Matthew Davidson
Philosophy 387, CSUSB
10/10
Kripke:
Semantic arguments: One can refer to x without having a description in mind that x satisfies.
Epistemic argument: You can know N is the N a priori and typically you don't know N is the F a priori . You know it a posteriori .
Modal argument: It is necessary that N is N. It is not necessary that N is the F.
(Descriptions are non-rigid. Names are rigid.)
The Modal Argument
Another argument that often is leveled against Fregean theories and indexicals is what often is called in these contexts "the modal argument." This argument comes from Kripke in Naming and Necessity, but it has had many defenders since he first gave it in his lectures. Basically, the modal argument against the Fregean theory of names and indexicals centers on the fact that it appears as though the Fregean theory can’t account for the fact that names and indexicals usually are rigid designators.
Roughly, the argument goes as follows. It’s a necessary truth that N is N, where "N" is a proper name or indexical (e.g. "she", "he"). However, take any description "the F" that expresses a Fregean sense that is claimed to be semantically equivalent to N. It isn’t a necessary truth that N is the F (at least with respect to many instances of "the
F). Therefore, "N" and "the F" differ in semantic content.
This argument is quite forceful when one considers the sorts of descriptions that orthodox Fregeans typically have claimed express the content of names and indexicals. However, if the description that is taken to express the semantic content of

a name or indexical expresses an essence of the object named by the name, then the modal argument won’t go through. However, we’ve already seen that the sorts of world-indexed properties we’ve been considering as the contents of names and indexicals are essences of the entities denoted by their names. Hence, with respect to any world-indexed property F  , whose non-indexed element ( F ) is actually uniquely instantiated by the entity named by N, N is F  will be a necessary truth, not a contingent truth. Hence, the modal argument is not sound when it is leveled against a theory of names on which they express world- indexed properties.
Semantic Arguments
There are a number of arguments that have been thought to show the falsity of
Fregean theories by way of the claim that no content expressed by means of a definite description is necessary or sufficient for many names or indexicals to refer.
1 Many people have taken these arguments to be the strongest arguments against Fregean theories.
2 I do think that these arguments have significant initial force, and I also think that much about the nature of the semantics of names and indexicals can be gleaned by considering these objections. However, I think that these objections fail to show that a
Fregean theory of names and indexicals is untenable. In this section of the chapter, I want to consider several of what many have taken to be decisive counterexamples against
Fregean theories of names and indexicals. However, first I begin with some general points that should be kept in mind when considering semantic arguments against Fregean
1
2
See in particular, Kripke (1980), Donnellan (1972), Devitt (1980), and Salmon (1981).
E.g., see Salmon (1981, 29).

theories. I believe that when these are kept in mind while considering the examples, it is much easier to see one’s way clearly through the objections.
First, it doesn’t follow from the fact that one’s initial attempt or attempts at giving the content of a name or indexical fail that the entire Fregean theory fails. Sometimes people who give semantic arguments against a Fregean theory are too quick to move from the fact that a particular account of the content of a term is incorrect to the claim that the entire Fregean theory is incorrect. As I will try to show, one always can come up with an appropriate descriptive content in the face of the sorts of semantic arguments that have been advanced against the Fregean account of names and indexicals.
Second, we should highlight a point implicit in the first point. Giving the content of a proper name (or any singular term for that matter) may take a bit of work. One’s first-blush answer may well be incorrect. Often it will take some deal of thought and consideration of various thought experiments before one is able to give the correct content of a proper name or indexical as used on a particular occasion. On the Humpty
Dumpty view, this is equivalent to saying that it may take some thought to ascertain exactly what our semantic intentions are with respect to a particular term. One should note that this claim isn’t at all inconsistent with (my brand of) strong semantic internalism. We still can hold that the contents of our utterances are introspectively available to us, and we can hold that we have privileged access to these contents (our access to the contents of our own utterances is in some sense privileged over that of others).
Third, the less we know about the referent of a particular term, the more we are likely to borrow reference from others. It is noteworthy that many of the semantic

