A Rejoinder to Fara’s “‘Literal’ Uses of Proper Names”*
Robin Jeshion
University of Southern California
May 23, 2012
I greatly enjoyed Delia Fara’s spirited and clever response to “Names Not Predicates” (NNP). It
is extremely clear, philosophically rich, and genuinely advances the debate about whether proper names
are predicates. I will unfortunately only be able to address certain key issues here. My main goals will be
to clarify the dialectic between us, and by way of doing so clarify the dialectic in NNP, and assess Fara’s
analysis of the three main classes of examples she considers.
§1 Clarifications
Fara takes me to be advancing what she calls the Anti-Uniformity Argument against
Predicativism. She thinks that I am arguing for the conclusion that predicativism is wrong -- that there are
literal uses of predicative proper names that do not satisfy her Being Called Condition (BCC), and that,
consequently, there is no unified meaning analysis of literal uses of predicative proper names. She also
takes me to be arguing that predicativists lack justification for unifying the semantics of predicative uses
of proper names with referential uses on the grounds that predicativists have justification for unifying
their account of predicative uses of proper names with referential uses only if they can give a unified
meaning analysis of all literally used predicative proper names.
In this, she misunderstands the overarching dialectic and the specifics of the argument in my
paper. In NNP, I do not aim to refute predicativism. And I do not advance the Anti-Uniformity Argument
against Predicativism that Fara attributes to me. It is an interesting argument, one deserving of discussion,
but it is not mine.
The argument that I do present is that the predicativist’s own Uniformity Argument on behalf of
predicativism, as a superior theory to referentialism, does not hold up. I also argue against three
rationales that predicativists themselves have advanced to show why we should accept predicativism in
the first place, in particular why we should accept certain examples of predicative uses of proper names as
the canonical or normal predicative uses of proper names. I called these the Syntactic, the Semantic
Dependence, and the Literal Rationales.
In NNP, I was explicit about my aims and dialectic: In §1, I announce that my main aim is “to
*
I am grateful to Delia Fara and Andrea Bianchi for encouraging me to write this reply, for their patience
in waiting for it, and for their enthusiasm for this debate. Warm thanks to Andrea for his astute
philosophical feedback and exceptional editorial advice. I am quite conscious that I have not fully
addressed many of the lines of argument in Delia’s paper. I hope to offer a more comprehensive reply in
the near future.
dismantle the Uniformity Argument and so undermine the roots of the primary case for predicativism
over referentialism.” §4 is devoted to laying out the Uniformity Argument that I am opposing. At the end
of §7, where I summarize my main challenge to predicativism, I conclude that by virtue of the Uniformity
argument, the predicativist does not have an advantage over the referentialist. In the last paragraph of the
paper, I conclude by reminding the reader that my aims have been modest and almost exclusively critical:
to undermine the Uniformity Argument advanced by predicativists and to establish that the three main
rationales that predicativists have put forward on behalf of predicativism are misbegotten. So I was not
advancing any kind of anti-Uniformity argument against predicativism. Nevertheless, there are various
things that I do say (mostly infelicities) that surely encouraged Fara’s interpretation: I referred to one of
the examples in §5 as a “counterexample” to BCC, by which I meant only that BCC did not offer the
correct application conditions. I also noted that there would be a cost in terms of uniformity to the
predicativist’s offering a distinct semantics to deal with some of my examples. That too could encourage
interpreting my argument as aimed at refuting predicativism.
For the sake of clarity, I shall briefly reiterate the overarching structure of my main argument,
correcting certain misimpressions along the way. I devoted §§1 and 2 to giving an overview of the state of
the debate on predicativism, an initial presentation of the Uniformity Argument, and the Syntactic,
Semantic, and Literal Rationales that predicativists have advanced for regarding a certain set of examples
of uses of proper names as illustrating the normal, literal usage of proper names. In discussing these
rationales, I was merely describing the (then) extant state of the debate, and its going assumptions. I was
not endorsing them all, especially not the view that so-called metaphoric uses of proper names are rightly
cordoned off as special because metaphorical.
In §4, I explicitly laid out the predicativist’s Uniformity Argument. The crucial premise of that
argument is Uniformity Principle 1. That principle basically says that the superior semantic theory of
proper names is the one that offers a uniform semantics for (what I called there) the apparently referential
uses [1]-[4] and a certain specific class of (what I called there) apparently predicative uses, illustrated by
[5]-[10]. I repeat them here for convenience.
