Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXII, No. 3, May 2001

Responses

FRANK JACKSON

The Australian National University

I hope the Prkcis makes clear some of what I would say to the interesting issues my commentators raise. The responses that follow are focussed on a selection of these issues. There are many things I do not discuss for lack of space.

Timothy Williamson

Supervenience and co-extensiveness

Williamson is right that it does not in general follow from

(Q For all w and w*, if w and w* are exactly alike in A respects, then they are exactly alike in B respects

that A and B predicates or open sentences are co-extensive, let alone necessar- ily so. However, this does not mean that we cannot use (Q) in an argument to the conclusion that A predicates and B predicates are necessarily co-exten- sive for certain values of A and B.

Here is a simple example to make the point. Consider the a priori true

(R) For all w and w*, if w and w* are exactly alike in the distribution of particular heights, then they are exactly alike in the distribution of tallness

where (in the interests of simplicity) being tall is understood as being in the top such and such percent in one’s world.

We can use (R) to show that open sentences that concern individual heights are necessarily co-extensive with open sentences that ascribe tallness. Consider any tall person P,. They must have some particular height or other, as it is impossible to be tall without having some particular height (I’d say some particular, fully determinate height, but that is controversial). Let “x is HI” be the open sentence that ascribes that height and in addition gives the distribution of heights elsewhere in that person’s world (read so as to include that this distribution is complete). It must then be the case that “x is H I ”

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entails “x is tall”. For suppose that P is a person satisfying “x is H,”. There are two cases. The first is where P is in the same world as P,. In this case, P must be tall, as anyone the same height as a tall world-mate is tall. The second case is where P is in a different world from P1. In this case also P is tall. For otherwise there would be two worlds exactly alike in the distribution of particular heights but differing in the distribution of tallness, in violation of (R). Now consider any other tall person P,. With H , specified as for HI above but with “2” for “l”, we get the result that “x is H,” entails “x is tall”. From which it follows that “x is HI or H,” entails “x is tall”. Repeating the process for every tall person in logical space, we get “x is H1 or H2 or H, . . .” entails “x is tall”. But, as we included every tall person in logical space, the entailment must also run the other way. We have thus derived the logical equivalence of the infinite disjunctive open sentence “x is H, or H 2 or.. .” with “x is tall”.

Thls is not a surprising result. In effect we have shown that

x is tall iff ((x is 6’ & [P1 is 6‘ and P , is 6’6” and . . .] } or ((x is 7’ & [PI is 6 and P , is 66” and . . .] } or { (x is 8’ & [PI is 9’ and P , is 6’6” and ...I} or ...

is necessarily true (and a prion’), provided, first, that the material in the square brackets specifies a complete distribution of heights (including its being complete) which ensures that the height it is conjoined with is in the top such and such percent, and, second, that the heights that appear in the left- hand conjuncts cover all the possible heights of tall people.

We can do the same for ethical and descriptive open sentences-that is, we use “essentially the same line of argument mutatis mutandis” employing

(S) For all w and w*, if w and w* are exactly alike descriptively then they are exactly alike ethically

to show, for example, that “x is right”, where “x” ranges over acts, is neces- sarily co-extensive with some descriptive open sentence.

Why can’t we do the same with Williamson’s drunklsober and oddeven example? The reason lies in two properties of tallness and of rightness. Every tall person must have some particular height, and everyone with the same height as a tall person (in their world) is tall. Analogously, every right action must have some descriptive nature, and every act with the same descriptive nature as a right act (in its world) is right. However, it is not true that every even number must be either drunk or sober. In fact, no even number is either. And if we switch to drunk or not-drunk (understood widely), although it is then true that every even number is either drunk or not-drunk by virtue of being not-drunk, it is false that everything alike in regard to being drunk or to

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being not-drunk with a number is alike in whether it is odd or even. A build- ing and the number four are both not-drunk but only one is even.

Why did I say in FMTE that the result that ethical sentences are logically equivalent to descriptive sentences can be extended to, e.g., open sentences without actually giving the detail? My reason was that the argument in FMTE for the case of closed sentences is like the argument given above for individual heights and tallness. I (wrongly) thought the extension would be obvious. But here it is for the record, modelled on the height example above but using (S) instead of (R).

