Proper names as identical twins

A while ago I discussed the Bunuel film where different actresses play the same character, and I discussed later how we try to identify people by their faces, or by the sound of their voice. Dogs do the same by their sense of smell, perhaps.

The difference between the film and reality is that Bunuel signifies the identity by convention. The actresses don’t look that alike, certainly not as identical twins look alike. But Bunuel uses cinematic conventions to convey the identity. One actress is seen opening the door, the other is seen walking through the other side. With actual perception the identity is signified naturally.

Before printing, we identified proper names in the same way. Here are two tokens of the word 'Plato' in Worcester 13 9rb and 11vb. With electronic printing, we are used to the same word looking exactly the same, which is guaranteed by the computer representing the five letters in the name 'Plato' by the ASCII characters 80, 108, 97, 116 and 111 respectively. This is what allows us to search an electronic document for the same name, or perform a Google search for ‘Plato’. Even printing on paper guarantees that the letters will look nearly the same.

Before that, we recognised proper names just as we recognised faces.

Charley’s (single) ant

And here is another interesting paper by Greg Frost-Arnold, “Too much reference”. He considers the case in some way opposite to empty singular terms: where a singular term ‘refers to’ more than thing.

He writes:

Suppose a person purchases an ant colony. There are many small ants in the colony, and two big ants, Ant A and Ant B. However, the owner of the ant colony does not realize that there are actually two big ants, because he only sees one big ant at a time. (We assume the ants’ behavior is coordinated to satisfy this condition.) The owner believes that there is one big ant in the colony, and the owner decides to name this ant ‘Charley.’ The philosophical issue such a story raises is this: what is the semantic status of sentences that include the term ‘Charley’?

This is a case I discussed, with reference to a Bunuel film, here and here. There are actually two people (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) playing the same character (Conchita). Does the name ‘Conchita’ refer to two people – for once you have realised the trick, it is obvious that there are really two characters – or one? Or (pace Greg) to none at all?

If the theory of reference (the ‘Frodo’-Frodo theory) I have argued for is correct, this sort of multiple reference is impossible. The meaning of a name is exhausted by its function of purporting to signify the same thing. To understand the sentences ‘Fa’ and ‘Ga’ is to understand that if they are both true, then “some F is G” is also true. And, because they do not imply that some Fs are G, they they can only imply that one F is G. To say that there are two F’s is to say that there is an F, and there is another F. The word ‘another’ is the complement of a singular term. It always means a different thing, and for there to be one different thing means there being at least two different things.

What about the ants? Can’t it plausibly said that the proper name ‘Charley’ refers both to Ant 1 and to Ant 2? No, because, as I have argued, reference is not a semantic relation between language and reality. As I have argued, we can regard the two ant images as visual proper names. I see ant 1 walking out of the colony, and entertain the visual proposition ‘Here is an ant’. Ant 1 goes back, and ant 2 now comes out. I entertain the visual proposition ‘Here is the same ant’. Since I cannot understand this visual singular as applying to more than one singular, i.e. because I understand it always as meaning ‘the same …’, I cannot understand it as multiple reference. Thus it cannot be multiple reference. Singular terms always refer to singular things.

Obscure objects: Bouquet and Molina

Here is another scene from the film I discussed earlier. Mathieu and Conchita [Carole Bouquet] are sitting at a table in the garden. Conchita says "I have something to say, but not here". Mathieu gets up, and she follows him up a short flight of stairs, into the house. Mathieu shows her through the door. [Cut to interior of house] Mathieu accompanies Conchita [Angelina Molina] into the living room, where she says "Mathieu, I'll explain what happened last night".

Thus the identity is expressed by the context. We see a woman walk through a door in the exterior.  We cut to a woman walking through a door into the interior.  Therefore we assume it is the same door, and the same woman.  It is all fiction - there is no woman, and no identity.  But the film is telling us there is a woman, and it is telling us there is an identity.

Locke on substance

In previous posts, I have argued that the semantics of individuation is object-independent.  To understand which individual is being discussed or mentioned does not depend on any relation between our mind and external reality. Real objects do not 'get through' to our understanding, and individual or singular thoughts remain the same whether or not there exist objects corresponding to them.

Someone will object that 'demonstrative reference' is the paradigm of true reference, and that demonstrative reference is necessarily dependent on objects.  We cannot understand the demonstrative 'this rose' without there being an actual rose that is pointed out.  The word 'demonstrate' is from the Latin demonstrare: to point out/at/to, draw attention to.  You cannot draw my attention to something, if there isn't a something.

Before I go on, I will  quote a famous passage from Locke*.  When we point to something, what is it we are pointing to?

Our obscure idea of substance in general. So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general, he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called accidents. If any one should be asked, what is the subject wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say, but the solid extended parts; and if he were demanded, what is it that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian before mentioned who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked what the elephant rested on; to which his answer was- a great tortoise: but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied- something, he knew not what. And thus here, as in all other cases where we use words without having clear and distinct ideas, we talk like children: who, being questioned what such a thing is, which they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer, that it is something: which in truth signifies no more, when so used, either by children or men, but that they know not what; and that the thing they pretend to know, and talk of, is what they have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of it, and in the dark. The idea then we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown, support of those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist sine re substante, without something to support them, we call that support substantia; which, according to the true import of the word, is, in plain English, standing under or upholding.

* Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II. xxxiii. 2.