## 1. Fregeanism and Russellianism



We will assume without argument a propositionalist semantics,
according to which sentences (in context) are assigned propositions as
contents which are the primary bearers of truth values, bearers of
modal properties like contingency and necessity, and objects of the
propositional attitudes like believing, hoping, and saying. We can
distinguish two broad classes of theories about
propositions. Proponents of the first, Fregean view accept Frege's
distinction between sense and reference and proponents of the second,
Russellian view do not. If Fregeanism is true, all thought about
concrete individuals is indirect, mediated by senses that are
independent of those individuals. (Some maintain that Frege recognized
*de re* senses -- senses whose existence and identity is
dependent upon their reference -- as the contents of proper names,
in which case he would not have subscribed to a Fregean theory, as
characterized above. The supplementary document



> 
> Evans on Frege
> 




contains further discussion.) The easiest way to get a grip on this is
to think of senses as purely qualitative satisfaction conditions. Such
a condition determines an object in virtue of the qualities it
instantiates. According to Russellianism, on the other hand, we can
think about an individual directly; we can have a thought about an
individual by having that individual as an immediate constituent of
the thought. On the standard interpretation of Frege, individuals are
*not* constituents of propositions. Propositions are composed
of senses, not individuals, and senses are individuated independently of any individual. If Fregeanism is true,
there are no singular propositions. If Russellianism is true, then
singular propositions play a crucial role in semantics and any complete theory of thought.




Before discussing the reasons for and against singular propositions,
we begin with a brief discussion of the views of the historical Frege
and Russell. The hope is that the discussion will provide a clearer
understanding of the views outlined above.



**Gottlob Frege** famously distinguished between an
expression's reference and its sense. (The classic source is Frege
1892/1948. The distinction was first introduced a year earlier in
(1891). It is commonly thought, and Frege asserts as much, that the
sense-reference distinction was not present in (1879/1967). But this
early work does contain a seeming anticipation of the distinction, as
well as the same argument from the opening paragraphs of (1892/1948)
against the metalinguistic solution promoted in (1879/1967), which is
extremely puzzling. We don't try to resolve the interpretative issues
here.) We focus on proper names, although Frege maintained that the
sense-reference distinction applied to all expressions, including
sentences, where the reference of a sentence is a truth value and its
sense a thought. The reference of the name 'Mark Twain' is
the man Mark Twain himself, while its sense is a mode of presentation
or way of thinking of that object.




Frege argued for the distinctness of sense from reference as
follows. Suppose, for reductio, that the sole semantic value of the
name 'Mark Twain' were its reference. Then, as the name
'Samuel Clemens' is coreferential, the two names would be
identical in their semantic values. Given a plausible
assumption of compositionality, the sentences 'Mark Twain was a
famous American author' and 'Samuel Clemens was a famous
American author' would then express the same proposition. But that
is counterintuitive. It seems that fully competent speakers can
believe what the one expresses without believing what the other
expresses. (Imagine our agent had an American literature class,
having read *Huck Finn* and *Tom Sawyer*, in which
biographical facts were withheld. She will accept the first 
sentence and reject the second.) If this is so, then the two sentences
express different propositions. And if they express different
propositions, there must be some semantically relevant difference
between the names 'Mark Twain' and 'Samuel
Clemens'. As their references do not differ, sense is distinct
from reference.




An expression's sense is intended to capture its *cognitive
value*. The above argument is intended to show that 
coreferential proper names can present the same object in different
ways and it can be a cognitive achievement to come to learn that the
object presented in those different ways is one and the
same. Reference alone, Frege persuasively argued, cannot capture
cognitive value. Capturing the cognitive significance of an expression
is a primary role senses played in Frege's system. But they also
played several other roles as well: They are the primary bearers of
truth values, the indirect references of sentences and hence the
objects denoted by that clauses like 'that Frege denied the
existence of singular propositions', and the objects of
propositional attitudes, most importantly. These roles give rise to
the following theses concerning the individuation of senses.



> 
> **Truth**   
> 
> If two sentences have different truth values, then they have different senses.
> 
> 
> **Accept**   
>  For any pair of sentences,
> *s1* and *s2*, if a competent
> speaker can rationally, reflectively, and sincerely accept
> *s1* while rejecting *s2*, then
> *s1* and *s2* have different
> senses.
> 
> 
> 
> **Attitude**   
> 
>  For any pair of sentences, *s1* and
> *s2*, and propositional attitude verb *V*s, if
> the truth of
>  [?]*a
>  V*s that
>  *s1*[?]
>  is consistent with the falsity of
>  [?]*a
>  V*s that 
>  *s2*[?], then *s1*
> and *s2* have different senses.
> 
> 
> 



Frege's case for the sense-reference distinction is also a case that
singular propositions are not the semantic contents of natural
language sentences and are not the objects of the propositional
attitudes. Singular propositions are too coarse-grained to account for
what a competent speaker understands in virtue of grasping the meaning
of a sentence. But the content of a sentence is, intuitively, what an
agent grasps when she understands a sentence and what she believes
when she accepts it. Frege concluded that singular propositions are
ill-suited for the purposes of semantics and psychology, as they lead
to violations of **Accept** and
**Attitude**. (For further discussion, see the entry
 Frege.) 



**Bertrand Russell**'s views of language and thought are
importantly different from Frege's. (Russell held many distinct
views. We focus here on the Russell roughly from 1905 through 1912.)
First, Russell held an acquaintance-based theory, according to which
some thought about individuals is direct, in the sense of involving
singular propositions involving those very individuals. Second,
whereas Frege introduced senses to help solve the puzzles discussed
above, Russell employed logical analysis and his theory of definite
descriptions. We take each point in turn.




Russell maintained that an agent must be acquainted with every
constituent of a thought that she is in a position to entertain. Call
this *the Acquaintance Principle*. (The principle makes an
appearance in (1905), but the view behind the principle is
worked out in (1910) and (1912).) Russell thought that we are
acquainted only with our occurrent sense data and universals (and he
sometimes included the self, when he wasn't feeling skeptical of
awareness of the self as an entity). So, Russell maintained that the
only singular propositions we can grasp are ones with those items as
constituents.




We can trace the fundamental source of Russell's restrictivism about
acquaintance to the claim that one is acquainted only with that for
which misidentification is rationally impossible. If it is possible
for one to be presented with **o** twice over and
rationally not realize it as the same object, then one is not
acquainted with **o**; one's thoughts about
**o** are, in that case, indirect. This line of reasoning
relies on the Fregean claim that identity confusions are to be
explained in terms of differences in thought constituents. Our English
student's confusion regarding Mark Twain is thus to be explained in
terms of different thoughts and hence different thought constituents
corresponding to the different ways of thinking about the man Mark
Twain associated with the expressions 'Mark Twain' and
'Samuel Clemens'. This -- that cases of
misidentification always involve differences in thought contents
-- marks an important point of agreement between Frege and
Russell.




Neo-Russellians are more permissive about the objects of acquaintance,
including extra-mental particulars in this class. David Kaplan's
pioneering work (1977/1989) is typically the starting point, although
Russell himself started out with such a position, maintaining, for
example, that Mont Blanc itself is a constituent of the thought that
Mont Blanc has snowfields. Neo-Russellians must deny the Fregean claim
that whenever misidentification is rationally possible, there is a
difference in thought constituents. They might still agree with
Fregean intuitions about the truth and falsity of propositional
attitude ascribing sentences -- agreeing, for example, that
'Peter believes that Mark Twain was a famous American
author' is true while 'Peter believes that Samuel Clemens
was a famous American author' is false -- claiming that
this does not require a difference at the level of thought
constituents, following, for example, Mark Crimmins and John Perry
(1989) or Mark Richard (1990). Such neo-Russellians claim that the
truth or falsity of a belief attitude ascribing sentence involves more
than just the agent of the report having among her beliefs the
proposition expressed by the sentence embedded in the reporting
sentence. Alternatively, the neo-Russellian might deny the Fregean
intuitions about the truth and falsity of propositional attitude
ascribing sentences, following, for example, Nathan Salmon (1986) in
accounting for those intuitions in nonsemantic terms. (For further
discussion, see propositional
attitude reports.) Either way, however, given that
misidentification of extra-mental particulars is obviously possible,
the permissive theory of acquaintance requires denying the claim that
all cases of misidentification involve differences in thought
constituents.




We have seen how Russell's adherence to the Acquaintance Principle
together with his adoption of a Fregean attitude towards
misidentification led him to deny that we can think directly about
extra-mental particulars. Russell admitted that there is an
extra-mental reality filled with extra-mental particulars that we can
and do think about. Like Frege, all such thought, Russell insisted, is
indirect. But Russell did not follow Frege in introducing senses as
the mediators between individuals and our thought about them. Rather,
Russell appealed to logical analysis through his theory of
descriptions. For Russell, all thought about extra-mental particulars
is descriptive. In (1910), the canonical form such thought
took is the following: *The thing that caused THIS*
[demonstratively referring to one's occurrent sense datum] *is
such-and-such*, which is singular with respect to the sense datum
demonstrated. We can work up to this by seeing how Russell contrasted
three thoughts about Bismarck to the effect that he unified Germany
(1910, 114-17). First, assuming acquaintance with the self, there is
Bismarck's own thought about himself. This thought is singular with
respect to Bismarck, having as its content the singular proposition
[Bismarck unified Germany]. "But if a person who knew Bismarck
made a judgment about him, the case is different. What this person was
acquainted with were certain sense data which he connected (rightly,
we will suppose) with Bismarck's body" (114). No human but
Bismarck, then, can grasp this singular proposition. Someone that has
perceived Bismarck, say, Wilhelm II, has a thought with the following
form, where BOB is the sense datum the agent has in virtue of his
perception of Bismarck.



