Dr. Michael Frauchiger
Open University
E-Mail: michael.frauchiger@bluewin.ch
ON THE SOCIAL AND PLURALISTIC FOUNDATIONS OF REFERENCE AND COGNITION
(ABSTRACT)
Before an object can be identified, it has to be named. Before it can be baptized, however, it needs to be given
to us.
According to the thesis of ostensive givenness, which is usually embedded in the causal historicalchain account of naming, all persons involved can be absolutely, directly and pre-linguistically linked with
one and the same objective particular thing merely by pointing to it. I argue that such a strongly realist
epistemological position cannot withstand certain notorious Quinean objections. Moreover practice shows
that ostension doesn’t guarantee uniform reference.
In contrast, I suggest a minimally realist methodological and semantic theory of constructive
givenness. According to this social and pluralistic approach, objects cannot be intersubjectively given to a
group of people until some logically and semantically regimented, as well as empirically interpreted, theoretic
language with an intended domain and a characteristic apparatus of individuation has been elaborated and
applied by the concerned academic community. The particular objects in the domain are indirectly structured
by the specific proper use and the empirical application of the terms of the respective theory. The domain of
application of a present empirical theory is first summarized on the pragmatic meta-level and becomes
empirically ascertainable by means of the progressive elaboration of that theory. Only then objects may
concurrently be characterized, tagged (i.e. named), and identified.
By comparison, the identity of directly, that is pre-linguistically, given objects - whether they are
given by ostension or inwardly, in the stream of consciousness - must be taken as primitive regarding
intersubjective criteria which are not liable to be misunderstood. As there are therefore no adequate, clear
conditions of identity for them, they are, ultimately, merely intuitively identifiable.
In an empirical theory, however, which is to be applied in an intersubjectively comprehensible way by
the members of a certain community of specialists, the identifiability of the presupposed reference objects
must not depend on the personal situation of any of the users of the language of that theory - for in theoretic
matters it all depends on the function of constant particular objects in generalizable or law-governed contexts
which cannot by any means be merely subjectively interesting. - Thus all presupposed identity relations
within the domain of a theoretic language need to be definable in terms of weaker equivalence relations, that
is to say, the languages of empirical theories need to be extensionalized language systems. - Accordingly, I
propose that only constructively given objects should be admitted in the course of the empirical interpretation
of scientific theories; because if only such objects are tolerated, any ontological commitment to
intersubjectively indescribable but intuitively identical things (which paradoxically enough would be
discursively neither indiscernible nor distinguishable) gets principally excluded. On this pre-condition, then,
it is valid (with relation to the respective domain) that ontological indiscernibility is both sufficient and
necessary for the identity of particular, simple objects.
I argue (against Quine’s predilection for linguistic systems which can be presented in the form of his
canonical notation) that not only theoretic languages based on classical logic, but also, say, the intentionalistic
languages of cognitivist theories in psychology and diverse modal systems must be regarded as
extensionalized languages. Accordingly, I introduce the notion of intensionality as a nonsortal semantic
concept and distinguish between different grades of intensionality and extensionalizability, invoking as
criteria for the distinction of grades the diverse types of (extensionalizing) definitions of identity.
DR. M. FRAUCHIGER:
(ABSTRACT)
ON THE SOCIAL AND PLURALISTIC FOUNDATIONS OF REFERENCE AND COGNITION
In its function as a definiens for the concept of identity, the notion of indiscernibility should not be
conceived in the stricter (Leibnizian as well as Russellian) ontological sense; otherwise the absurdity has to
be faced that numerically distinct objects might be identical just because they might have all their qualitative
properties in common. In contrast, being ontologically indiscernible in the broader sense amounts to being
equal regarding all properties and relations, including nonqualitative ones such as spatio-temporal properties
and relations. It is my opinion that this broader conception of ontological indiscernibility is perfectly
appropriate for the definition of identity in extensionalized languages. Consequently I argue against choosing
some concept of epistemological indiscernibility as definiens for ‘being identical’. I point out that the identity
of the reference objects in the domain of a theoretic language must not be dependent on the personal capacity
of individual academics for determining whether certain compared recurrent objects have all their properties
in common or not, i.e. identity must not depend on a few epistemological agents’ capacity to know sameness
and difference. The material ontological indiscernibility in the broader sense, and thus the identity, of
constructively given particulars can indeed be intersubjectively determined (not necessarily de facto, but in
principle) by each competent user of the theoretic language in question; but the respective identity subsists
independently of that determination in the domain of the concerned empirical theory.
I point out that the actual model of a modally extended theoretic language must include the empirical
model of the theory in question. However, as regards its ontological status, this actual (i.e. factual) world
must not, in my opinion, be regarded as „the“ independent, sole exterior world. - As far as an adequate
conception of the latter (putative) single exterior world goes, I argue against two famous suggestions: „The“
exterior world is often either regarded, in accordance with modal realism, as merely one of the many
absolutely real possible worlds unaffected by language and thought, namely that world which appears to be
the single „real“ one only from our human point of view, or else it is seen, conceptualistically, as the very
sole absolutely real world, in which we conceive of counterfactual situations, i.e. of ways in which we could
imagine this one and only real world to be different. - In contrast, my own (alternative) suggestion is a weakly
realistic epistemological and ontological pluralism. According to this relativistic proposal, the actual world
in the ontological structure of a theoretic language which has been extended into an alethic modal system
includes the empirical model of that theory which is formulated in the concerned language. However, this
presumably well-tested and corroborated theory is only one element of a plurality of partly incommensurable
nomological networks, which have been elaborated and empirically stabilized in diverse academic
communities and practical situations and which serve their respective academic purposes equally well.
Therefore the empirical models of these diverse established theories are best regarded as various different
aspects, or explored sectors, of the one single and independent exterior world, which needs to be postulated
for fundamental pragmatic reasons.
Finally, I demonstrate that over a basic actual domain of constructively given individuals (which are,
despite the requirement of strict ontological indiscernibility, empirically, i.e. materially, identifiable),
extensional properties, relations, and even states of affairs can be introduced. I show that the interpretation of
sentences with the help of extensional states of affairs stays compatible with the semantic theory of relative
truth.
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