a description theory of a singular reference

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DialecticaVol. 57, No 1 (2003), pp. 7-40

A Description Theory of Singular Reference

FrancescoORILIA

ABSTRACT

According to the received view, descriptivism is a dead end in an attempt to account for singular refe-rence by proper names, indexicals and possibly even incomplete descriptions, for they require refe-

rentialism. In contrast to this, I argue for an application of the former to all kinds of singular terms,indexicals in particular, by relying on a view of incomplete descriptions as elliptical in a pragmaticsense. I thus provide a general analysis of singular reference. The proposed approach is in line withthe classical theory of propositions, except for admitting private ones with subjective mental en-tities as constituents. On the other hand, there is no commitment to singular Russellian propositionswith ordinary objects as constituents and in general to meanings that cannot be in the mind.

1. Introduction

A theory of language should distinguish somehow between a meaning that canbe assigned to an expression typeEsimply on the basis of the syntactic and

semantic conventions of the language to which Ebelongs, and, on the otherhand, a meaning that can be assigned to a token ofEin a way that takes intoaccount not only syntactic and semantic rules, but more generally semioticrules, i.e., also pragmatic rules that exploit relevant features of the context. Letus call the former a semanticmeaning and the latter a pragmatic (semioti c,contextual)meaning. This distinction is particularly handy in dealing withindexicals, proper names and incompletedefinite descriptions.1The latter are

Universit di Macerata, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze Umane, via Garibaldi, 20,62100 Macerata, Italy; Email: [email protected].

1

I assume that definite descriptions, proper names, and indexicals are identified from apurely grammatical point of view in the obvious way and thereby classified as (surface) singu-lar terms, descriptions, proper names or indexicals, as the case may be. There is a sense inwhich surface singular terms are not always used as singular terms, and thus they may or maynot be genuinesingular terms, but we shall deal with this issue in due time. In the indexicalcategory, following Kaplans terminology, we can distinguish (surface) demonstratives(e.g.,this or that) and (surface) pure indexicals(I, here, now, today, etc.). Further, wecan distinguish between indexicals simpliciterand indexical phrases. (Surface) indexical phra-sesare expressions such as this man, that brown table, you who love Mary. In this paper,for reasons of space I shall confine my attention to the basic indexicals I, here, now, andthis, but my main conclusions about them can be easily generalised to all indexicals and inde-

(to be continued on p. 8)


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8 Francesco Orilia

descriptions such as the table, which (roughly) can pick up a unique objectin an appropriate context, but fail to do so, if interpretedlaRussell inde-pendently of context. In contrast, completedescriptions such as the greatest

even prime number pick up a unique object, independently of context. Thispicking up of a unique object by a singular term is singular reference, themain job of singular terms, what they purport to do,2 and something whosenature we wish to elucidate here.

Two lines of thought on singular reference are on the market. I shall brie-fly present them by relying on Perry 2002 (but see also, for instance, Wettstein1981 and Devitt and Sterelny 1999). Descriptivism about a certain kind K ofsingular term(say, the definite description kind) claims that a tokentof a sin-gular term of kindKcontributes to the proposition expressed by the sentencecontainingta descriptive content (identifying condition, mode of presentation,individual concept) that is meant to be, and in typical cases is, satisfied by justobject.3The proposition in question is typically called generalor Fregean.Referentialism about a certain kind K of singular termis the view that a tokentof a singular term of kindK(e.g., the proper name or the indexical kind) con-tributes to the proposition expressed by the sentence containing tno descrip-tive content, but simply the individual it refers to.4This individual, x, is thena constituent of the proposition, which in turn is often said to beabout x. Typi-

cally, the individual in question is an ordinary object (a person, a dog, a table,a chair and so on), and the proposition is calledsingular[Kaplan 1989, p. 483]orKaplanianorRussellian5and is represented, in the simplest case, as an orde-

(conti nued from p. 7)xical phrases. Since indefinite descriptions are not at issue here, I shall typically use descrip-tion as short for definite description.

2 In contrast, a general term such as table does not purport to pick up a single entity,because it expresses a concept that (typically) applies to many objects and thus genericallyrefers to all of them (although the world may happen to be such that there is exactly one entityto which the concept applies). Since generic reference is beyond the range of this paper, I shalloften drop the qualifier singular in talking about singular reference, without any fear ofmisunderstandings.

3 If there is such an object, it is referred to by the singular term, but in any case it is nota constituent of the proposition.

4 Accordingly, following Kaplan 1989, it is often said that the reference in question isdirect.This is not to say that it is totally unmediated by a meaning component. For, example,according to Kaplan, the reference of an indexical is mediated by what he calls character.

5The widely used terminology, Russellian vs. Fregean, arises from a well-knowncorrespondence on propositions between Frege and Russell (cf. Frege 1980; in particularFreges letter dated 11 November 1904 and Russells 12 December 1904 reply). This termino-logy is not meant to imply that Fregean propositions must involve senses as Frege conceived ofthem, i.e., as either function-like or object-like, so to speak. What is important is in the firstplace that they contain identifying conditions where Russellian propositions would contain

individuals. Second, I think it is fair to Frege, to also require that a Fregean proposition must(to be continued on p. 9)


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A Description Theory of Singular Reference 9

red set, , wherePis a property andaan ordinary object.6Thus, for exam-ple, the pragmatic meaning of a token of Ortcutt is a spy (or this is a spy)is typically in this approach a Russellian proposition, .7

Descriptivism most obviously applies to complete descriptions, but looksproblematic for incomplete descriptions, proper names and indexicals. Still, asWettstein notes (1979, p. 93), influential philosophers such as Quine and Katz,following Freges footsteps, have proposed to extend descriptivism even to pro-per names, indexicals or incomplete descriptions. This extension gives rise towhat we might call adescription theory of singular reference. Nowadays, afterthe powerful arguments against this approach by Donnellan, Kripke, Straw-son, Wettstein, Kaplan among others, referentialism appears dominant andflourishing (see, e.g., textbooks such as Devitt and Sterelny 1999 and Akma-jian et al. 1995). Accordingly, descriptivism is typically confined at most tocomplete descriptions and even on this there is no general agreement, in viewof Donnellans referential/attributive distinction. In contrast, a philosophercommitted to a description theory is difficult to find.

Yet, I think that a description theory can still be defended. In this paper, Ishall propose one, by relying on two tenets that can naturally be used to sup-port a description theory: (a) the Disguise View, according to which propernames and indexicals are (incomplete) descriptions in disguise, involving an

implicit definite article; (b) theEllipsis View, according to which incompletedescriptions and, more generally, quantifier phrases are elliptical.8

(conti nued from p. 8)not contain ordinary objects as constituents (see the above mentioned correspondence withRussell) and more generally that all its constituents can in some sense be capable of being gra-sped by a mind in a psychological act, or as Putnam 1975 puts it, of being somehow in thehead, even though ultimately they are objectively existing (abstract, Platonic) entities. In otherwords, in the terminology that I shall introduce below, Fregean propositions should be taken tobeentertainable. However, this historical issue has nothing to do with the main goals of thispaper and to avoid misunderstandings I shall usually prefer to say entertainable rather thanFregean, when this second constraint on propositions (or meanings in general) is at issue.

6The referentialist of course may also admit propositions with individuals other thanordinary objects as constituents (say, microphysical entities, or private mental representations)and may wish to call them singular, Russellian or Kaplanian, too. But in keeping with currentterminology, it is fair to call such additional propositions (if they are admitted) singular,Russellian or Kaplanian insofar as they are taken to belong to a class that also contains as typi-cal members the traditional singular propositions with ordinary objects as constituents.

7To provide canonical representations of meanings of predicates, I typically use upper-case English expressions (possibly with underscore signs) such as SPY or BUS_DRIVER.

8 Recanati 1996 notes that the Ellipsis View can be understood in a syntactic,Gricean or pragmatic sense. I accept the latter option [which Recanati attributes to Bach(1987, 1994)], i.e., I view incomplete descriptions as elliptical in a pragmatic sense, which willbe made more precise below. Recanati (1996, note 3, p. 452) acknowledges that the pragmaticversion of the Ellipsis View escapes the criticisms that he levels specifically against the syn-

tactic and Gricean versions. But there are other standard criticisms against the Ellipsis View. Ishall examine them below.


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10 Francesco Orilia

2. Some motivations

Why a description theory of reference? Apart from the fact that it is worth inve-

stigating it as an option in its own right, referentialism, in spite of its popula-rity, seems in some respects less convincing or theoretically more baroque thanits rival. First and foremost, as is well-known, the former, with its appeal tosingular propositions, is in trouble with the co-reference problem standardlyexemplified by Freges puzzle,9 which descriptivism solves by a standardrecourse to Fregean propositions (see, e.g., Perry 2002). Thus, Sullivan 1998urges that the referentialist should acknowledge Fregean propositions besideRussellian ones.10 As a matter of fact, referentialism must at least link some-

9

The standard version of Frege's puzzle is based on a supposedly true identitysentencetoken, i.e. of the form

sis t

(tandstwo descriptions or proper names), e.g. the morning star isVenus, and a subject S who is assumed to believe a propositionP(pragmatically) expressible bya certain sentence tokenT, without believing a propositionP'(pragmatically) expressible (in thesame context) by a sentence tokenT'(whereT'differs linguistically fromTonly in that it containsa token oftwherever Tcontains a token ofs). It is not easy to formulate a (less standard) versionof Freges puzzle with an identity sentence token involving two indexicals. But it can be done (see,e.g., Castaeda 1989, p. 72).

