Reference and description: The case against two-dimensionalism

374 Pages·2004·1.92 MB·English

by  Scott Soames

REFERENCE AND DESCRIPTION
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REFERENCE
AND
DESCRIPTION
THE CASE AGAINST
-
TWO DIMENSIONALISM
Scott Soames
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2005 by Princeton University Press
Published by
Princeton University Press,
41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom:
Princeton University Press,
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Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
All Rights Reserved
Third printing, and first paperback printing, 2007
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13099-6
Paperback ISBN-10: 0-691-13099-X
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows
Soames, Scott.
Reference and description : the case against two-dimensionalism /
Scott Soames.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-12100-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Description (Philosophy). I. Title.
B105.D4 S66 2005
121'.68—dc22
2004044533
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Galliard
Printed on acid-free paper. (cid:102)
pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
for martha

CONTENTS
A Word about Notation ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
PART ONE
THE REVOLT AGAINST DESCRIPTIVISM 5
CHAPTER 1
The Traditional Descriptivist Picture 7
CHAPTER 2
Attack on the Traditional Picture
Proper Names, Non-Descriptionality, and
Rigid Designation 14
PART TWO
DESCRIPTIVIST RESISTANCE:
THE ORIGINS OF AMBITIOUS
TWO-DIMENSIONALISM 33
CHAPTER 3
Reasons for Resistance and
the Strategy for Descriptivist Revival 35
CHAPTER 4
Roots of Two-Dimensionalism in Kaplan and Kripke 43
CHAPTER 5
Stalnaker’s Two-Dimensionalist Model of Discourse 84
CHAPTER 6
The Early Two-Dimensionalist Semantics of Davies
and Humberstone 106
viii CONTENTS
PART THREE
AMBITIOUS TWO-DIMENSIONALISM 131
CHAPTER 7
Strong and Weak Two-Dimensionalism 133
CHAPTER 8
Jackson’s Strong Two-Dimensionalist Program 149
CHAPTER 9
Chalmers’s Two-Dimensionalist Defense of Zombies 194
CHAPTER 10
Critique of Ambitious Two-Dimensionalism 267
PART FOUR
THE WAY FORWARD 327
CHAPTER 11
Positive Nondescriptivism 329
Index 355
A WORD ABOUT NOTATION
In what follows, I will use either single quotation or italics when I want to
refer to particular words, expressions, or sentences—e.g., ‘good’ or good.
Sometimes both will be used in a single example—e.g., ‘Knowledge is
good’ is a true sentence of English iff knowledge is good. This italicized sen-
tence refers to itself, a sentence the first constituent of which is the quote
name of the English sentence that consists of the word ‘knowledge’ fol-
lowed by the word ‘is’ followed by the word ‘good’. In addition to using
italics for quotation, sometimes I will use them for emphasis, though nor-
mally I will use boldface for that purpose. I trust that in each case it will be
clear from the context how these special notations are being used.
In addition, when formulating generalizations about words, expres-
sions, or sentences, I will often use the notation of boldface italics, which
is to be understood as equivalent to the technical device known as “corner
quotes.” For example, when explaining how simple sentences of a lan-
guage L are combined to form larger sentences, I may use an example like
(1a), which has the meaning given in (1b).
1a. For any sentences A and B of the language L, A&Bis a sentence
of L.
b. For any sentences A and B of the language L, the expression which
consists of A followed by ‘&’ followed by B is a sentence of L.
Given (1), we know that if ‘Knowledge is good’ and ‘Ignorance is bad’ are
sentences of L, then ‘Knowledge is good & ignorance is bad’ and ‘Igno-
rance is bad & knowledge is good’ are also sentences of L.
Roughly speaking, a generalization of the sort illustrated by (2a) has the
meaning given by (2b).
2a. For any (some) expression E, ... E ... is so and so.
b. For any (some) expression E, the expression consisting of ‘...’
followed by E, followed by ‘...’ is so and so.
One slightly tricky example of this is given in (3).
3a. For any name n of L, ‘n’ refers to n expresses a truth.
b. For any name n of L, the expression consisting of the left-hand
quote mark, followed by n, followed by the right-hand quote
mark, followed by ‘refers to’, followed by n, expresses a truth.