Much Ado About Nonexistence: Fiction and Reference 0742548333, 9780742548336

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Much Ado About Nonexistence

Much Ado About Nonexistence Fiction and Reference

A. P. Martinich and Avrum Stroll

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder. New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

ROWMAN & LITILEFlELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2007 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress CataIoging-in-Publication Data

Martinich, Aloysius. Much ado about nonexistence: fiction and reference / A. P. Martinich and Avrum Stroll. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-4833-6 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-lO: 0-7425-4833-3 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-7425-4834-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-I0: 0-7425-4834-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Language and languages-Philosophy. 2. Fiction-Philosophy. 1. Stroll, Avrum, 1921- Il. TItle. P107.M3562007 401-dc22

2007001920

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

1

Introduction

I: Fiction and Reference Part I: Chapter 1

A Theory of Fiction

7

Chapter 2

Pretense and Fiction

47 47

Chapter 3

History and Fiction

69

Part II: Il: Reference and Nonexistence

83 83

Chapter 4

Reference and Fiction Again

Chapter 5

Direct Reference Theories and Natural Kinds

113

Bibliography

139

Index

143

About the Authors

147

v

Acknowledgments

Because this book is a joint endeavor by two philosophers separated by half a continent, we wish individually to acknowledge the assistance we have received in writing this manuscript. I want to thank Cory Juhl and David Sosa for commenting on an early, much briefer version of chapter 1, Martinich, A. P. "A Theory of Fiction." Philosophy and Literature 25:1 (2001), 96-112. © The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.

Avrum Stroll incisively commented on chapters 1 and 3. Neil Sinhababu discussed chapter 2 with me. Liudmila Inozemtseva provided excellent comments on chapters 1-3. My wife Leslie read those chapters in her usual, careful way, and to her I dedicate my work. Ross Miller has been an excellent editor. The writing of chapters 1-3 was supported by a Faculty Research Assignment from the University of Texas at Austin.

A. P. Martinich Austin, Texas

My thanks to Daniele Moyal-Sharrock for originally having suggested this topic to me and for her detailed, prompt, and useful comments on the materials as I sent them to her. I also wish to thank her husband Peter Sharrock vii

viii

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Acknowledgments

for his insightful remarks. Together they provided advice that made this book possible. Three of my students, Aaron Schiller, Jason Thibodeau, and Ben Migliori, read a draft of the text and offered valuable suggestions about it. My gratitude to Alastair Hannay for a careful assessment of chapters 4 and 5. John R. Smythies, Robert Rowan, and Edward Frieman also read these pieces and I am grateful for their assistance. It is belated, unfortunately, but the late Zeno Vendler, a creative and imaginative philosopher, made incisive observations about my interpretations of tl-?-e various theories of reference I discuss in the work. And I would, of course, be remiss if I did not thank my coauthor, Professor A. P. Martinich of the University of Texas. He has been a source of unfailing support in a challenging task as well as a constructive reader of the things I have written. Finally, but most importantly, I owe a deep debt to my wife, Mary, who took time away from her research on twelfth-century papal politics to read the manuscript with care and offered sage counsel about its arguments and organization. Her help was indispensable and for this reason-and many others-I dedicate this work to her. Avrum Stroll La Jolla, California

Introduction

How is a speaker or writer able to communicate his or her thoughts to others? We enter this vast and general arena in a specialized way, by means of some philosophical theories about how iris possible to refer and speak meaningfully about fiction. How, for example, is it possible to talk about such fictional entities as Sherlock Holmes and Hamlet, given that the nonexistent is nothing at all? Philosophers have exercised themselves over these problems for thousands of years; hence our title Much Ado About Nonexistence. We provide some new solutions to these problems. Fiction is a form of storytelling. In part I, we ask: How does it differ from other forms of narrative, from make-believe, pretending, or from historical works such as Thucydides' History of the PelolJonnesian War, which contain episodes, speeches, and debates that the author admittedly reconstructed? The concepts of make-believe, pretense, history, and fiction have overlapping features, but they are essentially different. In the text we bring out both the resemblances and divergences of these notions. Fiction is clearly an important ingredient of daily human life, and indeed is one of its most engaging activities. People read novels and short stories, watch dramas and plays on television, and children are told fairy tales and bedtime stories that often depart from verbatim truth. Indeed, most adolescents first learn what a story is from fiction. This is not to say that fictional narratives are logically prior to factual ones; rather it is one indication of the importance of fiction in human life. It is therefore desirable

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Introduction

to gain an accurate understanding of fiction: its aims, techniques, and limitations, and we attempt to make such an understanding possible. Reference or referring is the principal concept used by philosophers of language. It is assumed in this discipline that many words possess meaning by referring to objects in the world. Reference also forms the foundation for truth. True statements are those that correspond to facts, and the correspondence is largely achieved by the referential correlations of words to things. A principle that all the major views of reference share is the axiom of existence: "Everything referred to must exist." In our opinion this "axiom" is false. It also leads to the paradoxical conclusion that we cannot refer to fictional events and personages. But since all of us constantly do, it is obvious that the principle is false. Nonetheless, it is so deeply embedded in contemporary theories of language that it needs to be attacked and from several directions. In chapters 1 and 4 we describe why the axiom is false and argue that once it is shown to be so, a different account of reference is possible that resolves many serious problems in the philosophy of language, including those concerning fiction. A compelling way of seeing why the axiom is false is to consider how reference takes place in and about fictional episodes and characters. Fiction thus plays a role in the philosophy of language that is similar to a crucial experiment in science. A crucial experiment allows scientists to determine whether a particular theory is superior to its competitors and whether it fits all the known data. The analogy with the philosophy of language is close. Any theory of language has to be adequate to all linguistic phenomena, including fictional discourse; and in our view, no existing theory satisfies these conditions. Our approach does. It presupposes a general view about the nature of language; that in order to understand how language works, it is necessary to see how linguistic units are used in various contextual circumstances. In this respect, our outlook is similar to the views of J. L. Austin, John Searle, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. More specifically it rests on a theory of communication first advanced by the distinguished Oxford philosopher, H. P. Grice. In a series of papers in the late 1960s, Grice outlined a general theory of communication whose key notions are what he called "conversational maxims." The maxims describe the most general principles of conversation: what a speaker intends and how "uptake" of what he or she intends is obtained by the speaker's auditors or readers. It would require more space than we have at our disposal to list and explain these maxims. For our purposes, the most important is a Maxim of Quality: "Do not say what is false." Our position is that in fiction, this maxim is suspended. Fictional statements typically do not have to satisfy the normal nonfictional requirements for truth.

Introduction

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3

It would be a serious error to infer that because the Maxim of Quality is suspended in fiction that such notions as truth, statement-making, and reference are no longer applicable to or within fiction. Indeed, we argue the contrary position. In fiction not only do words have their usual lexical meanings, but statements in fiction have truth-values and are used to refer. The explanations of how these various notions work are presented in the following chapters. Now a word about history and fiction. Some historians have recently argued that there is no principled difference between history and fiction. We disagree. It is true that there is an overlap between specimens of these genres, especially in their joint use of narration. However, it would be a mistake to suppose that they are not different simply because they share some important properties. We hold that once established as a linguistic practice, fiction began to develop its own special features. It is thus necessary to distinguish these forms of narration from one another. Our account of the relationship between history and fiction thus vindicates the commonsense view that there is a substantial difference between the two. Part 11 focuses on the concept of nonexistence, or nonbeing as the Ancient Greek philosophers called it. In chapter 4 we begin with a brief discussion of the history of the problem and then explore in greater depth the attempted solutions by some of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Ruth Barcan Marcus (1921- ) and Saul A. Kripke (1940-). In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, two of the most famous logicians of all time, Frege and Russell developed similar but different theories of reference (two versions of what is generally called "the theory of descriptions") to explain how certain linguistic units could be meaningful without having a referent. Their theories were widely accepted until about 1980 when they were replaced by theories of direct reference whose main exponents were Marcus and Kripke. Though the Marcus and Kripke versions differ in important ways, they have commonalities as well; and these, with certain variants, are the prevailing theories of reference today. In this book, we give detailed descriptions of all these theories, make assessments of their strengths and liabilities, and offer a different account of reference. The book concludes with an examination of an extension of the Direct Reference theory to natural kind terms, such as "water" and "gold." This idea was first propounded by Hilary Putnam. Putnam's argument is usually called "The Twin Earth Scenario." As he says, the scenario is a specimen of science fiction. It can also be thought of as a classical thought experiment. The scenario supposes that Earth has a twin planet which is identical with ours in

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Introduction

every respect, except that the substance its inhabitants call "water" is composed of a set of chemicals differing from H 20. Although the observable properties of the substance on Twin Earth are identical with those of water, Putnam contends that it is not water on the ground; that in every possible world, water is H 20. He infers that the meaning of "water" is thus determined by its chemical properties rather than by its observable features and draws the conclusion from the argument that natural kind terms, like proper names, are directly referential. There is still an important difference between his treatment of proper names and his treatment of natural kind terms. The former are meaningless, mere tags or rigid designators. But the latter are meaningful. Their meanings are determined by the essential, usually underlying and hence nonobservable, nature of the kinds in question. In our view, Putnam's theory has numerous liabilities, importantly different from the defects in the Direct Reference accounts of proper names, and after exploring it in detail we conclude that it is irreparable and should be rejected. The question about the role or roles played in language by natural kind terms is indeed a challenging one, as Putnam and others have realized. In the pages that follow we attempt to meet this challenge, offering arguments that are new in the existing literature. There is a panoply of such arguments, too many to summarize here. But our general position is that most people learn to speak about water and other natural kinds, like dogs and cats, through their observable features and not by knowing anything about their chemical composition or DNA. It is a fact that human beings were able correctly to use the word "water" long before it was discovered in 1805 that water is composed of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. Our position is thus that the meaning of "water" was not determined by the chemical composition of water. This particular inference is part of our general outlook that meaning and reference are determined by how persons employ language in various contextual situations. As with the views ofWittgenstein, Austin, and Grice, that position has its critics, so whether we are right or not is open to assessment. This book can thus be thought of as an invitation to the reader to explore its various arguments.

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FICTION AND REFERENCE

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CHAPTER

ONE

A Theory of Fiction

What is the chief difference between fiction and nonfiction? Our answer in brief is that in fiction the Maxim of Quality, "Do not say what is false," is suspended. This thesis depends on a modified version of H. P. Grice's theory of conversation. In saying that the Maxim of Quality is suspended in fiction, we do not mean that no speech acts are performed. On the contrary, many are; some of them are the same as those that would be performed if they were performed in a nonfictional context. Sometimes ordinary statements and requests are made, and questions are asked in fiction, as we shall see in section 2. However, many of the speech acts performed in fiction are made possible by the fact that the Maxim of Quality is suspended. In these cases, the normal consequences of performing and evaluating them are not in force. This will be explained in section 2. On the one hand, since our theory depends on a more general theory of language use, those who accept the general theory will have further evidence of its power; and some of those who do not accept it may be more inclined to if they see that it smoothly accounts for fiction. On the other hand, those who do not accept the more general theory may be reluctant to see any merit in the theory of fiction. In addition, because of the almost universal acceptance among Anglo-American philosophers of the axiom of existence, the proposition that everything referred to must exist, our rejection of that axiom may disincline some philosophers to accept our theory. We discuss the axiom in section 3, and later in chapter 4 because of its importance in present day philosophy. Giving up the axiom of existence has the added benefit of allowing

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Chapter One

the concept of truth to be explained in a way that allows most statements of fiction to have their ordinary meanings, and even to be true, which fits the ordinary judgments and talk of people. This is discussed in section 4. The key idea is that a distinction must be drawn between the meaning of "true" and the criteria according to which the word is applied in different situations. This same distinction applies to the word "exist." Recognizing this allows us to explain in section 5 how it can be that it is true to say that a fictional character does not exist in some circumstances and also true to say that he or she does exist in other circumstances. As explained in section 6, the reason that there are straightforward truths about fiction and characters that exist in fiction is that fiction creates institutional facts. In section 7, we discuss the nature of legal fictions in order to show that there is no problem with holding that fictional facts can be both factual and known to be incompatible with natural facts and even with other institutional facts.

1. Preliminaries Before presenting the theory, there are two preliminary matters to discuss. The first involves the distinction between talk in fiction, talk about fiction, and talk about reality. Talk in fiction is the talk or writing that constitutes fictional works; for example, the sentences in Judith Guest's novel Ordinary People. But the preceding sentence is an example of talk about fiction. We said something about the novel Ordinary People. Whenever philosophers discuss fiction, they use talk about fiction to explain talk in fiction, and sometimes talk about fiction. Some philosophers give the impression that the terms "talk in fiction" and "talk about fiction" are mutually exclusive. But they are not. When a novel includes statements about another novel, talk in fiction is also talk about fiction. In Ordinary People, the narrator says, "He had thought about being a Soldier of Fortune, after reading The Three Musketeers." The terms "talk in fiction" and "talk about reality" are also not mutually exclusive and hence do not form a proper distinction. Many novels, for example, historical ones, talk about reality. The first sentence of Gore Vidal's Burr is "Shortly before midnight, July 1, 1833, Colonel Aaron Burr, aged seventy-seven, married Eliza Jumel, born Bowen.... " What Vidal has written is true and he intends it to be true about the real world. In the "Afterword," he talks about his "meticulous" research and the fact that he "tried to keep to the known facts." Ifhe were wrong about Burr's late marriage or about many other things, he would be liable to criticism. This is consistent with his not being required to make, every statement in the novel historically accurate.

A Theory of Fiction

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9

Historical novels are not the only ones that talk about reality. The first sentence of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all happy in the same way, unhappy families unhappy in their separate, different ways," is a real statement made in fiction about real families as much as fictional ones. l Tolstoy is not pretending to make the statement he would be making if he were writing an essay or a sociological treatise. He is simply making a statement about happy and unhappy families. We literally learn or at least are induced to think about a feature of the real world. Talk in fiction is sometimes referred to as "fictional talk," as if it were not real talk. Pretense theory, perhaps the dominant theory today, maintains that fictional talk is not real talk; authors and readers only pretend that it is real talk. Fictional talk is real talk in two senses. First, authors use real words and sentences. Second, fictional talk is real talk insofar as actual statements, questions, exclamations, and imperatives occur in it. To say that this talk is "actual" is not to say that it is about the real world, even though many philosophers now construe "actual" as an indexical word, like "I," "here," and "now," used to denote the possible world that we live in as opposed to all the others. Rather, to say that this talk is actual is to say that the statements, questions, and so on are real or genuine statements and questions. The statements are true or false; the questions have answers, the exclamations are appropriate or inappropriate, and the imperatives can be obeyed or not. The author does not pretend to make a statement; he makes a statement that belongs to fiction. We will argue for this position and not assume it. Fictional talk would not be real talk, if "fictional" had a negator use here, as "fake," "counterfeit," and "toy" have negator uses in "fake diamond," "counterfeit bill," and "toy gun."2 That "fictional" does not have a negator use here is probably related to the fact that the word "fiction" in the phrase "book of fiction" does not indicate that the book is not a book, any more than the word "essay" does in "book of essays." "Fiction," like "essay," expresses a genre of language-use, not a denial that something is language. Fictional talk is talk, and a fictional account of something is still an account. A fictional account need not even be a false account of something. A fictional account (that is, an account in fiction) of something, say, a battle, may be a perfectly accurate and hence a true account. The conflation of "fictional" and "fake" may stem from a confusion of "fictional" with "fictitious." A fictitious account of a real event is one that is false, but a fictional account of a real event (that is, an account in fiction, of a real event) may be a true and highly accurate account of that event. Likewise, a fictional account of a fictional event may be true, but a fictitious account of a fictional event is false. Consider some examples. Dashiell Hammett in

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Chapter One

The Maltese Falcon gives a fictional account of the murder of Sam Spade's partner, Miles Archer. Archer is murdered by Brigid O'Shaughnessy, aka Miss Wondedy. It is an account in fiction, and that account is true. (We will discuss truth in fiction later.) Further, O'Shaughnessy gives a fictitious account of her involvement with Floyd Thursby. She is a chronic liar, and her account is false. Notice that we need the distinction between truth and falsity within fiction as much as outside of fiction in order to understand the story. Some books have unreliable narrators, for example, Herman Melville's The Confidence Man. In such cases, it is tricky to figure out what of the narrator's account is true and what false; but this also contributes to the story's interest and value, when written by a talented author. There is no sharp line between reliable and unreliable narrators. Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer would be considered a reliable narrator in I, The Jury. The novel does not turn on any self-deception or dishonesty of the first-person narrator. However, in one incident, Hammer uses the wrong name. Because he thinks that he is talking to one twin Esther, he uses her name in the narration when in fact he is talking to her sister Mary. When in the narration of the course of events, he discovers his mistake, he informs the reader of it. The temporarily unreliable narrator recovers his reliability.3 Just as the distinction between talk in fiction and either talk about fiction or talk about reality is not a proper one, neither is the one between talk about fiction and talk about reality.4 If someone says, "In the Odyssey, Odysseus proves himself to be wily though perhaps not as wily as Bill Clinton" (or "Bill Clinton was even more wily than Odysseus"), he is talking both about fiction and about actuality. In fact, any talk about fiction is talk about reality. Anyone who says, "My favorite novel is Pride and Prejudice" or "The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice is 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife'" is talking about fiction and talking about reality. Of course we could rig the criteria for talking about reality to exclude any talk about fiction, but that, we suggest, would reveal a prejudice against fiction and not something required by a theory of fiction. So far in this section our principal results are (i) that talk in fiction is not mutually exclusive of either talk about fiction or talk about reality, (ii) that we need the distinction between truth and falsity within talk in fiction (fictional talk) as much as within talk about reality, and (iii) that talk in fiction is real talk. Let's now consider the second preliminary matter. What constraints should there be on a theory of fiction? We think there are at least three. First, a good theory will be consonant with ordinary pretheoretical talk about fic-

A Theory of Fiction

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tion. For example, nonphilosophers say and think that Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street in London, and that this street and city are the same ones that they can visit. Second, a theory of fiction has to be part of a general theory of language. In fully competent speakers, fictional language coexists nicely with nonfictionallanguage. When people learn how to tell and to understand fictional stories, they are not learning a new language and not learning new words in their language. They are learning a different way to use and understand the language that they already have. This is not to deny that in its origins, both in each individual human being and in the human species in general, the nonfictional use of language has a priority over the fictional use. However, that does not make fictional language, as language, inferior to nonfictional language. We shall return to this subject later. Third, a theory of fiction should be consistent with a sensible ontology. If the theory itself requires the positing of a special fictional world populated by fictional characters and events, we think it is a seriously defective theory. Purely fictional people, places, and events do not exist. (The word "purely" in the phrase "purely fictional" is important. We will return to this later, too.)

2. The Theory We are now in a position to consider our theory of fiction. We begin with the observation that conversation or discourse is a cooperative and rational activity. 5 At each stage in a conversation, the default or normal condition is to express oneself in a way that satisfies the goals of the conversation. Even when people acrimoniously argue with the intent to win however they can, they are trying at some more or less general level to communicate that they are right and the other person is wrong. Most conversations are more cooperative than this, and to them a complete set of maxims apply. These maxims vary in their generality. These are the broadest ones: Quality: Do not participate in a speech act unless you satisfy all the conditions for its nondefective performance. (Example: Do not promise to do something unless you intend to do it.) Quantity: Make your speech act as strong as appropriate but no stronger than appropriate. Relation: Make your contribution to the conversation one that ties in with the general course of the conversation. Manner: Make your contribution brief, clear, orderly, and unambiguous.

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These maxims can be considered default rules. They describe basic conditions. However, they often go unfulfilled for one or another reason. H. P. Grice lists four ways in which a contribution to a conversation may not fulfill one or more of the maxims.

