You will make the natural and reasonable objection that such story-relative reference is a word-word relation. Story-reference is intra-linguistic: it is a semantic relation between different names of the same type within the same narrative. This may be acceptable as an account of fictional semantics, but as an account of history, where there is reference to real people, it is inadequate. Genuine reference is word-world: a relation between language and the world outside the mind.
I reply by asking: what difference does the truth of the narrative make to the semantics of the proper name? The semantics of the following brief history* are no different from a story.
Jesus Christ was born in Israel 2000 years ago. Jesus lived a traditionalThe story is considered to be more or less factual by most historians, yet some have questioned whether Jesus existed at all. If the semantics of non-fictional names were fundamentally different from the semantics of fictional ones, the ‘Jesus Myth’ problem would have been resolved. We could simply work out from the meaning of the name ‘Jesus’ whether there really was such a person. But we cannot, therefore the semantics of non-fictional names are not fundamentally different from the semantics of fictional ones.
Jewish life until his twenties. Then Jesus began his public teaching and display
of recorded miracles, although he never travelled more than 200 miles from his
birthplace. Over a three year period, Jesus' reputation spread nation
wide. Jesus' most controversial act was that he repeatedly claimed to be
God. Because of this, the religious leaders asked the Roman government to
execute Jesus. Jesus was crucified and died, although (according to many
witnesses) Jesus returned from the dead three days later.
Therefore the names of historical characters individuate in just the same way as fictional ones. The meaning of the proper name is simply to tell us which individual – whether in a story or in the historical narrative – is the subject of the proposition, and it can tell us this without there being any such indidividual. A story can tell us which F is G, without anything actually being an F.
* Adapted from here
10 comments:
>> the semantics of non-fictional names are not fundamentally different from the semantics of fictional ones.
Exactly so.
But
>> The meaning of the proper name is simply to tell us which individual is the subject of the proposition, and it can tell us this without there being any such individual. [my emphasis]
Doesn't this come perilously close to saying that there are non-existent individuals, and hence falling into precisely the net that you chide BV for in the successor post?
>>Doesn't this come perilously close to saying that there are non-existent individuals, and hence falling into precisely the net that you chide BV for in the successor post?
Perilously close yes, but just avoids it (IMO). I can tell you that some F is G without there being any F's (e.g. I can claim that there is a unicorn in my garden). So I can tell you which F is G.
For example, I can tell you which hobbit carried the one ring to Mount Doom. No?
In an earlier post, I gave the example of exam questions about Hamlet.
>> I can tell you that some F is G without there being any F's.
How does this gel with the 'Brentano thesis'?
>>>> I can tell you that some F is G without there being any F's.
>>How does this gel with the 'Brentano thesis'?
The Brentano thesis is that 'some F is G' is convertible with 'some F-G exists'.
Thus 'S says that some F is G' converts with 'S says that some F-G exists'.
If David claims that some buttercups are blue, he has also claimed that blue buttercups exist.
So, if we accept the BT in this context, we seem to move from 'EO says that the hobbit Frodo bore the ring' via 'EO says that some hobbit bore the ring' to 'EO says that some ring-bearing hobbit exists'. Surely not?
If the original sentence that I commented on, viz,
The meaning of the proper name is simply to tell us which individual is the subject of the proposition, and it can tell us this without there being any such individual.
is not to be seen as blatently Meinongian then I think we have to accept that there is equivocation on 'individual'. There is some room for this: the second usage ('any such individual') is clearly a quantification over ordinary objects; the first ('which individual is the subject of the proposition') looks like a definite description, but it's not clear to me what class of entity can be predicated as 'the subject of the proposition'. Certainly not the ordinary objects. But what?
>>So, if we accept the BT in this context, we seem to move from 'EO says that the hobbit Frodo bore the ring' via 'EO says that some hobbit bore the ring' to 'EO says that some ring-bearing hobbit exists'. Surely not?
Tense. “EO says that some hobbit who bore the ring existed”. Why not? According to Lord of the Rings, creatures called hobbits used to exist in the distance past. (The book does not specify whether Middle Earth was part of the planet. If not, then it also makes the additional claim that there was, or that there existed, some such place).
>>If the original sentence that I commented on [The meaning of the proper name is simply to tell us which individual is the subject of the proposition, and it can tell us this without there being any such individual.] is not to be seen as blatently Meinongian then I think we have to accept that there is equivocation on 'individual'. There is some room for this: the second usage ('any such individual') is clearly a quantification over ordinary objects;
I don’t see that. The word ‘such’ is relative. ‘Tom says there are mermaids but there are no such things’ = ‘Tom says there are mermaids but there are no such things as mermaids’ = ‘Tom says there are mermaids but there are no mermaids’ = ‘everything is a non-mermaid’. The last makes it clear we are quantifying over ordinary objects.
>>the first ('which individual is the subject of the proposition') looks like a definite description, but it's not clear to me what class of entity can be predicated as 'the subject of the proposition'. Certainly not the ordinary objects. But what?
You are on stronger ground here. The claim that someone is the subject of the proposition is clearly existential. But if I tell you who is the subject of the proposition, is that existential?
