A near lie

Alice knows that her friend Bob has no pets and no experience with birds. While recommending Bob for a birdkeeping job at a zoo and having discovered or to be surprisingly ignorant about birds, she says:

1. Bob has a fine collection of Southern yellow-beaked triggles.

It seems that Alice is lying. Yet it seems that to lie one must assert, and to assert one must express a proposition. But Alice’s sentence does not express a proposition since “triggle” is meaningless.

Sentence (1) seems to entail the falsehood:

2. Bob owns some birds.

But entailment is a relation between propositions, and (1) neither is nor expresses a proposition. We might want to say that if it did express a proposition, it would express a proposition entailing (2). But even that isn’t so clear. After all, maybe a world where “triggle” denotes a science-fictional beaked reptile is closer than a world where it denotes a kind of bird (imagine that some science-fiction writer almost wrote Southern yellow-beaked triggles as reptiles into a story but stopped themselves at the last moment).

Here is what I think I want to say about what Alice did. According to Jorge Garcia, what makes lying bad one linguistically solicits trust that what one is saying is true, while at the same time betraying that trust. Alice did exactly that, but without asserting. So, while Alice did not lie, she did something that is wrong for the same reason that lying is.

Can one lie without asserting a proposition?

I am starting to think that one can lie without asserting a proposition.

Let’s say that a counterintelligence agent tells an enemy spy that a new weapons technology has just been deployed, in order to dissuade the enemy from invading. The description of the technology contains nonsensical technobabble. This seems to be a lie. If it is, my argument is complete, because nonsense does not express a proposition.

But suppose we say it’s mere BS. Let’s now complicate the case. The counterintelligence agent passes to the enemy spy a fake classified document saying “We have just built a weapon that shoots three simultaneous hyperquark beams.” The spy is taken in by the BS, but also wishes to deter war. And thus the spy reports to her government: “The enemy has just built a weapon that shoots ten simultaneous hyperquark beams.” It is clear that the spy is not merely engaging in BS. The spy sure seems to be lying. But the spy is no more asserting a proposition than the counterintelligence agent did.

If we say that the counterintelligence agent is lying, then we have to allow that one can lie without even taking oneself to assert a proposition.

If we think that the counterintelligence agent is only BSing, but that in my more complicated case the enemy spy is lying to her government, then we should say that to lie one needs to take oneself to be asserting a false proposition, but one need not be actually asserting a proposition, true or false.

In either case, one can lie without asserting a proposition.

Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps what the spy does in the more complicated case is neither BS nor a lie, but engaging in a verbal deceit we don’t have a good name for.

Unicorns and error theory

Kripke famously argued that unicorns cannot exist. For “unicorn” would have to refer to a natural kind. But there are multiple non-actual natural kinds to which “unicorn” could equally well refer, since it’s easy to imagine worlds w₁ and w₂ in each of which there is a natural kind of animal that matches the paradigmatic descriptions of unicorns in our fiction, but where the single-horned equines of w₁ are a different natural kind (at the relevant taxonomic level) from the single-horned equines of w₂. The proposition p expressed by “There are unicorns” is true in one of the worlds but not the other, or in both, or in neither. Symmetry rules out its being true in one but not the other. It can’t be true in both, because then “unicorn” would refer to two natural kinds (at the relevant taxonomic level), while it arguably refers to one (at least if we index it to a sufficiently specific body of fictional work). So, the proposition must be true in neither world, and by the same token, there will be no world where it’s true.

It seems to me, however, that rather than saying that the proposition expressed by “There are unicorns” is impossible, we should say that “There are unicorns” fails to express a proposition. Here’s why. We could imagine Rowling enriching the Harry Potter stories by introducing a new species of animals, the monokeratines. Suppose she never gives us enough detail to tell the two species apart, so all the descriptions of “unicorns” in her stories apply to “monokeratines” and vice versa, but she is clear that they are different species (perhaps the story hinges on one of them being an endangered species and the other not).

