the boundaries of language

In Language Turned on Itself, Cappelen and Lepore argue that any viable theory of quotation must preserve the following disquotational schema and strong disquotational schema:

QS: ' 'e' ' quotes 'e',

SDS: Only ' 'e' ' quotes 'e',

where both occurances of 'e' are replaced by any quotable item (25-6).

Now, Cappelen and Lepore's own minimalist theory simply takes QS as 'the fundamental axiom governing the semantics of quotation expressions' (124). So it's in the bag. Cappelen and Lepore go on to argue that QS entails SDS, so long as quotation expressions are unambiguous. Here's their argument from p128:

"- From QS it follows that for any quotable item e, ' 'e' ' quotes 'e'. If ' 'e' ' quotes some quotable other than 'e', say 'a', then it follows that the quotation expression ' 'e' ' is ambiguous (because it quotes both 'e' and 'a').

- But, as we argued in Ch. 7, quotation expressions are unambiguous (and context-insensitive and not semantically indeterminate).

- So the quotation expression ' 'e' ' can only quote 'e'.

- So SDS follows."

But notice the conclusion reached isn't SDS at all; we wanted to reach the claim that only ' 'e' ' quotes 'e', not that
' 'e' ' only quotes 'e'. And these simply aren't the same claim (even if they turn out to be equivalent).

Fortunately I think there's a quick fix to their argument so that they clearly get the result they want. For suppose that something other than ' 'e' ', let's say ' 'a' ', quotes 'e'. From QS it follows that ' 'a' ' also quotes 'a'. But then ' 'a' ' quotes both 'a' and 'e', and hence would be ambiguous. So, if quotation expressions are unambiguous, only ' 'e' ' quotes 'e', as required.

This is, I submit, how Cappelen and Lepore should have run their argument. QS is exploited to show that if something other than ' 'e' ' quotes 'e', that quotation expression would have to quote something else also, and hence would be ambiguous.

Labels: Cappelen and Lepore, Context Dependence, Philosophy of Language