Proper names as predicates

S T E V E N E. B O E R

P R O P E R N A M E S AS P R E D I C A T E S

(Received 2 May, 1974)

In 'Reference and Proper Names' , 1 Tyler Burge presents a novel account of the logical role of proper names in a (Tarskian) semantical analysis

of natural languages. The intuitive basis of this account may be sum- marized in the following theses:

(T1) A proper name is a predicate which is true of an object iff the object was given that name in an 'appropriate' way. (p. 428)

(T2) When they occur as singular terms, proper names play the role of predicate- cum-demonstrative (e.g., 'Tom is tall' parses as 'This-Tom is tall.') (p. 432)

(T3) A proper name occurring as a singular term in a sentence uttered by a person at a time designates an object iff the person refers to that object at that time with that name (via its 'demonstrative element') and the name (qua predicate) is true of that object. (p. 435)

Burge goes on to incorporate (T1)-(T3) into a formal, Tarskian account of the truth-conditions for sentences containing proper names functioning as singular terms. My concern here, however, is not with the formal elaboration but rather with the theses (T1)-(T3) themselves.

Each of (T2)-(T3) depends upon its predecessor in an obvious way, and Burge's whole account stands or falls with the acceptability of (T1). For Burge does not merely argue that treating proper names as i f they were predicates has theoretical advantages; he argues as well that this treatment is faithful to the facts of natural language, and he adduces sundry bits of ordinary (English) discourse to substantiate this broader claim. I t is this broader claim which I find ill-founded. In what follows I launch a twofold attack on (T1). First, I at tempt to show that even if proper names were predicates, they would not have the semantics suggested in (T1). Then, drawing on my criticism of the truth-conditions offered in (T1), I attack the thesis that proper names are predicates by

Philosophical Studies 27 (1975) 389--400. All Rights Reserved Copyright �9 1975 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

390 STEVEN E. BOER

showing that the alleged evidence for the thesis is weak and easily undermined.

Let us begin, then, by supposing that proper names are indeed predicates. To establish that (T1) gives a distorted picture of their truth- conditions, we need only point to a standard use of family names in which they are employed to talk about genetic kinds. Consider, e.g., the names of dynasties: 'Romanov', 'Hapsburg', 'Tudor', etc. 2 To be, say, a Romanov (in the relevant sense) requires much more than just being named 'Romanov', if indeed it requires the latter at all. Minimally, one must be biologically descended from (or identical with) a certain person - viz., the 'original' Romanov. If names are taken in this common way, each of the following sentences - false by the lights of (T1) - can easily come out true:

(1) Joe Romanov (my Barber) is not a Romanov. (2) Waldo Cox (my gardener) is a Romanov. (An exciting fact

revealed by recent historical investigations.)

Now it might be thought that Burge has protected himself against such an eventuality by his use of the vague phrase 'given that name in an appropriate way.' (1), that is, could be countenanced as true because Joe Romanov did not get the name 'Romanov' in the genealogically appropriate fashion. But this move will not work against (2), since Waldo Cox (we may suppose) is not and never was named 'Romanov'. It is tempting to think that one can at least preserve the 'self-referential' element in the truth-conditions for 'Romanov' by adopting a principle like

(3) X is a Romanov iff X is identical with or descended in the appropriate way from such-and-such a person named 'Romanov'.

Accepting (3) would, of course, allow us to countenance the truth of both (1) and (2). But (3) won't do, since there is no guarantee that the original Romanov bore the name 'Romanov' - i.e., 'Romanov' might be a corruption of a name bearing little or no orthographic or phonol- ogical resemblance to it. One could, no doubt, devise some ingenious way of reinserting the name 'Romanov' into the truth-condition while

P R O P E R NAMES AS P R E D I C A T E S 391

still preserving its adequacy; but such a move would be gratuitous, since the original Romanov can in principle always be picked out descrip- tively as, say, the person born at place p at time t. Thus something like

(4) X is a Romanov iff X is identical with or descended in the appropriate way from the person born at p at t.

seems to be the most natural rendition of the truth-condition for the family name 'Romanov'.

