Kripte's Puzzle and Belief under' a Name

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Kripte's Puzzle and Belief under' a NameAuthor(s): Alan McMichaelSource: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1987), pp. 105-125Published by: Canadian Journal of PhilosophyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231516 .

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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 105 Volume 17, Number 1, March 1987, pp. 105-126

KrivWs Puzzle and Belief Unde/ a Name ALAN MCMICHAEL Virginia Polytechnic Institute Blacksburg, VA 24061 U.S.A.

Recently Saul Kripke has drawn attention to a puzzle about belief and proper names, a puzzle of which philosophers have been aware for a long time, but which has never been completely resolved. Kripke gives a new, bilingual illustration of the puzzle:1 Pierre, while living in his native France, learns much about the city of London, which he calls 'Londres/ and comes to believe something which he would express in French with the words, 'Londres est jolie/ Using standard principle of translation, it seems correct for us to say, 'Pierre believes that London is pretty/ Suppose however that Pierre learns English, trav- els to London, learns that the name of the city he is in is 'London/ and sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, 'London is not pretty/ On the basis of his assertion, it seems correct for us to say, 'Pierre believes that London is not pretty/ But suppose he does not realize that 'Londres' is also a name for the city he is in, so he retains the belief which he would express with the French words, 'Londres est jolie/ Then, by the same principles of translation as before, it seems that we are still justified in saying, 'Pierre believes that London is pretty/ But now we have attributed to Pierre contradictory beliefs, and that does not seem acceptable, since Pierre has committed no logical oversight.

Kripke believes that this is the same puzzle as one that arises in older, monolingual examples, such as that used by Quine: suppose Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline. Since Tully' is another name for Cicero, it seems acceptable to paraphrase his belief and say, Tom believes that Tully denounced Cataline/ But suppose Tom does not realize that Cicero and Tully are the same person, and suppose, in fact, that he sincerely and comprehendingly asserts, Tully did not denounce Cataline/ Then it also seems acceptable to say, on the basis of Tom's

1 Saul Kripke, 'A Puzzle About Belief/ in A. Margalit, ed., Meaning and Use (Dordrecht: Reidel 1979), 239-83



106 Alan McMichael

assertion, Tom believes that Tully did not denounce Cataline.' But now we have attributed to Tom contradictory beliefs, and, as in the Pierre example, that does not seem acceptable.

I agree with Kripke that, due to a rough equivalence between constraints on translation and constraints on paraphrase, essentially the same puzzle arises in both cases. I shall therefore concentrate on the simpler, monolingual example of the puzzle.

Three principles are involved in the argument of the puzzle. Roughly stated, they are:

(PI) It is permissible to paraphrase an expression of belief by sub- stituting, for a given proper name, a coref erring proper name.

(P2) A person believes whatever is expressed by a sentence to which he sincerely and comprehendingly assents.

(P3) A person may believe a simple logical contradiction, that is, may both believe p and believe not-p, only if he commits some logical oversight.

None of these principles is perfectly obvious, but each is superficially plausible. The puzzle shows that they cannot all be true.

Those who have taken Frege to heart will find no puzzle here, but will simply reject (PI), the principle of substitutivity, on the ground that proper names may differ in sense and so may make different con- tributions to the propositions expressed by sentences in which they occur. As Kripke points out, however, there are serious gaps in the position Frege actually articulated. One promising line of improvement has been suggested, among others, by Harold Noonan.2 His view is one according to which the proper names themselves enter crucially into the states of belief described in our belief reports. That is, it is a view according to which belief reports containing embedded proper names are reports of what I shall call belief sub nomine, belief 'under' a name.

Kripke is aware that Fregeans may be driven in this direction, and he thinks that this sort of view is unreasonable. Substitution of one proper name for another in a belief report should, at least sometimes, be a valid move. Otherwise it would be impossible for us to report,

2 Harold Noonan, 'Names and Belief/ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 81 (1981), 93-108, and Ttigid Designation/ Analysis 39 (1979), 174-82. A similar view is outlined in Roderick Chisholm, The First Person (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota 1981), ch. 6. Also of interest is Diana Ackermann, 'Proper Names, Prepositional Atti- tudes, and Nondescriptive Connotations/ Philosophical Studies 35 (1979), 55-69.



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief 'Under* a Name 107

in the usual way, the beliefs of speakers of other languages, whenever they happen to formulate their beliefs using names different from the ones we use. It would also be impossible to report the beliefs of animals, assuming, as I do, that some animals do have beliefs.

I find this objection to the neo-Fregeans quite convincing. Sometimes it is valid to substitute one proper name for another in a belief context. Yet I am also convinced, as are the neo-Fregeans, that substitution is sometimes invalid. It therefore seems to me necessary to distinguish two varieties of belief reports containing embedded proper names: sub nomine reports, for which substitution is not valid, and de re reports, which do admit of substitution of proper names. This distinction, which is obviously a reworking of the traditional de re - de die- to distinction, yields, I shall argue, a thoroughly satisfactory solution to Kripke's puzzle.

Several objections will no doubt occur to some readers. First, it will be objected that my solution is ad hoc. Against this, I shall point out that my view has a fairly natural genesis, in the context provided by the failure of alternative views, and also that sub nomine belief reports are not an artificial construct, but serve an important linguistic function. Secondly, it will be objected that Kripke says he is not concerned with de re belief reports, and so no solution may appeal to them. But we shall see that it is actually unclear what Kripke means to rule out, and also it is doubtful that any solution can be had without some appeal to de re belief. Finally, it may be objected that Kripke's Taderewski' example shows that the notion of sub nomine belief is not sufficiently strong for the solution of the puzzle. This objection too can be an- swered.