Apparently Referential Uses of Proper Names
[1] Alfred studies in Princeton.
[2] Osama bin Laden is dead.
[3] Picasso painted Guernica.
[4] Stella is inside the museum.
Apparently Predicative Uses of Proper Names
[5] There are relatively few Alfreds in Princeton.
[6] An Alfred Russell joined the club today.
[7] Some Alfreds are crazy; some are sane.
[8] The youngest Teddy Kennedy bit my son.
[9] No doubt, many Osamas hate their name.
[10] Two Stellas are inside the museum.
It is this principle, Uniformity Principle 1, that I attribute to Burge and Fara and other predicativists, and
not, as Fara claims, the Uber Uniformity Principle.1 It is the predicativist’s assumption of Uniformity
Principle 1 that is the source of problems for the Uniformity Argument.
I present my fundamental challenge in §5: that there is a series of examples that seem to be
appropriately classified alongside [5]-[10] insofar as they too look to be apparently predicative uses of
proper names yet the BCC does not give the correct truth (application) conditions to them. It is imperative
to correctly understand how these examples fit in with my overall dialectic. Fara takes me to be
presenting each in turn as an example of a non-metaphorical use of a proper name. Hence, given her
attribution to me of (what she calls) Burge’s Claim that non-metaphorical usage entails literal usage, she
takes me to be presenting each example as a literal use of a proper name for which the BCC gives the
wrong application conditions, and that I conclude from this that predicativism is wrong and refuted.
This rests on misunderstanding. For one, I do not embrace Burge’s Claim. Indeed, like Fara, I
deny it. (In NNP, I do not address the claim directly, but do comment in §6 that some examples can be
construed as metaphors and others as “otherwise non-literal”.) Fortunately, none of Fara’s arguments
about particular examples or my arguments essentially turns upon deeming a particular use metaphoric or
non-metaphoric, so little turns on this here.
More fundamentally, though, I did not offer up the examples in §5 as a piece of an argument that
predicativism is wrong. I offered them up as new examples of apparently predicative uses of proper
names that any theory needs to address and that the predicativist is not in position to cordon off as
obviously different in kind from the examples [5]-[10]. They needed to be considered side-by-side with
examples [5]-[10]. What this means dialectically is that the predicativist is not entitled to simply assume
without argument that examples [5]-[10] are the canonical examples of predicative uses of proper names
that illustrate proper names’ normal application conditions.
This last point is crucial, so let us look more carefully at the background dialectic. In advancing
their Uniformity Argument, Fara2 and Burge argue as follows: Observe that “Alfreds” in “relatively few
Alfreds” in sentence [5] and “Stellas” in “Two Stellas” in sentence [10] can, given their syntactic
positions, “only be predicates”.3 Furthermore, these predicates “Alfred” and “Stella” apply to all the
Fara writes that I take the “predicativist to be appealing to an unjustified principle,” the Uber Uniformity
Principle. Fara, this volume. However, two lines after presenting that principle, I say “Burge and Fara
(and others) are not appealing to the Uber Uniformity Principle, or any such innocuous general principle.”
Emphasis added here. Jeshion, this volume.
2
Note that this account of the predicativist’s argumentation draws directly from Fara’s presentation in
Fara [ms]. I am here just supplanting my own examples. Her example is “There are at least two Tylers
with philosophy degrees from Princeton.” Burge [1973] offers essentially the same argumentation.
3
Fara [ms].
1
things named “Alfred” and all the things named “Stella”, respectively, and to them only. Because
“Alfreds” and “Stellas” can only be predicates in these sentences, and because in such sentences these
terms are true of those and only those individuals that are named “Alfred” and “Stella”, respectively, and
because we should seek uniform semantic explanations within our theories, we ought to regard BCC as
supplying the “normal applicability condition” for proper names, including for [1]-[4].
Central to this argument is the assumption that the occurrence of “Alfreds” in sentence [5] and
“Stellas” in sentence [10] are semantically paradigmatic. That is, according to Fara and Burge, these
sentences themselves exemplify the “normal meaning” or “normal usage” of the two proper names; they
are sentences representative of literal, normal uses of “Alfred” and “Stella”.
My series of examples in §5 was aimed at challenging this assumption qua assumption. Because
of the large and varied set of examples to which the BCC does not deliver the right application conditions,
the predicativist needs to argue or somehow justify, not assume, that sentences [5]-[10] exemplify the
normal, literal usage of proper names.
