Reference, Fiction, and Nonexistence

Philosophy 516: Selected Topics in Philosophy of Language

Fall 2002

Instructor: David Braun

Time & Place: Wednesdays 2:00-4:40, Lattimore 531

Office, Phone, Office Hours: Lattimore 525, 275-8107, Mondays 2-4.

E-mail: david.braun@rochester.edu

Topic

Proper names that seemingly fail to refer, such as 'Santa Claus', 'Atlantis', and 'Hamlet', pose difficult problems in semantics and metaphysics. If 'Santa Claus does not exist' is true, then 'Santa Claus' does not refer. So the sentence is about nothing. But then it seems that the sentence should be meaningless, and so not true after all. Consider also a typical utterance of 'Hamlet does not exist; he is just a fictional character'. The utterance of 'Hamlet is just a fictional character' seems to be true. If it is true, then (it seems) there are fictional characters. But what are fictional characters? Moreover, if there are fictional characters, then (it seems) fictional characters exist. But then the utterance of 'Hamlet does not exist' is false. This seminar will discuss the semantics of proper names like 'Santa Claus' and 'Hamlet', and the metaphysics of fiction and existence.

Prerequisites

I will not assume any prior knowledge of philosophy of language. However, my presentations of the basic material at the beginning of the seminar will be faster than my presentations in undergraduate courses, so it will still be useful to have taken a course that is equivalent to our Philosophy 247/447 (Philosophy of Language). Undergraduates must have my written permission to enroll in the course.

Texts

Nearly all of the reading will consist of articles that will be placed on reserve in the Beck library. I will also place a few books on two-hour reserve at Rush Rhees Library.

Requirements

1. Weekly comment papers, about 1-2 pages.

2. A class presentation.

3. A longer paper, about 12 pages, due Wednesday, December 12.

Weekly Comment Papers

You will write a 1-2 page comment paper every week except for those weeks (near the end of the semester) when we have student presentations. Each paper will comment on the readings for that week. Your comment paper for a week must be in my mailbox by 9:00 am Wednesday of that week. I may discuss your comment during the seminar meeting later that day.

Class Presentations

Your presentation will be an opportunity for you to get comments on a draft of your long paper. You will make a rough draft of your long paper available in the Beck Library by noon of the Friday preceding the day of your presentation. Your presentation, and our discussion of your presentation, should take about half of a seminar session (about 1 1/4 hours). The number of seminar sessions that we dedicate to presentations will depend on the number of students enrolled. I expect us to use at least the seminar meetings on December 4 and 11 for presentations.

Long Paper

The most straightforward sort of paper to write is a critique of some published paper on a topic relevant to this course. Your "target" may be an article or book that we discuss in class.

Grading

Comment papers: 15% Presentation: 15% Long paper: 70%

Reading List and Schedule

Very Tentative and Subject to Revision

Some of the selections mentioned below appear in the following anthology:

Everett, Anthony and Hofweber, Thomas. 2000. Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-existence. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

The following recent dissertation presents a useful overview of some of the semantic and metaphysical issues:

Caplan, Ben. 2000. "Empty Names: An Essay on the Semantics, Pragmatics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Empty Names and Other Directly Referential Expressions." UCLA PhD Dissertation.

1. September 4 The naive theory of meaning. Frege's theory of sense and reference.

Frege, Gottlob. "On Sense and Reference."

Church, Alonzo. Introduction to Introduction to Mathematical Logic, notes 18, 22, 71.

Braun, David. Unpublished. "Names and Natural Kind Terms", secs. 1-8.

Braun, David. Unpublished. "Frege and Russell".

2. September 11 Russell's theory. Descriptivism.

Russell, Bertrand. "On Denoting".

Russell, Bertrand. "Knowledge by Acquaintance and by Description."

Russell, Bertrand. Selections from "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism": end of lecture 1, section on existence in lecture 5, and lecture 6. In Russell, Logic and Knowledge and Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism.