I Development of the Neo-Fregean View

According to Frege, the proposition expressed by a sentence is a function of the senses of its parts. Coref erring names need not have the same sense, so substitution of coreferring names can change an expression for one proposition into an expression for another. Frege likens the sense of a proper name to the sense of a definite description.3 To say, 'a is F,' where a is a proper name, is to express the same proposition as that expressed by 'the G is F,' if 'the G' is a description that captures the sense of a. At first glance, Frege's theory seems to clear up

3 Gottlob Frege, 'On Sense and Reference/ in P. Geach and M. Black, in Transla- tions from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Black- well 1960), 58n.



108 Alan McMichael

the puzzle nicely. Tom evidently attaches different senses to the names Tully' and 'Cicero/ Perhaps he uses the former with the sense of 'the famous Roman author of De Fato' and the latter with the sense of 'the famous Roman orator who denounced Cataline/ Since these two descriptions clearly differ in content, substitution of one proper name for another will not preserve content. And if 'Cicero denounced Cata- line' is conceded to have a different content from 'Tully denounced Cataline/ it is easily seen to be invalid to infer from the fact that Tom believes what is expressed by the first that he believes what is expressed by the second.

A second glance reveals that this response is not adequate. I happen to know that 'Cicero' and Tully' are names for the same person, so I associated these names with exactly the same descriptions. So too do most English speakers who use both names. The senses we attach to the names, therefore, would appear to be different from the senses Tom attaches to them. What then are we saying when we utter, 'Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline? The Fregean view would appear to be that we are saying the same thing as, 'Tom believes that the G denounced Cataline/ where 'the G' is a definite description that captures the sense of 'Cicero' in this context. But by what rule is its sense to be determined? Evidently, we are not required to use 'Cicero' with Tom's sense, which may be unknown to us. But just as evidently, we cannot be supposed to use 'Cicero' with our sense, for Tom just does not believe that the thing picked out by our sense denounced Cataline. To take 'Cicero/ in this context, to have our sense is to attribute to Tom a belief he does not have. Moreover, if we could use 'Cicero' with our sense in reporting Tom's belief, then substitution would be valid, since we attach the same sense to both it and the name Tully.'

One possible response to this objection is to say that we have gotten the Fregean picture all wrong. The sense of a proper name is not merely some description or agglomeration of descriptions that I or someone else associates with the name, rather, it is something objective, something that is the same for all of us.

This, however, seems to me a fruitless line of reasoning. If the sense of a proper name is the same for all competent users of the name, then there is only one thing that sense could be: the sense of the proper name 'N' is simply the sense of the description 'the object named "N"' (there being no other description that one might plausibly suppose is universally associated with the name). Of course, if this is the correct view, then the failure of substitutivity, (PI), follows, and Kripke's puzzle is solved. But there is not a ghost of a chance that this view is correct. If this view were true, then in saying, Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline/ we would be reporting a belief of Tom's that is



Knpke's Puzzle and Belief 'Under* a Name 109

about the name 'Cicero' and about naming. But, of course, we are not doing any such thing.4

Potentially much more fruitful is the alternative of conceding that the sense of a name can vary from speaker to speaker and trying in some way to reduce the apparent impact of the concession. In particular, one might maintain that when we say, 'Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline,' it is true that we cannot really use 'Cicero' to express Tom's sense, but we can use it to refer to that sense. What I mean can be stated more generally as follows:

(Bl) If a is a proper name, then belief report 'S believes that a is F is true just in case S uses a with a sense G, and S believes that the G is F.5

According to (Bl), when we say, 'S believes that a is F,' we express a state of affairs that involves the specific name a itself and involves, but not specifically, some sense that S attaches to the name. Notice, however, that (Bl) does not imply that we are attributing to S a belief about the name a. Let us say that the sort of belief (Bl) is intended to capture is sub nomine belief, belief 'under' a name.6 It is obvious that on (Bl), as on the original Fregean view, substitution of coreferring names in belief contexts is not guaranteed to preserve truth-value, except when the believer happens to attach the same sense to both names.

(Bl) departs significantly from Frege's idea that a proper name in an indirect context denotes its customary sense. The departure seems forced, however, on account of our failure to identify any such thing as the 'customary sense' of a name. Still, (Bl) retains one Fregean role for senses, that of serving as 'modes of presentation' for objects, albeit modes that differ from person to person. This feature of (Bl) is shared by the other principles I will examine. Senses play a less important semantic role in them than they do in Frege's system, but they do have an important epistemic role.

It is desirable at this point to revamp the simplistic characterization of senses with which I have been working. Typically one associates a name not merely with a single, simple description, but rather with

4 Frege himself is quick to point this out. Ibid., 56-7.

5 (Bl) is actually a schema. The letters 'S' and 'F' must be replaced by appropriate expressions if it is to be transformed into a statement. The same is true for later principles (B2)-(B4).

6 (Bl) is lialf' of Harold Noonan's proposal. Noonan would say that it gives one of two sufficient conditions for the truth of 'S believes that a is F.' CRigid Desig- nation/ 176, 'Names and Belief/ 98-9)



110 Alan McMichael

a whole complex of them. It is ultimately more convenient to suppose, not that each description in the complex is a sense associated with the name, but rather that the sense of the name is the whole complex. More precisely: the sense of a name a for S is the conjunction of all the properties S supposes to be possessed by the bearer of the name a. This characterization can be extended to senses that are not associated with names: C is a sense for S if and only if C is a maximal conjunction of properties which S believes to be exemplified by a unique individual.7