1. Violating: Quietly or unostentatiously not fulfilling a maxim. 2. Opting out: Indicating or expressing that a maxim cannot be fulfilled on that particular occasion. 3. Flouting: Openly and ostentatiously not fulfilling a maxim. 4. Being faced with a clash: Not being able to fulfill one or more maxims because of a conflict. The fourth, however, does not properly belong with the others because being faced with a clash is a reason or motive for not fulfilling all the maxims and not a way of doing so (Martinich 1984). Suppose someone is asked to give a brief and complete explanation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind. Since it is impossible for such an explanation to be both brief and complete, the speaker is faced with a clash of maxims. The speaker may deal with this situation in one of three ways: he may violate one of the maxims, opt out of one, or flout one. In short, being faced with a clash is not a way in which the maxims go unfulfilled. There is, however, a genuine fourth way in which maxims go unfulfilled, not noticed by Grice. 4a. Suspending: Not fulfilling one or more maxims in set circumstances in which the maxim does not always apply. The difference between 2 and 4a is that 2 is invoked on an ad hoc basis. Speakers opt out on a particular occasion when some reason arises that interferes with their fulfilling all the maxims. Opting out explains why some speech act will not be performed. For example, requested to give a short but complete explanation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind, the speaker would opt out of the request by saying "I can't give a short and complete explanation." In contrast, suspending a maxim occurs in set contexts and is regulated by some kind of rule, precept, convention, or long-standing practice. Further, when a maxim is suspended, it is still possible to perform a speech act governed by that maxim. Here are six examples in which a maxim is suspended. (i) In the United States, a member of the House of Representatives cannot be prosecuted for anything he says on the floor of the House. 6 That is, a Maxim of Quality

A Theory of Fiction

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for statements is suspended. However, members of the House usually say things that are true or at least not demonstrably false. So, even though a maxim is suspended, it can still be fulfilled. This holds for the other maxims discussed here. (ii) In the United States, a senator may filibuster on the Senate floor, that is, talk as long as he or she wants to unless, roughly, the senators vote by a two-thirds majority to end debate. That is, the Maxim of Manner, "Be brief," is suspended. (Rules about filibustering may change after this book is readied for publication.) While the suspension of a Maxim of Manner is salient, actually all the Maxims of Manner are suspended during Senate debate. (iii) Senators, for example, are not required to make their speeches relevant to the motion on the floor. A senator may read all the names in the Washington, D.e. telephone book. So the Maxim of Relation, "Make your contribution relevant to the general course of the conversation," is also suspended. (iv) In the annual O. Henry Pun Off, held in Austin, Texas, contestants make outrageous puns, the point of the festival being to do exactly that. The Maxim of Manner, "Speak unambiguously," is suspended. 7 This is not to say that punning depends on suspension of the maxim. People sometimes pun in ordinary conversations. But notice the differences. These are typically ad hoc, and bad puns are open to criticism, often in the guise of a groan, in contrast with the o. Henry Pun Off where bad puns are valued and often praised, in the guise of a groan! Of course, two or more people may opt out of the maxim to speak unambiguously in order to pun about some matter. Our point is that the o. Henry Pun Off is an institution in which the prohibition against speaking unambiguously is suspended. Here's a similar example. (v) In the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, named after the author of "It was a dark and stormy night ... ," people vie to write the worst opening sentence of a novel. 8 The Supermaxim of Manner is suspended. Here's the 2004 winning sentence: "She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight ... summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail ... though the term 'love affair' now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism ... not unlike 'sand vein,' which is after all an intestine, not a vein ... and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand ... and that brought her back to Ramon."9 (vi) Some maxim, probably of Manner, is suspended for livestock and commodities auctioneers, who speak rapidly, repeating the same information, with a conventional but nonstandard pronunciation. Three aspects of suspending are important. First, suspending a maxim does not prevent illocutionary acts from being performed. Congressmen, senators, and others perform speech acts even though some maxim or other is suspended. Second, because a maxim is suspended, the speaker is not held

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Chapter One

responsible for some normal consequence of his speech. The malicious congressman cannot be sued for slander; the senator cannot legitimately be criticized for speaking verbosely. And so on. Third, suspending a maxim requires some kind of institution. This is obvious for formal institutions, like the House, and the Senate. But it also holds for informal institutions like the Pun Off. Fiction exhibits the same three properties just described. First, the author continues to perform speech acts. Some are the same as the ones that would have been performed outside the context of fiction. The first sentence of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina shows this, as does the first chapter of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, in which Fielding compares a novelist to a restaurateur. Joyce Carol Oates has been criticized for .making her novel Blonde insufficiently factual. Although she is writing about Marilyn Monroe, she gratuitously changes some historical facts, and, according to the critics, thereby mars her novel. We are not concerned here with the aesthetic consequences of distorting or misrepresenting facts in novels, but with a presupposition, namely, that novels sometimes refer to and state facts about the real world. This latter point also bears on the second consequence of suspending the Maxim of Quality in fiction. The normal consequences of the speech acts performed in fiction sometimes occur and sometimes do not. Here are some cases in which they really occur. In some novels, the author (or narrator) addresses the reader: "Visions are supposed to entail profundity, but-Wait till you get one, dear reader! The abyss may be petty" (E. M. Forster, A Passage to India, chapter 23). In some, questions are asked: "Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of hieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory of the solar system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact?" (George Eliot, Middlemarch, chapter 10). In The Princess Bride, William Goldman invites his readers to write to his publisher Ballantine Books to get an alternative account to the one included in the book. He gives the address that was correct at the time: 201 East 50th Street, New York, New York 10022. That speech acts do not always have their normal consequences is dramatically illustrated by theater contexts. Actors in a play can say, "I take thee to be my wedded spouse" or "I promise to pay you $50,000.00 for this painting" without the normal consequences of such acts attaching to their natural persons. Instead, the consequences attach to their characters. This fact depends upon the third consequence of suspending a maxim, namely, that the practice of fiction is an institution, not a formal institution like the Congress or the court system, but an informal institution, as marriage is in societies without a central bureaucracy and as the O. Henty Pun Off is. Informal

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though it is, fiction gives rise to fictional facts, just as other institutions typically give rise to institutional facts. Fictional facts (facts of fiction) are just as factual as legal facts and mayor may not diverge from natural facts. It is both a legal and natural fact that Bernard Ebbers, former CEO of World Co m Inc., was guilty of fraud. It is both a fictional and natural fact that Aaron Burr married Eliza JUlnelj but only a fictional fact that his son is a newspaper reporter. Without legal institutions, there would be no such facts as that someone was a senator or a representative, and so on. Similarly, without the practice of fiction, there would be no such facts as that Sherlock Holmes was a detective or that Santa Claus wears a red suit. The claim that we are making, namely, that because fiction is an informal institution, it generates institutional facts, will be important later, when we discuss truth in fiction. Being an informal institution does not make it especially hard for fiction to be recognized. Sometimes the word "Fiction" or "Novel" on a book's spine, or the notice, "Any resemblance between the events and characters in this book and real events and people is purely coincidental," is sufficient. And there are other ways, for example, "Once upon a time." But these ways are not always sufficient. A book that gave an accurate muckraking account of political corruption, complete with names and dates, would not count as fiction, even if it had all the standard fiction-indicating devices. Similarly, a story that began "Once upon a time" would not be a fairy tale if it continued, "in a big white house, a president of the United States named 'Bill Clinton' was impeached for acting like an adolescent when he was half a century old," and so on. The natural question to ask at this point is "What determines whether a certain work is fiction or nonfiction?" We do not believe that a general answer can be given to this question. In borderline cases, the answer may be negotiated by the relevant partiesj the parties may not be able to come to a determinationj or the issue may go to court to be decided by a judge or jury. The existence of borderline cases is not evidence of the absence of a distinction. The difficulty about whether something is X or Y typically arises when there are clear cases of an X that is not Y and of Y that is not X. Being a tadpole is different from being a frog even though there is no sharp line between the two. In addition to not always being sufficient, the normal devices that indicate a work of fiction are not necessary conditions either. Nothing on its cover or front matter indicates that Ann Rice's Interview with the Vampire is fiction. While it is always located in some fiction section of libraries and bookstores, its location does not make the book fiction. It occupies that

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location because it has been recognized as fiction. And it is recognized as fiction because, given our network of beliefs, it makes the most sense to construe it that way. Sometimes it is hard to know whether something is properly part of a novel or not. Prefixed to Richard Zimler's novel The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon is "Historical Note," which to my knowledge is historically accurate, except for the final sentence, "One such secret Jew was Berekiah Zarco, the narrator of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon." No Berekiah Zarco is indexed in Encyclopaedia ludaica. Following the Historical Note is "Author's Note: The Discovery of Berekiah Zarco's Manuscript." Zimler represents his book as being nonfictional; and it does contain genuine references to the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Porto, Portugal. He claims that his book is a translation of a manuscript that he found "in Istanbul in 1990 [while] researching Sephardic poetry." But we do not think the book is nonfiction. The attitudes and behavior of the characters are anachronistic; they are people of the late twentieth century dressed up in sixteenth-century garb. We think the Author's Note is part of his fiction because what it says does not fit neatly into the everyday network of beliefs as being nonfictional. One would have to change too many of one's beliefs to make it fit. Since we do not take the Author's Note at face value as nonfictional, we hypothesize that it is intended to help the reader effect what Coleridge called a "willing suspension of disbelief." We, of course, may be wrong. Certainly sometimes readers and viewers make mistakes. The novels The Autobiography of Miss lane Pittman and The Bridges of Madison County have sometimes been mistaken for nonfiction. These mistakes are. part of a more general phenomenon. The closest Barnes & Noble bookstore had a book about the painter Frands Bacon in the philosophy section, and Avrum Stroll's philosophical book, Sketches of Landscapes, once made it to the gardening section. We should pay attention to when fiction is different from other types of writing but not think it is more different than it really is. There is no sharp line between fiction and nonfiction. Thucydides admits to making up some of the speeches in his history of the Peloponnesian WaLIO Norman Mailer interwove fiction and history into The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel and the Novel as History. More recently, Edmund Morris has done the same in Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. We are not denying that there is a difference between history and fiction; what is historical actually happened; what is purely fictional did not. But history and fiction can be interwoven, and a theory of fiction has to be at least consistent with that fact. The acknowledgement that there is no sharp line between fiction and nonfiction may appear to be inconsistent with the claim that fiction differs

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from nonfiction inasmuch as in fiction, a Maxim of Quality is suspended. Suspending a maxim seems to be an all or nothing phenomenon. To understand why there is no inconsistency here, recall first that a consequence of suspending a maxim mentioned above was that real illocutionary acts can continue to be performed. With respect to fiction, this means that a work of fiction may contain an enormous number of statements of fact; indeed, virtually all of it could be factual. The fictional element could be merely the stylistic frame of the story. A historical novelist may think that his statements about history would be more palatable if they purport to be the recollections of an eyewitness. This is an example of a work of fiction on the border of history. Norman Mailer may have intended his section "The Novel as History" in The Armies of the Night to have had this character. His section "History as a Novel" in the same work may be an example of a work of history on the border of fiction. Because both parts are near the border, someone may want to argue conversely that "The Novel as History" is actually history and "History as a Novel" is actually fiction. There's a second reason why the vagueness of the border between fiction and nonfiction is compatible with the fact that suspending a maxim is an all or nothing action. Within a work of history, it is possible to suspend a maxim as regards certain parts or features. Keith Hopkins's A World Full of Gods is a history of the first two centuries of the Common Era, with the fictional device of two young time-travelers describing their experiences. Hopkins is a historian; he explains his conceit in the introduction, and it is fairly easy to separate the fictional elements from the historical ones. One of the aids to identifying the nonfictional parts is an extensive set of endnotes. So A World Full of Gods seems to be an example of history on the border of fiction. Several seventeenth-century works also generally are categorized as histories with some fictional elements. These include Anthony Hamilton's Memoirs of Count Grammont and Gilbert Burnet's History of His Own Times (Mayer 1997). Here are some examples of books typically categorized as novels today, but which may be histories; and in either case are borderline cases. Daniel Defoe's anonymous A Journal of the Plague Year is generally taken to be a novel although some historians have used it as a source both for what the plague was like in seventeenth-century London and for quantitative information about it, such as how many deaths occurred in certain spans of time. It was also taken to be a novel by those contemporaries of his who knew that he had written it. Many or most of those who did not know that he was the author thought it was a history. In the preceding two paragraphs, we have suggested that certain borderline cases are histories that have some novelistic features and some novels

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that have some features of histories. Of course it may be the case that there is no fact of the matter about whether they are only histories or only novels. Perhaps it should be said that they are both or possibly neither. If one insists on opting for one of these judgments, it seems to us to be a matter of decision and not a discovery of fact.

3. The Axiom of Existence That is the basic theory. We now want to consider two related and highly controversial issues concerning fiction. One concerns whether reference (to fictional objects) occurs in fiction. Our position is that it does occur and is able to occur because the Maxim of Quality is suspended. The other issue is whether the statements of fiction are true or false. We say that some are true and some are false. According to the standard approach to fiction, an approach taken by analytic philosophers as diverse as Gottlob Frege, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, P. F. Strawson, Keith Donnellan, and John Searle, authors do not refer to objects in fiction because they hold what Searle calls "The axiom of existence": Everything referred to must exist. ll Searle calls this an axiom because he thinks it is obviously and undeniably true. We think it is false. It is clear that Searle takes the axiom seriously since he incorporates it without any qualification into the rules for referring. And yet he senses that something is wrong with his position. Consider this passage: In normal real world talk, I cannot refer to Sherlock Holmes because there never was such a person. If in this 'universe of discourse' I say 'Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker hat' I fail to refer, just as I would fail to refer if I said 'Sherlock Holmes is coming to dinner tonight at my house'. But now suppose I shift into the fictional, play acting, let's pretend mode of discourse. Here if I say 'Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker hat', I do indeed refer to a fictional character (i. e. a character who does not exist but who exists in fiction.) ... Sherlock Holmes does not exist at all, which is not to deny that he exists-infiction. (Searle 1969, 78-79; see also p. 95)

Notice how Searle prevaricates about whether Holmes can be referred to or not. Either the axiom of existence has some content in virtue of the words "referred to" and "exist," or it does not. If it does, then Sherlock Holmes and other fictional things cannot be referred to (because they do not exist). If it does not, then it is not truistic but vacuous. It has no substantial consequences. For Searle to say that he does "indeed refer" to Sherlock Holmes be-

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cause he "exists in fiction" is to be subject to Russell's stern judgment: to say that fictional objects "have an existence ... in literature, or in imagination, is a most pitiful and paltry evasion" (Russell 1919, 169). Without some explanation for what it is to exist in fiction, to claim that Sherlock Holmes exists in fiction is to evade the issue. Searle thinks that Sherlock Holmes can be referred to in "the fictional, play acting, let's pretend mode of discourse." Even if there is such a mode of discourse, it is not clear how that would help him because Sherlock Holmes does not exist. By maintaining that Sherlock Holmes has sufficient existence within fiction to satisfy the axiom of existence, he empties it of its content. When we deny that existence in fiction is a kind of existence, we are not objecting to every use of the phrase "exist in fiction." The phrase is an idiom that is neutral with respect to whether the object actually exists or not. Since Aaron Burr appears in Vidal's novel, it is strictly true to say that he is a fictional character; and it is true to say that he exists in fiction. But it is odd or misleading to say these things because he is not only a fictional character and did not exist only in fiction. The phrase "exist in fiction" is like another idiom, "have something in mind." A person can have a friend in mind, can have a golden mountain in mind, and can have in mind an object none greater than which can be conceived. A person can have all of these things in mind, but whether any of them exists or not is a separate question. (Some philosophers use the idiom "have something in mind" in a technical sense, according to which a person must be acquainted with an object in Russell's sense of "acquaintance" in order to have it in mind. That is not the sense we intend.) It is important to distinguish the ordinary sense of an idiomatic expression from a technical sense of the same expression. While giving the impression that they are building a theory based on the ordinary sense of an idiom or ordinary word, philosophers sometimes construct a theory upon an insufficiently explicated technical sense of that idiom or expression. 12 If what we have been saying is controversial, it is probably because it conflicts with the dominant philosophical theories, all of which accept the axiom of existence. But these theories do not satisfy all of the adequacy conditions we laid down for a theory of fiction. Why is the axiom of existence so widely accepted? One reason 13 is that its adherents think that a sentence is true just in case it hooks up with the world in the right sort of way. Usually, true sentences are said to correspond to a fact and that the basic way in which sentences hook up with facts is through certain words (usually proper names) hooking up with individual objects in the world through reference. If there is no individual object for the word to

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hook up to, then a sentence or statement containing the word could not be true. Hence, the axiom of existence. Notice that the description we have just given suggests that language is one thing, the world another. This belief gives rise to the problem of answering the question, "How does one bridge the gap between language and the world?" The relation of reference is supposed to be the bridge. Obviously, if one of the two terms of the relation is missing or does not exist, then reference must fail. There is nothing on the worldside on which the bridge can rest. The beginning of a solution is to recognize or to take seriously the point that the basic linguistic phenomenon, linguistic communication, is a kind of behavior,14 and hence undoubtedly part of the world. So there is no gap to be bridged. A proponent of the axiom of existence may object that although language is part of the world, there is nonetheless a gap between words and the things that words refer to. Words {sounds, marks, or gestures} are inherently things that have no meaning. They have a meaning only because something has been done to them that turns them from being merely sounds, marks, or gestures into something that hooks up with something else in the world. It is this "gap," between inherently meaningless objects and the objects that they mean, that philosophers of language try to bridge. Denying that there is a gap to be bridged between language and the world may seem to rob the concept of reference of all meaning. The verb "refer" comes from the Latin verb "referre," which is connected with the word "relation," which means relation. To refer is to establish a relation between two things; what could they be other than a word or phrase and (something in) the world? This reasoning is defective. ls While etymology is often suggestive, it is not conclusive. Also, the more basic sense of "referre" is to recall. When a speaker uses a name Or description, the speaker is often recalling or bringing an object to the mind of the hearer.16 The function of referring expressions is to identify who or what is being talked about. In order to be able to refer to something, the speaker must be able to answer the question "Who or what are you talking about?" The intuition behind the Description Theory is that because proper names are not inherently descriptive, they cannot be the ultimate linguistic unit. Saying what one is talking about requires being able to describe the relevant object. If the name or description that the speaker initially used does not identify the relevant object for the hearer, then the hearer has the right to ask the speaker to supply another name or another description. The speaker almost always satisfies this request by saying more. The speaker engages in more verbal behavior. For reference in general, providing the referent, "the thing it-

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self," cannot be a requirement because the referent is unavailable by being either distant or nonexistent; think of Julius Caesar or something else that is nonexistent. The defense of the axiom of existence that relies on the idea of bridging the gap between language and the world reveals what is wrong with it. Language is viewed noncontextually, as an abstract object, not as behavior, which necessarily occurs in some worldly, usually mundane, situation. Words are one aspect of linguistic behavior; and behavior always occurs in a context. Words cannot be abstracted from that context without ceasing to function. This is often difficult to see because people are inclined imaginatively and subconsciously to supply as much context as necessary for something to appear to have a meaning. What does "nova" mean? Since this article is in English, English is part of the background that makes it sensible to answer that the meaning of "nova" is a collapsed star. If this chapter were written in Latin, Latin would be the background, and "nova" would sensibly be taken to mean "new." Because this example is extremely simple, only a word or two about the background has been necessary. In real-life situations, many more things are operating in the background, as philosophers as diverse as Searle, Wittgenstein, and Martin Heidegger have noted. Our general point is that the words or sentences uttered on an occasion are only a small part of the situation within which they have a meaning. We pay more attention to words because they are salient. Nonetheless, what words mean and how they function cannot be detached from other components of the situation. There may still be some resistance to this point, rooted in the fact that words and sentences inherently do not have meaning. And this fact may make language somewhat mysterious. However, Wittgenstein in one way, W. V. Quine in another, and Searle in still another have dissipated the mystery, if "mystery" is the right word, by variously explaining how language functions given the human cognitive apparatus. 17 Even if one or another is wrong in some of the details, their theories show that in principle, language use can be explained. More needs to be said because those who subscribe to the axiom cannot see how one could ever get from language about things that exist to language about things that don't exist. We hope we can get around this impasse if we briefly describe some stages a person goes through in learning a first language. (a) The first sentences are learned in the presence of salient objects. The child hears or says "mama," "papa," and "(ba}nana" in the presence of the mother, father, or banana. Initially, the use of these protolinguistic utterances are either not referential at all or not purely referential. The child wants to

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be comforted by someone or is hungry. At some point, however, these words become referential. (b) At the second stage, the child hears or says "mama," "papa," or "(ba)nana" when the relevant object is absent and probably wants the object to be present. Again, at an early stage, the child may not be purely referring to the relevant object or even referring at all. But at some point, those words become referential. The child is referring to what does not exist in his or her presence. The link between language and the existence of an object is at the first stage of being broken. At the second stage, the child's linguistic repertoire is expanding. The simplest syntactic structures are introduced, if they have not already been, as well as a great deal of vocabulary. With subjects and predicates being used, the child can describe to some extent what he or she experiences. (c) At the third stage, it is possible for the child to hear about, often with the aid of pictures, objects that exist but which have never been experienced by him or her, perhaps, an aunt or uncle, or (c') to hear about objects that once existed but no longer do, perhaps, a deceased grandparent. Then comes the last step: (d) the child'can hear and understand sentences about objects that never did exist. It takes only a little imagination. (In saying this, we are not committing ourselves to any theory about imagination. It is something that is true in advance of and independently of any theory of imagination.) It is quite possible that the fourth stage precedes the third. Children are introduced to picture books about purely fictional beings quite early. It would be easy to describe situations in which the third is skipped. One might object that our description of the move from the second or the third stage to the fourth one contains a confusion, confusing existence with location: to say that something is not located in the speaker's vicinity is quite different from saying that it does not exist. There is no confusion in the description of the stages, and the objection has no force. What the description of the move from the second to the third stage shows is that neither knowledge that an object exists nor exposure to that object is necessary in order for a speaker to learn and to know how to use proper names or descriptions because the object may not exist, even though it once existed. Since children and other language learners are able to learn how to use names and descriptions for objects that exist but with which they are not acquainted, the knowledge that speakers need to have in order to use names and descriptions cannot require an existent object at all. To insist that someone, either the teacher or the teacher's teacher, had to have had exposure or direct acquaintance with the referent is to no effect because the learner does not need that acquaintance.

