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Meta-linguistic Descriptivism and the Opacity of Quotation

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Abstract

The paper unfolds a non-modal problem for (moderate) meta-linguistic descriptivism, the thesis that the meaning of a proper name (e.g. ‘Aristotle’) is given by a meta-linguistic description of a certain type (e.g. ‘the bearer of “Aristotle”’). According to this theory, if ⌜α⌝ is a proper name, it is a sufficient condition for the name’s being significant that the description ⌜the bearer of ⌜α⌝⌝ is significant. However, a quotational expression may be significant even when the expression quoted is not. Therefore, proper names and their corresponding descriptions cannot be synonymous, and the corresponding descriptions cannot be viewed as giving the meanings of proper names. So, even if it was immune to Kripke-style modal criticisms, moderate meta-linguistic descriptivism would still seem to founder on the rocks of the opacity of quotation.

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Notes

  1. Contrary to what the label might suggest, Costa’s ‘meta-descriptivist theory of proper names’ (Costa 2011) is not a moderate meta-linguistic descriptivist theory in the sense discussed here, and as such, it shall not concern us. First, it is not moderate: It is theoretically demanding in that it offers a whole variety of descriptions that must be satisfied in order to ‘allow the application’ of a proper name; Costa’s concern is to identify a structure among those descriptions; his point is to distinguish between localizing descriptions (giving ‘the spatio-temporal location and career of the object’) and characterizing descriptions (giving ‘what are considered the most relevant properties of the object’). Moreover, it is not meta-linguistic in the way the theory discussed in this paper is: Neither the ‘correct’ localizing descriptions nor the corresponding characterizing descriptions quote the proper name they are thought to ‘allow the application’ of. Finally, it is not descriptivist: Descriptivists ask what the meaning of a proper name is. Costa frankly admits that his central contribution (misleadingly termed ‘meta-descriptivist rule’), as he puts it, ‘cannot express the relevant meaning of a proper name’ (Costa 2011, 271). Thus, the merits of Costa’s approach may be seen elsewhere; they do not touch upon the topic of the present paper.

  2. Costa seems to miss this point. He unhesitatingly identifies Fregean senses with cognitive values and informational content (Costa 2011, 271). Elsewhere, I discussed why such an identification is inadequate (Oliva Córdoba 1995).

  3. This conclusion is not affected by Costa’s differentiation within the class of properties associated with the referent of the name. Costa aims to improve upon Searle’s bundle theory: to this end he distinguishes between localizing and characterizing descriptions (Costa 2011, 260). Still, from the fact that Paul does not accept a single one of either the localizing descriptions or the characterizing descriptions, it does not follow that Paul does not understand the name: maybe he is just mistaken, maybe he considers other properties more relevant, or maybe he does not understand the name. But this latter possibility is just one out of at least three logical possibilities.

  4. For the notion of presentation cf. Valberg and Künne (Valberg 1970, 131; Künne 1983, 178).

  5. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this point.

  6. Actually, this has bearing on the discussion of the cognitive equivalence of (3) and (4) too: Despite appearances, the claim that (3) and (4) are cognitively equivalent can only hope to get off the ground if substitution is confined to proper names. So, with regard to this, meta-linguistic descriptivism is not really better off than either simple or cluster-theoretic descriptivism.

  7. See Oliva Córdoba (2002a and 2002b) where the rigidity argument is critically reviewed. Baumann (2010) also raises interesting questions to this effect.

  8. Cf. Oliva Córdoba (2002a), ch.5, where such an alternative is developed.

  9. This paper has been long in the making. A predecessor was presented at the second Barcelona–Hamburg meeting, February 2000. I thank the audience, in particular Manuel García-Carpinteiro, for discussion and helpful criticism. For the ultimate version I am indebted to Nathan Wildman, Ben Hoefer and to an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 6, Hamburg, 20146, Germany

    Michael Oliva Córdoba

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  1. Michael Oliva Córdoba
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Correspondence to Michael Oliva Córdoba.

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Oliva Córdoba, M. Meta-linguistic Descriptivism and the Opacity of Quotation. Acta Anal 29, 413–426 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-014-0217-9

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