Even if this view of senses is tenable, however, (Bl) is unsatisfacto- ry. Notice that according to the truth-condition given by (Bl), proper names embedded in belief contexts have the principal function of refer- ring to themselves. Neither the referent of the proper name, nor any sense conventionally attached to it, if there is one, enters into the state of affairs expressed by the truth-condition. Thus this proposal is entirely too radical. Indeed, it is easy to show that there are instances in which the proposed truth-condition holds and the belief report is false. Suppose Sally has learned Roman history by computer, but that someone has mischievously switched the names 'Cicero' and 'Cato' throughout her magnetic database. Then Sally uses 'Cicero' with a sense that properly belongs to 'Cato.' She believes that the individual picked out by that sense is not the person who denounced Cataline. The proposed truth-condition, therefore, is satisfied. But it is false to say, 'Sally believes that Cicero did not denounce Cataline.' Her learn- ing is not that defective.8

Sally does assent to the sentence, 'Cicero did not denounce Cata- line,' but in doing so she does not express a belief about Cicero, instead she expresses a belief about Cato. It is because her belief is not about Cicero that we cannot conclude that she believes that Cicero did not denounce Cataline. This suggests a new principle of sub nomine belief:

7 Since C is a conjunction of properties, it is itself a property. However, what I am calling properties here - and this I do not recommend generally - are entities of a very finely individuated sort. Properties in the sense I intend are not identical unless formed out of the same parts in the same way. Consequently, distinct

properties may be necessarily such that they are exemplified by the same individuals. This is a conception of properties that is of the second sort distinguished in

George Dealer's Quality and Concept (Oxford: Clarendon 1981). By bringing in senses under this conception, we are enabled to speak freely of the conjuncts of any given sense, the properties 'contained in' it.

8 This constitutes an objection to Noonan's proposal. See note 6



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief 'Under1 a Name 111

(B2) If a is a proper name and A is the referent of a, then the belief report 'S believes that a is F is true just in case S uses a with a sense G, S believes that the G is F, and G does pick out A for S.

In the Sally case, the truth-condition proposed by (B2) is not satisfied, since Sally does not use 'Cicero' with a sense that picks out Cicero.

Sub nomine belief reports, as defined by (B2), are of course extremely sensitive to substitution. In fact, one can argue that they are entirely too sensitive. We shall see, in section III, that (B2) places such strict conditions on belief that it cannot be supposed to hold true generally. For now, however, I shall postpone the project of putting the necessary restrictions on the scope of (B2). It stands in more immediate need of explanation.

(B2) introduces the notion of a sense 'picking out' an object for a particular person. Recall that a sense is a maximal conjunction of properties that a person believes to be exemplified by a particular object. So (B2) evidently presupposes the view that 'reference' to objects is medi- ated by our beliefs about their properties. That is, (B2) presupposes some kind of 'descriptional' theory of reference. Such theories have come under attack by the proponents of 'causal' theories of reference. Thus we need to discuss, at least briefly, how the attacks may be deflected.

Clearly we ought not maintain that an object is picked out by a sense only if it exemplifies all the properties that compose the sense - such a view would entail a failure of reference whenever one has a false belief about an object. But it is also clear, from examples given by causal theorists, that we cannot suppose that an object is picked out by a sense just in case it is the object which 'best fits' the total description provided by the sense. Consider the 'Thales' example: Suppose virtually all our beliefs about Thales come from Aristotle's writings. Suppose that Aristotle's descriptions of Thales are almost totally mistaken, that Thales in fact had almost none of the properties attributed to him by Aristo- tle. Suppose, in addition, that there was a Greek philosopher, unknown to Aristotle, who did have almost all of the relevant properties. This unknown philosopher is the object which 'best fits' the senses we attach to the name 'Thales,' but clearly we do not pick him out and refer to him. Rather, we refer to the man about whom Aristotle is so gravely mistaken.9

9 Example is from Keith Donellan, 'Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions/ in Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman, eds., Semantics of Natural Language (Boston, MA: D. Reidel 1972) 356-79.



112 Alan McMichael

Can we come up with a conception of 'picking out' which does not fall prey to these objections? I propose a view, similar to one outlined by Gareth Evans,10 that makes some concessions to the causal theorists: over time, the senses a person attaches to various names may be replaced by new, more comprehensive senses. This happens when new descriptions are added to the person's representations of various objects. With respect to such an addition, we may usefully distinguish (1) the notion of the causal target of the description and (2) the notion of the object (or objects!) which best fits the description. The causal target of the new description does not necessarily fit the description. For example, suppose I think I see a man in a green jacket in front of me, but suppose it is an illusion; the man I see is not wearing a green jacket and is not in front of me (there is a mirror). Suppose also that there is a man in front of me wearing a green jacket, but I do not see him because he is behind the mirror. Perhaps I form a description, 'the man in the green jacket in front of me/ and add it to my representation of a man named 'Charlie.' The original causal target of my description is the man I see. The object that fits my description is the man behind the mirror. Maybe one of these men is Charlie; maybe not.

Call a description well-directed by a person S if the original causal target of that description for S actually fits the description. Then I propose: Sense C picks out an object X for a person S just in case (1) C is a conjunction of properties that constitute a sense for S and (2) X exemplifies a 'significant portion' of those properties in C that S represents by means of well-directed descriptions.

In the Thales case, most of our descriptions are not well-directed. A few are, such as the description: 'the philosopher described by Aristo- tle as having believed that everything is composed of water.' These well-directed descriptions do not fit the unknown philosopher who, in this hypothetical case, best fits our descriptions of Thales taken as a whole. Therefore, the unknown philosopher is not picked out by the sense we attach to Thales' - precisely the result desired.

