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Kripke’s Puzzle and Belief ‘Under’ a Name

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Alan McMichael
Alan McMichael*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, VA24061, U.S.A.
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Extract

Recently Saul Kripke has drawn attention to a puzzle about belief and proper names, a puzzle of which philosophers have been aware for a long time, but which has never been completely resolved. Kripke gives a new, bilingual illustration of the puzzle:1 Pierre, while living in his native France, learns much about the city of London, which he calls ‘Londres,’ and comes to believe something which he would express in French with the words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Using standard principle of translation, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ Suppose however that Pierre learns English, travels to London, learns that the name of the city he is in is ‘London,’ and sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘London is not pretty.’ On the basis of his assertion, it seems correct for us to say, ‘Pierre believes that London is not pretty.’ But suppose he does not realize that ‘Londres’ is also a name for the city he is in, so he retains the belief which he would express with the French words, ‘Londres est jolie.’ Then, by the same principles of translation as before, it seems that we are still justified in saying, ‘Pierre believes that London is pretty.’ But now we have attributed to Pierre contradictory beliefs, and that does not seem acceptable, since Pierre has committed no logical oversight.

Kripke believes that this is the same puzzle as one that arises in older, monolingual examples, such as that used by Quine: suppose Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline. Since ‘Tully’ is another name for Cicero, it seems acceptable to paraphrase his belief and say, ‘Tom believes that Tully denounced Cataline.’ But suppose Tom does not realize that Cicero and Tully are the same person, and suppose, in fact, that he sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, ‘Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ Then it also seems acceptable to say, on the basis of Tom’s assertion, ‘Tom believes that Tully did not denounce Cataline.’ But now we have attributed to Tom contradictory beliefs, and, as in the Pierre example, that does not seem acceptable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1987 , pp. 105 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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References

1 Kripke, Saul ‘A Puzzle About Belief,’Google Scholar in Margalit, A. ed., Meaning and Use (Dordrecht: Reidel 1979), 239–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Noonan, Harold ‘Names and Belief,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society xy 81 (1981), 93-108, and ‘Rigid Designation,’ Analysis 39 (1979), 174–82Google Scholar. A similar view is outlined in Chisholm, Roderick The First Person (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota 1981), ch. 6Google Scholar. Also of interest is Ackermann, Diana ‘Proper Names, Propositional Attitudes, and Nondescriptive Connotations,’ Philosophical Studies 35 (1979), 55–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Frege, Gottlob ‘On Sense and Reference,’Google Scholar in Geach, P. and Black, M. in Translations from the Philosophical Writings of GoHlob Frege, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1960), 58n.Google Scholar

4 Frege himself is quick to point this out. Ibid., 56-7.

5 (B1) is actually a schema. The letters ‘S’ and ‘F’ must be replaced by appropriate expressions if it is to be transformed into a statement. The same is true for later principles (B2)-(B4).

6 (B1) is ‘half’ of Harold Noonan's proposal. Noonan would say that it gives one of two sufficient conditions for the truth of’s believes that a is F.’ (‘Rigid Designation,’ 176, ‘Names and Belief,’ 98-9)

7 Since C is a conjunction of properties, it is itself a property. However, what I am calling properties here — and this I do not recommend generally — are entities of a very finely individuated sort. Properties in the sense I intend are not identical unless formed out of the same parts in the same way. Consequently, distinct properties may be necessarily such that they are exemplified by the same individuals. This is a conception of properties that is of the second sort distinguished in George Bealer's Quality and Concept (Oxford: Clarendon 1981). By bringing in senses under this conception, we are enabled to speak freely of the conjuncts of any given sense, the properties ‘contained in’ it.

8 This constitutes an objection to Noonan's proposal. See note 6

9 Example is from Donellan Keith, ‘Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions,’ in Davidson, Donald and Harman, Gilbert eds., Semantics of Natural Language (Boston, MA: D. Reidel 1972) 356–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 ‘The Causal Theory of Names,’ Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 47 (1973), 187-208

11 Example is from McKinsey, Michael ‘Names and Intentionality,’ Philosophical Review 87 (1978), 171–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar. McKinsey argues against pure causal theories, as does Evans.

