What's at issue is whether or not false description can be used to successfully refer. Kripke's account does not seem to be able to provide an acceptable account of these cases when they happen. — creativesoul

I would have thought that it was, on the contrary, one of the main strengths of Kripke's "causal" account of de re reference (by means of proper names or demonstratives) that it enables people to successfully refer to individuals which they have (mainly or entirely) false beliefs about, whereas this is not possible to do by means of standalone definite descriptions.

I cannot see that.

What's your take on Kripke's notion of the 'referent of the description' in cases of false belief in the form of false description?

This is from earlier... cleaned up a bit.

...Kripke's doctrine doesn't seem capable of properly accounting for false belief. In fact, some cases of false belief are quite problematic for it.

So you may say,
'The man over there with the champagne in his glass is happy',
though he actually only has water in his glass. Now, even
though there is no champagne in his glass, and there may be
another man in the room who does have champagne in his
glass, the speaker intended to refer, or maybe, in some sense of
'refer', did refer, to the man he thought had the champagne in
his glass. Nevertheless, I'm just going to use the term 'referent
of the description' to mean the object uniquely satisfying the
conditions in the definite description.

Nevertheless???

:gasp:

Jane believes Joe killed Bob. She refers to Joe by stating, "You know - the guy who kiled Bob...". She is saying stuff about Joe. She is picking Joe out. The referent of the description is the specific individual that is being picked out of this world by Jane. That is clearly Joe.

Kripke's framework(his notion of the 'referent of the description') demands concluding otherwise when Jane's belief is false.

Let me repeat...

Kripke's framework would be forced to report Jane's belief in a remarkably different way if it were false.

In such a case, according to Kripke's notion of 'referent of the description', the referent of Jane's description could not be Joe. She believes Joe killed Bob. Allen did. Jane doesn't know of Allen. Yet, according to Kripke's notion of the 'referent of the description', the referent of Jane's description is Allen.

This framework leads one to say that Jane is referring to someone she does not even know about, and that the person she is saying stuff about is not the referent of her description. Are we to conclude that it makes any sense at all to say that Jane can describe and talk about Joe while the referent of Jane's description about Joe is not Joe, but rather it is Allen.

That looks like a fundamental error in taxonomy. If you get thought and belief wrong, you'll have something or other wrong about everything ever thought, believed, stated, written, and/or otherwise uttered.

Kripke's notion of "proper referent" cannot properly account for Jane's referring to Joe by virtue of saying stuff about him that's false. Ask Jane who she is referring to. Tell her that Joe is innocent. Prove it to her. Ask her again who she was referring to... She will say "Joe" if she knows his name. Let's say she doesn't. Put Joe in a lineup. She will still pick out Joe. She is referring to Joe.

Kripke would tell Jane that the referent of her descriptions was Allen. Jane would tell Saul that she doesn't know Allen, and that she certainly knows who she was talking about even if she said some stuff about him that was wrong, mistaken, false, and/or otherwise not true. I would agree with Jane.

...Kripke's doctrine doesn't seem capable of properly accounting for false belief. In fact, some cases of false belief are quite problematic for it.

So you may say,
'The man over there with the champagne in his glass is happy',
though he actually only has water in his glass. Now, even
though there is no champagne in his glass, and there may be
another man in the room who does have champagne in his
glass, the speaker intended to refer, or maybe, in some sense of
'refer', did refer, to the man he thought had the champagne in
his glass. Nevertheless, I'm just going to use the term 'referent
of the description' to mean the object uniquely satisfying the
conditions in the definite description.

Nevertheless??? — creativesoul

Kripke is saying "Nevertheless..." because although we would, in ordinary cases, understand the speaker to be referring (and indeed, to intend to be referring) to the man who unbeknownst to the speaker doesn't have champagne in his glass, the way Kripke intends to use the phrase 'referent of the description' is to refer to the object uniquely satisfying the conditions in the definite description exactly as descriptivists about proper names understand definite descriptions to refer. So, he's not begging the question against descriptivists.

In the case Kripke describes, the way the reference actually works is grounded on the demonstrative perceptual acquaintance that the speaker and members of his audience have with the drinker. Here also, the definite description can be understood to fix the reference (in the mind of the hearers who merely believe the man to be drinking champagne, or who understand the speaker's mistake), and not determine it. It calls everyone's attention towards the intended individual, who is perceptually present to everyone involved, while also carrying false information about this individual owing to a false presupposition (or misperception).