10 Something in this spirit is in fact proposed by Perry (2002), who thus calls his referen-tialism critical (p. 91), as opposed to a naive one that fails to acknowledge the co-referenceproblem. Following the suggestion of one referee, I would like to briefly compare our approaches.According to Perry, a sentence token with a proper name or indexical has a singular proposition as

the official content assigned to it by semiotic rules. This content however is incremental in thatit is additional to other propositions (called indexical or reflexive contents) that semiotic rulesmay also associate with the sentence token in question and that have the theoretical role of accoun-ting for the co-reference problem. These indexical contents involve as constituents modes of pre-sentations of the individuals involved in the official content, rather than the individual themselves.But indexical contents are not entertainable in the sense explained in 3, below. In fact, they typi-cally contain as constituents singular term tokens occurring in the sentence token to which they areassociated by the semiotic rules, and of course such singular term tokens, qua objective physicalentities, are external to the mind. Perry thus recognises the need, for a full account of belief, of otheradditional contents, reflexive contents of beliefs (p. 95), which are now, as I understand Perry,entertainable (in my terminology), for the singular term tokens in question are replaced by corre-sponding perceptual buffers of the relevant agent. There is then some similarity between Perrysapproach and mine, in that, as we shall see, I claim that propositions involving as constituents mental representations of indexical tokens must sometimes be acknowledged as pragmatic meanings ofsentence tokens (just as Perry acknowledges reflexive contents with singular term tokens or per-ceptual buffers thereof). Moreover, I claim that my pragmatic meanings of sentence tokens allowus to deal with the co-reference problem, since they always involve something like modes of pre-sentations (the properties of properties of the form [THE P] to be introduced in 4, below).Similarly, Perrys reflexive contents, as they involve modes of presentations, are appealed to in dea-ling with the co-reference problem. But there are significant differences. To save referentialism,Perry admits (non-entertainable) singular propositions qua incremental official contents, in addi-tion to (non-entertainable) indexical (reflexive) propositions and (entertainable) reflexive contentsof beliefs, and thus has the problem of specifying a semiotic architecture where somehow these dif-ferent levels of meaning fit together in a way compatible with referentialism. In contrast, since I donot have the problem of saving referentialism, and since all my propositions are entertainable, as

we shall see, I have a simplified ontology (no singular propositions) and a simplified semioticarchitecture (sentence tokens just express propositions).


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how singular propositions to Fregean-like psychological modes of presenta-tion and linguistic modes of presentation, as proposed by Recanati 1992.11

This however generates the need of explaining how these modes are linked to

a pragmatic meaning that happens to be a singular proposition, a task that thedescriptivist approach, as we shall see, does not have to face. Moreover, refe-rentialism requires an appeal to complicated causal-historical chains and rela-ted notions (in particular, to account for reference by proper names). In con-trast, a description theory appears simpler, in that it can provide an obviousanalysis of singular reference (without involving historical chains or the like),once it is assumed (roughly speaking) that definite descriptions have Russel-lian truth-conditions. In turn, this assumption yields a unified treatment ofidentity sentences along the lines of Russell 1905. This provides the basis fora general solution to Freges puzzle, no matter what kinds of singular termsare involved in the identity sentence in question.12

Sullivan 1998 also suggests that not only Fregean propositions, but alsoRussellian propositions are needed in order to account for communication. Ifthis were true, referentialism would have the lead in this respect. Yet,paceSul-livan, communication can most naturally be accounted for in a way that requi-res no Russellian propositions, as the sketch of the communication process tobe provided in 4 below will suggest. Hence, as we shall see in the following,

descriptivism can yield a theory of reference that makes no appeal to singularpropositions and can thus propose to delete such propositions from the onto-logical inventory. From the point of view of Ockams razor, this gives des-criptivism an advantage over its rival.

11The former modes are needed to account for Freges puzzles and the latter to accountfor the fact that somehow a very generic concept or property can be associated to proper namesand indexicals even from a purely semantic point of view. (For example, being a male humanbeing is a property semantically linked to the pronoun he and yet according to the direct refe-rence approach this property is not a constituent of the pragmatic meaning of a token of he isa professor, where he is used demonstratively.)

12 If we assume that allsingular terms are descriptions and that descriptions haveRussellian truth-conditions, then a token of an identity sentence

sis t

involved in an instanceof Freges puzzle, will always have truth conditions of the form1x(F(x) & 1z(G(z) & x=z))[where1x(F(x)& A) abbreviates x(y(F(y) x=y) & A)], even ifsand tare proper namesor indexicals [in the following for brevitys sake I shall often drop the parentheses around argu-ment letters, thereby writing, e.g., Fxinstead ofF(x)]. As Russell 1905 shows, once identitysentence tokens are given this kind of truth conditions, Freges puzzle is blocked, for the puzzle

requires the use of Leibnizs law, x=y (A A(y/x)), on the assumption that the identity sen-tence token in question has truth conditions of the formx = y.


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12 Francesco Orilia

It may be objected that there is for independent reasons a role for singular Rus-sellian propositions,13 since they can be identified with the states of affairspostulated by Armstrong 1978 to defend scientific realism and the correspon-

dence theory of truth. But it is not so, for according to Armstrong, which sta-tes of affairs should be posited depends on which natural/physical universalsare acknowledged by the best available scientific theory of the world, i.e., itcannot be decideda priori . In contrast, referentialism requires that in a by andlargea prioriway (i.e., from the point of view of the theory of language andcommunication, without appealing to basic science), we postulate Russellianpropositions such as , considered above, although being a spyis unlikely to be considered a physical universal.

3. Entertainable entities and meanings

The particular version of the description theory that I shall propose stems froma conception of semantic theory as allied with cognitive psychology in anattempt to provide a naturalist account of the use of language as expression ofinner cognitive states of thinking, believing and so on.14 Now, I think it can beargued (although for reasons of space I cannot do it here) that this task beco-mes easier, if semantic theory abides by what we may call the EntertainableMeaning Constraint(EMC). Accordingly, I will impose it on my description

theory, which can then accordingly be called the EMC theory. EMC requiresthat all meanings (whether pragmatic or semantic) be entertainableentities,i.e., entities capable of being in the mind,15 as this can be said on the onehand of phenomenal or mental particulars [ranging from pains, itches and thelike to perceptual mental representations of objectively existing physical par-ticulars such as ordinary objects] insofar as they occur somehow within theprivate mental events of thinking subjects, and on the other hand of conceptsinsofar as they are possessed or exercised by thinking subjects. In the firstplace, here we shall be especially concerned with entertainable entities suchas (i) token mental (perceptual) representations of objectively existing physi-

13 Provided of course we do not call, following Kaplans (1989, p. 483), a propositionsin-gularonly if it is expressed by a sentence token containing a directly referential term. For inthat case, if we take referentialism to be totally false, then it automatically follows by defini-tion that there are no singular propositions. To avoid this, I wish to use singular propositionin line with what indicated in note 6, above, and as applicable to a proposition independentlyof how it is expressed.

14 In contrast, referentialists often reveal a desire for a more rigid demarcation betweensemantics and psychology (see, e.g., Wettstein 1986). Yet, a Quinean naturalistic attitude andmuch current research in so called cognitive semantics (by Jackendoff, Lakoff, Langacker,

Talmy, among others) suggests that an open interface between semantics and psychology can

be very fruitful.15 Entities we can be acquainted with, in the terminology of Russell 1912.


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cal particulars, as opposed to the objective particulars themselves, and (ii) pro-perties, relations and propositions (PRPs, in short), with no ordinary objectsor objectively existing particulars among their constituents,16 and understood

as concepts and thoughts in the sense of Bealer 1982, as opposed to physicaluniversals and states of affairs in the sense of Armstrong 1978.

Among such PRPs, it is worth distinguishingpureand impureones, wherethe former have no particulars at all among their constituents, whereas the lat-ter have mental particulars as constituents.17 Insofar as they are pure, PRPs areintersubjective, i.e., they can be entertained by more than one person. Further,they arestable.That is, they can be entertained at different times. All this mustbe understood in the sense in which we say that the very same concept can bepossessed and exercised by different people at different times. In contrast,mental particulars, quaoccurring within the subjective mental events of thin-king subjects, are (as far as we know) unstable, i.e., they are ephemeral ent-ities that quickly come and go, depending on how the flow of consciousnessevolves, and can thus be entertained for short amounts of time. Moreover, theyare (as far as we know) subjectiveorprivate, i.e., they can be entertained, inas-much as they persist, only by the agent in whose mental events they are occur-ring (cf. Castaeda 1999, p. 94). Impure PRPs must be taken to inherit privacyand lack of stability from their private and unstable constituents. Now, apart

16 Following Russell 1912, we may say that an entertainabale proposition (a propositionwe can understand, says Russell) must be wholly made up of entertainable constituents (con-stituents we can be acquainted with). Thus, e.g., a proposition involving as constituent a per-ceptual representation of, say, Clinton, is entertainable and thus potentially a meaning, where-as a Russellian proposition involving Clinton himself as constituent (assuming for a momentthat there are such propositions) is not entertainable and thus never a meaning, given EMC, foran ordinary object such as Clinton is too big, so to speak, to occur in someones mind. Ingeneral, then, a PRP is entertainable, provided there is no non-entertainable element among itsconstituents.

