UNIVERSITY of NOTRE DAME

COLLEGE of ARTS and LETTERS

The Philosophy of David Kaplan

Joseph Almog and Paolo Leonardi (eds.), The Philosophy of David Kaplan, Oxford UP, 2009, 324pp., $99.00 (hbk), ISBN
9780195367881.

Reviewed byRobert van Rooij, Universiteit van Amsterdam

David Kaplan is certainly one of the most influential philosophers of the last 50 years, and this book is a very interesting collection of
articles by mostly prominent philosophers focusing both on Kaplan's own innovations in the philosophy of language and philosophical
logic, as well as further reflections on these themes.
Kaplan is perhaps best known for his work on de re belief attributions (in "Quantifying in"), the semantics of indexicals and
demonstratives (in "Demonstratives"), and the paradox of possible world semantics named after him. Indeed, most of the papers in this
volume deal with these issues. But especially in the second chapter of the book, due to Anthony Anderson, it becomes clear that
Kaplan contributed much more. Relatively well known among modern philosophers is his joint work on semantic paradoxes with
Richard Montague, and his work on the relation between a Churchian conception of sense and denotation and a Russelian one. The
information that Kaplan also wrote some important papers on theories of explanation was completely new to me. Most important of
all, of course, this whole book accentuates once more that Kaplan was one of the founders of the direct theory of reference, and as
such one of the most influential proponents of modern essentialism and the anti-Cartesian externalistic picture of meaning and
intentionality.
The first three papers of the book, by Joseph Almog, Anthony Anderson and Nathan Salmon, deal with Kaplan's life and work. I
found them very interesting, especially because they give a nice impression of the man (Kaplan) and the atmosphere created by such
important founders of philosophical logic at UCLA (e.g., Carnap, Church, Montague, Kamp) and around it (e.g., van Fraassen) during
the sixties and the beginning of the seventies.
This book contains two papers about Kaplan's paradox of possible world semantics. They are also the two most technical papers in it.
Kaplan argues that the following principle appears to be logically consistent: For any proposition p, it is possible that the thinker
entertains the proposition at time t and that p is the only proposition that he entertains at that time. However, Kaplan shows that this
principle gives rise to the paradoxical conclusion that there are as many possible worlds as there are propositions (i.e., sets of possible
worlds). He suggests as a solution ramification (propositions are hierarchically ordered and propositional quantifiers used in any
proposition range only over lower levels of the hierarchy) because his paradox is closely related to the liar. Both Anthony Anderson
and Sten Lindstrm argue that ramification is too costly and suggest alternatives. Anderson comes close to arguing that Kaplan's
principle is logically inconsistent after all, while Lindstrm's proposal is closer to ramification in suggesting that the domain over
which propositional quantifiers range is restricted. For Lindstrm, the reason for this restriction is the context dependence of the
(propositional) quantifiers, and not their type. In this sense, Lindstrm makes use of a two-dimensional semantics developed by
Kaplan for other purposes to solve his own problem.
The papers by Terence Parsons and by Christopher Peacocke discuss the hierarchy of senses. It is well known that according to Frege
the embedded sentence in "Mary believes " refers to its sense, rather than its standard referent (its truth value). But what then does
refer to in the sentence "John thinks that Mary believes that "? A straightforward generalization of the Fregean reasoning suggests
that it can't just be the ordinary sense of , and it in fact must be the sense of the sense of . If this reasoning is accepted, however,
Frege seems to be committed to the existence of a hierarchy of senses: the doctrine that each expression must have associated with it
not just one sense, but an infinite number of them. This seems problematic, for instance because it suggests that even very simple
languages are impossible to learn. A natural reaction would be to propose that for any expression , the sense of is identical to the
sense of the sense of . Peacocke argues against this proposal, and Parsons even shows formally that it leads to disaster. What both
authors conclude is that such a Fregean hierarchy does indeed exist. However, they propose (which I take to be the obvious reaction in
this framework) that this does not lead to any problem, because for any expression , the sense of the sense of is functionally
dependent on the sense of . Both authors motivate this solution by comparing it to Kaplan's own use of standard names to account
for quantifying in. Working myself in the framework of possible worlds semantics, I have to admit that I can't make much sense of the
problem, but I can imagine that these papers are interesting if we take Frege very seriously.
According to the traditional internalist conception of intentionality, a proper name is about an individual if we associate with that
proper name a list of predicates that single out this individual as its unique reference. In the spirit of this conception, in his famous
paper on quantifying in, Kaplan tried to reduce Ralph's de re belief about Ortcutt that he is a spy to a better understood de dicto belief.