Hmmm...

His text and his footnotes both clearly set out his notion of the 'referent of the description' as the object uniquely satisfying the conditions of the description. I'm showing how that notion leads to a reductio when it comes to explaining the referent of false description.

Could you point me to "the case Kripke describes". I'd like to see him put his own notion to use as a means for clearing up the charges I'm levying against his notion of the 'referent of the description'.

His text and his footnotes both clearly set out his notion of the 'referent of the description' as the object uniquely satisfying the conditions of the description. I'm showing how that notion leads to a reductio when it comes to explaining the referent of false description. — creativesoul

Yes, he sets out this notion as the notion being used by descriptivists in order to show descriptivism's shorcomings. Immediately following the passage that you quoted (N&N. p.25), he explained: "This is the sense in which it's been used in the logical tradition. So, if you have a description of the form 'the x such that phi(x)', and there is exactly one x such that phi(x), that is the referent of the description."

Could you point me to "the case Kripke describes". I'd like to see him put his own notion to use as a means for clearing up the charges I'm levying against his notion of the 'referent of the description'.

This is just the case that you quoted from p.25. It's not his notion of the 'referent of the description' that he's making use of. It's the traditional notion -- as used by descriptivists -- that he is explaining (and which correspond to the first item in Donnellan's pragmatic distinction between (1) the "proper referent" and (2) the intended referent of the definite description being enunciated by a speaker in a specific context shared by the targeted audience.) He is explaining this notion used by descriptivists in their account of proper names in order to argues against its use as a satisfactory account of the way proper names refer.

Thanks. Perhaps I have conflated what Kripke is granting as a means to argue against, and what he's actually claiming himself with regard to reference. That doesn't seem very clear to me...

The issue was: must this (minimal) description be true in order that the referent of the thought be determined by that thought? What if both you and I saw a woman whom we believed was almost hit by a car, but the car only appeared to us to drive close to her owing to a misleading perspective? In that case, wouldn't you agree that we are still referring to that woman (or to that man whom we falsely thought was a woman!) in spite of the fact that she (or he!) wasn't nearly hit by a car? — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I would agree that it doesn't need to be true that she was almost hit by a car. The description would have more accurately been 'the women who appeared to us to be almost hit by a car' which would be a true description.

Again, it doesn't matter at all if the sorts of contents that are made use of in the deployment, use and transmission or proper name using practices are predominantly consisting of (1) descriptions or (2) de re senses (information insensitive "causal links"). That's an empirical question which Kripke doesn't take any stand on. What he's arguing is that (2) is indispensable and that (2) can't be reduced entirely to (1). (And hence, proper names can't be translated into definite descriptions). Also, it's the essential involvement of (2) in the constitution of naming practices that accounts for proper names behaving as (information insensitive) rigid designators. — Pierre-Normand

OK, I would agree with all of that as well. I have said from the start that I think reference relies either on observation or ostention (which would be the case with those who witnessed the 'baptism') or description (which would be the means by which those who have never met or seen the baptized person, and so must rely upon being told about him or her would fix their reference to the person in question).

OK, I would agree with all of that as well. I have said from the start that I think reference relies either on observation or ostention (which would be the case with those who witnessed the 'baptism' or description (which would be the means by which those who have never met or seen the baptized person, and so must rely upon being told about him or her would fix their reference to the person in question). — Janus

Well, that's cool. That means Kripke and you are pretty much on the same page, after all.

The idea is that here are no individuals as the referent of proper names, and that all there is, is sets of properties instantiated together. An individual is no more than a bunch of properties. — Banno

That's Hume's bundle theory, which is supposed to arise from trying to imagine an object that has no properties. Since we can't, we seem to know a priori that an object can't be something independent of its properties. (Correct me if I twisted that somehow)

Do you take Kripke as delving this deeply into ontology? That he wants to argue with Hume?

So, it seems that at times I'm understanding Kripke's lectures, and at others I've critiqued what he offers as though it is his own position when it is not. My apologies to all here. I'm just trying to grasp what he's getting at. Evidently, I do not have enough background knowledge to tell when he's setting out his own position and when he's critiquing another...

