Telling What She Thinks: Semantics and pragmatics of propositional attitude reports 9783110429596, 9783110438802

Citation preview

Tomoo Ueda

Telling What She Thinks

Epistemische Studien



Schriften zur Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie Herausgegeben von/Edited by Michael Esfeld, Stephan Hartmann, Albert Newen

Band 33

Tomoo Ueda

Telling What She Thinks 

Semantics and pragmatics of propositional attitude reports

ISBN 978-3-11-043880-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042959-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042970-1 ISSN 2198-1884 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

| For my grandmother

Contents List of Figures | XI List of Tables | XII Acknowledgments | XIII List of abbreviations | XV

Part I: Introduction 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

The central problems | 3 The story to be told | 3 Propositional attitudes and their attributions | 3 Type of attitude reports concerned | 4 Opacity and contents of belief reports | 6 The strategy of the project | 8

Part II: State of research 2 2.1 2.2 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.4

Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions | 13 Frege’s puzzle | 13 Two types of solutions from structured propositionalism | 16 Frege’s solutions | 16 Millian transparency | 19 Common acceptance of the assumptions | 24 Eigenname view | 24 Relation Account | 25 Summary | 27

3 3.1 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3

Indirectness of speech and role of deixis | 28 The crosslingual nature of Eigenname view | 28 Evidence and arguments against the Eigenname view | 32 Content clause is not an NP | 32 Syntactic distinction between direct and indirect discourses | 36 Summary | 38

VIII | Contents

3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2 3.4 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.5 4 4.1 4.1.1 4.1.2 4.1.3 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.3 4.4 4.4.1 4.4.2 4.4.3 4.5

Content clause as an adjunct | 39 Is the Japanese content clause adverbial complement? | 39 Difficulties | 42 Content clause as a main clause | 43 Deixis and indirectness of discourse | 43 Hypothesis of the adjunct frame | 48 Summary | 49 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes | 50 Identity account and double duties of abstract content | 51 Content as an abstract and public entity | 51 Grasping abstract entities | 52 Incompatibility of duties | 53 Isomorphism and the problem of reading back | 54 The Language of Thought hypothesis | 55 Independence of the domains | 56 Problems of reading back | 57 Account of propositional attitudes without reading back | 59 Deficits of IUFs: Evaluation of the measurement-theoretic account | 63 Idiolectal conclusion | 64 Maximal elaboration and pragmatic nature of the linguistic domain | 64 Recap: Nature of the representation domain | 66 Hypothesis | 66

Part III: Communicational approach 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.4

Communicative framework and discursive opacity | 69 The context of content determination | 69 Pragmatic content determination | 70 Opacity in the pragmatic analysis | 74 Redefining the opacity | 75 Contexts for content determination and truth evaluation | 76 Summary | 76

6 6.1 6.2

Opacity as a feature of the frame | 78 The opaque frame hypothesis | 78 The hidden indexical theory | 80

Contents

6.3 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.4 7 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.4.1 7.4.2 7.4.3 7.5 7.5.1 7.5.2 7.5.3 7.6

| IX

Paratactic account | 82 Davidson’s analysis | 83 Two problems of the paratactic account | 84 Recap | 87 Summary | 88 Adverbial account of the frame | 89 Linguistic supports for the adverbial account | 89 Austinian semantics on transparency | 92 Analysis of transparent belief reports | 95 Analyzing the opacity | 97 Recanati on opacity | 98 Unstable contexts | 101 Recap | 102 Difficulties of Recanati’s account | 102 Transparency and stability of context | 103 Mixed occurrences of singular terms | 103 Epistemic state and content determination | 104 Summary | 105

Part IV: The VarCA analysis 8 8.1 8.2 8.2.1 8.2.2 8.2.3 8.3

The VarCA Analysis | 109 Two foci in reporting beliefs: Reexamining the example | 109 Two types of VarCAs | 112 Two distinct VarCAs | 113 The VarCA analysis for transparent belief reports | 117 The VarCA analysis for opaque belief reports | 120 Summary | 125

9 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6

Consequences of the opaque VarCA | 127 Coreference of proper names | 127 Sameness of a name | 130 Discursive opacity | 131 Mixed belief reports and default transparency | 133 Ontological hyperinflation | 135 Summary | 137

X | Contents

Part V: Concluding remarks 10 Conclusion | 141 10.1 Requirements for the VarCA analysis | 141 10.1.1 Linguistic requirements | 142 10.1.2 Pragmatic analysis | 143 10.1.3 Requirement for truth evaluation | 144 10.2 Extending the class of objectives | 144 List of sentences | 147 Bibliography | 157 Source of examples | 160 Source of linguistic data | 161 Index | 163

List of Figures Fig. 1.1

Standard case of belief report | 5

Fig. 4.1

Connection between the epistemic state, the propositional content, and the states of affairs (redrawn based on Matthews 2007, Fig. 6.1 [p. 182]) | 56

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2

Standard case of a belief report (revisited from figure 1.1) | 70 Soames’s standard case | 72

Fig. 7.1

Standard case of a belief report (revisited from figure 1.1) | 97

Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2

Standard case of a belief report (revisited with modifications) | 110 Standard case for an opaque report | 121

Fig. 9.1

Standard case for a discursively opaque report | 132

Fig. 10.1

Standard case of a belief report (revisited from figure 1.1) | 142

List of Tables Table 7.1

What is endorsed by believer vs. ascribed | 101

Table 8.1

What does a proper name refer to? | 126

Acknowledgments This book is based on the doctoral dissertation that I wrote at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. This would not exist if I had to work alone. Among all the people, I would first like to thank my supervisors: Albert Newen, Markus Werning in Bochum, and Noya Shigeki in Tokyo. I am grateful that I could be affiliated with both the University of Tokyo and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. I profited from the best sides of both universities, and I always enjoyed discussions with these outstanding professors. In particular, I would like to thank Albert for his patience and friendly support. This work is a result of extensive discussions with colleagues and friends. They are friendly, motivating, and always sharp in discussion. This work would not have been possible without their support. I would like to thank Colin Allen, Luca Barlassina, Peter Brössel, Leon de Bruin, Markus Eronen, Marco Fenici, Anika Fiebich, Lena Kästner, Matsusaka Yoichi, Christoph Michel, Albert Newen, Noya Shigeki, Ulrike Pompe, François Recanati, Raphael van Riel, Sato Ryoji, Pietro Snider, Tobias Starzak, and Anna Welpinghus. Although I have learned much from our discussions, I am, of course, the only person responsible for any remaining errors (I am sure that there are). I am also looking forward to hearing discussions and criticisms. The following colleagues supported me by providing and suggesting literature: Lena Kästner, Kuchikata Shuichi, Maruyama Takao, Mine Masaya, and Sato Ryoji. Tobias Koch helped me to edit the bibliography. Between July 2009 and September 2013, I was a PhD student at the RuhrUniversität Bochum. This was made possible by the scholarships provided by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Additional financial support for traveling was provided by the University of Tokyo, DAAD, RUB Research School, the Philosophy of Science Society, Japan (PSSJ), Institut Jean-Nicod, and JSPS-Kakenhi (26-7077). I would also like to thank the series editors of Epistemische Studien and the editors of de Gruyter, especially, Maik Bierwirth and Nancy Christ, for their patience and professional supports. Many of you who once studied abroad will immediately agree to this: Being outside of your home country definitely causes a flood of formal issues. However, I was fortunate to meet many competent, friendly, and supportive people. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Nicole Bremkens, Judith Hecker, Claudia Knauber, and Nadine Overkamp of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Tomita Mieoko of the University of Tokyo, Janine Stamm and Irina Mener of Referat 424 of DAAD, Institut Jean-Nicod, and Tokyo Metropolitan University for their supports.

XIV | Acknowledgments

Last, but not least, my family and friends who always supported me, especially when I felt doubtful about the project and myself. I am grateful for their encouragement. I would like to dedicate this book to cheerful memories of my grandmother, Tsuji Kiyoko. I have always admired her and enjoyed listening to her when she talks about her stay in Paris in the beginning of twentieth century. These stories certainly encouraged me to go to new cultural and lingual environments.

List of abbreviations ACC accusative case Adj Adjunctive AdvP adverbial phrase BNC British National Corpus CoCl complement clause DAT dative case DTC default transparency constraint ILF interpreted logical form IP interactional particle IUF interpreted utterance form LF logical form LOC locative case LOTH Language of Thought Hypothesis NOM nominative case NON-PAST non-past tense NP noun phrase PA propositional attitude PAST past tense PP prepositional phrase QT quotative marker S sentence T topic marker VarCA Variation from the Common Assumption VP verb phrase

| Part I: Introduction

1 The central problems 1.1 The story to be told Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck in 1913. Since Herbert Frahm was active as a socialist, he escaped Germany in 1933. When he was in exile, he adopted the pseudonym “Willy Brandt”; subsequently, he became the first socialist chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Based on these historical facts, let us suppose that he had a former neighbor named Betty. Further, suppose that there was another person, Rudolf, whom Betty met one day in the 1950s: Rudolf: Do you know Willy Brandt? Betty: Yes, he is the mayor of Berlin. He is from Lübeck. Rudolf: How about Herbert Frahm? Do you know him? Betty: He was my former neighbor, but he came from Berlin.

After this conversation, Rudolf attributed a belief to Betty. Namely, she believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, but Herbert Frahm was not. Some time later, Rudolf told Lucy his belief ascription in the following manner, because Rudolf knew that Herbert Frahm was the same person as Willy Brandt and that Lucy did not know who Herbert Frahm was: Rudolf: Betty was a former neighbor of Willy Brandt, and she believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck but Herbert Frahm was not.

In the following discussion, I will take the following sentences as representing Rudolf’s reports: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (2) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Berlin. These are the belief reports that are analyzed in this book. Using the following two sections, I will characterize the focus more accurately.

1.2 Propositional attitudes and their attributions This book analyzes belief reports, for example, Rudolf’s assertions of (1) and (2). Now, I briefly sketch the type of beliefs that are reported. Generally, beliefs are a type of propositional attitudes. Epistemic subjects, like Betty, have attitudes such

4 | 1 The central problems

as fear, hope, desire, and so on. They are directed towards the state of affairs. Among them, there is a class of attitudes that are characterized in terms of linguistic propositional contents (propositional attitudes); for example, desires, beliefs, and thoughts belong to this class. They are of philosophical interest because they constitute the reason for intentional actions (Anscombe 1979; Davidson 1963). Beliefs and desires are reasons for intentional actions in the sense that there is a practical inference that takes certain desires and beliefs as the premise and draws an action as consequence. There are two ways of approaching one’s beliefs. One is from the perspective of the epistemic subject who actually has an attitude toward linguistic content. The other is from the perspective of an observer who ascribes such an attitude to a subject. In the following discussion, I focus on the latter. Furthermore, I restrict my discussions to belief ascriptions to a third person, and ignore self-ascriptions. Beliefs are ascribed to some subjects as having a positive stance toward some facts or states of affairs. For example, Rudolf ascribed a belief to Betty when he observed that Betty assents to (3): (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. This observation is made typically by hearing her assertion of (3). There are two types of audience. One is the addressee, Lucy, to whom Rudolf intends to report his belief ascription. The other is the silent listener who is not Rudolf’s intended audience.

1.3 Type of attitude reports concerned If a person attributes beliefs to someone, she can report this to another person. These reports are the main objectives in the following discussions. I call the reports of this specific type of propositional attitude ascriptions “belief reports.” Belief reports are stated in English spoken language,1 typically by using verbs, for example, “believes” and “thinks”; the following are a few examples of this: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Linguistically, belief reports are a type of indirect speech report or indirect quotations. The characterization of indirect (as well as direct) speech reports are provided in chapter 3.

1 Examples from German and Japanese are also examined (chapter 3).

1.3 Type of attitude reports concerned | 5

Fig. 1.1. Standard case of a belief report (The figures of the standard case is complied from figures “Jimbutsu Icon” (by courtesy of http://illustration-free.com/people/people-list.html).)

For now, it suffices to note the following: First, there are three parties involved in explaining the meaning of a belief report, namely believers, reporters, and their audience. As I discuss in chapter 5, it is essential for accounting the meaning of a belief report that the believer and the audience do not normally share the same context (see figure 1.1). Second, a belief report is an assertive utterance of a reporter such that its content is truth-evaluable. It is our working hypothesis that what a belief report means to the audience is merely its truth-evaluable content. Third, a standard belief sentence, with which a belief is reported, comprises two subsentential constituents. For each subsentential constituent, I introduce a terminology pair of the inset and the frame (Sternberg 1982, 108). (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In this example, the inset (marked with small caps) is the content clause in English belief reports. The frame is the rest of the sentence. This terminology pair is needed because they enable us to discuss various forms of belief reports in a uniform manner.2 Finally, and most importantly, a reporter of a belief does not have to commit himself/herself to the content expressed in the inset of a belief sentence so that he/she can ascribe some false beliefs to the believer in question.

2 I classify the connective “that” as a part of the frame because of the same reason.

6 | 1 The central problems

This feature appears self-evident, but the question is how to implement this to a theoretical account of natural language meaning.

1.4 Opacity and contents of belief reports Although belief reports are commonly used in our linguistic practice, they are not easy to analyze semantically. Since a belief report is an assertion, its semantic content is normally true or false. However, to determine the content of a belief report, it is a perplexing fact that the substitution of coreferring singular terms, particularly proper names,3 affects the truth-values of belief reports (for example, Frege 1892). To see the point, take the following example: Suppose Betty attached different modes of presentation to “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” despite the fact that they are actually coreferential proper names. Due to different modes of presentation, she would accept (3) but deny (4): (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (4) Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. Despite Betty’s different reactions, both sentences have the same truth-value, and “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” can be substituted without changing the truth-value of the sentence. However, when Rudolf reported Betty’s reactions in the following manner, the substitution of one name with the other might have changed the truth-value of the following reports: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. That is, a proper name, such as “Herbert Frahm,” seems to occur opaquely in the inset of a belief report. Definition 1 (Working definition of opacity). For every report r, there is a proper name n that occurs opaquely in r if and only if there is another proper name that is

3 More accurately, the discussion in this book is about the class of genuine singular terms that are semantically simple. For example, an indexical, or a referentially used definite description (Donnellan 1966), belongs to the class of the genuine singular terms. However, for the sake of simplicity, I focus on the proper name.

1.4 Opacity and contents of belief reports | 7

coreferential with n, and substituting these proper names can affect the truth-value of r. Otherwise, n occurs transparently. The opaque occurrence of a singular term in an inset poses a question concerning the semantic content of a proper name. In objective theory of meaning, there are two relevant theses here: genuine referential nature of proper names and compositionality. First, a proper name is a singular term that is used as genuinely referential. That is, the semantic value of a proper name, for example, “Herbert Frahm,” is nothing but the referent, namely, Herbert Frahm himself in this example. If we observe this thesis more precisely, it actually includes two further claims: a proper name refers to its referent, and the referent is a semantic value. Furthermore, if a proper name is used genuinely referentially, the referent is the only semantic value of the proper name. This latter thesis is called semantic innocence (Davidson 1968). Second, the semantic value of a sentence, namely, the truth-value, is determined compositionally from the semantic values of its constituents. Combining these theses, one can predict that (1) and (5) express one and the same content. This prediction is supported for other reports; for example, compare (3) and (4). However, this prediction does not seem to be compatible with the opaque occurrence of a proper name, such as “Willy Brandt” in (1). Due to the compositionality, the content determination of a belief report depends on that of an inset, which essentially depends on the analysis of opacity. More generally, the opacity poses an important puzzle for the semantic analysis of the natural language, because it seems to make it difficult to treat semantic values of proper names in a uniform fashion. To summarize, the basic question of the following discussion is stated in the following manner: What sort of a truth-evaluable content does a belief report express? The answer to it must include the answer to the opacity. If we take the following discussion in advance, there are three classic ways to answer the question of opacity: i. Denying opacity: the intuitive data shown above is not related to semantics (Richard 1983; Salmon 1986; Soames 1987); ii. Accepting opacity: (a) reference shift—a proper name changes its semantic value with respect to each context (Frege 1892); (b) Additional content—in addition to the referent, some additional information is expressed in the inset of a belief report (Crimmins and Perry 1989; Schiffer 1992).

8 | 1 The central problems

To take the conclusion in advance, I accept the existence of opacity and show some ways in which the opacity can be explained without giving up semantic innocence.

1.5 The strategy of the project The leading question that constitutes the basic tenor of this book is formulated in the following manner: What sort of a truth-evaluable content does a belief report express? The answer to this question constitutes executing the following two essential tasks of the project: 1. How to individuate the content expressed by a belief report; and 2. How to evaluate it in terms of the truth.

These are two independent but connected tasks. In particular, it is an important assumption that the belief report in question is used assertively; from this assumption, it follows that only the types of content that is relevant to the assertion and, hence, to the truth, are relevant to my discussions. The analysis that I propose is the VarCA analysis (chapter 8).4 It is a pragmatic analysis of content determination. To reach this analysis, I construct an argument comprising five parts, which is organized in the following manner: Following this introductory part I, we begin part II by revisiting the classic discussions between Fregean and Millian theorists. In this part, I identify two common assumptions of both theorists despite their disputes (chapter 2). The goal is to criticize the assumptions linguistically (chapter 3) and philosophically (chapter 4). In part III, I argue for the pragmatic analysis of content determination (chapter 5). This analysis is pragmatic because the content of a belief report is determined only in the discursive context. By examining three candidate analyses (chapters 6 and 7), I individuate the requirements that an appropriate pragmatic analysis must satisfy. In part IV, I introduce an analysis called the “VarCA analysis.” The VarCA analysis focuses on the reporter’s intention in reporting someone’s belief. The starting example above (section 1.1) will be reexamined, and I claim that the content of a belief report is determined partially as a variation from the common assumptions that the reporter believes she shares with her audience.

4 “VarCA” stands for “Variations from the Common Assumptions.”

1.5 The strategy of the project | 9

I analyze the opacity of a referentially used singular term occurrence of the inset of a belief report in terms of another sort of variation. I argue that the opacity is explained in terms of the reporter’s pretense. I argue the pretending use of a name to introduce a special entity. In chapter 9, I examine some consequences of the VarCA analysis, particularly that of the opaque VarCA. In the last part of the book, I review whether the VarCA analysis provides appropriate answers to the two tasks.

| Part II: State of research

2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions As introduced in chapter 1, a reporter, for example, Rudolf, ascribes a belief, and he reports it in the following manner: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Belief reports, such as (1), comprise two subsentential constituents, namely, the inset and the frame (Sternberg 1982, 108). This distinction amounts to two functions of belief reports. The inset (set in small capitals) expresses the propositional content that is attributed by Rudolf’s report attributes, and the frame relates this content to a subject that I call the “believer.” The discussions of this chapter are regarding semantic values of genuine singular terms that occur in insets; the genuine singular terms are subsets of singular terms that are syntactically simple. Among others, I focus on the semantic values of the proper names that occur in the inset. In section 2.1, the puzzle regarding the substitution of coreferential proper names in insets (Frege’s puzzle) and its two assumptions are identified. In section 2.2, two classic solutions proposed for Frege’s puzzle are examined. Although they are rival theories, they take the same strategy to deal with Frege’s puzzle. Namely, both of them deny one of the consisting assumptions of Frege’s puzzle and the dispute between them is about which assumption must be refuted. I examine each solution and indicate the difficulties for each of them. Finally, in section 2.3, I argue that the classic solutions share two common views regarding the semantics of belief reports. The first is regarding the linguistic nature of insets and the second is regarding the relationship between the semantic evaluation of belief reports and the epistemic structure of belief states. The goal of this chapter is to demonstrate that these common views are sources of difficulties for classic solutions.

2.1 Frege’s puzzle Frege’s puzzle is the central puzzle about belief reports, and it claims that the following three assumptions are incompatible: Thesis 2.1 (Frege’s puzzle). Each of P1–P3 is intuitively plausible, but they are jointly incompatible:

14 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

P1: the intuitive truth evaluation for attitude reports P2: the indiscernibility of identicals P3: the genuine referentiality about Bedeutung of singular terms In the following account, I reconstruct the puzzle by examining each assumption.

P1: Intuitive truth-evaluations Since Frege (1892), it has been widely accepted that the following episode is intuitively the case.5 Suppose Betty understood something completely different when she heard “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm,” despite the fact that these names are coreferring. On the one hand, the name “Willy Brandt” was introduced to Betty by her partial knowledge of German political discourse; hence, she accepted the content of (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. On the other hand, the name “Herbert Frahm” was introduced as her former neighbor, who was wrongly said to have moved into her neighborhood, hence, she denies the content of (4) Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. That is, she associated two distinct modes of presentation with each proper name. This example suggests that it is appealing to claim (1) is true while (5) is false: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. Frege does not give explicit reasons for connecting Betty’s reactions to (3) and (4) with the truth-evaluations of belief reports (1) and (5).

P2: Indiscernibility of identicals The second premise for the puzzle is the so-called indiscernibility of identicals. According to Frege,

5 Compare this with Kripke’s disquotation principle (Kripke 1979).

2.1 Frege’s puzzle | 15

If our supposition that the Bedeutung6 of a sentence is its truth-value is correct, the latter must remain unchanged when a part of the sentence is replaced by an expression with the same Bedeutung. And this is in fact the case. Leibniz gives the definition: “Eadem sunt, quae sibi mutuo substitui possunt, salva veritate.”7 [These things are the same, which can be substituted for one another without loss of truth.] (Frege 1892, 35)8

In this passage, Frege claims the following principle of substitution: For every predicate F and for every proper name a and b, which Frege calls “Eigenname,” the semantic value of the sentence Fa is equivalent to that of Fb if and only if the semantic value of a must be that of b. More formally, ∀a, b[∀F[val(Fa) = val(Fb)] ⇔ val(a) = val(b)], where val designates a semantic evaluation function. Following Forrest (2011), we shall call ∀a, b[∀F[val(Fa) = val(Fb)] ⇒ val(a) = val(b)] the “identity of indiscernibles,” and the converse of it, the “indiscernibility of identicals.” It is the conjunction of the identity of indiscernibles and the indiscernibility of identicals that is of significance here. The Bedeutung of subsentential expressions are nothing but their contributions to the truth-value of the sentence as a whole.

P3: Genuine referentiality about Bedeutung of singular terms The last premise for the puzzle is the thesis regarding the Bedeutung of singular terms. The singular terms, or Eigennamen in his terminology,9 refer to the objects, and nothing but these objects are relevant for the truth-values — for example, (4) or (3).

6 There are debates on how to translate Frege’s usage of Bedeutung. In particular, it is debated whether “reference,” the original translation of Max Black, is an appropriate translation of Bedeutung (for example, see Tugendhat 1970). In this work, I follow the edition of Beaney (1997) and use the original wording of Bedeutung. 7 There are certain interpretative aspects concerning the relationship between Frege and Leibniz to whom he refers. First, the Latin text Frege cites is not the text of Leibniz himself (Frege 1999, Tsuchiya’s note 10 on page 101). Second, the Latin text says, however, almost the same as the identity of indiscernibles. However, Leibniz only supported the identity of indiscernibles and not the converse (Sasaki 1998; Forrest 2011). Third, the first sentence is converse to the Latin sentence. Finally, and most importantly, Frege employs both the identity of indiscernibles and the indiscernibility of identicals as the semantic principles that describe the relationship between the substitution of subsentential parts and the truth-values of sentences. 8 The English translation of this text is based on the translation of Max Black, which is edited by Michael Beaney (1997, 151–171). My modifications are indicated in footnotes. Page numbers are referred according to the original version. 9 He classifies so-called definite descriptions, such as “the centre of mass of the solar system,” to the class of Eigennamen (Iida 1987, 101; Soames 2010, 11).

16 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

Puzzle P1–P3 are incompatible in analyzing (5) and (1): (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. The reason for the puzzle is this: if we take P2 and P3 for granted, then (5) and (1) must have the same truth-value and, hence, P1 cannot be the case. Instead, if we take P1 and P2 for granted, then the Bedeutung of singular terms occurring in insets of belief reports cannot be the object that the singular terms designate.

2.2 Two types of solutions from structured propositionalism To get out of the puzzle, denying one of the assumptions (P1–P3) seems to be required. Thesis 2.1 (Frege’s puzzle). Each of P1–P3 is intuitively plausible, but they are jointly incompatible: P1: the intuitive truth evaluation for attitude reports P2: the indiscernibility of identicals P3: the genuine referentiality about Bedeutung of singular terms (from pages 13–14)

In the following, two of the famous solutions to the puzzle are critically examined. Each denies one premise of the puzzle. The first solution, which is proposed by Frege, denies P3. To this end, the notion of the reference shift is introduced (section 2.2.1). If P1 is denied, as Millians do, it explains the intuition behind P1 as irrelevant for semantic evaluations of belief reports (section 2.2.2). The aim of this section is to reconstruct the problems that follow from each of the proposed solutions.

2.2.1 Frege’s solutions Frege’s famous solution for the puzzle (1892) is to deny P3 and introduce the notion of reference shift. Namely, each term occurring within the scope of “dass”connective does not refer to its customary Bedeutung but its indirect Bedeutung, which is its customary sense.

2.2 Two types of solutions from structured propositionalism | 17

The case of an abstract noun clause, introduced by [‘dass’], includes the case of indirect speech, in which we have seen the words to have their indirect Bedeutung, coincident with what is customarily their sense. In this case, then, the subordinate clauses has for its Bedeutung a thought, not a truth-value, and for its sense not a thought, but the sense of the words ‘the thought that . . . [der Gedanke, dass. . . ]’, which is only part of the thought in the entire complex sentence. This happens after ‘say [sagen]’, ‘hear [hören]’, ‘be of the opinion [meinen]’, ‘be convinced [überzeugt sein]’, ‘conclude [schließen]’, and similar words. (Frege 1892, 37)10

Frege’s passage includes two distinct claims: 1. The terms in insets have the indirect Bedeutungen (and senses) that are different from the customary ones. 2. The indirect Bedeutung of a term is its customary sense.

These are distinct because solutions to Frege’s puzzle only requires the first claim, and the second stems from other background assumptions of Frege.

Problems of the second claim Actually, the second claim is problematic for Frege. Provided the second claim, the sense of a sentence has three different characterizations. Burge (1977) refers to them in the following manner:11 sense1 thoughts (cognitive contents we grasp) sense2 ways of determining the truth-values sense3 indirect Bedeutung These three features are incompatible. First, for the sentence containing indexical expressions, sense1 and sense2 are not compatible (Burge 1977; Perry 1977; Iida 1987, section 2.5). For example, utterances of the sentence:

10 Original German words are inserted by using square brackets. 11 Kripke (1980) also identified two inconsistent features: Frege should be criticized for using the term ‘sense’ in two senses. For he takes the sense of a designator to be its meaning; and he also takes it to be the way its reference is determined. (Kripke 1980, 59) However, this interpretation cannot be supported, because the notion of sense1 is distinct from the notion of linguistic meaning. As Burge argues (Burge 1977, 356–7), the meaning of demonstrative expressions remains the same in different contexts, while the sense of these change.

18 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

(6) It is sunny today express the incomplete sense2 because the Bedeutung of an indexical expression today changes every day, while sense1 of (6) is supposed to be constant (see Frege 1918). The essential problem for the current discussion is that sense3 is compatible neither with sense1 nor with sense2 . First, if sense3 were identical to sense2 , there would be a problem of an infinite regress (Burge 1979; Matsusaka 2005). Suppose that the sense of a sentence is the way of determining the truth-values (sense2 ) and the indirect Bedeutung should be determined by the indirect sense (see Frege’s quote above); suppose further that the indirect Bedeutung is the same as the customary sense. From these suppositions, it follows that the customary sense must be determined by the indirect sense, which is in turn the doubly indirect Bedeutung and must be determined by the doubly indirect sense, and so on. Second, identifying sense1 with sense3 has a serious consequence in that the sense becomes too fine-grained; in this case, sense1 has to reflect every reaction of a competent speaker. On the one hand, not all cognitively salient aspects are part of sense1 but only the aspects that are publicly accessible (Frege 1892; 1918). On the other hand, sense3 is introduced as a result of intuitive truth-evaluations of belief reports, according to which the belief reports are true just in case believers agree to the contents expressed by their inset. There is another tension between sense1 and sense3 . Salmon (1986; 1990) argues that the intuitive truth-evaluation can be constructed as pairs of genuine singular terms that share cognitive content. Compare, for example, pairs of “elm” and “beech” as well as “ketchup” and “catsup.” The latter example is more serious since the Fregean account is too finegrained: Suppose that foreign-born Sasha learns the words ‘ketchup’ and ‘catsup’ not by being taught that they are perfect synonyms, but by actually consuming the condiment and reading the labels on the bottles. Suppose further that, in Sasha’s idiosyncratic experience, people typically have the condiment called ‘catsup’ with their eggs and hash browns at breakfast, whereas they routinely have the condiment called ‘ketchup’ with their hamburgers at lunch. This naturally leads Sasha to conclude, erroneously, that ketchup and catsup are different condiments that happened to share a similar taste, color, consistency, and name. (Salmon 1990, 220)

The same descriptive content is attached to both “ketchup” and “catsup” by definition; therefore, Sasha accepts (7a) but he denies (7b), because of different scenes of use: (7) a. Ketchup is used for hamburgers.

2.2 Two types of solutions from structured propositionalism | 19

b. Catsup is used for hamburgers. Frege’s intuitive truth-evaluation should predict that both the sentences in (8) have different truth-values: (8) a. Sasha believes that ketchup is used for hamburgers. b. Sasha believes that catsup is used for hamburgers. One way to approach this is to add some full descriptions of these supposed usages into the descriptive contents, but this does not work either; for neither Sasha nor we can give full descriptions for all of the names he uses. Elm and beech do not share referents since they are names of different natural kinds, although Putnam (1973), Salmon (1990), and I cannot discern them and, thus, attach the same description to both names. To summarize, Frege’s solution does not hold if we interpret the notion of sense as description. In particular, his proposal of identifying the indirect Bedeutung with the customary sense does not hold because this identification either leads to indefinite regression or it is not harmonious with other assumptions Frege draws, namely, Leibniz’s law and the intuitive truth-evaluation of belief reports.

2.2.2 Millian transparency Many theorists (for example, Richard 1983; Soames 198712 ; Salmon 1986) claim that Frege’s claim of reference shift does not hold. In particular, they focus on occurrences of proper names in the insets of belief reports, and they argue that every occurrence of proper names in the insets must be transparent. Therefore, Frege’s intuitive truth-evaluation must be refuted. This position is called “Millian.”13 Salmon (1986, Introduction) builds up his argument by considering the semantic function of individual variables or pronouns. He analyzes de re or relational attribution of propositional attitude in the following manner: (9) a. (∃x)[x = Willy Brandt and Betty believes that x was born in Lübeck]. b. Betty believes of Willy Brandt that he was born in Lübeck. (The example is modified from Salmon 1986, (1) & (2) on page 3)

12 As we see in chapter 5, the position of Soames has developed into the different positions from the genuine or naive Millian positions. 13 In terms of the term “Millian,” I follow Salmon (1990, fn. 3 [226]).

20 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

These de re locutions have the characteristic that they do not specify how Betty conceives of Willy Brandt in believing him to be born in Lübeck (see Salmon 1990, 224; examples are modified to ours). Frege would claim that the lack of specificity is due to the place where the proper name “Willy Brandt” is because “Willy Brandt” appears outside of the scope of the opaque context. However, Salmon criticizes this analysis by indicating that the real issue is the appearance of the pronoun “he”; although this is used in the opaque context, it has no sense. According to Salmon, it follows the principles of conventional formal semantics that the quasiformal sentence (9a) is true if and only if the open sentence (10) is true under the assignment of Willy Brandt as the value for the variable “x” in (10): (10) Betty believes that x was born in Lübeck. (10) is true under the assignment of Willy Brandt as value for the variable “x” if and only if Betty believes the singular proposition that is the information content of its component open sentence (11) under the same assignment: (11) x was born in Lübeck. A parallel derivation follows from the colloquial de re attribution (9b). Salmon extends his considerations on pronouns to proper names, and he defends the thesis of semantic innocence because “the fundamental semantic character of a variable with an assigned value, or of a pronoun with a particular referent, is precisely that its information value is just its referent” (Salmon 1990, 224). Thesis 2.2 (Semantic innocence). For every variable with an assigned value, that is, a pronoun with a particular referent, it does not have any Fregean sense, which is a conceptual representation contributing to semantic content. Salmon also maintains that the same argument is applied to proper names, because proper names or demonstratives can, according to Salmon, be seen as hypothesized “invariable variables” (Salmon 1990, 226).14 Consider pronouns with a restricted domain over which they range, such as “he,” or “she.” From the existence of such variables, one can infer that there could be variables whose range is a unit set. Such variables should be called “invariable variables” or “constants” alternatively.