Consider any right action R, . It must have some particular descriptive nature or other, as it is impossible to be right without having some descrip- tive nature or other. Let “x is D,” be the open sentence that ascribes that nature and also fully specifies descriptive nature elsewhere in R,’s world. It must then be the case that “x is D,” entails ‘‘x is right”. For suppose that R is an act satisfying “x is D,”. There are two cases. The first is where R is in the same world as R,. In this case, R must be right, as any act descriptively the same as a right world-mate is right. The second case is where R is in a different world from R,. In this case also R is right. For otherwise there would be two worlds exactly alike descriptively but differing in the distribu- tion of rightness, in violation of (S). Now consider any other right act R,. With D, specified as for D, above but with “2” for “l”, we get the result that ‘‘x is 0,” entails “x is right”. From which it follows that “x is D, or D,” entails “ x is right”. Repeating the process for every right act in logical space, we get ‘‘x is D, or D, or D,. . .” entails “x is right”. But, as we included every right act in logical space, the entailment must also run the other way. We have thus derived the logical equivalence of the infinite disjunctive open sentence “x is D, or D, or.. . “ with “x is right”.

Why did I not use Williamson’s suggestion of “something like”

(S’) For all w and w* and individuals i and i * , if i in w and i* in w* are exactly alike descriptively, then they are exactly alike ethically?

The trouble is that (S’) is false on natural readings. Descriptively identical individuals in different worlds (or the same world on some ethical theories) can differ ethically due to descriptive differences elsewhere in their worlds. Of course, we can get around this problem by including as part of the descriptive nature of an individual, the whole descriptive nature of its world, but this is effectively to return to a global supervenience thesis like (S). We might as well have used (S) to start with.

Williamson raises concerns about the specification of the descriptive. There is a lot to say about this important issue. Here I will just say three things. First, although everything in philosophy is controversial to some extent, it is hard to believe that Hume was not onto something interesting

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and important when he raised the issue of the relationship between “is” and “ought”. More generally, it is hard to believe that the distinction between ethical and descriptive terms cannot be made in a way which allows that there are important, true a priori supervenience theses running from the descriptive to the ethical. Second, it would be wrong to conflate the descriptive with the physical in this context. It is common ground that the ethical does not a priori supervene on the physical. Worlds alike physically but differing in “Cartesian” ways may differ ethically. Finally, we have a philosophically important thesis provided that the following is true: there is some class of ethical terms-the E terms-such that their possession or non-possession a priori globally supervenes on the remaining terms. For then we can show equivalences, using suitable a priori supervenience theses and supplementary premises, between E sentences and predicates, on the one hand, and “the remainder” sentences and predicates, on the other. It is very hard to believe that there is not such a class of ‘‘E’ terms.

Non sequitur?

I am sure that Williamson and I mean roughly the same by the term “poison”. This is compatible with our disagreeing radically about what substances are poisons. However, it is not compatible with total disagree- ment about what the word “poison” applies to. We had better agree that “poison” applies to things that typically do harm when ingested or some such. I think the same goes for the word “right” for anyone who is a cogni- tivist. I-and here I am agreeing with a point insisted on by many non-cogni- tivists-cannot see how what makes it true that there is some common meaning to the word “right” can survive total disagreement about what the term applies to. In any case, Williamson’s objection rests on a misunder- standing. Total disagreement about occupants of roles is consistent with agreement on something important, namely, the roles occupied-as the poison example shows.

Robert Stalnaker

Conceptual analysis and the location problem

Stalnaker thinks that “a conceptual analysis, if we had one, would be helpful.. .but [is] not convinced that a conceptual analysis is required to solve the [location] problem”. He makes his case by pursuing the handbill analogy.

It is crucial to distinguish two questions. The first question is, Can we locate the Ks without having a conceptual analysis of K? It is this question that has an affirmative answer and the handbill analogy illustrates this. The second question is, Can we locate the Ks within a putatively complete account of the world given in terms of concepts interestingly different from K, without having a conceptual analysis of K? It is this question that I give a

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negative answer to, and his extension of the handbill analogy in no way undermines this answer-not because there is anything wrong with the example per se but because it does not address the issue.