Kaplan's requirement for the belief to be about Ortcutt was for Ralph to be acquainted with Ortcutt. In a rather long paper, Tyler Burge
argues against the Russellian thesis that acquaintance should play this important role. Similarly, Robert Stalnaker convincingly argues
that a Russellian acquaintance relation is much too demanding for having a belief about a particular individual; Ralph can have a de
re belief about Hillary just because he has heard of her via a news item. But next he points out that Kaplan's use of the traditional
conception of intentionality by thinking of acquaintance in terms of having a vivid name of the object the belief is about is by itself
already problematic. Such a vivid name is a kind of description, which involves predicates, but this only gives rise to the question of
what these predicates themselves are about. In line with the theory of direct reference and an externalistic view of intentionality,
Stalnaker argues that in giving a belief attribution we try to characterize how the agent sees the world using resources we find in the
world as we take it to be.
Very similar in spirit to Stalnaker's paper is the contribution of Erin L. Eaker. According to a first natural analysis of belief sentences,
"John believes that " is true iff John would sincerely assert to himself: "". Although everybody will give up on this idea on second
thought, something like this idea has given rise to finer and finer-grained conceptions of content (of belief). Eaker rightly points out
that belief attributions are not always used in order to characterize the belief state of the agent as the agent sees it herself, i.e. from an
internalist perspective. Of course, due to the existence of de re belief attributions everybody knows this, but Eaker still argues that it is
exactly the misconception that they do that has given rise to all these well-known puzzles of belief. I completely agree: once we
realize that attitude attributions are not exclusively made to explain the agent's behavior, but can serve all types of pragmatic services,
and can also be used, for instance, to influence the audience, the traditional puzzles about belief don't necessarily force one to adopt
very fine-grained conceptions of content and belief. I also agree with Eaker (and David Lewis) that Kripke's puzzle of belief is most
naturally explained in terms of de re belief attributions (even if Kripke doesn't like this).
The shortest paper of the book is by Stavroula Glezakos. Short, but nice. The author argues that Frege could, in fact, not pose Frege's
puzzle. The puzzle was of course to explain the difference in cognitive status of "a = a" versus "a = b". The obvious solution seems to
be that in contrast to the second, the same name is used two times in the first case. This, however, raises the question what it is for two
names to be 'the same'. Sameness of type of linguistic expression is obviously too coarse-grained, but sameness of token is much too
fine-grained. If it also involves the relation between the occurrence of the term and the referent, the difference in cognitive status
cannot be explained. Glezakos provides contextual evidence that according to Frege, one name is the same as another iff they both
have the same sense. But if that is so, Frege's puzzle does not even arise!
It is well known that Kaplan (in "Demonstratives") gave a clear and convincing semantics of indexicals like "I" and "now". John Perry
reminds us that in the same work Kaplan also discusses true demonstratives like "that" and "he" and that Kaplan recognized that their
semantics is not as straightforward. The reason is that the referent of the speaker's use of a demonstrative, thought of as a type of
expression, can be very much undetermined by the context, if it consists -- as Kaplan argued -- just of me, now, here and this world.
Following some suggestions of Kaplan's "Afterthoughts", and based on a very detailed discussion of some intricate examples, Perry
argues that the directing intention that accompanies the use of a demonstrative should be part of the character (and not the content) of
the demonstrative. Moreover, he makes the completely natural (though perhaps not very popular) suggestion that such an account
should be used not only for demonstrative, but also for anaphoric, pronouns. Although I like Perry's suggestion, it has to be admitted
that it sounds rather different from what Kaplan did with indexicals. Kaplan provided a theory of type of expressions. Adopting
Perry's suggestion for demonstratives, it comes much closer to a theory that provides a meaning to tokens of expressions.
The papers of Edward Keenan, Timothy Williamson, and Kit Fine are less closely related to the work of Kaplan, and to the other
papers in the volume. Keenan gives a detailed overview of the theory of generalized quantifiers, to which he is one of the most
important contributors. Although the theory of generalized quantifiers is perhaps of interest mostly to linguists and logicians, it also
has philosophical impact. Perhaps this is mainly due to the fact that Russell's idea that the syntax of natural language is misleading --
which was so influential in early analytic philosophy -- has lost almost all support among natural language semanticists.
Timothy Williamson argues that pejoratives expressions, like "Boche" (for "German"), poses a problem for an inferentialist
conception of meaning. According to this latter conception, the meaning of expressions can be given in terms of the way we reason
with them, in terms of elimination and introduction rules. According to an elimination rule on one such proposal (due to Dummett),
we can infer from "x is a Boche" to "x is cruel". Yet, as Williamson points out, someone might perfectly well understand the word
"Boche" without ever making the above inference. Williamson proposes that it is much better to treat the insulting part of a pejorative
as a Gricean conventional implicature. This allows "Boche" and "German" to have the same semantic (denotational) meaning, but still
can explain why the use of the different expressions give rise to different inferences. The solution of Williamson's paper will not be
very surprising to linguists, but his use of pejoratives to argue against an inferential account of meaning is innovative.