I shall henceforth refer to examples [5]-[10] and their kin as BCC-friendly examples. My main
argument in NNP can be seen as presenting a challenge to the predicativist: demonstrate that the BCCfriendly examples are syntactically or semantically different in kind from the examples in §5.4
§2: Fara’s response about deferred interpretation and resemblance examples
Fara classified the set of examples I discussed (and others she added to them) into three main
types, what she called deferred interpretation examples, resemblance examples, and Romanov examples.
She regards these as three mutually exclusive groups, by which I mean that, for her, if an example is a
deferred interpretation example, it is neither a resemblance example nor a Romanov example; if it is a
resemblance example, it is neither a deferred interpretation example nor a Romanov example; and if it is a
Romanov example, it is neither a deferred interpretation example nor a resemblance example.5 Her main
strategy is to divide and conquer: to argue that none of these three types of examples threaten the
predicativist’s position that all literal uses of proper names satisfy the BCC. In my initial discussion of
how she deals with the three types of examples, I just grant that this is the appropriate way to classify the
set of examples under discussion, that the three types are mutually exclusive, and that she has correctly
Fara does not address a different argument in NNP (discussed in §8) concerning the predicativist’s
syntactic rationale in favor of predicativism. Here I only address the sections of NNP that she discusses.
5
Fara, this volume, offers an example involving “layering” deferred interpretation on top of a Romanov
example with her (24)(f):
(24)(f) I’m a Les Paul but I’m married to a Flying V, and we’re even friends with a lot of Strats.
Call examples like this complex examples. In describing Fara as embracing mutually exclusive
classifications, I meant only that non-complex examples, without any layering, are classified as exactly
one of the three types of examples.
4
classified particular examples as instances of deferred interpretation, resemblance, or Romanov examples.
In the final section of this paper, I circle back and assess these assumptions.
As I explained above, I use the set of examples presented in §5 as a way to challenge the
predicativist’s assumption that the BCC-friendly examples are semantically special insofar as they
illustrate the normal or default use of proper names. I do not intend them as counterexamples to the
predicativist’s position that all literal uses of proper names satisfy BCC. In order to bridge this dialectical
disconnect, in discussing what Fara says about each type of example, I shall do two things. I shall
evaluate her analysis as a defense of predicativism – that is, I assess what she says as a reply had my
examples been constructed as a refutation of predicativism (which they were not). Then I shall evaluate
her analysis as an answer to my challenge to the predicativist to justify the assumption that the BCCfriendly examples illustrate the normal usage of proper names.
Deferred interpretation examples include costume examples, artwork examples, and role-playing
examples. A costume example occurs when [11] is used to mean that two individuals dressed as Osama
bin Laden came to the Halloween party.
[11] Two Osama bin Ladens came to the Halloween party.
An artwork example occurs when [10] is used to mean that two paintings by [Frank] Stella are inside the
museum.
[10] Two Stellas are inside the museum
A role-playing example occurs when [12] is used to mean that there are two persons who are playing the
role of Hamlet at the party.
[12] There are two Hamlets at the party
According to Fara, for a use of a proper name to count as a deferred interpretation example, there must be
“some one specific ‘salient functional relation’ between the deferred usage of the expression” and its
“normal usage”.6 In this, she follows Nunberg’s condition on deferred interpretation: the subject must
bear some single “specific relation to things that fall under the predicatively used noun.”7
Resemblance examples, she says, form a distinct class. They include my Lena example as well as
the set of examples that have previously been cordoned off in the literature for being metaphoric. Upon
seeing Lena come into the room with her three daughters, two that physically resemble her, one that does
not, I say
[13] Two little Lenas just arrived
to mean that two daughters that closely physically resemble Lena have arrived. Likewise, I may say
[14] George Wallace is a Napoleon
6
7
Fara, 14, this volume.
Fara, 14, this volume. See also Nunberg [2004].
to mean that George Wallace behaves like Napoleon (in some particular contextually salient manner).
Fara offers the same type of defense for both deferred interpretation examples and resemblance
examples. She regards both sets of examples as non-literal uses of proper names, hence the scare quotes
in her paper’s title, but she does not rest her case on whether we say that the uses are literal or non-literal,
metaphoric or non-metaphoric. Instead, she argues by analogy. The deferred interpretation and
resemblance examples with proper names are not problematic because common count nouns exhibit
parallel uses. Here is her argument:
Analogy Argument with Common Count Nouns
Premise 1: There are deferred interpretation and resemblance uses of common count nouns.