3. September 18 Object theory: Meinong, Parsons, and Others

Meinong, Alexius. 1960. "Theory of Objects." In R. Chisholm (ed.), Realism and the Background of Phenomenology.

Chisholm, Roderick. "Beyond Being and Nonbeing." In R. Chisholm, Brentano and Meinong Studies.

Parsons, Terry. 1980. Selections from Nonexistent Objects.

4. September 25 Meinong, Parsons, and Others, continued.

Zalta, Edward. 2000. Appendix to "Pretense Theory and Abstract Object Theory." In Everett and Hofweber, pp. 117-147.

Fine, Kit. 1984. Review of Parsons's Nonexistent Objects. Philosophical Studies 45, pp. 95-112.

Fine, Kit. 1982. "The Problem of Non-existents." Topoi 1, pp. 97-140.

5. October 2 Fiction and fictional characters: Lewis and Currie.

Lewis, David. 1978. "Truth in Fiction." Amer Phil Quar 15, pp. 37-46. Reprinted in Lewis's Philosophical Papers Volume 1 (1983).

Currie, Gregory. 1990. Selections from The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge: CUP.

6. October 9 Fiction and fictional characters: van Inwagen and Thomasson.

van Inwagen, Peter. 1977. "Creatures of Fiction." Amer Phil Quar 14, pp. 299-308. Thomasson, Amie. 1998. Selections from Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge: CUP.

Yagisawa, Takashi. 2001. "Against Creationism in Fiction." Philosophical Perspectives 15, pp. 153-172.

Kroon, Frederick. 1996. "Characterizing Non-existents." Grazer Philosophische Studien 51, pp. 163-193.

Friend, Stacie. 2000. Review of Thomasson 1998. Mind 109, pp. 997-1000.

7. October 16 Reference failure and gappy propositions.

Donnellan, Keith. 1974. "Speaking of Nothing." Phil Review 83, pp. 3-31.

Braun, David. 1993. "Empty Names." Nous 27, pp. 449-469.

Adams, Fred and Stecker, Robert. 1994. "Vacuous Singular Terms." Mind and Language 9, pp. 387-401.

Adams, Fred and Stecker, Robert. 1997. "The Semantics of Fictional Names." Pacific Phil Quar 78, pp. 128-148.

Taylor, Kenneth. 2000. "Emptiness Without Compromise." In Everett and Hofweber, pp. 17-36.

8. October 23 Salmon on mythical objects

Salmon, Nathan. 1998. "Nonexistence." Nous 32, pp. 277-319.

Salmon, Nathan. 1987. "Existence." Philosophical Perspectives 1, pp. 49-108.

Richard, Mark. 1998. Selection from "Commitment." Philosophical Perspectives 12, pp. 255-281.

Caplan, Ben. 2002. Selection from "Empty Names." UCLA PhD dissertation.

9. October 30 Salmon continued, and Reimer

Salmon, above.

Reimer, Marga. 2001a. "A 'Meinongian' Solution to a Millian Problem." APQ 38, pp. 233-248.

Reimer, Marga. 2001b. "The Problem of Empty Names." Australasian J. of Phil 79, pp. 491-506.

10. November 6 Pretense theory.

Walton, Kendall. 1990. Selections from Mimesis as Make-Believe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.

Crimmins, Mark. 1998. "Hesperus and Phosphorus: Sense, Pretense, and Reference." Phil Review 107, pp. 1-48.

Walton, Kendall. 2000. "Existence as Metaphor?" In Everett and Hofweber, pp. 69-94.

Kroon, Fred. 2000. "Negative Existentials." In Everett and Hofweber, pp. 95-116.

11. November 13 Pretense theory continued.

Deutsch, Harry. 2000. "Making Up Stories." In Everett and Hofweber, pp. 149-181.

Richard, Mark. 2000. "Semantic Pretense." In Everett and Hofweber, pp. 205-232.

12. November 20 Catch-up and review.

November 27 Thanksgiving Break

13. December 4 Student presentations

14. December 11 Student presentations