Abstract
I criticized Jeffrey King’s theory of complex demonstratives in “Problems for a Quantificational Theory of Complex Demonstratives.” King replied in “Complex Demonstratives as Quantifiers: Objections and Replies.” I here comment on some of King’s replies.
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Notes
All references below to King’s work are to King’s reply (forthcoming), unless otherwise noted. I usually substitute my numbering of sentences for his. My numbering in this paper differs from the numbering in “Problems.”.
Salmon (forthcoming) presents another theory of QI sentences that is consistent with direct-reference theories of the demonstrative use of complex demonstratives.
However, ‘he’ and ‘that male’ differ in structured character (Braun 1994).
King’s (1987) theory of pronouns does not treat the bound-variable use of ‘he’ as a quantifier phrase. Treating ‘he’ on its demonstrative use as a quantifier would be incompatible with the (seeming) obstinate rigidity of the term on this use.
Salmon (2005) introduced the distinction between obstinate and persistent rigid designation.
I assume here, as does King, that definite descriptions are quantifiers and that quantifiers quantify at a world only over objects that exist at that world.
We can represent the disambiguations (if there are such) using (i) and (ii). (i) ∼Exists(b). (ii) λx[∼Exists x](b). These are true in exactly the same possible worlds.
King presents his reply in the form of a parody. He does not say whether (a) there is no narrow-scope reading of (8) or (b) it exists but is hard to hear for pragmatic reasons. In the rest of his reply, he usually attributes missing readings to pragmatics. If the alleged reading is missing because of pragmatics, we should be able to create a discourse-context in which it is natural to hear a narrow-scope reading of ‘that man’ in (8), and the sentence should seem false to us in such discourses. King does not try to provide such a discourse. Similar points hold for King’s (9): he does not say whether it unambiguous or instead ambiguous with a pragmatically hard-to-hear narrow-scope reading.
See King’s note 20. I agree with him that narrow-scope readings of his (27′) and (27″) are difficult to hear. I attribute this to mismatched moods. I am afraid that I disagree with him in all of his other cases: I think that the narrow scope readings are (at least) available for all of them. These clashes in intuitions are unfortunate. Readers will have to judge for themselves. King says (at the end of his note 20) that it is important to use informants without views or commitments in philosophy of language. I agree, but neither should we rely on naive informants who are unaccustomed to looking for scope ambiguities. Sometimes even sophisticated informants may need to think about deductive consequences in order to discover truth conditions and scope ambiguities. For instance, sophisticated informants may not notice that King’s (32′) and (32″) (in his note 20) are false at all worlds until they realize that they logically entail ‘Someone fails to exist’.
King (Sect. 4) says that if Karen uses (16) with a haecceitistic intention, then the semantic content of (16) in her context is neither true nor false. This does not directly address my objection, for on King’s view Karen could reasonably use (16) with a NDNS intention, and in that case the semantic content of (16) would be true in her context. I claim that there is no such use or context. Moreover, King’s claim that Karen can use (16) with a haecceitistic intention is hard (for me) to reconcile with his arguments against direct-reference theories that rely on claims about NDNS uses, such as his ‘genius’ argument in his 2001, 3–4. See Braun forthcoming-a, Sect. 7.
In note 45, King asks us to consider sentences (C1) and (C2).
(C1) If you had asked me about it a year ago, I would have said that Aristotle was a philosopher.
(C2) If we had been discussing basketball players, I would have (still) said that Glenn is tall.
These are similar to my (30) and (31), and seem true in the contexts that King considers, but King says that they are probably false in those contexts. This is evidence, King thinks, that my (30) and (31) merely appear to be true in their contexts, but are really false in their contexts (on their narrow scope readings). However, I disagree with King about the (probable) truth values of (C1) and (C2) in the contexts he considers. King thinks that (C1) is false in the context he considers because it contains an occurrence of (A) (=King’s (22)).
(A) Aristotle was a philosopher.