Let me highlight the difference between the two questions in a way which brings out the key point. Suppose I give you a detailed account in Cartesian coordinates of the location of every pencil mark on a piece of otherwise blank paper and ask you whether the points all lie on a circle. You can answer this question without doing any conceptual analysis. You might, for example, ask a mathematician to tell you, or you might have a look at the piece of paper to see if the marks appear to lie on a circle. In neither case would you be drawing on some feature that is a priori connected with being a circle. But suppose I asked you for the answer going by the coordinates alone-no look- ing at the marks, no asking others for an opinion, no looking to see whether the words “The marks all lie on a circle” are written on the outside of the folder containing the piece of paper, etc. In that case, you would have to draw on the fact that a circle is plane figure all of whose points are equidistant from a given point. The reason is that there is, so to speak, nothing else to appeal to.

Here is a second example. There is a clear, if hard to analyse, sense in which the kinetic theory of gases gives us a complete account of the nature of a gas in terms of the kinetic (and potential) energy of its constituent molecules, their location and motion in space, their impacts, molecular momentum transfers, and so on. And we know that we can fully explain the behaviour of gases in the terms of the various features recognised and named in the kinetic theory of gases. There is, in particular, no extra feature of gases that we need the words “heat” and “pressure” for. Th~s makes it very hard to hold that no matter how much information you have, framed in the terms of the kinetic theory and in terms of the functional roles played by the properties picked out by the terms of that theory, and no matter how confident you are that the kinetic theory and its future developments provide a complete picture of the nature and composition of gases, the passage from this information to whether or not gases are hot and if they are, what heat is is a posteriori. There is nothing else relevant to be learnt about gases.

In any case, these two examples make the point that the first and second questions above are very different questions. Stalnaker is right that we do not need conceptual analysis to answer the first, but he has given no reason to suppose that we do not need conceptual analysis to answer the second. FMTE is about the second question.

Metaphysics, Quine and modest uses of conceptual analysis

I think we have limited a priori access to how things are. For example, I think the principle that to be is to be determinate is a priori, and hence that it

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is a priori that there is no de re vagueness. However, mostly the way to find out what our world is like is to listen to what science says. When Stalnaker urges that we should follow Quine in blurring the boundary between specula- tive metaphysics and natural science, I agree. Indeed, I think natural science is speculative metaphysics. I favor the four-dimensionalist view of change precisely because it seems to me to be the view suggested by modern physics. This means that it is misleading to characterize my position as “that conceptual analysis is necessary for the possibility of metaphysics” read as meaning that I think that we have lots of a pn’ori access to how things are generated by conceptual analysis. The role I give conceptual analysis is in addressing the conditional questions, Given that such and such a speculative metaphysics is closed, comprehensive and correct, should we or should we not allow that thingamajigs exist, and if we should, where are they to be found? As far as the interesting unconditional questions in speculative metaphysics go, I belong to what I take to be Stalnaker’s party: leave them largely to natural science and its methods.

The point that the role I give conceptual analysis is a conditional one is the same point as the one I make in FMTE when I distinguish giving a modest from an immodest role to conceptual analysis and point out that I only wish to give it the modest role. I think of this as placing me in the Quine camp on the relationship between science and metaphysics. Obviously, I did not convince Stalnaker. There seem to be two matters that especially concern him.

One is that it is anti-Quinean to draw a sharp distinction between semantic and substantive questions, and, what is more, it was insisting that there is a sharp distinction that led the positivists to their view that we can dissolve metaphysical questions or somehow make them go away. However, it is the positivists’ verificationist views of meaning that do the real work in their famous (infamous) argument, not the distinction between semantic and substantive questions. Qua metaphysician I want to be able to follow science by saying that there are electrons, and to deny the view that there are no electrons although the experimental results are as you would expect if electrons did exist. Verificationism makes it impossible for me to do this by insisting that “There are electrons” means much the same as that the experi- mental results are as you would expect if electrons did exist. It is the doctrine about meaning that is causing the trouble, not any view about there being a sharp distinction between substantive and semantic questions. Incidentally, as I argue on p. 54, although I hold that there is an important distinction in principle between substantive and semantic questions, in many particular cases, including arguably whether cats are animals, I agree that it is vague whether a question is a substantive or a semantic one.