arguments raised against Fregean theories involve situations where the user of a name or indexical knows very little about the referent of the term she is using, and in the example she doesn’t borrow reference from other users of the term. Once we allow for reference borrowing we have in-hand a response to these sorts of cases.
We should note a few points about reference borrowing from a Fregean perspective. First, it requires at most that we are able to remember some other user of the term in question; it does not require us to have any sort of beliefs about where we first acquired the term. This requirement is not difficult to meet. Where it can’t be met, and where we’re not able to come up with other descriptive content to secure reference; I suspect that our intuitions would allow us to say that we don’t wind up referring with the term.
Second, we must be careful to avoid circularity in cases of reference borrowing.
We can’t allow that the person or people from whom we’re borrowing reference (either directly or derivatively) derives reference from us. Furthermore, if the person or people from whom we borrow reference themselves borrow reference, (ultimately) the chain of reference borrowing must terminate in a user or users of the name or indexical who are able to refer with the name or indexical without borrowing reference from others. (We must require this if we are to give a reductive account of reference in Fregean terms.)
Quite often, these users of the name or indexical will be "experts" on the referent of the name or indexical; they will have significantly more knowledge of the referent of the name or indexical than do others in their linguistic community.
3 Again, I think that this requirement can be met with most names and indexical utterances. But it does tell
3 Though I speak of knowledge here, true belief would suffice. This point holds for other occasions where I take about having knowledge of the referent of a term.

against views of names and indexicals where each individual in a group of language users of a name or indexical borrows reference from the entire group.
Third, one thing the semantic arguments have shown us is our ability to refer using proper names and indexicals is very much dependent on the knowledge of others in our linguistic community. Prior to the popularity of these sorts of arguments, I suspect that there may have been a tendency on the part of Fregeans to view an individual’s referential abilities in abstraction from the linguistic community or communities of which that individual is a part. Many of us lack knowledge of the referents of names or indexicals we use; this lack of knowledge is manifested in either a lack of beliefs about the referents in question, or in downright false beliefs about these referents. (For example, many people have little "historical" knowledge of Columbus, and when asked what they know about Columbus, they will claim that he discovered America. This is of course, false (if one means that he was the first European to discover North America).)
Though the Fregean may be bothered by the grip on people’s intuitions the semantic arguments have had, she should be appreciative of the fact that these arguments have revealed how much our referential abilities are dependent on the knowledge and referential abilities of those around us.
One might respond as follows to the claim that reference borrowing will save the
Fregean from the semantic arguments. "If you’re going to give a reductive account of reference, some people must refer using Fregean sorts of descriptions, and not by means of borrowing reference. However, for any person, we can show (via a semantic argument) that with respect to any name, having a certain description in mind is neither

not necessary, or not sufficient, or not both for reference. So, reference borrowing won’t help you."
I think that here the Fregean is justified in waiting for the New Theorist to produce the goods, as it were. It’s one thing to give semantic arguments against some users of names or indexicals in some cases. But, it’s another altogether to think that one can give them on any given occasion. I don't think this can be done. No doubt Kripke and others have shown that at least sometimes reference borrowing must be employed to save a Fregean theory. But the Fregean is well within her rights in the dialectic of the situation to wait for the New Theorist to show how in a particular situation semantic arguments could be run.
Fourth, perhaps we overestimate our ability to detect whether or not a particular name or indexical refers. Why are we so sure that names of obscure ancient philosophers
(e.g. "Thales") do refer? The fact that a term refers is not something to which we have introspective access. Perhaps those who give the sorts of examples that show up in some of the semantic arguments are wrong in saying that we refer using the names in question.
I’m not saying that there is reference failure in all of these cases. But I think it bears questioning whether or not we do successfully refer in these cases.
With these points in mind, let us turn to some of the particular examples of semantic arguments against Fregean theories. In general, these cases will try to pump our intuitions to get us to conclude that either a) we are able to refer using a name even though we lack sufficient information (according to the Fregean) about the referent of the name to secure reference or b) even though a particular individual happens to satisfy the descriptive content we’ve assigned to a particular name, that individual isn’t the referent

of the name in question. Some examples try to show both a) and b); others try to demonstrate either of these points. I won’t consider all examples that have been given in the literature. I don’t think that this is necessary to show my point. I will consider some of what many have taken to be the most telling examples that arise in the context of semantic arguments against Fregean theories; and I think that in considering these examples, the reader will be able to see how one might respond to other sorts of examples
I don’t consider here.
1. Gödel and Schmidt (Kripke 1980, 83-91) 4
Suppose that it turns out that Gödel isn’t the discoverer of "Gödel’s theorem;" rather it is someone named "Schmidt." (To put this a bit less tendentiously, suppose it turns out that the person who is causally responsible for our tokenings of "Gödel" didn’t discover Gödel’s theorem.) Most people, when they are asked who Gödel is, will tell you that he is the discoverer of Gödel’s theorem. Yet, in this case, he isn’t. That is,
"Gödel" here denotes Gödel, not Schmidt. However, a Fregean theory is committed to the claim that "Gödel" denotes Schmidt in this case because the content of "Gödel" ostensibly is given by "the person who discovered Gödel's theorem". Therefore, a
Fregean theory of names is false.
We have here a situation where a speaker has little in the way of significant historical beliefs about the referent of a name she is using (we can suppose she has one), and furthermore, that historical belief not only isn’t satisfied by Gödel, it actually is
4 I think that the lessons learned from this example generalize well to other similar sorts of examples (e.g. Kripke's Feynman (Kripke 1980, 91-92) and Donnellan's Thales examples (Donnellan 1972).