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One might think that the direct reference view of Saul Kripke or the causal theory of Keith Donnellan shows that the speaker's knowledge must be knowledge of an object that exists or existed. But that is not correct. Their theories only speak to the issue of what determines which object is being referred to when the referent exists or once existed. It does not speak to the issue of what referring is. Suppose the objector returns to her original claim that the description of the stages involves a confusion between location and existence: "Australia certainly exists, even for those located in Britain-it exists for the British as much as for the Australians. This is how 'Australia' can refer. But if Australia did not exist, then 'Australia' would not refer." The objector is now simply begging the question, as her last sentence shows. To say that if Australia did not exist, then 'Australia' would not refer," is entailed by the axiom of existence. That entailment is as much in question as the axiom. When a language is fully learned, it is easy for a speaker to introduce into discourse objects that the hearer has never experienced, and it is no more difficult to introduce real but unexperienced objects than it is to introduce fully fictional ones. Sometimes the intentional object is also an existing object, and sometimes not. IS

4. Truth Let's now consider the second difficult problem.l 9 In what way or ways are statements in or about fiction true? Those who support the axiom of existence may think that no adequate account of truth and falsity can be given if that axiom is abandoned. They tend to say that for simple subject-predicate statements the following holds. A statement is true if and only if the object referred to or picked out by the subject has the property expressed by the predicate. The statement is false if and only if the object referred to or picked out by the subject does not have the property expressed by the predicate. We accept the preceding two statements, as long as they are meant literally in a nontheory-laden way and do not conceal a tendentious commitment to the axiom; for they say only that objects are referred to, not that the objects referred to must exist. To insist that objects have to be existent things is to beg the question. It is analogous to insisting that since every sentence has a subject that denotes a real thing, the word "it" in the sentence "It is snowing" must denote the thing that is snowing; and the word "there" in the sentence "There is snow on the ground" must denote the place where the snow is. In fact, "it" and "there" in the sentences mentioned are "dummy"

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words. Since almost all sentences have their subject preceding the main verb, English requires sentences like those above to have some word that at least has a superficial resemblance to a genuine subject preceding the main verb. "It" and "there" are the conventional proxies. As for "picking out" in the relevant sense, the speaker is not required to be able physically to pick out the object by, say, pointing. It requires only that the speaker be able to get the hearer to think of or mentally identify the object by providing a suitable name or description (Martinich 1979). The speaker satisfies what Searle calls "the principle of identification" when answering the question "Who or what is being referred to?" (Searle 1969,85). And describing someone as a character in a work of fiction is one way to answer this question. Perhaps a proponent of the axiom of existence would object that we have not explained what makes a statement of fiction or about fiction true. What he or she requires are facts. If empirical, scientific, and historical facts are recognized, then the requirement is easy to satisfy. Fictional facts make fictional statements true, just as historical facts make historical statements true, and scientific facts make scientific statements true. As mentioned earlier, it is a mistake to think that "fictional" is operating as a negator word, like "toy" in "toy gun." Even if "fictional" had some negator uses, it would not follow that it had a negator use in the phrase "fictional fact," any more than the negator use of "toy" in "toy gun" means that "toy" has a negator use in "toy store," a store that sells toys. The ease with which the requirement that statements of kind K have to be made true by facts of kind K may be related to the fact that, as Donald Davidson has argued, a metaphysically charged idea of facts is not a philosophically informative concept or to Strawson's claim that true statements correspond to facts because they were made for each other (Davidson 1984, 17-36 and Straws on 1971,190-213). And in its ordinary sense, facts are ready at hand and can be given by saying what is true; and this includes in appropriate contexts saying what is true about fictional objects: it is a fact that Holmes lived on Baker Street. Quiz question: state two facts that identify Aphrodite. Anyone answering "There are no such facts because Aphrodite does not exist" scores no points. Although we have been treating reference and truth separately, they are of course connected. A statement of the form "S is P" is true if and only if the value of "S" refers to an object 0 such that 0 has the property expressed by "P." Mark Sainsbury holds that a subject-predicate sentence is true 2D if and only if "there is something of which something is predicated, and that object is as it is said to be" (Sainsbury 2001, 242). (He may also intend "of' to in-

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dicate a "de re" mode of denotation.) He is construing "something" as necessarily denoting something existent in the sense dictated by the axiom of existence. Our alternative view, which takes linguistic practice as primary, is to take "something" as indicating that a speaker has to be able to provide a name or description that will identify for the hearer what the speaker has in mind,zl The hearer's potential question requires an answer and the answer is in words. What specific words count as a satisfactory answer to the question depends on the criteria that apply to assigning truth-values to statements. In order to make this clearer, we need to say something about the institution of fiction before saying more about truth. As we indicated earlier, there would be no problem of negative existentials containing the names of fictional people, places or things, if there were no fictional names. 22 That is, if fictional names were nonsensical, then negative existential propositions containing them would not constitute a problem. It is because fictional names are a functioning, well-integrated part of linguistic use that there is or seems to be a problem. But because they have a use, they should not be a problem. To say that, say, "Sherlock Holmes does not exist," makes a comment about the world just as "Queen Elisabeth II has no great grandchildren" does but also indicates something about the source of the sensibleness of the name "Sherlock Holmes." It, like other names of purely fictional and mythological characters, gets its sense from the linguistic practices of telling tales and myths, writing short stories and novels and similar stretches of discourse. True negative existentials about fictional objects presuppose a more or less substantial body of discourse that indicates what is true about the thing that does not exist. The intelligibility of fiction depends on most of the statements of fiction being true. Proponents of the axiom of existence will recoil from this last claim. They will insist that (1 )-( 4) are not strictly and literally true: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock

Holmes Holmes Holmes Holmes

was a detective. wore a deerstalker hat. lived at 221 B Baker Street. had Dr. Watson as a friend.

We disagree,23 Of course, (1 )-( 4) (hereafter: the Sherlock sentences) are not scientific truths, and not historical, philosophical, ethical, political, or aesthetic truths. They are fictional truths, and it would be easy enough, if time-consuming, to provide the necessary evidential support for them by quoting appropriate parts of Conan Doyle's short stories. Again, one should not think that the Sherlock sentences are shorthand or abbreviations for

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sentences that talk about sentences mentioned in Con an Doyle's short stories, any more than (5) The consul Julius dedicated the temple of Apollo in the absence of his colleague (Livy 1960, 301) is shorthand or an abbreviation for sentences in Livy's books, even though (5) is a sentence in (a translation of) Livy's books. Just as Livy's books are the evidence, source, or foundation for (5), Conan Doyle's short stories are the evidence, source, or foundation for the Sherlock sentences. When people are not doing philosophy, there is no question of their denying the Sherlock sentences. It is only while doing philosophy that people think that the Sherlock sentences cannot be true. In a decontextualized state, lacking a speaker's purpose in a specific context, the Sherlock sentences seem to need something to put them in touch with reality; hence the need for what Searle calls "vertical conventions" to hook up words with the real world. Since the Sherlock sentences contain references to something that is not part of the real world, philosophers feel driven to deny that they are true or express facts. In order to counteract these false impressions, we need to make two distinctions: The first is the distinction between the meaning of a word and the criteria of its applicability. The second is the distinction between the criteria of applicability for nonfictional discourse and for fictional discourse. The meaning of a word is a semantic concept. Roughly, it concerns the entailment relations between sentences. To know the meaning of a declarative sentence is to know what it does and does not entail. To know the meaning of a word is to know what it contributes to the entailments of a sentence. The criteria of applicability is a nonsemantic concept. It relates to the circumstances appropriate to use or apply a word or sentence. It involves knowledge of matters of fact. Consider some examples. As regards the surfaces of objects, the word "flat" is univocal. But "flat" applies in different ways according to the kind of object and the interests of the speakers. Ordinary end tables are flat according to the criterion appropriate for furniture but not flat according to the criterion applied by molecular physics. Similarly, "round" as applied to the shape of physical objects is univocal. As applied to pieces of fruit, oranges and grapes are round; but, as applied to billiard balls and baseballs, they are not round. A billiard ball in the shape of an orange or grape is not round. A more controversial example is "red." "Red" is univocal as a color word, but the criterion for being red varies widely. In addition to fire trucks and some apples, wine is red, even though its col or overlaps with the

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color of some objects ordinary described as purple. "Red" means red in all of these cases, while the criterion for redness changes. 24 One reason for holding that "red" is univocal is that it passes the standard linguistic test for univocity. It is acceptable to say both "Li's favorite dress is red and so is her favorite wine" and "Some wine and some automobiles are red." These statements contrast with the following, which are defective: *Wells Fargo is a bank and so is the western edge of the Mississippi River. *Wells Fargo and the western edge of the Mississippi River are both banks. Like the words already discussed, "true" has various criteria of applicability associated with it.2 s Usually, the criterion for applying "true" is affected by the criteria appropriate to the words of the sentence expressing the statement to be evaluated. But the appropriate criterion also is affected by more general considerations. In general, the criteria for scientific statements are different from those that apply to nonscientific statements. The criteria for quotidian observations like "This table is flat" and "The sun is rising" are different from those appropriate to atomic physics and Copernican astronomy. This is not to say that one criterion is better than the other. If a person looking for a flat table for his living room is applying the criterion of physics, then not only will he not find a table to his liking but he is also applying an inappropriate criterion. The criteria for statements about ethics and aesthetics are not the same as the criteria for physical or empirical statements. Most philosophers think that the statements of ethics and aesthetics are false or lack a truthvalue because they think that the only appropriate criterion is one for empirical statements. But people argue for or against ethical statements and adduce evidence. This appearance of rational discussion is not, we submit, an illusion. Sometimes people who disagree about ethics disagree about the appropriate criterion for ethics-is it what promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number or is it whatever one has a duty to dol-and this fact supports the position that there is a criterion. Finally, we come to fiction. The criterion for applying truth to statements in fictional discourse is not the same as the criteria for applying truth to statements in nonfictional discourse. But any observation of the speech of people about fiction will reveal large agreement about how truth should be applied to fictional statements. For at least a century, and in many cases, for more than three centuries, most Anglo-American philosophers have given the criteria appropriate to scientific statements a privileged position over other criteria. They have thought that any statement that did not satisfy those criteria was false or nonsensical. That is one reason why ethical, aesthetic, and political statements

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have so often seemed to philosophers to lack a truth value and to be noncognitive. According to many Anglo-European philosophers, something is a predicate only if it expresses a property; and something is a property only if it is a physical existent or only if it exists in the physical world in the same way that shapes, sizes, and perhaps colors, tastes, and textures do.2 6 In addition to excluding "x is good" from the domain of predicates, this criterion also excludes "x is beautiful" and "x is true." Let's now talk about the Sherlock sentences directly. If a fictional name is accepted by a community, then it has a referent. (Notice that this gives only a sufficient condition, not also a necessary one.) The thing named does not have to exist in reality.27 In being so used, the name occurs in sentences that are more often than not used to say something true. These truths in fiction are the grounding for truths about fiction such as the Sherlock sentences. The distinction between the meaning of a word or sentence and its criterion of applicability has important consequences beyond the realm of fiction. Americans want to adhere to the meaning of the Constitution, but they also recognize that what worked in the eighteenth or nineteenth century often did not work for the twentieth and twenty-first. In an attempt to get a good principle of interpretation for the Constitution, theorists usually suggested a principle relevant to the meaning of the words. So textualists or strict constructionists maintain that the Constitution should be interpreted according to the meaning the words had for the founders of the country. Intentionalists maintain that it should be interpreted according to the meaning the founders intended and not necessarily the meaning that the words had. Others, call them "reader response theorists," maintain that it should be interpreted according to the meaning the words have for us. Although the issue of the kind or locus of meaning is relevant to the matter, an equally important consideration is what criterion of applicability is appropriate. For example, fix the meaning of "cruel and unusual punishment" however you will, the criterion for cruelty in the seventeenth century is different from the criterion for cruelty today. So what counts as constitutional can change without changing the meaning of the words. Examples could be multiplied indefinitely. African Americans and women did not count as full persons in the eighteenth and half of the nineteenth century; but changes in the criterion, made explicit by various amendments, changed their status. A timelier example comes from the spring of 2005. A prosecutor believed it would be impossible to get a conviction against a person who was financially abusing an elderly man with a low IQ because the perpetrator was a friend of the victim and the victim knowingly gave the perpetrator most of his wealth. The perpetrator used his friendship as "undue in-

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fluence" over the victim. But this kind of behavior did not count as a crime before the prosecutor argued in court that.appeals to friendship could count as exercising undue influence resulting in theft. According to some reports of the case, the prosecutor "changed the definition" of "theft." This mischaracterizes what happened. No one needs to know about this particular criterion for "theft" in order to know what "theft" means. That criterion does not and will not appear in a dictionary. It could not reasonably appear there because the criterion for "theft" like many criteria changes from time to time, locality to locality, circumstance to circumstance. In order to know the meaning of a word, one probably needs to know some criterion of applicability, often many, but the criterion is not part of the meaning itself.

5. "Exists" and Criteria Does the distinction between nonfictional and fictional criteria for applicability apply to "exists"? Initially, it may seem that it could not. A single criterion for "exists" may seem to be crucial to distinguishing what is real from what is not. But this is not correct. Both within fiction and in talking about fiction, the criterion for the applicability of "exists" may differ from the quotidian criterion. Let's consider a case of existence and nonexistence in talk in fiction and then a case in talk about fiction. In Alfred Hitchcock's film, North by Northwest, foreign spies mistake the character Roger O. Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, for George Kaplan, an American spy who does not exist. In order to deceive the foreign spies, an American spy agency has invented Kaplan by concocting evidence that seems to establish that there is such a person. When the American spy agency begins to realize that Thornhill is being mistaken for Kaplan, one of its members, call him "the Chairman," says "How could he [Thornhill] be mistaken for George Kaplan? George Kaplan does not even exist." What the Chairman says is true. Here is a case in which a sentence of the form "X does not exist" is true in fiction. It is also true about North by Northwest. Notice that in talk about the film, it is essential to distinguish between what exists and what does not exist. It is true that Thornhill exists and Kaplan does not. If in a discussion of the film, an inattentive person says "George Kaplan exists" because Thornhill find suits in the closet of a hotel room registered to George Kaplan, that person says something false. Similarly, if in this discussion, a philosopher protests that Thornhill does not exist or that neither Thornhill nor Kaplan exists, one might say that the philosopher is not playing the game. But that assertion may be misunderstood to mean that films and discussions of them are not serious or important or not real. What counts

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as existing and what does not depend upon the criteria appropriate for the kind of object and the context. If someone thinks that our position commits us to holding that the real world contains fictional objects, in the same way that physical objects exist or even with a quasi-existence, like Meinong's subsistence or with abstract objects like numbers, it is because that person is subliminally attributing the axiom of existence to us. As part of the return of metaphysics to respectability about fifty years ago and as part of the project of giving a formal treatment to language, philosophers came to believe that ordinary language has ontological commitments. So to assert "The greatest event in Lee's life was his marriage," "Numbers fascinate Lee," "There is a hole is this sock," was allegedly to commit the speaker to the existence of events, numbers, and holes, respectively, unless it could be shown, using the canonical devices of logic, that it did not. But notwithstanding the power of formal logic to systematize many inference patterns, we do not know of any sound argument to prove that nonphilosophical speakers commit themselves to metaphysical entities in the way that philosophers assert that they do. We have no objection to the construction of formal languages that contain expressions and structures that commit users of them to the existence of objects in this world with some ontological status. But we believe that it is not necessary and in fact not true that ordinary language in general and the use of language in and about fiction in particular have these commitments. Let's now consider another case of existence and nonexistence in talk about fiction. The truth value of (6) Godot exists is very important to the understanding of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. In the play, two characters, Estragon and Vladamir, talk incessantly as they wait for Godot. If (6) were true, then the play would arguably be about how meritorious faith should survive on the slimmest of evidence. But this interpretation is surely incorrect. The play is about the absurdity of life, especially the absurdity of lives that are grounded in religious faith, for Godot does not exist and he represents God. What is true is (6') Godot does not exist. According to the standard philosophical view, (6') is trivially true because no purely fictional character exists. We agree that (6') is trivial according to the criterion appropriate for nonfictional discourse, but we deny that that crite-

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rion is relevant in the context of discussing the play as a play. One way to see that (6') is not trivial is to contrast it with (7) Estragon and Vladamir exist. Like (6'), (7) is true according to the criterion appropriate to a discussion of the play. Also like (6'), (7) is not trivial, for Waiting for Godot would be unintelligible if (7) were false, given the context of discussion. Nonetheless, (7) is compatible with

(7') Estragon and Vladamir do not exist if the relevant context of discussion is disabusing someone who mistakenly came to believe that Estragon and Vladamir were real people. Perhaps the person overheard part of a discussion which led him reasonably but mistakenly to acquire the false belief. The discussion may have been between the same critics who had asserted (7). But now they assert (7') to correct the beliefs of the overhearer. Did the critics contradict themselves? Are (7) and (7') contradictory propositions? No. Different criteria of existence are appropriate to (7) and (7'), given the contexts of utterance. One way to eliminate the appearance of contradiction is to attach different subscripts to "exist" in (7) and (7'), just as one might attach different subscripts to disambiguate words. (7) Lee fell asleep on his watchr (7') Lee did not fall asleep on his watchy . A watchT is a timepiece, and a watchy is a period of time during which a guard is to be vigilant. The claim that "exists" has various criteria of applicability is not a form of crypto-Meinongianism. Proponents of the axiom of existence engage in discussions of the truth value of (6) as readily and seriously as opponents of it. In neither case do the discussants require that those who think (6) is true be able to produce some evidence that ghosts exist. To do so would be to confuse the criterion appropriate to one kind of discourse with the criterion appropriate to another kind of discourse.

