Essay: A Note on Kripke’s Puzzle and the Individuation of Words

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Abstract

This paper analyzes Kripke’s puzzle my means of four ways of individuating names and other words: (1) names as utterances or occurrences (n-1 names, tokens), (2) names given tom particular objects, “embodied names” (n-2 names), (3) generic names, “disembodied names” (n-3 names), and (4) names as word-forms (n-4 names).

My purpose in the present note is to discuss the nature of belief ascriptions in the light of Kripke’s puzzle about the bilingual person called ‘Pierre’, who has conflicting beliefs about London, but whose belief system appears to be consistent.

Because I live in Miami and speak English and Spanish, I shall consider a variant of Kripke’s puzzle in which we are considering the beliefs of a person called ‘Pedro’, who lived in his youth in the city of Hialeah and spoke only Spanish, and then moved to London and began to speak and express his beliefs in English. Thus I shall substitute here the name ‘Pedro’ for the name ‘Pierre’ used by Kripke in his example. As a young man living in Hialeah Pedro heard stories of a beautiful city called ‘Londres’ and saw pictures of it, and accepted the following sentence as true:

(1) Londres es hermosa,

which can be translated into English as

(2) London is beautiful.

Pedro’s neighbors in Hialeah express his acceptance of (1) by

(3) Pedro cree que Londres es hermosa,

translated into English as

(4) Pedro believes that London is beautiful.

After moving to an unattractive part of London and learning English, he is inclined to assent to (accept) the sentence (Kripke 1979/2011, 144),

(5) London is not beautiful

which suggests that at this time

(6) Pedro believes that London is not beautiful.

Pedro is now inclined to believe that London is ugly.

Sentence (6) is obtained from Pedro’s acceptance of (assent to) (5) by what Kripke calls the Disquotation Principle (Kripke 1979/2011, 137):

(PDQ) If a normal English speaker, on reflection, sincerely assents to an English sentence ‘p’, then he believes that p,

and (3) results from (1) by the Spanish variant the Disquotation Principle. The principle may have exceptions, but we may assume here that the conditions for its application are satisfied. (2) is obtained from (1) and (4) from (3) by the Principle of Translation (Kripke 1979/2011, 139): Essay: A Note on Kripke’s Puzzle and the Individuation of Words

(PT) If a sentence of one language expresses a truth in that language, then any translation of it into any other language also expresses a truth (in that other language),

Briefly stated, correct translation should preserve truth. When Pedro is living in London and can speak both Spanish and English, he continues to accept (1), that is, he in disposed to assent (1) as well as (5). and thus (3), (4), and (6) seem all to be true. Hence the puzzle: Does Pedro, or does he not, believe that London is beautiful? (Kripke 1979/2011, 147.) Kripke notes that the argument by which he derives his puzzle, that is, the conjunction of (3), (4) and (6), does not involve the principle of the substitutivity of identicals, but only the disquotation principle and the principle of translation:

[The application of the substitutivity principle], when combined with our normal disquotational judgments of belief, leads to straightforward absurdities. But we shall see that the ‘same’ absurdities can be derived by replacing the interchangeability principle by our normal practices of translation and disquotation, or even by disquotation alone. (Kripke 1979/2011, 143.) Essay: A Note on Kripke’s Puzzle and the Individuation of Words

Kripke observes (1979/2011. 145-146):

It is clear that [Pedro], as long as he is unaware that the cities he calls ‘London’ and ‘Londres’ are one and the same, is in no position to see, by logic alone, that at least one of his beliefs must be false. He lacks information, not logical acumen. He cannot be convicted of inconsistency: to do so is incorrect.

According to Kripke, when Pedro is living in London, he has no inclination to assent to (2). ‘London is beautiful’ (1979/2011, 146). However, if Pedro has become a competent speaker of English as well as Spanish, he knows that ‘Londres’ is the Spanish translation of ‘London’, and (1) is a translation of (2). As a reflective person he cannot accept (1) without accepting (2). Both (3) and (4) can be used to express Pedro’s belief that London is beautiful, and both (6) and

(7) Pedro cree que Londres no es hermosa

can be used to express Pedro’s belief that London is not beautiful. When Pedro is living in London, sentences (3), (4) (6) and (7) are all true, but Pedro cannot detect any inconsistency in his belief system.

