Abstract
Gary Ostertag (Philos Stud 146:249–267, 2009) has presented a new puzzle for Russellianism about belief reports. He argues that Russellians do not have the resources to solve this puzzle in terms of pragmatic phenomena. I argue to the contrary that the puzzle can be solved according to Nathan Salmon’s (Frege’s puzzle, 1986) pragmatic account of belief reports, provided that the account is properly understood. Specifically, the puzzle can be solved so long as Salmon’s guises are not identified with sentences.
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Notes
Ostertag (2009, pp. 262–266) is willing to entertain the possibility that there is a “psychological solution” to his puzzle, but he is more adamant that there is no “semantic” or “pragmatic” solution.
Here, ‘assents to’ means something like ‘assents mentally to’ or ‘adopts a favorable attitude toward’ or ‘approves of’ or simply ‘accepts’. See specifically Salmon (1989, pp. 245–246).
I am using the word ‘implicate’ in its broadest sense: the one that is associated broadly with whatever is pragmatically conveyed, or suggested, or imparted. The relevantly implicated propositions may or may not be Gricean implicatures (1989, pp. 22–40) in the strict sense. Salmon (1989, p. 253) is noncommittal.
I want to emphasize that the third relatum of BEL is not the function f. It is the value of f, given A and ‘S’ as arguments. I refer to the function by ‘f’ and to the value of the function by ‘f(A,‘S’)’. I have encountered some confusion on this point.
In personal correspondence, Ostertag has endorsed the following interpretation of his argument.
Ostertag considers one other proposal, which is that (2a) is commonly used to implicate the proposition expressed by
(2a′′′) ∀x[x has read Middlemarch → ∃g[Φg & BEL(x, 〈Eliot, gifted〉, g)]],
where Φ is a condition on guises. What we have, now, is a Salmonian account that incorporates elements of Schiffer’s (1992) hidden indexical theory. The above analysis is attractive in that it avoids the consequence that every reader of Middlemarch grasps 〈Eliot, gifted〉 in the same way.
Unfortunately, Ostertag (2009, pp. 258–259) argues convincingly that this proposal won’t work. Very briefly, the reason this proposal won’t work is because the condition invoked by (2a′′′) must be trivially satisfiable, or else it would appear that (2a′′′) expresses something stronger than (2a). But if we understand (2a) as expressing (2a′′′), then we must understand (2b) as expressing
(2b′′′) ∀x[x has read Middlemarch → ∃g[Ψg & BEL(x, 〈Eliot, gifted〉, g)]],
where Ψ is another condition on guises. But Ψ must be trivially satisfiable, for the same reason that Φ must be trivially satisfiable. But then there can be no difference in truth value between (2a′′′) and (2b′′′)! Because (2a′′′) is not a tenable candidate for the proposition implicated using (2a), and because it is so far removed from Salmon’s original account, I have relegated discussion of (2a′′′) to this footnote.
Salmon (1993, pp. 87–88) and Braun (1998, p. 568) both point out that guises cannot be identified with sentences, but for the very different reason that if guises are sentences then the theory of guises would have no way of solving the Paderewski puzzle. For the original presentation of the Paderewski puzzle, see Kripke (1979).
Branquinho (1990) asks whether Salmon’s guises are Fregean senses, and he seems to answer in the negative. But he shows only that Salmon’s guises cannot be treated as senses in such a way that Salmon’s theory of belief is reduced to Frege’s theory of belief. I agree with Branquinho on that score, but this does not entail that guises cannot be treated as descriptive information analogous to Fregean senses. Of course, the subject requires a lot more discussion.
I am indebted to Ian Nance, Brian Rabern, Luke Manning, Tim Lewis, Meghan Fadel, Nathan Salmon and Gary Ostertag.
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Atkins, P. A pragmatic solution to Ostertag’s puzzle. Philos Stud 163, 359–365 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9819-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9819-x