6. Institutional Facts and Fiction Is there any informative, general way of answering the question "What makes statements in and about fiction true?" If someone requires that there be a

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kind of fact that makes a statement true, then the answer is that institutional facts make statements true. Institutional facts about fiction belong to the same general category as facts about governments, armies, social clubs and institutions, and games. 28 These kinds of facts exist only because people agree to accept them as facts; and acceptance of these things as facts entails accepting certain ways of speaking and acting. There are no presidents, prime ministers, citizens, Grand Pooh Bahs, members {of Elk, Kiwanis, or Rotary clubs}, generals, sergeants, privates, rabbis, priests, ministers, husbands, wives, quarterbacks, safeties, and touchdowns in the natural world. They exist because there are human institutions with various practices that create them. Fictional facts belong to this category of institutional facts. 29 If the practice of fiction did not exist, then Sherlock Holmes would not be a detective, would not live at 221B Baker Street, and so on. If one recoils from the suggestion that fictional facts are on all fours with these other institutional facts, it is perhaps because these other institutional facts belong to the nonfiction world and institutional fictional facts belong to ... fiction. A large number of institutional facts are created by explicit performative utterances (Searle 1995,34). This fact has probably inclined some philosophers to give a performative analysis of fiction, according to which the statements30 made by authors of fiction make it the case that what they say is true. The performative theory would be more plausible if all fiction were na'ive and unerringly constructed. All works of fiction perhaps could be understood to be prefixed by the formula "I hereby declare the following .. , ." Then a statement of fiction would be true if and only if some author or narrator declared it. We can ignore the problem of handling other speech acts, like "Wait until you get one, dear reader." The easiest way to see that the performative theory cannot be correct is to consider that the primary source of information about a work of fiction may come from an unreliable narrator. In Gilbert Sorrentino's Odd Number, the character Sheila Henry is dead at the beginning of the novel and alive at the end, or maybe not. Sorrentino is probably making the philosophical point that it is impossible to know the unadulterated facts, the truth, in any interesting sense, We do not accept the philosophy but do recognize the book as fiction. There are less radical examples of unreliable narrators, such as the protagonist of The Ginger Man. Since the narrator's saying that p does not make it the case that p, the performative theory cannot be right. Those who give a performative analysis of fiction are in effect saying that the statements of fiction are implicit declaratives. But the sentence "It was a dark and stormy night" in BulwerLytton's novel is not the equivalent of "You are fired" uttered by a person's

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employer, even though the reader accepts that it was a dark and stormy night. The basis of the reader's belief is trust in the testimony of the narrator, an apparent witness of the events narrated, or trust in the narrator's trust of a witness who has supposedly reported the events to the narrator. Similarly, one should not think that phrases like "Once upon a time" are performative. Rather, they are fairly reliable marks or indicators of a fairy tale, fairly reliable, but not absolutely so. The term "A Novel" on a book spine or title page is also not performative, any more than "A History" or "A Biography" or "Economics" is. One may also be able to recognize that the utterances of fiction that look like statements-we maintain that they are statements-are not performatives by considering that other utterances of fiction are what they appear to be. As mentioned earlier, novels contain questions, requests, orders, promises, and other speech acts. They are what they appear to be. If a novelist writes "Are you shocked, dear reader?" or "Forget all of your worries for the next sixty minutes" or "1 promise to relate what happened to Nell in the next chapter," the novelist is asking a question, requesting or ordering, or making a promise with regard to the reader. So, the simplest hypothesis about apparent statements in fiction is that they are statements. When Bulwer-Lytton wrote "It was a dark and stormy night," he was, as he seemed to be doing, stating what was true, not making it the case that it was a dark and stormy night. If the readers accept that it was a dark and stormy night, then it was a dark and stormy night, not because it was declared to be such but because it was reported to be such. And by accepting it as such, an institutional fact was created. For the most part, people accept as true what is written in published versions of fiction. But the published version can be defeated. Literary scholars rifle through the author's notes, letters, and rough drafts to find out various sorts of things, sometimes to show that what may appear to be true in a work of fiction is not and sometimes to show that what seems to be unknowable is not. Someday a scholar may discover how many children Lady Macbeth had. Literary historians are in the same line of business as nonliterary ones, even though nonliterary historians typically have more kinds of material to study. It is often hard to distinguish an ancient historical account from an ancient story of fiction. An ancient historian who believed in a pantheon of gods may include them as actors in some event. And it is plausible that the first person to tell the story of the disobedience of Adam and Eve meant it to be fiction but at some point in its retelling it became nonfiction. What is it now for people who know something about the composition of Genesis? Is it false history or true myth (a kind of fiction)? In general, our best shot at

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6. Negative Existentials, Identity Statements, and Metaphors In recent years, pretense theory has been applied to other recalcitrant problems in the philosophy of language: true negative existential propositions, identity statements, metaphors, and propositional attitude sentences. We don't think any of these applications work because of the problems with the concept of pretending already discussed. Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to make some specific comments about the attempts to apply pretense theory to other problems. Concerning the problem of negative existentials, statement (1) ( 1) Hamlet does not exist is problematic for most philosophers. They believe that in order for (1) to be true, "Hamlet" would have to refer to Hamlet. But, according to the axiom of existence, "Hamlet" does not refer to Hamlet. Consequently, it seems that (1) cannot be true, contrary to general belief. Walton generates the problem in a slightly different way. He claims that people have conflicting intuitions because in addition to (1), people sometimes assert (2) Hamlet is a character. Walton thinks that (1) and (2) conflict because he thinks that "Hamlet" in (2) must refer to Hamlet, and hence that it presupposes that Hamlet exists; and that is inconsistent with (1). According to pretense theorists, the solution to the problem of negative existentials is to maintain that a person who asserts sentences like (1) is only pretending to refer to Hamlet, and that within that pretense Hamlet is being referred to. This move alone does not seem to be sufficient because the axiom of existence seems to hold within the pretense; and if it does, then Hamlet exists within the pretense and so it would not be true that Hamlet does not exist. To avoid this problem, some pretense theorists add that the speaker does not really deny existence to Hamlet. The speaker then only pretends to refer to Hamlet in order to go on to pretend to deny existence of him. In short, (1) is complete pretense. Nothing is genuinely asserted. One objection to this solution is that it goes against the facts. It is literally true that Hamlet does not exist, and the most straightforward way to say this is to assert "Hamlet does not exist." The resources of language would indeed be impoverished if they did not allow a speaker literally to deny the existence of some things. Pretense theorists are driven to their Parmenidean

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position by their commitment to the axiom of existence. This commitment is the root of the problem. Give up that axiom and the convoluted solution to the problem of negative existentials becomes unnecessary. Suppose a proponent of the axiom were to claim that an ordinary person could be persuaded that referring to something presupposes that that thing exists. This would show only that when ordinary (nonphilosophical) people engaged in philosophical reflection with a devotee of the axiom of existence, they could be persuaded to accept the false belief of the devotee. Nonphilosophers would quickly be led from their nonphilosophical practice to a false theory about their practice. Our own experience with students is that when the Paradox of Reference and Existence is presented with no comments about how it should be solved, almost everyone of them identifies premise (PI) as the false proposition. The Paradox of Reference and Existence (PI) Everything referred to must exist. (P2) "Hamlet" refers to Hamlet. (P3) Hamlet does not exist. To assert (P3) is simply to assert that Hamlet is not part of the real world. The character Hamlet is part of an institution because Shakespeare introduced him into a play that has been accepted by audiences for four hundred years. One does not need to engage in pretense to refer to Hamlet any more than one needs to engage in pretense to refer to anything else that exists as part of an institution, say, the Queen of England. Acceptance of an institution, not a special cognitive state, is all that is required to refer to Hamlet and the Queen of England. Let's now consider identity statements. For many philosophers, identity statements are problematic because they are attracted to Wittgenstein's view: "Roughly speaking, to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all" (Wittgenstein 1963, 5.53). We will not discuss the supposed vacuity of saying of one thing that it is identical with itself. Grice's theory of conversation adequately deals with statements like "Business is business" or "War is war." Also, pretense theory has nothing to say about one-name identity statements. Pretense theorists are concerned with identity statements like

(3) Cicero is (identical with) Tully.

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According to them, such statements seem to be false, because they supposedly present the appearance of being about two things. According to pretense theorists, a speaker or a hearer, confronted by an identi ty statement, like (3), pretends that two objects are being referred to, one named by "Cicero" and one named by "Tully." We think this is an incorrect solution to a nonproblem. A correct description of the use of identity statements shows that the treatment of them by pretense theorists rests on a false assumption. When the false assumption is exposed, the attractiveness of a solution based upon pretense theory dissolves. The false assumption is that two-name identity statements simpliciter give the appearance of being about two things and hence of being false. ls Whether two-name identity statements appear to be about two things and whether they give the appearance of being about two things depends upon who is asserting them or judging their truth or falsity and the circumstances within which they occur. Statement (3) would not seem to be false or about two things to the person who asserts it, if for no other reason than that people normally assert what they think is true. So the speaker would hardly assert (3) ifhe thought they were two people. But he would assert (3) to forestall or correct the false belief of someone else. Suppose the addressee had learned about Marcus Tullius Cicero in one way by the name "Cicero" and the facts that he was a Roman orator and the enemy of Catiline, and in another way by the name "Tully" and the facts that he was a philosopher and author of several philosophical dialogues. Given this background, the addressee might think that (3) mentions two people, not because it contains two names but because he thinks Cicero and Tully are different people. However, if the addressee trusts the speaker, his belief that (3) is false and refers to two people will give way to the belief that (3) is true and is about one person, referred to with two different names. Again, the appearance of two separate referents is not a property of the sentence itself. Any competent speaker of English knows that identity statements typically contain co referring names or definite descriptions until they are held in the grip of a philosophical theory. Identity statements are used to identify someone or something; and identifying something typically involves consolidating information. If a person believes that "Cicero" refers to an ancient Roman orator who was the enemy of Catiline and that "Tully" refers to a philosopher and author of many dialogues, the person may invalidly infer that Cicero and Tully are two different people. This would account for an "experience of duality." The duality comes from the unconsolidated beliefs just mentioned, not from an identity statement. An identity statement like (3) characteristically does not generate the appear-

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ance of duality; its usual purpose is to dissipate a prior "experience of duality" and it typically succeeds. Notice that we have been talking about information that a person might associate with the name "Cicero" and information that the person might associate with "Tully." This kind of talk substitutes for the Fregean talk of modes of presentation and Sinne for names and descriptions. Proponents of the description theory of proper names mistakenly think that the descriptions that a speaker associates with a proper name are semantic. Proponents of the direct reference theory (often) mistakenly think that if descriptions are not semantically related to proper names, they merit no mention in the explanation of how people use proper names. Our view combines aspects of both the description and direct reference theory without the pitfalls of either. Many words require for their use factual information, usually expressible as definite descriptions. Contrary to the description theory, this information is not part of the name's meaning. A speaker who associated absolutely no information with a proper name would not know how to use it. Because a person might associate different information with different names, which nonetheless have the same referent, identity statements of the form "a = b" can be informative. As regards the direct reference theory, we agree that the only semantic content of a proper name is its referent. In the preceding chapter, we gave examples of words that have different criteria of applicability with respect to different objects or situations. One must have some empirical knowledge of elephants to know which ones count as big and which as not big. So, the use of proper names requires the speaker to have some nonsemantic knowledge. Let's now turn to the pretense theory of metaphor. According to it, if a person says, "My lover is a red rose," then he or she is not saying that his lover is a red rose but only pretending to be saying that. One problem with this theory is that it cannot explain the difference between the sentences of fiction that the author means literally and those he means nonliterally or metaphorically. Suppose a novel contains the passage, "To Lee, Bo was the bravest, most courteous person in the world; he was a knight in shining armor." Since both the sentences of fiction and metaphors are examples of pretense, the pretense theorist cannot distinguish between the ordinary statements of fiction and the metaphorical ones. But that difference is recognizable by any competent reader. On our view, the difference is the same as it is in nonfictional speech, the difference between saying something and making as if to say something. The pretense theorist cannot maintain that the difference is that when an author speaks metaphorically in fiction, he or she pretends to pretend to be

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sense" (Kripke 1980, 32). But, as we asked earlier, why do they deny that proper names have meaning? Unfortunately, both fail to explain why they hold such a view. But it is possible to suggest an answer. Consider the following example: Suppose a manufacturer has similar sized boxes filled with a special part. Some of these boxes contain twenty-four parts,and some contain twenty. A simple way of distinguishing them would be to put blue tags on the boxes with twenty-four parts and red tags on those containing twenty. These tags have no writing on them and they are not names; they don't name the parts (which by hypothesis are all identical). Instead they serve a different purpose: they allow the boxes to be conveniently separated (say) for shipping purposes. The labels don't possess meaning; they are merely devices for distinguishing some of the boxes from others. We submit that this is how direct reference proponents think of names. "John" doesn't mean anything; it is simply used to mark off a certain individual from his fellows. It is thus just a tag. Despite these overlaps, the two views differ in certain respects. Both Kripke and Marcus deny, though for different reasons, that tagging is to be identified with rigid designation. Marcus states, "Proper names are not assimilated to what later came to be called 'rigid designators' by Saul Kripke, although they share some features" (Marcus 1993, xiii-xiv). Kripke gives the following definition of "rigid designator." "Let's call something a rigid designator if in every possible world it designates the same object" (Kripke 1980, 48). Since Marcus indicates that a proper name tags the same object in every possible world, it would seem that her conception and Kripke's do not greatly differ. But they do. Marcus explicitly denies that any descriptions are tags, whereas Kripke asserts that some descriptive phrases in arithmetic are rigid, but because they have meaning they are not proper names. His view is thus that some descriptive phrases are rigid but that not all rigid designators are proper names or are identical with what Marcus calls "tags." Thus, "the sum of 2 + 3" rigidly designates the number 5 but is not the name of the number 5. As mentioned above, Kripke holds that certain natural kind terms, for example, "water," are rigid. Marcus withholds the concept of tagging from common nouns, that is, in effect restricts this notion to proper names. Tagging, for her, is thus a narrower concept than rigid designation. Their views about how to deal with fictive names, like "Hamlet" and "Odysseus," also differ. Kripke refuses to speculate about whether such names are rigid. He says: "Concerning rigidity: In many places, both in this preface and in the text of this monograph, I deliberately ignore delicate questions arising from the possible nonexistence of an object" (Kripke 1980, note, 21). Marcus, in contrast, takes a stand; she states that fictive names are to be

96 ,--...., Chapter Four regarded as syntactical expressions. She thus seems to be implying that such names are not tags. The sentences containing such names, she argues, will thus have no existential implications. She says in this connection: One might assign true to the sentence 'Pegasus is a winged horse' in a given world, and the existential generalization to 'Something is a winged horse' will mean nothing more than that some substitution of a syntactical item, for example, the syntactical name 'Pegasus' for 'x' in 'x is a winged horse' generates a sentence that is assigned true .... Such a view has certain interesting uses in a semantics for fictional or mythological discourse and for discourse about putative possibilia freed of a 'commitment' to mythical or possible objects. But it misses a metaphysical point. Identity, which is a feature of objects, cannot be defined in such a semantics. Intersubstitutivity of syntactical items salve veritate does not generate objects, which must be given if identity is to hold. The intersubstituting of 'Father Christmas' and 'Santa Claus' even if truth values are preserved no more generates identical objects than does the intersubstituting of 'not' and 'not not not,' which also holds salve veritate. (Marcus 1993, 213) This is an interesting passage that suggests that sentences about fictive entities can be said to be "true," while at the same time asserting that the application of such a semantic notion has no existential import. Whether this conjunction of ideas is contradictory is a complicated question. Our view is that "true" has its normal semantic function in talk within and about fiction, but since we explained this matter earlier we will not repeat that material here. There is a third respect in which they differ. Marcus follows the early Russell in holding that if a putative proper name does not have a bearer, it is not a genuine name at all. As we read her, she is drawing a distinction between the terms "proper name" and "genuine proper name." As she says: We may mistakenly believe of some syntactically proper name, say "Homer," that it has an actual singular referent and is a genuine proper name, but if its use does not finally link it to a singular object, it is not a genuine name at all. (Marcus 1993, 203) For Marcus, therefore, a designator cannot be a genuine proper name unless there exists or has existed a particular individual that it names. But she occasionally slips in this commitment. In a passage quoted previously, she implies that "Hamlet" is a proper name. Kripke, in contrast, states: By a name here I will mean a proper name, i.e., the name of a person, a city, a country.... We will use the term 'name' so that it does not include definite

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descriptions ... but only those things which in ordinary language would be called 'proper names.' (Kripke 1980, 24) As we interpret these texts, Kripke contends that what is customarily regarded as a proper name is a proper name. He also states that all proper names are rigid designators. Marcus instead holds that an expression is a genuine proper name only if it has a bearer; otherwise it is a syntactic expression, lacking existential import. The difference between the two views is important. It raises the question whether the names of fictive entities are rigid designators or tags. But since neither writer specifically speaks to this issue, we shall say no more about it here, except to add that most direct reference theorists have followed Kripke in holding that proper names (as used in ordinary speech) are rigid. With these exegetical complexities out of the way, let us now return to Russell for a moment. In some of his writings he provides an argument that explains why he thinks proper names mean only the things they name. The argument derives from a deep convi.ction that logic is ultimately concerned with truth. That concern requires that there be singular sentences as well as general sentences. According to Russell, a general sentence like "Some men are mortal" is true only if there is at least one singular sentence, such as "Jones is mortal," that is true. He calls such singular sentences "the values" of general sentences. His basic thought is that if logic consisted only of general sentences, it would be, as it were, suspended in air and never make contact with the real world. But singular sentences do make such contact, and they do it via the direct meaning relationship between Cl proper name and its bearer. Singular sentences such as "Fa" instantiate general sentences like "(3x) (Fx)" and are their truth conditions. We mentioned earlier that at various times, and for basically epistemological reasons, Russell argued that the candidates for "a" are indexicals and demonstrative pronouns, words like "now," "here," "this," and "that." That such words can be regarded as proper names is clearly counterintuitive and simply represents a last-gasp attempt to apply logical formulae to ordinary language. In general, direct reference theorists are much more sensitive to the relationship between logic, including modal logic, and everyday speech. Following Kripke, most of them take proper names to be what in ordinary discourse would be called proper names. Their modification of Russell's view is to return to his original distinction in which "Scott" is a proper name and "the author of Waverley" is not. This result has all sorts of advantages. It enables them to explain, in a way that Russell could not, how misidentification using descriptions can occur.

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5. Two Irreparable Difficulties Almost every philosophical theory rests on principles (presuppositions, assumptions) that its proponents are sometimes aware of and sometimes not. Since these principles typically come in groups, theorists may make them some of them explicit and simply overlook or ignore others. Kripke's writings illustrate the point. He articulates five principles and seems oblivious of another-an important one-that we shall call "the axiom of existence." He never brings all five together as a group but mentions them in different places in his works. We believe it is important to collect them as a unit, since in that form they can be seen to exhibit a contradiction. This means that his version of the direct reference theory can be rendered consistent only if at least one member of the set is abandoned. Since most exponents of the direct reference doctrine accept Kripke's views, we are, in effect, describing a serious liability in the received view about reference in philosophy today. The axiom of existence raises a second problem; it leads to inconsistencies when combined with ordinary beliefs and generates grave misrepresentations about fictive reference. We propose to separate the two liabilities. Let us begin with the five principles. We list them seriatim: (1) Proper names are rigid designators. (2) Rigid designators require the existence of a particular thing for rigidity to occur. (3) Fictive objects do not exist. (4) Some ficti ve objects have proper names. (5) A proper name is what is ordinarily meant by "a proper name." The evidence that Kripke adopts all five principles is to be found in the previous section and we shall not repeat it here. Proposition (1) is a definition. Proposition (2) entails that proper names (that is, rigid designators) require the existence of something to be designated, that is, that one cannot put a label on something that does not exist. This proposition should be distinguished from the axiom of existence which is broader in scope. It states that reference always requires the existence of a referent. The idea that a proper name requires an existing object thus presupposes the axiom. With respect to (3), Kripke, like Marcus, is a realist about fictive objects. Unlike Meinong who thought that fictive entities exist in some sense or other, Marcus and Kripke do not equivocate on this point. For them it is obvious that fictive entities do not exist. Kripke is clearly committed to (4). Of (5), he says: "We will use the term 'name' so

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that it does not include definite descriptions ... but only those things which in ordinary language would be called 'proper names'" (Kripke 1980, 24). The contradiction can be expressed as follows: Some fictive objects have proper names. Proper names are what are ordinarily meant by proper names. Proper names are rigid designators. Rigid designators require the existence of a particular thing for rigid designation to occur. (3) Fictive objects do not exist. (6) Accordingly no fictive objects can be rigidly designated. (7) Therefore no fictive objects have proper names.