It is easy to see how this is possible. Pedro has in his mind two incompatible conceptions or representations of London, London qua beautiful city and London qua unattractive city. Both representations are associated with the (English) name ‘London’ in Pedro’s mind. In the terminology used by Gareth Evans (1973/1985, 13-16), François Recanati (2012; 2017), and others, we may say that Pedro has in his mind two dossiers of information or information files attached to the name ‘London’, and one of the files describes London as beautiful, but the other file contains the information that London is not beautiful.[1] The same city, London, is the dominant causal source of the information in both files; thus, according to Gareth Evans’ (1973/1985, 13-17) version of the causal theory of names, both files have the same city called ‘London’ (in Spanish, ‘Londres’) as their object. It is part of the character of the word ‘London’ as a proper name to be the name of a single object; thus having two incompatible London-files (mental files with the label ‘London’) means that Pedro mistakenly takes there be two different cities called ‘London’ (in Spanish, ‘Londres’). He believes the city he heard about as a child is not the unattractive city where he moved when he grew up. Thus there is no inconsistency in Pedro’s belief system, and he has no reason to revise his beliefs. We may say that a possible world or situation is compatible with Pedro’s beliefs, call it Pedro’s belief-world, only if it contains two different cities, each bearing the (English) name ‘London’. If Pedro were to learn that his London-conceptions are conceptions of the same city, he would have to merge the two files and make revisions to achieve consistency. For example, he might replace (2) by

(2*) Some parts of London are beautiful,

and (5) by

(5*) Some parts of London are not beautiful.

It is not unusual to use the same name for several cities or people or other objects. There are several places called ‘London’, for example London, England and London, Ontario, Canada; moreover, both cities stand on a river called ‘Thames’. The places called ‘London’ include cities in Kentucky and Ohio, a village in Nigeria, and even a suburb of the city of Pietarsaari in Finland. Pedro’s incompatible conceptions of London (London-conceptions) refer to the same city (or its parts), but since he is not aware of that, he has no reason to revise his beliefs. Essay: A Note on Kripke’s Puzzle and the Individuation of Words

If two objects have the same name, they and their names can be distinguished on the basis of the information in the file attached to the name. For example, I know two persons called ‘David Kaplan’, David Kaplan the philosopher and David Kaplan the magician. They are different persons, and unless it is already clear from the context which David Kaplan is being referred to, we can distinguish between them and their names by adding to each name a distinctive predicate from the corresponding mental file in the way shown above, ‘philosopher’ or ‘magician’. The content of the information file for a person or object helps to identify both the individual and her name; the file helps to determine which name and whose name ‘David Kaplan’ is being used. Pedro’s both information files labeled ‘London’ refer to and are signs of the same city; in this respect the example about Pedro and ‘London’ differs from the name ‘David Kaplan’ and resembles the name ‘Grzegorz Rozenberg’. Grzegorz Rozenberg is a professor of computer science at Leiden University, and he is also a performing magician. A student in Professor Rozenberg’s class does not know about her teacher’s second career, and when she hears about a magician called Grzegorz Rozenberg, she may say: “I have never met a magician, I would certainly like to meet him.” She may believe that Grzegorz Rozenberg is a computer scientist and also believe that Grzegorz Rozenberg is not a computer scientist, but a magician. From the student’s point of view, the situation is similar to that of an UCLA student in Professor David Kaplan’s class, who hears about a magician called David Kaplan, and is interested in meeting the magician.

At this point it is useful to distinguish four different ways of individuating names and other words:

An utterance or inscription of a name in a certain situation or context, a token of a name. I shall call tokens (inscriptions and utterances) of names n-1 names.
A name as a name of a particular object, for example, the name ‘London’ as the name of capital and largest city of England. Alan Gardiner has called names individuated in this way “embodied names” (names attached to a body, Gardiner 1954, 9), and David Kaplan has used for them the term “common currency word [name]” (1990, 98, 110-111; 2011, 521-522; cf. Kripke 1979/2011, 141). ‘London’ as the name of the capital of England is not the same embodied word as ‘London’ as the name of a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, and ‘Thames’ as the name of the river in England is not the same embodied word as ’Thames’ as the name of a river in Ontario, Canada. I propose to call names individuated in this way “n-2 names”.
When I say that I have the same name as my uncle Risto Hilpinen, we individuate names as linguistic entities independently of their objects (what they denote). David Kaplan has called names individuated in this way “generic names” (1990, 110-111; 2011, 521-522), and Alan Gardiner (1954, 9) has called them “disembodied names”. An embodied name (n2-name) is a name individuated by the sense and reference of an utterance or inscription, but a generic (disembodied) name as such (for example, ‘Risto’ or ‘London’) has no sense, but is, semantically speaking, an “empty vessel” (Kaplan 1990, 116). I shall call generic (disembodied) names n3-names.
Finally, we should distinguish names in the senses listed above from the ortographic or phonological character (form) of a name. Different names (and other words) may appear in the same form; they can be spelled and pronounced in the same way, and the same word (n2-name or n3-name) may appear in different forms. I propose to call the words individuated in this way n4-words. (For these ways if individuating names and other words, see Hilpinen 2015, 1000-1006.)