17 For instance, the property being wise, the relation being taller, and the proposition thatwisdom is more important than beauty are pure in that they have only concepts and (accordingto some views) the predicational tie, but no particulars, among their constituents. In contrast,sensing g, where gis, say, a particular perceptual representation occurring within someone'smental events is an impure property. Roughly speaking, entertaining an impure PRP (e.g., aswhen one judges that a certain inner visual shape g is red-looking), appears to involve both theexercise of some concept, looks red, and what Castaeda calls thinking reference to a men-tal particular (g, in our example, so that the entertained PRP is the proposition that glooks red).

Thinking reference is basically focusing ones attention on a mental particular, in order to sub-sume it under a concept, i.e. in order to attribute a property to it (Gertler 2002 speaks similar-ly of demonstrative reference to a phenomenal content that can be achieved through atten-tion alone). Since in general there is no linguistic medium involved in it, thinking referenceshould be sharply distinguished from the reference by proper names or indexicals of the refe-rentialists [although Castaeda also uses thinking reference in a wider sense, which allowsfor a linguistic medium; see, e.g., Castaeda (1981, p. 277) and Kapitan (1998, 1999)]. It

should also be sharply distinguished from thinking about a possibly external, physical object.For this notion, see note 28, below.


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14 Francesco Orilia

from minor details which need not concern us here, we may say that in myview all meanings are (entertainable) PRPs. It is plausible to assume howeverthat their intersubjectivity and stability allow pure PRPs to besemanticmea-

nings18 (shared by a community of people speaking the same language) andthat, in contrast, entities that lack these features cannot similarly be semanticmeanings. But we can still take impure PRPs, as we shall see, to be pragma-tic meanings.

A few more words on mental representations are in order. Their occurrenceis typically caused by the perception of physical objects (e.g., ordinary objects)in the surrounding environment, in cases of veridical perception.19 We cantypically assume in these circumstances that a mental representation gsome-how corresponds to one specific physical objectx, in a sense that allows us tosay that g represents x. Clearly, when such a representation relation betweengand xobtains, the property being represented by guniquely identifies theobject x(see below for a precise, Russell-based, definition of uniquely iden-tifying).20 It is important to record this point, since I shall appeal to it atvarious places, below. As we shall see in the following, there will also be rea-sons to focus especially on those mental representations caused by the per-ception of linguistic tokens, call them token representati ons, and on thosepeculiar mental representations caused rather than by perception of objects in

the external environment by the inner perception of ourselves as it occurs inepisodes of self-consciousness. We may call themself-or ego-representationsor simply egos. It is plausible to say that an ego-representation is a necessaryingredient for intentional actions such as deciding to grab a nearby object.21

Consider, e.g., Perrys (1979) grocery store example, to be reviewed below:When the sugar spiller suddenly realises that he himselfis making a mess, thebelief needed for triggering his decision to clear up the mess is plausibly taken

18 In the more technical terminology introduced in 5, below, this amounts to saying thatthere is no linguistic typeEsuch that, for some interpretation Int, Int(E)is an impure PRP.

19 Of course, it can also take place without being caused by external objects, as in dre-ams or hallucinations, and there may thus be representations without any represented objects,e.g., the fountain-representation hallucinated by a thirsty man in the desert. All these issuesmust be considered in a complete account of mental representations and the representing rela-tion, as well as of phenomenal particulars in general. My favorite one would involve an appealto Gestalt psychology (Koffka 1999), but for reasons of space we cannot undertake this here.

The intuitive ideas in this section should suffice for present purposes.20 As we shall see, by appealing to these properties based on the relation of representa-

tion, we can always be sure to find a descriptive content for indexicals, thereby viewing themas descriptions in disguise. Accordingly, even versions of Freges puzzle involving indexicalscan be solved by appealing to Russells theory of descriptions, as indicated in note 12, above.

21 See Koffka (1999, Ch.8), where such self-representations are taken to result from a

bipolar subdivision of the total field of consciousness of a given person (behavioral field)in a subjective and an objective pole.


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to involve a self-representation g, i.e., it is a belief to the effect that a personrepresented by a ego gis causing a mess. In virtue of the fact that gis an ego(as opposed to any other kind of mental representation), the involvement ofg

in this belief should be considered a key causal ingredient for transferringenergy from the sugar spillers brain to his limbs in a way that eventually resultsin his taking care of the mess. I shall appeal to this below in accounting forPerrys example.

4. Communication and descriptive contents

I now wish to propose the sketch of how communication works promisedabove. It is in line with EMC and thus eschews Russellian propositions.

Roughly, a communicationprocess is a causal process involving some parti-cipants and some linguistic tokens. These tokens are used in order to achievecertain goals. In typical cases, the participants take on alternatively the rolesofutterer (speaker)22 and receiver (hearer)in different phases of a communi-cation process. Moreover, for any token t(say, a sentence token) involved in acommunication process, it is possible to assign a pragmatic meaning to t. Thisassignment is based on the syntactic and semantic rules of the language inquestion (to which tbelongs) and on pragmatic rules that take into accountrelevant features of the (communicative) contextin question, in which tis utte-

red. In relation tot, we must distinguish the following. (a) A meaning Msenter-tained by the speaker, which the speaker has in mind and intends to com-municate; the speaker linguistically encodes it in order to communicate it,which results in his entertaining a mental token representation t'oftand hisuttering tokent. CallM

saspeakerpragmatic meaning. (b) A meaning Mr enter-

tained by the receiver as a result of his effort to decode a mental token repre-sentation t' 'oftthat the receiver entertains as a result of his perceiving token

22The speaker or utterer of a linguistic token tneed not coincide with the producer oft.For example, a written token tproduced by Tom may be used by Mary to compose a writtentext. In this case, Mary (not its producer Tom) is the utterer of t. The notion of utterer can betaken very widely, if one wishes. For example, consider the machine A, envisaged by Soldati1998 (Ch. II, 2), which automatically prints a token of I am hot, when it gets hot. The readercan verify at the end of the paper that in view of the (I-R)-(T-R) token reflexive principles, in 8 below, these tokens can be taken to express truths, if utterer is used in a wide sense, allo-wing the machine A to be considered an utterer. Similarly, we could even consider as utterer inthis wide sense a car labelled with a token tof, say, I belong to the King of Spain (where tissand-made, put together and randomly placed on the car by a wind storm). Then, tcan be takento express a truth by someone who believes that indeed the car belongs to the King of Spain. Inthese cases, of course, we would have no speaker meaning (as this is defined below), no self-knowledge in Soldatis sense of the term, but at most a hearer meaning (as this is definedbelow). To the extent that there is a hearer meaning, i.e. a subject who views the tokens in

question as linguistictokens and interprets them in accordance with semiotic rules, it makessense to call the machine A, or even the car, utterer.


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16 Francesco Orilia

t. Let us call Mra receiver(hearer) pragmatic meaning. (c) An objective

meaningMobased on the fact that there are (i) official, intersubjective, soci-

ally determined syntactic and semantic rules for the language in question, (ii)

intersubjective, interlinguistic (probably universal) pragmatic rules, and (iii)objective relevant features of the context.23 I shall call M

oa pragmatic mea-

ning (oft) simpliciter.24 Communication is successfulto the extent that Ms issufficiently similar toM

rfor the communication goals to be fulfilled.25Typi-

cally, a minimal requirement for sufficient similarity is that Msand M

rbe

extensionally equivalent. A communication is likely to be successful insofaras the participants share and use the same set of semiotic rules and have byand large the same beliefs about the relevant features of the context. To theextent that these beliefs are correct and that the semiotic rules the participantsuse are in conformity with the relevant intersubjective rules, Ms, Mr, andMowill then tend to be sufficiently similar or even to coincide.26

In typical cases, the participants in a communication process produce sen-tence tokens expressing propositions. In line with descriptivism, my EMC the-ory postulates that these propositions, beside being entertainable, are Fregeanin that they involve a descriptive content as constituent precisely where refe-rentialism would posit an individual as constituent of a Russellian proposition.I now wish to explain how such descriptive contents are understood in my

approach.Assume that DET is a semantic meaning (e.g., THE or EVERY) of a deter-miner (e.g., the or every). IfFis the semantic meaning of a predicativeexpression (such as table, winged horse, etc.), I take [DET F] to be a pro-perty of properties, which can in turn be the semantic meaning of a quantifier

23 See Akmajian et al. 1995 for a view of pragmatic competence as the possession andcapacity to use a system of inferential rules.

