Max De Gaynesford

This paper argues that Henry James’ treatment of balancing in The Golden Bowl—to which Putnam insightfully draws attention—calls for the attunement of philosophy and literary criticism. The process may undermine Putnam’s own reading of the novel, but it also finds new reasons to endorse what his reading was meant to deliver: the confidence that philosophy and thoughtful appreciation of literature have much to contribute to each other, and the conviction that morality can incorporate (Kantian) seriousness about rules alongside (Aristotelian) sensitivity to character and situation.

We need not accommodate facts about meaning if Quine is right about the indeterminacy of subsentential expressions; there can be no such facts to accommodate. Evans argued that Quine’s approach overlooks the ways speakers use predication to endow their use of subsentential expressions with the necessary determinacy. This paper offers a critical assessment of the debate in relation to current arguments about naturalism and shows how Evans’s response depends on a basic claim that turns out to be false

What is it for poetry to be serious and to be taken seriously? What is it to be open to poetry, exposed to its force, attuned to what it says and alive to what it does? These are important questions that call equally on poetry and philosophy. But poetry and philosophy, notoriously, have an ancient quarrel. Maximilian de Gaynesford sets out to understand and convert their mutual antipathy into something mutually enhancing, so that we can begin to answer these and other questions. The key to attuning poetry and philosophy lies in the fact that poetic utterances are best appreciated as doing things. For it is as doing things that the speech act approach in analytic philosophy of language tries to understand all utterances. Taking such an approach, this book offers ways to enhance our appreciation of poetry and to develop our understanding of philosophy. It explores work by a range of poets from Chaucer to Geoffrey Hill and J. H. Prynne, and culminates in an extended study of Shakespeare's Sonnets. What work does poetry set itself, and how does this determine the way it is to be judged? What do poets commit themselves to, and what they may be held responsible for? What role does a poet have, or their audience, or their context, in determining the meaning of a poem, what work it is able to achieve? These are the questions that an attuned approach is able to ask and answer.

The aim of this paper is to show that John McDowell’s approach to perception in terms of “openness”remains problematically vulnerable to the threat of scepticism. The leading thought of the openness view is that objects, events and others in the world, and no substitute, just are what is disclosed in perceptual experience. An account which aims to defend this thought must show, therefore, that the content of perceptual experience does not “all short” of its objects. We shall describe how McDowell defends the openness view with reference to the disjunctive analysis of appearances (sections II and III); argue that his defence includes features which are both inconsistent with and unnecessary for the openness view (section IV); and show how those features call into question the success of McDowell’s route of response to sceptical arguments (section V). Finally, we sketch an alternative approach to openness and conclude that the explosive effect of letting loose the conception of experience advanced by the openness view has yet to be felt in the English‐speaking world (section VI).

‘Rule theory’, or the claim that a simple rule is sufficient to give the meaning of I, is a myth. Theorists have not shown that it is even possible to say what this rule is, what it means, what it determines, or what functions as its context. No such rule could be sufficient to give the meaning of I because there are areas which it does not cover, there are areas in which it applies but is insufficient, there are occasions on which it should not be applied, and there are occasions on which it cannot be applied.

‘Independence’, or the claim that one can use I to express thoughts without having to identify what is being referred to, is a myth. It depends on a two-step argument from explanation: that it would make no sense to ask certain questions, and that we must appeal to ‘independence’ to explain this phenomenon. But other explanations are available, such as a pragmatic account. Alternatives are preferable since ‘independence’ not only threatens the referential character of I, its use to express thoughts about particular objects, and its communicative role, but also undermines a plausible account of the links between I-use and empirical identity criteria.

The referential function of any singular term is to provide a positive answer to the question: ‘which individual is being spoken of?’, that is, to achieve determinacy of reference. What enables a singular term to carry out this function is the ‘determinant’ of the term. Demonstration is not the determinant of deictic terms because they can fulfil their referential function by appeal to utterance-relative uniqueness, or by leading candidacy given the surrounding discourse or perceptual environment.

