Abstract
In the previous chapter a theory of speaker’s reference based on the intentions of the speaker was developed. Completion of the story about what is said requires a companion theory of predication — referring to something is after all generally not all there is to saying something — and a demonstration of how these theories yield the desired result. Let us start then with predication. Happily, many of the considerations that occupied us in the previous chapter will apply here as well, which will allow the discussion to be somewhat less detailed than would otherwise be required.
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Notes
Gareth Evans used this example to suggest that it poses a problem for the causal theory of names sketched by Kripke. I agree with this, but it is not relevant to our present concerns. See Evans, “The Causal Theory of Names”, in S. Schwartz (ed.), Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds, pp. 192–215.
“Names and Intentionality”, p. 199.
“Referential Shifts”, p. 136.
Grice, “Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions”, pp. 147–49.
Stampe, “Toward a Causal Theory of Linguistic Representation”; Bach and Harnish, Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts. I do not mean to suggest that any of these people would approve of my adaptation.
Bach and Harnish, ibid., p. 15
Salmon, ibid., pp. 103–105. It is important to note that while Salmon claims that someone might not recognize the proposition that e.g. Mr. Jones is alluring, he also insists that this proposition is completely understood. This notion of understanding but not recognizing a proposition (as say the same as a previously entertained one) is the key element in his solution to the puzzles to which his book is devoted (see esp. Chapter 8, and pp. 169–70, n. 4).
Ibid., p. 109.
Peter Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, p. 138.
Ibid., pp. 137–38.
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© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Bertolet, R. (1990). Predication, and What is Said. In: What is Said. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2061-3_6
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