There is, to be sure, an obvious complication attending (4). There may be only one Romanov dynasty, but there could have been several Ro- manov dynasties, where the dynastic families bearing this name had no genetic connection with one another. In other words, 'Romanov' could well be ambiguous with respect to which family lineage is in question. And a semantic theory for a natural language should take account of this fact by some such device as indexing the various occurrences of 'Romanov'. A semantic account like (T1), which simply lumps all these occurrences together, achieves theoretical simplicity at the cost of fal- sifying the empirical data.

Nothing in the foregoing remarks hinges on talk of dynasties (which are, after all, rather special phenomena). All the same points can be made, albeit less dramatically, in the case of ordinary human families. If John Smith discovers that his son Fred was fathered by Tom Jones, he can truly say

(5) Fred Smith is not a Smith after all - he's a Jones.

in spite of the fact that his son's legal name is 'Fred Smith'. And if John Smith is the real father of little Billy Jones (putative son of Tom Jones), then John Smith can truly say

(6) Billy Jones is in reality a Smith.

In such eases the ambiguity of family names (as names of genetic kinds) is all the more apparent, since there are many unrelated Smith-families and Jones-families. Talk of 'being a Jones1' as opposed to 'being a Jones2' seems inevitable if we are to be faithful to the facts of natural language.

The difference between the (perfectly genuine) use of names which Burge cites and the (equally genuine and more widespread) use upon

392 STEVEN E. BOER

which I have concentrated above, has a rough counterpart in the behavior of predicates other than proper names. For consider the sentence

(7) Most twenty-story hotels do not have a thirteenth floor.

(7) clearly tolerates two different readings, viz.,

(7a)

and

(7b)

Most twenty-story hotels lack a floor which is thirteenth above the ground.

Most twenty-story hotels lack a floor called 'the thirteenth floor' (or numbered ' 13').

(7a) seems self-contradictory, whereas (7b) states a familiar truth. The predicate 'thirteenth floor' is ambiguous, having two quite different sorts of truth-conditions, one 'self-referential' and the other not. To espouse (T1) is to make a more subtle version of the mistake made by one who insists that X is a thirteenth floor just in case X is called 'the thirteenth f loor ' .

I conclude, then, that even if proper names were predicates, they would frequently exhibit a semantic behavior different from that suggested in (T1).

I I I

What evidence does Burge offer in defense of the claim that proper names in natural languages are predicates? So far as I can see, he puts forward only four considerations. (A) Proper names, like predicates, occur in the plural, with articles, and with quantiflers (p. 429). (B) Apart from extrasentential context or action, the sentence

(8) Jim is six feet tall

and the sentence

(9) That book is green

are alike in being incompletely interpreted (lacking truth-value), and "it is this conventional reliance on extrasentential action or context to pick out a particular which signals the demonstrative element in both sen-

PROPER NAMES AS PREDICATES 393

tences" (p. 432). (C) Proper names, like demonstratives and descriptions governed by demoastratives, usually take the widest possible scope (p. 432). (D) The view that proper names are predicates "provides an explication for the fact that we talk of the normal or literal uses of proper names" (p. 434).

Let us take these considerations in order. It should be noted at the outset that Burge himself does seem to countenance at least one kind of unstructured singular term, viz., demonstrative pronouns. So there is no a priori reason why proper names could not (in at least some of their occurrences) be members of that same kind. One who believes that proper names are (at least sometimes) unstructured singular terms may well reply to (A) that the occurrences of 'Alfred' in, e.g.,

(10) Alfred is tall

and

(11) An Alfred joined our club today

are merely homophonous expressions of different grammatical types, like the occurrences of 'two' in

(12)

and

(13)

Two is a number

The probability of rolling a two with a pair of fair dice is 1/36.