Premise 2: Deferred interpretation and resemblance uses of common count nouns do not scotch
the normal meanings or normal application conditions of common count nouns.
Conclusion: Therefore, deferred interpretation and resemblance examples do not scotch the
normal meanings or normal application conditions of proper names. I.e., deferred interpretation
and resemblance examples do not threaten the BCC as giving the normal application condition of
proper names.
In support of Premise 1, Fara offers new examples involving common count nouns:
I say [15]
[15] There were five gorillas and two orangutans at the primate art museum
to mean that there are five artworks made by gorillas and two artworks made by orangutans at the primate
art museum. I say [16]
[16] My friend arrived with her two little kittens in tow
to mean that my friend arrived with her two children who bear striking behavioral resemblance to kittens.
Fara is right that common count nouns have deferred interpretation uses and resemblance uses.
These examples and others she offers are excellent illustrations of the phenomena. She is also right that
such uses do not scotch the normal meanings or normal application conditions of common count nouns.
So I am on board with both premises of the argument. Now, had I been presenting my examples as a
refutation of predicativism, then, it seems to me, she makes exactly the right move. For in such a
dialectical situation, she would be entitled to rely upon the assumptions that in their normal uses, proper
names are common nouns and that the BCC gives their normal application conditions; and she would be
in a strong position to turn back the challenge by appealing to the fact that parallel cases with other
common nouns do not scotch their normal application conditions or normal meanings.
However, this reply is unsuccessful as an answer to the challenge that my examples were
designed to present to the predicativist: to demonstrate, not just assume, that the BCC-friendly examples
illustrate the normal application conditions of proper names. This is the assumption implicitly codified in
the predicativist’s Uniformity Principle 1. The defense that she offers is inadequate because it assumes
what needs to be established: that proper names are common nouns and that the BCC gives their normal
application conditions.
To see this, notice that for Fara’s Analogy argument to go through, she needs to rely upon the
suppressed premise that common count noun and proper name deferred interpretation and resemblance
examples are in all relevant respects alike. The relevant respect in which they must be alike here is that
they both must be common count nouns. Where there is no agreement that proper names are common
count nouns, the argument will not go through.
To deepen appreciation of the point, notice that within this debate about the proper way to
analyze cases of deferred interpretation and resemblance, there is a dialectical asymmetry concerning
what theorists are entitled to assume about common count nouns like “kitten”, “lemon”, and “poet”, on
the one hand, and candidate proper names, on the other. Sentence [17]
[17] There were two kittens at the party
could be used to mean that there were two young domesticated cats at the party. It could also be used to
mean that there were two persons dressed as young domesticated cats at the party. Where there is
agreement among all that “kitten” is a common count noun that is normally applied to all and only young
domesticated cats, a discussant in a debate about how to understand what is expressed or conveyed in the
latter use is entitled to help herself to the assumption that the former use illustrates the normal use while
the latter use is somehow derivative from the normal use. By contrast, in this debate, there is no
agreement between predicativist and referentialist about what the normal use of proper names is and there
is no agreement that proper names are common count nouns. So the fact that instances of deferred
interpretation and resemblance with common nouns do not scotch the normal application conditions of
common count nouns does nothing to support or demonstrate what is at issue: whether proper names are
common count nouns and whether the BCC-friendly examples illustrate their normal application
conditions.
What does Fara need to do to successfully deal with the deferred interpretation and resemblance
examples? As I stressed in §5 and within §6 of NNP, the predicativist needs to show that the BCCfriendly examples are not explained in parallel fashion to the examples I present, or some subset of them.
So Fara needs to argue that the BCC-friendly examples should not be treated in the same way that she
analyzes deferred interpretation and resemblance examples. After all, she maintains that deferred
interpretation examples and resemblance examples uses are non-literal uses, or, as she writes, “literal”
uses, and she maintains that BCC-friendly examples are canonical literal uses of proper names.