14 The notion of semantic innocence will be further examined in chapter 8.

2.2 Two types of solutions from structured propositionalism |

21

Denial of intuitive truth-evaluations This analysis seems to refute the intuitive truth-evaluations (that is, P1 of Frege’s puzzle). Recall the “ketchup”-“catsup” example above. In that example, Sasha’s fine-grained distinction between “ketchup” and “catsup” is irrelevant for the truth-evaluation of an attitude report. Namely, both of the following express one and the same content; hence, they share the same truth-value: (8) a. Sasha believes that ketchup is used for hamburgers. b. Sasha believes that catsup is used for hamburgers. Therefore, P1 does not hold. Recall that, according to P1, is (1) true if and only if Betty accepts (3): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

Pragmatic BEL analysis Salmon argues against the premise of the anti-Millian argument that, for example, “Ketchup is catsup” is false. At the same time, he admits that the intuition behind this anti-Millian argument is strong and universal, and thus, that this intuition must be addressed and explained. To explain this intuition away, Salmon (1986) introduces a pragmatic ternary relation named BEL, which is defined as follows: Definition 2 (BEL relation). For every person a, every Russellian proposition p and any way of believing b: there is a ternary relation BEL(a, p, b) if and only if a believes p exactly in the way b. By definition, if a fully rational subject adopts conflicting attitudes (such as belief and disbelief) toward propositions p and q, then the believer must take p and q in different ways. Betty agrees to the proposition that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck when taking it in a certain manner, such that the proposition is presented to her in the sentence (3). Betty’s ascent to (3) conveys the BEL relation (12) pragmatically: Suppose that f expresses the agreeing relation between the believer and a sentence, (12) BEL (Betty, that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, f (Betty, “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”))

22 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

The BEL relation is relevant for the truth-evaluations only in an indirect manner. The belief relation is defined as the existential generalization of the BEL relation over the ways of believing in which a believer may take a given proposition: “[t]o believe a proposition p is to adopt an appropriate favorable attitude toward p when taking p in some relevant way” (Salmon 1990, 230, original italics).15 Namely, it satisfies the following three conditions: (a) A believes p if and only if there is some x such that A is familiar with p by means of x and BEL (A, p, x); (b) A may believe p by standing in BEL to p some x by means of which A is familiar with p without standing in BEL relation to p and all x by means of which A is familiar with p; (c) In one sense of ‘withhold belief,’ A withholds belief concerning p (either by disbelieving or by suspending judgment) if and only if there is some x by means of which A is familiar with p and not-BEL (A, p, x). (Salmon 1990, 231–232)

In this account, (1) is true because (12) is the case. Betty withholds belief concerning whether Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck if she denies (4): (4) Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. Her denial is described in the following manner: (13) not-BEL (Betty, that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, f (Betty, “Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck”)). As defined in (b) above, withholding beliefs is different from the denial of them because the latter requires Betty’s denial for all the logically equivalent sentences as (4). This is obviously not the case here since Betty agrees to (3). In summary, Salmon claims that there is inequality in how believers’ reactions are connected to the truth-values of belief reports. A single agreement of them to a sentence justifies the truth of a belief sentence containing the agreed sentence, but a single denial of a sentence does not justify the falsity of a belief sentence containing it.

15 We need another belief predicate that expresses the ternary BEL relation. However, there may be no such predicates in natural languages, or it may be "inordinately long, or cumbersome, or inconvenient" (Salmon 1986, 116).

2.2 Two types of solutions from structured propositionalism |

23

Consequences There are two consequences of BEL analysis (Ueda 2009). First, it predicts that we report false belief reports not only often but also systematically. Second, BEL analysis predicts both of contradicting belief reports as true. I will go through them one by one. First, the BEL analysis relates a pragmatic BEL relation with semantic truthevaluations. For example, (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. (5) is semantically true even if Betty denies (4) because she assents to (3): (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Her denial to (4) only shows that she withdraws her belief seen under some guise. That is, we are reporting semantically false beliefs in very systematic ways. Furthermore, the BEL analysis requires too much to evaluate a belief report such as (5) to be false. The second aspect is more serious. The BEL analysis predicts two directly conflicting belief reports as true if we assume some piece of rationality to believers (see also Forbes 1987 for this issue). Recall our starting story (section 1.1): Rudolf: Do you know Willy Brandt? Betty: Yes, he is the mayor of Berlin. He is from Lübeck. Rudolf: How about Herbert Frahm? Do you know him? Betty: He was my former neighbor, but he came from Berlin. (from page 3)

From this conversation, BEL analysis predicts the following two belief reports, namely, (5) and (14), as true: (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. (5) is true because (1) is true according to the BEL analysis. Betty agrees to the proposition that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, taking it in the manner in which it was presented by the sentence (3). (14) is true because Betty assents to (15): (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Therefore, (15) expresses the Russellian singular proposition that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. Salmon (1990, 130) claims “it seems incorrect to say” that Betty contradicts herself. He justifies this by claiming that “it is misleading to attach logi-

24 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

cal attributes, such as contradictions, to propositions rather than to sentences” (Salmon 1986, 131). However, if notions such as logical consistency are features of a sentence as Salmon claims, then the practical inference is language dependent. As we have seen in section 1.3, ascriptions of propositional attitudes serve as explaining actions of the possessor of those attitudes. It is for this end that propositional attitudes are supposed to be language independent. To explain one’s intentions, the practical inference among attitudes is constructed. Thus far, we have discussed that Salmon is not successful in denying Frege’s intuitive truth-evaluations as irrelevant for truth of belief reports.

2.3 Common acceptance of the assumptions Our discussion of the last section shows that both the Fregean and Millian solutions to Frege’s puzzle are not successful. To spot the source of this failure, I indicate two common views in the last section of this chapter; they are shared by both solutions, which I call the Eigenname view of insets and the relation view of frames.

2.3.1 Eigenname view In the following passage, Frege discusses the Bedeutung of a content clause that is embedded in a sentence: The case of an abstract noun clause, introduced by ‘[dass]’, includes the case of indirect speech, in which we have seen the words to have their indirect Bedeutung, coincident with what is customarily their sense. (Frege 1892, 37)

This passage contains three claims: Thesis 2.3 (Eigenname view). A belief report supports the following linguistic theses: a. Attitude reports are treated in a parallel way to indirect speech report. b. Every content clause “dass S” is a noun phrase (NP) in German. c. Predicates for indirect speech take a dass-clause as a complement in German. These claims characterize belief reports linguistically. Furthermore, it seems that Frege argues from these linguistic characterizations for what we call the Eigenname view. This view is expressed in this way:

2.3 Common acceptance of the assumptions |

25

The subordinate clause could be regarded as a noun, indeed one could say: as a proper name [Eigenname] of that thought, that command, etc., as such a proper name it [the subordinate clause] comes into the context of compound sentence. (Frege 1892, 39)16

As I have noted above, Frege’s use of the term Eigenname includes definite descriptions; hence, it is equivalent to what we mean by “singular term” rather than by “proper name.” The content clause in a belief report functions as a singular term which denotes the believer’s thought since “one talks about the sense, e. g., of another person’s remarks” in indirect speech (Frege 1892, 28). It is worth noting that to interpret insets as singular terms is a semantic thesis rather than syntactic claim, because the notion of a singular term assumes a semantic notion of reference as its essential constituent. This view is also shared by Salmon: Sentences are viewed entirely on the model of a definite description that refers (typically non-rigidly) to a truth-value. The content (“information value”) of a sentence is taken to be a proposition—the sort of thing that is asserted or denied, believed or disbelieved (or about which judgment is suspended), etc., something that is never changing in truth-values. (Salmon 1990, 235)

This passage claims that a sentence is a singular term of the truth-value whose semantic content is a proposition. Thus, this is thesis b of the Eigenname view. Furthermore, it is this semantic content that a “that”-clause refers to as a singular term (Salmon 1990, 259).

2.3.2 Relation Account In addition to the Eigenname view, it is further assumed that the belief predicate expresses a relationship between a person and an abstract object that is referred to by the inset. I call this second assumption “Relation Account.” In the Relation Account, a belief report expresses a relation B(s, P), where B is a first-order belief relation between believer s and propositional content P which she believes. One of the standard ways of characterizing this relation is that the believer grasps or possesses P. In the most standard version of Relation Account claims, an inset is a singular term of P and P is an abstract and structured object.

16 Black translates the last part in the following manner: “as a proper name of that thought, that command, etc., which it represented in the context of the sentence structure” (Beaney 1997, 162; my italics). However, the text is discussing the grammatical and logical nature of the subordinate content clauses and not what they represent.

26 | 2 Structured propositionalism and its shared assumptions

Linguistically, the Relation Account implies that the belief predicate is analyzed in a manner similar to the other relational predicates such as “throw.” That is, the inset of a belief reports an NP complement of the belief predicate:17 (16)

S

NP

VP

Betty believes

NP

that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. The Eigenname view is one way to fulfill this feature. From this, it can be argued that the inset of (1) should include the subordinator “that.” Using small capitals, this can be marked in the following manner: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. From the combination of the Relation Account and the Eigenname view, it follows that opacity is an exclusive feature of inset. This can be explained in the following manner: Recall the singular term occurs opaquely in an inset of a belief report, because the believer does not agree with the substitution of coreferring singular terms. Contrastingly, the semantic values of insets should be the only candidates that would be different if we were to admit the opacity of belief reports. This is because the only difference found in (5) and (1) are the proper names occurring in the insets: (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. This conclusion about opacity has a consequence that if there is an opaque occurrence of a singular term in an inset of a belief report, the content expressed by

17 “S,” “VP,” and “NP” stand for sentence, verb phrase, noun phrase respectively. The abbreviations used in this book are on “list of abbreviations and symbols” (page XV).

2.4 Summary |

27

the inset must contain some descriptive information. As we have seen, this consequence is criticized by Millians like Salmon.

2.4 Summary In this chapter, two accounts for the insets of propositional attitudes were critically examined. The Fregean account denies the extensional thesis and introduces the reference shift. However, it requires either inconsistent characterizations for the notion of sense. The Millian account introduces the pragmatic BEL analysis and denies Frege’s intuitive truth-evaluations. This undermines an essential feature of belief ascriptions. In the last section, two common assumptions shared by both the accounts were singled out. The following two chapters provide some reasons to doubt this pair of common assumptions. In chapter 3, some linguistic evidence is provided to refute that insets of belief reports are interpreted as NP. In chapter 4, the relation between the entities, which are named by insets and believers, are argued to be more complicated than the grasping relation that the Relation Account assumes.

3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis The Eigenname view is based on the following assumptions (thesis 2.3): Thesis 2.3 (Eigenname view). A belief report supports the following linguistic theses: a. Attitude reports are treated in a parallel way to indirect speech report. b. Every content clause “dass S” is a noun phrase (NP) in German. c. Predicates for indirect speech take a dass-clause as a complement in German. (from page 24)

In this chapter, I argue against (b) and (c) of the Eigenname view while accepting (a). My discussion is based on certain linguistic evidence that has been reported for the indirect speech report. Since the belief report is, linguistically speaking, an indirect speech report, the discussions valid for the indirect speech report are also valid for the belief report. My discussion involves two steps. First, I argue that the Eigenname view must be valid crosslingually (section 3.1). Second, I examine the evidence from English, German, and Japanese, and argue that it is not compatible with the Eigenname view (section 3.2). The goal of this chapter is to propose that the inset of a belief report is its main clause (section 3.4). To this aim, an alternative criterion to recognize a speech report as indirect will be examined. In this criterion, the interpretation of deictic features, which occur in the inset, determines whether the speech report is indirect.

3.1 The crosslingual nature of Eigenname view Although Frege (1892) formulates the Eigenname view as a syntactic thesis on the German language, I claim that the Eigenname view must be characterized in a crosslingual manner. The Eigenname view is necessary for supporting structured propositionalism (section 2.3). The structured proposition is a public and abstract content expressed by (uttering) a sentence (Lycan 2000, chapter 5; Fitch and Nelson 2009).It can be assumed that sentences of many languages can semantically express the same content. For example, if someone is a competent speaker of English, German and Japanese, this person should be able to report all of the following to report the same situation that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck: (17) a. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

3.1 The crosslingual nature of Eigenname view |

29

b. Willy Brandt wurde in Lübeck geboren. Willy Brandt was in Lübeck born [Intended: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] c. Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta. Willy Brandt NOM Lübeck LOC was born18 [Intended: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] Every sentence in (17) expresses the same semantic content, that is, the proposition; hence, the proposition must be language-independent. In addition, according to the Eigenname view, the inset of a belief report not only refers to the structured proposition but also the former expresses the latter. In a German belief report, such as in (18), the “dass”-clause is used as the inset: (18) Betty glaubt/denkt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt in Lübeck was born [Intended: “Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] The inset expresses, as well as refers to, the structured proposition that is expressed crosslingually, for example, by every sentence in (17). If we take this for granted, then the theses of the Eigenname view must be reformulated in a crosslingual form: Thesis 3.1 (Crosslingual Eigenname view: first approximation). For every language L, A′ . There is a belief report b that is an indirect speech report in L. B′ . b’s content clause is an NP in L. C′ . Taking a content clause as a complement is a distinctive feature of indirect speech report compared to direct speech report in L.

Crosslingual definitions for grammatical categories Thesis 3.1 cannot be maintained linguistically because it conflicts with the ways in which grammatical categories are defined, such as “indirect speech,” “NP,” or “content clause.” Each grammatical category is defined relative to the grammatical system of each language, and since “[n]o two languages are precisely the same,

18 “NOM,” “LOC,” and stand for the nominative case, and the locative case, respectively. The abbreviations used in this book are on “list of abbreviations and symbols” (page XV).

30 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

in any feature” (Dixon 2010a, 9), the following is the case for the grammatical categories: Although the same labels are used for describing grammatical categories in different languages (if they were not, there would be no science of linguistics) they have a slightly different signification for each language. (Dixon 2010a, 9)

For example, take the notion of case that “marks the function of NP” in a clause (Dixon 2010a, 43). In Latin, the cases are marked on most words in an NP. Contrastingly, in English, the case are barely marked on the words in NP (a class of exceptions are personal pronouns). Therefore, it is suggested that case marking can be considered a feature of an NP in Latin, while perhaps not in English. Instead, one might try to define the grammatical categories by using semantic features. The idea here can be roughly explained in the following manner (at least for a class of core expressions, e. g., nouns or verbs): if two expressions from different languages have the same semantic content, then they belong to the same grammatical category. For example, the expressions used to indicate mother are nouns in most languages; therefore, it can be hypothesized that every language expresses "mother" in noun form. However, there are languages in which "mother" is expressed in terms of verbal expressions, for example, the Yuman languages of southern California (Dixon 2010a, 26). This fact suggests that “it is not possible to decide which class a word belongs to in a given language solely on the basis of its meaning” (Dixon 2010a, 26). To conclude, we can only define the grammatical categories within a single language. However, we recognize a grammatical category in one language as equivalent to a category in another language. For example, we recognize the NP in Latin as equivalent to the NP in English even though the cases are marked to the former but not to the latter. This is possible because we identify some core functional features for each grammatical category in every language (Dixon 2010a). Although the definition of the grammatical categories must be relativized to each language, they are defined in terms of the functions that they perform relative to the overall system of grammar of a given language (see Dixon 2010a, section 1.8). These functional properties of each grammatical category are common among all languages; moreover, it is these functions that can be used as measures of similarity. “It is because of a measure of similarity of meaning and function that we may identify word classes between languages, and use the same label for them” (Dixon 2010a, 25–26). This is intuitively appealing. To summarize, there are certain core functional properties that are crosslingually recognized in association with grammatical categories. From this consider-

3.1 The crosslingual nature of Eigenname view | 31

ation, we can defend the idea of a crosslingual approach by restating the crosslingual template of the Eigenname view in terms of such core functional properties: Thesis 3.2 (Crosslingual template of Eigenname view). For every language L, there is a belief report b such that A. Core functional properties for recognizing b in L are the same as those for recognizing indirect speech reports in L. B. b’s content clause in L has the core functional properties of an NP in L. C. b’s content clause in L functions as an NP-complement of an attitude verb in L (O-function). D. Having a content clause as a complement is a distinct core feature of the indirect speech report in L compared to the direct speech report. Frege’s (1892) characterization of the Eigenname view (thesis 2.3) is an implementation of this crosslingual template in German. (18) is syntactically analyzed in the following manner: (19)

S

NP

VP

Betty glaubt,

NP

dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. Theses a and b of thesis 2.3 are instantiations of A and B of the template applied to German, and thesis c is an instance of C and D of the template.

Intermezzo: Grammatical labels used in this book Let us take a short break here to explain my usage of grammatical labels in this book. Throughout this book, most of the grammatical labels are used crosslingually without indicating core functional features to recognize these labels. I endorse the characterizations of Dixon (2010a, chapter 3). However, since I only use NP, VP, and clauses throughout my discussions, it will not harm to gloss over these details.

32 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

3.2 Evidence and arguments against the Eigenname view Thus far, we have established that the crosslingual template of Eigenname view (thesis 3.2; hereafter “the Template”) is necessary to defend the structured propositionalism introduced in chapter 2. In this section, I argue against the Eigenname view, hence, structured propositionalism. In particular, I examine theses B, C, and D of the Template.

3.2.1 Content clause is not an NP First, I focus on B of the Template. Below, I argue that the content clause of a belief report is not an NP in English and German. The focus of the following discussion is on a core function of an NP that the NP is an argument of the predicate: Function. [Noun] Can always occur in an NP, which is an argument of a predicate. In some language, it has a secondary function as head of the predicate. (Dixon 2010b, 39; my bold face, my supplement)

Below, I examine some evidence from English and German that constitutes counterexamples to this thesis.

Evidence in English (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. The content clause of (1) is traditionally claimed to be an NP complement of “believes” in English: (16)

S

NP

VP

Betty believes

NP

that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

3.2 Evidence and arguments against the Eigenname view |

33

The analysis (16) seems to be justified by the tests for constituency (Carnie 2002, section 2.6), which predict that the content clause as well as NP is an argument of the VP rather than adjunct. Consider the following examples: (20) a. Betty believes it. b. What Betty believes is that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. c. That Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck is believed by Betty. First, the content clause of a belief sentence can be replaced with a single NP (replacement). Second, you can construct a pseudo-cleft sentence (20b) out of (1) (moving). Finally, the passive form can be constructed. These observations seem to give the verdict that the content clause is an NP. However, the content clause is not an NP in English. Huddleston (2002a, §8.3) provides some linguistic evidence according to which the English content clause following “that” cannot be understood as a noun, an adjectival, or an adverbial clause. In particular, it is interesting to see that the parallelism between objective NPs and objective content clauses in indirect speech does not hold. Huddleston makes three observations. First, NP objects and complement clauses occupy different positions after the verb. The NP object must generally come immediately after the verb head, but the content clauses do not have to. Thus, (21a) is not grammatical while (21b) is: (21) a. * He opened slowly the door.19 b. He believes generally that it is good for his health. (Huddleston 2002a, 1018) Second, there is a difference in the governing verbs. The content clauses cannot always be substitutable with NPs, because there are verbs that license a content clause but not an NP. Examples are “marvel” and “vouch”: (22) a. I often marvel that intelligent people can at times be so petty. b. She will vouch that I didn’t leave the house until six o’clock. (Huddleston 2002a, 1018) Finally, content clauses cannot occur as the complement governed by a prepositional verb, such as “insist on.” Huddleston (2002a, 1019) reports the following examples:

19 I use “*” to indicate that the expression is ungrammatical.

34 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

(23) a. He insisted on an adjournment. b. He insisted that we adjourn. (Huddleston 2002a, 1019) Dixon (2010a, section 3.10; 2010b, section 18.2) provides further criteria for distinguishing a content clause (or complement clause [CoCl] in his terminology) from an NP in English. His focus is set on the internal structures of the following two sentences:20 (24) a. [John’s playing the national anthem]CoCl:A pleased MaryO b. [John’s playing of the national anthem]NP:A pleased MaryO (Dixon 2010a, 129; my underline) In spite of similar appearances of the sentences in (24), Dixon (2010a, 129–130) indicates the following distinguishing criteria between the complement clause (or content clause in our terminology) and the NP: (i) In the complement clause, the O NP, the national anthem, immediately follows the verb, as in a main clause. In the NP, the underlying O must be marked by of. (ii) In the NP of [(24b)], the possessor [sic.] John’s is a modifier of the head noun and can be replaced by another modifier such as the article the [. . . ] In [(24a)], the subject, John, bears ’s, which is a marker of this variety of complement clause; John’s cannot here be replaced by the [. . . ] (iii) The verb of the complement clause, playing, may be modified by an adverb. As in a main clause, this typically follows the object, [. . . ] The head noun of the NP, the nominalization, playing, can be modified by an adjective, which must precede it [. . . ] (iv) A complement clause is, like every other clause type, negated by not; [. . . ] In contrast, an NP—as in [(24b)]—may only be negated by prefixing non- to the head noun [. . . ] (v) An ing complement clause may include auxiliaries have (-en) and be (-ing), [. . . ] An auxiliary may not be used with a nominalization, such as we have in [24b] (Dixon 2010a, 129–130; sentence numbers are modified)

Evidence in German The case is similar in German. The content clause follwing “dass” seems to be an NP at first glance, but it is not:

20 In his notation, ”CoCl:A” indicates that the complement clause appears as a transitive subject, and “NP:A” indicates that the noun phrase appears a transitive subject.

3.2 Evidence and arguments against the Eigenname view | 35

(18) Betty glaubt/denkt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt in Lübeck was born Intended: “Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck” In the standard example,21 the content clause of (18) (set in the small capitals) seems to be an NP complement of the head of the VP, because the content clause following “dass” also passes the consitituency test (Carnie 2002, section 2.6): (19)

S

NP

VP

Betty glaubt,

NP

dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. This analysis based on three sorts of evidence. First, the content clause of (24) is replaced with another NP such as das. Second, the pseudo-cleft sentence (26b) can be constructed. Finally, the passive form can be constructed out of the belief sentence: (26) a. Betty glaubt das. b. Was Betty glaubt, ist, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. c. Dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde wird von Betty geglaubt. In spite of the constituency test, the content clause following “dass” is not an NP in German because it cannot be the argument of a preposition. Rather, the pronominal adverb is used in such a sentence (Helbig and Buscha 2001, 405; Dudenredaktion 2009, par. 861[p. 861]): (27) a. Ich freue mich auf deinen Besuch.

21 The conjunctive forms of sein (be) can be also used in the content clause: (25) Betty glaubt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren worden sei/wäre. The usage of the conjunctive is discussed in section 3.4.1.

36 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

b. Ich freue mich darauf, dass du mich besuchst. c. * Ich freue mich auf, dass du mich besuchst. d. * Ich freue mich auf es, dass du mich besuchst.

Summary To summarize the discussions so far, I argued that the content clause does not fulfill core functions to recognize an NP neither in English nor in German. Since these core functions of an NP are crosslingually valid, our discussions refute that the thesis B of the crosslingual template of Eigenname view (thesis 3.2).

3.2.2 Syntactic distinction between direct and indirect discourses Not only thesis B but also thesis D of the crosslingual template is also untenable: Thesis 3.2 (Crosslingual template of Eigenname view). For every language L, there is a belief report b such that A. Core functional properties for recognizing b in L are the same as those for recognizing indirect speech reports in L. B. b’s content clause in L has the core functional properties of an NP in L. C. b’s content clause in L functions as an NP-complement of an attitude verb in L (Ofunction). D. Having a content clause as a complement is a distinct core feature of the indirect speech report in L compared to the direct speech report.

The data (i) from the Japanese standard form of quotation, as well as (ii) from parenthetical constructions in English and German reject thesis D. For each (i) and (ii) suggests that the distinction between the direct and indirect discourses are not always marked syntactically.

Standard quotation in Japanese The most standard belief report in Japanese is followed by the quotative marker “to,” such as (28):22

22 In Japanese grammar, “to” is a sort of particle (joshi). Note that the particle “to” must be clearly discerned from the connective “to” that works as conjunction. There is an issue regarding whether this particle is a case particle (section 3.3.1). Although we have some philosophical arguments against the claim that “to” is a case particle, our discussion is neutral regarding its grammatical status. Therefore, I use the label “quotative marker” here without defending any implications of the wording.

3.2 Evidence and arguments against the Eigenname view |

37

(28) Betty wa Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta to shinjiru. Betty T Willy Brandt NOM Lübeck LOC was born QT believe23 [Intended: Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck] (28) is particularly interesting for the discussion of this chapter, because this provides an additional reason to refute the Eigenname view. The quotative marker “to” is used not only for indirect but also for direct speech reports, such as (29): (29) Betty wa “Willy Brandt wa Lübeck de umareta” to itta. Betty T Willy Brandt T Lübeck LOC was born QT said [Intended: Betty said “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] Since the content clause followed by “to” is used both for direct and indirect speech reports, the distinction between direct and indirect quotations in Japanese is marked independently of syntactic features. As I discuss later (section 3.4.1), the ways of interpreting the deictic features are genuine criteria for recognizing the directness or indirectness of a speech report. However, for the sake of the current discussion, it is sufficient to see that having the “to”-clause is not the distinctive feature of indirectness of the speech report. Since the “to”-clause is used as the content clause of an indirect speech report, thesis D of the Template does not hold.

Parentheticals in English and German The syntactic ways of distinguishing between direct and indirect speech reports do not hold in English and German, because speech report can be made in the syntactic form that does not use the content clause. Furthermore, this parenthetical construction is used for both direct and indirect speech reports. In English, subordinate clauses do not have to be embedded. For example, the following are real examples observed: (30) a. The person most likely to benefit, thought Jill, was herself. (Huddleston 2002a, (3iii) [1024]) b. It is a small price, Pascoe believes, and one which sport should accept as reasonable. (BNC, A2S 133)24

23 The abbreviations “T,” “NOM,” “LOC,” and “QT,” are topic maker, nominative case, locative case, and quotative marker, respectively. See page XV for the list. 24 Data from the British National Corpus (BNC Consortium 2007) will be referred to in the following way: (BNC the text identifier sentence number).

38 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

c. That is all the more reason, they believe, for keeping their crusade going, so that a wider public will react positively and begin to recognise the indicators of abuse. (BNC, CAR 1341) These are called parentheticals, which are a kind of supplement that “occupy a position in a linear sequence without being integrated into the syntactic structure of the sentence” (Huddleston et al. 2002, 1350). Let us use the following report as an example for parentheticals: (31) Willy Brandt was, Betty believes, born in Lübeck. I come back to this example. Further, in German, the content clause does not have to be embedded. For the verb “glauben” can occur as a parenthetical (Steinbach 1999).25 That is, the following sentence is licensed in German: (32) Willy Brandt, (so) glaubt Betty, wurde in Lübeck geboren. There are three things to be noticed in this example: (i) Parenthetical constructions are licensed in prefinite position between the sentence-initial element (in the so-called Vorfeld) and the COMP-position (Linke Satzklammer); (ii) they can be inserted into the middle field; (iii) and they can follow their host clause in final position. (Steinbach 1999, 2)

The existence of parentheticals is problematic for the syntactic distinction between indirect and direct discourse, because the parentheticals are used both for direct and indirect speech reports. That is, there is no syntactic clue regarding direct/indirect distinction when parentheticals are used. This is problematic for the syntactic definition, and hence, for the Template.

3.2.3 Summary In section 3.2, the evidence and arguments against conditions B, C, and D of the Template have been provided. From these arguments, I conclude that the inset of a belief report is not an NP, hence, the inset is linguistically not a singular term. That is, there is no linguistic support for the Eigenname view.

25 Dudenredaktion (2009, 1044) discusses the parentheticals in connection with direct speech reports, but it is also the case for indirect speech reports, including attitude reports.

3.3 Content clause as an adjunct | 39

3.3 Content clause as an adjunct If the content clause is not an NP in English and German, the other possibility is to claim that it is an adjunct of the frame “Betty believes.” That is to claim that the content clause is an adjunct (Adj). Arguments are distinguished from adjuncts in terms of how it is associated with the head of the phrase. One important aspect is that “complements tend to be obligatory whereas adjuncts are always optional” (Borsley 1999, 67). Applying the distinction on the current issue, it is claimed that the content clause is an optional component for a belief sentence; namely, (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (1) is analyzed in the following manner: (33)

S

NP

VP

Betty

V′

V

Adj

believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck In this section, I focus on this claim and argue that this claim is untenable both linguistically and philosophically.

3.3.1 Is the Japanese content clause adverbial complement? I begin with the linguistic discussion of Fujita (2000; 2010). He examines Japanese (indirect) quotations and argues that the standard “to”-quotation of Japanese is not an NP-complement, but an adverbial complement. His discussion includes two steps: First, he argues that there are two types of “to”-clause, and one is used adjunctly. Second, he argues that the quoting verb takes an adverbial phrase as its complement. The content clause followed by “to” can be used adjunctly in combination with some verbs. Compare (28) with (34):

40 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

(28) Betty wa Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta to shinjiru. Betty T Willy Brandt NOM Lübeck LOC was born QT believe [Intended: Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck] (34) Makoto ga “Ohayo” to haittekita. Makoto NOM “Good morning” QT came in [Intended: Makoto came in while saying,“Good morning.”] (Fujita 2000, (19b) in page 77) In (34), the content clause followed by “to” is combined with an action verb rather than quoting verbs. Following Fujita’s distinctions(1986; 2000, 76),26 the type of usage of the “to”-clause shown in (34) is called “type α” and the classic usage, shown in (28) “type β,” respectively. The most interesting feature of type α “to”-clause lies in the fact that the “to”clause is optional in (34) because the following example is grammatical: (35) Makoto ga haittekita. Makoto NOM came in [Intended: “Makoto came in.”] It is one straightforward interpretation of why the type α “to”-clause is optional, that (34) is to understand it as a shortened form of (36). Namely, the quoting expression “itte” (saying) should be omitted (Shibatani 1978, 83). Compare the following example with (34): (36) Makoto ga “Ohayo” to (itte) haittekita. (saying) [Intended: “Makoto came in while saying,“Good morning.”] If this reading is the case, the type α “to”-clause is a part of the adverbial phrase “‘Ohayo’ to itte,” which is an adjunct. Note that if this would be the case, there would be no distinction between the two types of “to”-clause, because, in such a case, “to”-clause used here is an argument of the quoting verb “iu”; hence, it is type β. Fujita (1986; 2000, 76) argues against this discussion, and claims that neither of the two following standard requirements on omission are satisfied in (36). First, the omission of the verb must be very exceptional for the cases where, for example, the same verb occurs repeatedly. However, to use the type β “to”-clause, no such condition is required. Second, since there are conditions to omit the verb

26 In Fujita (2000), both of the classes are called “type II” and “type I” respectively.

3.3 Content clause as an adjunct |

41

contextually, it must be possible to reconstruct the original sentence. However, there is no clue to identify which verb is omitted (34); thus, that one cannot tell whether the omitted verb was “itte,” “sakebinagara” (shouting), or some other quoting verbs. From these two points, Fujita argues that the verb is not omitted in (34). Therefore, the “to”-clause used in (34) must be an adjunctive: (37)

S

NP

VP

Makoto-ga

V′ Adj

V

“Ohayo” to

haittekita

Since the adjunctive modifies the verb, Fujita interprets it adverbial. Furthermore, Fujita (2000, chapter 2, esp. section 2) argues that the type β “to”-clause in (28) is adverbial. The only difference is in the verb that requires an adverbial complement. That is, (28) is analyzed in the following manner: (38)

S

NP

VP

Betty wa

V′

AdvP27

V shinjiru

Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta to

27 “AdvP” stands for adverbial phrase.

42 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

3.3.2 Difficulties Fujita maintains the following three claims: (a) While the type α “to”-clause is adjunctive, type β is not omissible, for example: (39)

?

Betty wa shinjiru.28

(b) There is no verb that is omitted if the type α “to”-clause is used. (c) The analysis of the type α “to”-clause can be extended on type β. However, interpreting a content clause as an adjunct or adverbial expression does not work. To reach this thesis, two discussions will be introduced. One is from Japanese linguistics and the other is a more general semantic discussion.

Kamada’s criticism Kamada (2000, chapter 1, section 2.2.4) indicates two arguments why Fujita’s analysis does not hold linguistically. Kamada’s point consists of two parts: First, if (a) and (b) are taken for granted, (c) cannot be maintained. Namely, Fujita’s analysis on type α “to”-clauses cannot be extended to type β ones. Type α “to”-clauses are adverbial because it is adjunctive, and they are adjunctive not because of omitted verbs. Second, according to Kamada (2000), Fujita’s analysis even fails to analyze type α content clauses. In a nutshell, Fujita claims that type α “to”-clauses are not the abbreviations of a verb phrase “to itte” used adjunctively. However, based on a study on onomatopoeia in Japanese (Tamori and Schourup 1999), Kamada argues that the type α “to”-clause should be interpreted as an abbreviated quotation. In particular, the first discussion is important for our discussion. Since the examples of belief reports in Japanese are of type β “to”-clauses in this chapter, we cannot analyze insets of Japanese belief reports as adjuncts.

Davidson’s criticism Fujita’s view semantically implies the inscription theory (Scheffler 1954), according to which (1) is interpreted as (40): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (40) Betty believes in a Willy-Brandt-was-born-in-Lübeck way.

