Content and Justification: Philosophical Papers

Author:Paul A. Boghossian [Boghossian, Paul A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-11-15T22:39:00+00:00

THE APRIORITY OF LOGICAL PROPERTIES AND THE INTRODUCTION OF SENSE

It seems to me that once epistemic transparency is identified as a semantically significant thesis, its role in a variety of important disputes in the philosophy of language and mind becomes obvious. I shall discuss two of these: the role it has played in the canonical argument for the thesis that names have sense and not merely reference, and the role it plays in generating Kripke's puzzle about belief.

Beginning with the former, many philosophers would probably resist the claim that transparency plays a part in the canonical argument motivating a nonMillian view of names, because they would resist the claim that there is any such argument. Most philosophers write as if it's merely obvious-and, hence, in need of no argument-that someone might be in a state truly described by

(1) Mary believes that Ali was a champ

but not thereby in a state truly described by

(2) Mary believes that Clay was a champ.

It's worth seeing, however, that it isn't merely obvious. It becomes compelling, as I shall now argue, only when one makes the assumption, left implicit by Frege, that beliefs involving proper names are fit for the purposes of assessments of rationality and hence must be epistemically transparent. It is only under the terms of this assumption that one gets an argument for the referential opacity of proper names in the first place. 19

For consider how a belief in referential opacity is typically motivated. We are given a case which goes like this: Mary sincerely asserts `Ali was a champ.' She also sincerely asserts `Clay was not a champ.' She asserts these sentences even though it is clear that, as she is using the names `Ali' and `Clay' they refer to one and the same legendary boxer. Now, given the following principle for reporting beliefs

Jones' sincere assertion of `p' expresses his belief that p

we may conclude that

(1) Mary believes that Ali was a champ

and that

(3) Mary believes that Clay was not a champ.

It is important to notice, however, that nothing so far bars us from supposing that beliefs involving names are referentially transparent, and, hence, that (1) is equivalent to

(2) Mary believes that Clay was a champ.

For all that this would entail is that Mary has contradictory beliefs, a state of affairs that is, presumably, perfectly possible. We need to be given a reason why an ascription of contradictory beliefs is unacceptable in the present instance. Otherwise, we would have no case illustrating, and consequently no argument for, the referential opacity of beliefs involving names. What is that reason?

We get such a reason only if we insist that beliefs involving proper names must be fit for the purposes of assessments of rationality and psychological explanation, and hence must have logical properties that are knowable a pri- ori-must, that is, be transparent. Armed with such an assumption the argument for referential opacity is finally enabled. For the assumption insists that the attribution of a contradictory pair of beliefs involving proper names is acceptable

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.