Semantics and Reference

conception of names on the basis of intuitions. A stronger argument for the context-sensitivity of names is found, I think, in the generally problematic nature of both of the most plausible and prominent types of accounts of proper names that maintain that they are not context-sensitive: causal-homophonism and intention-based accounts. Whilst I do not claim, in chapter 3, that I have refuted causal-homophonism, I do show that it is a substantially more complicated and less attractive account than its supporters claim. If we reject causal-homophonism on this basis, as I believe we should, being, as it is, both counter-intuitive and overly complicated, we are left with little option but either to accept an intention-based account of proper name reference, or to accept that names are context-sensitive with regard to their reference. In chapter 5, I discussed intention-based accounts and found the two most prominent versions of such an account—constraint-based intentionalism and neo-Griceanism—to be implausible, either as accounts of proper name reference, or in general. Again, my arguments here were not definitive, but raised significant enough concerns about plausibility that another account of name reference is to be preferred. This leaves us with just one option: that proper names are context-sensitive: principle 3. The question we must then ask is: in what manner they are context-sensitive?

In chapter 4 I considered indexicalism, the most prominent family of views of proper name reference according to which it is determined in a context- sensitive manner. I argued that, whilst indexicalists are quite correct that it is only upon particular occasions of utterance that names refer, and that the reference of an utterance is determined by features of the context of the utterance, they are wrong to suppose that the way in which this happens is specified by the semantics of the name. In §6.4, I will discuss the relation between semantics and reference further, and reiterate my arguments that there is nothing in the semantics of a name that determines the reference of its uses.

6.4

Semantics and Reference

My arguments against indexicalism in chapter 4 took the general form of arguing that there is no way of constructing a semantics for a proper name such that it will be able to determine the reference of the name on every occasion of use. This provides principle 4. Whatever features of context are appealed to to determine reference, they will be either too general, such that they cannot predict what the referent of a name will be on an occasion, and will not decide between potential referents in all cases, or they will be wrong, such that they predict the wrong referent on some occasions. As I made clear,

6.4. Semantics and Reference

it is very hard, if not impossible, to make a general argument to this effect. The best that one can hope for is to point out the ways in which any proposed account that claims to provide a semantics for names that determines their reference falls foul of the dilemma just posited.

It is worth noting that my position is not essentially a sceptical or pes- simistic one. My proposal that the reference of proper names is determined on each occasion of utterance by pragmatic mechanisms in a way that is not specified by their semantics is a positive thesis. As I observed in §2.3, I have positive motivation for my view: providing an account of proper name reference that is consistent with a radical contextualism such as that proposed by Travis. It so happens that the correctness of this kind of radical contextualism, about both language and thought, is most clearly seen against the backdrop of a mainstream of truth-conditional semantics and propositional conceptions of thought.6

But this does not mean that rejecting the notion that there are necessary and sufficient conditions for the correctness of words and thoughts is motivated primarily by a pessimistic meta-induction on failed attempts to provide them. Of course, it is by observing the way that language is used, and how it relates to the world, that one reaches conclusions in the Wittgensteinian, Austinian, or Travisian vein, but it would be quite wrong to think that, in doing so, one must have postulated and rejected categorial rules, as if that were the only way to do philosophy of language.

My claim that the semantics of names does not determine their reference stems from the idea, stated at the beginning of §2.3 that semantics does not aim at providing the kind of content that is subject to correctness conditions. So, whatever the semantics of the words of an utterance provides, it is not anything truth-evaluable, or fit for expressing thoughts about the world. Since the reference of a name is something that contributes directly to the truth- or correctness-evaluability of an utterance containing that name—or a thought expressed by such an utterance—it seems reasonable to think that the reference of proper names is not determined at the semantic level. Moreover, semantics also does not appear to be in the business of specifying the way in which words are to be understood, given particular contexts, and so it does not specify how the reference of proper names is determined. As I made clear in §2.3, I have not argued that these premises are correct, or that my claims follow from them in the ways I assume. Rather, I have argued for my claims by arguing against all the ways that it has been proposed that semantics determines reference, or specifies how reference is determined.

I discussed, in §6.3, how I have argued for the claim that proper names are context sensitive in respect of their reference by rejecting causal-homophonism

6

6.4. Semantics and Reference

and intention-based accounts of names. Indeed, in chapter 3, I argued that detailed consideration of causal-homophonism should lead one to think that there is no one particular way in which the reference of proper names is determined: pluralism about proper name reference. Discussion of a whole range of accounts of how the reference of names is determined, and the observation that each account does indeed work in a range of cases— frequently different kinds of case—might well lead one further towards pluralism about the determination of proper name reference. This leaves us with the position that the reference of proper names is context sensitive, and that it can be determined in a variety of different ways. In chapter 4, I considered indexicalist accounts of proper names, which I took primarily to be accounts that maintained that the reference of names is context sensitive, but it is still determined in a way specified, or at least constrained, by their semantics.7

As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, my approach to these views was to work through the literature and show that none of it is successful in showing that the semantics of names determines their reference, and then work through the most relevant and plausible contextual factors that might affect reference, and show that none of them could either determine or constrain reference on all occasions.

Given my view of semantics, as the context-insensitive contribution that words make to each utterance of them, if semantics were to determine or constrain the reference of names, and names were occasion sensitive, then some particular contextual factors would have to constrain or determine the reference of every utterance of a name. Thus, having shown that none of the contextual factors that seem relevant to proper name reference do constrain or determine the reference of every utterance of a name, I have shown that it is implausible that the semantics of names do determine or constrain the reference of names. But, since I also claim to have shown that it is highly plausible that name reference is context-sensitive, then it must be determined on each occasion by pragmatic mechanisms, independently of semantics.

6.4.1

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

The positions regarding proper name reference that I am opposed to are essentially those that maintain that there are necessary and sufficient con- ditions for it. I regard one of the primary problems of philosophy—that is, a stumbling block for the discipline, rather than a major object of its investigation—to be the assumption that there are necessary and sufficient

7

As discussed in that chapter, Rami (2014) seems to be an exception to this characterization of indexicalism.