28 I use ? to indicate that it is questionable whether the data is acceptable.

3.4 Content clause as a main clause |

43

This discussion faces the problem of learnability. Natural languages must be learnable in the manner in which the number of atomic expressions must be finite. However, the inscription theory requires the introduction of infinite basic vocabulary into the language. Davidson’s (1968) discussion against the inscription theory (Scheffler 1954) can be applied here. This Willy-Brandt-was-born-in-Lübeck way is problematic because there are infinite contents that can be cited indirectly. Therefore, this view requires infinite vocabularies; hence, the language is not learnable.

3.4 Content clause as a main clause By now, the content clause of a belief report has been argued to be neither an NP complement nor an adjunct. Alternatively, I propose that the inset of a belief report is best seen as its main clause. I characterize this claim by focusing on the relationship between the indirectness of speech report and the interpretation of deixis (section 3.4.1). Then, I formulate the linguistic hypothesis about the belief report (section 3.4.2).

3.4.1 Deixis and indirectness of discourse The data shown in the previous sections (particularly in 3.2.2) suggests that the directness, as well as indirectness, of the speech reports cannot be characterized syntactically. That is, we have to modify our functional criteria to recognize the indirect speech report. The focus of the following discussion is on a feature called deixis. I claim that the indirectness of the speech report can be defined in terms of deixis, but let me introduce the notion of deixis first: Deixis is the name given to those formal properties of utterances which are determined by, and which are interpreted by knowing, certain aspects of the communication act in which the utterances in question can play a role. (Fillmore 1997, 61)

Fillmore (1997, 61) indicates the following five sorts of deixis: (i) Person deixis: “the identity of the interlocutors in a communication situation” (ii) Place deixis: “the place or places in which these individuals are located” (iii) Time deixis: “the time at which the communication act takes place” (for which he distinguishes the encoding time from the decoding time)

44 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

(iv) Discourse deixis: “the matrix of linguistic material within which the utterance has a role, that is the preceding and following parts of the discourse” (v) Social deixis: “the social relationships on the part of the participants in the conversation”

Using these deictic features, the indirectness of the speech and attitude reports are characterized in more general ways. In other words, the interpretation of deicitic features of the inset is correlated with the indirectness of the speech report. The aim of the following discussion is this: a speech report is indirect if and only if the deixis used in its inset is determined or interpreted relative to the discursive context, in which the speech report is uttered (see Kamada 2000 for Japanese quotations). In order to reach this thesis, I examine the relationship between the indirectness of speech report and the interpretation of the deictic features. There are three points of interest: 1. the usage of tense in the inset of English speech report 2. the usage of politeness and respectful forms in the inset of Japanese speech report 3. the usage of conjunctive in the inset of German speech report

Time deixis and indirectness of speech report in English Deictic features in the inset of a speech report in English is interpreted with respect to the perspective of the main verb if and only if the speech report is indirect (Huddleston 2002a, section 9.1). To see the point, take the following example: (41) a. Joe said to Betty: “You(=i) like climbing” b. Betty: Joe said to me(i) that I(=i) liked climbing. c. Betty: Joe said to me(i) that you(6= i) liked climbing. In (41), the interpretation of person and time deixis are sensitive to the indirectness of the discourse. If you transform the direct speech report, such as (41a), into the indirect speech report, you have to modify the deictic features. (41b) but not (41c) says the same as (41a), because of the assignment of personal pronouns. For the pronouns used in the insets refer to the same objects as those used in frames. That is, (41b) is the appropriate transformation of the direct speech report into the indirect one.

3.4 Content clause as a main clause |

45

The tense of the inset is interesting for my purpose. The tense of the inset of (41b) is set in accordance with the tense of the frame. Since English uses the absolute tense in an inset, the tense of the inset of a indirect speech report is backshifted to preterit, for example, in (41b) and (41c). The back-shifted preterit can occur when the frame is in the past tense or the time of the frame is past (Huddleston 2002b, 153). This explains why (41c) is unacceptable transformation from the direct speech report of (41a). Namely, the back-shifted preterit signs that deictic features occurring in the inset must be interpreted relative to the discursive context; therefore, the speech report is indirect.

Social deixis and indirectness of speech report in Japanese The interpretation of deixis is correlated with the indirectness of the speech report in Japanese, too (Kamada 2000, 95–97). Since both direct and indirect speech report use the “to”-clause in their standard form, this correlation is very important for analyzing Japanese quotations. Compare the following examples: (42)

(Context: Megumi said to Koichi: “I will marry you”) a. Megumi wa Koichi(i) ni anata(=i) to kekkon shimasu to itta Megumi T Koichi DAT you with marry (polite NON-PAST) QT said [Intended: Megumi said to Koichi(i) : “[I] will marry you(=i) ”] b. Megumi wa Koichi(i) ni kare(i) to kekkon suru to itta Megumi T Koichi DAT he with marry (NON-PAST) QT said [Intended: Megumi said to Koichi(i) that [she] would marry him(i) ] c. Megumi wa Koichi(i) ni anata(6= i) to kekkon suru to itta Megumi T Koichi DAT you with marry (NON-PAST) QT said [Intended: Megumi said to Koichi(i) that [she] would marry you(6= i) ]

In this example, both (42b) are (42c) are reported indirect. Namely, the deictic features in the insets of (42b) are (42c) are interpreted relative to the discursive context. Therefore, (42a) and (42b) but not (42c) say the same (applied from Kamada 2000, 107). The most salient feature for this evaluation is social deixis. Its interpretation correlates to the indirectness of the speech report. There are some social deictic expressions that are only used in direct speech reports, while some other are used only in the indirect speech reports. Their existence is often signs for whether the inset must be interpreted as an indirect speech report. For example, the polite forms are used only in the inset of a direct speech report. Compare “kekkon-shimasu” and “kekkon-suru” in (42); “shimasu” used in (42a) is a polite form of “suru” used in (42b) and (42c). If polite forms like “shimasu” are used in

46 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

insets, Kamada (2000, section 1.2.3) reports that the speech reports can only be interpreted as direct speech reports. This provides a clear contrast to the usage of the honorific form, because it is only interpreted relative to the discursive context; therefore, it can be used in the insets of indirect speech reports. The following example focuses on the usage of the respectful form, which is a form of the addressee honorification (Tsujimura 2007, 429): (43) a. Anata ga koko ni kuru to Paul wa omou you NOM here at come (NON-PAST) QT Paul T think [Intended: “Paul thinks that you come here”] b. * Anata ga koko ni ki masu to Paul wa omou you NOM here at come (polite NON-PAST) QT Paul T think [unacceptable] c. Anata ga koko ni irassharu to Paul wa omou you NOM here at come (respectful NON-PAST) QT Paul T think [Intended: “Paul thinks that you come here, sir/madam.”] The difference between (43a) and (43b) has been discussed already. In insets of indirect speech reports, including belief reports, the polite forms do not occur in insets. Therefore, it is not acceptable to use the polite form in thought ascriptions, as indicated in (43b). The use of honorific form is interesting because this is some information added by the reporter, and it is not part of the beliefs that believers actually have in mind. Social deixis used in insets of Japanese attitude reports provides some data for the discussion. Comparing (43a) and (43c), it is evident that “irassharu” in (43c) is a respectful form of “kuru” used in (43a). The speaker uses honorific forms in Japanese in order to honor individuals and/or their activities who are socially higher than the speaker (see Tsujimura 2007, 429). Since the honorific feature can only be interpreted relative to the discursive context, it is the reporter not the believer, Paul, that honors the person referred by the second-person pronoun. This is very interesting. If the honorific forms are used in the inset of a belief report, the social deixis must be interpreted with respect to the reporter’s perspective rather than the believer’s. This aspect can be demonstrated in the following manner. Suppose Peter utters (43c) to Mary, and suppose further Mary is socially superior to Paul and Paul to Peter. In this case, the original utterance of Mary will be (44a) rather than (44b):

3.4 Content clause as a main clause |

47

(44) a. Paul wa soko ni kuru Paul T there LOC come [Intended: Paul comes to you. ] b. Paul wa soko ni irassharu Paul T there LOC come (honorific) [Intended: Paul comes to you, sir. ] Note the social relationshiop between Paul and Peter is not expressed in either case of (44). Hence, (43c) contains some additional information regarding the content expressed by (44). To summarize, a speech report is indirect if and only if the deixis used in its inset is determined or interpreted relative to the discursive context, in which the speech report is uttered.

Conjunctive in German indirect speech reports Finally, data from the German indirect speech reports also supports the idea that the reporter adds her perspective onto the content expressed by the inset. It is claimed that the usage of the conjunctive in the inset of a belief report reflects the absence of the reporter’s commitment to the content expressed by the inset. Compare (18) with (25): (18) Betty glaubt/denkt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt in Lübeck was born Intended: “Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck” (25) Betty glaubt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren worden sei/wäre. In (25), the conjunctive is used in the inset, and this usage marks the perspective of the reporter rather than that of the believer.29 One major function of the conjunctives is to mark that the inset are quoted indirectly (Helbig and Buscha 2001, section 1.9.2.1.1; Dudenredaktion 2009, Par. 772). Thus, in most cases, the reporter can use the conjunctives only in order to explicitly mark the indirectness of the speech report. However, since the use of conjunctives is not mandatory, there are side-effects of using them. Namely, the conjunctives can be used in the indirect speech reports to mark the psychological distance of the reporter to the content expressed by the inset of a belief report (Eisenberg 2006, 117–120). In such

29 Note “sei” is the conjunctive I and “wäre” is the conjunctive II of “ist”.

48 | 3 Indirectness of speech and role of deixis

cases, the reporter clearly adds some information in the inset rather than simply representing the epistemic states of a believer that the reporter comprehended.

Summary The observations from the usage of Japanese honorific forms and German conjunctives in the inset of an indirect speech report are interesting to us because these data support the following thesis regarding the indirect speech report: Reporters of indirect speech do not simply represent and forward certain contents that they comprehend. Rather, the insets of belief reports also convey the reporters’ point of view shared with their audience in each discursive context. Contrastingly, the insertion of the reporter’s perspective in the inset is not possible for the direct speech report, because every deictic feature in the inset must be interpreted with regard to the perspective of the original speaker.

3.4.2 Hypothesis of the adjunct frame To summarize, the inset of a belief report must be considered the main clause of a belief report. The question now is how to characterize the frame of a belief report. To answer this question, it is useful to see the data of parentheticals presented in 3.2.2: (31) Willy Brandt was, Betty believes, born in Lübeck. It is important to notice that the frame “Betty believes” can be inserted anywhere in the sentence where other adjuncts can be inserted. Furthermore, the frame is optional in the sense that (31) remains grammatical if the frame is deleted. From this and other discussions, I argue later (section 7.1) that the frame of a belief report is an adjunct. Linguistically, this amounts to analyzing (31) in the following manner:

3.5 Summary |

(45)

49

S

NP

VP

Willy Brandt V′

VP

V

Adj

was

Betty believes

born in Lübeck

3.5 Summary Chapter 3 reached to the hypothesis that the inset of a belief report is its main clause. To reach this hypothesis, I first argued against the Eigenname view linguistically. My counter argument is based on the requirement that the Eigenname view must be valid in a crosslingual manner. This requirement stems from the nature of the propositionalism. Then, I present some evidence from English, German, and Japanese that suggests the functional difference between NP and the content clause in each language. These discussions denies that the inset of a belief report is an NP; therefore, it undermines the Eigenname view. Second, I shortly argued that the content clause (inset) of a belief report cannot be an adjunct. Finally, I characterized the in/directness of the speech report with reference to the interpretation of the deixis. In particular, the discussion about how to interpret social deixis in the inset suggests that the reporter’s perspective can be expressed in the inset of a belief report. This discussion strongly suggests that the inset of a belief report is the main clause of the belief report, while the frame is an adjunct.

4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes Thus far, I have only focused on the belief reports as linguistic outputs. In this chapter, the focus will be turned on the relation between what a belief report expresses semantically and the epistemic state of the believer. Three types of the relations will be examined: 1. Identity of the epistemic states and linguistic content 2. Isomorphism between the class of epistemic states and that of linguistic content 3. Homomorphism from the class of epistemic states onto that of linguistic content

The first two types of relations are supported by the standard view characterized in chapter 2. In section 2.3, we identified that the standard view assumes the Relation Account, in which a belief report “a believes that S” is true if and only if B(s, P), where s is the referent of “a,” P is the propositional content expressed by “that S,” and B is the cognitive believing relation. Arguments against the first two versions of relations allow us to decline the Relation Account completely. In section 4.1, the classic version of the Relation Account will be examined; that is, the identity account according to which the propositional content is both linguistically expressed by the inset of a belief report, as well as cognitively grasped. This “double duty thesis” will be argued to be problematic. Section 4.2 focuses on an isomorphism account, in which the domain of the propositional content is independent from the domain of the cognitive content of the epistemic states; however, the latter can be read back from the logical form of the belief report. This claim of reading back will be shown to be untenable; therefore, the Relation Account is untenable as a consequence. I examine an alternative account (section 4.3), which is a measurementtheoretic account. The measurement-theoretic account is essentially weaker than the Relation Account because it denies the reading back. The measurementtheoretic account has been proposed by Davidson (1991) and Matthews (1994; 2007). Defending the measurement-theoretic account includes acknowledging the pragmatic nature of the linguistic domain. By examining Matthews’s approach (2007), I argue that the nature of the content determination is pragmatic.

4.1 Identity account and double duties of abstract content | 51

4.1 Identity account and double duties of abstract content In the classic accounts of belief ascriptions, abstract propositions do not only serve as the semantic content expressed by insets of the belief reports, but they are also something that believers grasp or entertain. In other words, a public and linguistically expressed propositional content is also a cognitive content of the epistemic state. This view is widespread and supported by Frege (1892), Kripke (1979), Salmon (1986), and others. In this section, I argue that the abstract content attempts to fulfill incompatible double duties in the classic Relation Account. The linguistic content must be public and abstract (section 4.1.1). On the other hand, this public and abstract content must be cognitively grasped or entertained by the believer (section ??). At the end of the section (section 4.1.3), it is argued that these duties are incompatible.

4.1.1 Content as an abstract and public entity Propositional content is the content a sentence semantically expresses. The semantic nature of propositional content enables us to conclude that they are abstract in two senses: Propositional content is causally inefficacious, and it is subject independent (see Lycan 2000, ch. 5; Fitch and Nelson 2009 for the overview; see also section 2.2). Let us examine them step by step. The first sense according to which propositional content is causally inefficacious, stems from the thesis that propositional content is true or false independently of any discursive context. For example, (46) The current German Chancellor is female. The utterances of (46) change their truth-values from time to time, because different propositions are expressed in accordance with the time it is uttered. If (46) is uttered in 2000, and the definite description “The current German Chancellor” is used as a referring expression, the utterance expresses the following false proposition: (47) < Gerhard Schröder, being female >, while the utterance of (46) expresses the true proposition (48) if (46) is uttered in 2012: (48) < Angela Merkel, being female > .

52 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

Now, each proposition, such as (47) and (48), became true or false context independently or “timeless” (Frege 1897, 146). Therefore, a proposition becomes causally inefficacious; it is abstract in the sense that it does not belong to the external world (Frege 1918, 69). Propositions such as (47) and (48) have their truthvalues essentially rather than sentences, such as (46). Since a semantic value is assigned for every constituent of the proposition used in the Relation Account, the notion of truth is not relativized to any context. Second, the proposition is also abstract in another sense that it does not belong to any individual person or his/her mind. In other words, it is public rather than private. As shown in Frege’s (1892) criticism against the idealistic theory of meaning, the idea (Vorstellung) is a private entity attached to a certain individual. The idea cannot be communicated or shared so that it is inappropriate as the semantic content. Here is a famous analogy of Frege: Somebody observes the Moon through a telescope. I compare the Moon itself to the Bedeutung; it is the object of the observation, mediated by the real image projected by the object glass in the interior of the telescope, and by the retinal image of the observer. The former I compare to the sense, the latter is like the idea or intuition [Anschauung]. The optical image in the telescope is indeed one-sided and dependent upon the standpoint of observation; but is still objective, inasmuch as it can be used by several observers. At any rate it could be arranged for several to use it simultaneously. (Frege 1892, 30)

In this quote, Frege aims to discern the sense from the idea, and suggests the types of the relation that an individual has to the sense, and hence, to the thought expressed by the sentence. To summarize, the proposition is an abstract entity in two senses so that it belongs to the “third realm” (Frege 1918, 69). That is, it is independent of any temporally organized world. The abstractness of the propositional content is commonplace for the classic accounts using the notion of proposition.

4.1.2 Grasping abstract entities It is the above stated notion of propositions that is relevant in the Relation Account. The propositional content expressed by the inset of a belief report is the content that was cognitively grasped or entertained by Betty as Rudolf asserted (1): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. The subject’s entertaining is the second duty. Let me characterize what this notion of entertainment consists of.

4.1 Identity account and double duties of abstract content | 53

Recall Frege’s telescope analogy discussed above. The important aspect of the analogy is the direct cognitive access to the sense, that is, the propositional content. The real image in a telescope is objective because it can be viewed by many observers. The proposition is objective because it can be grasped by many competent language speakers. To entertain a propositional content cognitively means that the believer is directly acquainted with the content in question. This thesis can be easily explained in the Fregean accounts, in which any constituents of propositional content—such as thought—are descriptive. Descriptive concepts are not misidentified by individuals. As for the Millian theory, it is maintained that the singular proposition is directly acquainted.30 In the Relation Account, it is necessary (but not sufficient) for the believer to entertain the propositional account by acquaintance, that is, in a cognitively direct manner.

4.1.3 Incompatibility of duties The Relation Account requires the proposition to satisfy two duties. The proposition must be abstract and public, and it must be cognitively entertained by an individual. These two duties are incompatible. The cognitive entertaining relation runs against the abstract nature of propositional content. Since the thought is the abstract propositional content, and it is “something imperceptible” (Frege 1918, 61), it cannot be directly acquainted. It is difficult to interpret Frege’s argument exactly, but something similar to the following line of argument seems to be the case: 1. Thoughts are abstract in the sense that they are independent of one’s entertainment or grasping. 2. This notion of independence requires public accessibility. 3. If something is public, it is not subjective. 4. Thoughts are not subjective.

30 The situation is more complicated because the semantic value of a genuine singular term is its referent. The notion of acquaintance does not seem to be applicable if the entity can be misidentified. However, the acquaintance does not rule out the possibility of misidentification (Salmon 1986, chapter 8). As we discussed, in the pragmatic BEL-relation (section 2.2.2), there is the notion of guise, which is modes of acquaintance, and there can be multiple modes of acquaintance that are attached to one object so that a subject may misidentify the object. It is not essential for the current purpose to examine whether Salmon successfully explains the misidentification. Rather, it is essential to identify the consequences of this thesis of grasping abstract propositions.

54 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

5. According to Frege, one can be directly aware of something only if it is subjective. 6. One cannot be directly aware of thoughts.

The last line is not compatible to the thesis that the believer cognitively entertains the thoughts. This problem is genuine for the double duty thesis. The abstract nature of the propositional content is required if you define the content as linguistically expressed by sentences. However, we established that it is this abstract nature that is not implemented in the cognitive relation B. Therefore, this problem is also essential to the double duty thesis. In this section, I argued that the linguistic propositional content is different from the epistemic content of epistemic states, for we have argued that linguistic content is abstract and cannot be entertained.

4.2 Isomorphism and the problem of reading back In the last section, I argued that we cannot be directly acquainted with abstract and public propositions. Therefore, the cognitive content of mental states seems to be distinct from the linguistic content expressed by sentences. However, this does not constitute reasons for completely denying the Relation Account. Indeed, it will turn out that too much is required for the double duty to defend the Relation Account of the belief predicate; it is sufficient for the Relation Account for there to be an isomorphic mapping between the domains of linguistic and cognitive content; that is, both the domains can be characterized independently. Thus, the essence of the Relation Account consists in the reading back, which can be stated in the following manner: Thesis 4.1 (Reading back). The epistemic state of the believer can be read back from the semantic propositional content expressed by the inset. The double duty thesis realizes thesis 4.1 by identifying the linguistic propositional content with something the agent cognitively grasps. The double duty thesis may be sufficient for defending the Relation Account, but it is not necessary. The essence of the Relation Account lies in the intuitive fact that the propositional content tracks the content of the epistemic state in a manner that enables us to read back the latter from the former (Thesis 4.1). To this end, it is indifferent whether the domain of propositional attitudes may be metaphysically distinct

4.2 Isomorphism and the problem of reading back | 55

from that of the linguistic propositional content. All we need is a one-to-one mapping between both domains. The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) (Fodor 1975) is such an account that satisfies the reading back thesis. The second task of this section is to introduce the core ideas of LOTH to support further discussions. By examining LOTH, I argue against the reading back thesis; hence, the Relation Account. My examinations will be based on Matthews (2007), who provides extensive discussion against the reading back thesis.

4.2.1 The Language of Thought hypothesis The crux of the Relation Account is that the epistemic state of the believer can be read back from the semantic propositional content expressed by the inset of a belief report. The question is how to keep this crux while denying that the agent is directly and cognitively acquainted with the abstract proposition. An answer to this question is the following isomorphism account: Thesis 4.2 (Isomorphism account). For every proper name a, every clause S, every epistemic state P: a belief report “a believes that S” is true if and only if there is an epistemic state P of the subject referred to as “a” such that P is isomorphic to the propositional content of “S.” If the isomorphism account is successful, it circumvents the ontological problems of the double duty thesis. This is because the domain of linguistic propositional content is metaphysically distinct from the domain of the cognitive content of epistemic states. If this is the case, the propositional content expressed by the inset of a belief report is, therefore, independent to the believer’s epistemic state. The LOTH (Fodor 1975; Aydede 2010) is one of the most plausible isomorphism accounts because, according to this hypothesis, there is a computational cognitive process in a subject, which uses the representational system as a medium. In a nutshell, the LOTH claims three things (Aydede 2010): 1. For each propositional attitude (such as belief), there is a unique and distinct psychological relation (such as a belief relation); 2. An agent a believes that P if and only if there is a mental representation Ψ, such that (a) a bears belief relation to Ψ, and (b) Ψ means that P;

56 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

Fig. 4.1. Connection between the epistemic state, the propositional content, and the states of affairs (redrawn based on Matthews 2007, Fig. 6.1 [p. 182])

3. The mental representation Ψ is called the Language of Thought because it has syntax and semantics.

The combination of (2b) and (3) are equivalent to the thesis that there is an isomorphism between the linguistic domain of propositional content and the psychological domain of propositional attitudes. There must be inferential relations among the propositional attitudes. The LOTH is an empirical claim. Claim (2) is essential to the reading back thesis, and it is only verified empirically since it is a claim regarding the structure of mental states.

4.2.2 Independence of the domains According to the isomorphism account, both linguistic and cognitive content are different abstractions of the state of affairs or facts in the world. However, if these domains are characterized interdependently, the starting idea of the isomorphism account does not work. Dresner (2010) actually argues that there seems to be a prior connection between them—both the propositional content and epistemic state are related to the state of affairs (Figure 4.1). On the one hand, the linguistic

4.2 Isomorphism and the problem of reading back | 57

propositional content (IUF31 on the figure) specifies the state of affairs, while on the other, the propositional attitude is related to the state of affairs behaviorally. These connections allow us to make the following conclusion: the connection of IUFs [viz. a linguistic content] with PAs [= propositional attitudes] is not only a matter of structure. What makes a certain IUF adequate for the representation of a given PA is the fact that it specifies the (possibly non-actual) state of affairs to which the PA is behaviorally directed. This connection between the two domains is not the result of a measurement-theoretic association between entities in the represented domain and the representing one (such as the connection between objects and numbers that yields, e. g. the metric scale). Rather, this connection between the domains—that IUFs have as their content states of affairs to which PAs are behaviorally related—exists prior to measurement, and helps explain why it is possible. (Dresner 2010, 423; original italics; my supplements)

However, this concern is too quick, and actually, wrong. Let us assume, first, that one’s epistemic state represents a state of affairs that is external to the subject; second, linguistic propositional content is a representation of an external state of affairs rather than one’s epistemic state (from the denial of idealistic theory of meaning). In this case, both representation relations can be called abstractions (Allen 2011), because the resulting content is less informative than the state of affairs. However, both the linguistic and cognitive content abstract away different aspects of the state of affairs because the two representations are distinct abstractions. Therefore, there is no prior connection between the two domains. Since there is no prior connection between both domains, it is essential to characterize the mapping relation between them. In particular, the thesis of reading back is essential for the isomorphism account (thesis 4.2). Reading back is needed if the belief predicate expresses the first-order belief relation.

4.2.3 Problems of reading back In the following account, the LOTH is examined. Matthews (2007) provides two criticisms against the isomorphism account (thesis 4.2). I examine both his points, with the second being particularly important to our discussion. We have introduced the LOTH as one possible implementation of isomorphism. It postulates a cognitive content of propositional attitudes as symbolic content that has a syntactic structure. That is, there must be inferential relations among the propositional attitudes. This position is criticized by Matthews (2007, chapter 3), who claims that empirical support for the LOTH is lacking. Many dis-

31 The notion of IUF will be introduced on page 61.

58 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

cussions (Longworth 2008; Dresner 2010) agree with Matthews. As introduced above, the LOTH is essentially an empirical hypothesis; thus, the lack of empirical support undermines it. Although this aspect is one of the essential issues for the LOTH, the details of the criticisms are not of interest for our discussions. Another equally essential but more general difficulty of the isomorphism account involves reading back. If there is an isomorphic relation between the linguistic content of the belief reports and the cognitive content of the propositional attitudes, then you must be able to read back the cognitive content from the linguistic content. As Matthews (2007) criticizes, reading back is a problematic thesis. There is a tension between the relational conception and the nature of propositional attitude ascriptions. In the best Relation Account, semantic and psychological objects belong to two distinct domains, and they fulfill distinct explanatory roles (Matthews 2007, section 4.4). Hence, on the one hand, the semantic object is not identical to the psychological object. That is, “At best, the semantic object tracks the psychological object” (Matthews 2007, 116; original italics). On the other hand, the relational conception predicts that we can read someone’s propositional attitude from the linguistic content of the belief report. As Matthews claims, “relationalists have no explicit characterization of this putative tracking relation; nor do they have any account of how native speakers might exploit such a relation in gaining information about a person’s epistemic states from true belief attributions about that person” (Matthews 2007, 116). The lack of characterization of the tracking relation is problematic for the relationalist account since there are sentences that use the relational logical form, but the subject of such a sentence does not have any substantial relation to the object. To demonstrate this aspect, I compare the belief reports with the following sentence: (49) This chicken weighs three kilograms. (49) seems to logically express a relationship between the chicken and the weight; however, the weight is not relational, but rather a monadic property that the chicken has. The numerical measure of weight keeps tracks of some physical properties of the chicken, but it is not the other way around. A map of Tokyo keeps track of how the roads are structured, but the streets of Tokyo do not tell anything about the structure of the street map of Tokyo (for example, the color in which the street will be drawn). The belief report works in a similar fashion. For example, (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

4.3 Account of propositional attitudes without reading back |

59

in claiming (1), the propositional content expressed by the inset keeps track of the epistemic state of the believer, but not the other way around. Although the reading back thesis is the crux of the Relation Account, the reading back is not valid; hence, the Relation Account is untenable.

4.3 Account of propositional attitudes without reading back Instead of the Relation Account, I examine propositional attitude ascriptions in terms of a homomorphic mapping from the domain of propositional attitudes onto the domain of linguistic content. The measurement-theoretic account of propositional attitudes (Davidson 1991; Matthews 1994; 2007) is such an account. In this section, I examine Matthews’s account (2007) positively, and argue for basic ideas underlying his account. Matthews calls his account “measurement-theoretic” because it employs the essential features of the mathematical measurement theory. Put succinctly, the frame of a belief report works as a measure predicate, such as “weighs.” I first introduce the mathematical measurement theory briefly. In its essence, the measurement theory comprises two theorems. Then, I provide intuitive comparisons, which suggest the similarity between the frame of a belief report and measure predicates. Finally, I sketch how to apply the basic idea of the measurement theory to the analysis of the inset of a belief report.

Measurement theory The weight attribution, such as (50), also specifies the object, real numbers, and the relation the individual bears to this object: (49) This chicken weighs three kilograms. One important similarity between the belief predicate and the measure predicate consists in the fact that the relation among abstract objects, namely propositional content or numbers, are surrogate. The mathematical relations between weights (e. g., weighs twice as much as, weighs two kilograms more than) are the relations between the numerical representations in the first sense. The measurement theory requires two theorems to be proved in order to exploit the relation between two domains (see Díez 1997). First, it has to be shown that there is homomorphic mapping from the empirical domain on to the numerical domain, which is the measure. This theorem is called the representation the-

60 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

orem. Second, the kind of scale this measurement uses must be determined; this is determined by the uniqueness theorem.

Measuring a propositional attitude The frame of (1) has a “two-dimensional predication scheme” (Matthews 2007, 151): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In reporting (1), we first identify the state of affairs, and then we attribute the believing relation to the individual, which specifies her psychological state type. Matthews claims that there is a similarity between belief attribution and other measurements, such as weight attribution: [T]he predication scheme that we employ in attributing propositional attitudes to individuals seems to be basically the same sort of two-dimensional scheme that we employ in attributing capacities, skills, and dispositions to individuals. (Matthews 2007, 153)

Every measurement-theoretic account consists in proving (a) the representation theorem, and (b) the uniqueness theorem.

(a) is to prove the existence of homomorphism from the empirical domain of propositional attitudes into the linguistic representational domain of the natural language. (b) is to specify admissible transformations among representing structures of the natural language, which preserve the relations and properties of propositional attitudes. Applying the measurement theory to the account of propositional attitudes involves applying these problems to propositional attitudes and solving them.

Two domains In order to construct the account, on the one hand, two relating domains are characterized as the cognitive domain of propositional attitudes, and that of linguistic content, on the other. First, the cognitive domain consists of propositional attitudes that fulfill certain computational-functional roles (Matthews 2007, section 6.5). This aspect of propositional attitudes is especially interesting for us because the attribution of propositional attitudes are used to “predict the behavior and

4.3 Account of propositional attitudes without reading back |

61

concomitant mental states of the possessors of attributed attitudes, and retrospectively to explain, and sometimes to justify, rationalize, or criticize, exhibited behavior and manifested mental states” (Matthews 2007, 175). On the one hand, a person who has a belief manifests her belief behaviorally. This manifestation is predictable, although there is “no single behavior or set of behaviors characteristic of those who believe, for example, that the economy is presently in recession” (Matthews 2007, 177). On the other hand, beliefs are related to other internal states, including propositional attitudes, also in a constitutive manner, such that believing that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck is to possess some other belief that someone was born in Lübeck. Second, the linguistic domain consists of contents of utterances that are called the interpreted utterance forms, or IUFs (Matthews 2007, section 6.4).32 This notion is defined as an extension of the interpreted logical form, or ILF (Larson and Ludlow 1993; Larson and Segal 1995, chapter 11). An ILF of an utterance consists of a syntactic structure or LF with a semantic value assignment for every node of LF. For example, (3) has the ILF (50): (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (50)

S

NP

VP

VP

PP



It is essential to note that the ILF is merely a linguistic entity and not something entertained by the mind. They do not commit themselves to the double duty thesis. Matthews extends the semantic notion of ILF to the pragmatic notion of the IUF. While ILF is semantic such that assignments of every node are determined as given, Matthews claims that the interpretation of each node should be assigned

32 In a former paper (1994), Matthews proposed the Russellian proposition as the entity in the linguistic domain. In this chapter, I focus only on the IUF, because the problematic assumptions of the IUF are also valid for the Russellian propositions. 33 “PAST” stands for past tense. The abbreviations used in this book are on “list of abbreviations and symbols” (page XV).

62 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

in the discursive context of utterance. More importantly, the assigned value does not have to be a semantic value. This value can contain syntactic, phonological, pragmatic, and orthographic features Matthews (2007, 168). That is, each of the following express two distinct IUFs. (7) a. Ketchup is used for hamburgers. b. Catsup is used for hamburgers.