> 
>  <[the *x*: *x* has a body that is the cause of BOB]
>  *x* unified Germany>
> 



This proposition is particularized with respect to Bismarck, but
direct and thus singular only with respect to the occurrent sense
datum being demonstratively referred to. Finally, contrast this
judgment with someone who has never perceived Bismarck but has only
heard about him indirectly. Such agents cannot relate Bismarck
directly to their sense data because, unlike Wilhelm, none of their
sense data are caused by Bismarck's body. Hence, they must either
think of him purely qualitatively -- as, say, the first
Chancellor of the German Empire, treating *the German Empire*
as if it were a purely qualitative condition -- or more
indirectly, as the person written about in the books causing these
sense data, thought standing in front of the books that are the source
of the agents' thoughts about Bismarck. 




For Russell, sense data are the direct objects of thought in terms of
which we think about extra-mental reality under descriptions relating,
typically causally, those bits of reality to the directly referred to
sense data. (It is worth noting that the basic idea does not require
Russell's theory of perception. For example, John Searle, in (1983),
has a similar view according to which we think immediately about
experiences, which are not analyzed in terms of the mind's being
presented with sense data. We then think of extra-mental objects as
the causes of such and such occurrent experiences.) For Russell, while
there are thoughts about particulars that are wholly qualitative and
wholly general, the paradigm form our thought about external reality
takes is ultimately grounded in acquaintance, albeit acquaintance with
sense data as opposed to extra-mental reality itself. This is in stark
contrast to the canonical form such thought takes in Frege's system,
in which there is no direct reference to any individuals, including
sense data, and all thought is entirely indirect. (For further
discussion, see the entries
 Bertrand Russell,
 knowledge by acquaintance vs. description, and
 descriptions.)


 
Russell rejected Frege's distinction between sense and reference
and attempted to solve the problems motivating that distinction
through logical analysis and scope distinctions. The resulting view is
one on which the proposition expressed by a sentence like 'The
inventor of bifocals was bald' has neither a Fregean sense nor
the referent of the subject-position term as a constituent. Instead,
Russell had propositional functions -- functions from objects to
propositions -- in place of senses. Yet at the bottom level such
a view seems to require singular propositions, which are the basic or
atomic propositions upon which the complex propositions are
built. Frege's atomic propositions are composed of senses while
Russell's require individuals.


## 2. Reasons for Singular Propositions: The modal argument


 The first argument in favor of singular propositions we shall
examine is based on Saul Kripke's modal argument in
(1970/1980). Kripke presented the argument as an argument that proper
names like 'Nixon' are not synonymous with ordinary
definite descriptions like 'the first US president from
California', rather than an argument for singular propositions,
the existence of which he never endorsed in print. David Kaplan, in
(1977/1989, 512-13), however, used the argument to conclude that
demonstratives are directly referential expressions and hence express
singular propositions. The argument can be presented as follows. 



 Suppose that David is standing at a table with Charles to his immediate
left and Paul to his immediate right. Paul lives in New Jersey and Charles lives
in Illinois. David points to the person on his right and utters
sentence (1) below at time *t*.



> (1) He lives in New Jersey.



David has said something about Paul. Call the proposition David has
expressed **p**. **p** is distinct from the
propositions expressed by the following sentences.



> 
>  (2) The person on David's immediate right (at *t*) lives in
> New Jersey.   
> 
>  (3) The person David demonstrated (at *t*) lives in New Jersey.



Both of the latter propositions are about Paul indirectly, in virtue
of the properties he contingently has (namely, being to David's right
at *t* and being demonstrated at *t* by David,
respectively). Now consider a counterfactual circumstance in which
Paul and Charles have switched places but in which everything else
about them remained the same, consistent with this switch, and, in
particular, in which Paul still lived in New Jersey and Charles in
Illinois. **p** is true at this circumstance, as Paul
lives in New Jersey, while the propositions expressed by (2) and (3)
are false at this circumstance, as Charles is both to David's right
and demonstrated by David and he doesn't live in New Jersey. So,
**p** is distinct from the propositions expressed by (2)
and (3).




It is important to be clear that we are concerned with the truth
values of the propositions expressed by (1)-(3) at a described
counterfactual situation, not what propositions those sentences would
have expressed in those circumstances. (1) would have expressed a
different proposition, a proposition about Charles and so false, were
David to have uttered it in the described situation. But our claim is
that the proposition expressed by David's actual utterance of (1) is
true at the described counterfactual circumstance, while the
propositions (actually) expressed by (2) and (3) are false at that
circumstance.



 Since **p** differs in truth value in the described
counterfactual circumstance from the propositions expressed by (2) and
(3), it follows that **p** is distinct from the
propositions expressed by (2) and (3). This is because, as
propositions are the objects that are true or false in counterfactual
circumstances, if **p** =
**p**\*, then **p** and **p**\*
have the same truth value in all counterfactual circumstances. These
considerations suggest that the proposition expressed by David's
utterance of (1) is about Paul directly and hence that
**p** is a singular proposition. Any
proposition that is about Paul indirectly, in virtue of qualities that
he contingently instantiates, will be subject to a similar argument.




There are two main responses to the modal argument in the
literature. The first involves a denial of the principle that, if
**p** = **p**\*, then **p** and
**p**\* have the same truth value in all counterfactual
circumstances. Michael Dummett (1991) and Jason Stanley (1997a/b;
2002) have developed this response by denying that propositions are
the bearers of modal properties. Dummett distinguishes senses from
what he calls *ingredient senses*. Senses give the contents of
expressions, are the bearers of truth and falsity, and are the objects
of the attitudes. Ingredient senses, on the other hand, are the
bearers of modal properties like being necessarily or contingently
true or false and being true or false at a world. Because propositions
are not the bearers of modal properties, Dummett and Stanley can
accept that (1) is true with respect to our counterfactual situation
while (2) and (3) are false even though the proposition expressed by
(1) is the same as the proposition expressed by either (2) or (3). (It
may be possible to get the same results without denying that
propositions are the bearers of modal properties by offering a
nonstandard semantics of modal adverbs like 'necessarily'
and 'contingently' according to which they ascribe
properties -- the property of being true in every/some world, say
-- to propositions but are sensitive to more than just the
proposition they operate on. One model for this is the way
'so-called' functions in a sentence like 'Superman
is so-called for his super powers'. To our knowledge such a
theory has yet to be worked out in detail, but we have no doubt that
it could be.)




The second response involves moving from contingent properties like
those involved in (2) and (3) to necessary properties, and in
particular to what, following Plantinga in (1974), we will call an
*individual essence*, which is a property that, necessarily, if
*x* exists, then it has that property and, necessarily, only
*x* has. The property *being on David's right* is not an
individual essence of Paul, as Paul might have existed without having
had it and Charles might have had it instead. But it is easy to turn
such contingent properties into necessary ones by
*rigidifiying* them. Paul necessarily has the property of
*actually* being on David's right. For any world
**w**, Paul has that rigidified property in
**w** just in case in the actual world Paul has the
(contingent) property of being on David's right. And, if Paul is the
only person to have that property in the actual world, then the
rigidified property is not only a necessary property of Paul but also
an individual essence of Paul. Such a property "tracks"
Paul across every possible world. Consider then the propositions
expressed by (4) and (5).



> 
>  (4) The person *actually* on David's immediate right (at
>  *t*) lives in New Jersey.   
>  (5) The person
>  *actually* David demonstrated (at *t*) lives in New
>  Jersey.
>  



 As far as the modal argument goes, these propositions can be
identified with **p**, as, for every world
**w**, they have exactly the same truth value at
**w** as **p** intuitively has at **w**.



 We do not claim that either response is ultimately
satisfying. Indeed, we are satisfied by neither. But their presence
does show that the modal argument fails to bring out the real
difficulties with descriptivism and the fundamental need for singular
propositions.


## 3. Reasons for Singular Propositions: The argument from indexicals and demonstratives


 David Kaplan, in (1977/1989), and John Perry, in (1977), (1979), 
(1980a/b), and (2001), argued that an adequate theory of indexicality requires
singular propositions. An indexical is an expression whose content is
not fixed by its linguistic meaning alone but requires
extra-linguistic contextual supplementation. Take, for example, the
sentence 'I am happy', considered in isolation from any
particular utterance or specifications of who is uttering it at what
time. The question of whether or not it is true is hardly
sensible. That question makes sense only when we either consider an
utterance of the sentence or provide the specification of at least an
agent as speaker. (We remain neutral on the issue whether utterances
of sentences are the primary bearers of semantic values or sentences
in context.) Both Kaplan and Perry argue that a Fregean account of
indexical expressions like 'I', 'today', and
'here' and demonstrative expressions like
'he', 'this', and 'there' is
inadequate. We focus here on Perry's view.



 Perry argued against the Fregean claim that there is a single entity
-- sense -- that answers to the three principles of sense
individuation presented in section 1. He argued that this
identification leads to several problems when applied to
indexicals. Perry's position is that one entity answers to
**Accept** and a distinct entity answers
to **Truth** and **Attitude**. More
generally, Perry argued that an adequate account of indexicals and
demonstratives in thought and language requires that we have one
entity serving as cognitive values and a distinct entity serving as
the contents of thoughts and sentences and bearers of truth value. The
mistake of the Fregean is to think that there is a single item that
can do all of the work.