24 Ms, MrandMowill typically have subconstituents that are in turn speaker pragmaticmeanings, receiver meanings, and meaningssimpliciter.

25 It is often assumed that successful communication requires numerical identity betweenMsand Mr, rather than sufficient similarity. However, to require identity seems too much inview of the fact that some communication can go through even in spite of individual differen-ces in the lexical competence of speakers of the same language (cf. Marconi 1997, Ch. 5). Herea reason due to the nature of singular reference, as I see it, will emerge.

26There is no reason to suppose that the entertaining of pragmatic meanings by utterersand receivers involved in a communication process be (fully) conscious. Thus, say, evenunconscious but sufficiently sophisticated robots can be considered as participants in a com-munication process, capable of taking on both utterer and receiver roles. (As regards them, wemay assume that they deploy some electronic counterparts of our token mental representa-tions). On the other hand, we should assume that if a meaning is consciously before a personsmind, then this meaning is entertained by this person. Finally, we should assume that a mea-

ningMis (consciously) entertained by a subject Sto the extent that every constituent ofMis(consciously) entertained by S.


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phrase such as the table or every winged horse. This is in essence the appro-ach to quantifier phrases that can be found in Prior 1963, is developed in detailin Montague 1974 and further exploited in the theory of generalised quanti-

fiers of Barwise and Cooper 1981.27Quite obviously, a property of the form [EVERY F] is assumed to obey the

following principle:

(UQ) [EVERY F](G) y(Fy Gy).

In keeping with the promise to assume Russellian truth conditions for defi-nite descriptions, a property of the form [THE F] is exemplified by anotherpropertyGiff there is exactly one object which isFand this object isG, i.e.,

[THE F] is taken to obey this principle:(DD) [THE F](G) x(y(Fy x=y)& Gx).

Let us recall at this juncture that we can exploit Russells theory of descrip-tions to analyse what it is for a property to uniquely identify an object x:

(ID) A property F uniquely identifies xiffz(y(Fy z=y) & z = x).28

It is also important to record that determiner properties, i.e. properties of theform [DET F], can occur in a proposition both in predicate position (predica-tively), as (UQ) and (DD), above, show, and in subject position, as when wesay that the determiner property [THE TABLE] contains the property ofbeing a table as a constituent [CONTAIN([THE TABLE],TABLE)].

27 Contrary to Montague, I would implement this approach in a type-free framework, e.g.as proposed in Orilia (2000, 9). These details are however immaterial for present purposes.What is central is that definite descriptions are not treated as incomplete symbols in the sense ofRussell 1905. Thus, if the predicateFsemantically means property P, any definite descriptiontheF has as semantic meaning the property (of properties) [THE P]. For further explanationson this approach to quantifier phrases see Orilia (1994, 2000a) and Montague inspired textbookssuch as Chierchia and McConnell-Ginet 1991. It may be worth noting that, although my treat-ment of definite descriptions as quantifier phrases is essentially that of Montague and Barwiseand Cooper, these authors do not propose a complete reduction of singular terms to definite des-criptions as I do, for they offer no descriptivist analysis of indexicals and proper names. They dotreat the latter as quantifier phrases, but in a way that presupposes an unanalysed use of propernames as referring to individuals [see, e.g., Barwise and Cooper (1981, p. 166)].

28 As promised in note 17, above, we can now say that thinking about something can beanalysed (roughly) as follows: a subjectS thinks aboutan objectxiffSentertains a propositionPwith a constituent of the form [THE F] such thatFuniquely identifiesx. This is in line withwhat Gareth Evans (1996) has called Russells principle. The property Fin question may be

a property of the formrepresented by g, wheregis a particular perceptual representation, whichexplains why veridical perception allows us to think about external objects.


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18 Francesco Orilia

5. Singular terms and singular reference

We set the stage in the introduction, by saying that singular terms purport to

pick up a unique object. But we can in the present approach go beyond thisintuitive level and cash somehow this metaphoric way of speaking. In order todo so, consider first these two questions:

(Q1) When exactly does an expression Epurport to pick up a uniqueobject and thereby deserve to be called a genuine singular term?29

(Q2) When exactly does a (genuine) singular term succeed in picking upan object, i.e. singularly refer to one entity x?

Toward answering them, let us introduce some useful terminology. Call inter-

pretationan assignment of a unique semantic meaning to an expression typeEbelonging to languageL, in accordance with the syntactic and semantic rulesofL. I shall use Int(E) to designate the semantic meaning assigned toEbyinterpretation Int.30 We can assume that, for any expressionEexemplified bytoken t, the pragmatic rules can select one or more most plausible semanticinterpretations in relation to a contextCin which tis uttered. Let us classifyas aC/t-interpretation any such contextual interpretation ofE. Similarly, letus call MaC/t-meaning ofE, ifMis assigned toEby aC/t-interpretation. Forexample, if a token tof bank is uttered in a financial contextC, then surelythere is aC/t-interpretation that assigns the property of being a bank in thefinantial sense to bank. This property is then classifiable as aC/t-meaningof bank. On the contrary the property of being a riverbank is likely to benot so classifiable. On this basis, we can provide the following definition:

(CM) Conveying a Meaning.An uttererSof a token tofEin contextC con-veyswith t(and with E) a meaningMinCiff there is a contextualC/t-interpretation Intsuch that int(E)=M.

Let us now tackle (Q1). We cannot simply answer by saying that the expres-sion Emust be a surface singular term, i.e. a singular term in the purely

29 My use of the qualifier genuine here should not be confused with the rather popularuse of it in Mart 1995. According to her, indexicals and proper names, as opposed to definitedescriptions, are genuinely referential devices insofar as they refer to individuals in accor-dance with the referentialist doctrine. In my terminology, as we shall see, all singular terms(syntactically individuated) can be genuine, insofar as, roughly speaking, they can be interpre-ted as properties of properties of the form [THE P], i.e., in essence, as Russellian definite des-criptions.

30 I assume that an interpretation of a compound expressionEis recursively constructed

on interpretations of the subconstituents ofEin a way that relies on basic interpretations for theprimitive expressions.


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grammatical sense (see note 1, above). For example, note that in Latin there isno article and thus equus alatus (winged horse) can be interpreted eitheras a definite description or, e.g., as a predicative expression (like an English

indefinite description). Clearly, only in the former case does equus alatuspurport to pick up a unique individual. Similarly, in English, we know thatexpressions that at the level of surface grammar have the form

the F

can beinterpreted as generics or as equivalent to expressions of the form

every F

,that indexicals can be interpreted as anaphoric pronouns,31and that, as we shallsee in more detail below, proper names and indexicals can be interpreted asgeneral terms. Clearly, an expression is agenuinesingular term (i.e., purportsto pick up a unique object) only with respect to an interpretation. Thus, toanswer (Q1), we need to specify what kind of meaning an expression Emustbe assigned by an interpretation Intto license the claim that Eis a singularterm in relation to such an interpretationInt. From the point of view of English,we need consider three cases in answering (Q1): (i) Eis a surface description,(ii) Eis a surface proper name, (iii) Eis a surface indexical. (As regards (iii),reasons of space prevent me from giving an explicit account of the subcasewhereinEis an indexical phrase.) Let us consider all of them in turn.

As regards (i), we can assume there is agreement on this:32

(SDT) Singular Descri ption Thesis. A surface definite description theF is

agenuinesingular termwith respect to interpretation IntiffInt(theF) =[THE P], wherePis a property that is a semantic meaning of

F

(that is, for some int, int(F) =P).

The EMC description theory accepts (SDT) and moreover offers a similar ans-wer in relation to (ii) and (iii), by assuming the Disguise View. In so doing, theEMC theory relies on the fact that an interpretation can, so to speak, supplyelliptical or implicit elements that are missing at the surface grammatical level,a definite article in this case.33 Moreover, it assumes that any surface proper

31 Castaeda's (1967) quasi-indicatorsare anaphoric pronouns (albeit of a special kind)and as such are not to be considered genuine indexicals. Though they are very relevant to thetopics discussed here, I cannot deal with them for reasons of space. For accounts of them com-patible with the present approach, see Orilia 1994 and Kapitan 1998.

32 Apart from possible qualms over details that here we may dismiss as irrelevant.33The above Latin example shows that there are good reasons to assume this, independ-

ently of my analysis of English proper names and indexicals as genuine singular terms. Quitegenerally, grammarians assume that there are meanings or deep structure items that have azero realisation at the surface grammatical level. For example, thematic roles such as

AGENT, PATIENT, BENEFICIARY can have a zero realisation in English, but not in Latin andAncient Greek, where they are realised as nominative, accusative and dative case endings.


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20 Francesco Orilia

name or indexical Gcan be semantically interpreted as a general term expres-sing a certain property, the property of being a G, we may say. Thus EMCaccepts these theses:

(GPT) Generic Proper Name Thesis. For any surface proper nameN, there isan interpretation Int

Nsuch that Int

N(N)is the property of being anN.

(GIT) Gener ic Indexical Thesis. For any surface indexical D, there is aninterpretation Int

Dsuch that Int

D(D)is the property of being aD.

