Chapter 2. Truth and Reference
2.1 Meaning and Truth
--The notion of meaning in linguistics taken as naïve, primitive, and waiting to be explained; it has to
be disambiguated from other ordinary usage, such as “I don’t mean to hurt you”, or “Money does not
have meaning for me”, or “what is the meaning of life?”, ect.
--What we need is a theory of meaning, or semantics, in linguistics. (p. 19)
--Devitt’s hypothesis:
“The core of a linguistic symbol’s meaning lies in the fact that the symbol represents something”:
a)
What is the meaning of a symbol, e.g., “Kai”?
 “Kai” represents the person who is instructing this course. Hence, the meaning of a word or symbol
is its referent.
b) What is the meaning of a sentence, in particular, an indicative sentence? What does it represent?
 A situation that would make the sentence true. Hence, the meaning of the sentence “Kai is a logic
teacher” represents a situation in the world: Kai is a logic teacher. If the situation holds, the sentence is
true; if it does not hold, the sentence is false. Hence, the meaning of an indicative sentence is its truth
condition.
--Devitt’s main semantic task becomes that of explaining the representational properties of linguistic
symbols.
Applied to an indicative sentence, the task becomes that of explaining its property of being true iff a
certain situation obtains. In virtue of what does a sentence has this property? The task is then to give a
theory of truth conditions. (p. 20)
2.2 Explaining Truth Conditions
A theory of truth conditions must be compositional: the truth condition of a sentence must be a function
of its elements: words and their ways of construction (syntactic structures) p. 21.
Examples:
1. Kai is tough.
James is American.
Paul is tall.
2. Kai loves Cathy.
Cathy loves Kai.
3. structurally ambiguous sentences on p. 21
How do we determine the truth condition of a sentence, like “Kai is tough”? (p. 22)
“Kai is tough” is true iff
i.
there is some object that “Kai” designates and
ii.
“tough” applies to that object
Given reference and structure, truth conditions are determined.
We have thus moved from sentence meaning to truth condition; and from truth condition to reference
and structure. (this approach was started by Frege)
Some important questions to consider: (p. 23)
1. What does the presence of non-indicative sentences in language show about our truth-conditional
approach?  section 2.3
2. How can we explain the structure of the many sentences that are much more complicated than the
simple predication?  section 2.4
3. Is there more to word meaning than referential role?  section 2.5
2.3 Non-indicatives
Non-indicative sentences include questions, requests, promises, etc. They are uttered to perform speech
acts, rather than to report or describe states of affairs in the world. Think: What is the truth condition of
the non-indicative sentence “Are you a student?”, or “Open the door!”?
The sentence does not describe or represent a situation, and hence does not have a truth condition. It
thus follows, from the truth condition theory of meaning, that the sentence does not have a meaning.
But surely it does. So the theory in question is false.
Two ways have been proposed in which a theory of meaning for non-indicatives might be modeled on a
theory of truth conditions:
1. Smart’s theory of the compliance conditions of imperatives: (p. 23-4)
An imperative represents the situation in which it would be complied with.
The core of a sentence’s meaning is not its property of representing some situation that would make it
true, but rather its property of representing something that would make it true, complied with, or
whatever. Its meaning is largely its truth condition or other analogous condition.
Note: the bearing of Smart’s theory—the meaning of a sentence consists not only in its representing
some situation that would make it true, complied with, or whatever, but also in its asserting that the
situation obtains, requesting that the situation be brought about, or whatever. There is more to a
sentence’s meaning than its property of representing a certain situation.
2a. Aqvist’s employment of paraphrasing technique: (p. 24)
“Did Oswald kill Kennedy” means “Let it be the case that either I know that Oswald killed Kennedy or
I know that Oswald did not kill Kennedy”.
2b. Belnap and Stell’s appeal to possible answers:
“Who is the ugliest president of the USA?” means “Reagan is…, or Clinton is…, or …”. A question is
true if it has a true answer, false otherwise.
Devitt’s comments: 2a and 2b’s linking a sentence to the truth condition of a paraphrase is often
intuitively very distant from the original sentence. Smart’s approach seems most natural, and something
like it must play some role in the theory of meaning.
Austin follows Smart’s path, arguing that a theory of meaning must find room for a theory of
pragmatics of language use, a theory of the deployment of symbols in a social context. Austin
distinguishes between the locutionary force and illocutionary force, the former is the representational
content of an utterance, and the latter captures the “attitude” taken to the content in the utterance. One
of the aims of pragmatics is to give a general account of illocutionary force. (p. 25)
2.4 Explaining Structure
Appealing to reference and structure to explain truth conditions of sentences would face a problem:
many sentences contain words that do not have references.