Establishing the mapping The aim of the measurement-theoretic account consists in establishing the thesis that IUFs measure propositional attitudes. That is to provide solutions to (a) the representation problem and (b) the uniqueness problem. In the following account, I reconstruct Matthews’s discussion on how to solve them. According to Matthews (2007, section 6.6), the representation problem (a) can be solved in two steps. First, he selects a subset of the IUFs whose members are maximal elaborations of IUFs that “cannot be further elaborated (in the sense that further elaborations would not be individuative of different propositional attitudes)” (Matthews 2007, 198). Although there need not actually be such maximal elaborations (see Matthews 2007, 198), the existence of homomorphism into this domain is, according to Matthews, proven in a straightforward manner (Matthews 2007, 199). This is because the maximal elaboration of IUFs amounts to a functional specification of the second-order relations defined on propositional attitudes. The second step of his discussion is regarding the non-maximally elaborated IUFs. His point here is to build on certain equivalence classes defined on propositional attitudes, which share certain second-order relations and properties. He seems to argue that it is sufficient to show the representational theorem that a member of an equivalence class has a representational image of a nonmaximally elaborated IUF. For non-maximally elaborated IUFs, the analysis is similar to that of a predicate, such as has a heavy weight; the first-order relations defined on such predicates respect some relations among propositional attitudes (Matthews 2007, 197). The uniqueness problem (b) is about what class of IUFs is a representative of a single epistemic state. Since everything can be relevant for the interpretation of each IUF-node, there are equivalent classes of IUFs whose difference does not reflect the difference in the believer’s epistemic state. Take example (7) again: Each of them expresses a distinct IUF. If both of them are synonymous, then both IUFs expressed belong to an equivalent class. This equivalent class is a representation of a single epistemic state because the synonyms are determined by the believer’s manifestations of epistemic states. Thus, the uniqueness problem con-

4.4 Deficits of IUFs: Evaluation of the measurement-theoretic account |

63

cerns a problem of how to explain opacity, because “the properties and relations of propositional attitudes that are respected in the representational domain of the IUFs are preserved under a synonymy transformation on that domain” (Matthews 2007, 204). Since the synonymous transformation is applied to solve the uniqueness problem (b) of the propositional attitude ascriptions, the notion of synonymous is relative to each subject. If the believer would agree with (3) while denying (4), then (3) and (4) are not synonymous with respect to the uniqueness problem: (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (4) Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. If (3) and (4) are not synonymous for the believer, then the IUFs expressed by them do not belong to the same equivalent class that represents a single epistemic state. The aim of (b) is to identify transformations defined on the representational domain that preserves “the empirical properties and relations of propositional attitudes” (Matthews 2007, 202). In order to reach this, Matthews needs to relativize the synonymous transformation to the idiolect of each subject. To summarize, Matthews (2007, part 2) characterizes the representation and uniqueness problems in the following manner: (a) maximally elaborated IUFs measure propositional attitudes; (b) the synonymous transformation among IUFs in the believer’s idiolect characterizes the uniqueness problem.

If this account is successful, the rational reasoning concerning the propositional attitudes should be surrogate. Reasoning between propositional attitudes occurs only in the linguistic domain. This is a general feature that is shared in every account that avoids the double duty thesis.

4.4 Deficits of IUFs: Evaluation of the measurement-theoretic account Now, let me turn to the leading question of this chapter: Does the measurementtheoretic account of propositional attitudes avoid reading back? If Matthews’s account is successful, epistemic states should not be read back from the pragmatic content of uttering that-clauses, namely IUFs.

64 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

The answer will be negative. Although the measurement-theoretic account is promising, Matthews’s proposal does not work because of his false characterization of the linguistic domain. There are two problematic notions: the notion of idiolect used in (b) and the notion of the maximal elaboration used in (a). In the following account, I examine them in turn.

4.4.1 Idiolectal conclusion According to Matthews, the notion of idiolect is necessary to solve the uniqueness problem. An equivalent class of IUFs that represent a single epistemic state is constituted using the synonymous transformation relation. Since synonymous transformation is relativized to each subject, he introduced the concept of idiolect so that there are no substitution failures in the belief content. However, this solution does not seem a good strategy because, as Salmon’s ketchup-catsup example shows (Salmon 1990, 220; see also the discussion in section 2.2.1), making the grain of the propositional content finer does not solve the problem. Even if the ketchup-catsup case were not problematic, another fundamental question remains unanswered: Whose idiolect plays a role in the interpretation of the IUF? There are two possible replies and both of them face problems. First, according to Matthews, the idiolect in question is that of the believer. This first reply is not compatible with his starting characterization of IUFs, according to which each IUF is determined relative to the discursive context shared by the reporter and her audience. We cannot assume that the reporter, as well as her audience, has access to the believer’s idiolect. Then, if we take the idiolect as belonging to the reporter, there still remains a problem of substitution that reflects the epistemic state of the believer rather than that of the reporter. Furthermore, not every substitution in the reporter’s idiolect is allowed in the discursive context, for example, due to the ignorance of her audience. Hence, the idiolectal conclusion is unacceptable.

4.4.2 Maximal elaboration and pragmatic nature of the linguistic domain The notion of maximal elaboration has two problems: first, it is not compatible with the pragmatic nature of linguistic contents; second, the content of the propositional attitude can be read back from the maximally elaborated IUF. Remember, on one hand, IUF is supposed to be the pragmatically determined content of an utterance; on the other hand, the notion of the IUF is extended from the notion of ILF. However, these two are incompatible because of a background

4.4 Deficits of IUFs: Evaluation of the measurement-theoretic account |

65

assumption of IUF that stems from the assumptions of ILFs. The latter consists of the following two theses: [1] a prior syntactic theory assigning structures to sentences, and [2] a prior semantic theory assigning values to sentences and their subparts under the condition of truth. (Larson and Ludlow 1993, 312; my numbering)

The IUF employs [1] but not [2]. The syntactic LF of a sentence is the structure of the IUF expressing it. By accepting [1], Matthews fails in explaining a pragmatic process of free enrichment, which is one of the two pragmatic processes needed for determining the truth-evaluable content of an utterance, or what is said. They are, namely, saturation and free enrichment (Recanati 2004, ch. 2). The former, saturation, is a pragmatic process through which, for example, the values of she and John’s sister in (51) are assigned: (51) She is smaller than John’s sister. (Recanati 2004, sec. 2.1) The saturation is captured by the notion of the IUF by denying the assumption [2] of the ILF theory; this is because the assignment of each LF node is not assumed top-down by denying [2]. In contrast, the other pragmatic process of free enrichment cannot be captured because of the shared assumption [1]. Free enrichment is needed to construct a propositional and truth-evaluable content of such an utterance as (52): (52) Mary took out her key and opened the door. (Recanati 2004, (1) of ch. 2) It can be understood that the propositional content, or what is said, of the second conjunct is that Mary opened the door with her key. However, this is not syntactically articulated in (52). This latter sort of pragmatic process is not compatible with the assumption [1] since, according to [1], the value is assigned to each node in the IUF that is articulated by the syntactic LF. There is no node to assign value to Mary for the second conjunct of (52). In other words, if the content is determined pragmatically, it occasionally contains a piece of information that cannot be assigned to any LF nodes. To summarize, there are some maximally elaborated IUFs that are not analyzed by simply extending the notion of ILF. Furthermore, the distinction between the maximally and non-maximally elaborated IUFs is not harmonious to their pragmatic nature. This is because it is required by the Grician maxims that every report should convey sufficient information. Thus, every IUF is considered maximally elaborated after pragmatic processes.

66 | 4 Metaphysical status of propositional attitudes

4.4.3 Recap: Nature of the representation domain I have provided three reasons for claiming that the IUF is not an appropriate entity of the representation domain: 1. The idiolectal consequence is inappropriate. 2. The employment of LF does not explain free enrichment. 3. The distinction between maximal and non-maximal elaboration does not make sense.

These are reasons enough not to use IUFs as the entity of the representation domain that measures the propositional attitude. A lesson we certainly learn from the discussion is that we need an account of an inset which (a) explains the intuitive truth-evaluation (b) without making the content expressed by an inset more fine-grained.

4.5 Hypothesis However, these deficits are minor; what is shown is merely that the IUFs are not appropriate theoretical entities explaining the linguistic domain relevant for the belief ascriptions. There is no reason to completely deny the measurement-theoretic account. Indeed, the basic ideas of the measurement-theoretic account will be taken for granted, and they include the following aspects: 1. Contents of propositional attitudes and linguistic content are distinct abstractions of states of affairs. 2. The frame of belief report is a type of measure predicate. 3. The pragmatic nature of content determination.

The starting intuition concerning the similarity between the frame of belief report and measure predicates remains. Whatever the characterization the propositional content has, they are representatives of the believers’ epistemic states; the inferential relations are surrogate. At the same time, the appropriate characterization of the pragmatic content of an inset is important. Although the IUF and the idiolectal consequence are inappropriate for characterizing the inset, the inset is determined to be pragmatic.

| Part III: Communicational approach

5 Communicative framework and discursive opacity In a standard case of reporting someone’s belief, there are two contexts involved ((A) and (B) in figure 5.1). In addition to the discursive context (B) in which a belief report is made, there is another context (A) in which the reporter attributes a belief to the believer. Indeed, it is this latter context of attribution that makes a belief report special; therefore, both Fregean (e. g., Frege 1892) and Millian (e. g., Salmon 1986) have examined only the context of attribution (A) to determine the content of a belief report. In part II, I argued against two common views shared by both analyses. Instead, the goal of this chapter is to argue that the content of a belief report is determined completely in the discursive context (pragmatic analysis on content determination). To reach this goal, this chapter is organized in the following manner: first, the thesis of pragmatic analysis will be stated more concretely by summarizing the linguistic discussions against the classic analyses; second, the pragmatic analysis for the content determinations is applied to the standard case of a belief report. The main focus of the discussion will be on the relation between two contexts involved in a belief report. Finally, the issues regarding opacity will be addressed.

5.1 The context of content determination (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In its standard case of reporting Betty’s belief, for example (1), there are two contexts involved (see figure 5.1). The existence of the context of attribution (A) is a characteristic feature of indirect speech reports and, thus, of belief reports. The classic accounts focus on context (A), and as we have examined in chapter 2, their issues of how to determine the truth-evaluable content expressed. However, linguistic arguments refuted this claim (chapter 3). First, the (in-)directness of the speech report is determined in terms of how to interpret the deixis. Second, if a speech report is indirect, then the deixis of its inset is interpreted in accordance with the discursive context. Therefore, deictic features occurring in the inset of a belief report are interpreted in accordance with context (B). It is the second claim that is not compatible with the classic accounts. Among all, the data (section 3.4.1) from Japanese honorific forms as well as the choice of conjunctives in German, are critically important for our discussion. The following figure is obtained from these linguistic data:

70 | 5 Communicative framework and discursive opacity

Fig. 5.1. Standard case of a belief report (revisited from figure 1.1)

Reporters of indirect speech do not simply represent and forward certain contents that they comprehend. Rather, the insets of attitude reports also convey the reporters’ point of view shared with their audience in each discursive context. (revisited from page 48; italics added)

Since all the deictic features occurring in the inset are interpreted relative to the deixis of the discursive context, the discussion strongly suggests that the content of the inset is interpreted relative to the discursive context. Therefore, this argument linguistically undermines the classic analyses.

5.2 Pragmatic content determination Although the content of a belief report is determined solely in accordance with the discursive context, there are two contexts that are related to the standard case (figure 5.1). How do they relate each other? I reply this question in to two steps. First, by examining the discussion of Soames (2002), I argue that the believer and the audience of the belief reports do not necessarily share the context. Second, I argue that each context is relevant for different tasks; that is, the content of a belief report is determined in the discursive context, while this content is evaluated in accordance with the epistemic state of a believer.

5.2 Pragmatic content determination | 71

Independence of the contexts In order to analyze a belief report adequately, the relationship between two contexts, namely, the context of belief attribution and the discursive context of reporting, must be described. One way to understand this relationship is that the believer, the reporter, and the audience share certain descriptive information if a belief report is reported opaquely. Soames (2002) provides an interesting analysis following this strategy. His analysis is interesting particularly because he (2002, 208) commits himself to a Millian thesis of the semantic innocence when he analyzes the opaque belief report. For example, when a reporter asserts (1): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck the reporter ascribes Betty a belief whose content is expressed as a singular proposition regarding Willy Brandt. Without giving up the Millian thesis, Soames analyzes how substituting coreferential proper names, such as “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm,” in the inset of a belief report changes the truth of a belief report as a whole and, hence, it can affect the truth-value of the belief report. More importantly, Soames commits himself to a similar position to ours that the proposition p expressed by S is determined in the discursive context of reporting rather than in the context of attribution: The first point to note is the most basic: sometimes a speaker who assertively utters an attitude ascription such as Mary said/asserted/believed that S asserts that Mary said/asserted/believed p, even though (i) p is not the proposition that is semantically expressed by S in the speaker’s context, and (ii) the proposition that Mary said/asserted/ believed p is not the semantic content of ascription in the context. (Soames 2002, 210; original italics and bold face)

Note that point (ii) is also the case for the non-metaphorical use of belief ascriptions. Opaque belief reports are such examples. According to Soames, opaque belief reports contain some additional descriptive information attached to singular terms occurring in the inset of a belief report. Since Rudolf observed Betty assenting towards (3): (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck Rudolf reports (1) to Lucy: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In making this report, Rudolf asserts something like the following sentence (see Figure 5.2):

72 | 5 Communicative framework and discursive opacity

Fig. 5.2. Soames’s standard case (This figure is complied from pictures from the following source: Detail of the photo “John F. Kennedy meeting with Willy Brandt at the White House” (by Trikosoko Marion (1961); archived in Library of Congress; cph 3c34151); and ”Jimbutsu Icon” (by courtesy of http://illustration-free.com/people/people-list.html).)

(53) Betty believes that the former German chancellor, Willy Brandt, was born in Lübeck. There are three aspects to notice: First, the descriptive content of the former German chancellor is pragmatically added to the content expressed by the inset. Second, only the name “Willy Brandt” occurs opaquely while the other name “Lübeck” occurs transparently. Third, the descriptive information is shared commonly among the believer, the reporter, and the audience. The first aspect makes both the Fregean and Millian intuitions compatible. The semantic innocence is maintained because the semantic contribution of every singular term in the inset is nothing but its referent. The Fregean intuition is defended, too, because of the additional common background information. Two pieces of common background information are attached to a single object, for example, the person Willy Brandt; and the difference in them makes the propositional contents expressed different.

5.2 Pragmatic content determination |

73

The second aspect is subtle, but is important because it proposes a solution to the problem for classic analyses. There are cases where the inset of a belief report contains both transparent and opaque occurrences of a singular term.34 While in the classic analyses, all the singular terms occurring in the inset are uniformly opaque or transparent, Soames’s analysis captures the mixed occurrence of singular terms. The reporter decides which singular term is reported opaquely by adding the descriptive content. Finally, the notion of salient common background information interests us. It is some information shared by the believer and her audience; and it is descriptive and additional to the singular Russellian proposition. The salient common background information meets the following principle: An assertive utterance in a context C of a propositional attitude ascription, α believes that S, containing an ordinary proper name n, results in the assertion of the proposition (semantically) expressed by α believes that F[the x: (Dx & x=n)] in C if (i) it is part of the common background information shared by speakers and hearers in C that the name n is associated by them with the description the x: (Dx & x=n), and as a result of this, an assertive utterance of Fn in C would result in an assertion of the proposition (semantically) expressed by F[the x: (Dx & x=n)] in C; and (ii) the common background information shared by speakers and hearers in C is such that given it, conversational participants in C will readily assume that if the speaker’s assertive utterance is true in the context, then the proposition (semantically) expressed by α believes that F[the x: (Dx & x=n)] is true; moreover, each knows this about the other. (Soames 2002, 221; original italics and bold face)

Problem of common background information In this analysis, the descriptive content is determined solely in the discursive context, which is C in Soames’s quote, shared by the reporter and her audience. This reflects the discursive nature of the attitude report, which we have been discussing. Not only the reporter (Rudolf) and her audience (Lucy), but also the believer (Betty), share the additional information, and furthermore, “each take it to be obvious, salient, and relevant” that the following express the truth (Soames 2002, 217): (54) a. Betty believes that Willy Brandt was a German chancellor. b. Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was her former neighbor.

34 The issue of mixed belief report is discussed later in section 9.4.

74 | 5 Communicative framework and discursive opacity

This is to assume that all players in the picture must share some concrete descriptive information if the speaker reports someone’s belief opaquely. This implies that there is actually only one context that is relevant for an opaque report. However, this assumption is not generally valid. Our standard case is a counterexample since Lucy and Betty are in two different times (section 1.1). Soames is well aware of such a counter example in which the believer and the listener of the belief report do not share any contexts in the standard case. If the believer does not share any discursive context, she has different information from the reporter and her audience. According to Soames (2002, 222–224), this situation can be analyzed by weakening the shared descriptive background information. In other words, there is always some shared descriptive information even in the cases where the believer and the listener do not share any context. Making descriptive information weaker does not help, either. It is possible that there is no piece of descriptive information shared by them. Recall that Betty and Lucy do not share any contexts; that is, they associate two distinct clusters of information to the proper name “Willy Brandt.” Therefore, our example remains a counterexample to Soames’s view. To summarize, Soames commits himself to the thesis that the content of a belief report is determined solely in the discursive context (pragmatic analysis). To capture the opacity, he employs the notion of salient common background information that is shared among all the members relevant to the belief reports. Hence, there are cases in which the believer and the listener do not share any contexts. In such cases, there is no such thing as common background information shared among the believer, reporter, and listener.

5.3 Opacity in the pragmatic analysis The goal of this chapter is to provide some conditions (i) for the pragmatic analysis for determining the content of a belief report (ii) that satisfies both the Fregean and Millian intuitions in explaining the opacity. That is, there are opaque belief reports, and simultaneously, the proper names are semantically innocent (thesis 2.2 [p. 20]). If we take the pragmatic analysis, there are both transparent and opaque readings of a belief report. In accordance with each reading, there is a method to determine the content of a belief report. Thus, an appropriate pragmatic analysis of a belief report in opaque reading requires to satisfy the following conditions: (a) The semantic value of every referentially used singular term in the belief report is its assigned object (semantic innocence).

5.3 Opacity in the pragmatic analysis |

75

(b) The substitution of coreferring singular terms affects the content determined (opacity).

5.3.1 Redefining the opacity The pragmatic analysis appears to require changing our current working definition of opacity and transparency: Definition 1 (Working definition of opacity). For every report r, there is a proper name n that occurs opaquely in r if and only if there is another proper name that is coreferential with n, and substituting these proper names can affect the truth-value of r. Otherwise, n occurs transparently. (from pages 6–7)

In this definition, the notion of opacity and transparency is defined in terms of the truth. According to this definition, the content of the inset is determined in the context of attribution rather than the discursive context; thus, this definition works for the classic analyses. Contrastingly, in the pragmatic analysis, the content of a belief report is determined in the discursive context; it is this pragmatically determined content that is evaluated as true or false in accordance with the state of affairs. The opacity is now dependent on the intention of the reporter regarding how fine-grained her report on the believer’s epistemic state must be. If we take this into account, opacity is defined in the following manner: Definition 3 (Opacity, the second working definition). For every belief report, there is a referentially used singular term that occurs opaquely in the inset of the belief report if and only if substituting the referentially used singular term in question with another coreferring one changes the content of the report. Otherwise, the occurrence is transparent. Whether a referentially used singular term occurrence is read opaquely or transparently is dependent on Betty’s reactions to (3) and (4) : (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (4) Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. Since Rudolf observed that Betty agrees to (3), but not to (4), Rudolf interpreted this as the Evidence for that “Willy Brandt” occurs opaquely in (1). That is, Rudolf’s (1) and (5) express different contents: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

76 | 5 Communicative framework and discursive opacity

(5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. Instead of assuming one shared context among all three members, its two contexts must be clearly separated. The separation is motivated by the nature of the standard case. (How the content of a belief report is determined in the discursive context was discussed earlier.)

5.3.2 Contexts for content determination and truth evaluation It is evaluated whether the determined content of a belief report is true. This evaluation is done in accordance with the believer’s epistemic state. For this, the context of attribution is relevant. To make this relevance clear, it is useful to recall the discussion on the measurement-theoretic account (chapter 4). The crux of the measurement-theoretic account is that the content of the believer’s epistemic state cannot be read back from the propositional content expressed by a belief report. This is because the propositional content is a different abstraction of the state of affairs from the believer’s epistemic state. Following Davidson (1991) and Matthews (1994; 2007), I argued that there is a homomorphism from the domain of the believer’s epistemic state onto the domain of propositional content. (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Therefore, the truth of the belief report (1) is stated in terms of this homomorphic mapping. From this consideration, a first approximation of the truth-condition of a transparent belief report is given below: Thesis 5.1 (Scheme for the truth condition of a transparent report). For every epistemic state B and every class of propositions P: Rudolf’s sincere assertion (1) is true if 1. B is Betty’s epistemic state; 2. there is a homomorphism F from the domain of B onto the domain of P; 3. if p ∈ P = the content of “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck,” ∃x ∈ B(Fx = p)

5.4 Summary In this chapter, I provided a first sketch of how to pragmatically determine the content of a belief report. After characterizing two contexts that are relevant for

5.4 Summary |

77

a belief report, I argued that these contexts are independent in the sense that the believer and the listener of a belief report do not have to share the same context. From this, I concluded that the content of an opaque belief report is determined as a result of the reporter’s interpretation of the Evidence that is provided partially. The believer’s actual epistemic state is only relevant for the truth evaluation of the belief report, to which I apply the measurement-theoretic account.

6 Opacity as a feature of the frame In the last chapter (particularly in section 5.2), content determination was argued to be pragmatic; namely, the content of a belief report is determined exclusively in the discursive context. This allows there to be two distinct readings of belief reports; two such readings correspond to the transparent and opaque belief reports. In this chapter, the focus of the discussion is on the opaque reading of a belief report. I begin this chapter by introducing a hypothesis regarding the opaque reading; that is, opacity is a feature of the frame of a belief report rather than its inset (section 6.1). This hypothesis is important because it enables us to maintain semantic innocence in analyzing opaque belief reports. My defense is based on the result of the pragmatic nature of content determination (chapter 5). In the second and third sections, I critically examine two important theoretical implementations of the hypothesis. The first implementation is the hidden indexical theory that claims the Millian pragmatic BEL relation as relevant for the truth of a belief report. The second implementation is the Davidsonian paratactic account, according to which there are two distinct utterances in a single belief report. Although the examinations of this chapter will show that none of them can be defended, each of them has some positive features, thereby necessitating synthesis. The goal of this chapter is to identify these features.

6.1 The opaque frame hypothesis Instead of extending the content expressed by the inset (Soames 2002), opacity should be understood as a pragmatic extension of the content expressed by the frame of a belief report. That is, Thesis 6.1 (The opaque frame hypothesis). Opacity must be treated as a feature of the content expressed by the frame rather than the inset of a belief report. This thesis 6.1 is defended in the following manner. First, opacity is a feature of the content expressed by a belief report. Second, a belief report has a frame and inset. Third, opacity is not a feature of the inset. Thus, thesis 6.1 follows from the second and third claims. Let me examine each of the theses step by step: The first claim is our working definition of opacity (definition 3). This definition has been argued to be functional because of the pragmatic nature of content determination. The second

6.1 The opaque frame hypothesis | 79

claim is, at least, the case for English, German, and Japanese belief reports that we have been observing (chapter 3). The third claim is demonstrated indirectly. If opacity were the feature of the content expressed by the inset, and furthermore, since the content of a belief report is determined solely with respect to the discursive context, then opacity should be analyzed in terms of the additional descriptive content (section 5.2). In order to determine this descriptive content, it is assumed that the believer, the reporter, and her audience share some descriptive information (see Soames 2002). The difficulty of this analysis lies in the fact that there are two contexts that are relevant for a belief report. I showed in the last chapter that these contexts are independent, such that the believer and the audience of a belief report do not normally share the context. Thus, it seems to be safe to conclude that opacity cannot be analyzed with respect to the content determination of the inset of a belief report. Since each assumption is true and the demonstration is valid, thesis 6.1 is the case. It is important for our discussion because it gives a key to maintaining the semantic innocence for referentially used and opaquely occurring singular terms in the inset. Suppose the truth-values of (1) and (5) are different, then they express two distinct contents: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck In this case, Rudolf must have reported (1) opaquely; or more concretely, “Willy Brandt” occurs opaquely in (1). However, because of thesis 6.1, the opacity is now expressed as a difference in contents expressed by the frame rather than the inset. The semantic content of the proper names, such as “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm,” are the same object (semantic innocence) as long as the same object is assigned to them in the discursive context; therefore, the content expressed by the inset of (1) and (5) are the same. Thus, the semantic innocence is maintained. The obvious problem of thesis 6.1 lies in the fact that the surface expressions of the frames of (1) and (5) are the same, namely “Betty believes that.” Since the semantic value of a proper name is nothing but its assigned object, the difference must be assigned either to the verb or to the connective. In the following two sections, I present both ideas of implementing opacity. One is the hidden index theory that analyzes opacity in terms of the enriched content of the verb. In section 6.2, I examine how the hidden indexical theory analyzes the opaque belief report in terms of the ternary BEL relation, which we have seen in section 2.2.2; the difference between Salmon and the hidden indexical theorists is that the BEL relation has truth-values as its output. The other idea is to reinterpret “that” used in

80 | 6 Opacity as a feature of the frame

the frame. In section 6.3, the paratactic account analyzes the connective “that” as demonstrative, and “that” refers to the surface linguistic expression of the inset of a belief report. In the end, I conclude that neither of the analyses is satisfactory, but the examinations make the conditions of appropriate analyses of the frame clear.

6.2 The hidden indexical theory In order to maintain both the existence of the opaque reading of a belief report and semantic innocence, the additional information due to the opaque reading is attributed to the content expressed by the frame of a belief report rather than that expressed by the inset. As such an account, the hidden indexical theory will be introduced; the key idea of the hidden indexical theory is to treat the BEL relation as a truth-function.

BEL relation as part of the truth-evaluable content Recall that the BEL relation (definition 2) is pragmatic for the classic Millian (e. g., Salmon 1986) such that it is irrelevant for the truth-evaluation. The criticism against the classic or naive Millianism is focused on the arbitrary ways to connect the BEL and the binary belief relation (see section 2.2.2). One straightforward reply is to claim that the frame of a belief report expresses a ternary BEL relation and that it is relevant for the truth-evaluation (e. g., Perry and Blackburn 1986; Forbes 1987; Crimmins and Perry 1989; Schiffer 1992). There are different characterizations of the third fine-grained information, but the following passage by Schiffer is representative of the hidden index theory: The theory, in my favored version, begins with the claim that believing—the relation expressed by ‘believes’ in a sentence of the form ‘x believes that S’—is a three-place relation, B(x, p, m), holding among a believer x, a certain sort of structured proposition p, and a mode of presentation m under which x believes p. The idea is that x may believe p under one mode of presentation m, disbelieve p under a second mode of presentation m′,and suspend judgment altogether under a third mode of presentation m′′. Actually, I should have said that believing is a four-place relation, where the fourth place is a time at which x believes p under m, but I shall suppress the temporal reference for simplicity. (Schiffer 1992, 500)

To summarize, according to the hidden indexical theory, (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

6.2 The hidden indexical theory |

81

“believes” in the opaque belief report (1) expresses a ternary relation BEL among the believer, the Russellian singular proposition, and some fine-grained information x. The opacity is due to this x; namely, a hidden index in the frame. x is a way of believing and is hidden because it is unarticulated in the surface expression; therefore, a pragmatic process of free enrichment (Recanati 2004, section 2.1; see also section 4.4.2 above) is required to make this content explicit. x is an index for Betty’s ways of believing the content expressed by the inset. On the one hand, by treating BEL relation as relevant to truth-evaluation, the hidden indexical theory succeeds in avoiding the problems of Millianism. On the other hand, the semantic innocence is, thus, preserved in the hidden indexical theory. The second relatum of BEL relation is the semantic content of the inset of (1), which expresses a singular Russellian proposition.

Two problems of the hidden indexical theory The hidden indexical theory is a hybrid analysis that aims at reconciling the Fregean intuition regarding opacity and the Millian claim of semantic innocence; the aim of this theory is justified. However, since this position takes into account the two solutions proposed in the classical positions, the hidden indexical theory inherits their problems: first, the hidden indexical theory maintains the Eigenname view on the inset. Both of them are problematic; second, the the nature of the third relatum of the BEL relation is unclear. The first problem is the Eigenname view. In the hidden indexical theory, the second relatum of the ternary relation is the singular Russellian proposition that is the referent of the inset; that is, the inset of a belief report is a singular term of the proposition. Since the Eigenname view is employed by the hidden indexical theory, the criticisms against the Eigenname view (chapter 3) are still valid; thus, the hidden indexical theory runs against the linguistic evidence observed in English, German, and Japanese belief reports. Second, the hidden indexical theory faces the problem that the Fregean theory faces. The third relatum of the BEL relation is ways of believing, and it is understood as certain fine-grained descriptive contents. For example, Forbes (1987) identifies this relatum term of the BEL with the Fregean sense. However, this identification is barely maintained because of the ketchup vs. catsup example (see section 2.2.1). Salmon (1990) criticizes Forbes by pointing out that, although “ketchup” and “catsup” are perfect synonyms and, hence, have the same Fregean sense, there can be a subject who denies “Ketchup is catsup.” This discussion requires the ways of believing to be more fine-grained than the conceptual content. There are other theorists, for example, Crimmins and Perry (1989), who use more fine-grained content as the third relatum of BEL. However, the fine-grained

82 | 6 Opacity as a feature of the frame

content seems to be inadequate as a part of truth-evaluable content; this is because there seems to be a lack of the conditions of how to determine the identity of such fine-grained content. This content is so fine-grained that it is sensitive to every reaction of the subject. In our example, the content of “ketchup” is different from that of “catsup.” This content is subjective because only the subject in question has the authority to acknowledge the synonyms. This makes the content idiolectal, and this content is too fine-grained.

Summary In this section, the hidden indexical theory was examined as a candidate analysis for reconciling opacity and semantic innocence. Its main idea is that the frame of a belief report expresses the BEL relation as its contribution to the truth-evaluable content. Since the hidden indexical theory combines the Fregean and Millian solutions, it inherits the problems of these analyses. Thus, the hidden indexical theory cannot be an appropriate analysis of the opaque reading of a belief report. However, the criticisms are not the reason to completely abandon the thesis of this chapter. They are related to the details of the hidden indexical theory and they are not related to central ideas. Actually, the central idea of opacity as an enriched content of the frame could be maintained in the discussion of the subsequent chapters.

6.3 Paratactic account One of the two criticisms against the hidden indexical theory is its employment of the Eigenname view. The focus of this section is on another analysis that seems to reconcile opacity and semantic innocence without requiring the commitment to the Eigenname view. It avoids the problems of the Eigenname view by treating the inset as a clause instead of an NP. In this section, Davidson’s paratactic account will be argued to be a satisfactory analysis; in its essence, “that” used in a belief report is interpreted as demonstrative rather than connective. It demonstrates the believer’s way of believing.

6.3 Paratactic account |

83

6.3.1 Davidson’s analysis By applying his analysis of the indirect speech report (Davidson 1968), Davidson (1975) proposes the paratactic account according to which a belief report, such as (1), consists of two independent sentences, for example, (55): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

(55) a. Betty believes that. b. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. This logical form has three distinct features. First, only the frame (55a) is truthevaluable. The inset (55b) plays a role to demonstrate what the believer is disposed to utter; the insets do not have to be asserted (but it can well be that they are). Second, “that” used in (55a) is a demonstrative that anaphorically refers to the utterance of the inset (55b). What demonstrative reference to utterances does in the sort of case just considered it can do as well when the surface structure is altered to something like ‘I believe that snow is white’ or ‘He believes that snow is white.’ In these instances also I think we should view the ‘that’ as a demonstrative, now referring ahead to an utterance on the verge of production. Thus the logical form of standard attributions of attitude is that of two utterances paratactically joined. There is no connective, though the first utterance contains a reference to the second. (Davidson 1975, 18; my italics)

Finally, the verb “believes” expresses a two-place first-order relation that takes the believer and the referent of “that” as its input and gives a truth-value as an output. This makes a contrast to the hidden indexical theory, since everything is articulated so that there is no pragmatic free enrichment. According to the paratactic account for indirect speech reports (Davidson 1968), “that’ ’ and the second sentence express the same content (or samesays) and the second sentence must “serve at least the purpose of conveying the content of what someone said” (Davidson 1968, 143). Applying this onto belief reports (55), the reporter’s utterance of (55b) should demonstrate the believer’s way of believing. A question arises regarding whether this parallelism holds. Indirect speech reports differ from belief reports clearly in that (55b) does not have to be uttered by the believer. Davidson is also aware of this difference, and he claims that dispositions are the relata of samesaying relations:

84 | 6 Opacity as a feature of the frame

If we turn to other attitudes, the situation is more complicated, for there is typically no utterance to ape. If I affirm ‘Jones believes that snow is white; my utterance of ‘Snow is white’ may have no actual utterance of Jones’s to imitate. Still, we could take the line that what I affirm is that Jones would be honestly speaking his mind were he to utter a sentence translating mine. Given some delicate assumptions about the conditions under which such a subjunctive conditional is true, we could conclude that only someone with a language could have a thought, since to have a thought would be to have a disposition to utter certain sentences with appropriate force under given circumstances. (Davidson 1975, 19; my italics)

To sum up, the paratactic account analyzes that a belief report consists of two sentences: (55) a. Betty believes that. b. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. By analyzing a belief in this manner, the paratactic account makes the following claims: i. “that” is a demonstrative. ii. “that” demonstrates the disposition how the believer would utter. iii. “believes” expresses a first-order relation between the subject and the referent of “that.” iv. Only the frame is truth-evaluable. v. The opacity is a feature of the frame.

