be the world’s brightest morning star, then it is justified to state that sentence 1 expresses an informative claim or proposition. Hence it would be correct to assert that the world’s brightest evening star is at the same time the world’s brightest morning star. Furthermore, suppose that Hitler in sentence 4 means the famous German ruler while Klisman means a man called Klisman among the English community; then this sentence consistently ascribes beliefs to Erick. In this way, it would mean that Erick firmly believes that Hitler was German while this man known as Klisman is not German. Moreover, in the event that we allow for the possibility of the idea that proper names do not refer but nonetheless carry with them descriptive meanings, then one can justify the meaningfulness of sentences such as 2 and 3. Hence, through the description that reference-fixing of the descriptive content of expressions are their meaning, descriptivists have been able to give intuitive explanations to a range of cases which have often proved to be problematic to the Millians. To this end, Austin, (1975), argues that the descriptive theory effectively addresses these cases from its standpoint that that proper names usually refer to the bearers in the sense that they satisfy this descriptive content which is normally associated with such names. However, one major weakness of the descriptive approach to proper names is associated with the fact that the said proper names cannot be taken to be equivalent to the singular and definite descriptions semantically. This problem is brought to the fore by Barcan Marcus when she postulates that proper names are in essence, ‘tags’. The ideology as advanced by Marcus implies that when proper names are used as tags, they then cease to have linguistic meaning. In this regard, they are not equivalent, at least semantically to the singular and definite descriptions which are captured in their references. Of importance to note at this juncture is the fact that these proper names do not, contrary to the descriptive approach, refer to their descriptions which they stand for directly to their respective bearers. Therefore, Marcus’s views culminated into what is known today as the theory of direct reference of names. According to Hornsby and Longworth, (2005), one major consequence of the development of this approach in relation to proper names is captured in terms of the inevitability of identity statements amongst co-referring proper names. The other consequence of this model is in terms of puzzle dissolution when dealing with the model contexts of substitutivity. These challenges led to the advancement of causal theory by Kripke. This theory is founded on the premise that the use of a proper name, more often than not refers to all that is linked to it in an appropriate way. In this way, speakers are not usually required to associate the descriptive content to the respective name. In particular, the causal theory is known to be composed of two components. One of the said components tends to deal with reference fixing. The second component on the other hand usually deals with reference borrowing. According to this theory, reference is normally fixed through perception while in some instances by description and is said to occur at dubbing. As it is put forward by Hale and Wright, (1999), reference fixing through perception occurs when the speaker explicitly stipulates the specific name of an object. Description based reference-fixing on the other hand is said to occur when the speaker clearly stipulates the unique aspect about the object in question. The name of the planet Neptune for example was fixed through description by the famous astronomer; Leverrier in reference to whatever was the cause of observed perturbations in the planetary. After this name was fixed, it was passed from one speaker to the other; a process that was greatly facilitated by communicative exchanges. Various speakers are able to succeed when referring to an object because of the existence of the causal chain which stretches all the way back to the point of dubbing of this particular object with the name in question. Speakers are therefore able to ‘borrow’ such names from those speakers who existed before them although it is not a must for them to identify lenders along this causal chain. Thus, all that is usually needed is for these speakers to be linked through a process of communicative exchange. According to Kripke, for one speaker to be able to succeed in terms of using the borrowed proper name, he or she must first be intending to do so. For example, one might opt to use the name Hitler to refer to his or her pet despite the fact that the lender of this name used it when referring to the tyrannical German ruler. During such instances, the speaker is identified to be categorical in terms of their intent of using this name to refer to the pet but not the individual as it may be the case with the lender. As it has been noted by Hale and Wright, (1999), the causal theory has one major problem brought to the fore through the reference change phenomenon. Throughout the history of time, Madagascar was used to refer to a portion of the mainland of the African continent. However, the name Madagascar as it is used today refers to an African island. Thus when Marco Polo; the first speaker to have used this name in reference to this name was under the firm belief that it referred to the island. In this way he was under the impression that this name had been used as such by other speakers before him although it was not the case. The problem therefore is that when Polo used this name, he was actually referring to the same name to refer to the portion of the island. On the other hand, the persons from whom Marco Polo actually acquired this name from had referred to it in terms of a portion of the Africa’s mainland. In this case one cannot help to wonder how this name came to refer to the island later on. In this context, it is possible to note that this theory accounts for the fact that proper names tend to have cognitive meanings attached to them. A way from the theories, it is important to delve into the concept of definite descriptions in order to have a deeper insight of the use of proper names for referential purposes. According to Lycan, (2008), definite descriptions are expressions which have certain grammatical form namely; the F. The idea of using descriptions for reference was opposed by Russell. In particular, Russell was of the opinion that these descriptions do not merit to be used as genuine expressions for reference since they are not proper names in logic. To this end, Russell was of the firm belief that these descriptions’ propositional description does not stem from their denotation. According to Lycan, (2008), Russell’s views bring to the fore the aspect of intuitions concerning meaningfulness and the truth. This argument can be best illustrated through the following two sentences. (1) The King of Spain is bald (2) The Queen of England has five sons. Based on Russell’s argument, sentence 1 would be taken to be meaningful although not true. This can be attributed to the fact that Russell’s descriptive theory predicts that this sentence is meaningful but plainly false owing to the fact that it expresses a proposition that there is indeed only one King of Spain and that all that there is to this King is that he is bald. The second sentence would also get a similar analysis in accordance to Russell’s descriptive theory. Opponents of Reference According to Quine (1961), reference is naturally indeterminate. In a nutshell, Quine is of the view that our words do not refer to any fact since we are not able to determine what our words refer to. In this regard, Quine asserts that we are in fact not able to discern what our words refer to due to the obvious fact that there is no such thing as reference. Hence, our words do not have any sense according to Quine. This standpoint therefore brings to the fore the idea that someone’s language is positively correlated to the said under determination. Unlike Quine, Davidson‘s instrumentalist opinions hold that this concept of reference is a vacuous notion in theory. Thus, it has no use from a semantic theory perspective. The basis for this opinion by Davidson stems from his conviction that there is no substantive explanation of reference. To him, for this to be achieved such explanation would have to be provided through the use of non-linguistic terms. References Austin, J. L. (1975). How to Do Things with Words (second edition), Oxford: OUP Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979). Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Barcan Marcus, R. (1947). “The Identity of Individuals in a Strict Functional Calculus of Second Order,” Journal of Symbolic Logic, 12(1): 12–15. Davidson, D. (1984). Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press Hale, B, & C. Wright, eds. (1999). A Companion to Philosophy of Language Oxford: Blackwell. Hornsby, J. & G. Longworth (2005). Reading Philosophy of Language: Selected Texts with Interactive Commentary Oxford: Blackwell. Kripke, S. (1977). ‘Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference,’ Midwest Studies in Lycan, W. G. (2008). Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction, London: Routledge Philosophy 2: 255–76. Quine, W. V. O. (1961). From a Logical Point of View, Cambridge MA: MIT Press Read More