E.g., Nobody likes John.  “nobody” refers to ?
E.g., Every man loves some woman.  this sentence is ambiguous (compare: John loves Mary), due to
the fact that “every” and “some” are quantifiers which do not refer. (p. 26-7)
Logicians after Frege and Tarski have been trying to develop compositional theoryies of truth
conditions for a range of different types of sentences, that include quantifiers, modal operators like
“possible” and “necessary”, tensed words, etc.
--David Lewis appeals to possible world semantics to explain modal terms, but the problem is that the
notion of possible world is itself in need of explanation. Lewis is himself a realist about possible
worlds, but this is apparently absurd (more in 2.6).
--the same strategy shared by all logicians is to uncover the logical structures of sentences in natural
languages, but this is very difficult (p. 28-9). Chomsky has made great progress in understanding the
syntactic structures of natural languages by proposing the theory of “transformational generative
grammar” (more in ch. 6).
2.5 Are Referential Roles Enough?
Does the referent of a word exhaust the word’s meaning?
Does the truth condition of a sentence exhaust the sentence’s meaning?
Case I: Identity Statements
Think: “superman” and “Clark Kent”
Think also: (1) Clark Kent is Clark Kent, and 2) Clark Kent is superman.
Another traditional example is Hesperus and Phosphorus.
Intuitively, 1 and 2 differ in meaning. But according to the the Millian view (p. 29-30) which holds that
the meaning of a (proper) name is exhausted by its role of designating its bearer, 1 and 2 have the same
meaning. But clearly they don’t. So the Millian view must be wrong. (p. 30)
--Devitt tries to save the Millian view by contending the plausibility of the assumption of the argument
that the two identity statements 1 and 2 do differ in meaning. Consider why 1 and 2 differ in meaning:
a) 1 is necessary while 2 is only contingent
Kripke has shown us that both are necessary.
b) 1 is analytic while 2 is synthetic
Quine has shown us that the analytic/synthetic distinction is questionable.
c) 1 is known a priori while 2 is known a posteriori (empirically)
No satisfactory account of a priori knowledge is yet available.
d) 1 is uninformative while 2 is informative
Why suppose that a difference in informativeness—an epistemic difference—reflects a difference in
meaning—a semantic difference? (p. 31)
--Devitt further discusses the case of (d). He points out that the supposition is based on the following
two assumptions:
(a) If 1 and 2 meant the same, then the competent speaker would (tacitly) know that they meant the
same.
(b) If she knew this then 1 and 2 would be equally informative to her.
Devitt contends the assumption (a), which he claims is based on the “Cartesian assumption” that we
know the content (or meaning) of our mental states with a privileged access. Devitt favors a view in
which linguistic competence consists not in any knowledge, even tacit knowledge about meaning, but
in having a skill or ability. (p. 31)
--But how do we support the intuition that 1 and 2 have different meanings?
Devitt claims that a person would manifest different behaviors when she has an understanding of 1 and
2. A difference of meanings in 1 and 2 is supposed to explain the difference in behaviors of a competent
skeaker. (if meanings are real, then they should explain facts of our lives)
Devitt thus thinks that names must have meanings finer-grained than the property of referring to the
author. P. 32. (So, after all, Devitt is not a Millian)
Case II. Existence Statements
(1) James Bond does not exist.
(2) Clinton exists.
The two existence sentences, one negative, the other positive, pose problems for the Millian view of
names. If (1) is true (i.e., “James Bond” refers to no one), then (1) is meaningless (because “James
Bond” does not have a meaning, since it does not have a reference). If (2) is true, then (2) is a
tautology.
Devitt: once again, we see that the meaning of a name must involve something other than its referent.
(p. 32)
Case III. Empty Names
How do we explain the meaningfulness of a sentence that contains an empty name such as in “James
Bond is handsome”?
The Millian view seems to fail, but we have to be careful not to fall into another mistaken view in
which an empty name designates an idea or concept. Why? Because an idea cannot be handsome; only
a person or a horse can. (Devitt would want to use the truth condition semantics as a model to explain
the meanings of ordinary sentences that contain names that do refer). Devitt argues that “an explanation
of meaning that ignores this world in favor of ideas is very implausible, ….and explanation of meaning
must somehow relate language to the external world.” (p. 33)
Case IV. Opacity
(1) Superman saves Bill Clinton.
(2) Clark Kent is Superman.
(3) Clark Kent saves Bill Clinton.
(4) John believes that Clark Kent saves Bill Clinton.
