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Which witch is which? Exotic objects and intentional identity

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Abstract

This paper is about intentional identity, the phenomenon of intentional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.) having a common focus. I present an argument against an approach to explaining intentional identity, defended by Nathan Salmon, Terence Parsons and others, that involves positing exotic objects (e.g. mythical objects, merely possible objects or non-existent objects). For example, those who adopt this sort of view say that when two astronomers had beliefs about Vulcan, their attitudes had a common focus because there is an exotic (abstract, non-existent or merely possible) object that both of their beliefs were about. I argue that countenancing these exotic objects does not help us explain intentional identity.

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Notes

  1. I will focus on attitudes with particular objects as targets, since considering these cases will be sufficient for me to put forward my arguments. However, a good theory of intentional identity will also be adaptable to cases in which beliefs are directed at classes of objects or kinds.

  2. Why am I not grouping Glick’s approach with the transparent approaches? After all, Glick does appeal to exotic objects in his account of intentional identity. The difference is that, for Glick, intentional identity is a matter of the objects the respective attitudes are about being counterparts. For the transparent theorist, two attitudes have a common focus just in case there is some object x that they are both about. For Glick, two attitudes have a common focus just in case there is some object x and some object y such that one attitude is about x, the other is about y, and x and y are counterparts.

  3. See, for instance, King (1993), Cumming (2014) and Lanier (2014).

  4. Some notable creationists are Thomasson (1996, pp. 300–307, 1999, pp. 5–14), Salmon (1998, esp pp. 293–296) and Kripke (2013, pp. 71–78).

  5. The constraints Meinongians put on this claim need not concern us here.

  6. The kind of transparent theorist that appeals to merely possible objects may have to posit even more objects to handle intentional identity between attitudes at other possible worlds, depending on the transparent theorist’s approach to merely possible objects in general.

  7. See for instance Kroon’s (1987) critique of causal theories of reference. The message of Kroon’s excellent paper is that until those who appeal to causal constraints on reference specify which causal chains make for assignment in particular cases the causal theory ought not to be considered adequate. This is a challenge that causal theorists are, as far as I know, yet to adequately face.

  8. One option at this point is to posit inconsistent objects. An inconsistent object might fit both characterizations in spite of their being inconsistent. This option is misguided. Since it would mean that, so long as we are generous about inconsistent objects it would threaten to make any two empty attitudes have a common focus, since no amount of difference in characterization could possibly rule out assigning the same object to both attitudes.

  9. One might respond that only some parts of the respective agents’ characterisations that matter for intentional identity. Perhaps it is the part concerning the witch being reported by the newspaper as terrorising the village. If this is right, the difference in their respective characterisations need not threaten intentional identity since they share this ‘core’ piece of the characterisation. This response can be blocked by altering the case slightly so that there are two articles with a common causal source, Hob and Nob read different articles and, to make things vivid, have no knowledge of the existence of the other article. In this scenario, there is no shared element of the characterisations that allows for this sort of move.

  10. Thanks are due to an anonymous referee for emphasizing the importance of this distinctively creationist option.

  11. There are reasons to think that theories based entirely on causal links will not be adequate, see Edelberg (1992) and van Rooy (2000, p. 179 n.22).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to an audience the Australian National University for helpful discussion. Thanks also to Daniel Nolan, Rachael Briggs, David Chalmers, T. Scott Dixon, Clare Due, Frank Jackson, Erick Llamas, David Ripley, and three anonymous referees for Synthese for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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  1. School of Philosophy, Australian National University, Coombs Building, Building 9, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Alexander Sandgren

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Sandgren, A. Which witch is which? Exotic objects and intentional identity. Synthese 195, 721–739 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1237-3

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