(4) (5) (1) (2)

As this formulation indicates, (4) and (7) are incompatible. A question then arises for direct reference theorists: Which principle or principles will they have to sacrifice in order to protect the theory while avoiding a contradiction? They have several options available but none of them is very appealing. Let us see why. They could abandon (4) the notion that some fictive objects have proper names. But to do so would require discarding (5) as well. But to give up (4) and/or (5) would run counter to what seems plainly true, for example, that "Sherlock Holmes" and "Hamlet" are proper names. Indeed, "Hamlet" is still a common name in Denmark. It would thus be difficult to provide a compelling argument that because "Hamlet" is the name of a character in one of Shakespeare's plays, it is not a proper name in that context. As we saw above, Marcus presupposes that it is. Or as Gertrude Stein might have said: "A name is a name is a name in any context." Accordingly, this does not seem like an option they could sensibly exercise. Step (5), as formulated, raises a special problem, but we think it can be neutralized. Kripke claims that a proper name is what is ordinarily meant by "a proper name." But as so stated (5) is probably false. In ordinary speech the term "proper name" is hardly ever used. "Proper name" is a technical term, invented by grammarians, linguists, and other specialists in language. In such disciplines it is used metalinguistically to speak about the grammar of particular object languages, and in particular to distinguish nouns that apply to individual persons, places, and things from so-called "common nouns," like "tiger" and "gold." Ordinary speakers are not in the grammar business and hence do not employ (or need) this metalinguistic terminology. Accordingly they do not say of persons or places that they have proper names. Instead, they speak about the names simpliciter of such entities and

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objects. They will ask: "What is the name of the city you visited last year?" not "What is the proper name of the city you visited last year!" or "What is his/her name?" and not "What is his/her proper name?" An ordinary person hearing the question, "What is his proper name?" would be puzzled by it. Is the interrogator suggesting that the person is using a pseudonym or an alias, for example? Apart from such special contexts, the question would possibly not be understood at all. Despite this objection, we feel that his formulation captures a justifiable distinction. As a technical term, "proper name" serves to distinguish the names of particular persons, animals, cities, and countries, that is, words like "Joan," "Rover," "Minneapolis," and "Italy" from general words like "gold," "aardvark," and "Pithecanthropus erectus." Perhaps (5) could be differently expressed; but the distinction between names that denote particulars and names that denote nonparticulars would still need to be articulated; so nothing philosophically important would be gained by a change in terminology. Kripke could disallow (1), the doctrine that proper names are rigid designators. But to do so would amount to abandoning the theory; hence this is not a viable option for him. He could jettison (2) and thus his adherence to a Russellian semantics. But to do so would run counter to the obvious truth that one cannot rigidly designate that which does not exist. Suppose he were to opt for some form of Meinongian semantics. This would amount to rejecting (3). He would thus be committed to the proposition that fictive objects exist in some sense or other. This would lead to a number of untoward complexities-for example, that there is a special realm in which such objects subsist, or that fictive entities are abstractions, or that there is a special sense of "exist" in which fictive entities exist in fiction, heraldry, or legend. None of these is consistent with his sensible realistic position. Indeed, Russell has given one of the best responses to all such moves when, in referring to Meinong, he wrote: One of the difficulties of the study of logic is that it is an exceedingly abstract study dealing with the most abstract things imaginable, and yet you cannot pursue it properly unless you have a vivid instinct as to what is real. I think otherwise you will get into fantastic things. I think Meinong is rather deficient in just that instinct for reality. Meinong maintains that there is such an object as the round square only it does not exist, and it does not even subsist, but nevertheless there is such an object. and when you say "The round square is a fiction," he takes it that there is an object "the round square" and also there is a predicate "fiction." No one with a sense of reality would so analyze that proposition. He would see that the proposition wants analyzing in such a way that

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you won't have to regard the round square as a constituent of that proposition. (Russell1918, Lecture IV, 233)

We have run through all the possible options, and none of them is feasible. We conclude that the theory cannot be saved and simply should be abandoned. Nonetheless, in saying this, we think that some of the principles mentioned above are true and should be preserved in any theory about fictive reference, including ours. For instance, (4) states that some Hctive entities have proper names. We believe this is true. Proposition (5), with the qualifications about ordinary discourse mentioned above, is also a defensible proposition, and (2) and (3) are beyond challenge. Proposition (2) implies that one cannot put a label on a nonexistent object, and (3) states that fictive objects do not exist. We are left with (1), the principle that proper names are rigid designators. It is clearly the most problematic of the set. Obviously, as mentioned above, it is the heart of the theory and to reject it is to reject the most important version of the direct reference account altogether. Nevertheless, we suggest that this be done. Our view, which discards the notion that proper names are rigid designators, will have all of the advantages of any direct reference theory without its irretrievable baggage. But before turning to it we should now speak about the axiom of existence. It is held by a large number of philosophers of language, including many who are not exponents of direct reference theories. The discussion will help with the transition to our own position.

6. The Axiom of Existence Again In explaining why we reject the notion that proper names are tags or rigid designators, we shall examine an assumption on which this notion depends. John Searle calls this the axiom of existence. In Speech Acts (Searle 1969, 77) he formulates it as follows: Whatever is referred to must exist.

There are a number of variants of the axiom. Strawson, like Searle, is not a proponent of the direct reference view. Yet he also accepts the axiom. He writes: ... it would not in genera! be correct to say that a statement was about Mr. X, or the-so-and-so, unless there were such a person or thing. (Strawson 1956,35)

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The principle can be traced back to the preSocratics, but its locus classicus in philosophy of language can be found in Frege. In a famous passage he asserts: He who does not acknowledge the nominatum cannot ascribe or deny a predicate to it. (Frege 1949,90) As these quotations make plain, all of these writers accept the principle that reference requires the existence of an object. These commitments are similar to those implicitly presupposed by Marcus and Kripke. To quote Marcus again: On this account, "proper name" is a semantical, not merely a syntactical, notion. Reference is supposed. We may mistakenly believe of some syntactically proper name, say "Homer," that it has an actual singular referent and is a genuine proper name, but if its use does not finally link it to a singular object, it is not a genuine name at all. (Marcus 1993, 203) We call this principle, with its variations, an "axiom" because it is not derived from other propositions or explicitly argued for. Like an axiom in logic and mathematics, it is assumed to be true without proof. It is then imported into theories of reference and plays a crucial role in them. Yet, although accepted as true by numerous philosophers of language, it runs counter to the ways in which ordinary persons use language. It is a fact that in everyday discourse we do use language to refer to nonexistent (including fictive) objects by name and to make true (or sometimes false) statements about such objects. It is plainly true to say that Odysseus was married to Penelope, and that Holmes was not married to Watson, and false to say otherwise. Frege's formulation is especially interesting in this connection. His way of defending the axiom is to say that predication cannot occur unless there exists an object to which the predicate can apply. But it is clear that we frequently make predications on fictive objects. We say such things as "Becky Sharp was ambitious" and "Odysseus was prudent and careful." Such predicates as "ambitious" and "prudent" are commonly applied to the nonexistent. According to all versions of the correspondence theory of truth, if a proposition (statement, declaration, assertion, assumption) fails to correspond to a fact it is false; and that is the verdict one must arrive at with respect to the axiom of existence. It is simply false. As these remarks indicate, the axiom does not correspond to the everyday uses of referring terms. Literary critics, and indeed just ordinary readers, frequently discuss the characters of fictive personages, for example Emma in the

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eponymous novel by Jane Austen. In doing so, they use all the resources of everyday speech that they would use in talking about real persons, evaluating the characters of those individuals, alluding to places where they live, identifying those places by name, national origin, size, locus, and so forth. Those fictive names are transferred by a causal chain from generation to generation in just the way that the names of real historical persons are. In such contexts, one is speaking about fictive objects not in any secondary sense of "about," if there be such, but in the same sense of "about" in which we have been speaking about Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell in this book. It is true, of course, that there is a radical difference between fictive and real things with respect to the verification of most statements. With the former, the process of verification normally terminates in fictional texts; with the latter, normally in nonfictional factors. Hamlet is what Shakespeare says he is; in consequence, the verification of conjectures, assertions, and claims about Hamlet usually is decided by what the text says. But not always. Texts sometimes contain problematic features, and fiction is often based on fact. Literary historians and critics will frequently look outside a text to determine who or what was being described in a work of fiction. O. Henry's short story "The Gift of the Magi" begins "One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies." If O. Henry's literary papers exist or if records of the print shop that set the type exist, then a historian could investigate these claims to see if the printed text was a printer's error, an author's error, a joke, or something else. Another example: Many admirers of the Da Vinci Code have visited the historic sites described in that work simply to understand it better. Many of these descriptions are accurate, but some are not. The process of verification in these cases goes beyond the text for these admirers even when they know that the work is fictional. One must also acknowledge that counterfactuals about fictive characters are possible, just as they are about real persons. It has been argued, for instance, that Dr. Watson was a woman, although no such identification appears in the Conan Doyle texts. More generally, what is true is that all the linguistic expressions that are used about real persons, things, and events can and indeed are used in fiction. Thus, the language of meaning and reference is broader than its application to the existing world. In that sense, whatever can be said about nonfictional objects can be said about fictional ones; and whatever can be said in our daily talk outside of fiction can be said within or about fiction. Such talk includes every possible use of ordinary discourse: jokes, lies, true and false statements, direct and indirect references, asides, and the application of names to characters, places, and things. Advocates of

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the axiom of existence would pose unreasonable limits on how ordinary persons speak about the nonexistent. As part of a conception that purports to describe the way reference actually occurs in daily life, it is inadequate and should be given up.

7. Some Advantages What is the significance of the preceding remarks for direct reference theories? As indicated, the axiom of existence is a key element in such theories. As we pointed out above, the notion that a proper name requires a bearer in order to be a rigid designator (or tag) in effect presupposes the axiom of existence. Direct reference theories correctly state that one cannot put a decal on the nonexistent; but the inference they draw from this fact is flawed. They contend that if one cannot label the nonexistent, one cannot use proper names to refer to fictive entities. But the conclusion does not follow. In daily life, reference to fictive objects is widespread. Because that is so, we submit that one must abandon both the conception that proper names are tags (or rigid designators) and the axiom of existence in any of its forms. This would clear the way for a better account of names, including what the tradition calls "proper names," and also of statement-making. There are many advantages in dropping both of these suppositions. Let us quickly run through them. Our own view will thus be free of such liabilities while maintaining what is correct in the direct reference story. First, our alternative account would entail that the names used to refer to fictive entities, such as Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes, and Odysseus, really are names, and are not to be distinguished from the names of nonfictive entities, such as Ruth Marcus and Saul Kripke. We do not need the Russell/Marcus distinction between "genuine proper names" and "proper names" on this account. One would thus have a uniform, rather than a fractionated, account of names. Second, by abandoning the notion that proper names are rigid designators (or tags), we can then use proper names to refer to fictive places and persons; in this respect our view would capture the ways that ordinary speakers employ names. We would thus need no special theory about the use of such names in or about fiction. Third, such a change would entail that we do not have to construe proper names as abbreviated descriptions in fictive contexts. Even better, it would entail that such names are not abbreviations for descriptions whether used in fictive or nonfictive contexts. Whatever the context, they would just be

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names in the ordinary sense of that term. The Russellian option would thus be rendered otiose. Fourth, it would entail that there is no difference in referential power between names and descriptions. The idea that so-called "proper names" refer directly and that descriptions do not is a red herring. One can refer with "equal directness" to a neighbor as "the young woman next door" or as "00lores Wilson." Which one does will depend on various contextual factors, such as whether one knows the name of the person next door or not. It is a fact that as persons age, they tend to forget names and often substitute other locutions, especially descriptions, for them. Fifth, it would explain how misidentification can occur with the use of names, as well with descriptions. "Dolores Wilson" may be the name of more than one person, and misidentification can and does occur with the use of names, as any carrier of the mail can attest. Naming has no special referential sanctity in such cases. Depending on circumstances, both descriptions and proper names can fix a particular reference or can lead to misrepresentation. Sixth, it would entail a greater sensitivity to the nuances of everyday discourse. One of the serious liabilities of the direct reference doctrine is that it attempts to find one and only one relationship--tagging or rigidity-to explain how ordinary persons use names to refer. In everyday speech, reference via names is multifarious. In particular, one should distinguish between such notions as mentioning x and referring to Xj and between both mentioning and referring, and such notions as picking out x and identifying x, which should also be discriminated from one another. These are all different actions. One can pick out African-Americans from Asian-Americans in a group without being able to identify by name or description any particular individual, and each of these actions is different from mentioning or referring to someone or something. It is possible to perform acts of referring without picking anything out or identifying anything or anyone. One can mention by name, say that Jack the Ripper was the serial killer who murdered X, without being able to identify Jack the Ripper, and certainly without being able to pick him out of a group of suspects in a police lineup. Picking out, mentioning, speaking about, referring to, identifying, and other modes of discriminating things from one another are all ways that names work in everyday speech. There is thus no single form of specification, such as tagging or rigid designation, that is the key to understanding how names are used in human communication. Seventh, we can dismiss the Meinongian thesis that fictive objects must exist in some sense or other or we could not name them, refer to them, or

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make true statements about them. If we drop the axiom of existence, we can acknowledge the role or roles played by fictive objects without hedging. Finally, one would not need any such artificial ways of categorizing language as to say that there are assumed "existence operators" for fiction, mythology, or heraldry. Supporters of such a program, for example David Lewis, would urge us to say such things as '''Odysseus' is a proper name in fiction" or "That Odysseus was married to Penelope is true" means that this statement is true in fiction. One need not divide the language into such labyrinthian and artificial compartments. Ordinary language is one, indivisible body of discourse that human beings use to speak about many different kinds of things, both real and nonreal, including mythological, heraldic, and fictional entities. In using it for such purposes, one needs no "existence operators" for marking off spurious boundaries.

8. Our View Our account of reference involves a new way of thinking about the subject. The traditional philosophical approach to the problem begins with an assumption that is never questioned but ought to be. According to this familiar approach, somebody, somewhere, and at sometime advanced a so-called "intuitive view" about how language allows human beings to refer to various persons, places, and objects. According to that view, reference is possible because there is a one-to-one correspondence between the elements comprising a language and the elements that belong to the nonlinguistic world. This correspondence is effected, it is said, by means of a meaning relationship. But this intuitive view leads to a problem: In ordinary life, persons frequently speak meaningfully about that which does not exist. The individuals and places described in fiction often do not correspond to anything that has existed, now exists, or will exist, and yet significant speech about such persons and places does occur. Accordingly, the intuitive and simple account is said to be inadequate as a description of how reference takes place in daily life. The inadequacy is seen as generating a puzzle: "How is it possible to speak meaningfully about the nonexistent, including the personages and places that are referred in works of fiction?" Philosophers are endemically attracted to puzzles. They are the engines that drive much of what we do. So this is a puzzle that had to be addressed. It is a historical fact that the ancient Greeks were well aware of the puzzle. They even gave it a name: "the problem of nonbeing." It is found, for example, in Plato's Sophist, a work composed in the fifth century BeE. Therefore Plato must have already been aware of the so-called "intuitive view" and

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its inadequacies, since he offered a solution to the problem. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with the creation of mathematical logic, Frege and Russell followed in the steps of their distinguished predecessor. Like Plato, they assumed that there was such an intuitive view and that it naturally led to a perplexity about the nonexistent. They believed that by means of the new logic, they could solve the puzzle. It never seems to have occurred to them, as it never seems to have occurred to Plato, to ask: Who propounded or held such a view? Given that Plato had proposed a solution to the puzzle, it would seem that the intuitive theory must have originated before he wrote the Sophist. So we have a historical query that should have an answer: "Who held such a simple and intuitive view about language and reference?" But unfortunately, history remains silent on this point. Plato never mentions the supposed proponent of the intuitive view, and no other writer of the period does either. Even Aristotle who describes in detail the metaphysical conceptions of the early Greek thinkers fails to mention any such person or theory. We take this historical omission seriously. It strongly suggests to us that there never was such a person. Accordingly, it is plausible to believe that this is a case of philosophers inventing a puzzle, a perplexity that is unnecessary if one is to arrive at a perspicuous account of reference, including fictive reference. Bishop Berkeley put it best when he wrote: "We first cast up a dust and then complain we cannot see." The "we" in this passage refers, of course, to us philosophers. Following Berkeley, we suggest that it is possible that for at least twenty-five hundred years, intellectual ingenuity has been expended on a nonexistent doctrine and the nonexistent problem about the nonexistent it presumably creates. It is perhaps somewhat simplistic to speak about philosophers "inventing" a puzzle. The remark suggests that for no apparent reason, such a view was created out of whole cloth and is thus arbitrary. But this is too simple an explanation and does not reflect the deep concerns that bother philosophers and lead to various theories, plausible and otherwise. In this particular case, there are a number of possible diagnoses of what these concerns might be. Daniele Moyal-Sharrock has suggested to us, in private correspondence, an explanation that we find compelling. She states (these are not her own words) that philosophers are captured by a model of how language works that leads them to misrepresent the broad usage that such words as "object," "exist," and "existence" have in everyday speech. They see the referent as necessarily being either a physical or an abstract object rather than as being something like "subject matter," and that they do the same with "exist"understanding it as something necessarily referring to a physical entity. This

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restricted understanding of how such words are used thus excludes for them the possibility that fictive entities can be the subject matters of reference. The idea that language connects with the world by a one-ta-one correspondence between words and objects is the outcome of this conceptual picture. If this explanation carries conviction, as we think it does, it is plausible ta infer that the attempt to solve the puzzle of nonbeing has derailed these thinkers from looking at the concept of reference as it occurs in daily life. They have proposed ways of repairing a theory that may well have never existed. It is also suggestive that none of these repairs is itself free of insuperable difficulties. Looked at from this perspective, it follows that the axiom of existence, and its close companions, tagging and rigid designation, are the source of much philosophical pathology. It is their concerns about existence and nonexistence that have led philosophers to the mistaken ideas that reference requires the existence of objects and that proper names are rigid designators or tags. Their philosophy of language is thus driven by ontological considerations. If instead, we begin from the perspective of language itself-asking what counts as a name in everyday speech and how such names are used-all sorts of philosophical misconceptions vanish. Among these are the notions that proper names are labels and that one can only refer to that which exists. To come, then, directly to our view. We propose to jettison the notion that there is a problem about referring to the nonexistent. Instead, we start by asking: "How does reference actually take place in everyday life?" The answer will include cases about the existent and the nonexistent, including the fictive nonexistent. It will also entail that philosophers do not have to look for a link between language and the world. Those who seek such a connection are like Ponce de Le6n who was searching for the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Just as there is no Fountain of Youth, there is no link, missing or otherwise, to be discovered. Therefore we begin with the question: "How is reference possible about the fictive if there is no such bond as tagging or rigidity that hooks up language and the world?" Our response is a form of contextualism. It has two features: (1) To refer successfully does not require the existence of persons, places, or things; and (2) In agreement with many philosophers, past and present, we believe that the concept of referring includes a substantial variety of subcases, among them mentioning, picking out, and identifying. These are all differing ways of referring to someone or something, and each depends on the contextual situation to determine what, how, and why something is being referred to. Given that this is so, it follows that each case has to be looked at individually and it will depend on the context as to what is being mentioned,

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picked out, or identified. We will support both (1) and (2) with some examples. But in order to illustrate how context often determines meaning, let us start with a different example. Suppose we read or hear this sentence: "She really is beautiful."

Native speakers of English can understand this sentence in the sense that they could translate it into a foreign language that they know. In Italian, for example, it would be rendered as "Ella e davvero bella" and in Japanese as "Ano wa tihen utzkushi desu." But there is an important sense in which they do not know what the sentence means. Is it referring to a ship, to a horse, or to a woman? Is it being used ironically to mean the opposite of what it literally says-and so on. Such ambiguities are usually eliminated by the context in which the locution is uttered. Here are several examples concerning reference in which the context is determinative; in some of these, reference will be successful even where no existent entity is being referred to: 1. Suppose you are asked by the police to pick out a possible malefactor in a lineup. This is a case in which in picking out someone, you are also identifying that person. Picking out and identifying do not always coincide. It is possible to pick red apples out of a bin containing red, yellow, and green apples without identifying anything. But in the line up situation you are doing both. You can do this by pointing at one of the persons and saying something like "He's the one." So in this case there is an existing individual who is both picked out and identified by a process that includes pointing and saying something. 2. Let us now look at a case where nothing is being picked out, and yet something is being identified. Suppose you are asked in an examination in literature to identify a male protagonist in a play. You may be given various written descriptions by the teacher, and you are required to indicate which description corresponds to a particular character (say Creon in Antigone). In this case, since Creon does not exist, you cannot point to him and say "he's the one." You simply supply a name and if you come up with the right name you have identified the character correctly. This case is thus not like picking Creon out of a !ineup. Instead, you are trying to correlate a name with a description. It thus differs from the previous case where in picking an individual out of a lineup, you were identifying that individual. Note also that in this situation, reference does not depend on the existence of the individual or of the object that is being identified. 3. Similar remarks apply to mentioning. Mentioning may take a number of different forms-for example, one can mention someone or something by name or by description. Normally, in such cases one is not pointing to anything. The response is generally verbal. Suppose, for example, that a student is

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asked to mention fathers in literature who have quirky characters. One could use a name "Mr. Bennett" or a describing phrase ("the father of the five daughters in Pride and Prejudice"). In this case in mentioning Mr. Bennett, one is at the same time identifying him. But one can mention someone or something without identifying anything. Suppose the question is: "Which cities did you visit on your recent vacation?" To mention Philadelphia and New York by way of response is not necessarily to identify them. Whether identification is at stake will depend on the query. Suppose it is: "Identify the city which houses the Liberty Bell." In such a case the name, "Philadelphia," is an appropriate response. Now suppose that the question concerns a fictive place: "What is the name of the ideal valley in one of Rider Haggard's books?" The name "Shangri La" will serve to identify the place. In this instance, to say "Shangri La" is to identify Shangri La.

