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Against Widescopism

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Abstract

Descriptivists say that every name is synonymous with some definite description, and Descriptivists who are Widescopers say that the definite description that a name is synonymous with must take wide scope with respect to modal adverbs such as “necessarily”. In this paper, I argue against Widescopism. Widescopers should be Super Widescopers: that is, they should say that the definite description that a name is synonymous with must take wide scope with respect to complementizers such as “that”. Super Widescopers should be Super Duper Widescopers: that is, they should say that the definite description that a name is synonymous with must take wide scope with respect to quotation marks. And Super Duper Widescopers should be Ultra Super Duper Widescopers: that is, they should say that, when the definite description that a name is synonymous with itself contains a name, the definite description that that name is synonymous with must take wide scope with respect to modal adverbs, complementizers, and quotation marks. But Descriptivists should not be Ultra Super Duper Widescopers. So Descriptivists should not be Widescopers either.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Manitoba, 468 University College, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3T 2N2

    Ben Caplan

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  1. Ben Caplan
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Correspondence to Ben Caplan.

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Caplan, B. Against Widescopism. Philos Stud 125, 167–190 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-004-7814-1

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