There is one concern/question that persists for me despite all this, but it's best to remain silent as of now. It may turn out that it is answered.

Thanks to all here who have shown me where I'm in error...

Kripke is saying "Nevertheless..." because although we would, in ordinary cases, understand the speaker to be referring (and indeed, to intend to be referring) to the man who unbeknownst to the speaker doesn't have champagne in his glass, the way Kripke intends to use the phrase 'referent of the description' is to refer to the object uniquely satisfying the conditions in the definite description exactly as descriptivists about proper names understand definite descriptions to refer. — Pierre-Normand

I see this as one of a number of instances of Kripke making an uncharitable interpretation of the descriptivist position. I'm tempted to say 'straw man' but feel that may be a bit strong for what he intended.

I very much doubt Russell would agree with Kripke's claim that Russell's position is that the speaker is referring to the man uniquely satisfying the description - ie the man that would be identified as the referent by an observer that was omniscient enough to know what everybody in the room had in their glass and yet was strangely ignorant of the thought process of the speaker (ie, did not know that the speaker thought that the man she had in mind had champagne in it).

A descriptivist position with less straw in it would be one in which the reference (if it makes sense to talk about one - see my earlier comments about the folly of always dissecting speech acts) made by the speaker is to the individual that she believes satisfies her description. That reference will be correctly interpreted by the listener if that description also uniquely picks out the same individual in the context of the listener's beliefs.

If there is a single listener, we can talk about the reference being 'successful' if the listener picks out the same individual as the speaker intended. But if there are multiple listeners it is possible that some pick out the same individual while others do not, so the notion of 'successful reference' is ambiguous.

BTW I thought of a situation where a listener can pick out the same individual as a speaker was referring to, using a DD that is completely false, without the listener sharing that false belief. It is where the listener knows about the speaker's false belief.

Consider a very young child that thinks their aunt is an astronaut, because of a misheard conversation, or perhaps because he had seen her in a SCUBA outfit or something else that might be mistaken for an astronaut's gear. The parents know about that. The child looks out the window and sees the aunt coming up to the front door. He says excitedly 'look - astronaut come to door!'

The parents know to whom the child is referring, even though they do not share the child's belief that the aunt is an astronaut.

A descriptivist position with less straw in it would be one in which the reference (if it makes sense to talk about one - see my earlier comments about the folly of always dissecting speech acts) made by the speaker is to the individual that she believes satisfies her description. That reference will be correctly interpreted by the listener if that description also uniquely picks out the same individual in the context of the listener's beliefs. — andrewk

I have no idea what Russell would have said since he was mainly interested in the logical reconstruction of a scientifically rigorous language (just like Frege and the logical empiricists were) and wasn't very sensitive to the pragmatic features of ordinary language.

However, it seems to me to be common ground among most contemporary parties that, in Donnellan's champagne case, the speaker is making reference to the person that she merely believes satisfies her description. The problem is to account for it. If the individual being referred to doesn't actually satisfy the description then what makes it the case that it is this individual to whom she herself intends to be referring to? It is not enough to say that he is being referred to in virtue of the fact that the speaker (merely) believes him to satisfy the description. That's because, by saying that, we haven't explained how it is precisely him (and not someone else) who is being referred to. In other words: we are trying to account for who it is who is believed by the speaker to be satisfying her definite description. If we merely appeal to the speaker's belief regarding who it is that she is thinking about, we still have to provide an account of the reference of her belief.

It is not enough to say that he is being referred to in virtue of the fact that the speaker believes him to satisfy the description. That's because, by saying that, we haven't explained how it is precisely him (and not someone else) who is being referred to.

I couldn't quite follow this. Perhaps you could elaborate on what the difficulty is that you see.

It seems to me that, if the DD picks out a unique individual based on the speaker's beliefs, then that explains how it is precisely that person, and not someone else, to whom she is referring.

One simply lists the people she can see and her beliefs about each one, then compares them to the DD and picks out the one for which the beliefs match the DD.

It seems to me that, if the DD picks out a unique individual based on the speaker's beliefs, then that explains how it is precisely that person, and not someone else, to whom she is referring.

One simply lists the people she can see and her beliefs about each one, then compares them to the DD and picks out the one for which the beliefs match the DD. — andrewk

In that case, the person who the speaker is looking at does not match the DD (since the DD expresses a false belief about that person), and hence, by your own account, isn't the person who the speaker is talking about.