What determines whether a name is being used literally? Fara does not offer an analysis of
literality or a test for literality, but makes an astute point to underscore that deferred interpretation and
resemblance examples are instances of non-literal uses of proper names. Concerning sentence [18],
[18] There are two Hamlets at the party
she notes that it could be used in various distinct contexts to mean (a) that there are two people dressed as
Hamlet at the party (a costume example); (b) that there are two portraits of Hamlet at the party (an
artwork example), and (c) that there are two vengeful and tragically insane men at the party (a
resemblance example). Of this, she says:
one thing these show – completely unsurprisingly – is that it is not sentences that are
costume examples, deferred interpretations examples, and resemblance examples. It is
rather the context in which they are used that makes an utterance of such a sentence into
one or the other of these types of examples.8
Of this, I say: right on and well put. But why not say exactly the same about the predicativist’s favorite
examples? I happen to know two people who have the name “Hamlet”. Supposing they both show up at
the same party, I can use sentence [18] to mean (d) there are two persons named “Hamlet” that are at the
party. This is a BCC-friendly example. For sentence [18], there are contexts of use that make an utterance
of [18] a costume example, contexts of use that make an utterance of [18] a deferred interpretation
example, contexts of use that make an utterance of [18] a resemblance example, and contexts of use that
make an utterance of [18] a BCC-friendly example. BCC-friendly examples can rather naturally be
construed in parallel with the other examples.
We can offer some specifics about how to analyze them as instances of deferred interpretation.
Fara construes artwork examples as involving a function mapping artworks to their creator; costume
examples as involving a function mapping individuals to that which they are dressed as; and so on. For
instance, when [10]
[10] Two Stellas are inside the museum
is used to mean that there are two painting by [Frank] Stella, the deferred interpretation involves a
function from the paintings created by Frank Stella to the individual, Stella himself, that created them. An
illustration of the non-deferred use of “Stella” on which this deferred use is based is: Stella is often
considered a Modernist. When used as a BCC-friendly example, an utterance of [10] means that two
individuals named “Stella” are inside the museum. A more accurate rendering of [10] would be
[10’] Two “Stellas” are inside the museum,
and an illustration of the non-deferred use on which the deferred use in [10’] is based is: “Stella” is
becoming quite popular these days [with expectant parents]. To explain how that utterance gets its
8
Fara, this volume.
meaning, it is natural to appeal to the existence of a salient function taking individuals to their name.
There are two ways of thinking of this, depending upon your favored metaphysics of proper names. On a
naïve metaphysics of proper names according to which both persons have a common name, “Stella”, the
function would map individuals to their name. Alternatively, on a Kaplanian metaphysics of proper
names9 according to which the two persons have different specific names (that are pronounced and
written the same way) but a common generic name (also pronounced and written the same way as those
specific names), the function would map individuals to the generic name that is common to (that is the
name-type of) their individual specific names. Although I have not worked through all the details in these
proposed analyses, both appear to be available and not unattractive. Perhaps there are other ways as well
to explain [10] in this use as a BCC-friendly example as an instance of deferred interpretation. Fara
cannot accept any of them because she maintains that deferred interpretation examples always involve
uses that are somehow non-literal or are at least not the normal uses, and that is precisely what the BCCfriendly examples are supposed to be. Thus, what the predicativist needs to do is to explain why deferred
interpretation analyses of BCC-friendly examples are not viable.
§3: Fara’s response about Romanov Examples
Fara treats Romanov examples entirely differently. Romanov examples include Boer’s original
examples [19] and [20]10, as well as [21]:
[19] Joe Romanov (my barber) is not a Romanov
[20] Walter Cox is a Romanov
[21] Many Kennedys died tragically.
Intuitively, Romanov examples include what are colloquially called “dynasty names” or “family names”.
Fara offers an interesting line here. She maintains that Romanov examples constitute literal uses
of “Romanov” and “Kennedy”; yet in their occurrences as family names, “Romanov” and “Kennedy” are
not proper names. They are proper nouns, but not proper names.
Although I disagree with some argumentative strategies she employs to make the case, I think
that Fara is right: “Romanov” and “Kennedy”, in the relevant occurrences as Romanov examples, are not
proper names.
Fara interprets me as committed to saying otherwise. This, however, is a manifestation of the
dialectical disconnect, of her construing my argument as a refutation of predicativism rather than of the
predicativist’s Uniformity Argument on behalf of predicativism. She is right though, that had I been
presenting Romanov examples as a refutation of the thesis that all literal uses of proper names are
governed by BCC, I would be committed to regarding them as proper names. And had I been aiming for
9
Kaplan [1990].
Boer [1975].
