单称命题、真理与指称

摘要

The problem concerning the intelligibility and legitimacy of the notion of singular propositions is at the center of much contemporary disputes between Fregean and Russellian se-mantics. The notion of singular propositions is at odds with a number of appealing assumptions when such propositions are embedded within modal settings. Plantinga, among others, devel-oped a more or less standard argument against the notion of singular propositions, purporting to establish its inconsistency. A promising strategy of meeting this challenge is to make a bold distinction between two ways that a proposition can be true, namely, the distinction between truth-in a possible world and truth-at a world, to such an effect that the idea of truth-at ends up consistent with the appealing assumptions. This article attempts to investigate its viability. Based on considerations of the connection between truth and reference, namely that the refer-ence of a sentence is a function of that of its constituents, I argue that the distinction is really reducible to the one between obstinate referential rigidity and persistent referential rigidity. And this latter distinction could be accommodated within the two-dimensional semantic framework of Kaplan. The foundational idea ensuring the viability of the Kaplan framework is the notion of reference“carrying in”. I construct a special variant of empty names in the way Evans intro-duces his descriptive names, which, I argue, Kaplan’s idea of“carrying in”would have a hard time to accommodate. And as a result, the strategy of meeting the challenge leveled against singular propositions is not successful in the end.%单称命题观念的可理解性和合法性是当代弗雷格主义语义学与罗素主义语义学争论的焦点问题。在模态结构下，单称命题观念与一系列强有力的基本假设相冲突。普兰廷加等人发展了一个专门针对单称命题的标准论证，试图通过归谬论证来证明单称命题观念是不融贯的。面对之于单称命题理论的这一挑战，一种颇具潜力的应对策略是区分两种真理观念，即命题在“世界里”为真与命题在“世界上”为真的区分。此策略试图表明，承诺单称命题“在世界上为真”并不导致与基本假设相冲突。本文在此专门考察这一策略的可行性。基于真理问题与指称问题的内在联系，即语句指称（真值）是语词指称的函项，我们力图证明，两种真理观念的区分实际上可还原为著名的顽固指称固定性和持续指称固定性的区分。而后一区分可以相当严格地在卡普兰的二维语义学框架下得到说明。此框架的实质基础是指称纳入的概念。文章基于对空名语义学的相关分析，通过借鉴埃文斯的描述性名称构造方式，构造了一种独特的绝对空名。最后，以此为基础，我们试图表明卡普兰框架下的指称“纳入”概念难以贯彻到底，继而，以之为基础来为单称命题观念提供辩护的策略也难以维系。