AN INTRODUCTION TO QUINE'S "DESIGNATION
AND EXISTENCE"
Steve Bayne AN
For Quine "singular existence statements"
take the form "There is such a thing
as so and so." Further, the word or
expression following "as" *purports*
to designate a particular. Notice that the
question of whether an expression purports
to refer even outiside the context of a sentence
or the context following 'as' in such constructions
does not arise. Quine is explicit, however,
in taking the 'is' as tenseless. In this
sense, a sentence such as 'There is such
a thing as W. V. Quine' is true, even though
in four dimensional space-time "the
temporally forward" end of Quine "lies
behind" February 2001. The same cannot
be said of terms that purport to refer to
entities which are mythical, such as Pegasus.
In addition to "singular existence statements"
we have "general existence statements,"
such as
There are unicorns. Here in lieu of There
is such a thing as ... we have There is such
a thing as a... And then our example is formulated:
There is such a thing as a unicorn The most
obvious formal difference between singular
existence statements and general existence
statements is that in their formalization
the general statements make use of variables.
Thus (adjusting for keyboard limitations
on quantifiers):
(Ex)(x is a unicorn) General existentials
are characterized by the absence of names
and the presence of variables; these are
logically analogous in meaning to "something
which." In the case of our example,
in words alone: There is something which
is a unicorn 'Unicorn' is a general term;
'Pagasus' is not; but 'unicorn *can* turn
up in singular existential statements, however.
This happens when we want to assert the existence
of a certain *property*, such as being a
unicorn. In this case we use the singular
existential: There is such a thing as unicorn.
Quine observes that I may assert this sentence
while denying There is such a thing as a
unicorn. Quine now inches forward, introducing
Russell's treatment of the denials of singular
existential statements like There is no such
thing as Pegasus. Such sentences are especially
puzzling to those who fail "to observe
that a noun can be meaningful in the absence
of a designatum." What these philosophers
may may be puzzled by is that if 'Pegasus'
designates something, then any denial of
the existence of Pegasus is going to be false,
but if it designates nothing the sentence
is even worse off; it is meaningless. So
distinguishing meaning and designation is
important. The *meaning* of 'Pegasus can
be expressed (translated) as "the winged
horse captured by Bellerophon." It's
designation is a matter best left to zoology;
we don't come to know of animals by only
understanding the names for them. Not all
nouns are names. Furthermore, nouns that
don't name are lumped in with prepositions
in this important respect, and so Quine appears
to be rejecting the designative function
of relational terms, a move we are inclined
to link with nominalism. This characterization,
however, contains the danger of causing us
to miss some important issues. Let's touch
on a couple of points.
Quine notes that factual considerations can
dispel belief in the actual existence of
some abstract entities, such as the mythical
disease "hyperendemic fever" in
the same way as factual considerations can
cause us to relinguish any belief we may
have had in Pegasus, but the existence of
abstract entities corresponding to prepositions
is vastly different. 'Up' has meaning, although
Quine alleges that its nonexistence is not
a matter of fact in the same way that the
nonexistence of Pegasus is a matter of fact.
Is he denying the sentence:
There is such a thing as up? I think he is,
but he is saying also that the word 'up'
has meaning. In my opinion, when later Quine
denies there are meanings (qua entities)
he is denying them in the same non fact related
sense as he is denying up exists. Notice
that the correctness of a translation is
not a matter of fact, and that "analytical
hypotheses" differ in this regard from
the theories of physics, a point of contention
between Quine and Chomsky where Putnam sides
with Chomsky. But let's stick with this text
for now. The point is that the issue of analyticity
is grounded in Quine's incipient nominalism,
historically at least. We must be very careful
to observe the distinction *at this stage*
between Quine's nominalism and what realists
have called "dead end nominalism."
Here Quine is rejecting *not* abstract entities
but rather *some* abstract entities, those
in particular whose existence is not open
to factual examination, such as is the reality
of appendicitis. The important thing here
is that there are abstract entities the existence
of which can be rejected on the basis of
empirical examination. This is something
Quine will cling to. In fact, he reminds
readers in 1943 of what he had said in 1939:
But the idea, according to which the observation
of nature is relevant only to determining
the existence of spatio-temporal particulars
and never the being of universals, is readily
refuted by counterinstances such as that
of "hyperendemic fever" in my paper
"Designation and Existence"....
("Notes on Existence and Necessity"
JP. March 4,
1943. p. 116). Before going any further I
want to make one observation that may interests
those of you who are linguists. When Quine
says in "Notes On Existence and Necessity"
(hereafter NEN) that we cannot infer
(Ex)(there is no such thing as x) from There
is no such thing as Pegasus the problem may
not be that "'Pegasus... never occurs
designatively..." The problem may be
viewed differently as violating what linguists
call the principle of Full Interpretation
which requires that all all expressions which
are terms of a sentence be interpretable
(my formulation sb). If the inference were
allowed we would get something like
(Ex)(There is no such thing as Pegasus) In
this case, either 'Ex' or 'There is' would
not have an interpretation, violating the
principle. Howeva! This violation w. r. t
quantifiers, as I recall, is violated in
at least one valid proof of Lowenheim Skolem
(ascending?). Anyway, I can't go into all
that. Having seen that factual considerations
can lead us to reject abstract entities -
keep in mind that meanings are abstract entities
for Carnap - what is to stop the nominalist,
Quine asks, from denying there is such a
thing as appendicitis?! A nominalist may
choose to ... maintain that the word is not
a *name* of any *entity*... and that it is
a noun at all only because of a regrettable
strain of realism which pervades our own
particular language . What is being maintained
here is that these non naming terms are merely
"syncategorematic," and this word
is important. In fact this is among the very
first occurances of the term in Quine, a
term which Quine will use in _Word and Object_
a term which does not name, occurring opaquely.