The paratactic account succeeds in reconciling the Fregean intuition regarding the opaque reading and semantic innocence; however, conditionally. A proper name occurrence in the inset refers to something only when (55b) is also used or asserted. If this is accepted, every singular term occurring in the inset refers to its assigned object, while the opacity is explained in terms of the different assertive dispositions of the believer, which is demonstrated by “that” in the first sentence. Substituting “Willy Brandt” with another coreferring proper name changes what “that” in (55a) demonstrates and, hence, the truth-evaluable contents.

6.3.2 Two problems of the paratactic account The paratactic account involves making sense of the syntactic prediction (i) and the role of demonstration (ii). In what follows, each of them is critically examined. Furthermore, the pragmatic status of utterance of the frame is shown to be problematic.

6.3 Paratactic account |

85

Syntactic prediction The paratactic account requires a belief sentence to be divided into two, and it seems to predict linguistically that the demonstrative “that” occurring in (55a) is not omissible: (55) a. Betty believes that. b. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. If this would be omitted, then (55a) is ungrammatical because of the ungrammaticality of (56): (56) * Betty believes.35 The prediction is false. For the connective “that” is omissible in the English language (see Huddleston 2002a, 955): (57) a. She says she believes women can support each other equally strongly, with more positive aims in mind; [. . . ] (BNC ARW 871) b. Betty believes Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. From the data (57), it can be argued that the paratactic account is essentially undermined. First, this discussion is based on an etymological fact concerning the English expression “that” (Davidson 1968, 142). Therefore, it is essential for the paratactic account to enjoy the linguistic supports. Second, it might be claimed that the connective “that” is an unarticulated constituent in (57); however, this move does not work well because the pragmatic process of free enrichment is optional to the interpretation of an utterance (Recanati 2004, section 2.1), while supplementing “that” into (57b) should remain mandatory according to the prediction. The discussion thus far is sufficiently convincing to argue that the paratactic account cannot work for English belief reports. Since we adopt a crosslingual approach to the paratactic account, it is sufficient to undermine the analysis all together. However, it is worth mentioning that German and Japanese belief reports seem to be unacceptable if they are cut in the middle. I compare (18) with (58) for the German belief reports:

35 This sentence is grammatical if it describes Betty’s religious belief, but this is not the target of the discussion here.

86 | 6 Opacity as a feature of the frame

(18) Betty glaubt/denkt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt in Lübeck was born [Intended: “Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] (58) a. * Betty glaubt dass. b. Willy Brandt wurde in Lübeck geboren. Further, I compare further (28) with (59) for the Japanese belief reports: (28) Betty wa Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta to shinjiru. Betty T Willy Brandt NOM Lübeck LOC was born QT believe [Intended: Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.] (59) a. Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta. b. * Betty wa to omou. / * To Betty wa omou. Frames of belief reports in both German and Japanese become ungrammatical if they are uttered without their insets.

Disposition to assert and truism In the paratactic account of belief reports, “that” used in the frame (55a) is demonstrative, which demonstrates Betty’s disposition to utter a sentence samesaying with (55b). What is the satisfaction condition for (55b) to be a standard expression for the disposition of the believer? To give an answer, Davidson (1975) uses his theory of radical interpretation (Davidson 1973), according to which the interpretation of samesaying goes something like this: We can know that a speaker holds a sentence to be true without knowing what he means by it or what belief it expresses for him. But if we know he holds the sentence true and we know how to interpret it, then we can make a correct attribution of belief. Symmetrically, if we know what belief a sentence held true expresses, we know how to interpret it. (Davidson 1975, 18)

It is well known that Davidson’s radical interpretation is based on the inverted use of Tarski’s theory of truth; because of this, the theory assumes the so-called “principle of charity”: If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behavior of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our own standards, we have no reason

6.3 Paratactic account |

87

to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything. (Davidson 1973, 324)

The believer is supposed to believe largely consistent and true beliefs. However, it is not at all clear whether this very strong assumption is required for the analysis of a belief report. In particular, it is questionable if we think about the praxis of reporting belief. We report someone’s belief if this person believes something interesting, and it is often interesting if this person believes something different from what we thought. In such cases, either the reporter or the believer may be wrong.36

Assertive force of the second sentence Even if we accept the truistic assumption, the paratactic account faces another difficulty. The inset of a belief report does not have to be asserted. This is also the case for the paratactic account. In particular, it is the case the cases if the the inset (55b) is actually false. (55) a. Betty believes that. b. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In this case, the assertive force of the second sentence must be canceled, but it is unclear how this is marked since the second sentence is asserted in an assertive form. This is because, if we take the paratactic account literally, a belief report consists of two utterances, and the latter is said in an assertive form. There is no clue provided regarding whether the reporter commits herself to the content of the inset.

6.3.3 Recap To summarize, although the paratactic account is satisfactory in reconciling the opaque reading of a belief report and semantic innocence by implementing the opaque frame hypothesis, this account has two essential problems: 1. The linguistic prediction regarding the frame is not supported (at least in English); 2. No clue is provided whether the inset is asserted by the reporter or not.

36 This aspect is focused in section 8.1.

88 | 6 Opacity as a feature of the frame

Despite major difficulties, the paratactic account captures an essential element of a belief report. That is, the inset is the main clause rather than the NP. This is the essential observation that is employed in the subsequent chapters.

6.4 Summary In this chapter, two implementations of thesis 6.1 were critically examined: Thesis 6.1 (The opaque frame hypothesis). Opacity must be treated as a feature of the content expressed by the frame rather than the inset of a belief report.

Both are satisfactory (at least conditionally) in reconciling both the Fregean intuition regarding opaque reading and semantic innocence; however, each of them has some specific problems. According to the hidden indexical theory, the ternary BEL relation is a truthfunction expressed by the frame of opaque belief reports. The BEL relation takes both Millian and Fregean content as its values so that the opacity is analyzed without giving up the semantic innocence. The Fregean fine-grained content is treated as an unarticulated constituent of the frame. However, this analysis inherits problems of both Fregean and Millian solutions, among others, those of the Eigenname view. The other paratactic account separates a belief report into two sentences. Since the inset is an independent main clause, this view avoids the criticism against the Eigenname view. However, separating a belief report into two subreports has problems both linguistically and philosophically. We need to synthesize the positive aspects of both accounts. The analysis required is such that a belief report is kept as one single report, while the inset is a main clause. The adverbial account of the frame, which I examine in the next chapter, is such an analysis.

7 Adverbial account of the frame In the last two chapters, I established the following claims concerning how to determine the content of a belief report: – The content of a belief report is determined solely on the discursive context (chapter 5). – Opacity is a feature of the content of the frame (chapter 6). – The semantic value of each referentially used singular term in the inset is nothing but its assigned value (the semantic innocence). – The truth of the determined content is evaluated with reference to the epistemic state of the believer (chapter 4). In this chapter, the following thesis is argued to satisfy the above theses: Thesis 7.1 (Adverbial account). The frame of a belief report expresses a sentential operator. This position can be named “adverbial account of the frame,” because the frame of a belief report is treated in an equivalent manner as an adverb.37 In order to reach this hypothesis, I put forward three discussions in this chapter: First, I argue that the inset is linguistically the main clause of a belief report; I defend the hypothesis of the adverbial account of the frame linguistically by revisiting the linguistic discussions from section 3.4. Second, a version of the adverbial account of the frame is sketched in terms of the notion of the Austinian proposition (Barwise and Etchemendy 1987; Recanati 2000). I argue that the notion of the Austinian proposition implements the pragmatic analysis of their content determination. Third, I critically examine Recanati’s analysis of opacity. It is shown as incompatible with his starting idea and, furthermore, with the pragmatic analysis.

7.1 Linguistic supports for the adverbial account The adverbial account of the frame (thesis 7.1) is supported linguistically if the frame, which is set in italics below, is adjunct, and the inset, which is set in small capitals, is the main clause of the belief report: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

37 Note that it is different from the adverbial account of the inset (section 3.3).

90 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

To classify the frame as an adjunct means to treat it linguistically in the same manner as an adverbial phrase or prepositional phrase (section 3.4). The linguistic evidence from English and German that supports our hypothesis is parentheticals (see Huddleston 2002a, 1024 for English; Steinbach 1999 for German).38 The parentheticals are supplements, “elements which occupy a position in a linear sequence without being integrated into the syntactic structure of the sentence” (Huddleston et al. 2002, 1350).39 The following are examples from English and German, respectively: (30c) That is all the more reason, they believe, for keeping their crusade going, so that a wider public will react positively and begin to recognise the indicators of abuse. (BNC, CAR 1341; my small capitals)

(32) Willy Brandt, (so) glaubt Betty, wurde in Lübeck geboren. The existence of parentheticals supports the adverbial hypothesis linguistically. First, the frame of a belief report and that of an indirect speech report behave in a perfectly parallel manner; second, the frame can be inserted anywhere in the main clause where adjuncts are inserted. The second point is clarified by comparing the following examples of indirect speech: (60) a. Willy Brandt was, according to Betty, born in Lübeck. b. Willy Brandt was, Betty said, born in Lübeck. Both the examples in (60) are synonymous because “Betty said” in (60b) are always substitutable with the prepositional phrase “according to Betty” in (60a). The evidence above supports the thesis that the frame of the indirect speech report and, hence, that of the belief report, are adjuncts because they are optional (Borsley 1999). The English sentences (30c) and (60b) remain grammatical if the frames are deleted. The case is the same as that of the German sentences, such as (32). That is, the frame of a belief report syntactically behaves in the same manner as adverbial phrases. There are further linguistic data that suggest that the frame of a belief report expresses a sentential modifier like adverbial phrases. Of course, the frame of a

38 See Urmson (1952) for the analysis of parenthetical verbs with the first person subject, such as “I believe.” 39 Note, however, that the English parentheticals occur less in the indirect speech reports than the direct speech reports.

7.1 Linguistic supports for the adverbial account | 91

belief report does not look like adverbial or prepositional expressions; however, there is another class of expressions that look similar to the frame of a belief report and function clearly as adjuncts. These are frames of modal expressions. There are some linguistic parallels between the frame of the modal expressions and those of belief reports. For example, “It is necessary that” in (61a) is synonymous to the adverbial phrase “Necessarily” in (61b) without changing the truth-values: (61) a. It is necessary that water is H2 O. b. Necessarily, water is H2 O. This parallelism is also observed in the indirect speech report; namely, the frame “Betty said” in (62a) is synonymous with the prepositional phrase “According to Betty” in (62b) and, therefore, both the examples have the same meaning: (62) a. Betty said (that) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. b. According to Betty, Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Since the frame (62b) is a prepositional phrase and, thus, adjunct and, furthermore, (62a) and (62b) are synonymous, it seems that the frame of (62a) can be adjunct to the inset, too. I have been claiming that the frame of a belief report is adjunctive. It is, indeed, not easy to find an adverbial or a prepositional phrase in English equivalent to the frame of a belief report, for example, “Betty believes,” in (1). However, I claim (1) should be analyzed syntacticly in the following manner: (63)

S

Adj Betty believes that

S′

Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck

This aspect in the discussion is rather made semantically; namely, it is about what sort of contributions the expressions in question constitute to the truth of an assertion. From the parallelism between (62) and (63), the adverbial account of the frame follows. The frames of modal expressions (62) express second-order predicates, which take clauses as their argument. In the following section, I show how to implement the adverbial account of the frame.

92 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

7.2 Austinian semantics on transparency The following discussion focuses on the transparent belief report. To capture the adverbial account of the frame, I begin with characterizing the notion of the Austinian proposition (Barwise and Etchemendy 1987; Recanati 1996; 2000), because it contains explicit reference to the discursive situation. The reporter implicitly refers, so I claim, to the discursive situation, and this implicit reference must be part of the truth-evaluable content of the speaker’s assertion. The implicit reference to the situation is of more general importance than to characterize the content of a belief report. In the following account, I argue for the thesis in two steps. First, the reference to the discursive situation is necessary to determine the content of the assertion containing indexicals. Second, it is also needed to determine the content of an assertion that only contains proper names. It is relatively straightforward to see that the reporter implicitly refers to the discursive context. Suppose, for example, Taro asserted (64): (64) It is raining. Taro claims something about his environment to be true. His assertion is true relative to some concrete situation of the utterance; for example, in Bochum on September 23, 2009 at 10:00. What sort of content does Taro’s assertion express? This is the very issue that refuted Fregean descriptive analysis (section 2.2.1). To determine the content of an assertion, some pragmatic processes are necessary: pragmatic processes of saturation and free enrichment are the most frequently discussed processes (Recanati 2004). These processes make contextual information explicit; this contextual information can be understood in terms of the concrete situation of the utterance, such as in Bochum on September 23, 2009 at 10:00. The complete content of the utterance of (64) contains not only the fact the utterance explicitly expresses, but also the situation that the fact concerns. Here, the notion of facts can be understood as semantic contents. A fact can only be true or false only in relation to the situation. In summation, the utterance of (64), uttered in Bochum on September 23, 2009 at 10:00, expresses the following content: the situation in Bochum supports the fact that it is raining. In the following aspect, the notions of the situation, fact, and support relationship are defined more concretely. This is an Austinian proposition (Barwise and Etchemendy 1987; Recanati 1996; 2000) that I introduce more formally in the following account. Facts are the semantic contents that are expressed by the sentence: Definition 4 (Atomic facts). For for every domain of objects d, every n-ary sequence S of elements in d, every n-ary relation R among elements in S, and every

7.2 Austinian semantics on transparency |

93

fact σ: σ is an atomic fact if and only if σ is an ordered pair < R, S >. They can be similar to the Russellian propositions in a traditional sense.40 However, the facts do not employ some of the essential features that the abstract propositions do.41 First, the facts are not fundamental carriers of the truth-values any more. Second, they are not entertained by the mind either (section 4.1). It is open whether the facts are language independent. Although definition 4 is stated in a language independent manner, there are other candidates for the notion of facts that are language dependent (e. g., Larson and Ludlow 1993; King 2007). In addition to facts, it is essential for the notion of propositional content pursued here to explicitly refer to the situation regarding the discursive context. At first glance, a situation can be seen as a set of atomic facts that is a subset of the actual world (Recanati 1996):42 Definition 5 (Situation). For every context c, every atomic fact σ, and for every object o in the domain of c: s is a situation in the context c if and only if there is a set of σ such that σ’s second entry is a n-ary sequence of objects that are elements of the domain of c. The set of atomic facts, which is identified here with the discursive situation, can also be called “common assumptions of the discursive context” because the discursive situation is what the reporter takes to be assumed also by her audience.

40 There is one additional digit that represents the answers or commitments of the reporter; this last digit is relevant for expressing the difference between two scopes of the negation; however, it can be ignored. 41 In literature (Quine 1959; Prior 1963; Recanati 2000), it has been discussed as an ontological consequence of the adverbial account of the frame that no abstract entity is required. 42 Strictly speaking, the situation is not identical with a set of facts because of the modal expressions: (65) It can rain any time. The assertion of (65) is true if there is no rain at the time and the place where this is asserted. Recanati’s solution is that the situation and the possible world determine a set of atomic facts that is a proper image of the possible world (Recanati 2000, 68). Due to the simplicity of the formalization, I, however, ignore the modal expressions from the discussion. I identify the situation with the set of atomic facts that is determined by the situation and the actual world of discourse.

94 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

Finally, the support relation is defined for atomic facts in the following manner (Recanati 1996, 447):43 Definition 6 (Support relation for atomic facts). For every situation s, and every atomic fact σ: s supports σ (s  σ) if and only if σ is an element of s. It must be clear from definition 6 that “” is not used here in a sense of semantic consequence. Based on this definition, we can characterize the notion of compound facts recursively because the support relations for the compound facts can be characterized recursively (from definition 6):44 Definition 7 (Support relation for compound facts). For every fact σ0 , σ1 and for every situation s: there is a compound fact σ such that [s]  σ and 1. σ = ¬σ0  if and only if it is not the case [s]  σ0 ; or 2. σ = σ0 ∨ σ1  if and only if [s]  σ0 or [s]  σ1 ; or 3. σ = σ0 ∧ σ1  if and only if [s]  σ0 and [s]  σ1 . In Recanati’s formulation (2000, 64), the sentence or formula that represents the facts are enclosed in double angle brackets “.” I employ this notation, but I assume that the facts that are represented in the double angle brackets are restricted to the class of facts that is characterized as atomic and compound facts here. If the situation is about the discursive situation, Recanati (2000, 64) uses a square bracket to mark that the situation is about the discursive situation. Using the notion of the discursive situation and the support relation, we can now characterize the Austinian proposition as the content expressed by an assertive utterance:

43 In order to analyze the modal expression (see footnote 42), Recanati (2000, 69) defines the support relation “w ” that is relativized to each possible world. Since the insets containing the modal expressions are beyond the scope of the discussion, I take the simple version. The reader can interpret “” as an abbreviation for “w ,” where “w” is the relevant world. 44 The compound facts containing quantifications are characterized in essentially more complicated ways. Since they are not an essential part of my discussion, I omit the facts with quantifications.

7.3 Analysis of transparent belief reports | 95

Thesis 7.2. An utterance uttered in the discursive situation s expresses an Austinian proposition of the form [s]  σ. The Austinian proposition is clearly a result of the pragmatic content determination. The interpretation of deixis and singular terms are assigned clearly based on the discursive context. An Austinian proposition is the truth-evaluable content, or what is said. That is, the truth-value is assigned to this Austinian proposition. Informally, an Austinian proposition is true if and only if the atomic fact is an element of the discursive situation: Thesis 7.3 (Truth condition of an Austinian proposition). For every situation s, and every atomic fact σ; for the discursive context c: [s]  σ is true if and only if 1. Every atomic fact in s is the case in c (from the measurement theoretic account). 2. σ ∈ s (from definition 6). The truth condition of an Austinian proposition containing a compound fact is stated recursively (from definition 7 and thesis 7.3).

7.3 Analysis of transparent belief reports Having characterized the basic ideas of the Austinian proposition, let me now proceed to the belief reports, and examine how Recanati (2000) characterizes the Austinian proposition of the transparent belief report. A belief report is an assertion; hence, it should express an Austinian proposition. However, a belief report expresses a complex Austinian proposition because it “brings into play two situations and two facts” (Recanati 2000, 85). There are two situations involved in the relevant Austinian proposition. Suppose that Rudolf asserts (1): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. First, (1) is asserted in the discursive situation that is shared by Rudolf and Lucy. Second, Rudolf asserts something about the epistemic situation of Betty that Rudolf happened to know on another occasion. Informally, Rudolf claims that the discursive situation supports the compound fact that Betty’s epistemic situation supports the fact that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Using the notations

96 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame introduced above, this is stated as the following Austinian proposition:45 Suppose that the discursive situation is s′, and the epistemic situation s, (66) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  (66) has a structure of “[s′]  [s]  σ ,” and this structure is called the “δ-structure.” In order to make sense of the Austinian propositions with the δstructure, the internal Austinian proposition “[s]  σ” is seen as a compound fact. The essential problem here is to cash out the support relation between the discursive situation and a compound fact containing another situation. One straightforward way is to identify the epistemic situation with the believer’s epistemic state (Recanati 2000, chapter 7). The epistemic state seems to be a good candidate for two reasons. Betty and her actual mental state, as a whole, are members of the discursive situation for the discourse is partially about Betty. Furthermore, Betty’s mental state seems to constitute a distinct situation. According to this analysis, (66) is true if and only if (∃x)(x is a belief state & x belongs to Betty & x supports the fact Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck). The Austinian proposition of a transparent belief report circumvents the problems of the hidden indexical theory and the paratactic account. The hidden indexical theory had a problem that the inset of a belief report is an NP that expresses a Russellian proposition. This problem does not exist since the inset is a main clause rather than an NP. Therefore, the frame is the sentential modifier adjunctly attached to the inset. The problems of the paratactic account are not valid either. The linguistic problem of the omissible that in the English belief report is not an issue for the adverbial account of the frame because that in (1) is not used as demonstrative. The problem regarding the assertive force of the second sentence does not occur either, because the adverbial account of the frame treats a belief report as a single speech act. Second, the Austinian proposition seems to be a good implementation of the adverbial account of the frame. Two contexts in the standard case (namely, con-

45 Recanati (2000, chapter 7) modifies the analysis in order to discern the belief reports from the conditionals both of which, according to him, have the same δ-structure. Recanati proposes the following structure as an appropriate analysis of belief reports (see also footnote 43): For the discursive situation s′, Betty’s epistemic state s, the actual world of the discourse @, and Betty’s epistemic world b: [s′] @  s @  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck b  This modification is needed because one’s belief state is to be treated as a real-world object. However, this modification is not necessary even if we take the modality into account.

7.4 Analyzing the opacity | 97

Fig. 7.1. Standard case of a belief report (revisited from figure 1.1)

text A and context B on figure 7.1) are made clear by representing two situations explicitly. To summarize, claiming (65) is in its nutshell nothing but claiming the following: (67) In Betty’s belief, Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

7.4 Analyzing the opacity Thus far, it has been argued that a transparent belief report is well-analyzed in terms of the Austinian proposition with the δ-structure. How about opaque belief reports? The opacity is a feature of the frame rather than the inset of a belief report (thesis 6.1). Recanati’s analysis on opacity (2000, esp. chapter 11) is critically examined in this section. His account has three important characteristics. First, the opacity is analyzed as a contextual enrichment of the content expressed by the frame. Second, the information contextually enriched is the surface expression of the inset. Third, this surface expression demonstrates ways of believing. While accepting the first point, I present discussions against the two last points.

98 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

7.4.1 Recanati on opacity According to Recanati’s proposal, the opaque reading of (1) can be paraphrased as (68): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (68) Betty so-believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. This paraphrase consists of the use of the demonstrative “so” that is attached to the frame. As we will see, this paraphrase indicates that the opacity is a feature of the frame; furthermore, its truth is dependent on the expression of the inset itself. To reach this thesis, there are three discussions to clarify: 1. Double contributions of the inset 2. The opacity as a contextual free enrichment of the frame 3. The relationship between the syntactic surface of the inset and the believer’s way of believing

Dependent expressions Recanati argues that the inset of an opaque belief report carries out two sets of information. The inset is used purely referentially, but it is a dependent expression (Recanati 2000, §11.2) whose semantic value is dependent on the linguistic surface expression. To clarify the notion of the dependent expression, let us see the following example, which is originally discussed by Quine (1959, section 4.2): (69) Giorgione was so-called because of his size. The name “Giorgione” is used purely referentially, but it occurs opaquely. On the one hand, “Giorgione” is used referentially because the existential substitution preserves the truth-value “under a uniform interpretation of whatever contextsensitive expression occurs elsewhere in the sentence” (Recanati 2000, 143; italics omitted). Recanati characterizes the pure referentiality in the following manner: a singular term is used purely referentially iff its (narrow) semantic contribution is its referent, and nothing else. (Recanati 2000, 144)

On the other hand, the truth of (69) depends not only on its referent, but also on its expression “Giorgione” that means something like big George. This makes

7.4 Analyzing the opacity | 99

the occurrence of “Giorgione” in (69) opaque for Recanati because he defines the transparency in the following manner: the semantic value of the sentence depends only upon the referent of the term, not on its other qualities (its form, its sense, etc.). (Recanati 2000, 144; original italics)

Context sensitivity of the frame In exactly the same sense, the inset of an opaque belief report is claimed to be a dependent expression. That is, if (1) is reported opaquely, it can be made explicit in this manner: (68) Betty so-believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Its semantic value is changed if its linguistic surface expression is changed. Substitutions between two coreferring singular terms are such examples. In Recanati’s analysis, an opaque belief report is context-sensitive. (68) can be further paraphrased as (70): (70) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck in that manner: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.” Note that the prepositional phrase “in that manner” is “interpreted as modifying the main verb ‘believes’ ” (Recanati 2000, 157). This manner of articulating the content implies that the opacity is a feature of the frame, rather than the inset. Since the manner of believing is unarticulated in (1), the opacity is a result of the pragmatic process of free enrichment: A ‘that’-clause refers to a proposition which resembles the proposition expressed by the embedded sentence (Jacob 1987: part V), but need not be identical with it; it can be an enrichment of it. What the reference of a given ’that’-clause actually is will depend upon the speaker’s intentions as manifested in the context. (Recanati 2000, 154)

In the quoted passage, Recanati agrees with the hidden indexical theorists (see section 6.2 above; Perry and Blackburn 1986; Forbes 1987; Crimmins and Perry 1989; Schiffer 1992), and claims that the inset refers not only to the semantic content, but also to contextually enriched content. It is the believer’s way of believing.

100 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

Index for ways of believing The inset is a dependent expression and the linguistic surface of the inset is an unarticulated constituent of the frame of a opaque belief report that is made explicit as (70): (70) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck in that manner: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.” According to Recanati (2000, section 11.4), the inset’s surface expression demonstrates the ways of believing. In order to understand the thesis, Recanati introduces Nunberg’s distinction (1993) between the index and referent. For example, this distinction is relevant in analyzing the following utterance: (71) (Context: By showing a car key) This is parked out back. (Recanati 2000, 157) The demonstrative “This” in (71) demonstrates the car key in this context, but it is an index to the car that the key fits. Therefore, it is the car that is the referent of the demonstrative “This.” Recanati applies the distinction to our present case (68), and claims: the implicit demonstrative ‘so’ or ‘thus’ demonstrates the speaker’s current utterance of the embedded sentence (= index), and thereby refers to a certain manner of Ψ-ing, namely, that manner of Ψ-ing which would be instantiated if one Ψ-ed by uttering/entertaining that sentence. (Recanati 2000, 157, original italics)

The substitution between two coreferring singular terms in the inset changes the syntactic surface of the inset. Since the syntactic surface is the index for the believer’s way of believing, the change of the syntactic surface of the inset changes what it demonstrates and, hence, affects the truth-value of the opaque belief report. To sum up, Rudolf’s report (68) expresses the Austinian proposition: (66) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  (66) is true if and only if (∃x)(∃u)(x is a belief state & x belongs to Betty & u is the reporter’s utterance of the inset & x is like u & x supports the fact Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck).

7.4 Analyzing the opacity |

101

Singular term occurrence and endorsement/ascription distinction From this discussion, we obtain one consequence regarding the referentially used singular term (see Table 7.1). It is the distinction between transparent and opaque occurrences of a singular term in the inset of a belief report that Recanati explains with reference to the distinction between the endorsement and the ascription. Table 7.1. What is endorsed by believer vs. ascribed referentially used singular terms endorsed ascribed

opaque transparent

7.4.2 Unstable contexts In our current working definition 3 (see page 75), an occurrence of a singular term is transparent if and only if the content remains the same after the coreferential substitution. This notion of the transparency as well as opacity assumes the stability of the context. Recanati classifies the transparent and opaque interpretations differently from our initial distinction. Recanati would have to oppose this characterization of the transparency. The transparent reading of a belief report is context-sensitive so that the substitution between coreferring singular terms can affect its truth-value. Instead, Recanati characterizes the opacity in terms of the inset as a dependent expression. The difference between opaque and transparent readings consists in the contextual free enrichment of the frame and, thus, the difference must be understood as contextual variations. The possible shifts in interpretation affect only the content of the frame (or prefix in his terminology): The content of the embedded sentence itself is not affected by the contextual variation. It is the prefix [i. e., the frame] which can be interpreted minimally [i. e., transparently] or in an enriched, opaque manner (‘a so-Ψs that’), depending on the context [. . . ] (Recanati 2000, 159; my supplement)

According to Recanati, the reasons are “very simple” (Recanati 2000, 160): (i) The content of the frame is determined only contextually as opaque or transparent.

102 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

(ii) Belief contexts are unstable such that “substituting one expression for another in the embedded sentence changes the context in which the prefix is tokened” (Recanati 2000, 160).

To the second point, Recanati claims that it is our hidden assumption that the transparent belief report is stable in the sense that it remains non-reflecting even if a term in the inset is substituted with another coreferential one (Recanati 2000, 148). However, according to Recanati, this assumption must be lifted. Recall that singular terms that occur in the inset of a belief report are non-reflecting in the transparent reading, while they are reflecting in the opaque reading. In the opaque reading, the truth of a belief report is dependent on the identity of the term. The substitution of a singular term with a coreferential one can change the interpretation in terms of whether or not the occurrence is reflecting. Thus, the context is unstable. In summation, Recanati analyzes opacity as a feature of the frame rather than the inset (so that he could maintain the semantic innocence). In his account, this amounts to treating the belief predicates as expressions dependent on modes of presentation that the believer has.

7.4.3 Recap In Recanati’s view, a belief report is read opaquely if and only if its inset is a dependent expression. In the opaque reading, the inset demonstrates the ways of believing. Recanati’s adverbial account of the frame implies that the opacity is a feature of the frame and, hence, seems to satisfy the pragmatic nature of the content determination of a belief report.

7.5 Difficulties of Recanati’s account Recanati’s account is not compatible with the pragmatic nature of the adverbial account of the frame. In the following account, three problems are discussed: 1. (In-)stability of contexts 2. Uniform occurrences of singular terms in the inset 3. Epistemic state as its essential constituent of the content

7.5 Difficulties of Recanati’s account |

103

7.5.1 Transparency and stability of context In Recanati’s analysis, transparency is characterized independently of the stability of the context. If a singular term occurs transparently in the inset of a belief report, the singular term contributes to the truth-value of the belief report only with its assigned value. At the same time, since an inset can be read transparently as well as opaquely, it is in an unstable context in Recanati’s analysis (seciton 7.4.2). If we accept the existence of unstable context, whose interpretation can “shift from non-reflecting to reflecting, depending on which singular term occurs in that context” (Recanati 2000, 148), then the transparent singular terms may not be substitutable. This view is wrong, and the coreferential substitutions do not seem to affect the interpretation. Rather, the order seems to be the other way round. The question of whether the report is reported transparently or opaquely is determined by the communicational intention of the believer and the listener in the discursive context. If the context is once set in terms of the reporter’s communicational intention, then the context must be stable against coreferential substitutions. Recall that a belief report is reported opaquely if and only if there is unarticulated descriptive information in the frame. Whether the transparent frame is used is a matter of the communicational intentions of the reporter and the audience. The discursive context is stable as long as the communicational intention for reporting belief transparently is shared; this should be the case in Recanati’s analysis.

7.5.2 Mixed occurrences of singular terms Recanati assumes that every referentially used singular term occurrence in the inset of (1) is read uniformly, either transparently or opaquely: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. For if the inset of (1) is a dependent expression in the opaque reading, the wording of every proper name occurrence in it is relevant for the truth of the report. This is a source of a more serious theoretical consideration regarding Recanati’s account, because there is a belief report whose inset contains both trans-

104 | 7 Adverbial account of the frame

parent and opaque occurrences of singular terms. This case can be made explicit in the following manner:46 (9b) Betty believes of Willy Brandt that he is born in Lübeck In the inset of (9b), there are two types of occurrences according to our pragmatic account. While the name “Lübeck” can still occur opaquely, Willy Brandt (and, hence, the personal pronoun he) occurs transparently. These types of belief reports (which can be called “mixed belief reports” following the phenomena of mixed quotations47 ) are not exceptional or anomalies. Mixed belief reports are counter examples to Recanati’s adverbial account of the frame. This is because it cannot, in contrast to the relational account (see section 5.2), explain the different sorts of occurrences of singular terms in an inset.48 Recanati treats all the referentially used singular terms occurring in the inset uniformly, either as transparent or opaque in accordance with the context.

7.5.3 Epistemic state and content determination The uniform occurrence of singular terms is necessary in Recanati’s analysis partially because the believer’s epistemic report is relevant for the content determination of a belief report. According to Recanati, the Austinian proposition of an opaque belief report is determined relative to the epistemic state of the believer in question. That is, the content determination of the frame of (1) requires characterizing the believer’s way of characterizing all singular terms. However, it is essentially important to note that the notion of the believer’s epistemic state is irrelevant for content determination (as I have discussed in section 5.3.2). The believer’s epistemic state is only relevant for the truth-evaluation of a belief report. Employing the believer’s epistemic state for determining the content fails to capture the distinction between content determination and truth-evaluation, although this distinction seems to be employed by Recanati, too. The employment of the believer’s epistemic state is incompatible with the nature of pragmatic analysis in two ways. First, the Evidence provided to the reporter is partial; therefore, Rudolf can only grasp Betty’s epistemic state partially in attributing her a belief.

46 The above example (9b) was used on page 19 to demonstrate Salmon’s naive Millian view. In his view, there are no mixed belief reports either since all the occurrences of genuine singular terms must be put outside of the inset. 47 For mixed quotations, see, for example, Cappelen and Lepore (1997). 48 This aspect also applies to Davidson’s paratactic account (section 6.3).

7.6 Summary |

105

Second, Betty’s epistemic state is not accessible for Lucy in the standard case, because Betty and Lucy do not share any context (see Figure 7.1). Recall that this point was one of the major criticisms against Soames (2002) (section 5.2).