 Consider the following sentence.



> 
>  (6) George quit his job today.
>  



 (6) doesn't express a complete proposition on its own because
'today' does not have a complete sense on its own. Suppose
that George held exactly one job, which he quit on 1 Aug 2000. (6) is
then true as uttered on 1 Aug 2000 and false as uttered on any other
day. Perry considers three Fregean accounts of the sense expressed by
a use of 'today' in (6) and argues that they all
fail. The first identifies the sense of 'today' with
its role or character; the second identifies it with an equivalence
class of ordinary Fregean senses; and the third involves looking to
the beliefs of the speaker for its sense.



 We begin with the first, according to which the sense of a use of
'today' is its role. This account, in effect, denies that
'today' is an indexical. This is because the role of an
expression is the rule that takes one from a particular utterance of
the expression to its content on that use, which is the same across
all uses. An expression's role is related to its linguistic
meaning. The role of 'today' is a rule that takes one from
a given use to the day of that use and the role of 'I' is a
rule that takes one from a given use to the speaker of that use. So,
if the sense of 'today' were its role, the same thought
would be expressed by every utterances of (6), regardless of the day
of occurrence. But, as we have seen, different utterances of (6) have
different truth values. But then, by **Truth**, those
utterances express different thoughts. Furthermore, the account
violates **Accept**, as it is possible to rationally take
differential attitudes towards different utterances of (6). The sense
of a use of 'today',then, is not its role.




According to the second Fregean account, the sense of a use of an
indexical like 'today' is the class of referentially
equivalent ordinary Fregean senses. The equivalence class of thoughts
for an utterance of (6) on 1 Aug 2000 is the class of thoughts
composed of the (incomplete) sense of 'George quit his
job' and any completing sense that determines 1 Aug
2000. Referential equivalence classes function much like singular
propositions, in that they do not place any restrictions on the way in
which the agent conceives of the referent of the thought. This makes
them poor candidates for accounting for the cognitive value of a
sentence, as they lead to violations of
**Accept**. Consider the following case, derived from a
case of Perry's. Suppose that you are sitting in a large harbor city
and see the bow of a ship, with the name 'Enterprise'
clearly in view, sticking out behind a building. You also see the
stern of a ship, with no name, sticking out behind another building
two blocks away. The water view is obstructed by buildings for the
intervening blocks. You might then accept your companion's
utterance of the sentence 'This is the Enterprise',
pointing at the bow of the ship, but reject her utterance of the
sentence 'This is the Enterprise', pointing at the stern
of the ship. Associated with both utterances is the same equivalence
class of Fregean senses, as both uses of 'this' refer to
the same ship. But, because you competently accept the one and not the
other, by **Accept**, different senses are expressed. We
get the same results for (6) by considering someone who is confused
about what day it is. She might then accept an utterance of (6) on 1
August 2000 while rejecting an utterance of 'George quit his job
on 1 August 2000', without a change of mind and despite the fact
that the same equivalence class is associated with both. If the sense
of a use of 'today' is intended to capture that use's
cognitive significance, as it clearly should on a Fregean account, we
should reject this second account.




The failings of the first two accounts as plausible Fregean accounts
of (6) are fairly evident. The third Fregean account turns to the
attitudes of the speaker to determine the sense of a given use of an
indexical. Perry presented the key idea as follows.



> 
>  To understand a demonstrative, is to be able to supply a sense for it
> on each occasion, which determines as reference the value the
> demonstrative has on that occasion.... [W]e can say that for each
> person the sense of the demonstrative 'today' for that
> person on a given day is just the sense of one of the descriptions
> *D* (or some combination of all the descriptions) such that on
> that day he believes ['Today is *D*'].
> (1977, 11-12) 
>  



 Perry required that the descriptions *D* should be
nonindexical. Perry then presented three arguments against this
suggestion. (Kaplan developed similar arguments against what he calls
the Fregean theory of demonstratives in (1977/1989).)




The first objection is *the irrelevancy of belief
objection*. Believing that you live in that time and possessing
accurate descriptive information of the medieval age does not make
your uses of 'today' about 1 August 1204, even though that
is the date that best fits your conception of the date of your
utterance. Uses of 'today' are about whatever day they
occur on, whatever descriptions one associate with one's uses of the
expression and however one conceives of the day of one's
utterance. But if the sense of a use of a 'today' were
determined by the beliefs of the speaker, and if sense determines
reference, then it would seem that your utterance is about 1204. So,
the beliefs of the speaker are irrelevant to the day an utterance of
'today' is about. 


 This objection works best with "automatic" or
"pure" indexicals like 'today' and
'I' rather than "non-automatic" indexicals or
"true" demonstratives like 'she' and
'this', which require an associated demonstration to refer
in context. This is because the reference of a use of a true
demonstrative is at least arguably determined in part by the speaker's
beliefs and audience-directed intentions, whereas the reference of a
pure indexical is settled by objective, attitude-independent factors
of the occasion of utterance, like who is speaking when and
where. (There is a debate about whether or not speaker beliefs and
intentions are relevant even to true demonstratives. See Bach 1992,
Bertolet 1993, and Reimer 1991a/b and 1992.)




We noted above that Perry assumed that the descriptive beliefs that
determine the sense of a use of 'today' themselves are not
indexical. Lifting this ban removes some of the sting from the
irrelevancy of belief objection. For consider the agent's belief that
she would express by saying, ''Today is the day of this
very utterance.'' While the purely qualitative descriptive
conditions a speaker believes the day of her speech satisfies may be
satisfied by a different day, it is much less clear that the above
descriptive condition is satisfied by the wrong day. (It is also
harder to imagine a nonproblematic case where the agent is confused
about whether or not the day referred to by her use of
'today' satisfies this description.) But there are at
least two problems with the Fregean appealing to such
descriptions. The first is that it is unclear that ordinary agents
actually have such beliefs when they competently utter a sentence like
(6). It is also questionable whether all speakers who competently use
'today' have the concepts of *an utterance*. If
they do not, then they are in a position to believe what is expressed
by an utterance of 'Today is fine' without believing what
is expressed by an utterance of 'The day of this utterance is
fine', in which case, by **Accept**, the two
sentence express different propositions. Second, even if they did, the
same question of the sense of the use of 'this' would
arise once again, with all of the problems Perry raises for the sense
of (6). There is no room, in Frege's system, for irreducibly indexical
thoughts, as Frege is clear that thoughts are true or false
*absolutely*, which an irreducibly indexical thought could not
be (just as the sentence 'I am happy' is not itself true
or false absolutely). Insofar as the Fregean claims that truth is an
absolute property of thoughts, she must explicate the indexicality of
language and judgments using only nonindexical propositions or
thoughts. (A proponent of a broadly Fregean view might claim that the
truth or falsity of a thought (and not just a sentence) is relative to
a sequence of parameters like a person, place, time, etc.. She could
then claim that the thought expressed by an utterance of (6) is itself
irreducibly indexical and is only true or false relative to an
assignment of parameters and in particular to a day.)




Perry's second objection is *the nonnecessity of belief
objection*. This objection turns on the fact that a speaker can
refer to the time at which she is speaking with her use of
'today' even though she lacks any adequate purely
qualitative conception of what day it is. Consider the case of Rip Van
Winkle. "When he awakes on October 20, 1823, and says with
conviction 'Today is October 20, 1803,' the fact that he
is sure he is right does not make him right, as it would if the
thought expressed were determined by the sense he associated with
'today'" (1977, 12). (The case of Rip Van Winkle is
very rich. For further discussion, see Evans 1981/1985, Kaplan
1977/1989 (538), and Perry 1997.) Van Winkle need not have a correct
conception of the day of his utterance to be talking and thinking
about that day with his use of 'today'. It suffices to
simply be located on that day and say, ''Today is
fine,'' knowing the general rule of how uses of
'today' function. A similar point can be made about
'I', using a case of a person suffering complete amnesia,
who intuitively still speaks of herself when she says, ''I
am alive'', despite lacking true beliefs of identifying
biographical information, and 'here', using a case of a
person who is completely confused about where she is. As was the case
with Perry's first objection, however, the nonnecessity of belief
objection is less persuasive with true demonstratives, where some kind
of correct conception of the intended reference is arguably needed to
demonstrate it.



In his response to Perry, Gareth Evans (1981/1985) claimed that
retaining indexical beliefs across changes in circumstance requires
keeping track of the objects those beliefs are about. So, for example,
to believe the same thing today that I believed yesterday when I
uttered (yesterday) the sentence 'Today is fine' requires
more than simply competently uttering today the sentence
'Yesterday was fine'. I must in addition, Evans claimed,
have kept track of the day and so properly registered the change in
day. This makes belief necessary for retention of indexical beliefs,
even beliefs expressed by sentences with pure indexicals. As Van
Winkle does not successfully track the twenty some years between his
falling asleep and waking up, he does not retain the temporally
indexical beliefs he had the night he fell asleep. Evans is less
clear, however, that a proper conception of the day is necessary for
*formation* (as opposed to *retention*) of a temporally
indexical belief, which is what Perry's second objection denies. Does
Van Winkle not think a thought about 1823 when he awakes and thinks to
himself, 'Today is fine'?) Furthermore, the tracking
condition has consequences that seem contrary to key tenets of
Fregeanism. Losing track of time isn't something that is always
internally accessible. Rip Van Winkle and his less well-known brother
Kip, both of whom went to sleep after a fine day in October 1803. Kip
woke up 10 hours later and, recalling the previous day, thought to
himself, 'Yesterday was fine'; Rip slept an additional 20
years and woke with memories of what he took to be the previous day
and thought to himself, 'Yesterday was fine', being
unaware of the additional passage of time. Because "everything
is all the same" as far as Kip and Rip are concerned upon
waking, there is some pressure to say that their beliefs have the same
content, assuming belief contents are intended to capture how the
agent conceives the world, which is the motivation behind a principle
like **Accept**. (There is equally strong pressure to say
that they believe different things, as Kip's belief is true and Rip's
false. But that is not generated from **Accept** but
**Truth** and Perry's point is that, for important cases,
those principles pull in opposite directions.)