Given the popularity of referentialism, thesis (GPT) is not easily digestible,but still it has its own supporters (cf. Burge 1973, Bach 1987, Orilia 2000aand references therein). Thesis (GIT) is even less digestible than (GPT), but is

around at least since Hegel (1977, Ch. I) and Bradley (1883, p. 63).34

Accor-ding to the former thesis, there are proper name properties such as being anAristotle or being a John Smith. According to the latter, there are indexicalproperties characterisable as (if some violence to grammar is forgiven) beingan I, being a that, being a there, and so on. I shall call basicindexical pro-perties the four properties of this kind expressed by I, this, here andnow, respectively (in keeping with the indications of note 7 above, where asomewhat formal notation is more fitting I shall designate these properties byI, THIS, HERE, NOW). Even though there is linguistic usage that (at

least partly) justifies (GPT) and (GIT),35 they can gain credibility only if wecan characterise somehow the strange properties that they ask us to admit. Asregards proper name properties, I refer the reader to Orilia 2000a, on the basisof which I claim that for any proper nameN, Int

N(N)is a property analysable

as (but not identical to) the property of being calledN.36 As regards indexicalproperties, I shall tackle this problem in 8, below (although for reasons ofspace I will deal only with the basic ones).

The EMC description theory can then propose, beside (SDT), the followingtheses:

34 As far as I understand them, these philosophers claim that indicators arejustgeneralterms (see Voltolini 1996, for problems in their view). I less drastically claim that they can func-tion both quageneral terms and quasingular terms, as clarified by (GIT) and (SIT), below.Furthermore, my position must be distinguished from Nunbergs (1993) proposal, according towhom indexicals, quasingular terms, aresometimesdefinite descriptions (when they are useddescriptively as opposed to referentially). In my view, indexicals quasingular terms arealwaysdefinite descriptions (albeit in disguise), as clarified by (SIT), below.

35 On the use of proper names as general terms see Orilia 2000a. On the use of indexi-cals as general terms see Cohen 1980. For an extensive use of indexicals as general terms, seeCastaeda (1989, 1990).

36 Orilia 2000a also defends the approach to proper names that is assumed here from theobvious Kripke-style objections.


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(SNT) Singular Proper Name Thesis. For any surface proper name N, thereis an interpretation Intsuch that Int(N)=[THE Int

N(N)], and just with

respect to such an interpretation isNcalled a genuine singular term.

(SIT) Singular Indexical Thesis. For any surface indexical D, there is aninterpretation Intsuch that Int(D)=[THE Int

D(D)], and just with

respect to such an interpretation, isDcalled a genuine singular term.37

By taking together (SDT), (SNT), and (SIT), we thus have a general answer to(Q1).

Let us now turn to (Q2). Both sentences and sentence tokens can be saidto be true(semanticallyor pragmatically, as the case may be), to the extentthat they express a truth, i.e. a true proposition. A truth can be called seman-

ti cor pragmatic, depending on whether the proposition in question is a sem-anticor apragmaticmeaning of the sentence (token) in question. In a similarvein, we should distinguish between semantic and pragmatic singular refe-rence. Intuitively, a linguistic type such as the greatest even prime number(given a semantic interpretation) singularly refers to a number. Contrariwise,the linguistic type the table singularly refers to nothing, for there are manytables. But a token of the table canpragmaticallysingularly refer to an objectxin a contextC. In the present approach, semantic singular reference can verysimply be analysed as follows:

(SSR) Semantic Singular Reference. An expression E(a surface singularterm) semanticall y referstox with respect to interpretation Intiff, forsome property P, Int(E) =[THE P], andPuniquely identifies x.

Let us now turn to pragmatic singular reference. Clearly, we can expect that atoken tof a surface singular termEsingularly refers in a contextCto an objectxonly iftis used as a singular terminC. Given the foregoing, this can beunderstood on the basis of the next definitions, (PUD) and, in particular,

(STU). (Even if difficult at first glance, they should become easier in the lightof the forthcoming examples (1) and (2), below.)

(PUD) Predicati ve Use of a Determiner Property. A property [DET F] isused predicati velyby speaker Sin contextCwith respect to a token tiffSconveys inCwith tthe meaning [DET F] and toccurs in a sen-tence token t such thatSconveys with ta proposition wherein [DETF] occurs in predicate position.

37 Castaeda held theses analogous to (SNT) and (SIT). For the former cf. 1989, Ch. 2 and

for the latter see 1990, p. 305. His account of the definite article based on his guise theory (cf.Castaeda 1989, Chs. 13 and 14) was however quite different from my Russellian account.


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22 Francesco Orilia

(STU) Singular Term Use. A token tofEuttered by speaker Sin contextCis used as a singular term inCbySiff (i) there is aC/t-interpretationIntofEsuch thatEis a genuine singular term with respect to Int(i.e.,

Sconveys with ta meaning of the form [THE F]) and (ii) Int(E)isused predicativelyinCbySwith respect to t.

Let us also record the following:

(STU_P)As a particular case of used as a singular term, we can define usedas a first-person pronoun, by adding to the definiensof (STU) thefollowing clause: (iii) Int(E)=[THE I]. Mutatis mutandis, we cansimilarly define used as basic locative pronoun (Int(E)=[THE

HERE]), used as basic temporal pronoun (Int(E)=[THE NOW])and used as basic demonstrative pronoun (Int(E)=[THE THIS]).

Note that (SIT) grants that the English words I, here, now and this canbe used in these ways; i.e., I can be used as a first person pronoun, and so on.

Consider now a token t, of the linguistic typeE, uttered in contextC. It isimportant to realise that a meaning assigned to Eby a contextual C/t-inter-pretation is not necessarily a pragmatic meaning oft, for the latter is not sim-ply the result of lexical and syntactic disambiguations such as those required

by bank or by every man loves a woman. We can plausibly assume that aC/t-meaning ofE, M, can be transformed into another meaning M, givenpragmatic rules that take into account features of the context C(see Bach1994). Let us call any suchM a pragmatic C-transform ofM. For example,when an indirect speech act takes place in a contextC, a token tof an expres-sionE(say, I wonder when the train leaves) is superficially a declarative sen-tence token, but is implicitly in the imperative mode. In this case, a certainpropositionPis aC/t-meaning, which is then pragmatically transformed intoa requestR(or apractitionin the sense of Castaeda 1975). Ris then a prag-

maticC-transform ofP. Of course, a pragmatic transformation could be vacu-ous, thereby leaving the meaning in question as it was. For example, if the pro-positionPis aC/t-meaning of 2 +2 =4, whereCis a standard arithmeticalcontext, the pragmaticC-transform ofPis likely to bePitself). On this basis,we can define pragmatic meaning as follows:

(PM) Pragmatic Meaning. Mis a pragmatic meaningof a token tofEincontextCiffMis a pragmaticC-transform of aC/t-meaning ofE.

Now, the Ellipsis View, as I see it, essentially claims that if aC/t-meaning ofEhas the form [DET F], and it is predicatively used, then it may have a prag-


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maticC-transform of the form [DET [F&H]],38whereHmay be called acom-pletingproperty with respect to Fin contextC. Let us consider some exam-ples. Imagine that in a context in which we are speaking of Swiss agriculture,

Tom utters a token tof

(1) Every farmer is wealthy.

Suppose that there is a uniqueC/t-meaning of (1), i.e. the proposition

(1a) [EVERY FARMER](WEALTHY).39

To illustrate (PUD), note first that [EVERY FARMER], since it occurs in pre-dicate position in (1a), is used predicatively by Tom in contextCwith respect

to token t. Further, note that (1a) is triviallyfalse, for there are unwealthy far-mers (say, in underdeveloped countries). But clearly the speaker did not meanto express this falsehood. By a principle of charity, given obvious features ofthe context, he can be understood as speaking about Swissfarmers. That is,from the standpoint of the Ellipsis View, being Swiss is in contextC comple-tingwith respect to the property of being a farmer. In other words, we canassign proposition (1b), below, as pragmatic meaning to the token tof (1) inquestion (with respect to contextC).

(1b) [EVERY [FARMER & SWISS]](WEALTHY).40

Imagine now that John utters a token tof (2), below, in the contextCof a con-versation with Mary, as they are both on a ride in the London bus 13.

(2) The bus driver is married.

Suppose that there is a uniqueC/t-meaning of (2), i.e. the proposition

(2a) [THE BUS_DRIVER](MARRIED).41

To further illustrate (PUD), note that [THE BUS_DRIVER] is used predicati-vely by John in context Cwith respect to t, as (2a) witnesses. Moreover, toillustrate (STU), note that (i) John must have uttered a tokentof the bus dri-ver; (ii) there must be aC/t-interpretation Intsuch that the bus driver is agenuine singular term with respect to Int, and (iii) tis used as a singular term

38 [F& H] is a conjunctive property resulting from the conjunction of the property Fandthe propertyH. Conjunctive properties are assumed to obey the following obvious principle: [F& H](x) (Fx& Hx).

39 Which is equivalent tox(FARMER(x)WEALTHY(x)).40 Which is equivalent tox((SWISS(x) & FARMER(x))WEALTHY(x)).41 Which is equivalent to1x(BUS_DRIVER(x) & MARRIED(x)).