The second matter that especially concerns Stalnaker is that, in his view, it is “misleading and unnatural” to describe the conclusion of a metaphysical

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inquiry as possibly showing that there are no persons as the folk conceive of persons. His proposal is that we should close off the eliminativist option by describing the errors of the folk in terms of their having a false theory about persons.

I think this way of looking at the issue does not survive consideration of the examples. Suppose that the folk concept of a person is Cartesian in the sense of holding that personal identity is secured by the existence of an unchanging enduring entity, the ego, whose identity over time is logically independent of the kinds of continuities between different person phases that most contemporary theorists of personal identity hold secures the identity of a person over time. What, in this case, does the suggestion that we should avoid going eliminativist about persons on the (claimed) folk concept of persons amount to? It had better not be that we should avoid saying that there are no such things as Cartesian egos. But these egos are essential to being a person on the folk conception under discussion-the view is, No ego, no person. The difference between the ego view and the continuity view is not a point of (perhaps important) detail about the nature of some agreed common subject of discussion. It is a difference about the very kind of thing that is up for discussion in the first place.

The issue is like that between those who believe in a personal God and those who believe in God as the ground of being, or some such. The first party should regard the second as eliminativists about God, not as people who hold a different theory about the God that they both believe in. Traditionalists who believe in a personal God often object that it is “misleading and unnatu- ral” for ground-of-being theorists to say that they believe in God and that their difference with the traditionalists only concerns the nature of the God they both believe in. I think the traditionalists are right to object. A word- in this case “God”-is not enough to mean that there is agreement about what exists. The same goes, in my view, for the word “person”.

Stephen Stich and Jonathan Weinberg Classijication and theory

As I say in the Precis, the way “ K ” plays its representational role (when it has one) is by making a division in logical space. There will be a commonal- ity or a projectible pattern to the cases where “K” applies. It need not be a particularly unified one. Suppose that you and I agree to use “glub” in the subject line of an e mail whenever it is too wet to play tennis or we have lost our car keys. This is a projectible commonality because we know how to go on. By a theory, I mean the relevant commonality. Thus, observers “crack” the theory of glub when they spot that the pattern is: too wet to play tennis or the sender has lost their car keys. And when they spot the pattern, they know what is guiding you and I in putting “glub” into the subject line. A

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folk theory is the commonality that guides the folk. (There is no such thing for “glub” obviously.)

It is one thing for there to be a commonality; another for us to articulate it in an interesting way in words (using the very word or words in question is not interesting). As I say in the Prkcis, when we do conceptual analysis, we are doing the latter. I think it is a deeply skeptical position to hold that it is never, or hardly ever, possible to do conceptual analysis for some expressions in our language on this “demystified” conception of conceptual analysis.

One commonality a class of things may have is similarity to one degree or another and of one kind or another with a cluster of exemplars. And commonalities like these can stand in all the usual deductive and inductive relations. There will, for example, be data that inductively supports that X and Yare similar to E, and “X and Y are similar to 6’ entails that X is simi- lar to E. So I do not think anything I say clashes with the interesting empiri- cal findings about classification that Stich and Weinberg report (and I discuss briefly in FMTE on pp. 60-64). And, of course, I agree with Stich and Weinberg that it is an empirical matter what classifications we effect with some word or other.

I should, though, note a possible source of confusion. The commonalities I am talking about lie in the things being classified, not in the classifier. When I say that something is a cow, I am saying something about cows, not something about my mental state. The theory I am talking about concerns what is in common to all the cows, not what is in common to all my head states when I use the word “cow” to describe something. So when I talk about what guides us in using a word, I mean the role of what we believe about the thing being classified. No doubt there is something in common in the head as well as in the cows, but what it is is not revealed by intuitions about possible cases. What is in common in the head among sounds we hear as coming from a certain location is a certain out-of-phase effect at our ears, but we do not learn that by conceptual analysis. And the fact that the mecha- nism that subserves the location of sounds is inter alia to do with out-of- phase effects does not mean that when I say that a sound is coming from a certain place, I am saying something about those effects. I mention the point because some think that the commonality in the head is a theory in the sense that it is a sentence in mentalese and stands in deductive and inductive relations by virtue of being such a sentence. I take no stand on that matter in FMTE but it may be that Stich and Weinberg read me as doing so.