Perry's third objection is *the nonsufficiency of
belief*. Consider the case of Hume and Heimson. Heimson believes
that he is Hume. But Heimson isn't just crazy, but also well informed
about every aspect of Hume's life. Still, Hume says something true
when he utters the sentence 'I wrote the
*Treatise*' and Heimson says something false. If so,
then, by **Truth**, they say different things, despite
the similarity in their qualitative descriptive beliefs. Even though
Heimson's descriptive beliefs about who he is best fit Hume, still his
self-thoughts are about Heimson and not Hume. The Fregean cannot,
Perry claims, account for this.




Perry assumed that Fregean thoughts are generally accessible, as they
are entirely composed of logical operations and purely qualitative
conditions. But then the thought Hume grasps when he thinks to himself
''I wrote the *Treatise*'' is a thought
available for Heimson to grasp as well. (This assumption of general
accessibility is at odds with what Frege says in his late work
(1918/1956), where he claims that "everyone is presented to
himself in a particular and primitive way, in which he is presented to
no-one else" (298). In his discussion of Dr. Lauben, Frege
denies that all thoughts are generally accessible and that the thought
Dr. Lauben grasps when he thinks to himself, ''I am
cold,'' for example, is a thought that can be expressed by
any sentence with a proper name. It is important to realize that this
limited accessibility thesis Frege held in later work is distinct from
the view alluded to above according to which a thought is irreducibly
indexical. The former view is consistent with Dr. Lauben's thought
being absolutely true or false, whereas the latter view is not. Frege
did not always hold this limited accessibility view, however. In an
earlier, unpublished work intended as a logic textbook he writes:



> In this case [the sentence 'I
> am cold'] the mere words do not contain the entire sense; we
> have in addition to take into account who utters it. There are many
> cases like this in which the spoken words have to be supplemented by
> the speaker's gesture and expression, and the accompanying
> circumstances. The word 'I' simply designates a different
> person in the mouths of different people. It is not necessary that the
> person who feels cold should give utterance to the thought that he
> feels cold. Another person can do this by using a name to designate
> the one who feels cold. (1914, 134-5)
>  


 Frege here seems to be claiming that the thought you have when you
say to yourself, ''I am cold,'' is a thought
someone else can express by pointing at you and saying,
''S/he is cold,'' which is exactly what he
denied in (1918/1956). Furthermore, although Frege only posits private
senses only for 'I', the worries that drove him to this
view can be raised with other indexicals like 'here',
'today', and 'now'. It becomes less and less
plausible to posit context-bound senses for each place, day, and
moment. In any event, the move to such perspective-bound thoughts has
not been generally accepted, even by followers of Frege.) 




Any generally accessible, absolutely true or false thought, Perry
argued, will violate **Accept**. For suppose that there
were a purely qualitative descriptive condition **F**
Hume associated with his use of 'I' that gives its sense;
say, the condition expressed by the expression 'the philosopher
who argued against the rationality of induction'. It would seem
that, insofar as Hume forgot (or never knew) that he himself is
uniquely **F** but retained his ability to think of
himself with the expression 'I', it is possible for him to
competently, reflectively, and sincerely accept the sentence 'I
wrote the *Treatise*' while not accepting 'The
*F* wrote the *Treatise*'. No such purely
qualitative, generally accessible proposition, Perry concluded, is
equivalent in cognitive significance to Hume's thought that he himself
wrote the *Treatise*. But Fregeanism entails that there is such
a thought. So Fregeanism is false.




So far we have focused on Perry's case against Fregean accounts of
indexicals in thought and language. Let's move briefly to Perry's
positive, anti-Fregean view of indexicality. Perry's views have gone
through important and often drastic changes from his early views in
(1977) and (1979) to his later views in his (2001), which we shall not try to
sort out here, focusing primarily on the earlier view. A view broadly
similar to Perry's early view is developed in Kaplan 1977/1989,
where Kaplan distinguishes content and character, claiming that the
latter captures the cognitive significance of an expression and the
former is the bearer of truth value and the object of the
propositional attitudes, often being a singular proposition. Perry
initially (1977) distinguished "thoughts" and
"senses," but later (1979) and (1980a/b) made the same
distinction in terms of belief contents and belief states. (Perry also
initially identified the "thought" associated with an
expression with its role, which is proven false by cases like the
Enterprise case discussed above. If an expression's role is identified
with its linguistic meaning, then the two occurrences of
'this' surely have the same role. The two utterances of
'this' have distinct associated demonstrations, but
demonstrations are not part of linguistic meaning.) The core idea is
that an adequate account of indexicality in thought and language
involves two distinct items, one that is roughly characterized by
**Truth** and **Attitude** --
propositions -- and the other that is roughly characterized by
**Accept** and is intended to capture the
"cognitive significance" of an expression and through
which propositions are grasped. The former is, in the case of
indexical beliefs, a singular proposition. This distinction, Perry
claimed, is the key to solving the problems with self-locating beliefs
that we have discussed above; it is the Fregean's identification of
the items that answer to **Accept**,
**Truth**, and **Attitude** that leads to
the problems surveyed above.




Let's apply the view to the case of Heimson. What, on Perry's view,
distinguishes Hume from Heimson? Both Hume and Heimson are in the same
*first-person belief state* when they say to themselves,
''I wrote the *Treatise*.''
Furthermore, the belief content Hume has when he is in that belief
state -- namely, the singular proposition [Hume wrote the
*Treatise*] -- is a belief content readily available for
Heimson to entertain as well. However, only Hume can grasp that belief
content by being in a first-person belief state. When Heimson is in a
first-person belief state, he grasps the distinct singular proposition
[Heimson wrote the *Treatise*] and when Heimson grasps the
singular proposition [Hume wrote the *Treatise*], it is only in
virtue of being in a third-person belief state. Perry is thus able to
account for the similarities between Heimson and Hume (they are in the
same belief state) and what is distinctive of Hume (only he grasps the
singular proposition [Hume wrote the *Treatise*] when in a
first-person belief state).


 Belief states are important because they are involved in
explaining, predicting, and rationalizing behavior. Perry provided a
host of memorable cases that make this point. Here's one. Consider two
people who both utter to themselves the sentence 'I am being
attacked by a bear'. All other things being equal, both people
will act in similar ways. There is a common explanation of their
behaviors only in terms of their shared belief states, as they
apprehend distinct propositions, each believing a proposition about
himself. Furthermore, it is crucial to how our agents act that they
grasp the relevant singular proposition in a first-person way and not,
say, as one would if one saw one's own reflection in a mirror with the
reflection of a bear sneaking up without realizing that the person
being seen is oneself. So, explanation, prediction, and
rationalization are all sensitive to belief states. To quote Perry on
this point:



> 
>  [I]n virtue of being in a belief state in a certain environment, we
> believe a certain object. Because the same object can be believed in
> different ways, from different environments or "points of
> view," classifying people by objects believed is not always
> particularly useful.... Consider the sentence 'There is a
> hungry lion coming towards me'. Now consider the contexts
> relative to which this sentence is true. They all consist of persons
> and times such that the person is being approached by a hungry lion at
> that time. It is a good idea for all of these people to run like crazy
> [presumably, at that time or at least shortly thereafter]. In a sense
> they do not need to know what they believe. Even if they have
> forgotten who they are and lost track of time, they know enough to
> run. (In another sense, they do know what they believe even then.)
> Most of these people will not believe the same thing. But each of them
> will believe in something that provides them with good reason to
> run. (1980a, 323)



But belief states are not contents; they are not true or false and
they are not what we express when we utter a sentence. We must thus
also recognize belief contents as distinct elements. (For further
discussion of the issues raised in this section, see the entries
 indexicals and
 propositional attitude reports.)


## 4. Reasons for Singular Propositions: The reduplication argument



Peter Strawson's reduplication argument, developed in (1959,
20-22), can be construed as an argument for singular
propositions. Strawson used the argument to support the related thesis
that *demonstrative identification* is fundamental to our
ability to identify and hence refer to, in speech and thought,
individuals. Demonstrative identification of **o** is
enabled by one sensibly discriminating **o** from other
individuals. So one can demonstratively identify only individuals that
one has perceived. But one can think about other individuals as
well. These further individuals, then, must be descriptively
identified. Individuals that one identifies demonstratively are
directly identified and not identified in virtue of their satisfies
qualities by which the agent conceives the object, as individuals
descriptively identified are. (This distinction is reminiscent of
Russell's distinction between thought by acquaintance and thought by
description. We compare Russell and Strawson in more detail below.)
Strawson's notion of demonstrative identification is thus closely
related to the notions of direct reference and singular
propositions.