My suggestion differs from Evans' in its requiring satisfaction only of a 'significant portion' of the well-directed descriptions instead of a 'dominant portion.' This modification permits a straightforward treat- ment of cases in which distinct individuals are mistakenly identified. For example, suppose Georg says sincerely, 'Shakespeare was Bacon.' According to my conception of senses, Georg attaches the same sense to both the names 'Shakespeare' and 'Bacon.' But we can still maintain, nontrivially, that Georg believes, in the way captured by (B2),

10 The Causal Theory of Names/ Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 47 (1973), 187-208



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief Under* a Name 113

that Shakespeare was Bacon. The sense Georg attaches to the two names picks out both Shakespeare and Bacon, since each of the two men fits a significant, although at least in one case not dominant, share of the well-directed descriptions contained in the sense.11

Any theory of reference is bound to be controversial. Fortunately, my approach to the problems of belief does not depend crucially on the details of the foregoing proposal. I do need to assume, because of my reliance on senses, that there is some truth in descriptional theories of reference, that a purely causal theory is not tenable. But Evans and others have argued persuasively for this assumption, and I shall not try to defend it further here.

Given an adequate view of senses and the picking out relation, it is possible to characterize, in addition to the sub nomine beliefs captured in (B2), beliefs de re (or at least one variety of beliefs de re - it is not obvious that there is only a single variety!). A de re belief is a state of mind in which one attributes a property (or a relation) to an object (or to several objects taken in a certain order). Since some identifying property, that is, a sense, must be used to pick out the object or objects (at least typically12), de re belief can be characterized as follows:

(B3) S believes de re of A that it is F iff there is a sense G such that S believes that the G is F, and G picks out A for S.

Given (B3), it is easy to see that sub nomine belief entails a correspond- ing de re belief, since the right-hand side of (B3) consists of two of the three clauses in the truth-condition given by (B2).13

Harold Noonan denies that sub nomine belief entails de re belief, on the ground that the name involved in a sub nomine belief may not name any existing thing at all, in which case the believer cannot have a de re belief about some object that the name denotes - the name denotes nothing.14 I agree with Noonan that the introduction of nonexistent

11 Example is from Michael McKinsey, 'Names and Intentionality/ Philosophical Review 87 (1978), 171-200. McKinsey argues against pure causal theories, as does Evans.

12 This may not be so in the case of beliefs about oneself. In fact, some philosophers now believe that all of one's beliefs are referred 'directly' to oneself, not by the mediation of some sense. See Chisholm and also David Lewis, 'Attitudes De Dicto and De Se,' Philosophical Review 86 (1977), 474-97.

13 A more detailed exposition of this sort of account of de re belief is contained in Chisholm, chs. 4, 9. Or, in view of my suggestion placing a causal condition on 'picking out,' it may be even closer to the account of David Kaplan's 'Quantify- ing In,' in L. Linsky, ed. Reference and Modality (Oxford 1971), 112-44.

14 Noonan, 'Rigid Designation,' 177



114 Alan McMichael

objects, to serve as denotations, is too desperate. Yet it also seems to me that there is no retreating from (B2), on account of the fact that it gives a correct response to the Sally example. What then are we to do?

II Names and Nonexistence

I suggest that we simply rest content with (B2) as our principle of sub nomine belief, even though it applies only to proper names of existing things. Noonan appears to assume that names of existing objects and names of nonexisting objects must have the same semantic function and that, consequently, my suggestion is unreasonably ad hoc. This assumption can be denied. To do so, however, we have to say more about the function of proper names in direct discourse.

Suppose I say, 'Pegasus does not exist.' What proposition do I express? One way to approach the question is to ask for the canonical truth- conditions of my utterance. By a canonical truth-condition, I mean one that refers only to entities which I must actually have in mind if I am to understand my own utterance. This implies, in particular, that the entities referred to must be ones on which I have some 'epistemic grip.'

We cannot say that my utterance is true if and only if there is such a thing as Pegasus and he does not exist, for that would imply, contrary to what we decided, that an appeal to nonexistent objects is acceptable after all. It might be thought that we can avoid this problem by giving truth-conditions not in terms of Pegasus himself but in terms of some Pegasus-essence. By a Pegasus-essence, I mean a property that Pegasus has in every world in which he exists and that no other being could possibly have. The proposed truth-condition is: My utterance is true if and only if the Pegasus-essence is not exemplified.

The first difficulty with the essence view is that of explaining how this truth-condition can be canonical. Surely I do understand my utterance of 'Pegasus does not exist,' so if the proposed truth-condition is canonical, I must have an epistemic grasp of some Pegasus-essence. How do I attain such a grasp? A Pegasus-essence is a property so specific that it picks out Pegasus, and only Pegasus, in every possible world in which he exists. On the face of it, such a property would have to be infinitely complicated and so not accessible to our thoughts (unless, contrary to fact, Pegasus were to exist, in which case we would be able to pick out his essence indirectly).

Plantinga has suggested that one can grasp essences by indexing fairly simple properties to the actual world.15 For instance, knowing that

15 Alvin Plantinga, 'The Boethian Compromise/ American Philosophical Quarterly 15

(1978), 129-38



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief 'Under' a Name 115

Aristotle is the author of De Anima, we can grasp one essence of Aristo- tle, namely the property of being the author of De Anima in this world. But even on the assumption that we have an epistemic grip on the actual world adequate to make this trick work, it still doesn't seem to solve the problem of nonexistents. My utterance cannot be interpreted in terms of a world-indexed property such as being the winged horse named 'Pegasus' in this world. Given that Pegasus does not exist in this world, that property is, as Plantinga himself points out, impossible! Consequently, the essences view would, on the present suggestion, seem to yield incorrect truth-conditions for other true utterances, such as 'Pegasus is possible.'