Burge offers two connected rejoinders to discredit this sort of response. One is that the occurrences of 'Alfred' in (10) and (11) both have "the same conditions for literal application to an object" (p. 429), and the other is that

Postulation of special uses of a term, semantically unrelated to what are taken to be its paradigmatic uses, is theoretically undesirable - particularly if a straightforward semantical relation between these different uses can be found. We have already indicated what this relation is: A proper name is (literally) true of an object just in case that object is given that name in an appropriate way. (p. 430)

Both rejoinders, however, beg the question at issue. If what is meant in the first rejoinder is that the conditions for X being in the extension

of 'Alfred' in (10) are the same as those for 2" being in the extension

394 STEVEN E. BOER

of 'Alfred' in (11), then it is already being assumed that 'Alfred' in (10) is a predicate. So what is presumably meant is

(14) The conditions for X being the referent of 'Alfred' in (10) are the same as the conditions for X being in the extension of 'Alfred' in (11).

But (14), though innocent of question-begging, is guilty of falsehood. For one condition of X being the referent of 'Alfred' in (10) is, according to Burge, that the utterer of (10) should be referring (or intending to refer) to X; but the speaker's referring to X is not among the conditions for X being in the extension of 'Alfred' in (11).

Burge's second rejoinder suggests a way of patching up the first. For there to be a 'straightforward semantical relation' between two uses of an expression-type it is not necessary that the two uses should have identical semantical explications; it is enough that the semantical account of one use should appear in the semantical account of the other. But the condition of having gotten the name 'Alfred' in the appropriate way (i.e., the truth-condition for 'Alfred' qua predicate) figures prominently in the conditions for something's being the referent of 'Alfred' qua singular term. Presumably, then, this is evidence that the use of 'Alfred' as a putative singular term is 'parasitic' on its use as a predicate. (The business about 'paradigmatic uses' can be put to one side, since it is surely question-begging to assume that predicative occurrences of names are 'paradigmatic' - indeed, it is statistically false: proper names usually occur as singular terms in the sense that utterances like (10) are much more common than utteiances like (11).)

As amended above, the two rejoinders amount to the espousal of the following principle:

(15) If two uses u and u' of an expression-type e are such that a semantical account of u' rests on a prior semantical account of u, then u is the primary use of e.

But the whole weight of (15) rests on the word "prior." For (15) is con- vincing only if we read 'prior' as "logically prior'; the mere expository priority of the semantical account of u gives no force to (15) unless one begs the question by assuming that expository priority guarantees logical priority. But Burge gives no argument for the logical priority of


predicative uses of names over their uses as singular terms: he simply begins by talking about the former and then moves on to the latter. So the question arises: Can the predicative uses be shown to be logically prior?

To show that the predicative uses of proper names are logically prior to their use as singular terms, one would have to show (or at least make it reasonable to believe) that the semantics of the singular-term-use is explicable via a semantics of the predicative use, but that the converse does not hold. It seems, however, that the converse might well hold after all. For one could perfectly well give a semantical account of the predicative use via a semantical account of the singular-term-use and then render the account non-circular by independent explication of the singular-term-use. Such an account might look something like the following (relativized, for convenience, to (10) and (11)):

(16a) X is the referent of 'Alfred' in (10) iff X uniquely satisfies the identity-criterion which the utterer of (10) associates on that occasion with the use of 'Alfred' in (10).

(16b) X is in the extension of 'Alfred' in (11) iff the generalized intersection of the sets of identity-criteria which the utterer of (11) associates with different singular-term-uses of 'Alfred' provides a criterion satisfied by X.

If in fact the speaker's identity-criteria for various singular-term-uses of 'Alfred' agree only in requiring that the referent should have gotten the name 'Alfred' in some appropriate way, then the generalized intersection of such criteria will provide the single requirement that an entity is in the extension of 'Alfred' qua predicate just in case that entity got the name 'Alfred' in some appropriate way. Hence all of Burge's ex- amples would be accounted for. Moreover, (16) has the advantage of accounting for the family name counterexamples adduced in the foregoing section. Suppose we adopt the earlier suggestion of accomodating the manifest ambiguity of family names by indexing their occurrences. Now consider indexed versions of (1) and (2):

(1") Joe Romanovk is not a Romanovj. (2*) Waldo Cox is a Romanovk.