9. Summing Up What conclusions can we draw from this panoply of examples? There are several. I: In our opinion, the most important point is that the process of referring in fictive contexts is the same as it is in nonfictive contexts. As the previous examples show, the process of referring does not depend on whether the individuals or things being referred to exist. 11: A second major result can be divided into two parts. It is evident that reference takes many forms and that these differing ways of referring are contextually determined. Our scenarios also establish that questions and the answers to them require no reference to an underlying bond that ties language to the world. The search for a nexus that explains how language "hooks up" to reality is not only unnecessary but leads to all sorts of paradoxical implications. III: We have suggested that the entire philosophical tradition from at least the time of Plato to the present has pursued a will-o'-the-wisp. The tradition has been driven by ontological considerations that speakers of natural language are not committed to and is wholly inconsistent with the way that reference takes place in everyday life. The theories based on such ontological considerations have led, as one can readily observe, to a multiplicity of confusions. IV: We have turned the tradition on its head. Instead of starting with a problematic puzzle, we have begun by noting that in everyday life, human beings frequently use referential language to refer to the nonexistent. That they do is a fact that any account of reference must acknowledge. We infer from

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this fact that an accurate description of how everyday language is used proves that the processes of reference do not differ whether they are applied to the existent or nonexistent. There are multiple advantages in beginning in this way. One of these is that we avoid the conceptual difficulties, and other entanglements, that description and direct reference theories generate. Another is that we obtain a perspicuous view of the process of referring. V: We agree with the tradition that reference is constituted by a variety of subcases, such as mentioning, picking out, and identifying. We also think, in contrast to the tradition, that these are importantly different and can and should be distinguished. VI: We have no doubt that fictive characters, such as Sherlock Holmes, have never existed, do not now exist, and will not exist. But the nonexistence of such characters is no bar to the full application of everyday speech to them. VII: In this chapter, we have not offered a "theory" in the sense in which such writers as Frege, Russell, Marcus, and Kripke have. Instead, we have provided a description of how reference takes place in both fictive and nonfictive contexts. This description assumes that reference is a complex activity that depends on a variety of factors, such as what question is being asked, what an appropriate response to it would be, and so forth. It is not limited to one process such as tagging or rigidity, and it is not limited to existent entities or places.

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Direct Reference Theories and Natural Kinds

1. The Twin Earth Argument There is a substantial difference between the direct reference theories about proper names and those about natural kind terms. It will be recalled from the previous chapter that a natural kind is a substance or a species that is found in nature as distinct from artifacts created by human beings. Tables and sewing machines are not natural kinds but jade, iron, and cats are. We have argued that the direct reference theories about proper names are responses to a nonexistent problem; but with natural kind terms the situation is different. There is no doubt that numerous philosophers have advanced theories about such locutions. Frege is a notable example. It is thus no accident that direct reference proponents have selected him as a prime target. Whether their arrows hit the quarry is a matter we shall discuss in what follows. In many works of fiction, especially in works of science fiction, there are descriptions of putative natural kinds: snow that is not white and doesn't melt, and elements that don't correspond to anything in the periodic table. These instances are generally so aberrant that even their authors do not assume they are accurate descriptions of actuality or reality. In this chapter, we will discuss a somewhat unusual case-a scenario developed by a philosopher of science that, as he acknowledges, is a specimen of fiction but which differs from traditional science fiction examples in that it purports to say something important about the real world. It is called the "Twin Earth scenario" and is widely considered to be the strongest argument

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in favor of the direct reference theory about natural kind terms. It was first propounded by Hilary Putnam in a paper "Meaning and Reference" (1973). The argument is directed against all versions of the descriptive theory but especially against the Fregean view that every common noun has a sense (Sinn) and also in some case a referent (Bedeutung). We shall give a new diagnosis of why the Twin Earth scenario is a case of fiction and most important why it does not provide serious information about reality. But our route into this diagnosis will be of necessity circuitous. It will amount to exploring both the Twin Earth scenario and the theory of direct reference as it has been extended to cover natural kind terms, such as "jade," "cat," and "dog." In dealing with this extension of the direct reference view, it is important to distinguish what its advocates say about natural kinds and what they say about the terms that denote such kinds. The former inquiry is about certain ingredients in nature and belongs to metaphysics, whereas the latter belongs to linguistic philosophy or the philosophy of language. The distinction is important, and we shall emphasize it in this chapter. There is a propensity by direct reference theorists to conflate linguistic and metaphysical issues, that is, to impose metaphysical conditions on linguistic practice. Let's begin with Frege. For him, the Sinn, which the noun expresses, is a concept, and it is via that concept that one can identify or pick out the referent. Frege's way of describing the relationship between the meaning of a linguistic expression and its referent is to say that meaning determines reference. The direct reference theorists interpret this slogan as suggesting that meanings are conceptual entities. Putnam, and other direct reference theorists, such as Saul Kripke, Zeno Vendler, and David Kaplan, reject this notion. As Putnam wittily puts the matter, "Cut the pie any way you like, 'meanings' just ain't in the head" (Putnam 1975, 227). If one were to use Fregean parlance in describing their views, they would be insisting that the meaning of a natural kind term is its Bedeutung, rather than its Sinn. According to their outlook, the relationship between language and the world is the same whether one is speaking about proper nouns or common nouns; in both cases, those words pick out their referents directly. There is, to be sure, a distinction to be drawn between proper and common nouns: the former are unmarked labels and hence are meaningless, whereas the latter do have meaning-they mean the substances or species to which they refer. Thus, the meaning of the word "water" is the substance water. Putnam asks us to imagine a twin earth, a planet exactly like ours, except in one respect that we shall mention in a moment. It will be the same size, have the same appearance, have on it counterparts of each person who now exists on Earth. There will thus be a Twin Earth Ruth Marcus and a Twin

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Earth Saul Kripke, and so on. Indeed an observer, looking at the two planets from an external standpoint, would find them indistinguishable. So in the history of Twin Earth there would have been a Twin Thales and a Twin Plato, and one of them would have claimed that everything is water and the other would have written a book identical in name and content with the Republic. On Twin Earth there will also be a substance that Twin Earthlings call "water." In terms of its observable properties and its uses it will be indistinguishable from water. It will be a transparent, potable liquid that is nonviscous. But there will be one difference between these two worlds. When this substance on Twin Earth is subjected to chemical analysis, it will be found not to be composed of H 20, but of another combination of ingredients, XYZ, that differ from H 20. Putnam draws a number of inferences about Frege's views on reference from this scenario. He asserts that Earthling and Twin Earthling can have the same concept of water in mind, namely that it is a substance having such observable properties as potability, transparency, and fluidity; and that the reference (Bedeutung) of that concept is a liquid whose constituents are H 20 on Earth and XYZ on Twin Earth. From this description he infers that the liquids referred to by the same term, "water," are different substances; and therefore, that the Fregean view is mistaken. This last inference follows, he argues, because Earthling and Twin Earthling were grasping the same concept (that is, had the same meaning in mind) and yet that concept picked out two different referents, the liquids composed of H 20 and XYZ. It follows that meaning does not determine reference, as Frege had claimed; and, that even deeper, his view was wrong in holding that "water" meant the liquid having certain observable properties. What "water" meant had nothing to do with any such Fregean Sinn or meaning but was wholly determined by what water is: a matter that was resolved by the scientific discovery early in the nineteenth century by Gay-Lussac and von Humboldt that water is composed of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. Because the liquid substance on Twin Earth has the same observable properties as water but a different chemical composition, it is not water. Frege's mistake according to this scenario was to think that reference is determined by meaning, and that the meaning of "water" is determined by its observable properties. But as the Twin Earth scenario shows, the liquid on Twin Earth (which we shall henceforth call "mizu") had exactly those observable properties but a different chemical composition; so mizu is not water. It is instead a fictional natural kind. Putnam concludes that the observable properties of any natural kind do not determine its real nature. It is thus possible to imagine an albino zebra which is not striped and is not variegated in color; yet its genetic makeup

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determines it to be a zebra and not its observable features. Marcasite (iron pyrite) looks exactly like gold, and yet has a different chemical composition, so it is not gold; and with the naked eye the mineral chrysoprase cannot be distinguished from jade, but it is not jade. Once again the observable characteristics of these natural kinds do not determine their real natures. This is true of every natural kind: panthers, roses, gold, and so on. In the case of water, its observable characteristics are identical with those of mizu; but because water and mizu are composed of different ingredients, they are not identical substances. According to Putnam, the Twin Earth scenario leads to two possible theories about the meaning of "water." (1) One might hold that "water" was world-relative but constant in meaning (that is, the word has a constant relative meaning). On this theory, "water" means the same in W 1 and W z; it's just that water is HzO in W 1 and water is XYZ in W 2• (2) One might hold that water is H 20 in all worlds (the stuff called "water" in W z isn't water) but "water" doesn't have the same meaning in W, and W 2• If what was said before about the Twin Earth case is correct, then (2) is clearly the correct theory. When I say "this (liquid) is water," the "this" is, so to speak, a de re "this"-that is, the force of my explanation is that "water" is whatever bears a certain equivalence relation (the relation we called "same L" above) to the piece of liquid referred to as "this" in the actual world. (Putnam

1977, 127-128)

As these passages indicate, the options that Putnam mentions are, first, that "water" means the same on Twin Earth and Earth, but that the substances the term refers to are different; and, second, that "water" means different things on the two planets because water is H 20 in all worlds. Putnam says that (2) is clearly (note this term) the correct theory. In his view, the meaning of "water" as used on Twin Earth is thus different from the meaning of "water" as used on Earth. For Putnam, the scenario shows that "water" is a homonym-a word with the same sound and spelling but a different origin and meaning. The word "pen" in English is a homonym; it can refer to an instrument for writing or to an enclosure for certain sorts of animals, such as pigs. So, for Putnam, "water" means XYZ on Twin Earth and H 20 on Earth and is therefore a homonym. This is a compelling analysis, almost universally accepted by philosophers of language and philosophers of science. But in our judgment it is wrong and we shall now try to show why. The main arguments against his

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view follow in the next section; but here we can offer four brief objections to this conclusion. First, it is not clear what Putnam means by saying "meanings just ain't in the head." Let us suppose he is speaking about the brain. Then since the brains of Earthlings are largely composed of water and the corresponding parts of the brains of Twin Earthlings are largely composed of mizu, their brain states would differ. Since water has a different molecular composition than mizu, Earthlings and Twin Earthlings do not have the same thing "in the head" when they know the meaning of the term "water." So Putnam's example does not get off the ground. His theory does no better if a concept rather than a brain state is that which is in their heads; for the relevant concept that Earthlings have determines that they pick out water as water while the concept that Twin Earthlings have determines that they pick out mizu as mizu. The use of the vocable "water" in each case is irrelevant. Second, it follows from Putnam's account that before it was discovered, water was composed of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen that no speakers of English, either on Earth or Twin Earth, knew what the word "water" meant. As he says: In 1750 or in 1850 or in 1950 one might have pointed to, say, the liquid in Lake Michigan as an example of "water." What changed was that in 1750 we would have mistakenly thought that XYZ bore the relation same L to the liquid in Lake Michigan, whereas in 1800 or in 1850 we would have known that it did not. (Putnam 1977, 123)

Putnam's view seems to us to be mistaken. If speakers of English before 1800 did not know what "water" meant, they could not have communicated with one another; they could not have sensibly given or obeyed such commands as "Don't spill the water" and "Bring me a glass of water." But since they did communicate with one another in saying these things and without knowing anything about the molecular structure of water, it follows that they did know what "water" meant. Our view is that what a word "means" is a function of its use. The idea that the meaning of a word is its referent has long been disavowed by philosophers and linguists. Putnam's thesis is a version of this discarded theory and therefore is unacceptable. It is also worth mentioning here that Putnam is using the phrase "know what water is" with a specificity that begs the question about the meaning of "water." The phrase "know what water is" is semantically ambiguous. A speaker can use the phrase in a scientific or quasi-scientific context to refer to the chemical structure of water, but a speaker can equally use the phase in

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other contexts to mean "know whether something is water" or "know how to pick out water." Suppose a person who wishes to put water in the radiator of her automobile has three liquids in clear glass containers to choose from. She sniffs each, holds each up to the light and lightly tastes each. She discovers that one is water, another is chicken soup, and one is wine. "Knowing what water is" can be used in other ways than to pick out the chemical constituents of water. A third argument in opposition to Putnam's conclusion might be called "A Functional Argument." Its thrust is that in some cases function overrides composition in determining what a word means. The thesis can be illustrated by the word "table." Tables, of course, are not natural kinds, but they are useful examples for bringing out the force of the objection in a powerful way. Tables are made of all sorts of different materials-wood, glass, steel-yet despite their differing compositions they are called "tables" because of the function they serve. Let's apply this analogy to the Twin Earth scenario. Suppose that since 1950 airplanes have been flying between Earth and Twin Earth. On each planet these craft fill tanks with water to be used by their passengers and crew members for drinking and washing. Suppose also that by 1950 it is known that the substances called "water" on the two earths have different compositions. It is certainly possible that in such a circumstance, function will supersede composition in determining the meaning of "water." The case will be like that of "table" or to pick a natural kind term, like that of "jade." "Jade" denotes a mineral having two different compositional forms: jadeite and nephrite. Yet both forms are commonly called "jade" by merchants and even by experts. It is thus not at all "clear" as Putnam asserts that option (2) is the right option. It is at least plausible that "water" will have the same meaning on both planets. There are other examples to illustrate how function may supplant composition in determining the meaning of natural kind terms. In Roman Catholicism a valid baptism requires water, where "water" is not defined in terms of its chemical composition but in terms of its being commonly accepted as water, that is, as a naturally occurring clear, potable liquid suitable for cleansing. It is something other than oil, chicken soup, or gin. It is plausible that ritual activities in other cultures have similar understandings of words for naturally occurring things. A fourth argument against Putnam's view turns on a vagueness or ambiguity in this passage: When I say "this (liquid) is water," the "this" is, so to speak, a de re "this"-Le., the force of my explanation is that "water" is whatever bears a certain equiva-

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lence relation (the relation we called "same L" above) to the piece of liquid referred to as "this" in the actual world." (Putnam 1977, 128)

The "de re" use of "this (liquid)" is not as clear as Putnam thinks it is. The speaker could be referring to this liquid as the liquid that has the properties of being clear, potable, nonviscous, and suitable for cleaning. This is compatible with the referent of "this (liquid)" being either water or mizu. Human intentions are not as determinate as Putnam suggests; and to assume that "this (liquid)" refers only to H 20 begs the question.

2. Two Serious Problems We now turn to two deeper criticisms. The Twin Earth scenario, as Putnam points out, belongs to that class of writings that are commonly known as science fiction. As far as anyone knows there is no such planet as Twin Earth, and there is no substance on it that mimics water. The question that such a fictional narrative raises is to what degree, or even whether, any such nonfactual supposition can enhance one's understanding of the real world. So how seriously should we take it? Frege is trying to give a realistic description of the connection between language and the world. Can any fictional story cast doubt on that account? We know, of course, that fiction in its various guises (novels, movies, plays, visual reality) can move human beings emotionally; cause them to laugh, cry, and have nightmares and other fears. But can fiction negate scientific or philosophical theories about the real world and its various properties? This is what Putnam i.s proposing to do by means of the Twin Earth scenario. The issue is complex. We know that dreams, for example, can result in new discoveries and new theories, including scientific theories. One such celebrated case is that of the nineteenth-century chemist Friedrich August Kekule, and we shall describe what is known as Kekule's Dream below. Whether dreams should. be characterized as fiction is problematic, but let us suppose they can be. Then dream events seldom, if ever, produce counterexamples to scientific theories. Kekule's gave him a new idea, an answer to a puzzle about organic chemistry that he was grappling with. But it did not alter the facts in the way that Putnam's scenario wishes to do. We are told that Kekule (1829-1896) had a serious interest in architecture. According to some scholars, his early training in architecture helped him to conceive the structural theories that became the groundwork of organic chemistry. After entering the University of Giessen, intending to become an architect, he came under the influence of Justus von Liebig (one of

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the discoverers of geometrical isomers) and switched to chemistry. One night in 1865 Kekule dreamed of the benzene molecule as a snake biting its tail while in a whirling motion. From that vision his concept of the benzene ring was born, and the facts of organic chemistry known up to that time fell into place. The snake graphically represented the structure of the benzene molecule as a hexagon with a carbon atom at each of its points. His dream can be considered a metaphor; the carbon atoms are a snake chasing its tail. Let us approach the relevance of the Twin Earth story in yet a different way: "Is there any limit to the sorts of objects or happenings that can occur in fiction?" Fiction can include all sorts of things that one never observes in the real world. It can describe centaurs, time machines that transport twentieth-first-century human beings into the Middle Ages, shuttles that can convey human beings through black holes into other universes where they can meet their parents before they are born, and so forth. These are products of the imagination. Fiction seems at first glance unlimited in what it can depict. But despite the wide scope allowed to such fantasies, one wonders whether there are any limits to its capacities. We suggest that there are. Consider the following cases. It is a necessary truth that every husband is married and a necessary truth that every bachelor is not married. On the assumption that the words composing these sentences have their normal meanings, we ask: Is it possible that in fiction there can be such things as unmarried husbands and married bachelors? We assert that there cannot be because it is impossible to understand such putative concepts. It is impossible to understand these words because they embody contradictory notions. The definition of "husband" thus rules out that any husband can be unmarried. The world depicted in any fictive narrative is a possible world. By definition, a logically impossible object is one that cannot exist in any world. It follows that no such entity can exist even in fiction. We turn now to a second problem: to a fictional case which is not that of a logically impossible entity but that of an empirically impossible entity, namely mizu. Physicists and chemists whom we have consulted state that there are no known cases of substances that have the same observable properties and yet have different chemical constituents. What elements or substances do the letters X, Y, and Z represent in the Twin Earth account? Putnam does not answer the question. He is concerned only to explain that they differ from H 20. Let us assume that X, Y, and Z exist on Earth. Suppose they are helium, nitrogen, and argon, which like hydrogen and oxygen are gases. But even if X, Y, and Z exist on Earth, they cannot compose a liquid which has all the observable properties of water. Rubbing alcohol looks like water, but a sniff quickly establishes that it is not water. Mizu might have some of

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the properties of water; perhaps it is transparent in small quantities, flows readily, and falls on Twin Earth as rain. But it cannot have all of them. That possibility is ruled out by contemporary science which states that it is impos, sible for a substance to have all the observable properties of water and yet not be composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Chemists do point out a converse re' lationship. There are cases in which wholly distinct substances are composed of the same ingredients. Such substances are called "geometrical isomers," and we shall say more about them below. Isomers are found in nature, whereas mizu is not. It is described by Putnam as having all the observable characteristics of water and yet is not composed of H 20. But science tells us that in the real world the combination is not possible. Mizu thus belongs to that category of fictive entities that violate empirical laws: centaurs and perpetual, motion machines among them. That this is so then raises the question of whether any such fictional story can affect a realistic account, such as Frege's, about the actual world. Our conclusion is that it cannot. Just as centaurs and mermaids tell us nothing about the physical attributes of human beings, so mizu is irrelevant with respect to water. In our view, we can with impunity ignore the supposed importance of the Twin Earth scenario.

3. Some Further Criticisms As the Twin Earth scenario indicates, Putnam is dealing with two different questions: what the word "water" means and what water is. Both he and Kripke frequently tend to conflate these questions, because they presuppose that the debate about what the word "water" means will be settled once it is determined what water is. Although this relationship between language and the world seems like an intuitively plausible principle, it is subject to irremediable objections. The most important of these is that it destroys the central point of the Twin Earth scenario. Mizu cannot be an exact counterpart of water, since, as we have just explained, nothing having all the observable properties of water can exist that is not composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Moreover, if the principle that a word means its referent were correct, it would replicate the simple, intuitive idea about how language connects with the world that we described in the previous chapter. According to that intuitive notion, there is a one-to-one correspondence between certain units of language and certain objects in the nonlinguistic world-a hookup that is instituted via a meaning relationship. From the time of Plato to the present, that simple, intuitive theory has been disavowed by philosophers. It leads to a presumed puzzle about how one can refer to the nonexistent, a puzzle that, we have argued, is wholly fictitious. Yet this simple, intuitive theory is now

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apparently being advanced by Putnam with respect to the meaning of natural kind terms. We can thus discount the Twin Earth scenario as a serious objection to Frege's descriptivism.