satisfied by someone else. So, this example is supposed to show that having a description that uniquely picks out the referent of the name one is using is neither necessary for referring (the speaker is able to refer even though her one significant historical belief is false), nor sufficient for referring (the description in question happens to be satisfied by another individual). Suppose Kripke is correct in saying that for many people, the only significant historical belief they have about Gödel is that he discovered Gödel’s theorem
(or they have some such historical belief). I think that Kripke probably is correct in saying that if someone else had discovered this theorem, "Gödel", at least in most occasions of use wouldn’t denote this person. So, we’re left with the question of whether a Fregean theory must be committed to the claim that the only plausible content of
"Gödel" is given by a description like "the discoverer of Gödel’s theorem." We are left with this question because this claim seems necessary to generate the objection to the
Fregean view that on it the referent of "Gödel" would be Schmidt.
Based on our preliminary observations, it should be clear that a Fregean theory of names isn’t committed to such a claim. Let’s suppose that most who had any beliefs about Gödel at all would respond at first "the discoverer of Gödel’s theorem" if someone were to ask them what they meant by "Gödel." But, suppose then that such a person is presented with the above Kripkean sort of case. I think that she would change their mind and claim that they were mistaken at first about what they meant. In the case at hand, because the speaker has no further significant historical beliefs about Gödel, the description she likely would give would be one that appealed to others’ reference (e.g.
"the person most logicians call 'Kurt Gödel’"). If we changed the case and allowed that the speaker have other historical beliefs, perhaps the speaker would give one or some of

these as the meaning of "Gödel." Then, depending on how many beliefs she had about the referent of the name, we may well be able to present another Kripkean sort of counterexample. (As we will see in the next example, in general the greater the number of descriptions that serve as giving the content of a proper name that aren’t satisfied by anything, the more one is pulled toward claiming that the name doesn’t refer. Similarly, the greater the number of descriptions that purport to give the content of a name that an individual satisfies, the more one is pulled toward saying that the referent of the name in question is the object that satisfies the descriptions.)
The point here is that the first-blush answer to the question, "What is the meaning of ‘Gödel’" may well be incorrect. The user of the name may need to consider various counterfactual circumstances in order to ascertain exactly what she means by the name
"Gödel." With most of us, we may well wind up borrowing reference from others, ultimately those who have many beliefs about the person they denote with "Gödel." This sort of reference borrowing likely occurs with most historical figures, and with many contemporary figures with whom we’ve interacted little. (Of course the important element here isn’t the interaction (or so I say), but the beliefs we have about the individual; the former is important insofar as it gives rise to the latter.)
The reader should note that an objection that commonly is leveled against the causal theory of reference can be raised (or at least a close cousin of it can be raised) at this point with respect to the Fregean approach. If it turns out that a ham sandwich is causally related to my utterance of "Socrates" in the right sort of way, then "Socrates" winds up referring to a ham sandwich. When one has iterated reference borrowings' occurring (and this even could occur with one reference borrowing), one may well wind

up referring to a ham sandwich with "Socrates" in virtue of the fact that someone from whom you (ancestrally) borrow reference intends "Socrates" to refer to a ham sandwich.
I don’t regard this consequence as all that objectionable. Reference is a relation that holds between our utterances (spoken and written) and the world. It’s not the sort of thing that is introspectively accessible to us, and as such, it’s the sort of thing that may not always conform to what we believe to be the case via introspection.
2. The Accidentally True Description (see Devitt 1981, 17).
Suppose that someone tells me in great detail about a particular individual named
"John." Suppose that I meet an individual who matches this description exactly. I believe that the person who told me about the person named "John" was talking about this person. However, suppose that the person who told me about a person named "John" was making up the story. She intended to deceive me with the account, and she has had no contact with this other person who happens to fit the description of the "John" in the story. Suppose I don’t borrow reference from my friend; rather, the content of "John" in my idiolect is given via a complex description supplied to me by my friend’s story. This real person I meet matches the description that expresses the content of "John."
However, it seems as if I’m not referring to this person who has these properties. It is an accident that this person matches the description that expresses the content of "John" in my idiolect. Therefore, having a particular descriptive content in mind is not sufficient for reference, pace the Fregean.
I think that this is a really interesting counterexample that brings out important referential intuitions. My intuitions tell me that if the description that expresses the