It looks like you may have made the slide from (1) "X is the person that the speaker falsely believes phi(...) about" to (2) "X is the person who satisfies the predicative content of the speaker's false belief phi(Y)". But (2) doesn't follow from (1). The negation of (2) rather follows from (1).

In that case, the person who the speaker is looking at does not match the DD (since the DD expresses a false belief about that person), and hence, by your own account, isn't the person who the speaker is talking about. — Pierre-Normand

I totally agree, but I reach the conclusion this is a good argument for Davidson's 'dubbing.' In your example, the person is dubbed with the properties which may or may not be true, resulting in ideas about the person which are unprovable. That does seem to be the normal state of affairs in human interactions.

I totally agree, but I reach the conclusion this is a good argument for Davidson's 'dubbing.' In your example, the person is dubbed with the properties which may or may not be true, resulting in ideas about the person which are unprovable. That does seem to be the normal state of affairs in human interactions. — ernestm

I'd like to know a bit more about Davidson's 'dubbing'. Would you happen to have a reference?

In that case, the person who the speaker is looking at does not match the DD (since the DD expresses a false belief about that person), and hence, by your own account, isn't the person who the speaker is talking about. — Pierre-Normand

What I wrote was, not that the facts about the person match the DD, but that the speaker's beliefs about the person match the DD.

See last line of my prev post. I chose my words carefully, as it is imperative to do in this subject area, indeed in most of philosophy.

What I wrote was, not that the facts about the person match the DD, but that the speaker's beliefs about the person match the DD. — andrewk

However you also said: "It seems to me that, if the DD picks out a unique individual based on the speaker's beliefs, then that explains how it is precisely that person, and not someone else, to whom she is referring."

In this sentence, what did you intend to be the anaphoric antecedent of "that person"? It is "the unique individual based on the speaker's beliefs", right? How it this individual singled out by the speaker's belief, on your view, if not as the individual that satisfies the predicative content of DD?

One simply lists the people she can see and her beliefs about each one, then compares them to the DD and picks out the one for which the beliefs match the DD. — andrewk

(I have completely rewritten this post because my initial reply was misguided and based on a misreading of your position.)

OK. I see what you mean now. However, in order to carry through this procedure you need, in a first step, to survey the potential references (e.g. the people who are perceptually present) and assign to them what it is that the speaker believes about each one of them specifically in order to, in a second step, compare those beliefs with the content of the DD. So, you need to first rely on an account of the reference of the speakers mental act of demonstrative reference. The speaker must be able to pick out in though who it is that she believes the predicative content of DD to be uniquely true of. But she can't do this by means of the very same DD, on pain of circularity. (That was basically my earlier objection).

I'd like to know a bit more about Davidson's 'dubbing'. Would you happen to have a reference? — Pierre-Normand

Specifically, kripke initiated the idea of dubbing. The problem with it from Davidson's point of view was that purely referential theories of naming have trouble with defining meaningful knowledge, for which he provided new ideas on meaningfulness that allow for indeterminacy, in case there are mistakes in the act of assigning a label to a reference.

Specifically, kripke initiated the idea of dubbing. The problem with it from Davidson's point of view was that purely referential theories of naming have trouble with defining meaningful knowledge, for which he provided new ideas on meaningfulness that allow for indeterminacy, in case there are mistakes in the act of assigning a label to a reference. — ernestm

I think I can imagine how Davidson's coherentist and somewhat internalist account of meaning would raise problems for Kripke's externalist (or "purely referential") account of reference. However, do you have a source where Davidson explicitly adresses Kripke along such lines?

However, do you have a source where Davidson explicitly adresses Kripke along such lines? — Pierre-Normand

Unfortunately my tutor at oxford has retired and she was too polite ever to write down the criticism. What she pointed out, which I think was a good observation, is that when people talk about 'the man holding the glass of vodka' they are not talking about a cluster of properties viz, male, with arms, holding a glass containing liquid, etc.' even if that is how the reference breaks down for the purposes of logic. They are saying 'that person', in a Wittgensteinian manner, pointing as it were, to enable an assertion about them without befuddling other detail once the reference is defined. So for purposes of logic, kripke's theory is excellent; but for purposes of understanding normal human language, davidson provides the additional necessary extensions, and one issue to decide, when examining limits in kripke, is whether the limit is a fault of kripke's, or a fault of our own understanding of meaning for any particular assertion.

