a) ARISTOTLE BELIEVES THAT HESPERUS IS PRETTY
BUT ALSO
b) ARISTOTLE BELIEVES THAT PHOSPHORUS IS NOT PRETTY
If, Frege points out, all there was to a name was the referent nothing more, than Aristotle believing that Venus is pretty and also believing that Venus is not pretty would be irrational. However, since Aristotle defines ‘Hesperus’ as ‘the star in that position in the morning’ and ‘Phosphorus’ as ‘the star in that position in the evening’ they have different cognitive value, therefore, allowing him to be rational and proving that there is indeed more to the semantic value of name than reference……….that is sense.
From reading Frege’s On Sense and Reverence one should be able to get the following three principals in relation to the descriptive semantic theory:
- with every proper name n there is some set of descriptions d1……….dn that a competent speaker associates with the name
- n refers to some object o if and only if (iff) o satisfies d1……….dn
- that o satisfies d1…….dn is necessary and a priori knowable.
a) That Man is ‘Aristotle’ iff he satisfies the description ‘the most famous student of plato’
As with most theories there are criticism of this traditional theory that focus on its limitations and what it may be missing. It is almost absurd not to notice that the descriptive theory can take a description with which its referent is defined and use it to question the referents entire existence. It leads us to ask the questions like: “If the properties change, does the person change?” “If the description didn’t exist does the person not exist?” Which sounds almost silly, the answer being “of course not!” Other problems may occur with the theory of this “narrow” psychological state. How can this be if a person who has not grasped the definite description of the name can still competently use the name ‘Aristotle’ in a sentence? But perhaps the most compelling thing that descriptivism lacks in regards to this essay is what it lacks conventionally. The semantic properties of expressions in any language are conventional because we all have to understand what everyone else speaking the same language means. So how can grasping the semantics of names require us to be in a “narrow psychological state” It can’t! This traditional theory focuses too much on the individual and not enough on the social and external variables that undoubtedly contribute to the meanings of names in the linguistic communities within which they are used.
Putnam’s and Kripke’s goal is to prove that the traditional theory is mistaken or at least insufficient. However in order to prove this they have to show how one of its constituent principals is invalid thereby leading to the false conclusion. “I shall argue that these two assumptions are not jointly satisfied by any notion, let alone any notion of meaning. The traditional concept of meaning is a concept which rests on a false theory” (Putnam MofM 219) I will focus their attacks on the principal 3, which Putnam takes apart with his twin earth aluminums molybdenum case and Kripke takes apart with his Aristotle case.
Twin Earth cases are used to highlight modality, or the possibilities of qualitatively identical psychological states in other possible worlds. These cases attack necessity. In The Meaning of Meaning Putnam asks if individuals using the same name, while being in quantitatively identical psychological states have the same referent. Let’s look at Putnam’s second twin earth case. On earth we refer to the naturally occurring substance with the atomic number 48 as ‘Aluminium’ and the substance with the atomic number of 13 as ‘Molybdenum.’ Aluminium is plentiful here on earth so most pots and pans are made to it. However on twin earth they refer to the naturally occurring substance with the atomic number 48 as ‘Molybdenum’ and the substance with the atomic number of 48 as ‘Aluminium’. On twin earth the substance they refer to as ‘Aluminium’ (which we refer to as ‘Molybdenum’) is plentiful so their pots and pans are made of it. So the question is “are earthlings and twin earthlings referring to the same name?” Since they are in the same psychological state, therefore grasping the same concept and using the same term, Frege would say yes! However, of course the answer is “NO.” “ Also we have to say that Oscar 1 and Oscar 2 mean different things by ‘aluminium’ …….again we see that psychological state of the speaker does not determine the extension” (Putnam Mof M 226) Here one can see the contribution of the real physical world (externalism). Putnam writes that the concepts of natural occurring things like people, animals or substances are concepts that can be deconstructed into concepts of the qualities by which we classify something as an Aristotle, water or Aluminium. For Putnam a kind term K is defined by a set of properties that are not descriptions derived from “narrow psychological states” as Frege said, but something more dependant on physical composition (genetic, chemical or elemental). It is here that Putnam takes “meaning out of the head” of the individual and into the external environment. In his opinion, what unifies natural kind terms is some real relation to a thing that is a definite member. The substance that twin Oscar calls ‘Aluminium’ may look like aluminium on earth but is NOT what stands in relation to what causes our “aluminums thoughts”. So it being necessary that the term ‘Aluminium’ satisfies the description ‘pots and pans are made of it’ is proven false. Instead of descriptions, Putnam believes that there is a certain causal chain that determines referent.