A reduplication universe is one in which the same set of qualities are
distributed in the same pattern across two regions. There are both
temporal and spatial versions of reduplication. We shall focus on the
spatial version, as Strawson does. Suppose that Sally lives in a
reduplication universe. Sally is standing in front of Bill, thinking
that he has a stain on his shirt. In another region of the universe
there is a qualitatively identical set of circumstances. So, there is
Sally\*, who is just like Sally, standing in front of Bill\*, who is
just like Bill, thinking that he has a stain on his shirt. For any
purely qualitative condition Bill satisfies, Bill\* satisfies it
too. Nonetheless it seems highly intuitive that Sally is thinking
about Bill and not Bill\* (and Sally\* is thinking about Bill\* and not
Bill); after all, it is Bill and not Bill\* that she is standing in
front of and who is the obvious source of her judgment.




Suppose that all forms of identification were descriptive, so that
identifying an object required qualitatively discerning it from all
others. Then, as Sally cannot discern Bill from Bill\* in wholly
qualitative terms, her thought is not determinately about Bill rather
than Bill\*. But intuitively her thoughts are about Bill, in virtue of
the fact that she is in perceptual contact with Bill rather than
Bill\*. This is even more clear when we consider Sally's thought about
herself. When Sally says to herself, ''I am
hungry'', she is thinking of herself and not Sally\*. But
if her thought about herself were in terms of purely qualitative
conditions, then she would be unable to think determinately of herself
instead of Sally\*. So, she must be capable of an alternative form of
thought and identification that is distinct from and does not
presuppose descriptive identification. Call this form of
identification *demonstrative identification*. We have argued
that it is distinct from and does not depend upon descriptive
identification.




The argument we have presented above presupposes that Sally and Sally\*
and Bill and Bill\* are numerically distinct but qualitatively
indiscernible pairs of objects. Although many find this to be a
genuine possibility, thanks in large part to Max Black (1952)
and Robert Adams (1979), there is a long tradition that
subscribes to the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII), according to
which, for any objects *x* and *y*, if, for every
quality *F*, *x* is *F* if and only if *y*
is *F* (i.e., if *x* and *y* are qualitatively
indiscernible), then *x*=*y*. But the argument can be
developed in such a way that it does not presuppose the falsity of
PII. Let there be a quality that Bill and Bill\* lacks. Then the
distinctness of Bill from Bill\* is consistent with PII. But now let
Sally (and thus Sally\*) be unaware of Bill's (and Bill\*'s)
instantiating that quality. As long as Bill and Bill\* are
qualitatively indiscernible *as far as Sally is concerned* and
yet intuitively Sally is thinking of Bill and not Bill\*, the above
argument for the irreducibility of demonstrative identification to
descriptive identification goes through, even if it is not possible
for there to be distinct objects with all the same qualities.




So far we have argued that demonstrative identification is not
reducible to descriptive identification. But Strawson makes the
stronger claim that, in the reduplication universe, descriptive
identification depends on demonstrative identification. To get this
stronger claim consider an object that Sally has never perceived but
can intuitively think about -- say, Bill's mother. Strawson
claims that considering this case proves false the claim "that
where the particular to be identified cannot be directly located
[i.e., cannot be demonstratively identified because it cannot be
perceptually discriminated], its identification must rest ultimately
on description in purely general [i.e., qualitative] terms"
(1959, 21). Bill's mother (call her *Morgan*) is
qualitatively indiscernible from Bill\*'s mother. So Sally is unable to
distinguish in purely qualitative terms Morgan from every other object
in the universe. But intuitively she can nonetheless think of
her. This is because Sally can demonstratively identify Bill and thus
have thoughts determinately about Bill as opposed to his qualitative
twin Bill\* and then think of Morgan under the descriptive condition
*Bill's mother*. As Bill is directly given, this is a condition
that Morgan and not her qualitative twin Morgan\* satisfies. Thus
Sally's ability to descriptively identify objects in the universe is
ultimately grounded in her ability to demonstrative identify some
stock of objects, identifying other objects in virtue of the unique
relations they bear to members of that stock. Strawson argues that the
general way of relating objects one has not perceived to those
demonstratively identified is by way of spatio-temporal
relations. (See (1959, 22) in particular, but much of the discussion
that follows in chapter 1 is aimed at establishing the Kantian claim
that spatio-temporal relations are the privileged set of relations for
enabling identification of particulars.)




Let's grant that to have a thought determinately about an individual
in a reduplication universe requires possessing an irreducible,
fundamental form of demonstrative identification. What bearing does
that have on thought about individuals in nonreduplication universes
and in particular thought about individuals in our universe, which we
take, rightly we can suppose, to be a nonreduplication
universe. Although Strawson does not argue in this way, the following
seems compelling. Grant that our universe is in fact not a
reduplication universe. But it could have been. Had there been, in
some distant part of the universe, a qualitative duplicate of me and
my surroundings, my thought would not have taken a different form than
it actually has. But the considerations above show that, had we been
living in a reduplication universe, then demonstrative identification
would have been irreducible and fundamental. But then it is actually
irreducible and fundamental.




We end this section by briefly comparing Strawson's view with
Russell's and the contemporary neo-Russellian's views. We have seen
that, for Russell, like Strawson, demonstrative identification plays a
crucial role, in the form of acquaintance. But unlike Strawson,
Russell denies that we demonstratively identify extra-mental
individuals. Russell can deliver the intuitively correct results that
Sally's thoughts are determinately about Bill and not Bill\*, even
though she is not, on Russell's view, able to demonstratively identify
Bill. This is because Sally can demonstratively identify her sense
data that are caused by Bill and not Bill\*. On Russell's view, Sally
descriptively identifies even Bill, but the descriptive condition she
employs contains direct reference to her occurrent sense data. She is
thus able to form a descriptive (although not purely qualitative)
condition that Bill satisfies and Bill\* does not. For this reason,
Russell is better able to handle the reduplication argument than the
Fregean.




Both Strawson and Russell claimed that thought about particulars is
ultimately grounded on direct reference. But they disagree about what
we can directly refer to, with Strawson claiming that it includes
perceived objects in the external world and Russell that it only
includes mental particulars. It is important to note, however, that as
far as the reduplication argument is concerned, this difference is of
little consequence. As long as there is a stock of individuals that
are thought of directly and not in terms of purely qualitative
conditions that can serve as the anchors in terms of which the
qualitatively indiscernible objects can then be discerned, the
intuition that Sally is thinking determinately of Bill and not Bill\*
is respected.


 Strawson maintained that an agent can demonstratively identify
only objects that she has perceived. Neo-Russellians typically go a
step further, claiming that an agent can think directly about objects
she has not perceived in virtue of standing in the appropriate
communicative chains ending in the object. So, even though you have
never perceived Plato, we will safely suppose, you can nevertheless
think directly about Plato in virtue of your standing in a
communicative chain that ultimately traces back to perceptions (on the
part of other agents in the communicative chain) of Plato. (For a
representative of this view, see Bach's (1994, chapter 2).) Some
neo-Russellians go even further and maintain that there needn't be any
perceptual contact at all with an object to think about it
directly. (See, for example, Kaplan 1975b, where he defends the thesis
that the dthat-operator can transform any designating expression into
a directly referential term, competence with which enables an agent to
think about the designation of the original term directly. Hence, Le
Verrier was able to think about Neptune directly despite the lack of
perceptual contact with the planet (we will suppose) in virtue of his
competence with the expression 'dthat[the cause of the
perturbations in Uranus's orbit]'. See also Robin Jeshion's
(2002) for a similar view, in that she too thinks perceptual contact
with an object is not necessary for thinking of that object directly,
although she does not appeal to Kaplan's dthat-operator. (For more on
these topics, see the papers collected in Jeshion 2010.)




We thus have a spectrum of views that agree that there is direct
reference to individual in thought and language but disagree about its
scope, from Russell's restrictive view of direct reference, according
to which an agent can only think directly about her occurrent sense
data, to the liberal view of direct reference held by Kaplan and
Jeshion, according to which objects that have never been perceived can
be thought about directly. All of these views respect the intuition
that Sally's thoughts are determinately about Bill and not
Bill\*. Thus, while the reduplication argument makes a powerful case
that there is *some* direct reference and hence that singular
proposition are necessary for an adequate account of reference to
individuals in thought and language, it does not settle the further
issue of how much of our thought is direct and involves the grasping
of singular propositions and what is thought by description. That is,
while the reduplication argument might settle that there are singular
propositions, we must appeal to different considerations, like those
involved in the argument from indexicals and demonstratives, to
resolve the further issue of what individuals can be constituents of
singular propositions and under what conditions.


## 5. Modal Problems for Singular Propositions



In sections 2-4, we discussed three sets of argument for the thesis
that there are singular propositions. The first, the modal argument,
was broadly linguistic in nature and the other two, the arguments from
indexicals and reduplication, were pyschological. But singular
propositions also give rise to a number of important metaphysical
problems, in addition to those involving propositional attitudes and
apparent substitution failures already discussed. We end this essay by
discussing two related problems: Modal problems and temporal
problems.




Consider the following proposition. 



> 
>  (7) *George Bush does not exist.*


 (The number designates the proposition actually expressed by
'George Bush does not exist', not the sentence itself.)
While (7) is false, it might have been true. But suppose (7) is a
singular proposition, involving George Bush as a constituent. Then
there are problems, given the following two principles.