10
a refutation of predicativism, her response that they are not proper names would suffice. However, it does
not suffice as a reply to the challenge I do present. To be successful, Fara needs to establish that the BCCfriendly examples are not to be analyzed in the same fashion as Romanov examples.
A plausible case can be made for construing the BCC-friendly examples as literal uses of proper
nouns that are not proper names. When “Alfreds” in [22]
[22] There are two Alfreds in Princeton
is used to mean that there are two persons named “Alfred” living in Princeton, “Alfreds” is, plausibly, not
occurring as a proper name.
Is there a good argument or test for determining whether a candidate term is not occurring as a
proper name? Fara offers up the BCC itself to decide if a term is not a proper name in some occurrence.
The test Fara offers is that if a term does not satisfy the BCC in some occurrence, it is not a proper name
in that occurrence. On her test, the family-name occurrences of “Romanov” and “Kennedy” would not
count as proper names. Since the test is only a sufficient condition for not being a proper name, it is not
entirely clear how she could conclude that the occurrence of “Alfred” in the BCC-friendly example [22]
would count as a proper name. But presumably she does want to say that. In any case, contrary to what
Fara says, her test does seem to me to be question-begging -- perhaps even patently so. But because I do
not fully understand her reasoning for maintaining it is not question-begging, I refrain from arguing the
point or resting anything upon it. Note instead that her test does not decide certain indisputable instances
of family names. One could say, speaking of my daughter: She is a Jeshion-Nelson. In its occurrence in
that sentence, “Jeshion-Nelson” is a family name. Yet everyone (in the world) who is a Jeshion-Nelson,
who is a member of the Jeshion-Nelson family, has “Jeshion-Nelson” as one of his or her names. So the
test on offer does not help us determine that “Jeshion-Nelson”, in this occurrence, is not a proper name.
But it is not, or at least is not if the other Romanov examples are not.
There is a better test to show why Romanov examples are not proper names. It is a syntactic
test.11 As is illustrated in the last line of the Sloat chart, there is a syntactic difference between common
nouns and proper names. It is syntactically correct for proper names to occur in the singular in argument
position without a determiner; it is syntactically incorrect for common nouns to occur in the singular in
argument position without a determiner. Thus, if a term cannot be used grammatically in the singular in
argument position without a determiner, it is not a proper name.
11
In NNP, I gestured at this syntactic test in the last paragraph of §3 in discussing the last line of the Sloat
chart, given originally in Sloat [1969], which reveals this key syntactic difference between common
nouns and proper nouns. I also implicitly relied upon it in the discussion of the Syntactic Rationale and
brand names in §8.
Let’s apply the test to the Romanov example. Assume (what is agreed by all) that the relevant
predicative occurrences of “Romanov” in [19] and [20] are literal uses. When used literally such
occurrences refer to the dynastic Romanov family. Now consider [23*]
[23*]: Romanov possessed great wealth
where “Romanov” occurs in the singular in argument position without a determiner. Keeping in mind
that we must construe “Romanov” here as referring to the dynastic Romanov family (and not some
individual person who is named “Romanov”), it is clear that [23*] is ungrammatical. It is ungrammatical
for the same reason that [24*]
[24*] Kitten meowed all night
is ungrammatical: because common nouns cannot occur in grammatical sentences in the singular in
argument position without a determiner. So “Romanov” in its second occurrences in [19] and [20] is not a
proper name.
Now, let’s apply the test to the BCC-friendly example [22]. Assume (what is agreed by all12) that
the relevant predicative occurrence of “Alfred” in [22] is a literal use. When used literally, “Alfreds” is
plausibly regarded as referring to the family of Alfreds, to the family of individuals that are named
“Alfred”. (I realize one might protest to regarding the Alfreds as a family. Please allow it provisionally; I
argue below that this is not essential.) Now, keeping that way of understanding “Alfreds” constant, we
can see that [25*] is ungrammatical,
[25*] Alfred account for 0.0001 percent of the male population
and for the same reason that [23*] and [24*] are ungrammatical. So “Alfred” in [22] is not a proper name.
As I explained above, for Fara to successfully deal with the Romanov examples, it is not enough
to just argue that those examples are literal uses of proper nouns that are not proper names. She must also
argue that the BCC-friendly examples like “Alfreds” in [22] cannot or should not be analyzed in the same
way. I just offered one such analysis. Although I am somewhat partial to this account, I am not here
maintaining that it is the only analysis of “Alfreds” in [22]. I only maintain that it is an instance of the
kind of analysis that Fara needs to show is not viable.