King holds that (A) in a context c semantically expresses a proposition that contains the time of c as a constituent. That is apparently why he thinks that (C1) is false in the context he considers (see the argument surrounding his (22′), Sect. 7). Notice, however, that (A) occurs inside an occurrence of an attitude ascription in (C1). But a plausible King-style theory of tense must deny that the semantic content, in a context c, of an occurrence of (A) inside an attitude ascription always has the time of c as a constituent. Consider the ascription ‘Some medieval philosopher asserted that Aristotle was a philosopher’ and an actual-world context in 2008. This ascription expresses a true proposition in this context, but surely no medieval philosopher asserted a proposition about a time in 2008. (My reasoning here parallels King’s argument near his sentence (22′).) I also think that (C2) is true in the context that King considers, on the sort of view of ‘tall’ that he assumes. Suppose that sentences containing ‘tall’ semantically express, in a context c, propositions concerning a height standard in c. A reasonable speaker who uttered (C2) would intend to assert a proposition about height standards appropriate for basketball players. Hence the context determined by his intentions would have a height-standard appropriate for basketball players. (C2) would be true in this sort of context. This would be so even if the speaker’s immediately preceding intentions had concerned height-standards for jockeys, for his shift in intentions would have determined a new context.
I also said that if Larry utters (32), then ‘Larry said that you would get no money from him’ is true when addressed to the Senator who testified for lobbying reform. King admits that we might have this intuition, but thinks it is unreliable, for in parallel cases we also have the intuition that a says-report containing an embedded occurrence of ‘you’ is true, when in fact it is false. King gives examples involving the mayor of Los Angeles (his M1) and Glenn and his brothers (his S1″). I am inclined to agree with King that the reports in these cases are false, and that we might initially judge them to be true. But I think that our intuitions about such cases become mixed once we reflect on them a bit. I believe that we have no such mixed intuitions in my case.
Strictly speaking, King’s view says that (34) and (35) express different propositions. For a more accurate description of the proposition expressed by (35), see “Problems”, Sect. 10, sentence (72).
I am inclined to think that the semantic content of ‘that Senator’ is the same individual Senator in both Larry’s and Tom’s contexts. If so, then the content of (32) in both Larry’s and Tom’s contexts is a singular proposition, and so (34) is true in Tom’s context. However if ‘that Senator’ has no semantic content in Larry’s context, then it has none in Tom’s context, and the content of (32) in Larry’s and Tom’s contexts is a gappy proposition, and so (34) is again true in Tom’s context.
More explicitly: on direct-reference theories, if sentences containing complex demonstratives are scope ambiguous, then the scope disambiguations are modally equivalent. On King’s theory, the wide and narrow scope readings are often not modally equivalent. Below I argue that the sentences that King considers do not have narrow-scope readings with the truth conditions that King claims they have.
Greg may use the complex demonstrative, rather than the corresponding definite description, because it is more emphatic (see “Singular,” Sect. 9.4).
One might be tempted to object that (42) cannot explain Sherry’s behavior because it does not describe a set of causally sufficient conditions for her behavior. But a sentence can explain an event without describing a set of causally sufficient conditions for it. (See Lewis 1986 for arguments that support this claim.) In any case, King cannot endorse this objection, because there is no King-ian reading of (40) on which it describes a set of causally sufficient conditions for Sherry’s behavior, and yet King says that (40) explains her behavior, on its alleged narrow-scope reading.
This might explain why King thinks that if he had uttered (42) in response to the query then there would be “a feeling that I have not fully explained Sherry’s behavior” (my italics). King seemingly assumes that his (hypothetical) inquirer knows the proposition expressed by (42), but does not know that Sherry believes that Alan has become CEO.
I am indebted to Neale 2007, especially pp. 120–123, in the remainder of this paragraph.
King seemingly assumes that direct-reference theories entail that (44) is not true in Edgar’s context. But this is not so for some versions of direct reference. See note 23.
Direct-reference theorists will disagree over whether (43) and (44) semantically express propositions in Donnie’s and Edgar’s contexts. On my own version of direct reference, if Tim does not (literally) satisfy the content of ‘woman’, then (43) semantically expresses a gappy proposition in Donnie’s context. If Donnie utters (43) literally, while pointing at Tim, then he asserts that gappy proposition. He also asserts the proposition that Tim is beautiful. The proposition that (44) semantically expresses, in Edgar’s context, says that Donnie said this gappy proposition. So (44) is true in Edgar’s context. If Edgar believes that Tim is not a woman, then he may use (44) non-literally to convey some other proposition, such as the proposition that he would express by saying ‘Donnie said that that person who looks like a woman is beautiful’. If Edgar believes that Tim is a woman, and utters (44) literally, then he asserts at least two true propositions: the gappy proposition that (44) semantically expresses in his context, and the (semantically unexpressed) proposition that Donnie said that Tim is beautiful.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Stewart Cohen (editor of Philosophical Studies) for offering me an opportunity to reply to King. Many thanks to Nathan Salmon for helpful discussion.
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Braun, D. Persisting problems for a quantificational theory of complex demonstratives. Philos Stud 141, 243–262 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9271-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9271-8