> 
>  (P1) Necessarily, for all propositions **p**, had
> **p** been true, then **p** would have
> existed.  
> 
> 
>  (P2) Necessarily, if (7) were true, then George would not have existed.
>  



Both principles are highly plausible. (P1) is plausible because
*being true* is a property and there must be something that has
a property in order for that property to be instantiated. So, had it
been that a given proposition were true, then there must have been
something -- namely, that proposition -- that would have had
the property of being true. (P2) states the intuitive truth conditions
of (7), being an instance of the modalized propositional equivalent of
the Tarski truth-schema *s* is true iff *s*. But these
principles seem to entail that, if (7) is a singular proposition, then
it is not possibly true. For suppose it were. Then there is a world
**w** in which (7) is true. By (P1), (7) exists in
**w**. But then all of its constituents exists in
**w** as well, as a complex does not exist in a world
unless all of its constituents exist in that world. But then George
Bush exists in **w**. So, by (P2), (7) is not true in
**w**, which contradicts our original assumption that it
is true in **w**. So, either (7) is not a singular
proposition or it is not possibly true.




The basic structure of this argument derives from Alvin Plantinga's
argument from his (1983) against what he called
*existentialism*, the thesis that all individual essences are
dependent upon the individuals that instantiate them. Plantinga
concluded that a singular proposition about **o** can
exist even though **o** does not exist. (See in
particular (1983, 8-9), where he argued that the notion of
constituency is too confused to allow us to conclude that the
constituent of a singular proposition must exist in a world for that
proposition to exist in that world.) Plantinga also argued that the
property *being identical to **o*** can exist
without **o**, even though that property is constructed
by l-abstraction from the proposition [**o**
is identical to **o**]. Plantinga would have been much
better served, we believe, by denying that propositions like (7) are
singular propositions, on the grounds that, if they were, they would
not be possibly true. Instead, propositions like (7) contain
individual essences as constituents. (Plantinga should not conceive of
an individual essence as constructs form an individual identity
property, as that property is dependent on the individual that
instantiates it. Instead, an individual essence is either a primitive
property stipulated to be necessarily related to the individual whose
essence it is or would have been that can nonetheless exist
unexemplified or the rigidification of some condition that the
individual uniquely satisfies, following Plantinga's response to the
modal argument above in section 2.) Let **H** be such an
individual essence of Bush. Then (7) is true just in case
**H** is uninstantiated, the proposition [Bush is
president] is true just in case **H** and the property
**being president** are coinstantiated, etc.. The pay-off
is that (7)'s being true in a possible world does not violate (P1) and
(P2), as there are possible worlds in which Bush's individual essence
exists but is unexemplified.




There are several responses to Plantinga's argument, differing in
their metaphysical underpinnings. The first involves the possibilist's
thesis that there are individuals that are not actual. (See Lewis's
(1986).) In that case, what exists in a world does not exhaust what
exists simpliciter. Bush is around to serve as a constituent of a
proposition, even with respect to worlds in which he does not exist,
because he exists simpliciter by existing in other worlds. The
possibilist can thus claim that the truth of (P1) does not entail
that, if **p** is true in **w**, then
**p** exists in **w**; rather, it only
entails that **p** and all its constituents
*exists*.




Matters are more difficult if one is an actualist, subscribing to the
thesis that absolutely everything is actual. Then, if one accepts the
existence of singular propositions, one has two options. First, one
might deny that propositions like (7) are possibly true, accepting
that necessarily everything necessarily exists, as Bernard Linsky and
Edward Zalta, in their (1994) and Timothy Williamson, in his
(2001), do. This position is only as plausible as the
explanation on offer of the intuitive contingency of ordinary objects
like Bush. If being and existence are necessary properties, then some
contingent property must be offered in place that can be used to
explain the intuition that (7) might have been true. Linsky and Zalta
claim that *being concrete* is a contingent property. They
claim that Bush might have been nonconcrete and that, when we consider
a world in which he is nonconcrete, we are inclined to say that he
does not exist there. Although the virtues of this view are many, not
the least of which is the simple and straightforward modal logic it
validates, we are very reluctant to accept that concreteness is a
contingent property. 




Finally, if one insists that propositions like (7) are singular
propositions that are possibly true, then one must claim that (7) is
true at worlds in which it does not exist, thus denying (P1). (Examples include 
Adams 1981, Deutsch 1994, Fine 1977 and
1985, Fitch 1996, and Menzel 1991 and 1993.) A proposition
**p** is true *in* a world **w** just
in case, were **w** actual, then **p** would
have been true. Call this *inner truth*. (P1) is true for inner
truth and there are no singular negative existential propositions like
(7) that are true in any possible worlds. But there is another notion
of truth with respect to a possible world that is associated with
genuine necessity and contingency. Adams describes this notions as
follows.



> 
> A world-story [a maximal, consistent set of actually existing
> propositions] that includes no singular proposition about me
> constitutes and describes a possible world in which I would not
> exist. It represents my possible non-existence, not by including the
> proposition that I do not exist but simply by omitting me. That I
> would not exist if all the propositions it includes, and no other
> actual propositions, were true is not a fact internal to the world
> that it describes, but an observation that we make from our vantage
> point in the actual world, about the relation of that world story to
> an individual of the actual world. (1981, 22)



The world-story corresponding to a possibility where George Bush does
not exist does not, then, contain (7) as a member. Instead, (7) is
true with respect to the possibility that world-story describes in
virtue of the world-story omitting mention of Bush altogether. From
the perspective of the actual world, and with its resources, we can
say that (7) is true at that possibility, even though, from the
perspective of the possibility itself, there is complete silence about
George Bush. Call this *outer truth*.



The intuitive possible truth of (7) is an example of one side of our
intuitions of the contingency of existence, being an example of the
possible nonexistence of a thing that actually exists. An example of
the other side of those intuitions concerns the possible existence of
something that does not actually exist. As a matter of fact, Natalie
Portman and George Bush did not have any children together and so,
given plausible essentialists intuitions, nothing that actually exists
could have been their child. But they could have had a child. Had
certain contingent happenings occurred, then there would have been a
person parented by Portman and Bush. So, (8) below is intuitively
true.



> 
>  (8) Nothing that actually exists could have been parented by Portman
>  and Bush, but it is possible that there is someone parented by
>  Portman and Bush.



The possibilist maintains that what actually exists is a proper subset
of what exists. So, while nothing in the domain of the actual world
could have been Portman and Bush's child, there are things in the most
inclusive domain of quantification, which includes merely possible
individuals, that are parented by Portman and Bush in some possible
worlds. On Plantinga's view, there is an uninstantiated individual
essence that could have been instantiated and, had it been
instantiated, it would have been instantiated by something that was
parented by Portman and Bush. On Linsky and Zalta's view, there is a
nonconcrete individual that could have been concrete and, had it been
concrete, it would have been parented by Portman and Bush. All three
views, then, seem to easily account for the truth of something close
to (8). (The last view must offer a slight revision of (8): While a
nonconcrete individual actually exists and could have been parented by
Portman and Bush, nothing that is actually concrete could have been
parented by Portman and Bush.) Proponents of the last view considered
above, however, do not countenance merely possible individuals,
uninstantiated individual essences, nor contingently nonconcrete
individuals. Instead they must give a different account of the second
side of our intuitions that what exists is contingent. 




Following Adams 1981, proponents of our final view can claim that the
actually existing quantified proposition [There is someone parented by
Portman and Bush] is a member of a world-story corresponding to the
possibility in which Portman and Bush have a child together, but no
atomic proposition of the form [**o** is parented by
Portman and Bush] is a member of that set, as there is no such
proposition that could have been true. (If there were such an atomic
proposition, then there would be something that could have been
parented by Portman and Bush, which there is not.) So, there are
quantified propositions that are true at a possible world
**w** even though there are no witnesses of those
propositions -- i.e., no corresponding singular propositions
-- true at **w**. This requires abandoning a general
analysis of the truth of quantified propositions to the truth of
atomic propositions. The best that a proponent of this account can say
is that, had one of the possibilities in question been actual, then
there would have been such a singular proposition and so there would
have been a witness to the possibly true quantified proposition. But,
as things actually are, the quantified proposition could have been
true even though there is no singular proposition that could have been
true.





None of the solutions considered in this section are without their
problems. The possibilist recognizes a distinction between existing
and actually existing that requires a bloated ontology. Plantinga's
solution requires mysterious entities -- individual essences that
could exist unexemplified and thus that are individuated independently
of the individuals that instantiate them. Linsky and Zalta's solution
runs contrary to the robust intuition that what individuals there
happen to be is a contingent matter and requires that ordinary
existents could exist as nonconcrete objects. And the final solution
requires a distinction between how matters stand in a possible world
or from the perspective of that possible world and how matters stand
at that world, which many find mysterious and claim to require an
unpalatable form of realism about possible worlds. The account also
requires complicating one's quantified modal logic, as it entails that
there are theorems of classical quantificational logic (for example,
[?]*x(a=x)*) that are contingent, requiring either a
revision of classical quantificational logic, and a movement to a free
logic, in which case those problematic classical theorems are no
longer theorems, or a restriction on the standard Rule of
Necessitation of standard modal logic, in which case there are
contingent logical truths. (For a more detailed discussion of the
issues raised in this section, see the entry on the
 possibilism-actualism debate.)


## 6. Temporal Problems for Singular Propositions


 Singular propositions are a combination of the abstract and
concrete, which leads to problems. The modal problem arises because,
on the one hand, there are reasons to think that all propositions, as
abstract objects, exist necessarily, but, on the other hand, it is
highly intuitive that ordinary individuals might not have existed and
others could have existed, in which case the singular propositions
containing them as constituents exist contingently. The solutions to
this problem discussed above involve denying that there are singular
propositions, denying that ordinary objects are contingent existents,
or denying that propositions are necessary existents. The temporal
problems we shall consider in this section arise because ordinary
individuals change over time, including coming into and going out of
existence. Propositions, on the other hand, are usually taken to be
eternal objects -- things that do not change over time and exist
at all times.




