Vulcanology: descriptive names, invariant semantics, and dual predication

Bjørn Jespersen (Utrecht University) will give a talk on Monday, June 2 at 2.00pm (CET), at Meeting Room 1, Isfi offices, via Pelli 2.

Vulcanology: descriptive names, invariant semantics, and dual predication

Abstract:

I address and solve a problem within intensional, as opposed to hyperintensional, semantics. What would be a philosophically plausible and formally satisfactory semantics for Le Verrier’s ‘Vulcan’ within a broadly Fregean framework? I suggest construing this grammatical proper name as a term that is equivalent to, but emphatically not synonymous with, a definite description such as ‘the planet orbiting between Mercury and the Sun’. I advocate for an invariantist, as opposed to contextualist, proposal that makes ‘Vulcan’ a rigid designator of an individual-in-intension (a so-called office) in all contexts. Thus, ‘Vulcan’ is not lexically ambiguous. The construal comes with the means to descend from the intensional to the extensional level in order to avoid the category mistake of predicating a property suitable for individuals of an intension. Invariantism is a means to achieve semantic transparency across all non-quotational contexts. Invariantism necessitates two kinds of predication, de re and de dicto. Predication de dicto makes it an analytic truth that Vulcan is a planet, provided this property goes into the definition of the office. Predication de re makes it neither true nor false at any empirical point of evaluation that lacks an occupant of the office. Thus, “Vulcan is a planet” is structurally ambiguous. My solution will be developed within Transparent Intensional Logic. I compare my neo-Fregean solution against two diverse neo-Meinongian approaches, namely Zalta’s and Priest’s. I present my counterpart to a Meinongian characterization principle, which is an ontological definition of an office.