content of "John" is sufficiently rich, and this other person satisfies this description, then one does indeed refer to this person with "John." True, it may be "lucky" in some sense, but if an individual happens to meet a very thorough description, I see no problem with saying that the one refers to that individual with a name that has the same content as that description (given that one has the proper referential intentions). (I also think that the completeness of the description does matter. Imagine a variant on our example at hand, where my friend gives a single very general description that happens to be satisfied by some individual. In this case, we’re much less tempted to say that one refers to this individual with a name if the name has the same content as the single general description.)
However, to placate the causal theorists who likely are screaming by this point,
I’ll note that we certainly could build in some sort of causality claim into the descriptive content. (I don’t think that adding this requirement calls for the linguistically competent person to have more linguistic knowledge than she actually has. Causality is a quite simple concept, and I see no reason why even those who are intellectually quite impoverished couldn’t understand such a description.) So, part of the descriptive content might be "the person who is causally responsible for the descriptive content my friend has in mind." This would allow us to claim that I don’t refer to the individual who happens to fit the description of the individual in the story. As I said, my intuitions tell me that we probably shouldn't build this in as part of the content, since I'm tempted to say
I do refer to John. But, others' intuitions may differ on this point.
Consider another story. Suppose that at a party there is a large group of people who play the game where a person (Joe in this case) is described in secret to another

individual, and that second individual in turn describes in secret this person to a third individual, and so on. Suppose that eventually the description that is passed on happens to match perfectly a person (Frank) distinct and extremely different from Joe. Suppose that a proper name is passed along with the supposed description of Joe (or as part of the supposed description of Joe), and this proper name changes somewhere in the chain of passings such that the proper name that gets passed along with the description of the individual ultimately winds up being "Frank." Now, the person at the end of the chain uses the name "Frank" and intends it to refer to the individual who satisfies the very rich description that she has obtained from the penultimate person in the chain. Does she refer to the individual who meets this very rich description, Frank, with "Frank"? Or does she refer to the individual who is most appropriately causally related to her utterance of
"Frank" (Joe)? Or does she refer to neither?
Here, it seems to me as though the second answer clearly is false. At the very least, in cases where a user of a name has a large number of beliefs about the referent of a term (as we may stipulate is true here); if an individual fails to meet much of the descriptive content of those beliefs, it seems as if the name doesn’t refer. Here’s a way to see this. We should note that this example features an instance where the description associated with a particular name is satisfied by an individual who (on some rival theories) isn't a candidate for the referent of the name. If "Frank" refers to anyone here, it’s Frank, and not Joe. Furthermore, the mere "accidental" existence of Frank shouldn’t make any difference as to whether "Frank" refers to Joe or not. So, I claim that there are strong intuitions that if an individual fails to meet the (very rich) descriptive content associated with a name, the name doesn’t refer to that individual.

3.
Jonah (Kripke 1980, 67-68), Devitt 1981, 18-20)
Suppose that the following happened in the case of Jonah. There was a quite ordinary man, and after he died people made up all sorts of stories about him. Legend about him grew. He was said to have been a prophet, and to have been swallowed by a fish. Today, most of the prominent descriptions we associate with the name "Jonah" aren’t true of the individual about whom people made up stories long ago. Suppose we don’t know this.
Yet, "Jonah" still refers to this individual. In fact, we may say that Jonah actually doesn’t meet most of the prominent descriptions we would claim he satisfies. However, a
Fregean theory of names can’t make sense of this claim. As Devitt puts it,
In the situation imagined, our uses of "Jonah" designate the man described; earlier predications using the name, such as those in the Bible, are mostly false because that man lacks the required properties…[Fregean] theories cannot accommodate
[this] (Devitt (1981, 19)).
It seems to me that this example is highly questionable. It’s not at all clear to me that we do refer to the person from whom the legend of Jonah sprung. It seems quite plausible to my ears to say that "Jonah" is empty, though there is some other person to whom people long ago ascribed (falsely) the properties that we ascribe using the name
"Jonah." What may well be correct is that upon learning or coming to believe that most of the descriptions we associated with the name "Jonah" weren’t satisfied by any individual, and that there was an individual about whom people long ago made up the
‘Jonah myth,’ "Jonah" undergoes a shift in meaning and reference such that it ceases to be empty (in the idiolects of those who believe these historical claims) and now designates the guy about whom they made up stories. But, prior to coming to believe these historical propositions, I don’t at all share the intuition that "Jonah" refers to the