Consider the following proposition. 



> (9) *Socrates existed but does not exist.*



(9) seems like a true singular proposition, as Socrates died long
ago. How then is (9) true, as its constituent Socrates does not exist
and so it does not exist? This is clearly the temporal analog of the
modal problem discussed in the previous section. Moreover, if (9) is a
singular proposition, then what is the constituent of (9) like? How
old is it? Is it sitting or standing? It seems absurd to say that the
age of a constituent of a proposition is thus and so and that it is
sitting and not standing, yet if Socrates himself is a constituent of
(9), then he must be a determinate age and must be in a determinate
position; no person exists without being a determinate age and being
in a position. Our second set of questions also have modal analogs and
it may help clarify the issues to present them before exploring
answers to the temporal problems. 



Bush in fact has two arms, but he might have had only one. But then if
Bush himself is a constituent of the proposition that Bush has two
arms, he must either have exactly two arms or exactly one arm, it
would seem, as no person exists without having a determinate number of
arms. But neither answer seems satisfying. This issue is related to
problems of temporary and accidental intrinsics. (See his (1986,
chapter 4).)


 In the next two sub-sections we consider each set of issues in
turn.


## 6.1. Temporal Problems for Singular Propositions: Quantitative Change



In section 5 we considered the modal version of the first set of
issues and saw how one's account is connected to
larger issues in the metaphysics of modality. Similarly, one's
account of the temporal problems is connected to larger issues in the
metaphysics of time. Recall the possibilist solution from section
5. The temporal analog of possibilism is eternalism, according to
which what exists at a time is but a proper subset of what exists
simpliciter. (Works that defend eternalism include Heller 1990,
Lewis 1986, Mellor 1981 and 1998, Quine 1963, Sider 1997 and 2001,
Smart 1955, and Williams 1951.) The eternalist maintains that,
although Socrates does not presently exist, he does exist simpliciter
and so is available to be the constituent of (9), even at times at
which he does not exist. (9) is true, then, because Socrates is in the
domain of a past time but not in the domain of the present time. 




Presentism is the temporal analog of actualism. Presentists maintain
that absolutely everything is present; entities, like Socrates, that
do not presently exist, simply do not exist. (Works that defend
presentism include Crisp 2002, 2005, and 2007a/b, Hinchliff 1988 and
1996, Markosian 2003, Prior 1959, 1962, 1965, 1970, and 1977, and
Zimmerman 1996 and 1998a/b.) Presentists have a hard row to hoe in
accounting for the apparent truth of (9). In the previous section we
outlined three actualist accounts of (7) and (8). Each has a temporal
analog that can be applied to (9). 



First, the presentist might appeal to Plantingian individual essences,
claiming that (9) is not a singular proposition containing Socrates
himself as a constituent, as there is no such entity, but rather a
proposition with Socrates's individual essence as a constituent. (9)
is then true because that individual essence was instantiated in the
past but is no longer instantiated. 



Second, the presentist might claim that Socrates does exist, albeit as
a nonconcrete object, adopting the temporal analog of the view held by
Linsky and Zalta. Then, although (9) is false, if the predicate
'*x* exists' is regimented as
[?]*y(y=x)*, a related proposition concerning Socrates's
concreteness is true. Socrates was concrete and now, while he still
exists, is nonconcrete. (This view carries a commitment to the claim
that a concrete object *becomes* nonconcrete and that a
nonconcrete object *becomes* concrete, which is even more
problematic than the claim that concreteness is a contingent
property.)



Third, the presentist might follow Adams and distinguish a
proposition's being true *in* a time from its being true
*at* a time. Consider first a negative existential about a
currently existing object. It is true that George Bush did not exist
in 1820 because the singular proposition [George Bush exists] is false
at 1820. The proposition is not true in 1820, because it did not exist
when 1820 was present, as its constituent Bush did not exist
then. (9), however, is a negative existential about a past object that
no longer exists. It is, then, more analogous to (8) from above,
illustrating the second half of our intuitions that existence is
contingent, than to (7). (8) has a quantificational form on its
surface, while (9) appears to be singular. This difference makes is
questionable whether appeal to the truth in/truth at distinction can
be used by the presentist to develop an account of (9)'s truth and
thus whether there is a viable presentist analog to Adams's actualist
view. 



To see why, focus on the first conjunct of (9): 'Socrates
existed'. This appears to have the form
*P*[?]*x(s=x)*, where *P* is the past-tense
operator 'it was the case that'. But that carries a
commitment to the wholly past object Socrates, contrary to
presentism. The presentist must, then, reinterpret (9) so that it does
not involve a proposition singular with respect to Socrates, even one
embedded in the scope of tense operators. This is problematic, as it
entails that the sentences 'George Bush was sitting' and
'Socrates was sitting' express propositions with radically
different forms, despite their evident surface grammatical
similarity.



Finally, there is a fourth presentist solution worth discussing, which
also has a modal analog not discussed in the previous section. One
might insist that, although Socrates does not exist, Socrates is
nonetheless a constituent of reality, in the range of the most
unrestricted of quantifiers and available as a constituent of singular
propositions. This is because there are entities that do not
exist. This form of Meinongian presentism, according to which
everything that *exists* at all presently exists, although
there are things that do not presently exist and so do not exist at
all, has been defended by Mark Hinchliff (Hinchliff 1988; 1996). Many
find the distinction between being and existing obscure and the
Meinongian metaphysics incredible, but the view promises a solution to
the problems similar to possibilist and contingent concreteness
solutions but with an alternative metaphysics. (For further discussion
of eternalism and presentism, see the entries spacetime: being and becoming in modern
physics and time. For discussion of
Meinongianism, see existence and nonexistent objects.)


## 6.2. Temporal Problems for Singular Propositions: Qualitative Change




We raised two questions concerning (9). We discussed the first in
section 6.1 and we now turn to the second. In order to better focus
attention on the second issues, we switch to an apparent singular
proposition about a presently existing object, setting aside the
issues connected with the problems of section 6.1.



> 
>  (10) *Bush is sitting*. 



Bush changes his position, sitting at *t* and standing at
*t'*. Then (10) is true at *t* and false at
*t'*. (Not all would agree that the proposition, as opposed to
tensed sentence, varies its truth value across time. We discuss this
below.) Suppose that (10) is a singular proposition with Bush as a
constituent. What is that constituent like? No answer seems to
satisfy. By the law of excluded middle, either it satisfies the
condition '*x* is sitting' or it doesn't. If it
does, then why is (10) false, as it is at *t'*; if it doesn't,
then it why is (10) true, as it is at *t*? It also seems
strange to think of that (10) itself as changing in its constituents
across time, as one and the same proposition is being
evaluated at the different times.




One's answers to these questions depends on one's views on the nature
of persistence through time and change. Broadly speaking, there are
two realist views of change: Perdurantism (or four-dimensionalism or
the doctrine of temporal parts), which reduces persisting objects to
more fundamental, momentary objects, and endurantism (or
three-dimensionalism), which takes persisting objects as primitive,
maintaining that a persisting object is "wholly present"
at each time it exists (see Crisp and Smith 2005 for an interesting
attempt to articulate this notion). Proponents of the perdurantism
include Armstrong 1980, Heller 1990, Jubien 1993, Lewis 1971, 
1976, 1986, and 1988, Quine 1960 and 1963, Robinson 1982, Russell
1927, Smart 1955 and 1972, Taylor 1955, and Williams 1951, among
others. Versions of endurantism are defended in Chisholm 1976,
Forbes 1987, Geach 1966 and 1967, Haslanger 1985, 1989a/b, and 2003,
Hinchliff 1988 and 1996, Johnston 1983 and 1987, Lowe 1987, 1988, and
1998, Mellor 1981 and 1998, Thomson 1983, van Inwagen 1990 and 2000,
Wiggins 1968, 1980, and 2001, and Zimmerman 1996 and 1998a/b, among
others. (There are important differences between the versions of
endurantism defended in these works, related to whether or not
"tense is taken seriously", presentism is accepted or
rejected, whether or not seemingly monadic properties like
**being age 64** are treated as relations between
individuals and times, and whether or not the instantiation relation
between individuals and properties is claimed to obtain only relative
to a time. See the entries identity over
time and temporal parts for
further discussion.)




Perdurantists maintain that a persisting object is a sum of momentary
temporal parts. An object persists through an interval of time by
having numerically distinct temporal parts existing at each moment in
that interval. An object undergoes a change in its qualities across
time by having numerically distinct temporal parts with contrary
qualities. A close cousin of perdurantism is the stage view, defended
in Hawley 2001 and Sider 1996, 1997, 2000, and 2001, according to
which the subject of temporal predication is a momentary temporal
part. Whereas perdurantists claim that a name like 'Bush'
designates a sum of temporal parts, stage theorists maintain that it
designates a momentary object. A past tense predication like
'*x* was sitting' is true of that momentary stage
*s*, assuming this a case of the simple past tense, just in
case there is an earlier temporal part that bears the counterpart
relation to *s* that satisfies the condition '*x*
is sitting' (and similarly for future tense predications). If
singular propositions are the contents of those sentences, then it is
natural to claim that different propositions, with different temporal
parts as constituents, are expressed by utterances of the sentence
'Bush is sitting' at different times. There are, then, two
distinct propositions corresponding to (10). 