Unfortunately my tutor at oxford has retired and she was too polite ever to write down the criticism. What she pointed out, which I think was a good observation, is that when people talk about 'the man holding the glass of vodka' they are not talking about a cluster of properties viz, male, with arms, holding a glass containing liquid, etc.' even if that is how the reference breaks down for the purposes of logic. They are saying 'that person', in a Wittgensteinian manner, pointing as it were, to enable an assertion about them without befuddling other detail once the reference is defined. — ernestm

Well, strangely enough, this rough account of demonstrative reference seems to me closer in spirit to Kripke's causal/externalist account that it is to Davidson't internalist/interpretivist account.

(I think Gareth Evans's account of demonstrative reference combines the best of both Kripke's 'world-involving' pragmatism and of Davidson's interpretivism. It also somewhat breaks the false dichotomy between externalism and internalism; what is internal to the rational order of linguistic practice in the world isn't internal to the brain.

Well, strangely enough, this rough account of demonstrative reference seems to me much closer in spirit with Kripke's causal/externalist account that it is from Davidson't internalist/interpretivist account. — Pierre-Normand

Maybe so. Ive thought alot about it this last 40 years, far more than I should really, and so I'd hazard to add some thoughts for your amusement. If I were to say, that man holding a glass of vodka is drunk, then it would appear that the alcohol is necessary to the truth of the proposition. As you say, the glass could contain water, and the person could be drunk on love, talking with a girl so enamored by him that the behavior is the same. For such real-world cases it appears to me a purely externalist account is insufficient, because, as soon as any intrinsic state is implied to any extent, there is no property with truth value assignable by empirical observation.

The speaker must be able to pick out in though who it is that she believes the predicative content of DD to be uniquely true of. But she can't do this by means of the very same DD, on pain of circularity. — Pierre-Normand

Can you help me to see the circularity? I was imagining something like the following in the speaker's mind:

I am aware of the following:
- person 1, a young man, at 12 o'clock, with a flute of champagne
- person 2 at 1 o'clock, a young woman with a white frilly dress holding a tankard of ale
- person 3 at 11 o'clock, a teenage girl in ripped jeans holding two hors d'oeuvres and no drink
- person 4 at 3 o'clock, my best friend Sabrina
Now person 1 just winked at me. The nerve! I am cross. But maybe I imagined it. I will ask Sabrina if she saw it. Speaks:

'Sabrina! Don't look, but did you see how the man over there with champagne in his glass just winked at me?'

Can you help me to see the circularity? — andrewk

Maybe I can help explain, the idea is that each person has already established a different cluster of descriptions for the subject in question, in this case. So the listener compares their own cluster with the known parts of the speaker's cluster to establish a shared identity of reference. Maybe Im wrong but the 'circularity' refers to the issue that no two people ever have the same cluster of descriptions due to each person also being different, and therefore, viewing other people from different perspectives. So the point it that the cluster of references has to have enough commonality to the listener and speaker to establish a unique refrerence. If two people had exactly the same cluster of descriptions for another person, then they would be indistinguishable as separate people, for the purposes of the operation of the naming theory.

'Sabrina! Don't look, but did you see how the man over there with champagne in his glass just winked at me?' — andrewk

On your view, the person you are making reference to is person-1 on account of the fact that, between all four people who are perceptually present, only person-1 is such that your belief about that person satisfies the DD you are thinking of (and expressing). This account presupposes that your belief about that person indeed is about that person and not about someone else who might actually be, unbeknownst to you, drinking champagne, (or about nobody, if nobody is having champagne). What is this account of the reference of your belief on the basis of which the truth of the predicative content of the DD can be evaluated as matching up with this belief?

This account presupposes that your belief about that person indeed is about that person and not about someone else who might actually be, unbeknownst to you, drinking champagne, (or about nobody, if nobody is having champagne). — Pierre-Normand

Well I regret I must agree with andrewk. As you are interested in externals only, the belief doesnt matter. All that matters is that the two identify a sufficient part of the descriptive properties as referring to the same person. Thats the point of the theory. It doesnt matter how many of the descriptive properties are true or false, or if some of them could truthfully apply to others too.