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24 Francesco Orilia

by John inC. Now, (2a) is a triviallyfalse proposition, for there are many busdrivers. But it should not be considered as a pragmatic meaning of (2). By aprinciple of charity, given obvious features of the context, Mary can expect to

be understood as talking about the particular bus driver that exemplifies theproperty driving the London bus 13. Following the Ellipsis View, this propertyis completing with respect to being a bus driver in context C. That is, (2b),below, is assignable as pragmatic meaning to t, in contextC.

(2b) [THE [BUS_DRIVER&DRIVING_LONDON_BUS_13]](MARRIED).42

These examples suggest that, on the basis of intersubjective pragmatic rules,a propertyHcan becompleting(implicit and contextually salient) with respect

to another property Fin a context C. In sum, if the Ellipsis View is correct,then there are completing properties, and the following thesis is plausible:

(COMP)Completion Thesis. If property His completing with respect to pro-pertyFin contextCand [DET F] is used predicatively by some speak-erSin contextC, then [DET [F& H]] is a pragmaticC-transform of[DET F].

Of course, if a property Pis not in need of completion in a given context C,[DET P] can remain untouched:

(NO_COMP) No Completion Thesis. If there is no property Hthat is com-pleting with respect toFin contextCand [DET F] is used pre-dicatively by some speaker Sin context C, then [DET F] is apragmaticC-transform of [DET F].

On this basis, we can understand pragmatic singular reference as follows:

(PRT) Pragmatic Reference Thesis. A token tof a surface singular termEpragmatically refers toxin contextCiff there is a pragmatic meaning

[THE F] oftwith respect to context Csuch that [THE F] uniquelyidentifies x.43

42 Which is equivalent to 1x((BUS_DRIVER(x) & DRIVING_LONDON_BUS_13(x))& MARRIED(x)).

43This is Pragmatic reference simpliciter, since it is based on the notion of pragmaticmeaningsimpliciter. I shall assume that speakerandhearerpragmatic reference,mutatis mut-andis, are defined in a similar vein. Donnellans distinction between attributive and referential

uses of descriptions can then be handled in the way proposed by Castaeda (1981, p. 279).Unfortunately there is no room to dwell on the details here.


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To see how (PRT) works, consider the above bus driver example, and the tokentof the bus driver uttered by John in the bus riding contextC, withxas thebus driver. The property of driving the London bus 13 is completing with respect

to being a bus driver (or so we assume). Then, by (COMP), [THE [BUS_DRI-VER & DRIVING_LONDON_BUS_13]] is a pragmaticC-transform of [THEBUS_DRIVER], since the latter is aC/t-meaning of the bus driver, a mea-ning used predicatively inCby John. Thus, by (PM), [THE [BUS_DRIVER &DRIVING_LONDON_BUS_13]] is a pragmatic meaning of tin context C.Moreover, the property [BUS_DRIVER & DRIVING_LONDON_BUS_13]uniquely identifies the driver x. So, by the Pragmatic reference Thesis (PRT), trefers toxin contextC. By appealing to (NO_COMP), rather than (COMP), wecan see that (PRT) also allows us to take a token of a complete description (e.g.,the greatest even prime number) to pragmatically refer to a unique entity (thenumber 2) in a (mathematical) contextC. Of course, given the theses (GNT) and(SNT) about proper names, (PRT) also appropriately accounts for pragmaticreference by tokens of proper names, whether these are taken to be incompleteor complete descriptions (John Smith on the one hand and, perhaps, HenryVIII Tudor, on the other hand). We shall see in 7-9 below what is needed inorder to render (PRT) appropriate to account for indexical reference, i.e., prag-matic reference by indexical tokens. Before that, we shall consider the main

problems that the Ellipsis View allegedly suffers from.

6. Problems with the Ellipsis View

In the foregoing I have heavily relied on a version of the Ellipsis View. But itis widely assumed that this view suffers from insurmountable problems, in par-ticular, those labeled by Devitt and Sterelny (1999) the problem of principledbasis, the ignorance problem and the the error problem, respectively. [Seealso Wettstein (1978, 1980).]44These problems can be raised with respect to

all kinds of incomplete quantifier phrases. I shall address them in relation to44These problems possibly explain the popularity of the rival Restr icted Domain View,

according to which the context can restrict the discourse domain (Castaeda 1989, Ch. 3,Recanati 1996, etc.). It is not clear however that this approach is a real alternative, for it mightbe parasitic on the Ellipsis View. For how can a discourse domain be restricted without a com-pleting property that delimits quantifier ranges? Be this as it may, given EMC, the restricteddomain approach does not seem helpful in characterising speakerpragmatic meanings ofincomplete quantifier phrases (unless, perhaps, we complicate the picture, by introducing somesort of mode of presentation for domains of discourse; see Recanati 1996, 5), for a (restricted)discourse domain is not the kind of thing we can entertain or be acquainted with. I see the sameproblem in a new approach to incomplete descriptions recently proposed by Predelli 2000, as

it appeals to possible worlds. All in all, the Ellipsis View is in my perspective the best option.(to be continued on p. 26)


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26 Francesco Orilia

incomplete descriptions (which in my view include indexicals and (some) pro-per names). As regards the ignorance problem, I shall deal in particular withindexicals, since the problem is particularly hot with them. But the answers

that I shall provide can be generalised in obvious ways to all kinds of incom-plete quantifier phrases.

First Problem. Typically there are many potential candidates for the role ofcompleting property. For example, reconsider the bus driver case. Suppose thatthere is only one bus driver in London called Gaskon, that this is well-knownto all Londoners and that he is driving the London bus 13. So why couldntthe completing property rather be the property of being called Gaskon? Con-sequently, why couldnt the pragmatic meaning in question be [THE[BUS_DRIVER & CALLED_GASKON]], rather than [THE [BUS_DRI-VER & DRIVING_LONDON_BUS_13]]? In general, for any incomplete des-cription (possibly, a description in disguise), the following seems true:

(PPB) The Problem of Principled Basis.There seems to be no principledbasis to chooseoneamong the many potential candidates for the roleof completing property in order to identify thepragmatic meaning ofa token of an incomplete definite description.

The critics of the Ellipsis View typically argue that we cannot solve this

problem by choosing the speaker meaning of the token in question as thepragmatic meaning simpliciter. Whether or not the arguments they offerfor this conclusion are sound, the conclusion is correct for the simplereason that ingeneralwe cannot equate speaker pragmatic meaning with prag-matic meaningsimpliciter. In fact, the speaker may have wrong beliefs aboutobjective features of the context or may make mistakes in using the prag-matic rules, or may even have a deviant pragmatic competence. But thedefender of the Ellipsis View can concede the point and argue against thepresupposition that renders (PPB) a problem, i.e., that there must be a unique

pragmatic meaning of a given token. That is, I would like to hold the follo-wing thesis:

(MT) Mul tipl icity Thesis.There may be many different pragmatic meaningsof a single token in a given context.

(conti nued from p. 25)Fortunately, the alleged problems with it can be solved, as I hope to show. The account that Ishall provide is necessary here, for although defences of the Ellipsis View have been recently

provided (see Neale 2000 and references therein), they do not address all the issues that I needtake into account for my form of descriptivism based on entertainable propositions.


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There seems to me no good reason to deny (MT). As a general point, it is awell-known phenomenon that the context may often fail to eliminate all theambiguities arising from the multiplicity of semantic meanings of natural lang-

uage expressions. As regards incomplete descriptions in particular, the pointof using an incomplete description

the F

is to cause the receiver to think abouta certain objectx, without caring which properties (besideF) the receiver attri-butes to xin his thinking act. This suggests the following principle:

(CPP) Completing Property Principle. IfHis a completing property for Fin contextCandPis a proposition that (i) hasHas constituent and(ii) is a pragmatic meaning of (a token tof an expressionE) in con-textC, thenHis also a completing property for Fin contextC, pro-

vided that the propositionPthat results from replacing all occurren-ces ofHinPwithHis entertainable and has the same truth-value asP.45

In view of (CPP), both driving the London bus 13 and being called Gaskon,for example, could be completing with respect to being a bus driver (in thecontext of the above bus driver example).

It may be objected that (MT) makes successful communication impossible,for it allows for twodistinctspeaker and hearer meanings for one single token,

both of which count as pragmatic meaningssimpliciter. But, as we have notedabove, successful communication does not require strict identity of speakerand hearer meanings, but simply sufficient similarity in relation to the goalsof the communication process in question. And when this sufficient similarityexists, the two meanings are likely to be both pragmatic meaningssimpliciter,in spite of their numerical diversity. Let us now turn to the error problem.46

(EP) The Error Problem.A token of an incomplete description may appearto refer (by intersubjective standards) to an object x, and yet, due to a

mistake of the speaker, xdoes not exemplify the completing propertyintended by the speaker.

45 Note that, in the light of this principle, there is a lot of elbow room in assigning prag-matic meanings to an incomplete description occurring in an extensional context, but not asmuch if the description occurs with narrow scope in a propositional attitude attribution context.