Now, if “There are unicorns” in these (hypothetical) stories expresses a proposition, so does “There are monokeratines”. But if they express propositions, they express different propositions (neither entails the other, for instance). Thus, suppose “There are unicorns” expresses p while “There are monokeratines” expresses q. But no reason can be given for why it’s not the other way around—why “There are unicorns” doesn’t express q while “There are monokeratines” expresses p. In fact, the exact same reasoning why Kripke rejected the hypothesis that “There are unicorns” is true in one of w₁ and w₂ but not in the other applies here. Thus, we should reject the claim that either sentence expresses a proposition.

But if we do that, then we should likewise reject the claim that in the actual world, where Rowling doesn’t talk about monokeratines, “There are unicorns” expresses p (say). For it could equally well express q.

Maybe.

But maybe there is another way. One could say that “There are unicorns” is vague, and handle the vagueness in a supervaluationist way. There are infinitely many species u such that “There are unicorns” can be taken to be precisified into expressing the proposition that there are us. Thus, there is no one proposition expressed by the sentence, but there are infinitely many propositions for each of which it is vaguely true that the sentence expresses it.

This might be a good response to my old argument that error theorists should say that “Murder is wrong” is nonsense. Maybe error theorists can say that “Murder is wrong” has infinitely many precisifications, but each one is false, just as “There are unicorns” has infinitely many precisifications, but each one is false.

This suggests a view of fiction on which claims about fictional entities always suffer from vagueness.

An interesting thing is that on this approach, we need to distinguish between in-story and out-of-story vagueness. Suppose a Rowling has a character say “There are unicorns.” In-story, that statement is not vague. I.e., according to the story there is a specific species to which the word “unicorn” as spoken by the character definitely refers. But out-of-story, we have vagueness: there are infinitely many possible species the claim could be about.

This suggests that the error theorist who takes the vagueness way out is not home free. For it is a part of our usage of “(morally) wrong” that it refers fairly unambiguously to one important property. But the error theorist claims vagueness. If the statements about wrongness were made in a story, then the error theorist could handle this by distinguishing in-story and out-of-story vagueness. But this distinction is not available here.

A similar problem occurs for a real-world person who claims that there are unicorns. Maybe one could say that the person intends in saying “There are unicorns” to express a single specific proposition, but fails, and vaguely expresses each of an infinity of propositions, all of them false. If so, then a similar move would be available to the error theorist. But I am sceptical of this move. I wonder if it’s not better to just say that “There are unicorns” as said by someone who intended to express an existential claim about a single definite species is nonsense, but there is a neighboring sentence, such as “There is an extant species of single-horned equines”, that makes sense and is true.

A puzzle about desire (and other propositional attitudes)

Sam and Francis each read a different newspaper article. Sam's article said that there was a newly produced element named "copernicium", and Sam came to have a desire that he expressed by saying to his agent: "I want you to buy me a pound of copernicium." Francis' article said that there was a newly produced element named "quinium", and Sam came to have a desire that he expressed by saying to his agent: "I want you to buy me a pound of quinium." Now, there is such a thing as copernicium, but the word "quinium" is pure made-up nonsense, and the article Francis read was an April Fools hoax.

What did Francis desire? It seems we can't say that he desired that his agent buy him a pound of quinium, since the italicized words fail to express a proposition, as the word "quinium" is nonsense. Maybe what Francis desires, thus, is that his agent buy him a pound of the element named "quinium". That's a perfect coherent, though unsatisfiable, desire. (But then again, practically speaking, a pound of copernicium is also not buyable—it seems that only a few atoms have been produced.) But if that's what Francis desires, then by parity it seems that what Sam desires is that his agent buy him a pound of the element named "copernicium", rather than a pound of copernicium. But that need not at all be what Francis desires—he may not care at all what the element is named.

Perhaps what we should say is that the appetitive state picks out the proposition that best matches the structure of the appetitive state. In the case of Sam, what best matches is that his agent buy him a pound of copernicium? In the case of Francis, what best matches is that his agent buy him a pound of what is called "quinium". Francis' propositional object is a less good match than Sam's, but it's in fact the best match available (let's suppose), and hence it is the desire-magnet.

