Abstract
A certain hang-over from a humourless philosophy of language made us suppose that the question of the actual existence of a thing must be settled, and settled positively, before we can make any kind of singular reference to the thing. If such was the requirement for singular reference, then asking about a single thing whether it is (or was) actually existent should have been either senseless or pointless. Yet singular existence-wonderment is constantly entertained and expressed. After we have come across a clear mention of a certain specific item, listened to stories about it, seen a drawing of it, etc., we go on to ask seriously and coherently. “Does it exist?” “Is it real?” Indeed, it now seems obvious that the question of existence (as against the question of whether some complex property has any exemplifier) can arise significantly only after and never before reference has been made to, and some predication has been made about, the very item whose existence can be affirmed, denied or doubted.
A man once said: ... If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares.
Another said: I bet that is also a parable.
The first said: You have won.
The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.
The first said: No, in reality! In parable you have lost.
Franz Kafka, On Parables
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Notes
In fact, as a fictional character it does not exist in the game (2) of the Holmes stories, because Dr Watson is writing historically accurate reports of his friend’s extraordinary exploits in that game, and no fictional story with the character of Holmes in it can possibly figure in Dr. Watson’s world.
Parsons (1980), p. 51.
It now seems plausible to me that just as natives of game (2) can pose as guests from game (1), similarly there can be mere game (4) pretenders, i.e. fictional abstract entities which are not actually available in game (4). Imagine a story where a contemporary of Wittgenstein at Cambridge is said to have propounded a philosophical doctrine called “Teleological Atomism”. The nonexistent “ism” could count as a purely fictional pseudo-abstract entity.
Many of Shakespeare’s characters (in plays not categorised as historical) were actually borrowed from plays, stories, popular myths and putative histories of his times, but we see no harm in treating them as natives to Shakespeare’s work.
Parsons (1980), p. 57.
Ibid., p. 52.
Levinson (1981).
See my allusion to this distinction in Section 6.3 above. But the tissue only bears mud stains rather than pie stains. Doesn’t that throw some fresh suspicions against the identity theory and in favour of the counter-part theory?
Notice, shadows are as much game (1) objects as patches of black paint we do not hallucinate them, they have objective sizes, shapes and positions. They are perceived lacks of light.
C.f. Strawson’s remark in Freedom and Resentment, p. 93: ‘visible object exhibiting such and such a shape and colour’ has a breadth of category spread, a categorial ambiguity”.
Moore (1966) p. 83.
Moore (1966) p. 39.
Strawson (1967) p. 99.
Anscombe (1981) p. 28.
The Varieties of Reference. p. 350.
The Varieties of Reference, p. 370.
Dummett (1985).
Remember our discussion in Chapter 4 about Austin’s spying window-cleaner who was cleaning the windows fully and diligently while pretending to do the same.
Evans (1982) p. 362, footnote 33.
I can’t quite happily accept Dummett’s admonition as he puts it here: “not only do the speakers not think they are referring to anything, but they are not even meaning to refer to anything” (Dummen, 1985, p. 249). Referring unwittingly to something actual while intending to refer to what one is seeing¡ªwhether it is real or hallucinatory ¨C seems to be a perfectly normal case of successful reference to me.
What if the child asks: “You mean the Quine who met Santa face to face?” Then we have to tell him “Yes, that Quine who, the story says, met Santa Claus but who in real life did not do any such thing.”
Kripke comes very close to it by recognising the “in-the-story” truth of “Holmes exists” but confuses the issue by insisting on the one hand that ordinary language is committed to an ontology of fictional entities as well as gods worshipped by the Greeks etc., and interpreting, on the other hand, the negation of an existence-denial in the peculiar (“No true proposition is expressed by”) sense discussed above.
The Varieties of Reference, p. 369. Evans (1982)
Notice Kaplan’s vivid “distinction between what exists at a given point and what can be ”carried in“ to be evaluated at that point, though it may exist only elsewhere” (Kaplan 1989, p. 613).
Kripke’s own earlier position which he later refutes. See Addenda to Kripke (1980), pp. 157–58. 29 Monk, (1990), p. 357.
This example is adapted from Dummett (1985) p. 256.
Terence Parsons has shown how even the sincerest attempt in this direction is bound to fail: see his “Fregean Theories of Fictional Objects” in TOPOI, 1982, Vol. 1, p. 81.
See Philosophical Investigations 654: “Our mistake is to look for an explanation where we ought to have said ‘This language-game is played.¡ª
See Mimesis as Make Believe, pp. 423–30.
Thus, if someone refers to “Hamlet’s wife” his reference can be recognised as aborted, or else, in a Donnellanian fashion, as referentially picking up Ophelia. A charlatan’s talk “about” Plato’s grandson as depicted in Raphael’s The School of Athens does not deserve any special language-game.
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Chakrabarti, A. (1997). The Marvel of the Master-Game. In: Denying Existence. Synthese Library, vol 261. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1223-1_8
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