This suggests that incomplete descriptions (indexicals in particular) will tendto be interpretedwith wide scope in such contexts. This goes in the direction of Castaedas claim that indexi-calsalwaystake large scope in these contexts (See, e.g., Castaeda 1981). I am not sure howe-

ver that narrow scope interpretations of indexicals should be ruled out altogether.Unfortunately, there is no room to discuss this in detail here.


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28 Francesco Orilia

Again, the defender of the Ellipsis View may concede the point and reject thepresupposition that renders it a problem, namely, once more, the identificationof speaker pragmatic meaning and pragmatic meaning simpliciter. We have

already rejected it and therefore we can turn to the ignorance problem.

(IP) The Ignorance Problem.The utterer Sof a token tof an incompletedescription may be unable to exhibit upon request a correspondingtoken tof a complete description, even though t, by intersubjectivestandards, appears to refer to a certain object x.

For example, imagine a situation in which Tom says to Mary:

(3) This is red.

Suppose the communication is by all standards successful, e.g., when asked topick up the object he meant, Tom grabs the object x, and Mary does the same,when asked to pick up the object classified by Tom as red. Yet, let us suppose,neither Mary nor Tom is able to provide a complete description that semanti-cally refers tox. A situation like this is no doubt quite possible. Now, we notedthat a case of successful communication suggests that speaker meaning andhearer meaning are both pragmatic meanings. Thus, in this example (given theEllipsis View as I propose to use it within the EMC description theory), both

the speaker (Tom) and the hearer (Mary) pragmatic meanings should be of theform [THE [THIS & H]] (where His completing with respect to being a thisin contextC).47This raises the following question:

(T/M) The Tom/Mary Question. Why is neither Tom nor Mary able to exhi-bit a linguistic type that semantically expresses a meaning of the form[THE [THIS & H]] and that semantically refers to x?

46My reply to the Problem of Principled Basis bears some analogy to Blackburns (1988).According to Blackburn, if different completing properties are equally good candidates, theutterer of an incomplete description makes an indeterminate statement that allows for variouspossible sharpenings. The indeterminate statement can be considered true, if all possiblesharpenings are true: false, if all possible sharpenings are false; neither true nor false, otherwi-se. In my approach, there is ambiguity just where in Blackburns approach there is truth-valuegap. Thus, our approaches, though related, are different. Schiffer 1995 argues against theBlackburn line on the ground that it hardly fits the referentialist approach to indexicals, whichhe takes for granted. Schiffer could perhapsby the same token argue against my reply to theProblem of Principled Basis, but of course this would leave my general proposal unscathed,since I reject the referentialist approach to indexicals.

47 Obviously [THE THIS] by itself is not sufficient to refer tox, because the generic mea-ning of an indexical is toogeneric to uniquely identify any object (see 8, below).


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(IP) is embarrassing for the Ellipsis View only if a question like this cannot beplausibly answered. We shall address this issue in 9. Before doing it, we shallconsider a closely related problem in 7 and develop some relevant theoreti-

cal machinery in 8.

7. The irreducibility of indexical reference

Following the lead of Castaeda (1966, 1967, 1968, etc.),48 it has been widelyemphasised (notably by Perry 1979) that indexical reference is irreducible inthe following sense:

(IIR) Ir reducibi l i ty of Indexical Reference. A subjects disposition to utteran indexical token that pragmatically refers to xdoes not guarantee asimultaneous disposition to utter a co-referring non-indexical token(and vice versa).49

Examples such as those of Castaedas (1968) editor ofSoulor the amnesiacmilitary hero Quintus, Perrys (1979) sugar spiller and Kaplans (1989) kid-napped heiress witness that (IIR) is a constraint that any theory of indexicalreference must accommodate. Consider the war hero Quintus.50 Suppose that,upon regaining consciousness after a terrible head injury causing him an all-encompassing amnesia, he yells:

(4) I am in pain!

The speaker meaning is here a true belief of Quintus. But because of theamnesia, he could not replace I with a non-indexical term (say, his propername) that refers to him. Consider now Perrys sugar spiller. He is shoppingin a grocery store, when he realises that there is a torn sack of sugar in his gro-cery cart. Accordingly, he asserts:

(5) I am making a mess!

The speaker meaning of the sentence token in question is a true belief that iscausally responsible for an ensuing intentional action to the effect that thesugar spiller takes care of the mess. A sentence obtained by replacing I in(5) with another term that refers to the spiller (say, the person who is spillingsugar) cannot be taken to express a belief of this kind and thus, we may assume,the sugar spiller would not equally be disposed to utter it. Turn now to Ka-

48 See also Castaeda 1999 and Kapitan 1999.49This way of putting the matter was inspired by Harcourt (1999, p. 331).50 Here I consider a variation on the theme of Castaedas original example.


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plans kidnapped heiress. After a long ride in the darkness of a car trunk, whenthe car at last stops in a quiet place, she whispers:

(6) It is quiet here.The speaker meaning is a true belief of the heiress. Given her impoverishedknowledge of her surroundings, she could not replace here with a non-inde-xical term such as 30 miles north of Berkeley, or the like. A good theory ofindexicals must be able to characterise these speaker meanings. In so doing, itmust allow for the possibility that they are also pragmatic meanings simplici-ter, for certainly the three sentence tokens in question could successfully com-municate information to whoever was in a position to perceive them.

8. The Token-reflexive Rules

We have seen that the Pragmatic Reference Thesis, (PRT) of 4, works in thesense that it insures that tokens of proper names and descriptionscanhave a prag-matic referent. But, one might urge, tokens of pure indexicals must have refe-rents, in the light of widely accepted token-reflexive rules along these lines:

(I-R*) An utterance of I refers to whoever utters it.(H-R*) An utterance of here refers to the location of the utterance.(N-R*) An utterance of now refers to the time of the utterance.51

Unfortunately, as they stand, these rules are not acceptable. However, as weshall see, the EMC theory will prove from more basic principles, rather thansimply assume, appropriately corrected versions of them.

As regards (I-R*), note that I may be used in quotation marks or as ageneral term in philosophical prose. Moreover, two or more people may col-lectively produce a written text in a first person mode (say, I would like tomeet you tomorrow) wherein they use the pronoun I rather than we, e.g.in order to mislead the receiver. In this case I, though usedquasingular term,refers to nothing in the sense in which the author of most Beatles songs

51 (I-R*)-(N-R*) comeverbatimfrom Sidelle 1991, except for the labels. (H-R*) takes atoken tof here to refer to the location of t, rather than the location of the utterer of t, onaccount of what Sidelle calls the answering machine paradox. I shall implicitly assume in thefollowing that this paradox should be solved in the way suggested by Sidelle. Rules of this kindcan be called token reflexive, for they highlight what Reichenbach 1947 called the token-reflexivity of indexicals. This is not to say that the theories that accept versions of these rulesthereby accept Reichenbachs theory of indexicals as a whole. For example, Kaplan (1989,

pp. 519-520) criticises Reichenbach, but still accepts versions of these rules (see, e.g., his (D2),p. 520).


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refers to nothing (for there are two authors of most Beatles songs). Similarly,as regards (H-R*), suppose that a tokenhof here is uttered in a certain roomrof a certain building b. Clearly, his located in both rand band even in the

whole universe (Sidelle 1991, n. 4, p. 527). This suggests that, for differentplace extension kinds Ks, we can distinguish different relations of typeutterance tis located

Kin placep. For example, utterance tis located

roomin

placepifftis located in pand pis a room; or utterance tis locatedbuilding

inplacepifftis located in pand pis a building. We may assume that featuresof the context and the pragmatic rules can select a place extension kind. Simi-lar remarks, mutatis mutandis, apply to (N-R*), and we should thus assumethat there are time extension kinds (instants, minutes, days, etc.) selectableby features of the contexts and pragmatic rules.52 In sum, the above principlesshould be reformulated as follows:

(I-R) If in a contextCthere is a unique uttererSof a token iof I used asfirst person pronoun byS, then ipragmatically refers toSwith respecttoC.

(H-R) If in a contextCthat selects place extension kindKthere is a uniqueplacepsuch that a token hof here used as basic locative pronounand uttered inCis located

Kin p, then hpragmatically refers to pin

contextC.

(N-R) If in a context Cthat selects time extension kindKthere is a uniquetimemsuch that a token nof now used as basic temporal pronounand uttered inCis at

Km, thennpragmatically refers tomin contextC.

In a similar vein, the following principle for the demonstrative this seemsplausible:53

52 Clearly, a context may select simultaneously many different place or time extensionkinds. If Tom, located in a certain room of a certain house, utters it is cold here, it may notbe determined whether Tom should be understood as saying it is cold in this room as oppo-sed to it is cold in this house. This is no problem, given the Multiplicity Thesis (MT) of 5above. But even so, the notions of place and time extension kinds, as here presented, are cer-tainly too simplistic and of course a more complete pragmatic theory should refine them. ButI think they suffice for present purposes.

53 For simplicitys sake I shall neglect the fact that this, in contrast to that, is typically

used for objects in the proximity of the speaker. These details are irrelevant for present purpo-ses.