The inferential role of I is irreducibly deictic. The inferential roles of singular terms are distinguished by appeal to the different mechanisms required to guarantee co-reference in a knowledge-advancing way. Co-typicality is insufficient for variant terms. Anaphoric structures are insufficient for I and other terms used deictically; they depend on identity-judgements and keeping track. The inferential role of I and other deictic terms is irreducibly deictic: it is by singling out individuals made salient in the extra-sentential environment that their uses contribute systematically to what entails what.

One claim about I, regularly made and almost universally endorsed, is that uses of the term are logically guaranteed to refer successfully (if they refer at all). The claim is only rarely formulated perspicuously or argued for. Such obscurity helps disguise the fact that those who profess to advance the claim actually turn out to support not a logical guarantee at all but merely high security through fortunate coincidence. This is not surprising. For we have no good reason to accept the claim – granted, any use of I is apt to refer successfully; but that can be explained by pragmatic features of its use. And we have some reason to reject the claim – it is notoriously difficult to see how genuine reference and guaranteed success do not exclude each other when considered as properties of the logic of any term.

The historical development towards the current standard account of I as a ‘pure indexical’ has two main features. First, the gradual acquisition of a logical apparatus which can distinguish genuine from non-singular referring expressions, and categorize the latter into names, descriptive terms, indexicals, and so on. Second, the development and acceptance of three supposed doctrines: that a simple rule is sufficient to give the meaning of I ; that one can use I to express thoughts without having to identify what is being referred to ; and that as a matter of the meaning of I, any use of the term is logically guaranteed against failure to refer.

I satisfies its expressive use in the deictic mode. It is the expressive use of any singular term to express thoughts. This requires that the speaker know the positive answer to the question: ‘which individual is being spoken of?’, that is, the term must achieve discriminability of reference for the speaker. Deictic terms require salience if they are to achieve discriminability of reference for the speaker, i.e., it is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use of a deictic term. It is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use of I.

I has the logical character, inferential role, referential function, expressive use, and communicative role of a deictic term. Uses of I share the referential security and identificatory ease of certain uses of other deictic terms. I has a distinct character within the group due to kind salience, expressive demonstration, communicative demonstration, and certain other features. These findings show that the whole standard account of indexicals and demonstratives, due to Kaplan, rests on two false principles and must be replaced. More positively, these findings offer new ways to explore first-personal thinking and self-knowledge, together with broader questions dependent on them such as practical reasoning, belief-acquisition, and belief-ascription.

I fulfils its communicative role in the deictic mode. It is the communicative role of any singular term to communicate thoughts. This requires that the audience know the positive answer to the question: ‘which individual is being spoken of?’, that is, the term must achieve discriminability of reference for the audience. Deictic terms require salience if they are to achieve discriminability of reference for the audience, i.e., it is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use of a deictic term. It is as the individual made salient that one must identify the referent of a use of I.

Ordinarily, what we experience does not jump from one place or time to another—we have to pass through all the intermediate times and places. But in films, what we experience can jump in both dimensions, both separately and together. This phenomenon has been memorably described in film criticism by Rudolph Arnheim and it has been deployed philosophically by Suzanne Langer and Colin McGinn. But discussion of space-time discontinuity remains hampered by the lack of attunement between film critical and philosophical investigations. Without philosophy, the valuable insights of film criticism lack rigour and have been blunted by conceptual imprecision and confusion; without film criticism, the provocative claims of philosophy lack support, floating free of the evidence that a suitably sharp awareness of the details of particular films alone provides. This paper brings philosophy and film criticism to bear on each other so that we stand to make headway on the issue of film and space-time discontinuity.

This paper argues that Henry James’ treatment of balancing in The Golden Bowl—to which Putnam insightfully draws attention—calls for the attunement of philosophy and literary criticism. The process may undermine Putnam’s own reading of the novel, but it also finds new reasons to endorse what his reading was meant to deliver: the confidence that philosophy and thoughtful appreciation of literature have much to contribute to each other, and the conviction that morality can incorporate (Kantian) seriousness about rules alongside (Aristotelian) sensitivity to character and situation.