Puzzles of Coreference

This chapter deals with coreference puzzles, long regarded as bedrock data against which the adequacy of any theory of singular reference must ultimately be tested. The chapter argues that two-factor referentialism, introduced in Chapter 2, does the best job of solving them. It considers a number of coreference problems, old ones from Frege; newer ones from Kripke, Saul, Richard, and others; and some entirely new ones. It discusses some relevant syntactic issues and distinguishes intrinsic coreference from coincidental coreference. The view that names are individuated by spelling and pronunciation, such as the theory of “nambiguity” put forward by Perry and Korta, is rejected. It criticizes views that treat names as indexicals, as conflating importantly different instruments of reference. It criticizes the view that names are predicates, as having no reasons in its favor other than a misplaced desire for unity. It then develops the two-factor theory by comparing its treatment of cognitive significance with Frege’s views, and more recent views of Perry, Recanati, Fiengo, and May.

The Mystery of Reference and Objective Representational Content

This chapter introduces the main themes and ambitions of the book and gives an overview of the content and organization of subsequent chapters. One of those ambitions is to explain how it is possible, for the vehicles of both language and thought, to be “semantically answerable” to the world—or, equivalently, to have objective representational content. In this chapter the problem, or mystery, of objective representational content is set out in some detail. The proposed explanation (“two-factor referentialism”) is outlined and contrasted with a fundamentally different rival approach. Various concomitant problems to be addressed are also articulated—e.g., concerning the relation between language and thought, the role of causation in the constitution of reference, the place of intentionality in the natural world, and the possibility of meta-cognition.

Inner Fitness and Outer Cause

Just how does the mind manage, on the basis of the inward rush of mere energy upon the portals of sensation, to represent to itself a world populated with a dizzying variety of putatively mind-independent objects? This chapter argues that two distinct and independent factors are involved; each is necessary, together they are sufficient. One factor is extra-representational, causal and informational, and rooted in the world. The other factor is internal and structural and rooted in the subject. Section 2 develops the initial question. In section 3, semantic referentialism is distinguished from semantic presentationalism. Semantic referentialism emphasizes the first factor, semantic presentationalism emphasizes the second. Taylor will advocate a modified version of semantic referentialism, two-factor referentialism. Section 3 aims to understand doctrine of the epistemic one-sidedness of all reference and to begin to undermine it as a motivation for semantic presentationalism. Section 4 considers the notion of a merely objectual representation and begins to lay the groundwork for two-factor representationalism by distinguishing between objectual and fully objective representations. Section 5 critically explores the Fregean and Kantian roots of this distinction.

Concepts, Conceptions in the Psychology of the Referring Mind

Concepts function to make objects available for thinking and talking about; conceptions mediate and help guide our reasoning about those objects. Concepts unite all subjects who are capable of thinking and talking about the same thing(s)—subjects whose conceptions of that thing may differ. This distinction is integral to the picture of the psychology of the referring mind that is developed in this chapter: a picture with internalist, externalist, and “communitarian” elements. In the first part of the chapter, the concept/conception-distinction is discussed at length, and important implications of it for our understanding of coreference puzzles and propositional attitude ascriptions are drawn out. In the second part, an overall account of rational cognition and conation that fits with the recommended picture of the referring mind is sketched.

The Things We Do with Empty Names

This chapter undertakes to apply the previously developed theory of objective representational content to our thought and talk about apparently non-existent objects. It aims to show that we need not construe the referents of singular terms within fiction and within mathematics as possessing bona fide existence (or non-existence) while also providing a robust understanding of our singular representations when we think with such terms. The arguments depend on the trio of distinctions between merely objectual and fully objective linguistic and mental representations; non-veridical and veridical language games; and truth-similitude and literal truth. With these distinctions, the chapter exhibits the explanatory power of a theory on which empty singular terms are merely objectual yet are fundamental to our non-veridical language and thought games, possessing truth-similitude while falling short of literal truth.

Against Jazz Combo Theories of Meaning and Reference

The “jazz combo theory” captures the common spirit of various theories that reject reference and the “bottom up” approach to the problem of objective representational content. We can imagine the members of a jazz combo initially playing together without any shared musical norms. But they continually adjust to one another until norms emerge and are mutually endorsed. Players start holding one another to these norms, and it’s this that gives the sounds they produce—what would otherwise be mere noise—determinate musical content. Similarly, on the jazz combo theory, what would otherwise be productions of meaningless strings by language users, come to constitute determinate linguistic acts with determinate propositional contents, by virtue of the users adopting, and holding one another to, a shared set of linguistic and discursive norms. This chapter argues that jazz combo theorists overstate the case against reference, although they’re right in stressing the importance of norms and their dependence on social interaction. Jazz combo theorists tend to reject bottom-up approaches, including causal theories, because they take those approaches to be incompatible with the explanatory priority of the sentence and to fail to bridge the supposed gap between cause and norm. A number of conceptual tools are introduced to counter their arguments and to defend the consistency of the dynamic priority of the sentence, the syntactic correlativity of sentences and their constituents, and the semantic priority of constituents.

Representing Representations

This chapter champions the priority of objectual representations and reference to the world over fine-grained “inner” mental representations. The main argument rests upon demonstrating that our attitude ascriptions practices give priority to de re ascriptions of mental contents over de dicto ascriptions of mental contents. The argument thereby advances a rejection of the Fregean tradition that construes modes of presentations of objects as essential to the characterization of mental contents within attitude ascriptions. A novel argument is advanced invoking the evaluative commitments expressed with embedded referential slurring terms in argument position, showing them to reveal derogatory attitudes of the ascriber, not the ascribee, and then showing by analogy that the same obtains for existential and referential commitments: they do not typically invoke Fregean modes of presentation by which the ascribee cognizes the world. The chapter ends by reexamining substitution puzzles and the nature of de re belief.