“…if
we are to entertain the possibility that a thing might not have had
properties which in actual fact uniquely describe it or if a thing
remains what it is through many vicissitudes but ceases to exist
altogether through others, then there is a semantical role for
genuine proper names which is different from the semantical role of
singular descriptions.” - Ruth Barcan Marcus (1990)
What
can we say about a thing being “what it is” without already
presuming an essence of that thing? If we've already decided “what
it is”, then this isn’t discovered a posteriori by finding out
which properties remain “through many vicissitudes” and those
that don’t. The prior
stipulation of a thing’s essence will tell us which properties
remain and which don’t.
After all, certain properties may be essential at time t; though they don't remain over the entire existence of that thing. Similarly, certain properties may be deemed inessential/contingent despite the fact that they remain through many vicissitudes. A thing may remain the thing it is even though we've chosen different properties to characterise it with. In addition, my thing may “cease to exist” before your thing even if they're one and the same thing. In other words, my essence, E, of thing¹, may disappear; whereas your essence, E¹, of thing¹ may remain.
After all, certain properties may be essential at time t; though they don't remain over the entire existence of that thing. Similarly, certain properties may be deemed inessential/contingent despite the fact that they remain through many vicissitudes. A thing may remain the thing it is even though we've chosen different properties to characterise it with. In addition, my thing may “cease to exist” before your thing even if they're one and the same thing. In other words, my essence, E, of thing¹, may disappear; whereas your essence, E¹, of thing¹ may remain.
If
a thing has different properties at another possible world, then why
are we saying that it's the same thing? Again, it depends on a prior
choice of essence to determine whether the thing in w1
is the same thing as that thing in a-world.
Ruth
Marcus talks about the “unique descriptions” of a thing.
i)
Do the descriptions depend on (or come via) the essence?
ii)
Does the essence depend on (or come via) the descriptions?
In
the first case, the descriptions would certainly come via a prior
definition of the thing’s essence. In the second case, the essence
would come via the descriptions of the thing. In the latter case, the
essence wouldn't be known beforehand and therefore the descriptions
would in fact determine the essence. If the descriptions come via the
essence, then such descriptions would come via earlier descriptions
which have already defined the essence of the thing.
In
a sense we often have first- and second-order descriptions; rather
than descriptions and essences. That is, the descriptions which
determine essence would be first-order descriptions. The second-order
descriptions, on the other hand, would depend on the first-order
descriptions which have themselves become the essence of the thing.
The second-order descriptions, of course, will be deemed contingent
by the essentialist. However, his essentialist position would tacitly
depend on a set of first-order descriptions being taken as the
essence of the thing.
In
theory this order could be reversed. The second-order descriptions
could become first-order descriptions and therefore the essence of
the thing. Likewise, first-order descriptions (or the essence of the
thing) could become second-order descriptions to another person (or
even to another essentialist).
In
Marcus’s scheme, proper names refer to (or pick out) essences; or,
as I’ve called them, first-order descriptions. Singular descriptive
names, on the other hand, refer to (or pick out) second-order
descriptions of the thing. Singular descriptive names are meant to
refer to the contingent properties (or attributes) of a thing. Proper
names, on the other hand, are meant to refer to (or pick out) the
essence of the thing.
However,
the essence of the thing is just another set of descriptions which
have been given a first-order (or privileged) status. Thus if proper
names are referring to (or picking out) an essence or first-order
descriptions, then how come these descriptions aren't contained in the
name as it is in itself? Such descriptions are in fact contained in
proper names; though they're hidden descriptions only used in the
context of the use of the proper name. It's indeed the case that such
descriptive content of a proper name is oblique (or indirect) in the
way it attaches itself to the referent. The proper name can't escape
this problem.
We
can now say that the content of singular descriptive names is
explicit; whereas the descriptive content of a proper name is
implicit. Of course different people rely on different descriptive
contents to fix (or pick out) the referent. Thus it's hoped that a
content-less proper name will refer directly to the referent without
“empirical vicissitudes” (David Kaplan). However, just because
the content of a proper name is implicit, that doesn’t mean that
the proper name isn't reliant on descriptive content in order to fix
(or pick out) the referent. Indeed, in a certain sense, the proper name is in
a worse position than a singular descriptive name because we don’t
know what the content is of other people’s uses of a proper name.
We may not even be sure what descriptive content we rely on when we
use a proper name ourselves. At least a singular descriptive name
lays its cards on the table: we know the referent because we know the
description which fixes (or picks out) the referent.
Thus
I think that the problem is that “fanatical mono-denotationalists”
(Kaplan, 1969) are quite correct to point out the many problems with
relying on definite descriptions. However, simply because there are
such problems that doesn’t mean that proper names don’t rely on
descriptive content. Perhaps what's at stake is a normative issue.
That is, it should be the case that proper names have no
descriptive (or conceptual) content. (Or it would be a good thing
if this were the case.) However, we could create an important
difference in degree - though not of kind - between proper names and
a definite descriptive names in that the same content (or contents)
is always part of a particular proper name; whereas singular definite
descriptive terms are free to come and go as we see fit. In that
case, we would need to decide which fixed contents to apply to proper
names.
What could decide the matter? On the surface it's easy to show a difference of degree.
What could decide the matter? On the surface it's easy to show a difference of degree.
For
example, "the British Prime Minister” would be could descriptive
content of the name "David Cameron". However, “the man who once
went to Blackpool” wouldn't be a good descriptive content and for
obvious reasons.
There
are problems, of course.
What
happens when David Cameron is no longer the Prime Minister of Great
Britain? The name ‘David Cameron’ would then need different
descriptive content. However, it depends on who's using the proper
name ‘David Cameron’.
For
example, the primary content of Mrs Cameron's uses of the name ‘David
Cameron’ may not be “the Prime Minister of Great Britain”. Her
primary descriptive content may be: “my husband who's also a great
father”. Of course if singular descriptive terms remain true or
accurate at all times, then such a term may actually become a proper
name in time.
For
example, the name ‘Jack the Ripper’ was once a descriptive phrase
and is now used as a proper name. This is the case because Jack the
Ripper will always be Jack the Ripper; whereas David Cameron won't
always be the British Prime Minister. In addition, many people don't
even know the real name of Jack the Ripper. In that sense, it was
never a descriptive term for certain people.
There's
one way of turning the descriptive phrase ‘the British Prime
Minister” into a proper name and that's the following. We can use
the tensed and descriptive phrase “the British Prime Minister
during 2011”. That will always be true of David Cameron. Therefore
it's possible (though very unlikely) that the British Prime Minister
(David Cameron) will be one day known by the proper name 'The British
Prime Minister of 2011’.
References
Kaplan,
David. (1969) 'Quantifying
In'.
Marcus,
Ruth Barcan (1990) 'A
Backward Look at Quine's Animadversions on Modalities'.
No comments:
Post a Comment