In the above "what is called 'quinium'" is short for a longer and more complex description. I don't know exactly how to formulate it, but perhaps: "dthat element which is referred to as 'quinium' in this article".

Nonsense and "that..." clauses

Suppose the theory of bare particularism is wrong. It is plausible that if it's wrong, it's not that its central claims are false, but rather its central claims are nonsense. It is not so much that "There are bare particulars" is false, as that it fails to express anything. Maybe you're not convinced by this particular example, but if so there are probably some others that you'll find convincing. I suspect that many theories in ontology are such that either they're true or they're nonsense, and they aren't all true. Platonism and trope theory are like that, for instance. I'll use bare particularism as my stand-in for such a case.

Yet we have no hesitation in saying things like:

1. Sally believes that she is partly constituted by a bare particular,

when Sally is a bare particularist. This should trouble us. First of all, analytic orthodoxy holds that in "x believes that s" sentences of this sort (but not in "Sally believes that scientist"!), the "that s" clause refers to the proposition that the sentence "s" expresses.

We could set this orthodoxy aside, and instead of parsing "x believes that s" as predicating a relation of belief between x and the proposition that s, we could take "x believes that" to be a sentential operator. This leads to problems with quantification ("Sally believes some of the things she was just told"), but perhaps those can be solved in some way. But even if we set the orthodoxy aside, we have another problem with (1). We have a sentence that contains a component, outside of quotation marks, that is nonsense, viz., the phrase "bare particular".

The simplest solution to the problem is just to take (1) to be elliptical for some metalinguistic claim like

2. Sally believes that the sentence "Sally is partly constituted by a bare particular" is true.

Or at least, perhaps, that's the charitable way to take (1). Suppose we do that. Then we have the following oddity. Suppose you and I disagree about whether Sally is a bare particularist. You happen to be a bare particularist yourself, but you doubt that Sally is one. So I say (1) while you say:

3. It is not the case that Sally believes that she is partly constituted by a bare particular.

Suppose my use of (1) is elliptical for (2). But your use of (3) is surely not elliptical for the negation of (2), since you have no qualms about bare particularism, and you have no reason to make a metalinguistic claim instead of simply attributing a propositional belief to Sally. So your use of (3) is literal, while my use of (1) is elliptical. But then our claims are not directly contradictory. Maybe that isn't a big deal. And maybe your claim, despite your best intentions to the contrary, is in fact metalinguistic, because the reference magnet in the vicinity of your statement is the proposition expressed by (2).

Another problem with reading (1) as (2) is that it is odd to attribute to Sally beliefs about bits of language. What if Sally thinks, for some good or bad reason, that there are no sentences? Again, maybe there is a reference magnet solution.

A hint of a different solution is provided by this post. That post suggests that there is something more fundamental in the mind than beliefs. There are "doxins", which place constraints on what beliefs are to be attributed to one. It may well be that when Sally accepts bare particularism, she isn't believing any proposition like "that she is constituted by a bare particular", but rather she has the doxin expressible by "The credence of the proposition expressed by 'I am constituted by a bare particular' shall be high." If in fact there were such a proposition, this doxin would allow her to be credited with belief in it. There not being any such proposition, we can't credit her with belief. Rather, we credit her with a doxin that carries a false presupposition, viz., that there is a proposition expressed by "I am constituted by a bare particular". The false presupposition, however, isn't a belief. So she can have that doxin while yet not believing in sentences and the like. There would need to be a lot of work done to defend this.

The issue comes up not just for belief. For instance, one might have a desire that "involves a bare particular". Then one would bring in orektins, from the same post.

Partial nonsense

Consider the sentence (or quasi-sentence):

1. The sky is blue or momeraths slithily toves oop outgrabe.

It is tempting to say that this is true, even though "momeraths slithily toves oop outgrabe" is nonsense, because no matter what we take the nonsense to say, the sentence comes out true.

But actually it's not true the case that no matter what we take the nonsense to say, the sentence comes out true.  Suppose "momeraths" means pink, "slithily" means but, "toves" means snow and "oop outgrabe" means is green.  Then (1) comes down to:

2. The sky is blue or pink but snow is green.

And that's false.  

