Transparent Coreference
- PDF / 597,650 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 1 Downloads / 153 Views
Transparent Coreference François Recanati1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Because reference is not transparent, coreference is not transparent either: it is possible for the subject to refer to the same individual twice (as in Frege cases) without knowing that the two acts of reference target the same individual. That happens whenever the subject associates two distinct yet coreferential files with two token singular terms. The subject may not know that the two files corefer, so her ascribing contradictory properties to the same object (the referent of the two files) does not threaten her rationality. But if the subject deploys the same file twice, in association with both of the singular terms, she is bound to know that she is referring to the same entity twice (assuming she succeeds in referring). Keywords Frege cases · Mental files · Anaphora · Reference · Modes of presentation · Cognitive content · Sense · Coreference de jure
1 Referential Content Versus Cognitive Content It is natural to consider that, to be a sign, and therefore to carry meaning, something has to stand for something else. A sign, the Port-Royal logic says, is an entity (for example a linguistic expression) that represents or stands for another entity. In contemporary philosophy of language, the relation of representing or standing for is called the reference relation. The entity the sign refers to itself is called its reference (or, less ambiguously, its referent). Should we equate meaning and reference ? Although it is tempting to do so, there are well-known objections to that move. First, if meaning is reference, then an expression which fails to refer is bound to be meaningless; but, to take a famous example, a complex expression like ‘the present king of France’ is meaningful even though, arguably, it fails to refer (since France is a Republic). In response to that objection, it is advisable to restrict the scope of the claim that meaning is reference (the ‘basic equation’, as I will henceforth call it) to simple expressions, e.g. ‘king’ or ‘France’. The noun ‘king’ refers to the property of being a king, and the proper name ‘France’ refers to a particular * François Recanati [email protected] 1
College de France (PSL University), 11, place Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France
country, namely France. To say what these expressions refer to is to say what they mean (or so it seems). To be sure, there are simple expressions, like the name ‘Vulcan’, which fail to refer yet seem meaningful. But it can be argued that such expressions only seem meaningful to those who are subject to the illusion that they refer (e.g. Le Verrier), or to those who take the perspective of someone who is subject to such an illusion (e.g. those who report on Le Verrier’s beliefs). The first objection to the equation of meaning and reference is therefore not as convincing as many people—including one reviewer for this journal—seem to think. A second objection to the basic equation is due to Frege and goes like this. If meaning is reference, then t
Data Loading...