The essence view is an attempt to explain the simple in terms of the obscure. We associate the name 'Pegasus' with a cluster of quite ordinary properties, not with properties so complete as to pick out Pega- sus in every world in which he exists. When I say, 'Pegasus does not exist,' I am saying merely that nothing is picked out by that cluster of properties.16

In the case of utterances involving existing objects, on the other hand, we cannot give the same sort of canonical truth-conditions. Suppose I say, 'Cicero was a prude.' Then there is no one cluster of properties associated with the name 'Cicero' (and comparable in make-up to the cluster associated with 'Pegasus') which everyone who understands this utterance (or its translation) must have in mind. If there were such a cluster of properties, it could serve as an objective sense for the name 'Cicero.' We have found, however, that the senses of names of existing objects cannot be supposed to be objective, but must be allowed to vary from speaker to speaker, subject only to the constraint that the sense a person attaches to a name should pick out the object that actually bears the name.

Naturally it will be objected that I am presenting a false contrast. Don't the same arguments against supposing that there is a particular cluster of properties associated with the name 'Cicero' also undermine my contention that there is such a cluster associated with the name 'Pegasus'? Perhaps the difficulty can be made clearer by another example. There are people, I gather, who believe that there really was a city Atlantis. Let us suppose, as seems likely, that they are wrong, that 'Atlantis' is the name of a nonexistent city. According to my view, there must be a certain cluster of properties associated with the name, and if one were to say, 'Atlantis did not exist,' then one would be deny-

16 For a commentary that delves more deeply into the problems of Plantinga's view, see David Austin, 'Plantinga's Theory of Proper Names/ Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 24 (1983), 115-32.



116 Alan McMichael

ing that anything is picked out by that cluster of properties. But, the objection goes, there is no such cluster. Beliefs about Atlantis vary from speaker to speaker. One may believe that Atlantis was a city beyond the pillars of Hercules; another, that it was a city on an island near Crete. Thus different people associate different senses with the name 'Atlantis.' So doesn't it follow, as in the case of 'Cicero,' that there is no one set of properties that can be used to give canonical truth- conditions for utterances containing names of nonexistents, such as 'Atlantis'?17

This objection overlooks an important distinction. In the case of the name of an existing object, a person is competent to use the name if he attaches a sense to the name that picks out the object which actually bears the name. In the case of the name of a nonexistent object, the constraint on competence is quite different. It cannot be required that a person attach a sense to the name that picks out the object which bears the name since no object, by hypothesis, bears the name. But what then constitutes competence? What keeps utterances containing, for example, 'Atlantis' from being unconstrained gibberish? Only, it seems to me, the fact that there is some way in which Atlantis is conventionally supposed to be picked out. That is, there is some story. A speaker uses the name competently only if his usage conforms sub- stantially to the story. Thus, although the sense he attaches to the name may depart from the story in some details, there cannot be a radical mismatch, else he will be using the name without understanding.

The objection fails because although the senses attached to a name of a nonexistent vary from speaker to speaker, they are constrained to conform to some story, a story that provides the cluster of properties which the nonexistent object is supposed to have. In contrast, the constraint in the case of the name of an existent object is that the senses we associate with the name must pick out the object named. This constraint need not yield some cluster of properties which constituted the 'primary' means of picking out the object.

In the case of an utterance involving the proper name of an existing object, one can give canonical truth-conditions in terms of that very object - since every competent user of the name is constrained to have that object in mind. Such an utterance is about the object and attributes some property to it. Because the object appears in the canonical truth-condition, the proposition expressed by the utterance must be the singular proposition that that object has that property (a proposition

17 I am indebted to Lynne Rudder Baker for pointing this objection out to me.



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief Under* a Name 117

that is true in just those worlds in which the object exists and has the property).18

The notion of a singular proposition gives us a convenient means for stating the difference in the functions of names of existents and names of nonexistents. The semantic function of a name of an existing object, at least when we are concerned with the objective content of an assertion in direct discourse, is to denote the subject of some singular proposition. A name of a nonexistent, because it lacks a denota- tion, cannot have this function.

Given this difference in semantic function, there is no reason to de- mand that a semantic principle such as (B2) should apply uniformly to both sorts of names. The restriction of (B2) to proper names only of existent objects has been vindicated.

Ill Belief Reports that are not Sub Nomine

There is a strong objection to (B2), however, one that Kripke would be sure to make. (B2) unreasonably precludes attribution of belief in cases where one does not employ the same names as the believer. For example, suppose a Frenchman, Olivier, sincerely and comprehendingly says, 'Londres est jolie/ Suppose further that, unlike his confused compatriot Pierre, 'Londres' is the only name that Olivier uses to denote London, that he is not even acquainted with the English name 'London.' It is perfectly correct, when reporting Olivier's belief to an English-speaking audience, to say 'Olivier believes that London is pretty.' According to (B2), this is incorrect, for Olivier does not use the name 'London' with any sense at all.

18 A good account of singular propositions is contained in David Kaplan, 'Dthat,' reprinted in French, Uehling, and Wettstein, eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota 1979), 383-400. Some

philosophers have questioned the wisdom of supposing that singular statements, by which I mean statements containing proper names, have objective proposi- tional contents (e.g., Hector-Neri Castaneda, 'On the Philosophical Foundations of the Theory of Communication: Reference/ in French, Uehling, and Wettstein, 125-46, esp. 132-3). But it seems to me that there is no good reason to abandon the convenience of supposing both that there are singular propositions and that we use singular statements to communicate them. No doubt you attach a sense to the name 'Cicero' that is different from the one I attach to that name, so you are thinking of a set of properties, when you hear the sentence 'Cicero was a prude/ different from the one I am thinking of. Yet the fact that there are profound differences in the thoughts we have when we hear that sentence - differences which, by the way, defy precise description - does not imply that we are not thinking the same singular proposition.



