Abstract
Robert Kraut has proposed an analogy between valuing a loved one as irreplaceable and the sort of “rigid” attachment that (according to Saul Kripke’s account) occurs with the reference of proper names. We wanted to see if individuals with Kripkean intuitions were indeed more likely to value loved ones (and other persons and things) as irreplaceable. In this empirical study, 162 participants completed an online questionnaire asking them to consider how appropriate it would be to feel the same way about a perfect replica of a loved one, as well as other questions about replaceability. Participants who previously had endorsed Kripkean reference (n = 96) rated loved ones as less replaceable on two different measures than participants who had previously endorsed Descriptivist reference (n = 66, t(160) ≥ 2.27, p ≤ 0.02, η 2 ≥ 0.03). Additional results suggest that this difference extends to other targets as well and is at least partially dependent on sentimental attachment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See Genone 2012 for a review, but see also Deutsch 2009, Jackman 2009, Lam 2010, Ludwig 2007 and Martí 2009. Machery and others have responded in various places, e.g. Machery et al. 2009, 2010 and Machery 2012. For a study which suggests the divide between Kripkeans and Descriptivists may not be so tidy, see Genone and Lombrozo (2012).
Where numerical identity is standardly contrasted with qualitative identity. Two (or more) objects are qualitatively identical if they share all the same qualities, but an object can only be numerically identical (“one and the same object”) with itself.
Note that this passage comes in a discussion of the legitimacy of attaching to “series-persons” rather than persons, and so Parfit’s goal at that point is the more limited goal of defending such attachment. In the end, however, his position commits him to denying the importance of the identity of a loved one even in our world (and not just a world where series-persons are common), and with this the idea that resistance to replaceability is irrational. This is because Parfit argues (in Reasons and Persons) not just that identity does not matter, but that what does matter are psychological relations with any cause, and a duplicate possesses these psychological relations. (287) Parfit’s position is discussed in greater detail in Grau (2010).
An anonymous referee has suggested a similar possible parallel with competing notions of function. In other words, it may be that Kripkeans/Krautians are also more drawn to historically-oriented accounts of function (like Wright’s) while the Descriptivist/Parfitians may be more inclined towards ahistorical accounts (like that of Cummins). To the extent we are familiar with this literature (a bit!) we are inclined to agree.
This point is made in Gelman 2003 but extended and elaborated in Gelman 2013. As she puts it in 2013: “I suggest that attention to object history is a domain-general capacity that serves as one of the foundations for psychological essentialism of animal kinds as well as concepts of individual artifacts.” (no page number) In 2003 she makes a related suggestion with which we are also in sympathy: “There may be a link between tracking individual identity and kind essentialism in another way as well. That is, the sorts of objects for which we prefer to track individual identity (e.g. people, not paper clips) seem by and large to be the same sorts of objects we tend to essentialize. Perhaps the value places on certain entities initiates a process of individual identity-tracking, which then leads to hypothesizing that this sort of thing has unique and essential qualities.” (319)
References
Bloom, Paul. 1996. Intention, history, and artifact concepts. Cognition 60: 1–29.
Bloom, Paul. 2004. Descartes’ baby: How the science of child development explains what makes us human. New York: Basic Books.
Bloom, Paul. 2010. How pleasure works. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Deutsch, Max. 2009. Experimental philosophy and the theory of reference. Mind & Language 24: 445–466.
Gelman, Susan A. 2003. The essential child. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gelman, Susan A. 2004. Psychological essentialism in children. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8(9): 404–409. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.07.001.
Gelman, Susan A. 2013. Artifacts and essentialism. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. doi:10.1007/s13164-013-0142-7.
Genone, James. 2012. Theories of reference and experimental philosophy. Philosophy Compass 7(2): 152–163.
Genone, James, and Tania Lombrozo. 2012. Concept possession, experimental semantics, and hybrid theories of reference. Philosophical Psychology 25(5): 1–26.
Grau, Christopher. 2010. Love and History. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 48(3): 246–271.
Jackman, Henry. 2009. Semantic intuitions, conceptual analysis, and cross-cultural variation. Philosophical Studies 146: 159–177.
Kraut, Robert. 1986. Love De Re. In Midwest studies in philosophy, vol. X, ed. Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, and Howard K. Wettstein, 413–430. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Lam, Barry. 2010. Are Cantonese speakers really descriptivists? Revisiting cross-cultural semantics. Cognition 115: 320–329.
Ludwig, Kirk. 2007. The epistemology of thought experiments: First-person approach vs. third-person approach. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 31: 128–159.
Machery, Edouard. 2012. Expertise and intuitions about reference. Theoria 73: 37–54.
Machery, Edoaurd, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen P. Stich. 2004. Semantics, cross-cultural style. Cognition 92: B1–B12.
Machery, Edouard, Christophe Olivola, and Molly de Blanc. 2009. Linguistic and metalinguistic intuitions in the philosophy of language. Analysis 69: 689–694.
Machery, Edouard, Max Deutsch, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, Justin Sytsma, and Stephen P. Stich. 2010. Semantic intuitions: Reply to Lam. Cognition 117: 361–366.
Mallon, Ron, E. Machery, S. Nichols, and S. Stich. 2009. Against arguments from reference. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79(2): 332–356.
Martí, Genoveva. 2009. Against semantic multi-culturalism. Analysis 69: 42–48.
Nemeroff, C., and P. Rozin. 1994. The contagion concept in adult thinking in the United States: Transmission of germs and of interpersonal influence. Ethos 22(2): 158–186. doi:10.1525/eth.1994.22.2.02a00020.
Nisbett, Richard E., K. Peng, I. Choi, and A. Norenzayan. 2001. Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review 108: 291–310.
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, state, and utopia. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Opotow, Susan. 1990. Moral exclusion and injustice: An introduction. Journal of Social Issues 46(1): 1–20.
Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and persons. New York: Oxford University Press.
Phillips, W., M. Shankar, and L.R. Santos. 2010. Essentialism in the absence of language? Evidence from rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). Developmental Science 13(4): F1–F7. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.00982.x.
Rips, L.J., S. Blok, and G. Newman. 2006. Tracing the identity of objects. Psychological Review 113(1): 1–30. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.113.1.1.
Scholl, Brian J. 2007. Object persistence in philosophy and psychology. Mind & Language 22(5): 563–591. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0017.2007.00321.x.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Yale University Cognitive Science’s “Experiment Month” initiative and especially Mark Phelan for providing support for this study. We would also like to thank Paul Bloom, Roberto Casati, Joshua Knobe, Edouard Machery, Jonathan Phillips, Aaron Smuts, David Wasserman, Jen Cole Wright, and an anonymous referee for The Review of Philosophy and Psychology for helpful comments or suggestions on earlier drafts.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Grau, C., Pury, C.L.S. Attitudes Towards Reference and Replaceability. Rev.Phil.Psych. 5, 155–168 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-013-0162-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-013-0162-3