The identity-criteria which the uterer of (1") associates with singular-

396 STEVEN E. BOER

term-uses of 'Joe Romanovk' may agree in requiring descent from the person born at p at t, whereas the generalized intersection of the utterer's identity-criteria for such uses of 'Romanovj' does not yield such a requirement; hence (1") will be true relative to that utterer. Similarly, (2*) will be true relative to an utterer whose associated identity-criteria for 'Waldo Cox' select an individual satisfying the genetic requirement common to his singular-term-uses of 'Romanov~'.

I have no wish to defend the theory adumbrated in (16); with its proliferation of indexed names, it would be a very complicated view. But it seems nonetheless to be a coherent view, and as such it shows that there is no reason to regard the predicative uses of proper names as logically prior to their uses as singular terms. Thus the only forceful reading of (15) collapses, and with it Burge's two rejoinders. I conclude, then, that once (A) is purged of its question-begging elements, its impact is null.

IV

Having disposed of (A), we can make relatively short shrift of (B). (B) has force for the predicative view of proper names only if one has already assumed that occurrences of proper names as singular terms should somehow be assimilated (e.g., via the postulation of a hidden demonstrative) to their predicative occurrences. (A), we have seen, provides no real sup- port for this assumption. And if one is inclined to view proper names (qua singular terms) as already on a par with demonstratives like 'this' and 'that', the reference of both sorts of expressions being determined (say) in the manner of (16a), then one will not be troubled by the fact that (8) is like (9) in being incompletely interpreted. For this very fact will be taken as further evidence that proper names belong with demonstrative pronouns in the first place - not that they are predicates with suppressed demonstratives. Only by tacitly begging the question can the comparison of (8) with (9) be made to generate a 'felt problem' for the predicative view to solve.

(C), on the other hand, is much more difficult to assess, since it is not clear what Burge takes it to mean. Whenever a definite description occurs in a compound sentence, then, from the Russellian standpoint, scope-distinctions are always in order. But making scope-distinctions for proper names (as singular terms) is more recondite. Where purely ex-


tensional discourse is concerned, such distinctions are in want of a difference. Thus, e.g., sentences like

(17) John is not tall and

(18) John will go if anyone arrives

are not arguably ambiguous with respect to scope, even though they can be rewritten so as to simulate scope-differences, as in (17a-b) and (18a-b) below:

(17a) It is not the case that: John is tall. (Narrow scope?) (17b) John is such that he is not tall. (Wide scope?) (18a) If anyone arrives, John will go. (Narrow scope?) (18b) John is such that he will go if anyone arrives. (Wide scope?)

Logicians traditionally (and quite rightly) assign the same logical form to (17a-b) on the one hand and to (18a-b) on the other. In such contexts, the claim made by (C) is unintelligible.

Where intensional idioms are concerned, however, it might be desirable to make scope-distinctions for proper names. Consider the following:

(19) Nixon is such that he might not have been a parent. (20) It is possibly not the case that: Nixon is a parent. (21) Nixon is believed by John to be a Democrat. (22) John believes that: Nixon is a Democrat.

(19) looks like a statement about an actual individual, whereas (20) looks like a statement about possible worlds and what would be true of Nixon- in-a-possible-world. (21) seems to declare a relation between two actual individuals, Nixon and John; but (22) seems to say something about the content of John's beliefs. If (C) applies anywhere, it must apply to cases like these. But if (C) does apply to these cases, it would amount to the highly controversial claim that 'wide-scope' renditions such as (19) and (21) are semantically distinct from their 'narrow scope' twins, (20) and (22), and that the former are somehow the more normal or typical versions!

But even if we grant that both wide and narrow scope-assignments in such sentences make sense and require different semantic accounts, there is still the troublesome word 'usually' in (C). If Burge means that

398 STEVEN E. BOER

proper names sometimes take wide scope, then he is probably on safe ground - but at the cost of depriving (C) of any evidential value for the predicative view. And if he means that proper names always take wide scope, then he is surely wrong, since one can always invent a sentence which calls for giving a narrow-scope reading to a constituent name. (Indeed, philosophers who countenance scope-distinctions for names in epistemic contexts typically insist on the presence of very special conditions to warrant a wide-scope reading. 8) But, apart from case-by-case specification of extralinguistic contexts, there is simply no clear sense to the claim that proper names, which can occur in an infinite variety of sentences, 'usually' (i.e., more often than not) would be accorded wide scope. Indeed, it is a mystery how anyone could know this.

