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Causal Theories. The absurdity of fit. The Absurdity of Fit.
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The Absurdity of Fit In one sense, all the views we’ve considered in class so far are views on which meaning is a type of “fit.” On the idea theory, meanings (connotations) are ideas. Ideas have a certain pre-existing structure: just as in a painting the different parts are related to one another, and colored in various ways, and so forth.
Idea Theory and Fit In order to find out what an idea represents, we go out and find the things that best fit the idea, that most closely match its pre-existing structure, that best resemble it. Whatever best fits the pre-existing structure is what the idea represents.
Verificationism and Fit While verificationism doesn’t have the same “little colored pictures” view of ideas or the resemblance theory of representation, it too involves a type of fit. In advance, words are associated with specific experiences that are stipulated to verify them. Why does a certain experience verify “That is red”? Because we said so, that’s why. We say in advance what experiences verify which sentences, then we go look and see what experiences we have.
Definitions and Fit Similarly, a definitions view is a type of fit as well. We say in advance what the definitions of words are. You don’t discover that bachelors are unmarried, you sit down and make it true by fiat.
The Absurdity of Fit But there’s something terribly wrong with the idea that meanings are specified in advance of our encounters with the world. That before any experience of the world, we sit down and draw up a structural description, or a set of experiences, or a verbal description and say “whatever I find that’s like this, I will call ‘a dog’!”
The Paradox of Inquiry The worry here is that on any of these models, you can’t be radically wrong. If ‘gold’ is true of what most closely resembles your idea of gold, then most of your beliefs about gold must be true. And the same goes for most of your beliefs about anything. If representation is what fits best with what you’ve drawn up in advance, in advance of inquiry, you can be pretty sure you already know what’s true and what isn’t.
The Paradox of Inquiry In fact, this problem is as old as Plato, and it’s called “the paradox of inquiry.” The paradox is: suppose you want to know, say, the nature of lightning. If you know what lightning is in advance, then you don’t need to investigate, because that’s what you wanted to know. But if you don’t know, how do you know when you discover it, that lightning is X? You find X, but you don’t know that it’s lightning, because you don’t know what lightning is!
Causal Theories Causal theories of meaning are radically different from the “fit” views we’ve been considering. They say (roughly) that a word or a concept represents what causes you to say it or think it. So even if all your beliefs about gold, and all your utterances concerning gold are completely false, those thoughts/ sentences still represent gold so long as gold is responsible for you believing/ saying them.
A classic problem in philosophy since before Socrates is: “What is knowledge?” What’s the difference between believing something and knowing it?
A little reflection tells us that if you know something, then it has to be true. So maybe knowledge = true belief.
Socrates/ Plato vs. K = TB Suppose there has been a murder, and no eye-witnesses Suppose the jury is superstitious, and I convince them that X is guilty, b/c I dreamed that he was.
Socrates/ Plato vs. K = TB No one is inclined to say that the jury knows that X is the killer. But if I was accidentally right, they will have a true belief that X is the killer.
True Beliefs, Bad Reasons Here the important point is that a belief that is true, but which you believe for bad reasons, is not really knowledge. If you believe something because you want to, or because your horoscope says it, or because a really unreliable person told it to you, then you don’t know it.
K = JTB This naturally suggests that for a belief to be knowledge, it not only has to be true, but has to be held for a good reason. This is the classic “JTB” account: knowledge = justified true belief.
Gettier Cases However, in the hyper-classic 1963 paper “Is Knowledge Justified True Belief?” Edmund Gettier provides reasons for thinking K ≠ JTB. Here’s an example of a “Gettier case.”
Russell’s Clock • Everyday you (justifiedly) set your watch to the clock. • Unbeknownst to you, last night the clock broke at exactly 8pm. • You set your watch this morning to 8am, truly and justifiedly. • It happens to be 8am.
The Causal Account of Knowledge What’s going on here? Well, some philosophers (e.g. Dretske 1981) think that this shows knowledge isn’t justified true belief, it’s true belief that’s caused by the fact the belief is about.
Right Direction The causal account has its problems (can’t we know things about the future even though causation doesn’t go from future to past?), but to many it seemed like the right direction. To know something is to have your beliefs based on the facts, where “based on” is some sort of causal notion.
The Success of Causal Theories • Knowledge (Dretske): X knows proposition P = the information that P causes X to believe P. • Action (Goldman): X performs action A = X’s beliefs and desires cause A. • Perception (Grice): X perceives object O = O causes an experience in X. • Representation?
Motivations But why think that causation has anything to do with representation?
Motivations Why think causation has anything to do with mental representation?
Structure Notice importantly that cases that show representation is non-reflexive rather than irreflexive, and asymmetric rather than antisymmetric include the semantic paradoxes: • This sentence is false. • Sentence #3 is false. • Sentence #2 is true.
Coordination across Theories A related upshot is that two people with radically different theories can nevertheless be talking about the same thing, and hence be meaningfully disagreeing with one another.
Saul Kripke, 1940- • Published first completeness proof for modal logic at 18. • Highly influential in philosophy of language and mind. • Developed the causal-historical theory of meaning
Saul Kripke, 1940- Kripke’saccount is developed in his Naming and Necessity. The background is that he’s arguing against views on which the meanings of names are descriptions or definitions.
Against Descriptivism Kripke argues that for any name N, there is no description D that we associate with N such that: • If x satisfies the description, N = x. • If N = x, then x must satisfy the description.
Ignorance & Error He argues against each claim as follows: Against #1: Arguments from ignorance. Sometimes lots of things satisfy the descriptions we associate with N, but only one is N. Against #2: Arguments from Error. Sometimes nothing satisfies the descriptions we associate with N (or some non-x does), but N still = x.
Ignorance: Feynman What people know: • He’s a physicist • He’s famous • He’s dead • He worked on quantum mechanics
Ignorance: Feynman But Bohr: • He’s a physicist • He’s famous • He’s dead • He worked on quantum mechanics
Ignorance: Feynman it’s not true that ‘Feynman’ means Bohr and it’s not true that it means nothing. How is that possible for the descriptivist?
Error: Einstein Who is Albert Einstein? What people believe: • Einstein is the inventor of the atomic bomb.
Error: Einstein But “the inventor of the nuclear bomb” can’t be the meaning of ‘Einstein’ because then ‘Einstein’ would refer to Leo Szilard (or whoever).
Kripke’s Picture “Someone, let’s say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends, other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain…”
Kripke’s Picture “A speaker who is on the far end of this chain, who has heard about, say Richard Feynman, in the market place or elsewhere, may be referring to Richard Feynman even though he can’t remember from whom he first heard of Feynman or from whom he ever heard of Feynman.”
Kripke’s Picture “A rough statement of a theory might be the following: An initial ‘baptism’ takes place. Here the object may be named by ostension, or the reference of the name may be fixed by a description…”
Kripke’s Picture “When the name is ‘passed from link to link’, the receiver of the name must, I think, intend when he learns it to use it with the same reference as the man from whom he heard it.”
The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that baby ‘Feynman’ Feynman Feynman Feynman Feynman
The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that baby ‘Feynman’ Feynman Feynman Feynman Feynman Historical Chain of Transmission
The Causal-Historical Theory Feynman Feynman Feynman Feynman Denotation
No Connotations The causal-historical theory, unlike the other theories we’ve considered so far, does not use a connotation (idea, experience, definition) to determine the denotation. Denotations are determined by non-mental facts.
Natural Kinds Kripkeand another philosopher Hilary Putnam wanted to generalize what was true of names to “natural kind terms” (a phrase introduced by Quine).