The lesson is that if we want to assign a truth value to a piece of nonsense like (1), we need to have some idea at least of how the nonsense is at least to be parsed.  If the five nonsense words in (1) function as a sentential or adjectival phrase, and do not shift the natural interpretation of "The sky is blue" (e.g., into some metaphor on which they end up true), then (1) can be deemed true.  In the case, the five words are only partial nonsense: they have a delineated grammatical role.  If they were complete nonsense, (1) would have no truth value at all.

Just a touch of complete nonsense can spoil a sentence.

3. Pruss taught the metaphysics class in a stodgy, gimmeral manner.

You may think you can at least conclude that I taught the metaphysics class and did so stodgily.  But that's only true if "gimmeral" is partial nonsense--i.e., if you get to take it to be an adjective.  But what if "gimmeral" instead means but.  Then you don't even get to conclude that I taught the metaphysics class, since you're now told:

4. Pruss taught the metaphysics class in a stodgy, but manner.

And you really don't know if teaching a class in a stodgy entails teaching it (teaching a class in a dream doesn't entail teaching a class).  And the nonsense phrase "but manner" maybe cancels the meaning altogether (maybe "but manner" is like "but that was a mere appearance").

This isn't really heading anywhere.  It's just notes towards a theory of nonsense.  I don't know if the theory will ever materialize.

Lies and nonsense

To lie is to assert falsely, though what exactly it is to assert falsely is unclear. It probably doesn't mean to assert a falsehood. Some say it is to assert what one doesn't believe. Some say it is to assert what one what one disbelieves. Some say that it is to assert without believing that what one is asserting is true. Some add the condition that it is to deceive. But a common denominator in all of these is that a lie is a special kind of assertion.

But suppose I deliberately and deceptively start spouting pseudoscientific nonsense to my students, in aid of some argument I am pushing—nonsense in the literal sense of the word, namely stuff that has no meaning at all. I tell my students: "The paramorphogenophilic field surrounds us all and photons are submorphizations of that field." I am not lying, since I am not asserting anything. If it were the case that I was asserting something, one could ask: What am I asserting? And the only potentially possible answer would be: "He is asserting that the paramorphogenophilic field, etc." But this answer is itself nonsense—nonsense in indirect quotation renders the whole sentence (if one can even call it a sentence) nonsense.

So I am not asserting. But what I am doing is surely just as wrong as lying and for the same reasons.

What then are these reasons? It is not the production of false belief. For the students would not form a belief, at least not directly. There is no belief that the words which they then could parrot on a test express. The best account here seems to be that of Jorge Garcia's account of lying. I am inviting their trust and simultaneously breaking it.

Nonsense and externalism (Language, Part VI)

is I will assume at first a fairly standard view of language, not my own weird view.

The following two claims are very plausible:

1. Whether a particular sequence of words from a language L expresses a proposition does not depend on anything other than facts about L.
2. A proposition is either true or false.

But in fact, (1) and (2) are not both true. For, consider the following line of words at the top of a page:

3. The next line of words expresses a true proposition.

Assuming a proposition is either true or false, it follows that whether (3) expresses a proposition depends on what the next line of words is. If the next line of words is "The sky is blue" or "Pigs can fly", then (3) expresses a proposition. But if the next line of words is

4. The previous line of words does not express a true proposition,

then (3) (or more precisely, the proposition expressed by (3)) can neither be true nor false. For if it is false, then the next line expresses a truth, and hence (3) is true. And if (3) is true, then (4) is true, and (3) is false. Since a proposition is either true or false, if (3) is followed by (4), (3) does not express a proposition. Thus, whether (3) expresses a proposition depends on what the next line of words is.

Observe that the two lines of words can be written independently by two different people. Thus, whether a sequence of words uttered by me expresses a proposition can depend on what someone else says—even on what someone else says later, assuming (2).