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(T-R) If in a contextCthere is a token tof this used as basic demonstra-tive pronoun by speakerS, whileSfocuses on54a unique objectx, thentpragmatically refers to xin contextC.

Given the widespread agreement on (more or less precise versions of) theseprinciples, it makes sense to take them as constraints. That is, either we takethem as primitive principles, or we propose more general principles where-from the constraints in question can be derived. Clearly, the latter is a betteroption for it would allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the phenome-non of indexical reference (especially if these more general principles areuni-versal, i.e. not relative to a specific natural language; principles (I-R)-(T-R)are not universal in this sense, for they are about certain Englishindexical

words). It turns out, as we shall see, that we can infer these constraints, if weaccept two sets of universal principles (in addition to the theoretical machin-ery so far developed), which I shall now present.

The first set of principles corresponds to the claim (in favor of which Casta-eda has argued extensively55) that indexical properties have a performative orexecutive character. For example, a speaker who uses a tokenquafirst personpronoun (i.e., roughly, conveys the determiner property [THE I]), therebyexemplifies the property of being an I. In view of (STU_P), 4, theseperfor-mativityprinciples are as follows:

(I-P) An individual Sexemplifies the property of being an I, ifSuses atoken tqua first person pronoun.56

(H-P) A placepexemplifies the property of being a here, if in a context Cthat selects place extension K, a speaker Suses a token tas a basiclocative pronoun in such a way that tis located

Kinp.

(N-P) A timenexemplifies the property of being a now, if in a context Cthat selects time extensionK, a speakerSuses a token tas a basic tem-poral pronoun in such a way that tis at

Ktimen.

(T-P) An itemxexemplifies the property of being a this, if in a context Ca speaker Suses a token tas a basic demonstrative pronoun, whilefocusing onx.

54 To focus on must be understood in a rather flexible way. For example, one can focuson something either by pointing to it (e.g., when using this in overt speech) or simply poin-ting ones attention toward an object in ones phenomenal field (possibly using this in innerspeech). There is no room in this paper to get into the intricacies involved here. For present pur-poses an intuitive notion of focusing on an object should suffice.

55 See for instance Castaeda 1989, Ch. 4, Pilot 1990 and Castaeda 1990.56 Since we understand to utterin a very broad sense, the principle (I-P) grants that spe-

aker S is an I, even if token t is not uttered outloud, but simply in inner speech. A similar remarkapplies to (H-P)-(T-P), below.


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The second set of principles has to do with how to complete indexical pro-perties. Thesecompletionprinciples are as follows:57

(I-C) In a context Cin which a token tis uttered, the property of utteringtheG(whereGis any property uniquely identifying t)58 is comple-ting with respect to being an I.

(H-C) In a contextCthat selects place extension kindKand in which a tokentis uttered, the property of being the place where the Gis locatedK(whereGis any property uniquely identifying t) is completing withrespect to being a here.59

(N-C) In a contextCthat selects time extension kindKand in which a tokentis uttered, the property of being the time at

Kwhich theGoccurs

(whereGis any property uniquely identifying t) is completing withrespect to being a now.

(T-C) In a contextCin which token tis uttered, the property of being an itemfocused on by the utterer of theGwhen theGis uttered (whereGis anyproperty uniquely identifyingt) is completing with respect to being a this.

You will have noted that in stating these completion principles I appealed toan identifying propertyGof the relevant token trather than to titself. The rea-son is that, in compliance with EMC, tas such, quaobjective physical entity,

cannot enter as a constituent in a completing property, for otherwise such acompleting property would not be entertainable and could not be used as con-stituent of a pragmatic meaning. But how can we be sure that an entertainablepropertyGthat uniquely identifies talways exists in any context in which tisuttered? We noted above that in a communicative process60 the participants getacquainted with tokens through the mediation of mental token representa-

57 In discussing Castaedas theory of indexical reference, Pilot 1990 raised the issue ofhow very generic properties like the indexical ones can allow us to pick a definite individual in agiven context. In his reply to Pilot, Castaeda 1990 appealed to the determinable/determinatedistinction for properties. My completion principles provide a different answer to Pilots question.

58 For example, suppose that tis the only one-letter token (in the whole universe) heardby a Swiss philosopher at the time of utterance. Then, Gcould be the property of being a one-letter token heard by a Swiss philosopher. It should be clear that the property of uttering theGis not meant to be a Russellian property with the object denoted by

the G

as a constituent, butrather a Fregean entertainable property with a descriptive content, the property of properties[THE G], as a constituent (cf. formula (DD) in 4).

59 It might be worth recalling that being a here is assumed to be the property expressed byhere, when this term is usedquabasic locative pronoun. Of course, here can be used other-wise, e.g., as a demonstrative pronoun. Principle (H-C) has nothing to do with this use of here.

60The existence of a communicative process is, as I see it, a condit io sine qua nonforassuming that there also exists something worth calling a context. Without a context there is

no pragmatic meaning and therefore no pragmatic reference. A communicative process mayhowever involve, let us recall, just a single speaker talking to oneself, possibly in inner speech.


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tions.61 Hence, to the extent that an entity tis a linguistic token involved in acommunication context, then there also exists a token representation gsuchthat the property of being represented byguniquely identifies t. Thus, the fol-

lowing principle holds:

(TIP) Token Identif ication Pr inciple. Given a contextCinvolving a token t,there is at least one propertyGuniquely identifying t.

We have now amassed all the ingredients that allow us to back up (I-R)-(I-T).For illustration, I shall show how (I-R) can be derived.

THEOREM 1. The token-reflexive principle (I-R) follows from (I-P) and (I-C).

Proof. We shall assume the antecedent of (I-R) and try and prove its conse-quent. By the antecedent of (I-R) and the definition of used as first personpronoun (cf. (STU_P) in 5), there is a token iof I uttered by a uniquespeakerS, and aC/i-interpretation Intsuch that: Int(I) =[THE I], and [THEI] is used predicatively by SinCwith respect to i. By (TIP), there is a pro-pertyH=being utterer of theG, such thatGin fact uniquely identifies i. By(I-C),His completing with respect to being an I. Hence, by (COMP) and (PM),[THE [I & H]] is a pragmatic meaning of iin contextC. Since by assumptionthere is a unique utterer ofi, i.e. of theG, and this utterer isS, thenHuniquely

identifiesS. By (I-P) and the antecedent of (I-R), the speaker Sis an I. It fol-lows that [I & H] uniquely identifiesSas well. Since, as we saw, [THE [I &H]] is a pragmatic meaning of iin contextC, it follows by (PRT) that iprag-matically refers toSin contextC, which is the consequent of (I-R), as desired.

The fact that we can prove this theorem, and corresponding theorems for (H-R),(N-R) and (T-R), tells us that, once we accept the performative and completionprinciples, the account of pragmatic reference embodied in (PRT) works forindexicals as well as for descriptions and proper names. Intuitively, (PRT) should

work for indexicals just as for proper names and descriptions, in view of the uni-form treatment proposed for allsingular terms. Thissuggests(given the presentperspective) that the performative and completion principles are correct. In thelight of this sort of transcendental deduction of the performative and comple-tion principles, I uphold them as part of the EMC description theory.

I promised above a characterisation of indexical properties. A property orconcept can be characterised in two ways. If it is not primitive, by providing

61 If we want to allow for robots as participants in a communication process, we can assu-me that they will have some electronic counterpart of our mental token representations.


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an analysis, as when we say that knowledge is analysable as justified true belief;otherwise, by somehow describing its role in our conceptual framework. Thisis all we can do when the property is primitive and thus unanalysable. For exam-

ple, negation and conjunction, if taken to be primitive, are still characterisableas the concepts obeying the natural deduction principles of Double NegationandReductio ad Absurdum, and &-Introduction and &-Elimination, respecti-vely. Now, the above performativity and completion principles do provide, in asimilar vein, a characterisation of the basic indexical properties. Moreover, thischaracterisation suggests that they are not analysable in non-indexical terms.62

For example, it could be thought that being a speaker or the like is the analy-sans for being an I. But it is not so, because an analogue of (I-C) does not holdfor being a speaker or the like. The following example shows it. While John isspeaking, Tom whispers to his friend Mary, sitting nearby: the person who isspeaking is boring. Undoubtedly, he should be taken to refer to John. Contra-riwise, had he said I am boring, he should have been taken to refer to him-self. It could be thought that some of the basic indexical properties could beanalysed in terms of the other ones, say, being a this in terms of being an I.There is no room to investigate this proposal in detail here, but my impressionis that this attempt can hardly succeed, since each of them is peculiarly cha-racterised by its own completion principles. (see also Castaeda 1989, Ch. 4,

4). In any case, nothing crucial hinges on this point here and I shall thusassume without further ado that the basic indexical properties are all primitive.

9. The ignorance problem and the irreducibility of indexicals

At last, let us go back to the problems from 6-7 left open. Take the irredu-cibility of indexical reference [(IIR) of 7] first. We were left with the task ofcharacterising speaker meanings corresponding to the relevant tokens of (4),(5) and (6), w

a description theory of a singular reference

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