[C] [Wittrs] Re: Re: Proper Names --Wittgenstein, Russell, Kripke

  • From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 11:41:53 -0800 (PST)

(J)

... it seems to me the issue is never whether bearers are real or not. The 
issue is what cognitive operation one is undertaking. If the name of the game 
(pardon the pun) is to "bearer-call," then you are engaged in a game where 
bearer and name are assumed to be together.  In bearer-call games, the idea is 
to refer to the X called N. In playing this game, the meaning N can take on 
various forms and ideas, which are amendable after shipment if they do not pick 
out the X in question (e.g., if they mis-describe). This is because these games 
are X-centric. One wants to say: they take the logical form of the X of N. 

However, in games where names and bearers become separated, the goal is to 
assign the bearer using something in the nature of a predicate-calculation. 
(Something that resembles the kind of thing this does). This kind of game sees 
an N that takes the form of "the X that satisfies criteria-set Q." So if there 
is one or more X's that satisfy the criteria, it or they can bear the name. 
These kinds of N's seem to be a combination of titles plus names (names-titles).

In the game of "who was Moses," we must ask ourself: do we want to play 
bearer-call or bearer-assign? If we play bearer-assign, we need an N that is of 
the requisite type. The N would take the form of something like "the man who 
saved the Israelites in the exodus." If we found such a man, it wouldn't matter 
what his bearer-call was. Note that if we found the Exodus was not from 
Egypt but from some other place, this would seem not to matter either. So if 
Bob saved the Israelites from, say, Assyria rather than Egypt, one 
might characterize Bob as being "Moses." (This seems to resemble the amendable 
after shipment thing above). But note that this (like that) has limitations. If 
we found that the story of the exodus was false, but that there was a person 
who saved the Israelites by fighting off an oppressor with a sword, it becomes 
much more difficult to call such a person "Moses." One might be more likely 
(today) to say, e.g., "the Aragorn of
 Israel."

A name can separate from its bearer whenever the bearer does something to 
distinguish his or her identity in language. When this happens, paradoxically, 
the name can find new bearers. The game of bearer-call and bearer-assignment is 
the fundamental issue in why there is confusion in philosophy over proper 
names. If you ask yourself a simple question before any name-game is played, 
you will clear up the confusion: what is your objective, to play bearer-call or 
bearer-assignment? 

For certain kinds of historical or fictional proper names, answering this 
question is very difficult. Because if you say you want to play bearer-call for 
Moses, we might never know of which the X's called "Moses" is the right X, if 
stories are mythical. And note that you cannot say "there is no Moses" because 
that is bearer-assignment logic. You are precluded from that. But let's say 
certain stories are NOT mythical. If they are used to identify the X who 
accomplished them, it would be utterly pointless to then say: "if X does not 
bear N, he cannot be N," because at this point your game has, by definition, 
switched to bearer-assignment. (And it has done so precisely through your 
behavior of pinning the tail on the donkey rather than looking for the donkey's 
tail).         

Here's what I want to say: I don't think the game of bearer-call can be played 
with "Moses" unless we mean something like this: "the man born of such-and-such 
people who lived at such-and-such." And so if we identify the X of N here, it 
would be immaterial what "Moses" did in life. We would have our X of N. 

I wonder, though: if Bob saves the Israelites and Moses is historically 
identified in the manner above, could one still say "Bob is Moses?" It seems to 
me one would be more inclined to say that Moses didn't do it, Bob did it. But 
one could poetically assert that "Bob is the Moses, not 'Moses'" What I want to 
say here is that either expression is meaningful. But it does seem that the 
game of bearer-assignment might be impacted by a successful occurence of 
bearer-call.  

Regards  
  
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html 



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