7.6 Summary Since every utterance implicitly refers to the discursive context, I have argued that the Austinian proposition is a good candidate for the notion of pragmatically determined content (section 7.2). If we attempt to capture the content of a belief report with reference to the Austinian proposition, it must have the δ-structure. I examined Recanati’s implementations of the two readings of a belief report (sections 7.3 and 7.4). According to his analysis, a belief report implicitly refers to the believer’s epistemic state. That is the aspect in terms of which Recanati’s analysis is unsatisfactory (section 7.5). Recanati’s analysis of the opacity is incompatible with the pragmatic nature of the content determination because of the following issues involved in his analysis: 1. The notion of context (un-)stability 2. The denial of mixed belief reports

These are serious issues that prevent us from committing ourselves to Recanati’s analysis. However, it is important to realize that the discussion of this chapter does not entirely refute the adverbial account of the frame. Rather, the claim of this chapter focuses on the essential aspects of the adverbial account of the frame.

| Part IV: The VarCA analysis

8 The VarCA Analysis The adverbial account of the frame of a belief report can be implemented differently from Recanti’s account. In this chapter, I construct an alternative analysis that maintains the following aspects of the existing analyses: – Basic ideas of an adverbial account of the frame – Stability of contexts – Existence of mixed belief reports I argued that the reporter focuses on the difference between verbal and behavioral evidence that the believer provides to the reporter (the Evidence) and the common assumptions in the discursive context. I argue that there are two sorts of foci that are interesting, and that this is captured by the notion of Variation from the Common Assumptions (VarCA). This chapter is organized in the following way: In the first section of this chapter, I will reexamine our starting example that was introduced in chapter 1. This section claims that the reporter focuses on the inconsistencies of verbal and behavioral evidence that the believer provides (the Evidence) with the common discursive assumptions that the reporter shares with the audience. Furthermore, I argue that there are two types of inconsistencies that are significant in reporting. In the main discussion (section 8.2), I analyze the difference between transparency and opacity in terms of two distinct VarCAs of the discursive situation (definition 5), which is a set of atomic facts. The VarCA analysis of opacity is most important; to explain the opacity, the notion of semantic pretense is employed (Crimmins 1998; Schiffer 2003; Kroon 2004).

8.1 Two foci in reporting beliefs: Reexamining the example Let us begin this chapter by coming back to our initial example (section 1.1); the following conversation is part of the discourse that is marked as context A: Rudolf: Do you know Willy Brandt? Betty: Yes, he is the mayor of Berlin. He is from Lübeck. Rudolf: How about Herbert Frahm? Do you know him? Betty: He was my former neighbor, but he came from Berlin. (revisited from page 3)

Rudolf attributed the corresponding belief state to Betty based on her assent to (15):

110 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

Fig. 8.1. Standard case of a belief report (revisited with modifications)

(15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Betty’s agreement to (15) was the evidence that was provided to Rudolf (the Evidence);49 based on the Evidence, Rudolf reported (14) in another discursive context (marked as Context B in figure 8.1): (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. In this example, the focus of reporting Betty’s belief seems to be on certain differences in the doxastic situations between Rudolf and Betty. In the dialog, Betty agreed to (15), and this lets Rudolf attribute to her what he declined.50 This difference is a good reason to report someone’s belief explicitly. Thus, a belief report seems to be important particularly for the reporter if the believer’s doxastic commitments seem to be incompatible with the common assumptions. Of course, this sort of incompatibility is not necessary for reporting someone’s belief. Indeed, there are other good reasons to report someone’s belief even if there is no incompatibility of the sort that we have discussed above. First, there is a

49 Although Rudolf was the addressee of the conversation in this example, this is not mandatory. Rudolf could have overheard Betty. Furthermore, the Evidence need not be verbal or linguistic. 50 More accurately, the reporter thinks that there are certain common assumptions that she shares with her audience.

8.1 Two foci in reporting beliefs: Reexamining the example |

111

belief report in which the reporter attempts to convey the information regarding how much she and the reporter agree on some issues, for example: (72) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Betty believes so as well. Second, a belief report is also used to emphasize the strength of a believer’s conviction or commitment to something, for example: (73) Betty strongly believes that Herbert was not born in Lübeck. Later, I claim that they can be analyzed as applied issues. For example, the belief reports, such as (72), can be analyzed in terms of the null variation (see footnote 61 [page 134]). In this chapter, I first focus on the type of belief report in which the reporter interprets the Evidence as inconsistent with the common assumptions that she shares with the audience in the discursive context (discursive situation). In understanding how the reporter understands the Evidence, it is important to note that the Evidence is partially provided to the reporter. Thus, the reporter must construct a model of the believer. She modifies the common discursive assumptions minimally and maintains its consistency. There are two ways for the reporter to model the inconsistency that matters to our discussions. These two ways reflect two distinct communicational intentions of the reporter when she reports someone’s belief to her audience. For the first sort of belief report, the assignments of names are not problematic or focused on in reporting someone’s belief. Thus, the reporter interprets the Evidence using the same assignments for the names as she uses in the discursive context. That is, there is no good ground for the reporter to model the Evidence in terms of the difference of the ontologies. In our example, Rudolf assumed that Betty, Lucy, and he assign the same person to the name “Herbert Frahm” as he reported (14): (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. The point of reporting for Rudolf was on how differently Betty had characterized the person Herbert Frahm. There is another sort of belief report in which the reporter focuses on the assignments of the names. In this report, the reporter focuses on the inconsistent presuppositions regarding ontology between the believer and the reporter. Suppose Rudolf thought that the Evidence was best understood if he modeled Betty’s epistemic state such that she had referred to two distinct people by using “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm.” In such a situation, Rudolf’s report (14) is about

112 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

Betty’s ontology, which contains at least one more person. The classical case of “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus” is also of this type. The historical literature suggests that Hammurabi denied the coreference of “Hesperus” and that of “Phosphorus.” Based on this Evidence, a reporter such as me reports (74): (74) Hammurabi believes that Hesperus is not identical to Phosphorus. This report is regarding the inconsistent presuppositions about the ontology between that of Hammurabi and the reporter. In summation, a belief report is about the Evidence that is inconsistent with the common assumptions that the reporter shares with the audience. There are two types of foci in reporting someone’s belief.

8.2 Two types of VarCAs The observations made in the last section are essential for my alternative, and both are taken to be the standard cases for reporting someone’s belief. In the following account, the standard cases are analyzed in terms of content determination and truth-evaluation. There are two important aspects that must be satisfied by an appropriate analysis of a belief report (see chapter 7). First, the inset is the main clause of a belief report and its frame is adjunct expressing (adverbial account of the frame). The second and more general aspect is that an assertive utterance implicitly refers to the discursive situation determined in the context of utterance. In analyzing a belief report, these aspects are integrated into one; a belief report implicitly refers to two situations: the discursive and epistemic situations, which are defined as sets of atomic facts (definition 5). For example, (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Rudolf’s report of (1) expresses the Austinian proposition with the δ-structure, which contains another Austinian proposition as a compound fact. In Recanati’s formalization, this Austinian proposition is written as (66). For the discursive situation s′, and Betty’s epistemic situation s, (66) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  Informally, it reads: the discursive situation s′ that Rudolf shares with Lucy supports the compound fact that Betty’s epistemic situation s supports the fact that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

8.2 Two types of VarCAs |

113

Among the features, the characterization of the epistemic situation is important. Recanati identifies the epistemic situation with the believer’s epistemic state, but this identification was argued against in the last chapter. Instead, I propose that the epistemic situation is characterized as something postulated as a variation from the discursive situation. The VarCA analysis for the content determination of a belief report provides two ways of determining contents that correspond to the two types of foci in reporting beliefs, which was identified in the last section. Furthermore, I claim that each of these corresponds to the transparent and opaque readings, respectively. Finally, I identify the truth condition for each of the readings of the belief reports.

8.2.1 Two distinct VarCAs Both foci in reporting beliefs can be captured in terms of the adverbial account of the frame. I introduce the notion of VarCAs to the analysis. The VarCA analysis accepts some fundamental characters of Recanati’s adverbial theory. By reporting someone’s belief, the reporter expresses an Austinian proposition with the δ-structure.

8.2.1.1 Austinian proposition: revisited The relevant notions are defined in the following manner: First, the definitions of the facts are maintained; that is, the facts are the semantic content of what a sentence expresses: Definition 4 (Atomic facts). For for every domain of objects d, every n-ary sequence S of elements in d, every n-ary relation R among elements in S, and every fact σ: σ is an atomic fact if and only if σ is an ordered pair < R, S >. (from pages 92–93)

Second, an utterance (often implicitly) refers to the discursive situation, which is made explicit in an Austinian proposition. It is essential for the entire discussion to characterize the notion of the situation properly. For the definition of the situation, I employ Recanati’s old definition (Recanati 1996) according to which the situation is a set of atomic facts: Definition 5 (Situation). For every context c, every atomic fact σ, and for every object o in the domain of c: s is a situation in the context c if and only if there is a set of σ such that σ’s second entry is a n-ary sequence of objects that are elements of the domain of c. (from page 93)

114 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

If a situation s is the one the discursive context concerns, then it is placed in the square braket, such as “[s]” (Recanati 2000, 64). The discursive situation can be seen as identical with the common assumptions. Finally, the support relation “”51 is defined based on the notion of the fact. Informally, a set of atomic facts supports a fact just in case the latter is a member of the former (Recanati 1996): Definition 6 (Support relation for atomic facts). For every situation s, and every atomic fact σ: s supports σ (s  σ) if and only if σ is an element of s. (from page 94)

The definitions of the compound facts are also maintained. Compound facts are characterized in terms of the support relation:52 Definition 7 (Support relation for compound facts). For every fact σ0 , σ1 and for every situation s: there is a compound fact σ such that [s]  σ and 1. σ = ¬σ0  if and only if it is not the case [s]  σ0 ; or 2. σ = σ0 ∨ σ1  if and only if [s]  σ0 or [s]  σ1 ; or 3. σ = σ0 ∧ σ1  if and only if [s]  σ0 and [s]  σ1 . (from page 94)

In addition, an Austinian proposition itself must be a compound fact. Therefore, the main task of this chapter can be stated as characterizing the support relation for the Austinian proposition with the δ-structure (see theses 8.1 and 8.3). It is assumed that only the facts characterized in this chapter can be represented within double angle brackets ( . . . ). The truth conditions are defined on the Austinian propositions. Suppose there is a simple assertion, for example, (3): (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. It expresses the Austinian proposition, namely, (75): For the discursive situation s, (75) [s]  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck 

51 Note that “” is used here not in the sense of a semantic consequence. 52 Compound facts containing quantifications are not considered in this work. See footnote 44 in chapter 7 (page 94).

8.2 Two types of VarCAs |

115

If the fact that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck is atomic, Rudolf’s report (75) is true just in case the fact is an element of the the discursive situation. Note that I assume that the discursive situation is the set of atomic facts that are assumed by the reporter in the discursive context. The discursive situation must be a proper image of the world in the sense of measurement. For example, this set is a subset of the every atomic fact that is the case in the actual world of the reporting. More generally, the truth condition of an Austinian proposition is characterized in the following manner: Thesis 7.3 (Truth condition of an Austinian proposition). For every situation s, and every atomic fact σ; [s]  σ is true if and only if 1. every atomic fact in s is the case in the discursive context (from the measurementtheoretic account); 2. σ ∈ s (from definition 6). (from page 95)

8.2.1.2 Austinian proposition with the δ-structure Thus far, I follow Recanati’s framework of analysis. The difference arises if the belief reports are analyzed. Suppose Rudolf reports that (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Since a belief report linguistically comprises the inset and the frame, the Austinian proposition has an iterated structure (δ-structure) in which two situations are referred. In an Austinian proposition with the δ-structure, another Austinian proposition is contained as a compound fact. The latter is supported by the discursive situation. In order to make sense of the support relation between the situation and the compound fact containing another situation, the notion of the epistemic situation must be characterized differently from Recanati’s analysis. While Recanati identifies the epistemic situation with the epistemic state of the believer (section 7.3), I characterize the epistemic situation as something the reporter postulates in the discursive context. The content of belief reports is determined solely with reference to the discursive context (see particularly section 5.2). The epistemic situation is characterized in terms of VarCA, which reflects the observations in section 8.1. The reporter focuses on the inconsistency of the Evidence with the common assumption that he assumes when he reports someone’s belief. This variation is motivated by the Evidence; indeed, if the Evidence is inconsistent with the common assumptions of the discursive context, the reporter modifies the class of com-

116 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

mon assumptions. Since the Evidence is always provided partially, the variation in question is local, too, such that it aims at keeping the variation minimal and consistent. Here, I re-describe the situation in terms of our example (see section 8.1). Betty’s claims (15) (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Her agreement to (15) was inconsistent with the common assumption that Rudolf assumed with Lucy in the discursive context. In order to communicate this inconsistency, Rudolf modified the common assumptions minimally such that the Evidence can be understood in a consistent manner. I argued in the last section that there are two types of inconsistency; hence, I claim that there are two sorts of variations that make an epistemic situation consistent.53 The epistemic situation can be a variation of the discursive situation in two cases: 1. The Evidence contradicts some facts that are part of the common assumption in the discursive context, although the Evidence is regarding the same entities that are introduced in the discursive context. 2. The Evidence suggests that the believer has a different ontology from that in the discursive context.

In the following account, these two variations are discussed extensively; the claims of the VarCA analysis claims the following: 1. The first variation regarding characterizations amounts to the transparent reading.54 2. The second variation regarding assignments amounts to the opaque reading.

Thus, the truth of a belief report is partially dependent on whether the epistemic situation is a proper image of the believer’s epistemic state. The notion of proper image is understood in the sense of the measurement-theoretic account (section

53 In certain cases, there can be more than one ways to make an epistemic situation consistent. In such cases, it is up to the reporter’s intention how to modify the epistemic situation in question (in accordance with his understanding of the discursive situation shared with his audience). 54 The VarCA analysis implies that the notions of transparent/opaque readings are first applied to an occurrence of a singular term, and second, to a belief report. This constitutes one major distinction to Recanati’s adverbial account. I return to this aspect in section 9.1.

8.2 Two types of VarCAs |

117

4.3). In the following discussion, I assume that the epistemic situation measures the epistemic state of the believer.

8.2.2 The VarCA analysis for transparent belief reports As has been discussed earlier (section 8.1), the inconsistency of the Evidence with the common assumptions is often the reason why a person reports someone’s belief. Suppose the believer commits herself to certain facts that are different from what the reporter accepts as true, and the reporter notices this. In such a case, the reporter interprets one’s belief by constructing a consistent model of her belief. In our example, Rudolf had once heard Betty agree to (15): (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. This Evidence is inconsistent with the common assumptions, which Rudolf thinks he shares with Lucy. Rudolf reported Betty’s belief to Lucy because of the inconsistent commitments between Betty and him are interesting for Lucy. The Evidence required Rudolf to postulate a model of Betty, because it is not consistent with a discursive assumption about Willy Brandt that he was born in Lübeck. Here comes the variation. Namely, the reporter models the believer’s epistemic state using the ontology that the reporter assumes in the discursive context. This amounts to the first type of points in reporting someone’s belief (section 8.1). In this variation, the reporter does not have a good reason to interpret the Evidence in terms of the different ontology. Thus, the epistemic situation that is attributed to Betty determines a set of facts with respect to her epistemic world, and this set contains the fact that Willy Brandt was not born in Lübeck. This variation amounts to the transparent reading of a proper name occurrence; for the reporter and the listener discuss the same person, namely Herbert Frahm. Rudolf’s focus of the report is not that Betty fails to identify Herbert Frahm with Willy Brandt. Rather, the point of the report is on the predication, and if two names are coreferential in the discursive context, they are substitutable. That is, the inset is a stable context, such that Rudolf can report his attribution of the belief to Betty as (14) or as (76): (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. (76) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was not born in Lübeck. This satisfies the definition of transparency (see definition 3 on page 75).

118 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

Rudolf’s report (14) expresses an Austinian proposition with the δ-structure, and this proposition is formulated in our notation as (77). For the discursive situation s′, and the epistemic situation attributed to Betty s, (77) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was not born in Lübeck . (77) reads: the discursive situation s′ supports the compound fact that the epistemic situation s supports the fact that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. This reading expresses the fact that the reporter and the audience are talking about the concrete object (e. g., the person Willy Brandt as Rudolf reports Betty’s belief). If (14) is read transparently, (77) satisfies the following conditions: Definition 8 (Transparent VarCA). For situations s′, s, for every Evidence E: s is a transparent VarCA of s′ with regard to E if and only if s′ and s are sets of facts such that 1. the atomic facts that are explicitly shown in E are added to s′; 2. some atomic facts are deleted from s′ in order to keep it consistent; and 3. the variation must be minimal such that as many atomic facts as possible in s′ must be kept. The notion of consistency on condition 2 is worth explaining here. The classic Millian view had a problem of ascribing direct inconsistent beliefs (section 2.2.2). The notion of transparent VarCA does not seem to solve this problem. In our example, Betty agrees to both of the following statements: (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. It seems to be unavoidable for a transparent VarCA to be inconsistent if Rudolf has to take both data as relevant pieces of Evidence. However, this is made unproblematic in two ways. First, a belief report might reflect only a part of the believer’s epistemic state. Not only is the Evidence partially provided to the reporter, but also the reporter has an active choice to decide what counts as a relevant piece of Evidence for reporting someone’s belief. Second and more importantly, if the epistemic situation resulting from the transparent VarCA becomes inconsistent, it is a good reason to report someone’s belief opaquely. Using the notion of the transparent VarCA, the support relation for the Austinian proposition as a compound fact can be characterized in the following manner:

8.2 Two types of VarCAs |

119

Thesis 8.1 (Transparent reading of a belief report). For situations s′, and s, the Evindence E, as well as for every fact σ and σ0 : [s′]  σ and σ = s  σ0  if and only if s is a transparent VarCA of s′ with regard to E and s  σ0 . Thesis 8.1 can be also read as a supplement to the decomposition of the support relation for the compound facts (definition 7). Truth-values are assigned to Austinian propositions rather than to utterances: Thesis 8.2 (The truth condition of the transparent reading of a belief report). Let c be the discursive context, s′ the discursive situation, s Betty’s epistemic situation, and E the Evindence; if Rudolf reports to Lucy the following in c: (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck; it expresses (66): (66) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  and this is true if and only if 1. s′ is a proper image of the actual world, that is, every fact in s′ is the case in c (see thesis 7.3); 2. s is a transparent VarCA of s′ with regard to E (see thesis 8); 3. s is a proper image of the epistemic state of Betty, the believer (from the measurement-theoretic account); and 4. if the fact that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck is atomic, it is an element of s (see definition 6). Otherwise, it is false. According to this truth-condition, (66) is true. Note that condition 4 restricts the fact to an atomic fact. This restriction is needed because compound facts are not contained in the situation (definition 5). Of course, there is a belief report whose inset expresses a compound fact, for example: (78) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck and saw Sieben Türme. In such a case, the truth condition becomes recursive because the support relation for the compound fact is characterized recursively (definition 7). After decomposing the support relation, the truth-condition, which is stated above (thesis 8.2), is applied to each of the constituents that is an Austinian proposition that contains an atomic fact. The treatment of the compound facts makes it clear that the truth condition above does not make the truth of a belief report trivial.

120 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

Furthermore, this gives you a way of analyzing the iterated belief reports, such as: (79) Rudolf believes that Betty believes Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Thesis 8.1 provides an instruction of how to decompose the supporting relation between a situation and a compound fact, which contains another situation. The main spirit of the measurement-theoretic account (discussed in chapter 4) is reflected in the truth-conditions. The frame of a belief report is understood as a measure predicate. The frame implicitly refers to the believer’s epistemic situation that is an image of her epistemic state. Each fact only makes sense relative to the epistemic situation. This is exactly analogous to the typical measure predicates, for example, of weight. Recall the predicate “weighs” refers to the linear measure that is an image of a physical state of affairs.

8.2.3 The VarCA analysis for opaque belief reports With regard to the second type of variation, the reporter interprets the Evidence in such a manner that the believer presupposes a different ontology from the one she assumes in the discursive context. Suppose Rudolf heard Betty assert (15): (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Betty’s assertion was the Evidence for Rudolf to attribute certain beliefs to her. Subsequently, Rudolf intended to report about Betty’s belief partially because this Evidence was inconsistent with the common assumptions that Rudolf shared with Lucy in the discursive context. Occasionally, the Evidence can be best explained if Betty was supposed to commit herself to the ontology in which Herbert Frahm and Willy Brandt were distinct people. Betty’s ontology was different from Rudolf’s in which there was only one person. In such a case, the reporter focuses on the identity of referred objects (e. g., Herbert Frahm) as he reported (14): (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck.

8.2.3.1 Pleonastic entities To capture different ontologies, as I claim, the reporter introduces certain entities into his model of the epistemic situation. Such entities are called “pleonastic entities” (Schiffer 2003). The existence of a pleonastic entity supervenes on the language use of the reporter, which is called “semantic pretense” (Walton 1990;

8.2 Two types of VarCAs |

121

Fig. 8.2. Standard case for an opaque report

Crimmins 1998; Kroon 2004). In the following account, the notion of the pleonastic entity is first introduced for fictional names. Then, this notion is applied on the analysis of belief reports. Finally, I argue that this second variation describes nothing but the opaque belief reports. The notion of semantic pretense finds original usages in the statements containing fictional names, such as (80): (80) Ann is as clever as Holmes and more modest than Watson. (Crimmins 1998, Sentence 3 [p. 3]) In reporting (80), the reporter describes Ann’s cleverness and modesty. It is, of course, not the case that the reporter actually compares Ann to two people; rather, the reporter was “making as if to do exactly that” (Crimmins 1998, 3). This way of using the sentence is called pretending use. (80) can be said to be true if this sort of usage describes the real character of Ann. The pretending use is important because it introduces a sort of entity into the discourse; the entities supervene on the author’s pretending use of the names (Schiffer 2003). Fictional entities are typically pleonastic. For example, the name

122 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

“John H. Watson” in (80) refers to a fictional entity. This name is introduced by Conan Doyle in the very first sentence of his work Study of Scarlet: Being a reprint from the reminiscences of “John H. Watson,” M.D., late of the Army Medical Department. (Doyle 2012, part 1; original small capitals)

In this passage, Doyle55 pretends that there is a person who is referred to as “John H. Watson, M.D.” By pretending so, Doyle creates the fictional character John H. Watson. There is a certain sense in which the assertion containing the name “Watson” can be evaluated as true or false outside of the fictional situation. (80) is such an example. If we compare Ann’s modesty with Watson, the assertion is either true or false in the actual discourse according to Ann’s pattern of behavior. In sum, the fictional characters are introduced by the following steps: 1. Conan Doyle introduced the name “John H. Watson” by pretending as if it referred to someone. 2. Doyle created the fictional character John H. Watson.

The transformation from 1 to 2 is the something-from-nothing transformation. An entity is pleonastic if and only if its existence is “secured by something-fromnothing transformations” (Schiffer 2003, section 2.2). It is important for the current discussion to acknowledge that the reporter has to extend his ontology in order to determine the content of his report (80). In a nutshell, he has to introduce the atomic facts that are shown in Doyle’s pretending use into the set of the atomic facts. These newly introduced facts are the supervenience basis of the pleonastic entity. The introduction of pleonastic entities is not restricted to the class of fictional entities.56 This notion of pleonastic entities is also used for the classic problem of a posteriori identity claims. An a posteriori identity claim constitutes serious problems for philosophical discussions because the identity seems to express, as Frege (1892, 25) puts it, a relationship between two things; Russell also characterized this intuition in the following manner:

55 Of course, it can be discussed to whom the authorship of this passage should be ascribed since the narrator and the author are normally distinguished (Genette 1983). However, the issue seems to be independent from identifying the person who actually uses this passage. 56 Actually, Schiffer (2003, sections 2.3 and 2.4) further argues that properties and propositons are pleonastic. Especially, it is worth noting that Schiffer maintains that propositions are unstructured. This implies that the compositionality is false. I did not examined any versions of unstructured propositionalism in this book because I maintain the compositionality.

8.2 Two types of VarCAs |

123

When you say “Scott is the author of Waverley”, you are half-tempted to think there are two people, one of whom is Scott and the other the author of Waverley, and they happen to be the same. (Russell 2009, 115)

The straightforward way to analyze the (half-)temptation is to claim it in the pretending manner; that is, we talk as if there were two semantic entities in question (Crimmins 1998; Schiffer 2003; Kroon 2004). Pretending use of a name introduces a pleonastic entity in the discursive domain through the something-from-nothing transformation. The a posteriori identity claims are important for my purpose, because most of them are non-fictional. The author of Waverley and Walter Scott existed in nineteenth century in Scotland. A pleonastic entity can be introduced for every name that is used non-fictionally. The introductions of pleonastic entities into the discourse seem to cause many puzzles. These issues will be discussed in chapter 9.

8.2.3.2 Pleonastic entity and opacity The (half-)temptation concerning a posteriori identities appears to be more relevant for reporting beliefs if the Evidence provided by the believer is read as denying the identity despite the actual identity. In such a case, the focus of reporting a belief is directed toward the difference in the ontology. The hypothesis of the VarCA analysis will be this: a singular term occurs opaquely in the inset of a belief report because the reporter introduces a pleonastic entity into the discourse. Let me go back to our example. This was the Evidence that Betty, the believer, provided to Rudolf, the reporter: (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. The Evidence (15) was inconsistent with the common assumption of the discursive context in such a manner that it denies the common assumption of Willy Brandt’s being identical with Herbert Frahm. In this case, Rudolf could focus on Betty’s different assignment of the values to the name “Herbert Frahm,” and he could pretend her usage of the name when he reported Betty’s belief to Lucy in the following following manner: (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. The reporter’s pretense introduces a pleonastic entity, such as Herbert Frahm; hence, it satisfies the following conditions. First, the reporter pretends the Evidence to be true; namely, he uses the name “Herbert Frahm” in a pretending man-

124 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

ner. Second, based on his pretending use of the name, the reporter introduces the pleonastic entity, Herbert Frahm, into the epistemic situation. An Austinian proposition with the δ-structure can be presented in the following manner: Let s′ be the discursive situation, and s the epistemic situation, (81) [s′]  s  Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck  Informally, (81) reads: the discursive situation s′ supports such a compound fact that Betty’s epistemic situation s supports the fact that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. This content must satisfy the following conditions: Definition 9 (Opaque VarCA). For situations s′, and s, for every Evidence E, for every atomic fact σ, as well as for every object o: s is an opaque VarCA of s′ with regard to E if and only if s′ and s are sets of atomic facts such that 1. there is an atomic fact σ ∈ s′; 2. the second entry of σ contains a pleonastic entity o such that (a) the reporter pretends atomic facts explicitly shown in E to be true, (b) o comes into existence by the something-from-nothing transformation; 3. the atomic facts explicitly expressed in E are added to s in addition to the facts in s′; 4. some facts in s′ are minimally deleted in order to keep s consistent. Using the notion of opaque VarCA, the support relation of a belief report in the opaque reading is stated as the extension of the transparent reading (thesis 8.2): Thesis 8.3 (Readings of a belief report). For situations s′ and s, the Evidence E, as well as for every fact σ and σ0 : s′  σ and σ = s  σ0  if and only if s  σ0 and s is either a transparent or opaque VarCA of s′ with regard to E. Since the truth-values are assigned to Austinian propositions in the VarCA analysis, the truth condition for the opaque reading of a belief report can be expressed in the following manner: Thesis 8.4 (Truth condition of opaque belief reports). For the discursive context c, the discursive situation s′, Betty’s epistemic situation s, and the Evidence E: if Rudolf reports to Lucy the following opaquely in c: (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck; it expresses (82): (82) [s′]  s  Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck 

8.3 Summary |

125

and this is true if and only if 1. s′ is a proper image of the actual world, that is, every fact in s′ is the case in c (see thesis 7.3); 2. s is an opaque VarCA of s′ (definition 9) with regard to E (see thesis 8.3); 3. s is a proper image of the epistemic state of Betty, the believer (from the measurement-theoretic account); and 4. if the fact that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck is atomic, it is an element of s (see definition 6). Otherwise, it is false. Thus characterized, the Austinian proposition (82) is false. Note again that condition 4 is needed because the situation only contains the atomic facts (definition 5). If the inset expresses a compound fact, the truth condition becomes recursive in accordance with the recursive characterization of the support relation for compound facts (definition 7).

8.3 Summary In this chapter, I proposed and defended the VarCA analysis; it provides a unified treatment for transparent and opaque readings of a belief report. The VarCA analysis is an application of Austinian Semantics, and describes the relationship between discursive common assumptions and the postulated epistemic situation. According to these conditions for the transparent and opaque VarCA (definitions 8 and 9), a proper name occurs opaquely if there is a pleonastic entity that is introduced in the epistemic situation. Because of the pleonastic entity, the name “Herbert Frahm” in our example refers to something different from what “Willy Brandt” does. Hence, these two names cannot be substituted without changing the content expressed by a belief report. Since the opacity is defined for each occurrence of singular terms, the notion of opacity is only applied indirectly to the belief reports as a whole. Belief reports can be classified in the following manner: Thesis 8.5 (Opacity and transparency of a belief report). A belief report is read transparently if and only if all the referentially used singular terms occur transparently. Otherwise, it is read opaquely. These two readings are distinguished with respect to two types of VarCAs. The transparent VarCA assumes that every name used in the Evidence has the same assignment as in the discursive context. The opaque VarCA claims that there is a pleonastic entity introduced in the epistemic situation, because the Evidence is

126 | 8 The VarCA Analysis

best understood if the believer commits herself to a different ontology than the reporter. Thus, in the VarCA analysis, both the transparent and opaque occurrences of proper names are the result of ascriptions. The difference is whether there is a pretense involved (see table 8.1). This is a clear contrast to Recanati’s analysis, according to which the difference between the transparent and opaque occurrences of a proper name are analyzed in terms of the difference between the endorsement and the ascription (see table 7.1). Table 8.1. What does a proper name refer to? proper names

referent

pretense

transparent opaque

discursive entity pleonastic entity

no yes

According to the VarCA analysis, a belief report is read opaquely if there is a pleonastic entity introduced; otherwise, a belief report is read transparently.

9 Consequences of the opaque VarCA The VarCA analysis has certain implications on the notion of opacity. In particular, the introduction of pleonastic entities seems to have different theoretical consequences. In this chapter, semantic and ontological consequences of the opaque VarCA are examined. In the first four sections, I deal with semantic consequences of the VarCA analysis. By examining these issues, I make the contextual factors in the definition of opacity explicit (section 9.1), and propose a pragmatic criteria for the sameness of a proper name; that is, a criteria when to evaluate two proper name occurrences as tokens of the same name (section 9.2). Even if we update our definition of opacity, there seems to remain another source of opacity that the new definition cannot capture. In section 9.3, this apparent opacity is examined, and I argue that this sort of apparent opacity is not relevant to our discussion. In the VarCA analysis, the transparency and opacity is the distinction that is applied to each proper name occurrence rather than to a belief report as a whole. In section 9.4, I discuss that, because of this, the VarCA analysis can handle the so-called “mixed belief report,” which cannot be captured by the classic analyses. In section 9.5, I discuss an ontological consequence of the VarCA analysis. I respond to it by characterizing further pragmatic conditions on introducing a pleonastic entity.

9.1 Coreference of proper names The notion of opaque VarCA (definition 9) seems to dissolve the problem of opacity rather than solve it. In particular, the condition of coreference seems to problematic for the opaque VarCA. I formulate this apparent objection and argue against this apparent objection by stating the definition of opacity more clearly. In the Fregean analyses, the classical Millian analyses, and the hidden indexical theory, a singular term expresses certain descriptive information if and only if it occurs opaquely in the inset of a belief report. Frege’s puzzle (thesis 2.1) can be summarized as in terms of whether the inset of a belief report expresses descriptive content (section 2.1). The Fregeans answer the question affirmatively, and maintain that the belief reports are opaque. The classic Millians deny that the descriptive content is expressed in the inset, and maintain that the belief reports are transparent. Modern analyses (e. g., Crimmins and Perry 1989; Recanati 2000) are hybrid in that the descriptive content is the information that is contextually en-

128 | 9 Consequences of the opaque VarCA

riched in the opaque reading (sections 6.2 and 7.4.1). In the opaque reading of the belief report (1), opacity is made explicit as (70): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (70) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck in that manner: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.” That is, the behavioral and verbal evidence (the Evidence) that Betty provided to Rudolf was of a descriptive nature. Contrastingly, in the VarCA analysis, a belief report does not express any descriptive information even in the opaque reading. This makes the opaque VarCA (definition 9) compatible with semantic innocence. If a proper name occurs in the inset opaquely, the reporter uses it in a pretending manner; based on the reporter’s pretense, a pleonastic entity is introduced into the epistemic situation of the Austinian proposition. A pleonastic entity is an entity whose existence supervenes on the pretending use of a proper name. Such a proper name does not express any descriptive content. Recall the use of “Watson” and “Holmes” discussed in section 8.2.3: (80) Ann is as clever as Holmes and more modest than Watson. (Crimmins 1998, Sentence 3 [p. 3]) The reporter speaks as if the names “Holmes” and “Watson” refer to certain people, and through her pretense, she introduces two pleonastic entities using the something-from-nothing transformation (section 8.2.3). In asserting (80), the reporter does not pick out the referents of “Holmes” and “Watson” through descriptions about characters. In fact, the reporter’s intention to pretend is sufficient for determining the referents of these names. In the VarCA analysis, when a belief report, such as (14), is read opaquely, a pleonastic entity is introduced as the referent of a singular term. For example, (14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. “Herbert Frahm” refers to a different entity from the referent of “Willy Brandt” in the inset. Thus, the content of (14) is different from the content of (76): (76) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was not born in Lübeck.