The focus of Kit Fine's paper is on the meaning of variables. He argues that no existing account can explain why the semantic role of
the variables x and y is the same in the sentences "x > 0" and "y > 0", but different in the sentences "x > y" and "x > x". He argues that
in order to assign semantic values to expressions we should also take account of semantic relationships between expressions that may
not be grounded in their intrinsic semantic features (what the expression all by itself [might] refer to). As a result, semantics should be
concerned not only with the assignment of semantic values, but also with the assignment of semantic connections. Fine works out his
ideas by giving a connectionistic semantics for first-order logic, and suggests that it might have implications for how to deal with, for
example, Frege's puzzle: why "a = a" might have a different cognitive status than "a = b".
This book is called The Philosophy of David Kaplan. I am not sure whether I now know better what his philosophy is. I don't think
David Kaplan would mind; what is important is problems, not solutions. The articles in this book make clear that the problems
discussed and brought up by David Kaplan are still worth thinking about.
David Kaplan (philosopher)

David Benjamin Kaplan (born September 17, 1933) is the Hans Reichenbach Professor of Scientific Philosophy
at the University of California, Los Angeles Department of Philosophy. His philosophical work focuses on
the philosophy of language, logic, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of Frege and Russell.[1] He is
best known for his work on demonstratives, propositions, and reference in intensional contexts. He was
elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1983[2] and a Corresponding Fellow of
the British Academy in 2007.[3]
Kaplan began as an undergraduate at UCLA in 1951, admitted on academic probation "owing to poor
grades."[4] While he started as a music major due to his interest in jazz, he was soon persuaded by his
academic counselor Veronica Kalish to take the logic course taught by her husband Don Kalish.[4] Kaplan went
on to earn a B.A. in philosophy in 1956 and a B.A. in mathematics in 1957,[5] continuing in the department of
philosophy as a graduate student. He was the last doctoral student supervised by Rudolf Carnap, receiving his
Ph.D. in 1964 with a thesis entitled "Foundations of Intensional Logic." His work continues the strongly formal
approach to philosophy long associated with UCLA (as represented by mathematician-logician-philosophers
such as Alonzo Church and Richard Montague).
In most years, Kaplan teaches an upper division course on philosophy of language, focusing on the work of
either Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, or P.F. Strawson. He also teaches a related course on Kripke's Naming
and Necessity. His lively[opinion] lectures often focus on selected paragraphs from Russell's "On Denoting" as
well as Frege's "On Sense and Reference."
Kaplan's work is primarily focused on issues in the philosophy of language and logic. These ventures, however,
sometimes take him into related issues in other fields, such as the philosophy of mind.
Semantics for indexicals and demonstratives[edit]
Kaplan's most influential contribution to the philosophy of language is his semantic analysis
of indexicals and demonstratives, which is outlined (in progressively greater detail) in a series of articles:
"Dthat," "On The Logic of Demonstratives," "Demonstratives," and "Afterthoughts".[citation needed]
Kaplan's insights center on two key distinctions, which may be seen as responses to the inability of Frege's
semantics to deal with context-sensitivity in language. First, in place of Frege's categories of Sinn and
Bedeutung (typically translated as "sense" and "reference"), Kaplan introduces the notions
of character and content. The former is the linguistic meaning of an expression, and the latter is
the proposition (or propositional component) expressed by an expression in a context. Second, Kaplan makes
an explicit distinction between the context of an utterance and the circumstances of evaluation of the
proposition expressed by an utterance. Context can be formalized as a set composed of a speaker, a place, a
time, and a possible world (and, depending on the analysis of demonstratives, perhaps a set of either
demonstrations or directing intentions). Circumstances of evaluation play a role very similar to possible
worlds in modal semantics.
From these rough distinctions, Kaplan then defines character and content more precisely. Character defines a
function associated by convention with an expression, which takes contextual elements as arguments and
yields content as values. Content, on the other hand, defines a function taking as arguments those elements of
the circumstances of evaluation relevant to determining extension, and yielding
the extension (referent or truth-value) as a value.
Two more important notions can thus be defined. We can say that an expression is context-sensitive if and
only if its character defines a non-constant function (i.e., if, and only if it yields different content-values given
different context-element-arguments). An expression is context-insensitive if and only if its character defines a
constant function. Also, the distinction between character and content breaks down in the case of context-
insensitive expressions, and convention associates each such expression directly with a content.