Here there is anticipation of Quine's later
discussion of the de re/de dicto distinction
in the quantificational domain, but this
comes only AFTER the concept of 'pure designation'
is available as a a major tool in Quine's
philosophy. The important question remains:
why can't *all* terms be syncategorematic?
Quine seems to be casual in remarking that
"now the whole question of existence
is beginning to appear gratuitous, but it
will become very important at a latter point
that the very much the sameremark will come
to apply to 'analyticity'. thing will happen
to 'analyticity'. Quine's point is this:
So what if all these terms fail to designate
an entity? What is the nominalist *denying*?
And if nothing, why should we care what he
does? What is left but a bandying of empty
honorifics and perjoratives - "existent"
and "non-existent," "real"
and "unreal"? The philosopher who
"outdoes" the nominalist by treating
all words syncategorematically, and not just
a few words is not a nominalist at all, it
seems to me. For one sort of nominalist there
is only reference to concrete particulars.
For this guy there is no reference to *anything*.
Is this is an idealist gone linguistic? But
if the nominalist (attenuated idealist) is
to convince us that he has anything of content
to say, he must find some relationship of
logical dependence between the singular existence
statement and the rest of discourse. (Sellars
p. 47) From 'There is such a thing as appendicitis'
no change is forced on the assertion 'Appendicitis
is dreaded'. From 'There is such a thing
as appedicitis' no change in truth value
is forced on 'Appendicitis has been known
to kill'. Nor is it even the case that the
denial of the existential affects the truth
value of 'Appendicitis has been known to
kill', since if it is true there is surely
no change and if it is false so too is 'Appendicitis
has been known to kill'. So we need something
that the existential makes a difference to,
and that something is application of the
logical rule which most of us know, perhaps,
as "existential generalization."
If we affirm the singular existence statement,
we must regard any general existence statement
"(Ex)(... x...)" as following from
the corresponding statement "... appendicitis..."
which contains "appendicitis" in
place of "x." And of course if
we deny the existential ("there is such
a thing as appendicitis") there is no
such consequence. Quine goes so far as to
say that a word *designates* if and only
if (iff) we can perform this logical operation
on it (that is, existential generalization).
But what might this have to do, if anything,
in the least with ANALYTICITY? This is the
question we want to answer. Quine while skimming
along says Perhaps we can reach no absolute
decision as to which words have designata
and which not, but we can say whether or
not a given pattern of linguistic behavior
*construes* a word W as having a designatum.
Now here is the rub: if we describe an analytic
truth as a truth in which there are no designators
and so depends only on something like "form,"
then if there is no deciding as to which
sentences contain words that designate then
there will be no way of deciding which sentences
are ANALYTIC. I think there is this sort
of connection between designation and necessity,
even in 1939! Two observations in concluding
our discussion of "Designation and Existence":
first, close to the end of the paper (Sellars
p. 51) he says something that is probably
what made him a famous philosopher: "The
universe of entitites is the range of values
of variables. To be is to be the value of
a variable." Second, he will describe
constructing an abbreviation that will allow
the nominalist to dispense with unwanted
entities. As long as he wants, the nominalist
can use 'proposition', for example, but when
he wants he can dispense with it by substituting
the terms of the abbreviation. (There is
something "Mickey Mouse" about
this, I suspect) He will restrict his quantification
to names of individuals and presumably live
happily ever after doing set theory. We have
seen, then, that there IS a sense in which
Quine moves away from analyticity without
discussing meanings, as he did in "Two
Dogmas." To be sure the two can be related,
but they do differ. However, as early as
1943 Quine says a number of things that can
be construed as a proto attack on analyticity.
The relevant passages pertain mainly to "analytical
necessity." Quine says: The notion of
synonymity is presupposed also in the notion,
so current in philosophical circles since
Kant, of *analytic* statements. It is usually
to describe an analytic statement as a statement
that is true by virtue of the *meanings*
of the words; or as a statemetnt that follows
logically from the meanings of the words.
Given the notion of synonymity, given also
the general notion of truth, and given finally
the notion of logical form... we can define
an analytic statement as any statement which,
by putting synonyms for synonyms, is convertible
into an instance of a logical form all of
whose instances are true. (NEN p. 120) A
bit later he notes that "no intensional
mode of statement composition is needed in
mathematics." Now because analyticity
implies such intensional statement composition,
for example in the failure of existential
generalization in sentences expressing analytic
necessity (cf. NEN p. 123), the whole notion
of analyticity becomes suspect. Also, if
meanings are attributes (Carap's intensions)
then since the context "the meaning
of ..." is not an extensional form of
sentence composition, it too, and with it
analyticity, becomes suspect. But here is
something I find a little puzzling and don't
quite know how to deal with it. Quine says:
Conversely, also, given the relation of synonymity
it would be easy to derive the notion of
meaning in the following way: the meaning
of an expression is the classs of all the
expressions synonymous with it. No doubt
this second direction of construction is
the more promising one. (NEN p. 120). Isn't
it possible to have a language with no synonomy?
Isn't it possible that this were true of
all languages
(meta etc). The metalinguistic notion of
synonomy doesn't appear essential to characterize
semantics. Is this right?
|
Evans Experientialism 
