Brandom's Kripke Puzzle

Brandom und das Kripke Puzzle: http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/pub/bpuz.htm

1. Proper names have no senses, meaning different ways of being given


"Now Kripke argued that co-referential proper names are rigid designators, and so are intersubstitutable in modal contexts after all"

Kripke argues with necessity and experience “Hesperus = Phosphorus” is aposteriori; but “Hesperus = Hesperus” is obviously apriori.) http://tedsider.org/teaching/language/HO_Kripkes_puzzle_about_belief.pdf


1 3. Substitution in attitude contexts Disquotational principle If a normal English speaker re ectively and sincerely assents to ‘ p’, then she or he believes that p Strengthened disquotational principle A normal English speaker who is not reticent will be disposed to sincere re ective assent to ‘ p’ if and only if she or he believes that p Logical principle No logically competent person believes contradictory things The anti-Mill argument: 1. Lois assents to ‘Superman can y’ 2. If 1 is true then Lois believes that Superman can y 3. Lois assents to ‘Clark cannot y’, and does not assent to ‘Clark can y’ 4. If 3 is true then Lois does not believe that Clark can y 5. If Mill’s view is true then Lois believes that Superman can y if and only if she believes that Clark can y 6. Therefore, Mill’s view isn’t true. 4. Pierre Suppose Pierre is a normal French speaker who lives in France and speaks not a word of English or of any other language except French. Of course he has heard of that famous distant city, London (which he of course calls ‘Londres’) though he himself has never left France. On the basis of what he has heard of London, he is inclined to think that it is pretty. So he says, in French, “Londres es jolie.”… Later, Pierre, through fortunate or unfortunate vicissitudes, moves to England, in fact to London itself, though to an unattractive part of the city with fairly uneducated inhabitants. He, like most of his neighbors, rarely ever leaves this part of the city. None of his neighbors know any French, so he must learn English by ‘direct method’, without using any translation of English into French: by talking and mixing with the people 2 he eventually begins to pick up English. In particular, everyone speaks of the city, ‘London’, where they all live… Pierre’s surroundings are, as I said, unattractive, and he is unimpressed with most of the rest of what he happens to see. So he is inclined to assent to the English sentence: (5) London is not pretty. He has no inclination to assent to: (6) London is pretty (pp. 442–43) Now consider: 1. Pierre assents to ‘Londres es jolie’ 2. If 1 is true then Pierre believes that London is pretty 3. Pierre assents to ‘London is not pretty’ and does not assent to ‘London is pretty’ 4. If 3 is true then Pierre does not believe that London is pretty These lines form a paradox: they are mutually contradictory. But they’re nearly exactly parallel to the rst four lines of the anti-Mill argument. The only difference is that the sentence assented to in 1 is in French. So, to argue for 2, rst speak French and use the disquotation principle in French to get: Pierre croit que Londres est jolie Then use the following principle to get that Pierre believes that London is pretty: Translation principle if a sentence of one language expresses a truth in that language, then any translation of it into any other language also expresses a truth (in that other language)