>  
>  (S-101) Bush-at-*t* is sitting.
>  
> 
> (S-102) Bush-at-*t'* is sitting.
> 
> 
> 



(S-101) is false simpliciter, being false both at
*t* and *t'*, while (S-102) is true
simpliciter. In general, then, the constituent of a singular
proposition is a temporary object.



Proponents of perdurantism and the stage view have natural answers to
our questions about the subject constituent of singular propositions like
(10). Perdurantists can claim that the subject constituent of (10) is a sum of
temporal parts. (10) is true at *t* because the part of that
sum that directly exists at *t* has the property of sitting;
(10) is false at *t'* because the part of that sum that
directly exists at *t'* has the property of not sitting. Stage
theorists can claim that there are a host of distinct propositions
corresponding to (10), each with a distinct momentary stage as subject
constituent in whatever state the object is in at the time of its
existence. Momentary objects have their properties absolutely. So,
Bush-at-*t* is simply sitting, although it *will be* not
sitting in virtue of there being a numerically distinct momentary
object that is not sitting that is the first's later
counterpart. Bush-at-*t'* is simply not sitting, although it
*was* sitting in virtue of its earlier counterpart's
properties.



These accounts of the constituents of singular propositions concerning
an object's changing properties presuppose theories of qualitative
change incompatible with the intuition that a persisting object
directly bears each of its changing qualities at each time it exists,
not inheriting those qualities from the properties of numerically
distinct objects. Endurantists take this intuition as a
centerpiece. One and the numerically same object, endurantists
maintain, exists at different times and directly bearers the qualities
the persisting object possesses at any time. The endurantist must,
then, develop alternative answers to our questions about (10).




On one version of endurantism, relationalism, seemingly monadic
properties like sitting and not sitting are really time indexed
properties like sitting-at-*t* and not sitting-at-*t'*,
which are properties that an object simply has, instantiating them (or
not, as the case may be) absolutely. Unlike the original unindexed
properties of sitting and not sitting, these two indexed properties
are not contraries and so there is no problem saying that one and the
same object simply has both of them. Like the stage theorist, the
relationalist claims that there are in fact a multitude of distinct
propositions related to (10), like the following.



>  
>  (R-101) Bush is sitting-at-*t*.
>  
> 
> (R-102) Bush is sitting-at-*t'*.
> 
> 
> 




(R-101) and (R-102) have absolute truth values,
the first being true simpliciter and the second false simpliciter. An
utterance of the sentence 'Bush is sitting' on *t*
expresses (R-101) while an utterance of that sentence on
*t'* expresses the distinct proposition
(R-102). This much is analogous to the stage
theorist's account. But unlike the stage theorist, the relationalist claims
that there is a single object that directly bears the properties in
question, the time index qualifying the property and not the subject
of predication. So, there is a single common subject constituent to
all of the distinct (R-10) propositions. 




The stage theorist and relationalist both reject the claim that a
persisting object directly bears each of contrary properties it has
when it undergoes a change in qualities, the stage theorist rejecting
that the same object directly bears the qualities at the different
times and the relationalist denying that the properties are genuinely
contrary. Some claim that rejecting either of the claims is tantamount
to rejecting the very notion of a thing's changing its qualities
through time. A proponent of the final version of endurantism, a
dynamic relativist, insists that one and the same object, Bush
himself, in the case of (10), directly bears the genuinely contrary
properties of sitting and not sitting. The relativist avoids
contradiction by claiming that an object doesn't simply have (or lack)
a property simpliciter but has (or lacks) a property relative to a
time. Bush has, relative to *t*, the property of sitting and
lacks, relative to *t'*, the property of not sitting. A
proponent of this view rejects the idea that there is a single,
fundamental, coherent way things are that transcends how things are at
a time. While there are several distinct dynamic accounts worth
distinguishing, what unites them all is the idea that, at the most
fundamental level, a temporally neutral proposition like (10) is true
at one time and false at another. A proponent of this view should be
particularly troubled by our question about the constituent of
(10). While (10) is true at *t* and false at *t'*, the
time relativization does not affect anything intrinsic to the
proposition itself; both Bush and the property remain the same when
the proposition is evaluated at these different times. But then what
is the subject constituent of (10) and what is its connection to the
property of sitting?




There are two competing theories to consider. According to the bundle
theory, an individual is a bundle of properties. According to the
substance theory, an individual is an entity distinct from its
properties in which those properties inhere. 


 One attractions of the bundle theory is its promise of explaining
predication in terms of membership, where the object identified with a
bundle **B** of properties instantiates a property
**F** just in case **F** is among
**B**. This, however, works against a relativist invoking
the bundle theory to answer our second problem. Suppose that the
subject constituent of a singular proposition is a bundle of
properties. What properties are in the bundle? If the object undergoes
a change, then is (i) exactly one member of the pair of contrary
properties among that bundle, (ii) both properties, or is the bundle
(iii) incomplete, containing neither of the pair? (Recall, the
relativist claims that it is the same proposition that is true at one
time and false at another and so nothing intrinsic to the proposition
alters; it must, then, be the same bundle of properties that is the
object constituent in both cases.) None of the options seem
appealing. 


 Suppose that, corresponding to (i), the constituent of (10)
includes exactly one of the contrary properties of sitting and not
sitting: say, not sitting. Then it is hard to see how (10) is true, as
it is at *t*, given that the object constituent is a bundle of
properties including the property of not sitting. Suppose that,
corresponding to (ii), both properties are among the bundle. Then it
is hard to see how Bush exists, given that he is an inconsistent
bundle of properties. Finally, suppose that, corresponding to (iii),
the bundle of properties identified with the object constituent of
(10) contains neither of its changing contrary properties sitting nor
not sitting. Then, given the bundle theorist's offered theory of
predication, (10) is not true, even at *t*. 


 

Consider now the substance theory. The relativist proponent of the
substance theory might claim that the object constituent of (10) is a
bare particular, independent of all its properties in which all those
properties inhere. (10) can then be said to vary its truth value
across time, being true at *t* and false at *t'*,
without more ado, as the constituent of (10) neither includes nor
excludes sitting. (See the entry substance
for further discussion.)




Many reject the substance theory because they think it entails that
something could exist without any properties whatsoever. While
substance theorists do claim that the basic bearers of properties are
independent of those properties, being the entities in which
properties are, in the first instance, instantiated, it does not
follow from this that there is something that can exist without any
properties at all. To see why, distinguish, first, an object's
temporary properties (i.e., the properties it has at some times of its
existence and not at others) from its permanent properties. As far as
the problem of temporal qualitative variation goes, the constituent of
a singular proposition with **o** as a constituent need
not exclude its permanent properties and so need not be a completely
bare particular, as the object instantiates those permanent properties
whenever it exists.




Not all permanent properties are necessary. The property of having
been conceived in Provo is a permanent property of Susan but
contingent, as her mother could have been elsewhere when Susan was
conceived. In response to the modal version of our second problem, a
substance theorist should claim that the constituents of singular
propositions are independent of their contingent properties but
involve their necessary properties. Where **F** is a
necessary property of **o** and **G** a
contingent, temporary property of **o**, the singular
proposition [**o** is **F**] is true at evey
index while the proposition [**o** is **G**]
is true at some times and worlds and false at
others. **o** is thus independent of its contingent but
not necessary properties. The substance theorist can insist, then that
the object constituent of (10) is not a property-less bare particular,
but instead an entity clad in its necessary properties.



Finally, many substance theorists, following Aristotle, have found it
natural to distinguish necessary from essential properties, claiming
that there are some necessary properties that are accidental. For
example, everything necessarily has the property of being
self-identical, but that property is a poor candidate as an essential
property. A thing's essence provides its definition, answering the
*What is it?* question. Being told that the thing is
self-identical does not provide much by way of an answer to that
question, as it does not offer grounds for distinguishing the thing in
question from other things. Contrast this with the general essence of
being human. Being told of some particular that it is a human does
provide insight into what the thing is. And the property being
identical to **o** is a good candidate for a singular
essence. While the latter property does not so much ground the
identity and diversity of **o** as simply presuppose it,
it is a property cognitive grasp of which constitutes an understanding
of what **o** is. 


 A temporary, contingent singular proposition like (10) is true at
some indices and false at others, while a necessary singular
proposition, like the proposition [Bush is such that 2+2=4], has the
same truth value at every index. Essentialist singular propositions,
like the proposition [Bush is human], also have the same truth value
at every index, but, unlike mere necessary propositions, are
intrinsically true, in the sense that an adequate account of the
subject position constituent, and so a full understanding of what that
entity is involves conceiving of it as having that property, 
provides one with the grounds to recognize it as true without further
logical operation or inference. An individual and its essential
properties may still be conceptually distinct entities for the
substance theorist, the substance theorist can still claim that an
individual is nonetheless tightly connected to some of its
properties. The substance theorist can thus does not need to conceive
of the object constituents of singular propositions as bare
particulars.


## 7. Conclusion


There are compelling reasons to countenance singular propositions
as the contents of some sentences of natural language and our
attitudes. But singular propositions give rise to metaphysical
difficulties, as propositions have traditionally been taken to be
necessary, permanent existents, but ordinary objects are
not. Solutions to these difficulties require stances on general issues
in the metaphysics of modality and time. In this essay we have
surveyed some of the reasons for accepting singular propositions,
examined the metaphysical difficulties they create, and distinguished
several strategies for solving those difficulties.