On the other hand, an expression is directly referential if, and only if its content defines a constant function
from circumstances of evaluation to extension. Kaplan also characterizes directly referential expressions as
those that refer without the mediation of a Fregean Sinn, or as those whose only contribution to content are
their referents. Thus, in the case of directly referential expressions, we can say that the distinction between
content and referent breaks down.
Any singular term is directly referential according to Kaplan. So the following intuitive picture emerges: the
meaning of an indexical is a rule taking us from some part of the context to an expression, and the meaning of
an expression is a bit of propositional content that determines the extension in each possible world.
Kaplan goes on to use this semantic scheme to explain phenomena concerning the relationship between
necessary and a priori truth. An utterance is said to be necessarily true if, and only if the content it expresses is
true in every possible circumstance; while an utterance is said to be true a priori if, and only if it expresses, in
each context, a content that is true in the circumstances that context is part of. So, "I am here now" is true a
priori because each of the indexical expressions used ('I', 'here', 'now') directly refer to the speaker, location,
and time of utterance. But the utterance is not necessarily true, because any given speaker might have been in
at a different place at that time, given different circumstances of evaluation. On the other hand, "I am David
Kaplan," as spoken by David Kaplan, is necessarily true, since "I" and "David Kaplan" (both directly referential
expressions) refer to the same object in every circumstance of evaluation. The same statement is not true a
priori, however, because if it were spoken in a different context (e.g., one with a speaker other than Kaplan), it
might be false.
Another result of Kaplan's theory is that it solves Frege's Puzzle for indexicals. Roughly, the puzzle here arises
as indexicals are thought to be directly referential, i.e., they do not refer by means of a Fregean Sinn.
However, Frege explains cognitive value in terms of Sinn. Thus the following problem emerges: The sentences
"I am David Kaplan", spoken by David Kaplan, "he is David Kaplan", spoken by someone pointing at David
Kaplan, and "David Kaplan is David Kaplan", spoken by anyone, all express the same content and refer to the
same individuals. Yet each of the three has a different cognitive value (it is possible to rationally believe one
while denying another). Kaplan explains this by associating cognitive value with character rather than content,
thus remedying the problem. (There are problems with this approach, which Kaplan explores in
"Afterthoughts".)
Kaplan's semantic theory faces a problem, however, with proper names, which seem both directly
referential and context-insensitive. On Kaplan's account, this means that constant functions are defined by
both a proper name's character and its content, which would imply that proper names have no meaning other
than their reference. While this approach to proper names is not novel (John Stuart Mill being an early
advocate), Frege's Puzzle is thought to cast doubt on any such account. Many philosophers have attempted to
deal with this issue (notably Joseph Almog, David Braun, Michael Devitt, John Perry, Nathan Salmon, Scott
Soames, and Howard Wettstein), but no solution has been widely accepted.
Quantifying in[edit]
In his article "Quantifying In" (1968), Kaplan discusses issues in intensional and indirect (Ungerade, or oblique)
discourse, such as substitution failure, existential generalization failure, and the distinction between de re / de
dicto propositional attitude attributions. Such issues were made salient primarily by W.V. Quine in his
"Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes" (1956).
The phrase "quantifying in" comes from Quine's discussion of what he calls "relational" constructions of an
existential statement. In such cases, a variable bound by an anterior variable-binding operator occurs within a
non-extensional context such as that created by a 'that' clause, or, alternatively, by propositional attitude or
modal operators. The "quantifying in" idiom captures the notion that the variable-binding operator (for
example, the existential quantifier 'something') reaches into, so to speak, the non-extensional context to bind
the variable occurring within its scope. For example (using a propositional attitude clause), if one quantifies
into the statement "Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy," the result is (partly formalized):
(x) (Ralph believes that x is a spy)
["There is someone Ralph believes is a spy"]
In short, Kaplan attempts (among other things) to provide an apparatus (in a Fregean vein) that allows
one to quantify into such intensional contexts even if they exhibit the kind of substitution failure that
Quine discusses. If successful, this shows that Quine is wrong in thinking that substitution failure
implies existential generalization failure for (or inability to quantify into) the clauses that exhibit such
substitution failure.
Logic Pedagogy & Logic 2000 Program[edit]
In recent years, Kaplan has devoted much effort to teaching introductory logic. A main contribution
has been his work to create a computer program, Logic 2000, on which students can do their
assignments. Logic 2000 is currently available for use free of charge. The program has many parts,
including a derivations module, a symbolizations module, a models module, and much more. The
program was initially developed to complement the logic text of Donald Kalish and Richard Montague,
and the derivations module therefore uses their distinctive natural deduction system. Perhaps the
most significant features of the program are its feedback and error-checking capacities. The program
can provide a student with immediate and extensive error messages detailing any errors the student
may have made on the problem he or she is currently working on.[6]