§4: Deferred interpretation, Resemblance, and Romanov examples
Thus far, I have been granting Fara’s breakdown of the examples into three separate types of
examples that are mutually exclusive: deferred interpretation, resemblance, and Romanov. I have also
been granting her way of categorizing particular examples as falling into one of these three groups. It is
not apparent to me, though, that these are all distinct varieties of examples.
Fara obviously maintains that the relevant occurrence of “Alfred” in the BCC-friendly example is a
literal use. I do not wish to take a firm stand concerning literality, but I simply grant it here.
12
Fara maintains that resemblance examples are not instances of deferred interpretation because
they do not satisfy Nunberg’s condition on deferred interpretation. Her idea is that, with respect to our
Lena example, because there are many distinct ways in which Lena’s daughters may resemble her, and
because there are many ways that they must be to resemble her in the contextually relevant way, there is
no single salient functional relation mapping the objects in the deferred extension of the predicatively
used name to those in the name’s normal extension.13
This strikes me as implausible. Resemblance examples are likely one variety of deferred
interpretation. After all, in [13]
[13] Two little Lenas just arrived
there is a specific salient relation for a thing to count as being in the extension of the pluralized “Lena”: it
must physically resemble Lena. True, in different contexts of use, the same sentence can be used to mean
a different dimension of resemblance – resembling Lena in her style of dress or her speech patterns or
work habits. But that does not tell against the existence of a salient functional relation in the context at
hand, one that maps individuals that physically resemble Lena to the one they resemble, Lena. And, true,
in the suggested context, there are multiple ways that Lena’s daughters must be in order for them to count
as physically resembling her. Yet this is neither essential to resemblance examples nor exclusive to them.
In some resemblance examples, there is a single way of being to count as in the deferred extension of the
predicate. If one says
[26] Jen is an Einstein
to mean that Jen is exceptionally intelligent, what one means will be true just in case Jen is exceptionally
intelligent, which seems to be just one way of being. Additionally, in some examples classified as
instances of deferred interpretation, there are multiple ways that one must be to be in the deferred
extension of the predicate. At inspiring Halloween parties, one must have altered one’s appearance in
multiple ways to count as dressed as Osama bin Laden. Fara denies this, maintaining that it is always
enough to do some single thing, like wear a tag that says “Osama bin Laden”. That may be enough at
lame Halloween parties, but not at inspiring ones. The standards for counting as being dressed as someone
or something will shift with the context. Likewise, the standard for counting as resembling someone or
something along some contextually salient dimension will shift with the context. In any case, I do not
quite understand what is gained by not regarding resemblance examples as one variety of deferred
interpretation example.
Whether resemblance examples ought to be subsumed as a special class of deferred interpretation
is an interesting question. It is not one on which anything of substance hinges here, though, because Fara
treat them in parallel: in both, the relevant terms under discussion are taken as bona fide proper names,
13
Fara, this volume.
not just proper nouns, that are being used non-literally, though not necessarily metaphorically. With
Romanov examples, by contrast, Fara offers a distinct analysis: the relevant terms under discussion are
being used literally, but are not proper names, just proper nouns. Because these are mutually exclusive
semantic analyses, whether there are any examples naturally classified as both instances of deferred
interpretation (or resemblance) and Romanov examples is for her a weighty matter. Pressing upon it may
help reveal the relationship between these types of examples. Consider Fara’s own examples [58] and
[59] that she classifies as Romanov examples:
[27] I own two Les Pauls because Jimmy Page used them but not because Eric Clapton did.
[28] Les Paul, of course, only ever played Les Pauls.
The subject matter in both sentences is a certain variety of electric guitar made by the Gibson guitar
company, and which Fara thinks of as a family of guitars. Thus, she takes the pluralized occurrence of
“Les Paul” in [27] and the second such occurrence of “Les Paul” in [28] as proper nouns that are not
proper names but that are used literally. I do not question whether this is the right analysis for the
example. But I am curious about what distinguishes the relevant occurrences of “Les Paul” in [27] and
[28] from the relevant occurrences of “Picassos” in [29] and [30],
[29] I own two Picassos.