12 This may not be so in the case of beliefs about oneself. In fact, some philosophers now believe that all of one's beliefs are referred ‘directly’ to oneself, not by the mediation of some sense. See Chisholm, and also Lewis, David ‘Attitudes De Dicto and De Se,’ Philosophical Review 86 (1977), 474–97Google Scholar.

13 A more detailed exposition of this sort of account of de re belief is contained in Chisholm, chs. 4, 9. Or, in view of my suggestion placing a causal condition on ‘picking out,’ it may be even closer to the account of David Kaplan's ‘Quantifying In,’ in Linsky, L. ed. Reference and Modality (Oxford 1971), 112–44Google Scholar.

14 Noonan, ‘Rigid Designation,’ 177Google Scholar

15 Plantinga, Alvin ‘The Boethian Compromise,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978), 129–38Google Scholar

16 For a commentary that delves more deeply into the problems of Plantinga’s view, see David Austin, ‘Plantinga's Theory of Proper Names,’ Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 24 (1983), 115–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 I am indebted to Lynne Rudder Baker for pointing this objection out to me.

18 A good account of singular propositions is contained in David Kaplan, ‘Dthat,’ reprinted in French, Uehling, and Wettstein, eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota 1979), 383–400Google Scholar. Some philosophers have questioned the wisdom of supposing that singular statements, by which I mean statements containing proper names, have objective propositional contents (e.g., Hector-Neri Castaneda, ‘On the Philosophical Foundations of the Theory of Communication: Reference,’ in Uehling, French and Wettstein, 125–46, esp. 132–3)Google Scholar. But it seems to me that there is no good reason to abandon the convenience of supposing both that there are singular propositions and that we use singular statements to communicate them. No doubt you attach a sense to the name ‘Cicero’ that is different from the one I attach to that name, so you are thinking of a set of properties, when you hear the sentence ‘Cicero was a prude,’ different from the one I am thinking of. Yet the fact that there are profound differences in the thoughts we have when we hear that sentence — differences which, by the way, defy precise description — does not imply that we are not thinking the same singular proposition.

19 Chisholm, 64-5, unaccountably denies this.

20 This leg of the argument has appeared before, in Ruth Barcan Marcus, ‘A Proposed Solution to a Puzzle About Belief; in French, Uehling, and Wettstein, eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy VI (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota 1981), 501–10Google Scholar. Barcan Marcus does not aknowledge the existence of sub nomine reports and so cannot, in my opinion, give a completely satisfactory solution.

21 It is true that some philosophers deny the existence of singular propositions. But if the de re - de dicto distinction stands or falls with such a contentious philosophical position, then surely it is less well suited to the solution of Krlpke’s puzzle than is my own distinction between de re and sub nomine belief, which presupposes comparatively little. It is true that some philosophers, in particular Baker, Lynne Rudder (‘Underpriveleged Access,’ Nous 16 (1982), 227–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar), deny that singular propositions can be objects of belief. The ground for this denial is just the sort of failure of substit utivity that I am trying to explain. But in the absence of reasons for thinking that opacity is a property of all ‘propositional’ (i.e., de dicto) belief reports, it does not follow that singular propositions are never objects of belief.

22 Kripke, 242

23 According to Chisholm, epistemic access to universals, properties and relations, is permitted by a specially direct means which he calls ‘conception.’ In The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell takes a more modest position, claiming only that we have direct access, by a means which he calls ‘acquaintance,’ to sensible universals, such as colors. I am still more skeptical than Russell and believe that we have direct epistemic access to no ordinary universals whatsoever.

24 I am grateful to Lynne Rudder Baker, Earl Conee, Eleonore Stump, and the referees for their comments and suggestions.