9.1 Coreference of proper names |

129

If “Willy Brandt” is substituted with “Herbert Frahm,” the content of the belief report changes. Therefore, the substitution can affect the truth-value of the belief report. When presenting this account, the following objection may arise: the VarCA analysis accounts for opacity in such a manner that opacity is dissolved rather than solved. As soon as the opaque VarCA introduces a pleonastic entity into the epistemic situation, “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” refer to two distinct entities. Hence, “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” do not seem to be coreferential at all. This is a serious problem because, according to definition 3, the opacity makes sense only for those proper names that are coreferential: Definition 3 (Opacity, the second working definition). A singular term in the inset of a belief report occurs opaquely if and only if substituting the singular term in question with another coreferring one changes the content of the report. Otherwise, the occurrence is transparent. (from page 75; bold face added)

The VarCA analysis makes “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” not coreferential at all. If so, the first condition of opacity, which is set in boldface above, is not fulfilled. In this sense, the VarCA analysis rather explains away the opacity instead of explaining it. This discussion forces us to commit ourselves to abandoning either the VarCA analysis or the definition of opacity. In the following, I defend the second choice by making explicit the role of contexts that are relevant in opacity. Namely, the notion of coreference must be defined with respect to the discursive situation. While the reporter and the audience assume that “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” are coreferential, the Evidence suggests that the believer denies this coreference. Thus, the problem is easily solved if the definition of opacity is clear about the relationship between the two relevant contexts: Definition 10 (Opacity and transparency). For every belief report B, every singular term a: a occurs opaquely in B’s inset if and only if 1. there is another singular term b; 2. a and b refer to the same object in the discursive context; and 3. substituting a with b changes the content of B. Otherwise, a occurs transparently in B’s inset. In definition 10, the notion of coreference is relativized to the discursive situation. Indeed, “Herbert Frahm” and “Willy Brandt” are coreferential in the discursive situation. Since Rudolf introduced a pleonastic entity of Herbert Frahm that is referred to by “Herbert Frahm” in (14), the epistemic situation. Therefore, “Herbert

130 | 9 Consequences of the opaque VarCA

Frahm” and “Willy Brandt” refer to different entities in the epistemic situation. The substitutions between them in the inset result in the different contents expressed by belief reports. To summarize, the opaque VarCA requires us to define the opacity more accurately. In particular, the condition of the coreference must be characterized explicitly with reference to the discursive context (definition 10). From these considerations, I conclude that the current definition of opacity is a good candidate. In reminder of this chapter, the consequences of this definition will be examined.

9.2 Sameness of a name The opaque VarCA faces another serious problem with definition 10. Consider the following report: (83) a. Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck; b. actually, he was born in Lübeck. There is a context in which the reporter asserts (83a) opaquely. Even in such a case, the reporter talks about the person Hebert Frahm/Willy Brandt in asserting (83b). However, “he” anaphorically refers to the pleonastic entity that is introduced by the pretending use of the reporter. The problem becomes more obvious if we substitute “he” in (83b) with “Herbert Frahm”: (84) a. Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck; b. actually, Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. This substitution is normally unproblematic, but then, the two occurrences of “Herbert Frahm” in (84) refer to two distinct entities, namely, the person Herbert Frahm/Willy Brandt and the pleonastic entity. This makes two occurrences of “Herbert Frahm” tokens of two distinct names given that the sameness of two proper name occurrences is defined semantically (rather than syntactically).57 This is because it seems to be the case that two occurrences of a syntactically same term are instances of the same proper name if and only if they share the same reference. The opaque VarCA does not fulfill this semantic condition, and therefore, the definition of opacity (definition 10) requires both tokens of “Herbert Frahm” in (84) to be the same name.

57 The sameness of two proper name occurrences cannot be characterized syntactically. For example, there can be two people named “Bianca” in a discourse.

9.3 Discursive opacity |

131

Does the discussion thus far mean that we have to give up the VarCA analysis? It is not the case that a class of the same proper name occurrences can be characterized pragmatically. That is what I am going to do. Namely, two occurrences of “Herbert Frahm” are occurrences of one and the same proper name if and only if both occurrences share the same pragmatic conditions to determine their referents. A candidate for such a pragmatic condition is the causal chain of communication (Kripke 1980). In our example, Rudolf interpreted the Evidence in the following manner: Betty rejects that the names “Herbert Frahm” and “Willy Brandt” are coreferential. However, both occurrences of “Herbert Frahm” are of the same name because Rudolf and Betty located themselves in the same causal chain of communication that began when Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck on December 19, 1913. This causal chain of communication includes the speaker’s intention to use the name with the same reference as the preceding user (Kripke 1980, 96). Both Betty and Rudolf indeed kept track of the causal chain of communication. What Betty did not know is that Herbert Frahm adopted the pseudonym “Willy Brandt” later. Moreover, when Rudolf introduced a pleonastic entity in Betty’s epistemic situation, he did not deny that Betty kept track of the causal chain concerning the name “Herbert Frahm.” In fact, Rudolf understood the Evidence as a sign that Betty failed to satisfy certain additional conditions. A similar case is the use of the name “Santa Claus” (Kripke 1980, 93). Namely, there is a single causal chain that keeps track of the usage of the name “Santa Claus,” but children today refer to someone different from the person to whom the name originally referred. The criteria for the sameness of proper name occurrences do not undermine semantic innocence. Once the reference is set in each context, a proper name refers to the same object, and its referent is the only semantic contribution of the name to the semantic content of a report.

9.3 Discursive opacity The current definition of opacity (definition 10) is explicit about the difference between the discursive and epistemic situations. However, there seems to be a second sort of opacity. For, in the standard case for a belief report (figure 9.1), contexts A and B are independent, and the believer and the listener do not normally share the same context. If we take this independence seriously, there seem to be two sources of opacity (Jaszczolt 1997). One is the opacity caused by the believer’s ignorance regarding the coreference of two proper names.58 The other is due to the

58 The opacity we have discussed above can be called “classic opacity.”

132 | 9 Consequences of the opaque VarCA

Fig. 9.1. Standard case for a discursively opaque report

ignorance of the listener regarding the coreference of two singular terms. Take these cases: first, Rudolf interpreted the Evidence as a sign that Carl knew that both names were coreferential; second, Rudolf assumed in the discursive context that Lucy was not aware of the coreference. In reporting (85), (85) Carl believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In such a case, Rudolf could not use the names “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” in an interchangeable manner. The quesition is whether the substitution of two coreferring names would change the content of a belief report in this case. The apparent reason for answering this question affirmatively is that this discussion is parallel to the discussion on the first and classic sort of opacity. If the difference in the modes of the presentation is relevant to the truth evaluation, so should be the difference in the second context. Let us call this sort of opacity “discursive opacity,”59 and the occurrences of singular terms are discursively opaque. Discursive opacity is interesting because it appears to constitute a case against our working definition of opacity (definition 10). In a case like above, Rudolf would not use both names as coreferential despite his knowledge of Willy Brandt being identical to Herbert Frahm. The discursive situation that a reporter 59 Jaszczolt (2005) calls it “de dicto1 .”

9.4 Mixed belief reports and default transparency |

133

shares with an audience is a set of atomic facts (see page 95). Now, “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” are not coreferential in the discursive context. Thus, the phenomena of discursive opacity cannot be characterized in terms of the notion of opacity that is used in the VarCA analysis. Although discursive opacity indeed appears to be an interesting case, the problem is not specific to the belief reports. The essence of the discursive opacity consists of the speaker’s understanding of the audience in the discursive context. Therefore, the same case can be established for the name Betty in (1): (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. Suppose Lucy did not know that Betty is a nickname for Elizabeth, and her ignorance is known to Rudolf. In this case, Rudolf should not report (86) to Lucy that (86) Elizabeth believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. However, I am doubtful whether this results in the difference in contents between (1) and (86) and, hence, in a difference in contents due to the discursive opacity. However, one thing is certain. Discursive opacity is not the sort of opacity that is captured in the scope of the current issue.

9.4 Mixed belief reports and default transparency Let me come back to classic opacity. Classic opacity is defined in terms of each occurrence of a singular term (definition 10), and this notion is applied to the opaque reading of a belief report in the following manner: Thesis 8.5 (Opacity and transparency of a belief report). A belief report is read transparently if and only if all the referentially used singular terms occur transparently. Otherwise, it is read opaquely. (from page 125)

This characterization of opacity in terms of a belief report is not fine-grained enough because it conflates two non-transparent readings, namely, the opaque belief report and the mixed belief report. They are interesting because the proper classification of belief reports requires a principle of default transparency. The classification of belief reports needs to be sensitive to mixed belief reports (see sections 5.2 and 7.4.2). In mixed reading, singular terms occur in the inset, partly transparently and partly opaquely. Suppose, for example, Rudolf reports the following sentence:

134 | 9 Consequences of the opaque VarCA

(14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. When the reporter asserts (14), he can use “Herbert Frahm” opaquely, and can use “Lübeck” transparently.60 The taxonomy will be complete if we summarize the opacity of a belief report: Thesis 9.1 (The classification of belief reports). A belief report is 1. read transparently if and only if every occurrence of a singular term refers to the object assumed in the discursive domain, namely, the discursive situation; 2. read opaquely if and only if every singular term occurrence in its inset refers to a pleonastic entity; 3. read as a mixed belief report otherwise.

Default transparency The key to analyzing mixed belief reports is the thesis of default transparency (Jaszczolt 1997; 2005), according to which a singular term occurs transparently as default. In the VarCA analysis, the default transparency is stated in the following manner: the singular term occurs transparently in the inset of a belief report except for the case that the Evidence is best interpreted by introducing a pleonastic entity. The default transparency is a pragmatic and normative principle regarding how the reporter should use a name in the discursive context. Namely, if the reporter does not doubt the believer’s assignment of a name, she should not use the name in a pretending manner. More intuitively, since Rudolf never questioned whether Betty denies certain identity claims about Lübeck, he could only report Betty’s belief presupposing that the name “Lübeck” refers to the city that Rudolf refers to with the name.61 The default transparency is an important principle to argue against some important ontological criticism of the opaque VarCA (section 9.5).

60 Actually, this was one of our implicit assumptions in analyzing the examples. 61 This default transparency explains cases like (72): (72) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Betty believes so as well. (72) is interesting because it is used even for the cases when the reporter does not acknowledge any inconsistencies with what the believer commit herself/himself to. In such cases, the reporter still report someone’s belief to communicate the agreement between the believer and herself/himself. This kind of variations can be called “null variations.”

9.5 Ontological hyperinflation |

135

9.5 Ontological hyperinflation The VarCA analysis explains the opaque reading of a belief report in terms of pleonastic entities. However, there are certain serious ontological problems in this thesis. Namely, characterizing the epistemic situation as something the reporter postulates allows for a very generous ontological commitment.62 Indeed, this strategy seems to enable an extremely rich domain of postulated individuals. Suppose Betty was ignorant of any kind of identity between two coreferring names. In this ultimate case, the domain of postulated individuals became as large as the number of names, and she could have named anything arbitrarily so that this number could be infinite. Although this concern is of a purely theoretical nature, it poses a serious problem to the analysis. Furthermore, this concern is related only to the VarCA analysis; other accounts use descriptive information to analyze opacity and do not face this. To respond to this concern, it is useful to introduce some pragmatic constraints when introducing a pleonastic entity. One possible candidate for such a constraint is conservative extension (Schiffer 2003, section 2.2), according to which the introduction of a pleonastic entity must satisfy conservative extension. If the conservative extension is stated in the terminologies of the VarCA analysis, the introduction of pleonastic entity into the epistemic situation may not reject any atomic fact in the discursive situation. Indeed, this condition is a reasonable constraint for introducing fictional entities, such as referents of the names “Watson” and “Holmes,” in reporting (80): (80) Ann is as clever as Holmes and more modest than Watson. (Crimmins 1998, Sentence 3 [p. 3]) By adding these pleonastic entities to the discursive domain, the content of (80) is determined, while every other atomic fact remains a member of the new discursive domain. Although the conservative extension works fine for introducing fictional entities, it does not work for non-fictional pleonastic entities. A belief report is normally a report about discursively assumed entities. In our standard case, Rudolf introduces two pleonastic entities named “Willy Brandt” and “Herbert Frahm” as he reports (1) and (14), respectively: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

62 This point is made by Stuhlmann-Leisz in verbal correspondence.

136 | 9 Consequences of the opaque VarCA

(14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. In this situation, one sentence in the reporter’s assumptions cannot be kept: (87) Willy Brandt is Herbert Frahm. The proper appropriate constraint must contain some operations on atomic facts; the central idea is to eliminate certain atomic facts about the identities. First, the Evidence provided by the believer let some atomic facts into discursive situations. Second, these atomic facts include an atomic fact about the negative commitment regarding the a posteriori identity claim. Finally, these reflect the spirit of the default transparency introduced above. In sum, the default transparency constraint (DTC) works here as a pragmatic constraint for introducing a non-fictional pleonastic entity into the discourse: Thesis 9.2 (DTC). For the discursive situation s′, the believer’s epistemic situation s, a pleonastic entity e, the Evindence E, and a proper name n: e is introduced as a pleonastic entity in s if and only if 1. the pleonastic entity e is introduced by the reporter’s pretending use of n (something-from-nothing transformation); and 2. s is an opaque VarCA of s′ with regard to E such that (a) s contains nothing-from-something transformation facts; (b) for every atomic fact x, if x ∈ s′, then x ∈ s; (c) for every atomic fact x ∈ s′, and for every y that is an argument of x, the fact that y is named n is not an atomic fact that is contained in s. There are two things to note here: First, the one small but essential modification from Schiffer’s conservative extension involving mentioning the atomic facts instead of sentences. Here, the atomic facts are understood as assumed or accepted claims in the discursive context. Second, the something-from-nothing transformation facts are expressed in the partial Evidence provided by the believer to the reporter in the first context; there is always an atomic fact of non-identity as a member of this something-from-nothing fact. Therefore, the relevant ignorance of identity is restricted to the one that follows from what Betty demonstrates behaviorally or by utterance. DTC seems to be too generous in introducing a pleonastic entity, and it seems to have an unwelcoming implication. For example, it seems to allow the wishdate to come into existence (Schiffer 2003, section 2.2). Suppose I always pretend to have a date. I make phone calls to my wish-date many times a day, write emails, plan our excursion to Teutoburg Forest, and even refuse to go out with colleagues

9.6 Summary |

137

because of the wish-date. Although Schiffer’s conservative extension explicitly forbids this, DTC allows for my wish-date to come into existence by supervening on my pretense. However, my wish-date cannot be identical with anyone so that it is harmless. First, all my assertions regarding my wish-date will be false because the discursive situation to which I implicitly refer is not a proper image of the actual world (thesis 7.3). Second, someone else can report my belief, and this report can be true if it is reported opaquely. The reporter can follow my pretense. Note that this is not recursive. The pretense the reporter can follow is exactly the same pretense that I practice. Against the criticism of the ontological hyperinflation, DTC works well as a pragmatic constraint. DTC forbids the introduction of a pleonastic entity whose supervenience base contains any atomic facts regarding the identity. DTC is applicable in both fictional and non-fictional pleonastic entities, but an entity like the wish-date may come into existence. I conclude that the wish-date is unproblematic.

9.6 Summary In this chapter, I examined the apparent consequences of the VarCA analysis. First, the notion of opaque VarCA is dependent on the notion of coreference, which is used in the definition of opacity, with respect to the discursive context (definition 10). Furthermore, I examined whether this definition is appropriate. With regard to the concerns regarding the sameness of a name, I claimed that the sameness of a name is characterized pragmatically not semantically . The causal chain of communication was examined positively as such a pragmatic condition. Since the VarCA analysis is a pragmatic analysis for content determination, there seems to be a second source of opacity for the standard case of a belief report. It seems problematic because this sort of opacity is not captured by definition 10, but I argued that this sort of opacity is irrelevant for the discussion. The opacity is primarily defined for each singular term occurrence. In section 9.4, I refined the characterization of the transparency and opacity of a belief report, so that mixed belief reports can be captured in the analysis. Their existence clarifies the pragmatic and normative principle of the default transparency clear. In the last section, I answered an ontological question for the VarCA analysis. In particular, the criticism of the ontological hyperinflation was important. To do this, the default transparency constraint (DTC) was formulated and defended as a pragmatic constraint when introducing a pleonastic entity into the discourse.

| Part V: Concluding remarks

10 Conclusion In this work, I analyzed a report of someone’s belief, such as that expressed in the following sentence: (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. In the essence of the VarCA analysis, Rudolf’s report (1) expresses an Austinian proposition with the δ-structure if the discursive situation and Betty’s epistemic situation are stated as s′, s, respectively: (66) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  The readings of the singular term occurrences are explained in terms of two VarCAs of the discursive situation. In section 10.1, I first review how the VarCA analysis characterized these tasks and how they are solved. The VarCA analysis satisfied both tasks: 1. How to individuate the content expressed by a belief report; and 2. How to evaluate it in terms of the truth. (from page 8)

In section 10.2, I suggest a sort of belief report that I have not considered yet. For these, I suggest ways to apply the VarCA analysis.

10.1 Requirements for the VarCA analysis In this section, I summarize each of the two tasks again so that I can examine whether the VarCA analysis satisfies the requirements of each task. I begin with the linguistic requirements, and then characterize the pragmatic nature of content determination of a speech report, a fortiori a belief report. The content of an utterance is determined in the discursive context (i. e., context B in figure 10.1). The content determination is characterized in terms of the transparent and opaque VarCA, which are based on the Evidence provided in the first context of attribution (context A in figure 10.1).

142 | 10 Conclusion

Fig. 10.1. Standard case of a belief report (revisited from figure 1.1)

10.1.1 Linguistic requirements The VarCA analysis is meant to analyze concrete reports regarding someone’s belief; therefore, the analysis must be compatible with the linguistic data. Since someone’s belief can be reported in many languages, the analysis must be crosslingual (chapter 3). The crosslingual nature of a belief report requires the abandonment of the syntactic characterization of the belief report, which was characterized as the crosslingual template of the Eigenname view (thesis 3.2). The indirectness of the speech report is determined by how the deixis of the inset is interpreted. A speech report is indirect just in case the deixis of its inset is interpreted with reference to the discursive context. A belief report is linguistically an indirect speech report. The VarCA analysis satisfies the requirement because both the transparent and opaque VarCA are variations of the common assumptions that the reporter intends to share with her audience.

Adverbial account of the frame This characterization of the indirect speech report is one reason for defending another linguistic hypothesis. Namely, the main clause of a belief report is its inset, and the frame is an adjunct (sections 3.4 and 7.1). The former was supported by the linguistic data concerning how to interpret the deictic features occurring in

10.1 Requirements for the VarCA analysis |

143

the inset in German and Japanese belief reports, as well as the data of the parentheticals, which are observed in the English and German indirect speech reports.

10.1.2 Pragmatic analysis The interpretation of the deixis is essentially pragmatic. I argued for the pragmatic nature of content determination (chapter 5). This thesis makes the VarCA analysis clearly distinct from the classical analyses, according to which there is an isomorphism between the domain of linguistic content and the cognitive domain of the believer’s beliefs (for example, what I examined in chapter 2).

Discursive nature The linguistic arguments imply that content determination and its evaluation must be clearly separated. When determining the truth-evaluable content of a belief report, only the discursive context is relevant. This is also the case for the content of the inset of a belief report. The VarCA analysis satisfies this requirement explicitly. Both the transparent and opaque VarCAs are defined as variations from the common assumptions that the reporter (thinks that she) shares with her audience.

Pleonastic entity From the requirements of the pragmatic analysis, it follows that the opaque occurrence of a singular term in the inset of a belief report must be analyzed in terms of opaque VarCA. Opacity is analyzed in the VarCA analysis in terms of introducing a pleonastic entity. The introduction of a pleonastic entity is dependent on the reporter’s pretending use of a name. An interesting feature of the opaque VarCA is that the principle of the semantic innocence is maintained. The semantic value of a proper name that occurs in the inset of a belief report is its referent, namely, either a real or pleonastic entity. The examination of the opaque VarCA clarified some general features of opacity. First, an opaque belief report does not refer to descriptive information. Second, the opaque VarCA and our definition of opacity require pragmatic conditions to classify the tokens of a proper name as instances of one singular term.

144 | 10 Conclusion

10.1.3 Requirement for truth evaluation As I have emphasized above, content and its evaluation must be clearly separated. While the epistemic state of a believer is irrelevant for the content determination of a belief report, it plays an important role in evaluating content that is pragmatically determined.

Measurement-theoretic account To argue against the reading back thesis above, I employed the measurementtheoretic account (chapter 4). It plays an essential role in truth-evaluation, because it characterizes the relation between the pragmatically determined content and the believer’s epistemic state. According to the measurement-theoretic account, the frame is a measure predicate and the frame measures the believer’s epistemic state. According to the VarCA analysis, the truth of a belief report is dependent on whether the epistemic situation is a proper image of the epistemic state of the believer. In other words, the epistemic situation that is attributed to the believer is the measure of her epistemic state.

10.2 Extending the class of objectives In the remainder of this chapter, I suggest how to extend the VarCA analysis. Further, I present examples that require the introduction of internal structures in the epistemic situation.

Ascribing beliefs without awareness In the standard case (such as the case in figure 10.1), I discussed only the belief report regarding what the believer explicitly asserted in the verbal Evidence (the Evidence). There are two sorts of content that is ascribed to somebody. Namely, while there is a belief report regarding something that she is aware of, there is a second sense of belief in which “one believes willy-nilly whatever one’s beliefs commit one to” (Brandom 2000, 174). In this second sense of believing, the reporter ascribes something that the believer should commit herself to, such that this commitment explains the Evidence best. A belief can be ascribed to somebody even if the believer is not aware of the content of the belief report. This is a consequence of the fact that the Evidence is incomplete or partial if it is provided to the reporter in the context of attribution (context A in figure 10.1).

10.2 Extending the class of objectives |

145

This sense of belief ascription is neither abnormal nor exceptional; see the following example: At 5:21 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, four-year-old Miguel Gutierrez jumped on his mother, shouting, “Is it Christmas yet?” “Not on Mommy’s stomach, honey,” Pilar murmured and rolled over. Miguel crawled over her and repeated his question directly into her ear. “Is it Christmas yet?” “No,” she said groggily. “Tomorrow’s Christmas. Go watch cartoons for a few minutes, okay? and then Mommy’ll get up,” and pulled the pillow over her head. Miguel was back again immediately. He can’t find the remote, she thought wearily, but that couldn’t be it, because he jabbed her in the ribs with it. “What’s the matter, honey?” she said. “Santa isn’t gonna come,” he said tearfully, which brought her fully awake. He thinks Santa won’t be able to find him, she thought. (Willis 2003, original italics; my bold face)

Let us focus on the belief report of the quote (set in bold face):63 (88) Miguel believes that Santa will not be able to find him. It is evident from the quote that Miguel did not explicitly assert in the discourse between Miguel and his mother (i. e., in the Evidence) that Santa would not be able to find him. The reader understands the belief report of (88) as providing the best explanation for Miguel’s behavior from his mother’s perspective. Indeed, beliefs are often ascribed to children and animals in this manner; that is, they are not always aware of the content of ascriptions. In these cases, the report is the best explanation of what they should commit themselves to. This sort of ascription is, actually, not anomalous; rather, beliefs are ascribed to anyone in this manner, particularly, if there is no verbal exchange in the first context of attribution (for example, context A in figure 10.1). For example, the reporter only overheard what the believer said; thus, the former is not the addressee of the assertion in the first context.64 Reporting a belief in this manner can be both transparent and opaque; this is because in reporting someone’s belief in the second sense, such as with Miguel,

63 There are two distinct usages of “think.” While the second usage “she thought” is equivalent to the inner voice and it is used as a direct quote, the first is used as an indirect quote. To differentiate these usages, recall the discussion on deixis (section 3.4.1); the in-/directness of a speech report is determined by how to interpret the deictic features. The present tense (“thinks”) used in the inset breaks the back-shifted preterit so that the time-deixis is not determined in accordance with the time of the frame. Thus, I focus only on the first part of the quote. 64 This case motivates Soames (2002, 222) to weaken his discussion; see section 5.2.

146 | 10 Conclusion

the reporter can focus on each of the two aspects in the reporting (section 8.2.1). In the transparent reading, the reporter and the audience commonly presuppose whom they are talking about. In the opaque reading, they do not presuppose with regard to the assignments of proper names appearing in the inset.

Introducing an internal structure To analyze this second method of the belief report, it seems to be necessary to introduce the notion of inferential relations into the notion of content. Let me sketch this idea: The reporter must understand the Evidence with regard to what the believers should commit themselves to as a consequence of their (verbal) behaviors. The deontic nature of this belief report has no ethical implications; rather, the ascription is deontic such that the expectations of interlocutors fail, and they would ask “Why?” It is interesting to examine whether the Austinian proposition captures the deontic ascriptions of belief. I still have no concrete answers to this question. However, it seems to be adequate if the inferential relations would be introduced in the epistemic situation because the answer to the “why”-question is stated as a consequence from what the believer believes consciously, and shows explicitly as the Evidence. From these considerations, it seems to be necessary to introduce the inference relations among the atomic facts into the epistemic situation. The introduction of inferential relations into the epistemic situation implies that we should adopt a locally holistic stance toward content determination. This position will be holistic because the content of an utterance will be determined with reference to the inferential nexus; the stance would be locally holistic because there should be an essential limitation on the size of the relevant inferential nexus.

List of sentences The following is the list of linguistic examples and logical interpretations used in the discussion. They are sorted according to their first appearances:

Chapter 1 (1) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (2) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Berlin. (3) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (4) Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. (5) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck.

Chapter 2 (6) It is sunny today. (7) a. Ketchup is used for hamburgers. b. Catsup is used for hamburgers. (8) a. Sasha believes that ketchup is used for hamburgers. b. Sasha believes that catsup is used for hamburgers. (9) a. (∃x)[x = Willy Brandt & Betty believes that x was born in Lübeck]. b. Betty believes of Willy Brandt that he was born in Lübeck. (The example is modified from Salmon 1986, (1) & (2) on page 3) (10) Betty believes that x was born in Lübeck. (11) x was born in Lübeck. (12) BEL(Betty, that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, f (Betty, “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”)). (13) not-BEL(Betty, that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck, f (Betty, “Helbert Frahm was born in Lübeck”)).

148 | List of sentences

(14) Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. (15) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. (16)

S

NP

VP

Betty believes

NP

that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.

Chapter 3 (17) a. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. b. Willy Brandt wurde in Lübeck geboren. Willy Brandt was in Lübeck born [Intended: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] c. Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta. Willy Brandt NOM Lübeck LOC was born [Intended: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”] (18) Betty glaubt/denkt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt in Lübeck was born Intended: “Betty believes/thinks that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck” (19)

S

VP

NP Betty glaubt,

NP

dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde.

List of sentences |

149

(20) a. Betty believes it. b. What Betty believes is that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. c. That Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck is believed by Betty. (21) a. * He opened slowly the door. b. He believes generally that it is good for his health. (Huddleston 2002a, 1018) (22) a. I often marvel that intelligent people can at times be so petty. b. She will vouch that I didn’t leave the house until six o’clock. (Huddleston 2002a, 1018) (23) a. He insisted on an adjournment. b. He insisted that we adjourn. (Huddleston 2002a, 1019) (24) a. [John’s playing the national anthem]CoCl:A pleased MaryO b. [John’s playing of the national anthem]NP:A pleased MaryO (Dixon 2010a, 129; my underline) (25) Betty glaubt, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren worden sei/wäre. (26) a. Betty glaubt das. b. Was Betty glaubt, ist, dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde. c. Dass Willy Brandt in Lübeck geboren wurde wird von Betty geglaubt. (27) a. b. c. d.

Ich freue mich auf deinen Besuch. Ich freue mich darauf, dass du mich besuchst. * Ich freue mich auf, dass du mich besuchst. * Ich freue mich auf es, dass du mich besuchst.

(28) Betty wa Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta to shinjiru. Betty T Willy Brandt NOM Lübeck LOC was born QT believe [Intended: Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck.] (29) Betty wa “Willy Brandt wa Lübeck de umareta” to itta. Betty T Willy Brandt T Lübeck LOC was born QT said [Intended: Betty said “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”.] (30) a. The person most likely to benefit, thought Jill, was herself. (Huddleston 2002a, (3iii) [1024])

150 | List of sentences

b. It is a small price, Pascoe believes, and one which sport should accept as reasonable. (BNC, A2S 133) c. That is all the more reason, they believe, for keeping their crusade going, so that a wider public will react positively and begin to recognise the indicators of abuse. (BNC, CAR 1341) (31) Willy Brandt was, Betty believes, born in Lübeck. (32) Willy Brandt, (so) glaubt Betty, wurde in Lübeck geboren. (33)

S

NP

VP

Betty

V′

V

Adj

believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck (34) Makoto ga “Ohayo” to haittekita. Makoto NOM “Good morning” QT came in [Intended: Makoto came in while saying,“Good morning.”] (Fujita 2000, (19b) in page 77) (35) Makoto ga haittekita. Makoto NOM came in [Intended: “Suzuki came in.”] (36) Makoto ga “Ohayo” to (itte) haittekita. (saying) [Intended: “Makoto came in while saying,“Good morning.”]

List of sentences |

(37)

151

S

NP

VP

Makoto-ga

V′

(38)

Adj

V

“Ohayo” to

haittekita

S

NP

VP

Betty wa

V′

AdvP

V shinjiru

Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta to (39)

?

Betty wa shinjiru.

(40) Betty believes in a Willy-Brandt-was-born-in-Lübeck way. (41) a. Joe said to Betty: “You(=i) like climbing”. b. Betty: Joe said to me(i) that I(=i) liked climbing. c. Betty: Joe said to me(i) that you(6= i) liked climbing. (42)

(Context: Megumi said to Koichi: “I will marry you”) a. Megumi wa Koichi(i) ni anata(=i) to kekkon shimasu to itta. Megumi T Koichi DAT you with marry (polite NON-PAST) QT said [Intended: Megumi said to Koichi(i) : “[I] will marry you(=i) ”.] b. Megumi wa Koichi(i) ni kare(i) to kekkon suru to itta. Megumi T Koichi DAT he with marry (NON-PAST) QT said [Intended: Megumi said to Koichi(i) that [she] would marry him(i) .]

152 | List of sentences

c. Megumi wa Koichi(i) ni anata(6= i) to kekkon suru to itta. Megumi T Koichi-DAT you with marry (NON-PAST) QT said [Intended: Megumi said to Koichi(i) that [she] would marry you(6= i) .] (43) a. Anata ga koko ni kuru to Paul wa omou. you NOM here at come (NON-PAST) QT Paul T think [Intended: Paul thinks that you come here.] b. * Anata ga koko ni ki masu to Paul wa omou. you NOM here at come (polite NON-PAST) QT Paul T think [Intended: Paul thinks that you come here.] c. Anata ga koko ni irassharu to Paul wa omou. you NOM here at come (respectful NON-PAST) QT Paul T think [Intended: Paul thinks that you come here.] (44) a. Paul wa soko ni kuru. Paul T there LOC come [Intended: Paul comes to you. ] b. Paul wa soko ni irassharu. Paul T there LOC come (honorific) [Intended: Paul comes to you, sir. ] (45)

S

VP

NP Willy Brandt V′

VP

V

Adj

was

Betty believes

Chapter 4 (46) The current German Chancellor is female. (47) < Gerhard Schröder, being-female >

born in Lübeck

List of sentences |

153

(48) < Angela Merkel, being-female > (49) This chicken weighs three kilograms. (50)

S

NP

VP

VP

PP



(51) She is smaller than John’s sister. (Recanati 2004, sec. 2.1)

(52) Mary took out her key and opened the door. (Recanati 2004, (1) of ch. 2)

Chapter 5 (53) Betty believes that the former German chancellor Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (54) a. Betty believes that Willy Brandt was a German chancellor. b. Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was her former neighbor.

Chapter 6 (55) a. Betty believes that. b. Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (56) * Betty believes. (57) a. She says she believes women can support each other equally strongly, with more positive aims in mind; [. . . ] (BNC ARW 871) b. Betty believes Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (58) a. * Betty glaubt dass. b. Willy Brandt wurde in Lübeck geboren.

154 | List of sentences

(59) a. Willy Brandt ga Lübeck de umareta. b. * Betty wa to omou. / * To Betty wa omou.