[30] Picasso, of course, often hoarded Picassos.
that Fara would count as canonical illustrations of deferred interpretation. It is difficult to see that there is
a principled reason operative here for why we should regard the relevant occurrences of “Picassos” in
[29] and [30] as uses of bona fide proper names that are being used non-literally, as opposed to literal uses
of proper nouns that are not proper names. Fara appears to think that to be classified as a Romanov
example, the subject matter needs to be a certain kind of family, like the dynastic Romanov family or the
family of Les Paul guitars. But as the “Les Paul” example helps illustrate, there are many different ways
in which things may be a family, and so perhaps, Picassos, the artworks by Picasso, should be construed
as a family of paintings. And so too the Alfreds, the persons named “Alfred”, should be construed as a
family of persons – something I am, in fact, happy to allow, as I noted above.
Really, though, what these examples show is that being a family is beside the point. Familyness
and familyishness are not linguistic properties, and so should not determine whether an occurrence of a
predicatively used term should count as a literal use of a proper noun that is not a proper name or a nonliteral use of a bona fide proper name.14
Fara, this volume, offers an argument that “Romanov”, in its occurrences as a family name in Romanov
examples, is not a proper name. It involves comparing such occurrences of “Romanov” with the second
occurrence of “Hominid” in her (54’)
(54’) My little Hominid is not a Hominid. (He’s a kitten to whom I’ve given the name
‘Hominid’.).
14
I would conjecture that there is, rather, a relationship between deferred interpretation examples
and Romanov examples: deferred interpretation is a semantic or pragmatic mechanism (perhaps the main
mechanism) that eventually generates Romanov examples through the process of the conventionalization
of the meaning of previously non-literal uses. Some non-literal deferred uses of proper names come to be
conventionalized, eventuating in literal uses of proper nouns that are not proper names. Romanov
examples are just a kind of “frozen” or “dead” deferred interpretation, in much the way that previously
metaphorical (or extended or sarcastic or otherwise non-literal) uses of terms become conventionalized
and dead metaphors (like “face” in “the face of a clock”).
If this is right, or on the right track, whether a term occurs as a proper name being used nonliterally or as non-proper-name proper noun being used literally depends upon whether its meaning,
acquired through the process of deferred interpretation, has become conventionalized. I do not have a
favored theory of the conventionalization of meanings, but it is worth noting that whether a term counts as
having acquired a new conventional meaning may be contextually sensitive. In any event, solid examples
of the former include costume examples; solid examples of the latter include family names like
“Romanov” and probably also “Les Paul” in [27] and [28] and “Picassos” in [29] and [30].
Let’s wrap up by returning to the central examples. What should we say about BCC-friendly
examples like [22]?
[22] There are two Alfreds in Princeton
I am partial to regarding BCC examples as literal uses of proper nouns that are not proper names – as
Romanov examples – but I am inclined to think that they might be contextually sensitive, in some
contexts Romanov examples, in other contexts instances of deferred interpretation. Yet nothing turns on
this. I have argued that what the predicativist needs to do is demonstrate that BCC-friendly examples are
neither instances of deferred interpretation (non-literal uses of proper names) nor instances of Romanov
examples (literal uses of proper nouns that are not proper names). I have suggested both ways of
analyzing them. What needs to be shown is that neither one is viable.
She claims that the second occurrence of “Hominid” in (54’) uncontroversially verifies the following
claim:
The obvious claim: Whether or not a thing belongs to a certain family is independent of what its name is.
I agree that (54’) helps illustrate both that and why the relevant occurrences of “Romanov” in Romanov
examples are not proper names. And I agree that (54’) uncontroversially verifies the following truly
obvious claim:
The truly obvious claim: For many things and many families, whether or not a thing belongs to a certain
family is independent of what its name is.
However, given that we must interpret “family” rather loosely and widely, the obvious claim is false, for
whether or not a thing belongs to the family of Alfreds is not independent of what its name is.
References
Boer, Steven (1975) “Proper Names as Predicates” Philosophical Studies 27: 389-400.
Burge, Tyler (1973) “Reference and Proper Names” Journal of Philosophy 70: 425-39.
Fara, Delia Graff (no date) “Names as Predicates” Unpublished Manuscript.
Kaplan, David (1990) “Words” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 64: 93-119.
Nunberg, Geoffrey (2004), “The Pragmatics of Deferred Interpretation” in L. Horn & G. Ward, eds., The
Handbook of Pragmatics, Blackwell: Oxford, 344-364.
Sloat, Clarence (1969) “Proper Nouns in English” Language 45(1): 26-30.