My intuitions, folk intuitions and the relevance of polls I agree in most part with what Stich and Weinberg say about the need for care in generalising from my intuitions and those of my students and colleagues. This should be clear from what I say on p. 32 where I say about some who

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do not find the Gettier cases compelling that “they use the word ‘knowledge’ to cover different cases from most of us”. I will explain in a moment why I do not agree completely with what they say. But first I should point out that they have seriously misunderstood my view about when the sort of concep- tual analysis I advocate is of interest. I do not hold that it is only of interest when applied to folk concepts.

The sort of conceptual analysis I advocate makes explicit the interconnec- tions between the representational properties of different parts of language. It is, therefore, of interest whenever these connections are of interest, and this will be the case for many concepts that are not folk ones. For example, many of the most important concepts in mathematics are not folk concepts; never- theless, mathematicians offer analyses of them, and rightly so. Or take two examples I give in FMTE. After saying, on p. 44, “There is nothing sacro- sanct about folk theory” (emphasis added), I proceed to discuss cases where we should, in my view, replace the folk concepts of free action and personal iden- tity by concepts analysed along compatibilist and continuity lines, respec- tively.

The passage Stich and Weinberg quote concerns what is required to count as addressing what “our fellows” are saying about how things are when they use the word “right”. In that case, we need to start with folk theory because it is the folk concept that is under discussion. But this is compatible with our concluding that some other concept is the really interesting one. A similar point applies to the passages they footnote. In all of them, the key point is that if we want to discuss the existence of Ks, or where Ks fit into, say, the physicalists’ picture, we can always stipulate what we mean by “K”. But if we want to discuss the subject the world at large naturally expects us to be discussing, we had better mean what the folk mean. This does not imply that the subject we might have stipulated as being on the table is less interesting or less susceptible to analysis; it just means that it is a different subject.

My reservations about what they say about the need for care in generalis- ing from reactions to the Gettier cases arises from three considerations. The first is that we are often entitled to generalise from a surprisingly small number of cases. We all regularly receive letters, e-mails and phone calls from people we have never met, many of whom have very different back- grounds from our own. Mostly we know what they are saying to us. But that depends on our having a pretty good grasp of how they are representing things to be on the basis of OUT acquaintance with the word usage patterns of the comparatively small number of people we interact closely with. The second is that, in my experience, people-students sometimes, but also tennis partners and the person on the Clapham omnibus-find the Gettier cases compelling without any tipoff beforehand. There is, that is, no authority figure effect. Of course, the very raising of a question has an effect but even so the response is impressive. The third consideration concerns the

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poll Stich and Weinberg report. I hope to learn more about it, and when I do may come to the view that it is more common than I had realised for people to use “knowledge” for true justified belief. But I need to know more both about their subjects’ considered responses and their subjects’ responses to other Gettier cases. This is to ensure that the figures Stich and Weinberg report are not due in part to problems in processing the question asked, and because the Gettier case they quote is a marginal one. It is not enough of an accident that Bob’s belief is true. It is far from unusual for the owner of an American car to replace it with another American car. It would be good to know about their subjects’ considered responses to the barn case, for example.

Finally, a word about the other poll Stich and Weinberg mention-that of their undergraduates’ positions in ethics. What is relevant is not whether the students use the words “moral relativism” to describe their position. It is what they do when they debate moral issues which is relevant. In my experi- ence, the actions of students, and of the folk in general, reveal that they have “some kind of commitment” to the idea that moral disagreements can be resolved by sufficient critical reflection, and the same goes for those with backgrounds that tell us that in practice they will not shift from their ingrained positions. I would say more about this important issue but space forbids.

Katalin Balog A -intensions and C-intensions

Balog misunderstands the nature of this distinction and its role in FMTE. I hope this is clear from what I say in the Pre‘cis under this head and from elsewhere in my responses. The best thing I can do here, I think, is to refer back to what I say about the nature and role of the distinction and relate this, as seems appropriate, to some of the issues she raises.

1. The distinction between A and C-intensions does not apply to thoughts. It applies to words and sentences. So it is not true that I hold that thoughts have both A and C-intensions. There are, though, questions that arise when we use a sentence to capture the content of someone’s thought that do concern A and C-intensions. For example, when people used the sentence “There is water nearby”, in the days before it was known that water is H,O, to characterise what someone thought, is it best to look to the C or the A-intension of the sentence to capture the content they were ascribing to that person? I think, unoriginally, that we should look to the A-intension. Equally, the distinction between A and C-intensions does not apply to propositions, although a given proposition may be the A-intension or the C- intension of some sentence or other.