Sentence (1) and (2) are extensional, which means that the rule of “substitutivity of identity” applies
(the truth value of a sentence is preserved while its contained name is substituted by a co-referential
name). So if (1) is true, (3) is true.
However, sentence (4) is false—the rule of substitutivity of identity fails. A belief sentence is a
“non-extensional” or intensional or opaque sentence.
Opaque sentences cause a problem for the Millian view. Why? (p. 34)
If the Millain view is wrong about proper names which seem more connotation-free than most words,
then it is not surprising that the meaning of words other than names also go beyond reference.
Other identity sentences that reveal the same problem for the Millian view: (p. 35)
morning stars/evening stars
cordates/renates
2.6 Enter Senses
In view of the problems that face the Millian view, three strategies are available:
1) Direct reference theories
2) Sense theories: there are senses as well as references that attach to names.
3) Possible world theories: there exist possible worlds to explain the truth conditions of sentences. It’s
not that a notion of reference is insufficient to capture the meaning of names and other words. It is
rather than the notion of reference we have employed is too parochial. (p. 35-6) Kripke’s attachk of
Lewis is that a proper name is a “rigid designator” which refers to the same person in all possible
worlds. If Kripke is right, we still cannot explain the differences in terms of the referential roles of
names. Devitt finds Kripke’s modal intuitions plausible, but doubt that they bear much epistemic
weight. Devitt’s strategy is to reject Lewis’s theory by arguing that Lewis realism about possible worlds
is simply incredible. (p. 36) However, Lewis’ theory has several merits such as offering an explanation
of modality, causality, counterfactuals, etc. Devitt complains that a real explanation has to be causal,
has to appeal to structures, orders , the going-ons of this world, and Lewis’ explanation is not just too
high-priced, but nor explanation at all. (p. 37-8)
Devitt takes the second strategy, arguing that we need a theory of sense. There are two general ways to
propose such a theory:
1) “Two-factor” view: sense exists independently of reference.
2) A more classic view: sense relates closely to reference: a Fregean theme—sense determines
reference. (Devitt takes up this view. For him, a theory of sense and a theory of reference come
together.)
How then does Devitt’s accepting the classic view of sense affect his view of sentence meaning?
Compare the truth conditional semantics: a sentence’s meaning is its property of representing a certain
situation. Devitt rejects this, and replaces it with the following: a sentence’s meaning is its property of
representing a certain situation in a certain way; its meaning is its mode of representing its truth
condition.
So, the semantic task for sentences for Devitt is to explain the modes of presenting truth conditions in
terms of modes of reference—senses—and syntactic structures.
2.7 Use and Mention
“John” is a word with four letters.
John is a nice guy.
Main points of chapter 2 on Truth and Reference
1. How do we give a theory of meaning, in particular, the meaning of a name and the meaning of a
sentence that contains the name?
It depends on what a name and a sentence represent respectively:
a)
A name like “Clinton” represents a particular person; so the meaning of a name is its referent.
b) A sentence like “Clinton is fat” represents a situation that would make the sentence true; so the
meaning of the sentence is its truth condition. We can express it as follows: the truth condition of
the sentence “Clinton is fat” is the situation (or state of affair) that Clinton is fat. Or put it in
another way, the truth condition is that the name “Clinton” refers to some object and that object
possesses the property described by the predicate “is fat”.
So, we are now offering a truth conditional theory of meaning: we explain the meaning of a sentence in
terms of truth condition, and we in turn use the concept of REFERENCE (and the structure of a
sentence) to explain the concept of TRUTH. Hence, meaning  truth  reference
2. A truth conditional theory of meaning, however, faces some major difficulties: a) the referent of a
name does not exhaust the name’s meaning, and b) the meaning of a sentence is not exhausted by its
truth condition. This is shown by the cases of identity statements, existence statements, empty names,
and opacity.
3. Devitt’s move is not to give up the truth conditional theory of meaning, but to add the concept of
SENSE to the truth conditional theory of meaning. Devitt thinks that a name has a sense as well as a
referent, and moreover, the referent of a name is determined by the sense of the name. As to the
meaning of a sentence, Devitt’s view is not that the meaning of a sentence is determined by a situation
that it represents, but by the sentence’s representing a situation in a certain way. The meaning of a
sentence is its mode of representing its truth condition.
4. So, now we need to have a theory of sense to do the job. That’s the business of next chapter.
Quiz 1: Give an example of a non-indicative sentence. Does it have a truth condition? How does this
cause a problem for a truth conditional theory of meaning?
Quiz 2: Explain how an identity statement cause a problem for a truth conditional theory of meaning
(you may use an example to make your points).