118 Alan McMichael

Monolingual examples can also be constructed. Suppose police un- expectedly come upon a bank robbery in progress. They chase the flee- ing bank robber. The robber turns to face them, and the police, thinking he has drawn a gun, shoot him. Suppose, unbeknownst to them, the man's name is 'Jones/ Then it is correct for a newsman to say, in describing the incident, 'The policemen believed that Jones had drawn a gun.'19 But, by (B2), this would be incorrect, for the policemen did not use the name 'Jones' in any sense that picked out the bank robber. They did not know his name.

Noonan tries to deal with these cases by positing an ambiguity between the speaker's sense of the proper name and the believer's sense. (B2) is a principle that applies when a name is used with the believer's sense. For a name used with the speaker's sense, a different principle applies: 'S believes that a is F is true just in case there is a sense G which the speaker assigns to a, G picks out, for the speaker, the actual referent of a, and S believes that the G is F. But although the distinction between believer's sense and speaker's sense is both a sensible and a useful distinction, it will not do the work that Noonan intends. Suppose that the sense I attach to the name 'London' is not identical with the sense that Olivier attaches to 'Londres.' Then if I say, 'Olivier believes that London is pretty, 'I still say something true even though (1) Olivier does not use the name 'London' at all, so his belief is not of the sort captured by (B2), not a belief involving a believer's sense for 'London,' and (2) Olivier does not believe that the G is pretty, where G is the sense that 7 attach to 'London,' so his belief is not of the sort described by Noonan's additional principle, the one in which the notion of speaker's sense appears.

The cases in which (B2) fails can be dealt with much more simply than by invoking the notion of speaker's sense. They are cases in which the belief is merely de re and not sub nomine. When I say, 'Olivier believes that London is pretty,' I mean merely that Olivier believes of London that it is pretty. Thus it is not necessary that Olivier actually employ the name 'London' in order for my statement to be true.

Assuming that this analysis is right, then at least some belief reports containing proper names are reports merely of belief de re. It follows that the Fregean response to Kripke's puzzle is, at the very least, in- complete. That response was premised on the falsity of (PI), the principle of substitutivity. But (PI) is true for reports of belief de re. If 'Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline's is a report of belief de re, then 'Tom believes that Tully denounced Cataline' may be inferred from it.

I do not mean to suggest that Fregeans are wrong to attack principle

19 Chisholm, 64-5, unaccountably denies this.




(PI). The intuition that substitution fails in belief contexts is very strong and must be respected. I think the intuition is satisfactorily accounted for, however, by the hypothesis that belief reports containing embedded proper names are used in ordinary discourse in two possible ways. First, they may be used to make de re reports, reports interpreted according to the principle:

(B4) If a is a proper name and A is the referent of a, then the belief report 'S believes that a is F,' if intended as a de re report, is true just in case there is a sense G such that S believes that the G is F, and G picks out A for S.

Secondly, they may be used to make sub nomine reports, reports interpreted according to a suitably corrected version of (B2):

(B2') If a is a proper name and A is the referent of a, then the belief report 'S believes that a is F,' if intended as a sub nomine report, is true just in case S uses a with a sense G, S believes that the G is F, and G does pick out A for S.

IV Solution to the Puzzle

This hypothesis quickly yields a solution to Kripke's puzzle. Obvious- ly if the reports of Tom's beliefs are reports of belief sub nomine, then the Fregean response applies. The substitutivity principle (PI) is false when understood as a principle about sub nomine belief reports, so the argument of the puzzle never gets started. What is believed under one name need not be believed under another coref erring name. If F and G are respectively the senses that Tom associates with 'Cicero' and Tul- ly,' then he believes sub nomine that Cicero denounced Cataline, because he believes that the F denounced Cataline, but he does not believe sub nomine that Tully denounced Cataline, for he fails to believe that the G denounced Cataline. On the other hand, suppose the reports of Tom's beliefs are reports of belief de re. Substitution is in this case valid, but principle (P3) fails. It is easily possible to have 'contradictory' de re beliefs, to believe of one and the same object both that it has a certain property and that it lacks that property, without committing any logical blunder.20 For example, I may be sitting on a bench and

20 This leg of the argument has appeared before, in Ruth Barcan Marcus, 'A Pro- posed Solution to a Puzzle About Belief/ in French, Uehling, and Wettstein, eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy VI (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota 1981), 501-10. Barcan Marcus does not aknowledge the existence of sub nomine reports and so cannot, in my opinion, give a completely satisfactory solution.



120 Alan McMichael

believe of the man sitting next to me that he is smoking a pipe, while at the same time believing of my colleague Zook, who unbeknownst to me is the man sitting next to me, that he never smokes a pipe. This is a case of mistaken identity, not one of logical error. Therefore, assuming that either the reports of Tom's belief are sub nomine or they are de re, the argument of the puzzle is unsound.

The question naturally arises whether this solution couldn't have been expressed in terms of the traditional distinction between de dicto and de re. How I may answer depends on just what one takes that distinction to be. I prefer to take it to be a distinction of scope. (I consider alternatives below.) As a distinction of scope, it applies primarily to descriptions. For example, 'S believes that the G is F can be understood, using Russell's theory of definite descriptions, in two ways:

(1) De Re (Description Used With Wide Scope): There is a unique G, and S believes that it is F.

(2) De Dicto (Description Used With Narrow Scope): S believes that there is a unique G and that it is F.

This particular distinction does not carry over into a solution of Kripke's puzzle, for there is typically no such thing as the 'scope' of a proper name. We have rejected that Fregean theory according to which a name is replaceable by a definite description. Had that theory been correct, we could have employed the de re - de dicto distinction, but we found good reasons for thinking that it is not correct.