4. Is Water H 2 0? Despite these problems with the Twin Earth scenario, it may be that what Putnam and Kripke want to say about existing natural kinds is nonetheless correct. Therefore let us pursue that aspect of their view in more detail, asking what they take water to be. Their answer identifies water with H 20. Kripke says, for example: ... I want to go on to the more general case, which I mentioned in the last lecture, of some identities between terms for substances, and also the properties of substances and natural kinds. Philosophers have, as I've said, been very interested in statements expressing theoretical identifications; among them, that light is a stream of photons, that water is H 20, that lightning is an electrical discharge, that gold is the element with the atomic number 79. (Kripke 1980, 116)

Putnam's view is indistinguishable from Kripke's. As he writes: Once we have discovered that water (in the actual world) is H 20, nothing counts as a possible world in which water isn't H 20. (Putnam 1977, 130)

We think both Kripke and Putnam would agree that the expression "water is H 20" exactly captures what they intend. Moreover, both of them take this locution to be an identity sentence, so that the word "is" means "is identical with." Kripke states he is speaking of "identities" between terms for substances and adds that "philosophers have been very interested in statements expressing theoretical identifications." There is no doubt that both writers mean that water is identical with H 20. But if that is so, the theory is unacceptable as the following counterexample will show:

(j): "Water=H 20" (ii): "Ice=H20" (iii): Therefore, "Water= Ice." The conclusion follows as an instance of the valid argument that if A = B and B=C, therefore A=C. But since the conclusion of the argument is false,

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at least one of its premises must be false (in fact both are). That the conclusion is false is obvious. Clearly, water is not identical with ice. I can skate on ice but not on water. Water is a liquid and ice is not; water is transparent and ice is not. Indeed, water and ice stand in a virtually unique relationship to one another. Nearly all other liquid substances have solids that are more dense than they are. But water is more dense than ice, and therefore ice will always float on water. Note that the argument could be extended by adding the premise: "Steam=H 20." If we add this premise we can infer that "ice=sream," which is plainly false. It also follows that it is false that steam is identical with water, even though they have the same chemical composition. If Putnam believes that water is identical with H 20 and steam is identical with H 20, he would have to subscribe to the belief that ice is identical with steam. What is the import of such counterexamples for the Putnam-Kripke theory? Since patently, water is not identical with ice, or ice with steam, and since both water and ice, and steam and ice, have the same chemical components, it follows that the difference between them cannot be accounted for in terms of their material composition. It is their observable properties that allow us to make the distinction: these tell us that when water freezes, it becomes ice; that ice is invariably cold but that water is not, and that water, in small quantities, is transparent whereas ice is not. None of these features is an underlying chemical component of water. Yet they serve to allow us to distinguish water from ice and steam from ice. Any finer grained scientific analysis, in terms of crystallinity, say, will have to recognize and conform to these macroscopic features. It follows that water is not identical with H 20, that water is not identical with ice, or ice with steam. All this is consistent with maintaining what is approximately true, namely that the chemical composition of water is H 20. (We say "approximately" true because the composition of water is more complicated than they indicate, as we shall demonstrate later.) For that statement which speaks about the composition of water is not an identity sentence. Putnam-Kripke's basic mistake is to have inferred from the fact that water is a substance composed of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen that it is identical with the union of those components. But as our counterexample shows, this is a sheer mistake, having such paradoxical consequences as that steam and ice, and water and ice, are identical.

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The error arises, at least in part, from a failure to make certain distinctions that are crucial in understanding the science involved. Putnam says: Suppose, now, that I have not yet discovered what the important physical properties of water are (in the actual world)-Le., I don't yet know that water is H 20. I may have ways of recognizing water that are successful (of course, I may make a small number of mistakes that I won't be able to detect until a later stage in our scientific development), but not know the microstructure of water. If I agree that a liquid with the superficial properties of "water" but a different microstructure isn't really water, then my ways of recognizing water cannot be regarded as an analytical specification of what it is to be water. (Putnam

1977,129)

In this passage Putnam is asserting that water is H 20 and that it is to be identified with its "microstructure," implying with this last remark that H 20 is the microstructure of water. In contrast to Putnam, scientists distinguish between the gross or physical properties of a substance, such as the rigidity of iron, from its chemical properties, such as its disposition to rust when, in the presence of air, it comes in contact with water. These observable properties, whether gross or chemical, are to be distinguished from its chemical structure. The term "structure" is used to speak both about the internal spatial arrangements of atoms within a molecule and about the internal spatial arrangements of the molecules within a substance. If one is speaking about a molecule of water, then the microstructure of that molecule would be the particular (and characteristic) arrangement of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms within it. If one is speaking about a natural kind such as pure water, the microstructure of the substance will be certain characteristic spatial relationships between its molecules. In the case of steam, this is a virtually random set of relationships-the molecules move almost independently of one another. In the case of water, the molecules are condensed into a complex system, characterized by much molecular movement and tumbling; in the case of ice, the molecular arrangement is regular and crystalline. Putnam's term, "microstructure," blurs these distinctions and leads to serious confusions. The basic point is that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the physical, chemical, or gross properties of water and its chemical components. Thus, water, ice, and steam all have the same chemical components. Yet their gross properties are different, ice being rigid and water not. The example is directly relevant to the point we have been stressing above. Ice, water, and steam are all identical in chemical composition, but their physical properties are distinct. If each of them were identical with

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its chemical composition, each would be identical with the other, and then by Leibniz's Law of Identity, each would have identical gross properties. Since they obviously do not, it follows that none of them is identical with its chemical components (or with its "microstructure" as Putnam uses that term). One cannot therefore distinguish between them in terms of their chemical composition. It follows that Putnam is wrong in holding that water is identical with H 20, and indeed that natural kinds in general are to be identified with their chemical composition. The point also applies to mizu and other sorts of fictional natural kinds. His mistake stems from not distinguishing the propositions "water is identical with H 20," and "water is composed of H 20" from one another. The "is" in "water is H 20" is not the "is" of identity but the "is" of composition.

5. Rebuttal by Kripke and Putnam How might Kripke and Putnam respond to these criticisms? We can think of two arguments they might offer. The first we shall call the "Let It Stand Argument." Take an ice cube, they might say, and just leave it on a table. In a few minutes it will begin to melt, and the result will be water. Nothing in the ice cube has changed. It was water to begin with, and it is still water after thawing. Their conclusion is that all forms of water are collections of H 20 molecules. That is the point of the identity thesis, and they claim it is supported by what science has discovered about H 20. This argument has a strong initial plausibility, but it is unsound for several reasons. Most importantly, it contains a false premise-that is, that nothing in the ice cube has changed. In fact, the contrary is true. lee is rigid; so that the cube that began with a crystalline structure has altered its internal structure in becoming a liquid. An object that is inert, hard, opaque, and cold to the touch has changed into a fluid that is transparent, tepid, and flows. What is true, as we have stressed, is that ice and water have the same basic chemical ingredients. But that truth does not entail that they are therefore internally (or for that matter, externally) the same. The point can be brought out by means of an analogy. Suppose we have a box containing some books. It is a box not because it is made of any particular material, such as cardboard or wood, but because of its shape and function. Our box is constructed of a flat bottom and four upright sides. Some boxes may have a lid or cover, but this is not a necessary feature. Now suppose we remove the books and flatten the box, so what we have is exactly the same quantity of cardboard as we had before, but now it lies flat on the floor in front of us. It does not have four upright sides. It will no longer hold books.

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It is no longer a box. The analogy to the melting of the cube of ice is relevant here. A cube has become a different entity once its shape has been drastically altered. Like the box that has been flattened, and is no longer a box, the cube is no longer a cube and indeed is no longer ice. Suppose we had marked several cubes of ice in a glass with numbers to distinguish them from one another. After they had dissolved they could no longer be distinguished. The Let It Stand Argument does not support the identity thesis. Melting has not maintained identity. In our judgment, this objection by itself constitutes a good reason for rejecting the identity thesis. The second we shall call "The Astronomical Argument." According to it, there are two uses of "water." In the first use, it denotes a fluid that is transparent, tasteless, and odorless. But the second use is generic: one can speak of frozen water, water vapor, and liquid water. On that use, ice is frozen water, steam is water vapor, and the familiar fluid is liquid water. Each of these items is thus water, but in different states. Astronomers might describe Mars, for example, as possessing frozen water at one of its poles and liquid water at its equator. TIle argument concludes that the common element that a solid, a gas, and a fluid contain is water in this generic sense. This argument also has something to be said in its behalf. It is true that not only scientists but ordinary speakers sometimes refer to ice as frozen water and to steam as water vapor. The argument gets some of its authority by suggesting that frozen orange juice is orange juice, and pari passu that frozen water is water. But can we say that vaporized orange juice is juice? The gas that emanates from boiled orange juice is not normally described as juice. More generally, our objection is that from such usages, it does not follow that ice is identical with water or that steam is identical with water. The reason for this is that three new complex terms have been introduced. Each contains "water" but also an observational term, such as "frozen" as a second constituent. We thus do not have one locution, such as "water" that is common to the descriptions of ice and steam but three different terms that cannot in each case simply be reduced to "water." Kripke and Putnam have in effect substituted "water" for "H20." What they really mean is that ice is frozen H 20, and with certain reservations, to be specified in a forthcoming section, we agree. As we have stressed throughout this chapter the common constituent of ice, steam, and water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen molecules. But it is not water, simpliciter. There is a second objection to the argument. In referring to ice as "frozen water" and to steam as "water vapor," one is mentioning the overt features of these things. One is no longer characterizing ice and steam simply as H 20 but as having such and such observable features. The existence of these fea-

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tures is determined by various states of the world, for example, whether the temperature is below zero degrees Celsius, and so forth. By introducing such terms as "frozen" and "liquid," the Putnam/Kripke approach discriminates ice from water by referring to their observable properties. We conclude that this argument, like the first, carries no conviction.

6. Isomers As their remarks abundantly confirm, Putnam and Kripke contend that it is the microcomponents that determine the nature of any natural kind, whether fictional or not, as well as the meaning of the term denoting that kind. This is a metaphysical claim, not a linguistic one. But it is false in any case. Isomers provide a decisive counterexample to their thesis. Isomers are not phases or states of substances but independent substances that have the same microcomponents. We have discussed this topic in previous writings (Stroll 1998b, 89-97), but the objection is so important it is worth repeating here .. Isomerism was first discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century. At that time, chemical theory rested on what seemed like a plausible principle: that all differences in the qualities of substances were due to differences in their chemical composition. But in 1824-25, two chemists (Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wohler) analyzing two different, pure substances (fulminic acid and cyanic acid, respectively) discovered that the composition of both compounds was the same. It was Jons Jakob Berzelius {1779-1848} who shortly afterwards introduced the term "isomerism" to denote the existence of substances having different qualities, in both chemical and physical behavior, and yet being composed of the same components. These discoveries were consistent with the atomic theory of matter since a compound containing the same number of atoms of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen as another might differ in internal structure by the different arrangements of those atoms and the molecules they form. Water, ice, and steam are, of course, not isomers, but the mistake about identifying them with H 20 is analogous to the mistake one would make if one were to identify isomers with one another. Isomers are substances having exactly the same chemical components but with radically different arrangements of those ingredients. Thus, ethyl alcohol whose chemical formula is C 2H sOH and methyl ether whose chemical formula is CH 30CH 3 are each composed of two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms, and one oxygen atom. But the atoms bind to each other in different ways. The substances in question are not interconvertible, and have different properties, such as their melting and boiling points, potability for humans,

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and so forth. Many of their properties are observable. There is no way of predicting these differences merely from knowing their chemical constituents. Since they are not artifacts but parts of the real world, they are natural kinds as most linguists or philosophers use the term. The example shows that Putnam and Kripke are wrong in holding that natural kinds are identical with their chemical components since these are the same in all cases of isomers.

7. Why Water Isn't H20 In contemporary philosophy there are not one but two different theses that are expressed by the words "Water is H 20." The first of these maintains that water is the same thing as H 20, so that the word "is" in that expression is the "is" of identity. This is the use of "is" we find in "Jekyll is Hyde" or "Seven is seven." According to proponents of this view, "Water is H 20" is a necessary truth. However, they do not claim that "Water is H 20" is true by definition. As Hilary Putnam says, it was "discovered that water (in the actual world) is H 20." That this was discovered precludes that the issue was settled by definition, just as the discovery that Jekyll is Hyde was not resolved by definition but required a police investigation. But in each case what was discovered was nonetheless a necessary truth. It is thus possible, as Putnam tells us, "that a statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemically contingent" (Putnam 1977, 128). The second thesis, "the compositional thesis" holds that the "is" in "Water is H 20" is the "is" of composition. That is, it maintains that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. This is the "is" in such expressions as "The chair is oak" and "The statue is travertine and marble." The first of these two sentences does not mean that the chair is identical with oak but that it is made up, or composed, of oak, and similar comments apply to the statue and its constituent materials. As so construed, "Water is H 20" is a contingent and not a necessary truth. Since no statement can be both necessary and contingent, it is evident that the identity and compositional theses are incompatible. The latter claims less and according to its proponents is therefore more plausible. While the two theses agree in holding that each and every molecule of water is H 20, they disagree over whether water is identical with this set of molecular ingredients or is composed of them. The thrust of the isotope argument is that pure water is composed of molecules other than those specified by the identity and compositional theses, and accordingly, that both the identity and compositional theses are mistaken. It may be useful here to say a few words about isotopes. Atoms of the same element can have different numbers of neutrons, and these variants are

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called "isotopes." The most common isotope of hydrogen has no neutrons at all. There are two other isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium (which has one neutron) and tritium (which has two). Deuterium is twice as heavy as ordinary hydrogen and is often called "heavy hydrogen." The convention now used for referring to an isotope is to write it this way: A xz ' Z is the atomic number, X is the name of the element, and A is the number of neutrons and protons combined and is called "the mass number." For instance, ordinary hydrogen is written IHI> deuterium is 2 H1 , and tritium is 3 H1 . Atoms with two few neutrons tend to be unstable. To say they are unstable means that their nuclei decay by emitting radiation in the form of particles or electromagnetic waves. Unlike hydrogen and deuterium, tritium is unstable and is therefore radioactive. When tritium or 3 H1 decays, it turns into a stable element, 31-1eZ' which is an isotope of helium. The formula that roughly describes the decay of tritium into helium is 3 H1 =31-1e2' We say roughly because the formula does not accurately represent all the particles involved in the process, which involves tritium's losing an electron, called a "beta particle." However, this is a minor complication that does not affect the basic description just presented. When deuterium combines with oxygen, it forms a molecule, deuterium oxide, or 0 20. A collection of O 2 molecules is called "heavy water." Heavy water is visually indistinguishable from collections of H 20 molecules. But its properties differ from such collections. Deuterium oxide has a molecular weight of about 20. (This is calculated by adding the weight of oxygen which is 16 to that of deuterium which is 2. Since in heavy water there are two atoms of deuterium in each molecule, the sum of 4 plus 16 equals 20.) Heavy water is comparatively rare in pure water, since the latter contains only one atom of deuterium for every 6,760 atoms of hydrogen. In 1934 another isotope of hydrogen was discovered that investigators called "tritium." This also bonds with oxygen, forming the molecule TzO, which is heavier than deuterium oxide and is very rare in nature. To complicate matters still further, there are molecules whose chemical composition is symbolized as HDO, and as we have seen, there is an isotope of oxygen (oxygen 18) that bonds with various isotopes of hydrogen to form molecules that differ from any described above. If all impurities (sand, mud, oils, salts, chemicals, metals, etc.) were eliminated from the liquids found in the world's oceans, the substance obtained would be what Kripke and Putnam call "pure water." This they claim is identical with HzO. But pure water would not be composed solely of H 20. As the aforementioned brief history of chemistry indicates, it is a mixture of various kinds of molecules such as HzO, O 2 HDO, and TzO, all closely resembling each other but nonetheless different. These various molecules have different

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molecular weights, and collections of them have different boiling points, potability for humans, etc. and they are therefore not identical. The statement that pure water is HzO is neither a necessary nor a contingent truth, since heavy water and these other assemblages of molecules are not identical with or composed of HzO. Pure water is thus like jade. It comes in various forms, not all of which are collections of H 20 molecules. Kripke and Putnam's thesis that water= H 20 and the compositional thesis can both be rejected because, like many philosophical conceits, they are based on too limited a gamut of examples.

8. What Is Water? But even if these theses are unacceptable as they stand, is it possible that they could be resuscitated in a different form? As the preceding discussion reveals, it is true that all these different molecules are composed of combinations of hydrogen and oxygen. Is it then possible that both theses could be saved by reformulating them as maintaining that the only constituents of pure water are molecules consisting wholly of combinations of hydrogen and oxygen, plus their isotopes? As so reformulated, the identity thesis would assert that it is a necessary truth that pure water consists of the aggregate of HzO, 0zO, HOO, and TzO molecules, plus whatever other molecular combinations of the isotopes ofhydrogen and oxygen there are. The compositional thesis would more modestly hold that this is a scientific truth. But this reformulation would not save the identity thesis since it is conceivable that other isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen might be discovered in the future. According to the shell model of present physical theory this is unlikely, but it is always conceivable that such discoveries might take place. If this is conceivable, it cannot be a necessary truth that pure water consists of the aggregates of the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen that have been discovered up to now. It would be like claiming that it is a necessary truth that the number of planets is nine. The situation is entirely different with the compositional thesis. At the moment only three isotopes of hydrogen (H, D, and T) and three isotopes of oxygen 16 , 17 , and 018) are known to exist in nature, though there are other short-lived isotopes of oxygen that have been made in laboratories. So the number of combinations of hydrogen and oxygen that form water molecules existing in nature is limited. It is thus true, as far as present scientific knowledge goes, that pure water is composed of this limited set of molecules. This truth is in effect a generalization of the compositional thesis. The an-

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swer to the question "What then is water?" is that pure water is a substance composed of this set of hydrogen and oxygen molecules. But this conclusion is, of course, radically different from either the identity and compositional theses in their original forms. It supports our contention that there is no philosophically interesting sense of "is" in which it is true that pure water is HzO.

9. Twin Earth and Mizu Revisited We stated early in this chapter that the Twin Earth scenario is a species of science fiction. The best works in this genre tend to fuse scientific data with the characterizations of events and personages that are often chimerical. It is a tribute to the genius of such authors as Isaac Azimov and Ray Bradbury that they can make these seemingly incompatible features fit into a seemingly coherent format having a high degree of plausibility. The reader tends to accept the scientific data as lending credibility to the rest of the narrative which, if taken by itself, would lack conviction. As we have mentioned previously, fiction takes multifarious forms. It can deal with events and conversations that never happened while at the same time referring to persons who have really existed (for example, Napoleon or Alexander Hamilton) although they never participated in these events or conversations. At its extreme, it may describe entities that are completely the products of the author's imagination. The Twin Earth scenario is an example in which realism and fiction are mixed in complicated ways. Since no such entity as Twin Earth and no such substance as mizu are known to exist anywhere in the universe, they are creations of speculation and can plausibly be described as fictional. But there are realistic descriptions in the scenario that emerge from Putnam's use of the word "twin." It is this term that requires that, with the exception of mizu, Twin Earth is identical with Earth. This restriction entails that all the laws of physics and chemistry that regulate events on Earth will have similar governing powers over the events and happenings on Twin Earth. But if such an isomorphism with the real world obtains, it will create an insuperable difficulty for the supposed existence of mizu. To say that Twin Earth is regulated by the natural laws that apply on Earth means, for example, that such principles as Boyle's Law, Ohm's Law, and Hook's Law will determine the character and behavior of the entities on Twin Earth. Since water is a product of two gases (hydrogen and oxygen), Boyle's Law will apply exactly as it does on Earth. The law states that for a fixed amount of a gas at a particular temperature, the pressure and the volume are inversely proportional. This means that as the pressure increases,

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the volume decreases proportionately: for example, as the atmospheric pressure is doubled, the volume of the gas is halved. The fact that all the natural laws that apply to earthly phenomena would also apply to the phenomena on Twin Earth has an important consequence for mizu. It indicates that mizu cannot exist even as a fictive substance on Twin Earth. This is a stronger result than we obtained earlier where we argued that mizu could not have all the observable properties of water unless it was composed of hydrogen and oxygen. That conclusion allowed for the existence of mizu as a fictive substance. But now we are claiming even more. This is a direct consequence of Putnam's statement that his fictional planet is an exact twin of Earth. It means that all the laws that govern the properties of all phenomena on earth also apply to all phenomena on Twin Earth. If that is so, we conclude that even as a putative fictional entity, mizu cannot exist on Twin Earth. The argument to this effect can be expressed as follows: Let us suppose that mizu is composed of X, Y, and Z and that these are gases. Then mizu would have to obey the same laws as any gases do on Earth, including Boyle's Law. It would also have to conform to the chemical laws that regulate the conversion of gases into liquids. These laws hold for all gases and liquids. Therefore unless mizu is composed of hydrogen and oxygenwhich Putnam stipulates it is not-it will not have all the observable properties of water. Yet according to Putnam's scenario it does. This entails that mizu does not satisfy those laws. That it does not is another way of saying that it cannot exist in any place where these laws apply. If it cannot, then it cannot exist on Twin Earth.