2. I think that the word “concept” can cause some confusion in discus- sions in this whole area (here I am agreeing with Stalnaker, I guess) and, as I

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explain in FMTE, I only use the expression “conceptual analysis” in defer- ence to the tradition. If1 were to talk of the concept WATER, I would specify it in a way which meant that there was no question of distinguishing the A- intension of WATER from the C-intension of WATER. This is because there is an important distinction between the A and C-intensions of the word “water” and you might well debate which best captures what people have in mind when they talk of the concept associated with the word and, accordingly, go on to use “WATER’ in connection with whichever best fits the bill in your view.

3. Two dimensional modal logic as conceived in FMTE is not “based on the simple idea that meaning is a function of factors involving the thinker’s mind and factors outside the thinker’s mind’. It is based on the point highlighted in the Prkcis that there are two different ways of thinlung of the division sentences and words make among the ways things might be. As I say on p. 48 of FMTE, the C-intension of the word “water” is the function from world w to the extension of “water” at w. The A-intension of the word “water” is the function from world w to the extension of “water” at w under the supposition that w is the actual world, and the latter need not be the same as the extension of “water” at w were w the actual world. Two dimensional modal logic in FMTE draws on ideas developed to explicate Kripke’s distinction between giving the meaning and fixing the reference, and to make clear how sentences can be necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori. The controversial matter of the relation between the distinction between A and C- intensions, and that between narrow and broad content is not discussed in FMTE. For the record, I agree with the view sometimes expressed that reference to a sentence’s A-intensions can help identify the narrow content of a mental state which is being identified by the use of that sentence. I do not, though, think that we need the distinction to identify narrow content; I think that often ordinary sentences of English are enough without any mention of these sentences’ A-intensions.

4. There is an important distinction between how a word or sentence represents things as being, its content, and what makes it true that it so represents things as being. The issues Balog raises about conceptual and inferential role, asymmetric dependence, orthography and narrow and wide content can only concern how the content of some word or sentence is deter- mined. For when I use the word “water” to make a claim about the nature of what is in the glass in front of me, I am saying something about what is in the glass. I am not making a claim about dependencies, syntax, or conceptual and inferential roles. Analogy: a gauge’s pointer being in a certain position represents, say, that the gas tank is empty because of, inter alia, various causal connections between the pointer’s various possible positions and the level of gas remaining, but what the pointer’s position represents is not something about those connections. Now, Balog’s discussion of my argu-

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ment from Mooreanism about our abilities to say and know how things are to the conclusion that some sentences of the form “If R, then R2)) are know- able a prion, draws on various views about how narrow content is determined in the sense of what makes it true that, e.g., “R,” and “R,” have the contents that they do have, not on what the contents are. (Balog rightly observes that my discussion here is brief; for a fuller presentation, see “Representation, Scepticism, and the A Priori”, New Essays on the A Priori, eds., Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000, pp. 320-32.) If we warp her argument across to apply to how A-intensions are determined, my response is that she has not addressed the argument I offered. My argument does not draw on one or another view about what determines A- intensions; it turns on a Moorean claim about our knowledge of these inten- sions in some cases along with the point that if the A-intension of “R,” is a subset of the A-intension of “R,”, then “If R , then R2)’ is true no matter how things actually are. Of course, you might argue from one or another view about what determines the A-intensions to an anti-Moorean view about our knowledge of them, and perhaps this is what she intended. But I think this is to get things the wrong way around. We have a much better idea of what words and sentences stand for in the relevant sense than we do of the correct theory of why they stand for what they stand for. There is, for example, much more agreement about what the word “electron” applies to than about the correct account of why it so applies.

She raises the issue of the importance of A-intensions. Once you switch focus from questions of how content is determined to what it is, there is an obvious answer to why they are important. We learnt the word “water” as part of the process of acquiring language to represent how things are, but we were not learning to use it as a way of representing facts about H,O. So we need the word’s A-intension instead of its C-intension to capture what we were learning to represent when we use “water”.

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