Kripke assumes that the sentence to which the Principle of Disquotation (PDQ) is applied “is to lack indexical and pronominal devices and ambiguities” (Kripke 1979/2011, 137). However, in natural languages proper names such as ‘London’ or ‘David Kaplan’ are not without “indexical ambiguities”, because different utterances or inscriptions of the same n3-name (generic name) can refer to different objects. To indicate which n2-name is intended by an utterance, the speaker can use information from the dossier attached to a name, as in the case of ‘London, England’ and ‘London, Ontario’ or ‘David Kaplan, the philosopher’ and ‘David Kaplan, the magician’. The information file attached to a name gives information about the object of the name (the main causal source of the information in the file) and also serves to identify the n2-name used and distinguish it from other n2-names.

When Pedro asserts:

(2) London is beautiful

and

(7) London is not beautiful,

he mistakenly takes the two occurrences of the n3-name ‘London’ to be instances of different n2-names. Thus he can assent to both propositions and say without inconsistency:

(8) I (Pedro) believe that London is beautiful

and

(9) I (Pedro) believe that London is ugly.

(8) and (9) entail

(10) I (Pedro) believe that London is beautiful but London is ugly,

but not

(11) I (Pedro) believe that London is beautiful and ugly,

because Pedro takes the two occurrences of ‘London’ in (10) to be instances of different n2-names. If we assume that the function of de dicto belief ascriptions is to represent how a believer conceives things, Kripke’s puzzle is no problem.[2]

In formal logic, generic names (n3-names) are represented by individual parameters, usually lower case letters a, b, c,…, and embodied names (n2-names) are interpreted individual parameters (parameters under an interpretation). An interpretation function assigns the same value (object) to each occurrence of an individual parameter; thus a sentence having the form. Essay: A Note on Kripke’s Puzzle and the Individuation of Words

(12) Ha & ØHa

is logically inconsistent, and according to the standard (modal) logic of belief,

(13) Bel(Ha) & Bel(ØHa)

entails

(14) Bel(Ha & ØHa).

Different instances of the same word-form (n4-word) are necessarily instances of the same n3-word, and have the same object as their value under any given interpretation, that is, are instances of the same n2-word. Kripke’s puzzle arises from an erroneous application of this conception of word individuation to the words of natural languages.

References

Evans, Gareth (1973/1985), ‘The Causal Theory of Names’, in G. Evans, Collected Papers, 1-24. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reprinted from Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. vol. 47, 187-208.

Frege, Gottlob (1892), ‘Über Sinn und Bedeutung’, Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik 100, 25-50. Reprinted in G. Frege, Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung: Fünf logische Studien, ed. by G. Patzig, 40-65. Gőttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,1966.

Gardiner, Sir Alan (1954), The Theory of Proper Names: A Controversial Essay. 2nd Edition. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press.

Hilpinen, Risto (1995), ‘Peirce on Language and Reference’, in Peirce and Contemporary Thought. Philosophical Inquiries. ed. by K. L. Ketner, 272-303. New York: Fordham University Press.

Hilpinen, Risto (2015), ‘Conception, Sense, and Reference in Peircean Semiotics’, Synthese 192: 4 (2015) 991–1018.

Hilpinen, Risto (2018), ‘On the Immediate and Dynamical Interpretants and Objects of Signs’, forthcoming in Semiotica.

Husserl, Edmund (1896/1979), ‘Besprechung von K. Twardowski, Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung. Wien 1894.’

In E. Husserl, Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890-1910), Husserliana 22, ed. by Bernhard Rang, 349-356. The Hague – Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

Kaplan, David (1990), ‘Words’, The Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 64, 93-119. London: The Aristotelian Society.

Kaplan, David (2011), ‘Words on Words’, The Journal of Philosophy 108, 504-539.

Kripke, Saul (1979/2011), ‘A Puzzle about Belief’, in Saul Kripke, Philosophical Troubles. Collected Papers, Vol. 1. 125-161. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Orignally published in Meaning and Use, ed. by Avishai Margalit, 239-283. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1979.

Loar, Brian (1987), ‘Names in Thought’, Philosophical Studies 51, 169-185.

Meinong, Alexius (1915./1972), Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit, in Alexius Meinong, Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 6, ed, by R. M. Chisholm, Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1972.

Recanati, François (2012), Mental Files. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Recanati, François (2017), Metal Files in Flux. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[1] Edmund Husserl and Gottlob Frege called a speaker’s information file for an object Vorstellung (Husserl 1896/1979, 349, 350n; Frege 1892, 29), and Alexius Meinong has used the word Vorstellungsinhalt for the content of an information file(Meinong 1915/1972, 195-198;

[2] Brian Loar (1987, 175) has made the opposite claim. Essay: A Note on Kripke’s Puzzle and the Individuation of Words