There is, however, at least one other construal of the de re - de dicto distinction. A belief de re consists in the attribution of a property (or a relation) to an object (or to objects). Belief de dicto is sometimes con- trasted with this by saying that it consists in the acceptance of a proposition. Construed in this way, however, the distinction seems to me entirely too flimsy. Suppose I have a belief de re and so attribute a property to an object. Isn't this the very same thing as accepting the singular proposition that that object has that property? If so, the distinction collapses.21

21 It is true that some philosophers deny the existence of singular propositions. But if the de re - de dicto distinction stands or falls with such a contentious philosophical position, then surely it is less well suited to the solution of Kripke's puzzle than is my own distinction between de re and sub nomine belief, which presupposes comparatively little.

It is true that some philosophers, in particular Lynne Rudder Baker ('Under- priveleged Access,' Nous 16 (1982), 227-41), deny that singular propositions can be objects of belief. The ground for this denial is just the sort of failure of substit-




I must also mention Kripke's own remarks concerning de re and de dicto, which are rather curious and which might seem to preclude the sort of solution I have offered. He says:

... dere beliefs - as in "Jones believes, o/Gcero (or: o/his favorite Latin author) that he was bald" do not concern us in this paper. Such contexts, if they make sense, are by definition subject to a substitutivity principle for both names and

descriptions. Rather we are concerned with the de dicto locution expressed ex-

plicitly in such formulations as "Jones believes that: Cicero was bald" (or: "Jones believes that: the man who denounced Cataline was bald"). The material after the colon expresses the content of Jone's belief.22

Returning to the puzzle about Tom, Kripke seems to be saying that it is not permissible to construe the belief reports as reports of belief de re. But if so, where's the puzzle? If the reports are sub nomine, rather than de re, then substitutivity, (PI), is easily seen to fail. Even if my analysis is not exhaustive, and there is a third possibility, another variety of belief, why should we be inclined to think that substitutivity will hold for that variety? Yet Kripke is trying to show, against the Fregeans, that the blame for the puzzle should not be placed solely on substitutivity. I think this interpretation places Kripke in an impossible position. The inclination to think that substitutivity holds, and so to think that the puzzle is puzzling, rests, I would contend, solely on the possibility of construing Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline' as a report of belief de re.

Fortunately, there is another way to interpret Kripke's remarks. We can take him to be saying merely that he is concerned with ordinary de dicto locutions, as they are ordinarily used. Under this reading, his remarks do not preclude my solution. My position is that ordinary de dicto locutions, such as 'S believes that a is F,' are quite often used to express de re beliefs.

Finally, we might choose to take Kripke's remark about 'content' seriously. He seems to be saying that a de dicto belief is a relation between a person and a content, that is, a proposition. But, in that case, I would maintain, as before, that the distinction between de re and de dicto collapses. De re belief can be construed as acceptance of a singular proposition.

I conclude therefore, that nothing in Kripke's discussion precludes my solution.

utivity that I am trying to explain. But in the absence of reasons for thinking that

opacity is a property of all 'prepositional' (i.e., de dicto) belief reports, it does not follow that singular propositions are never objects of belief.

22 Kripke, 242



122 Alan McMichael

V Justifying the Distinction

My solution rests on a distinction between two ways of interpreting belief reports containing embedded proper names. Obviously, this is a complication. It would be neater to posit only a single semantic function for proper names in the 'believes that' context. I think the examples show that no single-function theory is tenable. However, the plausibility of my solution would be much enhanced if, in addition to the examples which seem to illustrate the distinction, I could give some general rationale for it. This, it seems to me, can be done.

The ordinary language of psychological reports is not a precise means for the representation of mental states. Beliefs, for example, are described in terms of the objects, properties, and relations at which the beliefs are directed. This is not an entirely satisfactory procedure. Since the believer's epistemic access to these objects, properties, and relations is not direct,23 representation in terms of them is sometimes misleading. This is especially so in cases which give rise to the Kripke puzzle. Tom undoubtably does have beliefs directed at the man Cicero which involve both the attribution and denial of the property having denounced Cataline. That is, he has contradictory de re beliefs about Cicero. But since he has really made no logical error, representation of his beliefs as beliefs de re is misleading, or at least obfuscating.

We can improve the representation by introducing other entities at which Tom's beliefs are directed, entities about whose identity Tom is presumably not so confused. In particular, we can mention the different properties and relations by means of which Tom picks out Cicero. For instance, we might say Tom believes that a certain famous Ro- man orator denounced Cataline, but he doesn't believe that the author of De Fato denounced Cataline.' In this way, we can achieve a representation that is adequate for ordinary purposes, one that is certainly more illuminating than the original de re representation. Notice that, in doing so, we do not use any new means of representation. We simply extend the procedure of mentioning objects at which the beliefs are directed. Notice further that this improved representation could not be obtained willy-nilly by using selected proper names. In 'Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline,' the name 'Cicero' does not con-

23 According to Chisholm, epistemic access to universals, properties and relations, is permitted by a specially direct means which he calls 'conception/ In The Problems

of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell takes a more modest position, claiming only that we have direct access, by a means which he calls 'acquaintance/ to sensible universals, such as colors. I am still more skeptical than Russell and believe that we have direct epistemic access to no ordinary universals whatsoever.



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief 'Untie/ a Name 123

note any specific property or properties by means of which Tom picks out the man Cicero.

There is one way of improving the representation of Tom's beliefs that is not merely an extension of the first procedure, and that is to use a sub nomine representation. That is, to achieve closer correspon- dence between our belief reports and the believer's thought, we can attempt to employ the believe?s own words in the description. This works quite satisfactorily, and quite usefully, in the case of Tom. If I say, Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cataline, but he does not believe that Tully denounced Cataline,' then, assuming that my report can be taken as a report sub nomine, I succeed in expressing the peculiar character of Tom's confusion.