We thus need to reject either (1) or (2) or both. In fact, I think we should reject (1). Rejecting (2) forces a non-classical logic. Call a sequence of words that does not express a proposition "nonsense". Then what we have learned is that whether a sequence of words is nonsense can depend on non-linguistic facts about the external world. Thus, just as we learned from Kripke that judging whether a proposition is possible is not in general a matter for an armchair investigator, so, too, judging whether a sequence of words is nonsense is not in general a matter for an armchair investigator.

Or at least that's what happens if one has a standard view of language. I myself have a non-standard one. On my view engaging in sentential anaphora (as in (3)) makes the anaphorically referred-to sentence be a part of one's own sentence—it is a way of taking up another's words and making them one's own. This is a version of deflationism. (By the way, I love the joke about deflationary semantics of "true". You want to be famous? You write a paper that says: "Everything Brandom says in his next paper is true." Then when Brandom publishes his paper, you say: "He's right, but I said it first.")

This all works a bit better on an eternalist theory of time.

All mimsy were the borogoves

This post is inspired by this discussion.

Is the following sentence true?
(1) If the borogoves were mimsy, then the borogoves were mimsy or green.
The following is, after all, true:
(2) If the kings of Antarctica were spherical, then the kings of Antarctica were spherical or green.
It seems like (1) unproblematically expresses an analytic truth. But of course it's not so simple. In order for (1) to express an analytic truth in the obvious way that it seems to, both occurrences of "borogoves", as well as of "mimsy", must have the same meaning. But "borogoves" and "mimsy" have no meaning, and hence in particular the multiple tokenings do not have the same meaning, and so (1) is not guaranteed. Unlike (2), which is unproblematically true, whether we read it as material or subjunctive.

So what?

Well, here is a puzzle. Take a bunch of ontological terms of art: "substance", "trope", "accident", "mode", "property", "universal", "relation", "essence", "form", "participation" and "bundle". These terms figure in different theories, some ancient and some modern. It is plausible that if one of these theories is false, then it is not only contingently false, but necessarily so. Moreover, it seems likely that if one of these theories is false, then the terms of art from it not only lack reference, but are actually nonsense. But if this is right, then how can we argue against one of these theories?

The typical way is by reductio: we assume the theory and derive a contradiction. Yes, but derive how? Obviously: logically. Yes, but how can we apply logic to nonsense? We get exactly the problem we saw in (1). It seems, thus, that if our argument against the theory succeeds, it cuts off the branch it was sitting on. And why should our opponent listen to an argument that, according to its own conclusion, makes no logical sense?

Maybe we can reason conditionally. If the words "borogoves" and "mimsy" had meaning, and if they were used univocally, then sentence (1) would be true. If so, then when we engage in a reductio of a theory that we think will ultimately be non-sense, we are really making a semantic statement. If theory T is true, then terms A, B and C have meaning. But if they have meaning, then theory T entails a contradiction. Hence, theory T is not true.

But getting the logic of this reductio right is a difficult affair, I think. Consider the first part, viz., the claim that if the theory were true, then certain words would have meaning. Where do we get that claim? From the theory itself? Typically not. Consider Platonism and its technical terms, "Form" and "participation". Platonism is a set of statements about Forms and participation. It is not a set of statements about the words "Form" and "participation". It is false to say that Platonism says that the words "Form" and "participation" (in the technical sense) make sense. Perhaps the most obvious way to see that it is false is to note that in Plato's time, the words "Form" and "participation" didn't make sense because there was no English language back then. Could we say that Platonism says that "eidos" (in the technical sense) makes sense? No, for Platonism would not have been a different theory had it been developed by people who spoke Hittite instead of Greek, but "eidos" (in the technical sense) would not have made sense.

A more complicated way of looking at this is that in the reductio, we look not at a theory considered as a set of propositions, but at a set of texts, or maybe of mental acts, and we are constructing an argument that if these texts follow the standard grammar of our language, then they contradict themselves and hence are false. But, the argument continues, these texts cannot merely be false--they can only be true or nonsense; so they must be nonsense. I think this kind of works if one is careful.

Our old friend the reductio is a complex beast.