person about whom the ancient Hebrews made up these stories. Indeed, I gave an argument with respect to the last semantic argument that in cases where one has many beliefs that are false in virtue of the fact that no individual has the properties that one believes a particular individual N to have, we have strong reason to think that "N" is an empty term.
I think that this survey of semantic arguments against Fregean theories gives us strong reason to think that these sorts of arguments fail. We have looked at three of the most well-known of the semantic arguments, and I think that it should be sufficiently clear based on how we’ve handled these three cases how one might handle other sorts of semantic argument that might arise. (That is, I believe that these three arguments are sufficiently representative of semantic arguments in general such that we can feel assured that in answering these three, we’ve gone a long way towards answering any sort of semantic argument against a Fregean theory of names.) We turn now to another sort of argument against a Fregean theory of names, the epistemic argument.
The Epistemic Argument
This argument comes from Kripke (1980). Suppose that a proper name or indexical (e.g. "he" or "she") "N" does have the same content as does a definite description, "the F." Then an expression "N is the F" should have the same content as the expression "N is N." However, the latter is analytic and knowable a priori ; whereas with most descriptions "the F" that typically would be given as expressing the content of a name, it’s not knowable a priori that N satisfies them (it’s not knowable a priori that N is the F). Therefore, "N" and "the F" differ in content (given

most descriptions, "the F").
Let’s make the argument a bit less schematic. Suppose I say that the content of
"Socrates" in my idiolect is most lucidly given by (we’ll simplify for the sake of the example) "the actual most famous teacher of Plato." Then I ought to be able to know a priori that Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato. However, it looks as if I know this a posteriori . On the other hand, it certainly does look as if I know that
Socrates is Socrates a priori . Therefore, "Socrates" and "the actual most famous teacher of Plato" differ in content; the latter does not give the content of the former.
To this I say that with respect to the descriptions that most lucidly express the content of a proper name N, it is knowable a priori that N satisfies that description. So, in the instance described above, it is knowable a priori that Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato. This is, after all, an analytic truth. "How can this be?" one might ask. "Surely it is known a posteriori that Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato. This is an empirical, historical proposition, one that one learns from one’s philosophy teachers or from textbooks in the history of philosophy." Here
I think there is a confusion between sentences and the propositions they express. It is consistent with the claim that one knows the proposition expressed by "Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato" a posteriori at one time that one know the proposition this sentence expresses at a later time a priori . This will happen when one intends that (part of) the content of "Socrates" be the property being the most famous teacher of Plato  . When one adopts such a semantic intention, then the sentence
"Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato" comes to express an analytic proposition in one’s idiolect, where before it expressed a non-analytic (synthetic),

contingent one. Furthermore, even if "the actual most famous teacher of Plato" expresses (part of) the content of "Socrates" for me in my idiolect, it may well be the case that this description doesn’t express the content of "Socrates" for other speakers in their idiolects. So, it may be for many other or most other speakers, the proposition expressed by "Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato" in their idiolects is known a posteriori . Of course, for them there will be some other description (or descriptions) "the G" such that Socrates is the G is known a priori . This may be true even if they first learned the proposition (a different one) expressed by this sentence a posteriori .
So it may well be true that Kripke knows the proposition expressed by "Socrates is the actual most famous teacher of Plato" a posteriori . However, I do insist that there is some description "the F" such that the proposition expressed by
"Socrates is the F" in Kripke’s idiolect is known a priori for Kripke. Again, this is consistent with the claim that the proposition that sentence expresses for most people is known a posteriori , and with the claim that Kripke had learned the proposition that sentence expressed when he learned it (though it was a different proposition) a posteriori . So, I think that we can maintain the sorts of intuitions Kripke appeals to in the epistemic argument against the Fregean theory of names and at the same time stick to the main tenets of a Fregean view.