>> Tense.
A red herring. The prologue describes Hobbits as 'more numerous formerly than they are today', and the foreword the story's evolution during the 1930s and 1940s. Are you suggesting that LotR derives its meaning from our sense that it describes a plausible past of this Earth? I don't think this can work. Any account of fiction will have to recognise our capacity for imagination. However, I think I see the didactic point you are making: from 'the hobbit Frodo bore the ring' we can infer 'some hobbit bore the ring' and thence 'some hobbit exists'. You will say that without the prefix 'According to LotR', or somesuch, all these are false, but the inferences valid.
>> I don't see that.....The last makes it clear we are quantifying over ordinary objects.
OK, so it seems we agree about the second occurrence of 'individuals'.
>> But if I tell you who is the subject of the proposition, is that existential?
My feeling is that my use of 'existential' in this context is rather more coarse-grained than yours so unless I can refine my use we are at risk once more of talking at cross-purposes. Suppose you say to me 'X the F carried the G'. I recognise only the verb 'carried' which in its common use has a concrete subject and object. So I infer that 'Y' names a kind of concrete thing capable of being carried, that 'F' names a kind of concrete thing capable of carrying, that some F carried some G, and 'X' is a proper name attached to this F. To that extent I'd say the proposition and, in particular, the use of the proper name 'X', was existential. Given the symmetry between fictional and factual language I can't tell from what you say if you are talking about the actual world or some imagined world. (You may well deprecate talk of talk of imagined worlds but you know what I mean) My default assumption is that you are telling me about things in the actual world. Perhaps later I learn that you were telling me a story and in light of this and other information I have come by I may revise my understanding of X, F, and G. In particular, my understanding of X may come to include 'Warning! Is fictional'.
I just noticed that comments moderation came on – the post is now exactly three days old. Blogger allows you to set this as a parameter. As a test I allowed anonymous comments, which is working quite well as all the spam is automatically diverted to a spam box. I might increase the 3 day limit at some point. There’s quite a lot of Russian traffic in the UK early morning, I suspect this is not motivated by an interest in the semantics of fictional terms.
>>However, I think I see the didactic point you are making
It was more a pedantic point.
>>The prologue describes Hobbits as 'more numerous formerly than they are today', and the foreword the story's evolution during the 1930s and 1940s.
In which case the foreword is clearly asserting that hobbits exist. If I read the book to my children, am I saying that there are hobbits, or saying that once a hobbit lived in a hole? Yes. Am I lying? No, because lying is not merely saying what is false, but includes the intent to deceive.
>>You will say that without the prefix 'According to LotR', or somesuch, all these are false, but the inferences valid.
Yes. According to me, most fictional statements are false, including singular statements (‘Frodo was a hobbit’). Obviously there can be true ones (‘the sun rises in the morning, all men are mortal etc). And there can be statements about the fiction itself that are true (‘In LOTR it says that there are hobbits’).
>>To that extent I'd say the proposition and, in particular, the use of the proper name 'X', was existential.
Of course. The truth of ‘Frodo carries a magic ring’ implies the truth of ‘someone carries a magic ring’, which in turn implies ‘some magic-ring-carrier exists’. The inference is valid, but as the first is false, it is unsound.
>> Perhaps later I learn that you were telling me a story and in light of this and other information I have come by I may revise my understanding of X, F, and G. In particular, my understanding of X may come to include 'Warning! Is fictional'.
I didn’t quite follow this. In my view, the understanding of terms like ‘ring’, ‘magic’, ‘carries’ and even ‘Frodo’ is exactly the same whether or not the story is fictional or not, and whether or not I realise it is fictional.
OK. We seem to be back in sync. Regarding the contentious sentence perhaps the best answer is to invoke your concept of logical transitivity: in 'the sentence S has subject X' the verb 'has subject' is not logically transitive, but this was disguised by the talk of 'individuals'. Shows how easy it is to fall under the net.
My point about revising one's understanding is related to your remarks about lying. By understanding of X I mean just the predications I take to be true of X. This tends to increase with exposure to sentences mentioning X which are charitably taken to be true. If I then learn that X is a character in a well-known fiction I'll probably retain all the predications but change the status of X from real to fictional. If on the other hand I discover that all I know about X was told me by a pathological liar then I'm likely to forget most of it. When reading a child a story about a fictional X the bare sentences are in themselves deceitful, but the utterances are usually in a context full of cues that this is a story even if this is not made explicit. The child retains the predications of X but understands all along that X is a fiction.
But how do we come to draw the distinction between the factual and the fictional? What makes the fictional different from the merely false?
Perhaps I'm missing something, but can't we capture all of this by means of distinctions like
* misleadingly false
* false and deceitful
* entertainingly false
and so on? The first could be when someone unknowingly says something false and thus misleads. The second could be when someone intentionally misleads. The third is neither misleading nor deceitful (both speaker and hearer are aware it's a story). Perhaps there are other distinctions (heavy-handed and obvious irony which is neither misleading nor deceitful nor amusing).
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