Chapter 7 (60) a. Willy Brandt was, according to Betty, born in Lübeck b. Willy Brandt was, Betty said, born in Lübeck (61) a. It is necessary that water is H2 O. b. Necessarily, water is H2 O. (62) a. Betty said (that) Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. b. According to Betty, Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (63)

S

S′

Adj Betty believes that

Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck

(64) It is raining. (65) It can rain any time. (66) [s′]  s  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  (67) In Betty’s belief, Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (68) Betty so-believes that Wily Brandt was born in Lübeck. (69) Giorgione was so-called because of his size. (70) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck in that manner: “Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck”. (71) (Context: By showing a car key) This is parked out back. (Recanati 2000, 157)

List of sentences |

155

Chapter 8 (72) Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck. Betty believes so as well. (73) Betty strongly believes that Herbert was not born in Lübeck. (74) Hammurabi believes that Hesperus is not identical to Phosphorus. (75) [s]  Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck  (76) Betty believes that Willy Brandt was not born in Lübeck. (77) [s′] @  s b Willy Brandt was not born in Lübeck  (78) Betty believes that Willy Brandt saw Sieben Türme if he was born in Lübeck. (79) Rudolf believes that Betty believes Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (80) Ann is as clever as Holmes and more modest than Watson. (Crimmins 1998, Sentence 3 [p. 3]) (81) [s′] @  s b Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck  (82) [s′]  s  Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck 

Chapter 9 (83) a. Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck; b. actually, he was born in Lübeck. (84) a. Betty believes that Herbert Frahm was not born in Lübeck; b. actually, Herbert Frahm was born in Lübeck. (85) Carl believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (86) Elizabeth believes that Willy Brandt was born in Lübeck. (87) Willy Brandt is Herbert Frahm.

Chapter 10 (88) Miguel believes that Santa will not be able to find him.

Bibliography Allen, Colin. 2011. “The content of animal cognition.” Manuscript presented at the workshop “Thinking about Animal Cognition.” Bochum (Germany): March, 2011. Anscombe, G. E. M. 1979. Intention. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 2nd Edition. 1st Edition: 1957. Aydede, Murat. 2010. “The language of thought hypothesis.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Fall 2010. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/languagethought/ (accessed April 8, 2013). Barwise, Jon and John W. Etchemendy. 1987. The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circular Propositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beaney, Michael. ed. 1997. The Frege Reader. Melden, MA: Blackwell. Borsley, Robert. 1999. Syntactic Theory: A Unified Approach. London: Arnord, 2nd edition. Brandom, Robert B. 2000. Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burge, Tyler. 1977. “Belief de re.” The Journal of Philosophy, 74 (6): 338–362. 1979. “Frege and the hierarchy.” Synthese, 40 (2): 265–281. Cappelen, Herman, and Ernie Lepore. 1997. “Varieties of quotation.” Mind, 106 (423): 429–450. Carnie, Andrew. 2002. Syntax: A Generative Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Crimmins, Mark 1998. “Hesperus and phosphorus: Sense, pretense, and reference.” Philosophical Review, 107 (1): 1–47. Crimmins, Mark and John Perry. 1989. “The prince and the phone booth: Reporting puzzling beliefs.” The Journal of Philosophy, 86 (12): 685–711. Davidson, Donald. 1963. “Actions, reasons, and causes.” Journal of Philsophy, 60: 685–700. 1968. “On saying that.” Synthese, 19 (1): 130–146. 1973. “Radical interpretation.” Dialectictica, 27: 313–328. 1975. “Thought and talk.” In Mind and Language: Wolfson College Lectures 1974, ed. Samuel Guttenplan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Chap. 1: 7–23. 1991. “What is present to the mind?.” Philosophical Issues, 1: 197–213. Díez, José A. 1997. “A hundred years of numbers. An historical introduction to measurement theory 1887-1990: Part II: Suppes and the mature theory. Representation and uniqueness.” Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 28 (2): 237–265. Dixon, R. M. W. 2010a. Basic Linguistic Theory: Volume 1 Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2010b. Basic Linguistic Theory: Volume 2 Grammatical Topics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donnellan, Keith S. 1966. “Reference and definite descriptions.” The Philosophical Review, 75 (3): 281–304. Dresner, Eli. 2010. “Language and the measure of mind.” Mind and Language, 25 (4): 418–439. Dudenredaktion. ed. 2009. Die Grammatik: Unentbehrlich für richtiges Deutsch. Mannheim: Dudenverlag. 8., überarbeitete Auflage. Eisenberg, Peter. 2006. Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik Band 2: Der Satz. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 3rd edition. Fillmore, Charles J. 1997. Lectures on Deixis. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Fitch, Greg, and Michael Nelson. 2009. “Singular propositions.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Spring 2009 Edition. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ spr2009/entries/propositions-singular/ (accessed April 8, 2013).

158 | Bibliography

Fodor, Jerry A. 1975. The Language of Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Forbes, Greame. 1987. Reiview of Frege’s Puzzle by Nathan Salmon. The Philosophical Review, 96 (3): 455–458. Forrest, Peter. 2011. “The identity of indiscernibles.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. Spring 2011 Edition. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identityindiscernible/ (accessed April 8, 2013). Frege, Gottlob. 1892. “Über Sinn und Bedeutung” Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, NF1: 25–50. 1897. “Logik.” In Nachgelassene Schriften, ed. Hans Hermes, Friedlich Kambartel, and Friedlich Kaulbach. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2nd edition: 137–162. 1918. “Der Gedanke. Eine Logische Untersuchung.” Beiträge zur Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 1. Band: 58–77. 1999. Frege Chosakushu 4: Tetsugaku Ronshu [Collected works of Frege vol. 4: Philosophical papers], ed. Kuroda, Wataru and Nomoto, Kazuyuki. Tokyo: Keiso Shobo. Fujita, Yasuyuki. 1986. “Bunchu inyoku‘to’ niyoru ‘inyo’ wo seiri suru: Inyoron no zentei to shite” [Classification of ‘quotations’ using ‘to’-quotational clauses: A preliminary study for theory of quotation]. In Ronshu Nihongo Kenkyu (1): Gendaihen, ed. Miyaji, Yutaka. Tokyo: Meiji shoin. 2000. Kokugo In’yo Kobun-no kenkyu [Research on Japanese quotation sentence]. Tokyo: Izumi shobo. 2010. “In’yo kenkyu-no ‘ima’-wo megutte” [On the Current Topics and Issues of Quotation Reserch], Ryukokudaigaku Kokusai Center Kenkyu Nenpo. 19: 33–47. Genette, Gérard. 1983. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaka, NY: Cornell University Press: 288. Helbig, Gerhard and Joachim Buscha. 2001. Deutsche Grammatik: Ein Handbuch für den Ausländerunterricht. Berlin: Langenscheidt. Huddleston, Rodney. 2002a. “Content clauses and reported speech.” In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, ed. Rodney Huddlesteon and Geoffrey K Pullum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chap. 11: 947–1030. 2002b. “The verb.” In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, ed. Rodney Huddlesteon and Geoffrey K Pullum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Chap. 3: 71–212. Huddleston, Rodney, John Payne, and Peter Peterson. 2002. “Coordination and supplementation.” In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, ed. Rodney Huddlesteon and Geoffrey K Pullum. Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press, Chap. 15: 1273–1362. Iida, Takashi. 1987. Gengo Tetsugaku Taizen 1: Ronri to Gengo [Summary of Philosophy of Language vol. 1: Logic and Language]. Tokyo: Keiso Shobo. Jacob, Pierre. 1987. “Thoughts and belief ascriptions.” Mind and Language, 2 (4): 301–325. Jaszczolt, Katarzyna M. 1997. “The ‘default de re’ principle for the interpretation of belief utterances.” Journal of Pragmatics, 28 (3): 315–336. 2005. Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press. Kamada, Osamu. 2000. Nihongo-no in’yo [Quotation of Japanese]. Tokyo: Histuji Shobo. King, Jeffrey C. 2007. The Nature and Structure of Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kripke, Saul A. 1979. “A puzzle about belief.” In Meaning and Use, ed. A. Margalit. Dordrecht: Reidel, 239–283. Kripke, Saul A. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Bibliography |

159

Kroon, Frederick. 2004. “Descriptivism, pretense, and the Frege-Russell problems.” Philosophical Review, 113 (1): 1–30. Larson, Richard K and Peter Ludlow. 1993. “Interpreted logical forms.” Synthese, 95 (3): 305– 355. Larson, Richard K, and Gabriel Segal. 1995. Knowledge of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Longworth, Guy. 2008. Review of The Measure of Mind: Propositional Attitudes and Their Attributions, by Robert J. Matthews. Mind, 117 (446): 494–500. Lycan, William G. 2000. Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge. Matsusaka, Youichi. 2005. “Frege-no Gedanke-to Russell-no proposition: ‘On Denoting’-no igi-ni tsuite” [Frege’s Gedanke and Russell’s Proposition]. Kagakutetugaku, 38 (2): 35–51. Matthews, Robert J. 1994. “The measure of mind.” Mind, 103 (410): 131–146. 2007. The Measure of Mind: Propositional Attitudes and Their Attribution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1993. “Indexicality and deixis.” Linguistics and Philosophy, 16 (1): 1–43. Perry, John. 1977. “Frege on demonstratives.” Philosophical Review, 86: 474–497. Perry, John and Simon Blackburn. 1986. “Thought without representation.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 60: 137–151,153–166. Prior, Arthur N. 1963. “Oratio obliqua.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 37: 115–146. Putnam, Hilary. 1973. “Meaning and reference.” The Journal of Philosophy, 70 (19): 699–711. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1959. Word and Object. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Recanati, François. 1996. “Domains of discourse.” Linguistics and Philosophy, 19 (5): 445–475. 2000. Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta: An Essay on Metarepresentation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 2004. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richard, Mark. 1983. “Direct reference and ascriptions of belief.” Journal of Philosophical Logic, 12: 425–452. Russell, Bertrand. 2009. The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. London: Routledge, kindle edition. Salmon, Nathan. 1986. Frege’s Puzzle. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1990. “A Millian heir rejects the wages of Sinn.” In Propositional Attitudes: The Role of Content in Logic, Language, and Mind, ed. C Anthony Anderson and Joseph Owens, 215–247. Stanford: CSLI. Sasaki, Yoshiaki. 1998. “Fukashikibetsushadoitsu-no genri” [Principle of identity of indiscernables]. In Tetsugaku Shiso Jiten. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten: 1366. Scheffler, Israel. 1954. “An inscriptional approach to indirect quotation,” Analysis, 14 (4): 83– 90. Schiffer, Stephen. 1992. “Belief ascription.” The Journal of Philosophy, 89 (10): 499–521. 2003. The Things We Mean. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1978. Nihongo-no Bunseki [Analysis of Japanese]. Tokyo: Taishukan. Soames, Scott. 1987. “Direct reference, propositional attitudes, and semantc content.” Philosophical Topics, 15 (1): 47–88. 2002. Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of “Naming and Necessity.” Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2010. What Is Meaning? (Soochow University Lectures in Philosophy). Princeton: Princeton University Press, kindle edition. Steinbach, Markus. 1999. “Notes on parenthetical constructions.” Arbeitspapiere des SFB 340.

160 | Bibliography

Sternberg, Meir. 1982. “Proteus in quotation-land: Mimesis and the forms of reported discourse.” Poetics today, 3 (2): 107–156. Tamori, Ikuhiro, and Lawrence Clifford Schourup. 1999. Onomatope: Keitai to Imi [Onomatopoeia: Form and Meaning]. Tokyo: Kuroshio. Tsujimura, Natsuko. 2007. An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics. Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd edition. Tugendhat, Ernst. 1970. “The meaning of ‘Bedeutung’ in Frege.” Analysis, 30: 389–402. Ueda, Tomoo. 2009. “Nathan Salmon-no han-Frege-teki shin’nen-Bunseki-no hihanteki kento” [An Anti-Fregean Analysis of Belief by Nathan Salmon: A Critical Examination]. Tetsugaku Kagakushi Ronso [Archive for Philosophy and History of Science], 11: 37–67. Urmson, James Opie. 1952. “Parenthetical Verbs.” Mind, 61 (244): 480–496. Walton, Kendall L. 1990. Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Source of linguistic data BNC Consortium. 2007. “The British National Corpus, version 3 (BNC XML Edition).” Accessed August 4, 2015. http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/. Doyle, Arthur Conan. 2012. “A Study in Scarlet.” In the Project Gutenberg EBook. Accessed August 4, 2015. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/244/244-h/244-h.htm. Originally published from London: Ward Lock & Co (1887). Willis, Connie. 2003. “Just Like the Ones That We Used to Know .” Accessed November 16, 2011. http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0406/liketheonesweusedtono.shtml.

Index A abstraction 57 – state of affairs, of 56, 66 addressee 4, 110, 145 addressee honorification 46 Adj 39, see also adjunct adjunct 39, 40, 43, 48, 49, 89–91, 96, 112, 142 adverbial account of the frame 88, 89, 91, 92, 96, 102, 104, 105, 109, 112, 113 – ontological consequence 93 adverbial complement 39, 41 adverbial phrase 40, 41, 90, 91 AdvP 41, see also adverbial phrase Allen, Colin 57 anaphoric reference 83, 130 Anscombe, G. E. M 4 anti-Millian 21 – account 27 assertion 76, 91–93, 95 assertive force 87, 96 assignment 20, 44, 52, 61, 65, 79, 84, 89, 95, 103, 111, 116, 123, 125, 134, 146 atomic expression 43 atomic fact 92, 93–95, 112, 113, 115, 125 attitude report 38, 70 – discursive nature 73 attitude reports 24, 28 attitude verb 31, 36 attribution see also belief, attribution – context of 69, 71, 75, 76, 141, 144, 145 – standard 83 audience 4, 5, 8, 64, 71–74, 79, 93, 109–112, 116, 118, 129, 133, 142, 143, 146 – communicational intention of 103 Austinian proposition 89, 92, 94, 95, 96, 100, 104, 105, 112–115, 119, 124, 125, 128, 146 – complex 95 – compound fact, as a 112, 114, 115, 118 – δ-structure 96, 97, 105, 112–115, 118, 124, 141 – truth-condition 95, 115 Austinian Semantics 125

Aydede, Murat 55 B back-shifted preterit 45, 145 Barwise, Jon 89, 92 Beaney, Michael 15 Bedeutung 15 – doubly indirect 18 – indirect 17–19 – of an indexical expression 18 – of singular terms 15 – of subsentential expressions 15 beech 18, 19 BEL – analysis 21, 22, 27 – relation 21, 22, 53, 78–81, 88 – relevance for truth-evaluations 22 – truth-evaluable content 80, 81 belief 4 – ascription 4, 71 – ascription to a third person 4 – attribution 60, 69, 86, 104, 117 – behavioral manifestation 61 – relation 55 – first-order 57, 83 – two-place 83 – religious 85 – self-ascription 4 – state 96, 100 – withholding 22 belief predicate 22, 102 – relational 26 belief report 4, 9, 16, 26, 28, 29, 31, 36, 43, 48, 50, 55, 58, 59, 69, 71, 73–75, 77–83, 87–92, 95–97, 101–103, 105, 126, 130, 141–146 – as a measure predicate 59 – audience of 70, 77, 79 – content determination of 6, 8, 69, 70, 74–76, 78, 79, 89, 104 – content of 69, 70, 74, 76, 78, 105 – denial of intuitive truth-evaluation 21 – English 85

164 | Index

– evaluation of 77 – frame see frame – German 29, 79, 85 – inset see inset – intuitive truth-evaluation of 14, 19 – Japanese 36, 79, 85, 86 – linguistic content 58 – listener 74 – logical form 50 – main clause of 48, 89 – mixed 104, 105, 109 – opacity 71, 74, 77–79, 88, 97–100, 102, 104, 143 – opacity and transparency 125 – opaque reading 74, 78, 87, 124 – standard case 4, 5, 69, 70, 74, 76, 96, 97, 105, 110, 112, 132, 135, 137, 142, 144 – of Soames 72 – transparency 76, 95–97, 102, 103 – transparent reading 74, 101, 118 – truth of 71, 76, 78, 100, 102 – truth-condition 55 – opaque reading 124 – transparency 76 – transparent reading 119 – truth-evaluation of 104 – two readings 105 belief sentence 85 believe 32, 71, 83, 84 believer 5, 13, 46–48, 50, 51, 53–55, 59, 62–64, 66, 69–77, 79, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 96, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 111, 113, 115–120, 123, 125, 129, 131, 134, 136, 143–146 – commitment of 110, 111, 126 – communicational intention of 103 – ignorance of 131 – model of 111 – perspective of 46 – utterance of 83 – way of believing 82, 83, 98–100 Black, Max 15, 25 Blackburn, Simon 80, 99 BNC 37, 38, 85, 90 Borsley, Robert 39, 90 Brandom, Robert B. 144 Burge, Tyler 17, 18

Buscha, Joachim 35, 47 C Cappelen, Herman 104 Carnie, Andrew 33, 35 catsup see ketchup causal chain of communication 131 clause 31, 91 – adjectival 33 – adverbial 33 – noun 17, 33 – German 17 CoCl 34, see complement clause – CoCl:A 34 cognitive content 17, 18, 50, 51, 54–58 common background information 72, 73 – problem of 73, 74 – salient 73, 74 – salient — 73 complement clause 34 – transitive subject see CoCl, CoCl:A compositionality 7 compound fact 94–96, 112, 114, 115, 119, 120, 124, 125 – recursive definition 94 constituency 33 content clause 29, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 49 – English 5 – followed by “to” 37 – objective 33 Crimmins, Mark 7, 80, 81, 99, 109, 121, 123, 127, 128 crosslingual approach 31, 85 D dass 16, 24, 28, 29, 34, 35 Davidson, Donald 4, 7, 42, 43, 50, 59, 76, 78, 82–87, 104 default transparency 134 – constraint 136, 137, see also DTC – principle 133, 134, 136, 137 definite description 15, 25, 51 – referentially used 6 deictic features 28 deixis 43, 49, 69, 70, 143, 145 – discourse 44 – person 43, 44

Index |

– place 43 – social 44, 49 – Japanese 45–47 – time 43, 44 – English 44, 45 demonstrative 83, 98, 100 dependent expression 98, 99, 101, 102 descriptive content 72, 73 descriptive information 71–74, 103 – shared background — 74 desire 4 Díez, José A. 59 direct speech – report 4, 29, 31, 36–38, 44 discursive context 8, 44–46, 48, 51, 62, 64, 69–71, 73–75, 78, 79, 89, 92, 93, 95, 103, 105, 109, 111, 114–117, 119, 120, 123–125, 129, 130, 132–134, 136, 137, 141 – common assumptions of 93 disquotation principle 14 Dixon, R.M.W. 30–32, 34 Donnelalan, Keith S. 6 double duty thesis 50, 54, 55, 61, 63 – incompatibility of 51, 53, 54 doxastic situation 110 Doyle, Arthur Conan 122 Dresner, Eli 56–58 DTC 136, 137 Dudenredaktion 35, 38, 47 E Eigenname (in Frege’s terminology) 15, 25 Eigenname view 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 37, 38, 49, 81, 88 – argument against 32–38 – crosslingual nature of 28–31 – crosslingual template of 31, 36, 142, see also Template – first approximation for crosslingual 29 Eisenberg, Peter 47 elm 18 English 28, 32, 36, 37, 79, 81, 90, 91 – absolute tense 45 – belief report 96 – content clause 33 – indirect speech report 143 – NP 30, 33, 39

165

– parenthetical 90 – speech report 44 epistemic situation 136, see situation, epistemic epistemic state 48, 50, 51, 54–59, 62–64, 66, 70, 75–77, 89, 96, 102, 104, 105, 111, 113, 115–120, 125, 144 – irrelevance to the content determination 104 – manifestation 62 – measure of 144 – proper image of 144 – relevance to the truth-evaluation of a belief report 104 Etchemendy, John W. 89, 92 F fact 56, 92–95 – atomic see atomic fact – compound see compound fact fear 4 Fillmore, Charles J. 43 Fitch, Greg 28, 51 Fodor, Jerry A. 55 Forbes, Greame 23, 80, 81, 99 Forrest, Peter 15 frame 5, 13, 39, 48, 66, 78–80, 82–84, 86–91, 98, 100, 101, 103 – adjunct 48, 49, 90 – adverbial account of see adverbial account of the frame – analysis of 80 – content determination of 104 – content of 89, 97, 101 – feature of 102 – hidden index in 81 – opacity 97, 99, 102 – sentential modifier 96 – transparency 103 free enrichment 65, 66, 81, 83, 85, 92, 97–99, 101 Frege, Gottlob 6, 7, 14–20, 24, 25, 28, 31, 51–54, 69, 122 Fregean 69, 127 – account 18, 27, 53 – analysis 92, 127 – content 88

166 | Index

– intuition regarding opacity 72, 74, 81, 84, 88 – solution to Frege’s puzzle 24, 82, 88 – theorist 8 – theory 81 Frege’s puzzle 13, 16, 17, 21, 24, 127 – unsuccessful solution 24 Fujita, Yasuyuki 39–42 G Genette, Gérard 122 genuine referentiality 7 German 24, 28, 31, 32, 34, 36–38, 49, 79, 81, 86, 90 – belief report 143 – conjunctive 35, 47, 48, 48, 69 – indirect speech report 143 – NP 35, 39 – parenthetical 90 Giorgione 98, 99 grammatical category 29 – core functional property 30 – semantic definition of 30 Grician maxims 65 guise 23, 53 H Hammurabi 112 he 20 Helbig, Gerhard 35, 47 hidden index 81 hidden indexical – theorist 79, 99 – theory 78–83, 88, 96, 127 – theory’s problems 81, 82 homomorphic mapping 59 homomorphism 50, 60, 62, 76 honorific form 46 hope 4 hören 17 Huddleston, Rodney 33, 37, 38, 44, 45, 85, 90, 149 I identity of indiscernibles 15 idiolect 63, 64, 66 Iida, Takashi 15, 17

ILF 61, 64, 65 – theory 65 index 49, 81, 100 indexical expression 6, 17, 92 indirect speech 17, 29, 33 – characterization of indirectness through deixis 44 – report 4, 24, 28, 29, 31, 36–38, 43, 44, 48, 69, 70, 83, 90, 91, 142 – characterization through deixis 44 indiscernibility of identicals 14, 15 inscription theory 42 inset 5, 9, 13, 16, 19, 26, 28, 38, 43, 48, 49, 52, 55, 59, 66, 69–73, 75, 78–81, 83, 84, 86–89, 91, 94, 96–104, 130, 143 – adverbial account of 89, see also inscription theory – clause, as a 82 – content of 75, 79, 81 – dependent expression 100 – Japanese belief report 42 – main clause 89, 96 – NP complement of the belief predicate 26 – opacity 97, 99 – propositional attitude 27 – singular term, as 25, 81, see Eigenname view – syntactic surface 98, 100 – utterance of 83 insist on 33 interpreted logical form 61, see also ILF interpreted utterance form 61, see also IUF irassharu 46 isomorphism 50, 54–58, 143 – account 50, 55, 56–58 itte 40 IUF 57, 61, 62–66 – background assumption 65 – deficits 63–66 – equivalent class of 62, 64 – interpretation of 64 – maximal elaboration 62–65 – node 62, 65 – non-maximal elaboration 62, 65 – pragmatic content 63 – representational domain of 63 – structure of 65

Index |

J Jacob, Pierre 99 Japanese 28, 46, 49, 79, 81, 86 – belief report 143 – direct speech report 46 – distinction between indirect and direct speech report 37 – honorific form 48, 69 – indirect speech report 45 – joshi 36 – standard quotation 36, 37, 39 John Perry. 99 K Kamada, Osamu 42, 45, 46 ketchup 21, 62, 81, 82 – vs. catsup 18, 19, 64 King, Jeffrey C. 93 Kripke, Saul 14, 17, 51, 131 Kroon, Frederick 109, 121, 123 kuru 46 L Language of Thought 56 – Hypothesis 55, see also LOTH Larson, Richard K 61, 93 Latin 30 – NP 30 learnability 43 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 15 Lepore, Ernie 104 LF 61, 66 – node 65 – syntactic 65 linguistic content 4, 50, 51, 54, 56–60, 64, 66, 143 – abstract and public 51, 52 – of belief reports 58 LOC 29, 37 locative case 29, 37, see also LOC Longworth, Guy 58 LOTH 55–58 – empirical issues 58 Ludlow, Peter 61, 93 Lycan, William G. 28, 51

167

M main clause 28, 43, 88, 90 main verb 44 map 58 marvel 33 mathematical measurement theory 59, 59, 60 – two constituents 59 Matsusaka, Yoichi 18 Matthews, Robert J. 50, 55–65, 76 meaning – object theory of 7 measure predicate 59 measurement-theoretic account 50, 60, 62, 66, 76, 77, 115, 116, 119, 120, 125, 144 – of propositional attitude 59, 63, 64 – representation problem 62 – uniqueness problem 62, 62, 63, 63 meinen 17 Millian 16, 19, 27, 53, 69, 71, 78, 80, 81, 88, 127 – content 88 – intuition 72, 74 – solution to Frege’s puzzle 24, 82 – theorist 8 – view 104, 118 Millianism – naive 80 – problems of 81 mixed quotation 104 modal expression 91 mode of acquaintance 53 mode of presentation 6, 14, 80, 102, 132 N natural language 7, 22, 43, 60 necessarily 91 Nelson, Michael 28, 51 NOM 29, 37 nominative case 29, 37, see also NOM noun clause see clause, noun noun phrase 24, 26, 28 – transitive subject see NP, NP:A NP 24, 26–29, 31, 33–36, 38, 49 – case 30 – complement 31, 32, 36, 39, 43 – core function of 32 – NP:A 34

168 | Index

– objective 33 Nunberg, Geoffrey 100 O onomatopoeia 42 opacity 26, 69, 75, 78, 79, 82, 88, 109 – definition 129 – feature of frame, as a 84, 97 – second definition 75 – working definition 6, 75, 78 opaque frame hypothesis 78, 87, 88 P PA 57, see also propositional attitude paratactic account 78, 80, 82–88, 96, 104 parenthetical 37, 38, 38, 90, 143 – verb 90 passive 33 PAST 61 past tense 45, 61, see PAST Payne, John 38, 90 Perry, John 7, 17, 80, 81, 99, 127 Peterson, Peter 38, 90 pleonastic entity 120, 121, 122, 123–131, 134–137 – fictional 121, 122 – non-fictional 135 polite form 45, 46 pragmatic content 66 – determination 64, 65 – that-clause utterance 63 pragmatic nature of content determination 141 pragmatic process 65 prepositional phrase 90, 91, 99 principle of charity 86 Prior, Arthur N. 93 pronominal adverb 35 pronoun 19, 20, 30, 44, 46, 104 proper name 6, 13–15, 19, 20, 25, 74, 79, 84, 92, 103, 117, 125–128, 130, 132, 135, 136 – causal chain of usage 131 – coreference 129, 131, 132, 135 – distinct 130 – opaque occurrence 126 – referent of 128 – sameness 127, 130, 131, 137

– semantic value of 7, 79 – transparent occurrence 126 proposition 51–53, 76, 81, see also propositional content – abstract 51 – causal inefficacy 52 – context independent 52 – language-independent 29 – linguistic domain, in the 61 – mind-independence 52 – Russellian 21, 61, 73, 81, 93, 96 – structured 28, 29, 80 – timeless 52 – unstructured 122 propositional attitude 24, 55–58, 60, 62, 63, 66 – ascription 58, 59, 63 – attribution 60 – behavioral relationship to state of affairs 57 – class defined on 62 – conflicting 21 – content of 64, 66 – de re attribution of 19, 20 – domain of 60 – reasoning about 63 – relation of 60, 62, 63 propositional content 4, 13, 25, 50–57, 59, 64–66, 72, 76, 93, see also proposition – abstract and structured 25 – causal inefficacy 51 – constituent 53 – domain of 76 – entertainment of 53 – grasping of 25 propositionalism 49 pseudo-cleft sentence 33 Putnam, Hilary 19 Q QT 37 Quine, Willard Van Orman 93, 98 quotative marker 36, 37, see also QT R radical interpretation 86 reading back 50, 54, 55–58, 63, 144 – problems of 57–59

Index |

real number 59 Recanati, François 65, 81, 85, 89, 92–105, 109, 112–116, 126, 127, 153, 154 – adverbial account 104 – opacity 98–101 reference shift 16, 19 referent 100 Relation Account 25–27, 50–55, 58, 59 replacement 33 reporter 5, 8, 46–48, 64, 70–74, 79, 87, 92, 93, 104, 109–113, 115, 117, 118, 120–124, 126, 130, 132, 134, 136, 137, 142–146 – ascription by 144 – assumption of 136 – attributing a belief 69 – commitment of 47, 87 – communicational intention of 103 – intention of 8, 75, 111, 116 – interpretation of Evidence 77 – perspective of 46–49 – point of view of 48, 70 – postulation of 115, 135 – pretense of 9, 123, 124, 136, 143 – utterance of 83, 100 representation theorem 59, 60 representational domain 63 – IUF 63 – linguistic 60 respectful form 46 Richard, Mark 7, 19 Russell, Bertrand 123 S S 26 sagen 17 Salmon, Nathan 7, 18–23, 25, 27, 51, 53, 64, 69, 79–81 samesaying 83, 86 Santa Claus 131 Sasaki, Yoshiaki 15 saturation 65, 92 Scheffler, Israel 42, 43 Schiffer, Stephen 7, 80, 99, 109, 120–123 schließen 17 Schourup, Lawrence Clifford 42 second-order predicate 91 Segal, Gabriel 61

169

sein 35 semantic content 92, 99 semantic innocence 7, 8, 20, 71, 72, 74, 78–82, 84, 87–89, 102, 128, 131, 143 semantic pretense 109, 120, 121 semantic value 7, 13, 15, 26, 52, 61, 62, 74, 79, 89, 98, 99, 143 sense 52 – as meaning 17 – as reference determination 17 – customary 17 – customary) 19 – Fregean 20, 81 – indirect 17, 18 – too fine-grained 18 – two senses of 17 sentence 26 – open 20 – semantic value of 7 – singular term of the truth-value 25 sentential modifier 90 she 20 Shibatani, Masayoshi 40 shimasu 45 singular proposition 20, 23, 53, 71, 81 singular term 6, 7, 16, 25, 38, 71–74, 79, 81, 84, 89, 95, 98–104, 116, 125, 127, 129, 132–134, 137, 141, 143 – coreferential – substitution of 26 – coreferring 101 – genuine 6, 13, 18, 53, 104 – occurrence 73, 75 – opaque occurrence 26, 75, 123 – referent of 128 – substitution of 75, 102, 129 – transparent occurrence 103, 134 situation 92, 93, 94–97, 113, 115, 118–120, 124, 125 – discursive 92–96, 109, 111–116, 118, 119, 124, 129, 131, 132, 134, 136, 141 – epistemic 95, 96, 112, 113, 115–120, 124, 125, 130, 131 – implicit reference to 92 – set of atomic facts 93 – utterance, of 92 so 98

170 | Index

Soames, Scott 7, 15, 19, 70–74, 78, 79, 105, 145 something-from-nothing transformation 122, 123, 124, 128, 136 – fact 136 standard case see belief report, standard case state of affairs 4, 57, 60, 75, 76, 120 Steinbach, Markus 38, 90 Sternberg, Meir 5, 13 structured propositionalism 28, 32, see also proposition, structured subordinate clause 37 supervenience 122 support relation 92, 94, 95, 96, 100, 114 – compound fact 94 – Recanati’s version 94 suru 45 syntactic prediction 84 syntactic structure 57 T T 37 Tamori, Ikuhiro 42 Tarski, Alfred 86 Template 32, 37, 38 tense – of frame 45 – of inset 45 that 33, 79, 82–86 – clause – singular term 25 – connective 5, 85 – demonstrative 80, 83–85 – subordinator 26 this 100 thought 4, 17, 25, 52–54, see also cognitive content – as an indirect Bedeutung 17 to – clause 37, 39, 40, 45 – type α 40, 42 – connective 36 – quotative marker 36, 37 topic maker 37, see also T transparency 19, 75, 109 – definition 129

truth 75 – theory of 86 truth-value 7, 15–17, 91 Tsuchiya, Shun 15 Tsujimura, Natsuko 46 Tugendhat, Ernst 15 U überzeugt sein 17 Ueda, Tomoo 23 unarticulated constituent 81, 85, 88, 99, 100, 103 uniqueness theorem 60 unstable context 102, 103 unstructured propositionalism 122 Urmson, James Opie 90 V VarCA 8, 109, 113, 115, 141 – analysis 8, 9, 109, 113, 116, 123–129, 131, 133–135, 137, 141–144 – analysis for opaque belief report 120–125 – analysis for transparent belief report 117–120 – opaque 9, 124, 125, 127–130, 134, 136, 137, 141–143 – transparent 118, 119, 124, 125, 141–143 variable 19, 20 – invariable 20 variation from the common assumptions 8, 109, 143, see VarCA verb phrase 26, 42, see also VP vouch 33 VP 26, 31, 35 – argument of 33 W Walton, Kendall L. 120 weigh 59, 120 weight 58, 59 – attribution 59, 60 – numerical measure of 58 Willis, Connie 145 Y Yuman 30