At this point one might ask how would every person using a pot or pan understands or grasps the concept of what that pot truly is composed of (its true meaning), when it is obvious that not every person is qualified to distinguish between aluminium and molybdenum. At this point we are introduced to the “division of linguistic labour”. In every field there exist specialists who labour to uncover the properties of matter within their domain. It is by those properties, which are basically their composition; they name the thing as the natural kind term they are in relation with. It is not essential that everyone using aluminium can recognize the conditions of membership of that kind term. “But not everyone to whom the distinction is important has to be able to make the distinction…..In cases of doubt other speakers would rely on the judgement of these ‘expert’ speakers” (Putnam MofM 227 & 228) Within societies people rely on others, the experts, to recognize whether something is or is not in the extension criteria. These requirements are present in the linguistic community or society which is considered a collective whole. The collective body divides the labour of naming, knowing and using these various parts of the “meaning of aluminium”. It is through these thought experiments that Putnam proves that sense does not determine referents, therefore, determining that the descriptive or traditional semantic theory is not necessarily true. He suggests that there is a social dimension to concepts. Now the only thing left is to show how knowledge of the meaning is socially distributed.
The causal theory of names teaches that once an object has been initially named the meaning now belongs to the collective body or all constituents within society. Kripke will offer some insight on how the meaning of a name, categorized by experts, get disseminated to the social public or “lay people”. This process can be easily understood when thought of in baptismal terms. Although the concept works in the same way for all objects I will use Aristotle as an example since the concept of baptism may be easier to grasp for the first time in relation to an individual. Here I will introduce Kripke’s objection to the 3rd principal of the descriptive theory with his modal ‘Aristotle’ example. Although it is true that necessarily Aristotle is Aristotle, it is NOT necessarily true that Aristotle is the most famous student of Plato, because this description could easily be different in any number of ways in other possible worlds. “it expresses the fact that Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, something we could discover to be false. So being the teacher of Alexander the Great cannot be part of the sense of the name. (Kripke N&N 30) Therefore ‘Aristotle’ cannot MEAN ‘the most famous student of Plato’ they are not synonymous. “then even if its reference is in some sense determined by a description, statements containing the name cannot in general be analyzed by replacing the name by a description” (Kripke N&N 33) Kripke will offer another explanation on how one can come to know the meaning of ‘Aristotle’. As stated above the easiest way to grasp the process under which the causal theory operated is to think about the initial naming by the experts as a baptism. When a baby was born to Mr and Mrs So and So they took it to an elder that preformed a ceremony similar to what we call a baptism and he declared that from that day on the baby was to be referred to as ‘Aristotle’. Just like a metallurgist, would initially classify or baptise the piece of metal as aluminium. However, one may ask how is it that the name ‘Aristotle’ came to refer to Aristotle in the way that we all know and use, since it is obvious that not all of us were present at that baptism? This where the causal theory of reference gets explained: it is because there is a causal chain that trickles down from the people who were at the original naming ceremony to everyone who uses his name. “When the name is ‘passes from link to link’ the receiver of the name must, I think, intend when he learns it to use it whith te same reference as the man from whom he heard it” (Kripke N&N 96) IT is a function of society that observers pass down first hand information to future pupils or generations where the meaning gets preserved and passed down in its original baptised context. The casual theory goes on to say that once proper names get their meaning initially, their referent is fixed. This is what is meant by a rigid indicator , that it picks out the same thing in all possible worlds. Since we already know that the initial meaning comes from composition (in the case of Aristotle, genetics) this name will pick out the same individual in all worlds regardless of the descriptions about what he has done. Once it is named, it is a rigid designator of that referent. Kripke has sufficiently debunked descriptivism and sufficiently shown that it is not the sense that determines who the referent of ‘Aristotle’ is, and has then put in place the casual theory.
Together Putnam and Kripke have shown that the traditional semantic theory is mistaken. The division of linguistic labour exemplifies that “meanings are not in the head” or “derived from a narrow psychological state” The division of linguistic labour shows that a proper name is one that is derived from the objects physical, chemical or elemental composition which can be detected by an expert which causes relational thoughts by which we conceive of like terms. The casual theory dictated that the meaning of a proper name is simple the individual or object to which it refers. The names referent is originally fixed by a baptismal act, at which point it becomes a rigid designator of the referent. Subsequent uses of that name are linked by a causal chain. The causal theory of Reference offers significant improvement on the traditional theory and offers a more probable explanation.