10. A Thought Experiment? Even though fictional Twin Earth is an empirically impossible entity and hence cannot exist, Putnam's scenario may serve a different function. It is commonly taken to be a "thought experiment." Philosophers do not have laboratories where they carry out experiments; so they do not need to don a white coat to do their work. Some experiments may take place in one's head, so to speak, and then may be written down to be considered by others. Such thought experiments often describe extreme circumstances. In that sense they may be considered as fictional narratives. But fictive or not, they may serve a useful practical purpose: to force others, not just intellectuals but ordinary persons, to reconsider or perhaps even to abandon convictions that seem to them obvious and incontestable. We regard the Cartesian Dream Hypothesis as being such a thought experiment. It argues

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that we cannot on the basis of their overt features distinguish dreams from cases of ordinary seeing. Given in addition that ordinary cases of seeing are the products of sense experience and that they share some important properties of dreams, such as being subjective and private, this series of assimilations leads to the possibility that our normal beliefs about the world are chimerical, a view that the ordinary person would never countenance, but which he or she would find it difficult to rebut. The gauntlet that Descartes has thrown down challenges the ordinary person to prove that our knowledge of "external things" is not illusory. Suppose we consider the Cartesian narrative as piece of fiction, making a controversial and challenging claim about our everyday knowledge of the world. Then how does this bear on the Twin Earth story? There is a clear resemblance. Like Descartes, Putnam is saying that just as dreams cannot be distinguished from waking experiences, so no observable feature can distinguish the happenings and objects on Twin Earth from those on Earth. Like Descartes, Putnam is implying that these diverse phenomena do not come with markers specifying that they belong to Earth or to Twin Earth. Mizu does not have a tag distinguishing it from water. Because that is so, Putnam asserts, we have to dig deeper: we must go beneath the observable characteristics of natural kinds to discover what they are really like. The Putnam thought experiment is similar to that of Descartes; both imply that we can't trust the information derived through the senses. Putnam will offer a somewhat different vocabulary in making this point. He will put it by saying that the observable characteristics of things do not capture their essential natures. The coincidence between the two narratives is striking. Like the Cartesian Dream Hypothesis it runs counter to the way ordinary persons discover what many things, including natural kinds, are like. In everyday life we count on their observable features to give us such information. The challenge that Putnam's thought experiment raises insists that we can't trust such observations. It thus challenges the way that ordinary folk presumably discriminate some natural kinds from one another. The two thought experiments differ in their solutions to what they see as a dilemma for the average person. Descartes is a man of his time, deeply religious. So his solution is to say that God cannot be a deceiver, and therefore that in the end we can trust the information provided by the senses.

11. A Sociolinguistic Division of Labor Putnam is also a man of his time, a twenty-jirst-century philosopher of science. He puts his trust in science. It is science that in the end will determine what

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the world is like, and mutatis mutandis, what natural kinds (including fictional natural kinds) are. In this connection, Putnam develops a subthesis of the Twin Earth hypothesis that bolsters his claim that the microstructure of any natural kind determines the nature of that kind. He calls this outlook "A Sociolinguistic Division of Labor." Let us now examine it to see if it does prove that the observable features of natural kinds are misleading as to their real natures. Here, in a lengthy passage, is what he says: Let us shift the example; consider gokl. Gold is important for many reasons: it is a precious metal; it is a monetary metal; it has symbolic value (it is important to most people that the "gold" wedding ring they wear really consist of gold and not just look gold); etc. Consider our community as a "factory": in this "factory" some people have the "job" of wearing gold wedding rings; other people have the "job" of selling gold wedding rings; still other people have the job of telling whether or not something is really gold. It is not at all necessary or efficient that everyone who wears a gold ring (or a gold cufflink, etc.) or discusses the "gold standard," etc., engage in buying and selling gold. Nor is it necessary or efficient that every one who has occasion to buy or wear gold be able to tell with any reliability whether or not something really is gold. The foregoing facts are just examples of mundane division of lab or (in a wide sense). But they engender a division of linguistic labor: every one to whom gold is important for any reason has to acquire the word 'gold'; but he does not have to acquire the method of recognizing whether something is or is not gold. He can rely on a special subclass of speakers. The features that are generally thought to be present in connection with a general name-necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in the extension, ways of recognizing whether something is in the extension, etc.-are all present in the linguistic community considered as a collective body; but that collective body divides the "labor" of knowing and employing these various parts of the "meaning" of 'gold.' This division of linguistic labor rests upon and presupposes the division of nonlinguistic labor, of course. If only the people who know how to tell whether some metal is really gold or not have any reason to have the word 'gold' in their vocabulary, then the word 'gold' will be as the word 'water' was in 1750 with respect to that subclass of speakers, and the other speakers won't acquire it at all .... But with the increase of division of labor in the society and the rise of science, more and more words begin to exhibit this kind of division of labor. 'Water,' for example, did not exhibit it at all before the rise of chemistry. Today it is obviously necessary for every speaker to be able to recognize water (reliably under normal conditions) and probably most adult speakers even know the necessary and sufficient condition "water is H 20," but only a few adult speakers could distinguish water from liquids that superficially resembled water. In case of doubt, other speakers would rely on the judgment of these "ex-

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pert" speakers. Thus, the way of recognizing possessed by these "expert" speakers is also, through them, possessed by the collective linguistic body, even though it is not possessed by each individual member of the body, and in this way the most recherche fact about water may become part of the social meaning of the word although unknown to almost all speakers who acquire the word. (Putnam 1977, 125-126)

There are several difficulties in the preceding line of reasoning. To begin with there is no logical connection between knowing the molecular structure of gold and knowing the meaning of the term "gold." A monolingual German scientist may well know the molecular structure of gold without knowing the meaning of the English word "gold." So that knowing the molecular structure of gold is not a sufficient condition for knowing the meaning of the English locution. It is not a necessary condition either. People knew the meaning of the word "gold" long before atomic theory was invented. Notice that the objection here concerns the meaning of the word "gold" and not scientific knowledge about the microcomposition of gold. Because Putnam conflates the two topics, he maintains that scientists are "expert" speakers. But this is simply a rampant form of semantic scientism. In 1805 ]. L. Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt discovered that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. But it would not only have been odd, but false, if they had announced that they had discovered the meaning of the word "water." The proper criterion for determining whether a person knows the meaning of a word is the ability to use that word correctly in a variety of contexts. "Correctly" means in accordance with the way the term is normally employed by ordinary native speakers. It is thus not necessarily knowing how to conduct an assay. In effect, Putnam is imposing a novel criterion for what it is to know the meaning of a word. The technical term for this sort of proposal is that it is a persuasive definition. Such sorts of proposals are common in philosophy. Russell's idea that a proper name is a term that denotes a sense-datum is a good example of a persuasive definition. According to Putnam, the plain man cannot tell by looking at a hunk of metal whether it is really gold or not. That, in disputed cases, ultimately requires an assay. What Putnam says in this connection about gold is true. But he has carefully selected a special case to buttress his claim. It is true that most of us cannot ascertain by looking whether a gray powder is hafnium. It takes expertise to make such a determination. But his generalization from such cases is extreme. Not all natural kinds require specialists for their identification. There is a sliding list of abilities or talents for making these determinations. At its lowest level, everyone can distinguish dogs from cats

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without the equivalent of an assay. At a somewhat higher level, it will require specific knowledge to know what kind of a dog or cat a particular creature is. Usually, breeders can make these discriminations. Breeders rarely know anything about the microbiology of the animals they raise or train. Instead, they learn to make their identifications on the basis of experience. If, as is highly unlikely, the question should arise about whether a particular animal is really a dog or not, the issue can probably only be settled by a professional zoologist. Most of us are not breeders or zoologists, but that sort of expertise is not needed to know whether something is a dog or a cat. Putnam generalizes from cases like gold or molybdenum, implying with such examples that every case of identification in principle needs the sort of expertise that an assayer has. But this is an illegitimate move. In similar fashion, Descartes generalizes from what is true about dream episodes to normal cases of perception. But once again, the generalization is illicit. We are not caught in the circle of our own sensations. Both challenges to common sense are thus paradoxical and can and should be rejected.

12. Fiction and Reality Fiction is an encompassing genre, ranging widely over numerous scenarios; but if any generalization about it is possible, it is that all of its specimens describe possible worlds. Some provide profound insights into the actual world. But some do not. They are so devoid of significant content that they do not bear on reality at all. How should we assess Putnam's arguments in this connection? As we have argued, Putnam's scenario is a thought experiment that challenges the commonsense idea that the senses give us accurate information about many common features of the actual world, such as natural kinds. Interpreted in this way, the scenario is false but significant. It is false because it misrepresents the way that most of us learn about natural kinds. It is significant because it may make intelligent human beings rethink their unreflective reliance on the information they derive from seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, and feeling things. We might say, following Wittgenstein, that Putnam's scenario is an effort to produce a conceptual change in one's understanding of reality. Looked at from this perspective, Putnam is a traditional metaphysician. Metaphysicians are philosophers who propose new visions of reality. Their aim is to see deeper into the nature of things; to ignore their superficial characteristics and to discover their essences. Putnam belongs to this genre of thinkers.

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But the particular fictional examples that he uses about mizu and Twin Earth have less import than his thought experiment for such a conceptual revision. For reasons mentioned above, neither is an object that would force such a profound alteration in one's understanding of the world. Consider, for example, how Putnam describes Twin Earth: In fact, apart from the differences we shall specify in our science-fiction examples, the reader may suppose that Twin Earth is exactly like Earth. He may even suppose that he has a Doppelganger-an identical copy-on Twin Earth, if he wishes, although my stories will not depend on this. (Putnam 1977, 120)

But if Twin Earth is exactly like Earth, except for possessing mizu rather than water, then one's understanding of Twin Earth has already been achieved through an exploration of Earth itself. If there is a duplicate of Plato's Republic on Twin Earth, one's understanding of that text is not further enhanced by studying its counterpart. Similar remarks apply to the Twin Earth analogues of Russell or Frege. It is instructive in this connection to compare (and contrast) the understanding of reality conveyed by Putnam's Twin Earth example with (say) almost any of Shakespeare's dramas. All of these, even the historical plays, are straightforward cases of fiction. Yet they change's one's orientation to the real world. Part I of Henry the Fourth, for example, describes Henry IV's troubled state of mind on achieving power and his dissatisfaction with his unruly son, Prince Harry (later Henry V). In Part II of Henry IV, the climax of their relationship comes after Harry, discovering his sick father asleep and thinking him dead, tries on his crown. Henry, awakening, bitterly upbraids Harry but eventually accepts his son's assertions of good faith, and recalling the devious means by which he himself came to the throne, warns Harry that he may need to protect himself against civil strife by pursuing "foreign quarrels." Among these alien distractions is the famous battle of Agincourt (1415) lustrously depicted in Henry V. In Part II of Henry IV, Harry spends less time with the morally depraved Sir John Oldcastle (Falstaff) than he does in Part I, and the play ends as the newly crowned Henry V rejects Sir John and all that he has stood for. In Part I of Henry IV, we learn a number of things from Shakespeare. These are things that we may have known on the basis of our own experience, but the play is a powerful reminder of such personal observation. And of course, it communicates insights and understandings that we may never have had. For example, we, who lack political power, learn through Henry's ruminations how the possession of authority brings with it danger, fear, and

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other dissatisfactions. We learn something about the relationship between a controlling father and a willful son and how a reconciliation between two such different personalities is possible. We learn about the temptations that a dissolute adult can have for a compliant juvenile and yet how and why, in the end, Harry is transformed into a responsible human being and rejects Oldcastle. The Twin Earth story does not give us these kinds of discernments. Its examples give us no new insights into water or Earth. It is a specimen of fiction whose depicted world lacks relevance for understanding our own. As such it can be safely ignored as a serious critique of Frege. At the beginning of this chapter we quoted Putnam's quip, "Cut the pie any way you like, 'meanings' just ain't in the head." From this truth, Putnam unjustifiably infers that meanings are located in the non-head world. Our view is that meanings are neither in the head nor not in the head. Meanings are not things, and the category of spatial location does not apply to them.

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Putnam, Hilary. Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975. - - . "Meaning and Reference." Pp. 119-32 in Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds, edited by Steven P. Schwartz. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. Quine, W. V. From a Logical Point of View, 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961. - - . Pursuit of Truth, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Russell, Bertrand. "On Denoting." Mind 14 (1905): 479-93. Reprinted pp. 41-56 in Logic and Knowledge, edited by Robert C. Marsh. London: George Alien & Unwin, 1956. - - . "Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, new series 11 (1910-11): 108-28. - - . "On the Nature of Acquaintance." 1914. Reprinted pp. 125-74 in Logic and Knowledge, edited by Robert C. Marsh. London: George Alien & Unwin, 1956. - - . "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism." 1918. Reprinted pp. t 75-281 in Logic and Knowledge, edited by Robert C. Marsh. London: George Alien & Unwin, 1959. - - . Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: George Alien & Unwin, 1919. - - . "Knowledg~ by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description," Pp. 46-59 in The Problems of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Sainsbury, Mark. "Names, Fictional Names, and 'Really.'" Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 73 (1999): 243-69. - - . Logical Forms, 2nd edition. Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. - - . Reference Without Referents. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. Salmon, Nathan. "Nonexistence." Nous 32 (1998): 227-319. Schwartz, Stephen P. Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. Searie, John. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. - - . "The Logical Status of Fictional Discourse." Pp. 58-75 in Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. - - . Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. - - . The Construction of Social Reality. New York: The Free Press, 1995. Strawson, P. F. "On Referring," Mind 59 (1950): 320-44. - - . Individuals. London: Methuen, 1959. - - . Logico-Linguistic Papers. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1971. Stroll, Avrum. Surfaces. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. - - . "Proper Names, Names, and Fictive Objects." Journal of Philosophy 95 (1998a): 522-34. - - . Sketches of Landscapes: Philosophy by Example. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998b.

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Index

Anna Karenina, 9, 14, 41nl, 59 Aristotle, 58; Poetics, 76 Armies of the Night, 16 Austin,]. L., 2,4,52,59 The Autobiography of Miss lane Pittman, 16 axiom of existence. See existence, axiom of Bacon, Francis, 16 Beckett, Samuel, 30-31 Blonde, 14 The Blue Hammer, 42n3

Bridges of Madison County, 16 Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George, 33 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, 13, 42n8 Bumett, Gilbert, 17 Burr, 8, 15 chronicle, 70, 76, 77 Cicero, 63-65 comedy, 76-78 Conan Doyle, Arthur, 25:"'26, 38-39 conventions, vertical and horizontal, 26

The Confidence Man, 10 constructivism, 75 conversation, theory of, 2-3 Crimmins, Mark, 67n4 criteria, 8, 26-31, 74 Davidson, Donald, 24

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 39 Defoe, Daniel 17, 48

de re and de dicta, 24-25 Donnellan, Keith, 18, 23, 42n4 dreaming, 51 Dutch, A Memoir of Ronald Regan, 16 Eliot, George, 14 emplotment, 76, 77 entertaining a proposition, 50 encodation, 76, 77 existence, 8, 29-31; axiom of, 2, 7, 18-23,38-39,62-63 facts: fictional, 15; institutional, 15, 31-38

143

144

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Index

fiction, theory of, 11-18; constraints, on, 10-11; legal, 36-38 Fielding, Henry, 14 filibustering, 13 Flshkin, Shelley, 51 Forster, E. M., 14 Frege, Gottlob, 3, 18, 65 Frye, Northrop, 75-76

Kripke, Saul, 3, 23 Kroon, Frederick. 67n15

games, children's, 56-57

Mackie,]. L., 61 Macbeth, 33, 35-36

Genesis, 33-34 Gibbon, Edward, 39

The Ginger Man, 32 Grice, H. P., 2,4,7,12, 42n5 Guest, Judith, 8 Hamlet, 61-63 Hamilton, Anthony, 17 Hammett, Dashiel, 9-10 Hegel. G. F. 12 Heidegger. Martin. 21 history: analytic. 70; and fiction, 3, 16-18.69-79; as fiction. 69-79; formal and material, 71, 73; narrative, 70-79; romantic. 78; speculative, 70; tragic, 78; and value judgments. 78 A History of His Own Times. 17 Hitchcock. Alfred. 29 H. M. S. Pinafore, 39-40 Holmes, Sherlock, 15, 18-19,24-26, 28. 32. 35. 38-41. 42n4. 43n21. 47, 48 Hopkins. Keith, 17 H20. See water

w..

language, learning a, 21-22 The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon. 16 Lewis, David, 38-41 Livy, 26,39 Lodge, David, 35

MacDonald, Ross, 42n3 make-believe and making-believe. 49, 58,67 Marcus. Ruth Barcan, 3 Mailer, Norman, 16

The Maltese Falcon, 9-10 maxims, conversational, 2; Maxim of Manner, 11.13; Maxim of Quality, 2-3,7.12-14,18,38,42n6,47-48, 70.72-73; being faced with a clash of, 12; flouting, 12; opting out of, 12; suspended, 7, 12-13, 18.38; violating, 12 Melville, Herman, 10 The Memoirs of Count Grammont. 17 metaphor, 65-66 Middlemarch, 14 Mink, Louis. 77 Moore, G. E., 18 Morris, Edmund, 16 motifs, 74

I. The]ury, 10 imagining. 50-52. 54 institutions, 14-15

names, proper, 4 narrative and narration, 3, 70 narrators. reliable and unreliable, 10 negator words. 9, 24 network of beliefs, 16 1984,49 nonexistence, 3

A Journal of the Plague Year. 17, 48

novels, historical. 70

Interview with the Vampire, 15

North by Northwest, 29

Index Oates, Joyce Carol, 14 Odd Number, 32 Odyssey, 10 O. Henry Pun Off, 13-15, 42n7 Ordinary People, 8

A Passage to India, 14 Parent, Ted, 67 Parsons, Terence, 35-36, 40 performative theory of fiction, 32-33 phatic acts, 52-53 The Phenomenology of Mind, 12 phonetic, acts, 52-53 plans, 53-54 point of view, 74-75 pretending, 9, 47-67 pretense theory, 9, 48-49, 54-55, 60-62,64-66 Pride and Prejudice, 10 props, 50-52, 54-55 propositions, 62-63; negative existential, 62-63; propositional attitudes, 62 Putnam, Hilary, 3-4 Quine, W.

v., 21

reference, 2, 18-22; direct, 3-4; paradox of,63-64 referring. See reference rhetic acts, 52-53 Rice, Anne, 15 The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 55 rules, 51-52 Russell, Bertrand, 3 Sainsbury, Mark, 24 Santa Claus, 15 satire, 79n9 Searle, John, 2, 18-21,24,26,34, 43n23

r-->

selectivity, 73-74 Sorrentino, Gilbert, 32 Sosa, David, 42n2 Spillane, Mickey, 10 statements; of fiction, 27-28; of identity, 63-65 Stewart, Jimmy, 59-60 stories and storytelling, 72-73, 79 Strawson, P. E, 18, 24, 43n43 Stroll, Avrum, 16, 42n12 talk in and about fiction, 8-10 talk about reality, 8-10 text, 79n2 Think,35 The Three Musketeers, 8 Thomasson, Amie, 44nn28-29 Thucydides, 1, 16 Tolstoy, Leo, 9, 14, 35, 59 Tom lones, 14 tone, 74-75 tragedy, 76-77 truth, 8, 23-28 Twin Earth, 3-4 Vidal, Gore, 8

Waiting for Godot, 30-31 Walton, Kendall, 47-59, 61, 66-67 War and Peace, 35 Washington, George, 41 water, 4 Wayne, John, 59-60 White, Hayden, 70-79 "willing suspension of disbelief," 16 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 2, 4, 21, 63 A World Full of Gods, 17 Zimler, Richard, 16

145

About the Authors

A. P. Martinich is Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor in Philosophy and Professor of History and Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author or editor of many books and articles, including The Philosophy of Language (5th edition) and Philosophical Writing (3rd edition). Avrum Stroll is Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. A distinguished philosopher and a noted scholar in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of language, and twentieth-century analytic philosophy, he is the author of many books, most recently, TwentiethCentury Analytic Philosophy, Wittgenstein and Did My Genes Make Me Do It? And Other Philosophical Dilemmas.

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