It is possible that all Burge means by (C) is that, in all but the most contrived cases, substitution of a coreferential proper name for a demonstrative (or description governed by a demonstrative) in a given sentence results in a sentence which is most naturally read as giving wide scope to the supplanting name. This much seems true, but would not mark any important distinction between proper names on the one hand and definite descriptions on the other (as is presumably his intention). For exactly the same principle seems to hold for definite descriptions as well. If, e.g., we pass by appropriate substitutions from

(24) That man will leave if anyone arrives. and

(25) That man might have arrived earlier. to

(26) The man who is such-and-such will leave if anyone arrives. and

(27) The mart who is such-and-such might have arrived earlier.

then these latter sentences would always be read as

There is a unique man X who is such-and-such and X will leave if anyone arrives

(28)

and (29) There is a unique man X who is such-and-such and it is pos-

sible that X arrived earlier.

- i.e., as assigning the definite description wide scope.

P R O P E R N A M E S AS P R E D I C A T E S 399

Finally, even if there were a reading of (C) on which it stated a genuine difference between proper names and definite descriptions, there would be no compelling reason to take (C) as tending to show that proper names (as singular terms) are like predicates with attached demonstratives. For it seems that one could equally well take (C) as tending to show that proper names used as singular terms are like demonstrative pronouns themselves, or like the demonstrative element in descriptions governed by demonstratives. Unless one tacitly begs the questions in favor of the predicative view, there is no ground at the outset for assimilating 'Jim' in (8) to the predicate 'book' rather than to the demonstrative ' that ' in (9).

In light of the evident weakness of (A)-(C), not much remains to be said about (D). For there are any number of independent accounts of 'literal' versus 'metaphorical' uses of proper names, only some of which resort to treating proper names as predicates. One of the simplest accounts of the non-predicative sort is that which appeals to conventional ellipsis. Just as Frege's famous example, 'Trieste is no Vienna', may be taken as elliptical for, e.g., 'Trieste is no (match for) Vienna', so too Burge's sole example of a metaphorical use of a name, viz.,

(30) George Wallace is a Napoleon (pp. 429, 434)

is quite naturally construed as an ellipsis of some such sentence as

(31) George Wallace is a (person relevantly similar to) Napoleon,

in which "Napoleon" is a singular term, not an explicit predicate. On this view, names are used metaphorically when a comparison like (31), in which the name has its ordinary referring role, is expressed elliptically in a sentence like (30), which accords that name an apparent predicative role. The hearer must draw on his background knowledge about the customary (e.g., most famous) referent of the name in its singular-term- uses in order to figure out what the 'relevant similarities' might be. Notice that exactly the same move works for 'He'll never be a Caruso', 'John is another Hitler', 'What we need is another Abe Lincoln', and so on. If (A)-(C) had succeeded in making Burge's account antecedently plau-

400 STEVEN E. BOER

sible, (D) might carry some weight. But in default o f prior good reasons

for accepting the predicative alternative, (D) is without real force.

In conclusion, it seems to me that Burge has failed to give any adequate,

non-question-begging reasons for thinking that proper names are predi-

cates in natural languages. Moreover , we have seen that proper names,

to the extent to which they might sometimes funct ion as predicates, would

exhibit a much more complex semantic behavior than Burge imagines,

in consequence o f which the vaunted simplicity o f the predicative view

would vanish.

The Ohio State University

NOTES

1 The Journal of Philosophy LXX (1973), 425-439. All parenthetical page-references in the text are to this work.

It might be objected that surnames, unlike 'given names', are not really proper names. But Burge cannot avail himself of this objection, since he treats surnames like 'Jones' on a par with given names like 'Alfred'. (of. ibid., p. 430) His reason for doing so is presumably that surnames are frequently used as singular terms. Even dynastic names can be so used, although the circumstances for such uses are rare nowadays. 8 Cf., e.g., David Kaplan, 'Quantifying In', reprinted in Leonard Linsky (eel.), Reference and Modality, Oxford University Press, London, 1971, pp. 112-144.

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Proper names as predicates