Sub nomine representations are not, however, always available to us. They are not available, for example, when I attempt to report the beliefs of monolingual Olivier to a monolingual English-speaking audience. Nevertheless, a de re report is often, in such cases, perfectly adequate. Not so in the case of Pierre, who assents, in French, to 'Londres est jolie' and, in English, to 'London is not pretty.' In this, Kripke's bilingual example, de re representation is not adequate - since Pierre is picking out London in two different ways - and a purely En- glish sub nomine representation is not available - since Pierre uses a French name for London. Perhaps it is best to mix languages when reporting Pierre's belief: 'Pierre believes that Londres is pretty, but he doesn't believe that London is pretty, even though what he calls "Londres" is London.'

Sometimes, when the believer uses a different language, or when we are not sure what names he uses, we are forced to make reports of his beliefs that are only de re. Sometimes, when the believer picks out an object in two different ways and fails to realize that the two ways pick out the same thing, only a sub nomine report is satisfactory. Thus each sort of report has its peculiar uses.

An interesting question is whether belief reports containing embedded proper names are usually ambiguous, in a benign sort of way, or whether there are usually contextual factors which indicate the variety of report being made. This question, concerning the pragmatics of belief reports, is one I cannot answer here. Let me note merely that there are cases in which it is obvious which variety of report is intended. For example, if I say, 'Tom believes that Cicero denounced Cata- line, but he doesn't believe that Tully denounced Cataline,' then, unless I am taken to contradict myself, the report must be understood sub nomine.



124 Alan McMichael

VI The 'Paderewski' Example

In his article, Kripke explores a proposal that is reminiscent of my appeal to sub nomine belief: 'The only feasible solution in this direction is the most drastic: decree that no sentence containing a name can be translated except by a sentence containing the phonetically identical name' (263). According to this proposal, 'Londres' may not be translated by 'London' in reporting Pierre's belief, nor may 'Cicero' be paraphrased by 'Tully' in reporting Tom's belief - exactly as I suggested is the case if those belief reports are sub nomine.

Kripke objects to this proposal on two grounds. First, it is too drastic, ruling out many permissible subsitutions. This objection does not carry over to my own proposal, for I have acknowledged the existence of de re belief reports in addition to those which are sub nomine. Se- condly, however, Kripke objects that this proposal is actually too weak and does not block his paradox. This is an objection I must take seriously.

Kripke tries to illustrate the weakness with his Taderewski' example:

Peter . . . may learn the name "Paderewski" with an identification of the person named as a famous pianist. Naturally, having learned this, Peter will assent to "Paderewski had musical talent," and we can infer - using "Paderewski" as we

usually do, to name the Polish musician and statesman:

(8) Peter believes that Paderewski had musical talent. . . . Later, in a different circle, Peter learns of someone called "Paderewski" who was a Polish national leader and Prime Minister. Peter is skeptical of the musical abilities of politicians. He concludes that two people, approximate contemporaries no doubt, were both named "Paderewski." Using "Paderewski" as a name for the statesman, Peter assents to, "Paderewski had no musical talent." Should we infer, by the disquotation principle,

(9) Peter believes that Paderewski had no musical talent. Or should we not? (265)

Even if we assume that the reports are sub nomine, both (8) and (9) appear to come out true. But (8) and (9) appear to attribute to Peter contradictory beliefs, even though he seems to have committed no logical error. So doesn't the puzzle resurface in this new guise?

I don't think so. There are two possible responses. First, one may concede that (8) and (9) are true reports of sub nomine belief, but deny that they run afoul of any sound principle regarding contradictory belief. We have already seen that the principle of contradictory belief (P3) is of limited application - it does not apply to reports of belief de re. Neither does it seem to apply in the present case. 'S believes sub nomine that a is F and 'S believes sub nomine that a is not F do not jointly attribute to S some logical oversight, because, as in the 'Paderewski' example, the individual S may attach distinct senses to the name a.



Kripke's Puzzle and Belief 'Under1 a Name 125

In such a case, the beliefs underlying his sub nomine beliefs are logically consistent. Indeed, the proper conclusion may be that (P3) is in need of drastic revision. It may be that it is not the believing of contradictory propositions that betokens logical error, rather it is the assenting to contradictory expressions (or representations) of those propositions. What the examples show is that the former may occur without the latter. It is only in the case of the latter, however, that the contradiction can be revealed by logical scrutiny.

Secondly, one may choose instead to deny that either (8) or (9) is a true sub nomine report. One may argue that Peter does not use the same name 'Paderewski' as we do. Phonetic similary, one may point out, is not enough. Perhaps it is required, in addition, that our uses of the name and Peter's uses of the name share, in an appropriate sense, the same causal history. Peter thinks there are two causal histories and so two names (on the present proposal). Given this confusion, one may argue that Peter has two names, neither of which is identical with our 'Paderewski' - just as neither of the products of an amoeba's fis- sion is identical with the original amoeba. Therefore, although (8) and (9) may truly report de re beliefs of Peter, they are not true reports of belief sub nomine.

Both of these responses need further elaboration, but I see no in- superable obstacle. Moreover, even if I should fail to provide a satisfactory account of the 'Paderewski' case, that would not lead me to retract the main results of our examination of the 'London-Londres' case: First, there is a variety of belief reports, sub nomine belief reports, which resist substitution, and the postulation of this variety is not premised on a false view of the 'connotations' of names. Secondly, the existence of another, more familiar variety, reports de re, accounts for our intuition that substitution is often valid.24

Received October, 1984 Revised April, 1985

24 I am grateful to Lynne Rudder Baker, Earl Conee, Eleonore Stump, and the referees for their comments and suggestions.



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Kripte's Puzzle and Belief under' a Name