Is There an Epistemic Condition on Samesaying?

Mayank Bora
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of North Bengal
Plan of the Presentation

1. What is samesaying?

2. Trading on the Identity of Content

3. The Epistemic Account of Samesaying

4. Problems with the Epistemic Account

5. Deference and Samesaying

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1. What is Samesaying

Samesaying: It is the relation of sameness of content that occurs between different

utterances of an expression (or different expressions) by the same or different
individuals.

Successful Communication: Cases of successful communication provide

paradigmatic examples.

Thus samesaying is the sameness of content that is public, shared, and transmitted
through communication.

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1. What is samesaying: Reference vs Content Finer
Grained than Reference

Samesaying between expressions is not simply a matter of their referring to the

same individual.
●
Empty Names: We can successfully communicate about Santa Claus, though there is no such
individual to refer to and thus “Santa Claus” does not refer.
●
Frege Cases: “Superman is strong” and “Clark Kent is strong” may not mean the same even
though “Superman” and “Clark Kent” corefer.

Samesaying is a stricter notion than coreference. It is the sameness of content finer

grained than reference.

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1. What is Samesaying: Beyond Communication

Samesaying is not limited to cases of successful communication.

●
Intrasubjective Cases: One’s own different utterances of the same name samesay.
●
Intersubjective Cases (non-communicating): The utterances of the same expression by
people not directly communicating with each other can also samesay.

We shall ignore these cases for the current purposes, mainly because it seems
that an account for samesaying in cases of successful communication can be
extended easily to such cases as well.

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2. Trading on the Identity of Content: Inference

Campbell (1987) asked what is required for the validity of an inference.

Consider the following, clearly valid, inference:
Premise 1: Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India
Premise 2: Narendra Modi is a septuagenarian
Conclusion: A septuagenarian is the Prime Minister of India

Trading on the Identity of Content:

Our grasp of the inference is based on the presumption (not discovery) that different
uses of the name “Narendra Modi” are identical in content.
As both Prosser (2019) and Schroeter (2012) point out, this trading on the identity of
content also characterizes cases of successful communication.

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2. Trading on the Identity of Content: Its Epistemic
Nature

If we are relying, or trading, on the identity of content of the different

utterances of the relevant expressions then we have believe, if not know, that
the different utterances of the relevant expressions have the same content.

Some philosophers think that this epistemic character of cases of trading on

identity of content is central to an account of samesaying.

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3. The Epistemic Account of Samesaying: Frege on
the Sameness of Sense

Frege himself seemed to take something epistemic to play an important role

in samesaying, as we may see from the passage below.
Suppose ... that Herbert Garner knows that Dr. Gustav Lauben was born on 13th
September, 1875 in N.N. and this is not true of anyone else; against this, suppose that
he does not know where Dr. Lauben now lives nor indeed anything about him. On the
other hand, suppose Leo Peter [who knows the doctor as the only doctor living in a
particular house] does not know that Dr. Lauben was born on 13th September 1875, in
N.N. Then as far as the proper name “Dr. Gustav Lauben” is concerned, Herbert Garner
and Leo Peter do not speak the same language, since, although they do in fact refer to
the same man with this name, they do not know that they do so. Therefore Herbert
Garner does not associate the same thought with the sentence “Dr. Gustav Lauben
has been wounded” as Leo Peter wants to express with it. (Frege 1956: 297)

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3. The Epistemic Account of Samesaying: Onofri,
Prosser, and Schroeter on Samesaying

Philosophers such as Onofri (2018), Prosser (2019), and Schroeter (2012)

building on Frege reach (specific versions of) the following generalized
Epistemic Account of Samesaying (EAS):

Two token expressions have the relation of samesaying between them iff they have the
relation between them of their speaker(s) having mutual epistemic access to the
sameness of content (between the token expressions).

Insight behind EAS: Samesaying is a narrower notion than coreference so is

trading on identity. So, what constitutes trading on identity, which is
understood as epistemic, constitutes samesaying.

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4. Problems with the Epistemic Account: Knowledge
of Coreference

Knowledge of coreference (Onofri and possibly Prosser):

●
Knowledge is factive. Therefore, coreference is necessary for the knowledge of
coreference.
●
This means taking knowledge of coreference as a necessary condition on
samesaying entails that samesaying requires coreference.
●
But, coreference requires that the concerned expressions refer. This would mean
that the account cannot capture the samesaying of empty (non-referring) names.

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4. Problems with the Epistemic Account: Knowledge
of Samesaying

Knowledge of samesaying:
●
The factivity of knowledge means that taking knowledge of samesaying as a
component in the definition of samesaying makes samesaying itself a component of
the definition, making the account circular.
●
In order to see that two expressions samesay we would then be required to have a prior
grasp of their standing in the samesaying relation.

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4. Problems with the Epistemic Account: Non-Factive
Attitudes

Non-factive attitudes like believing or taking to be (Schroeter):

Counterexample: Say, A uses ‘Narendra Modi’ to talk to B meaning it to refer to
Narendra Modi. But B understands A’s use of ‘Narendra Modi’ as referring to Amit
Shah (due to a small mental lapse, or whatever reason you may imagine, it does
not matter). The conversation continues and no one spots the error. Here the
speakers both take themselves to be talking about the same person as the other
speaker, yet clearly here we do not have the case of successful communication,
or the sameness of content (neither coreference nor samesaying).

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5. Deference and Samesaying: Prosser on Deference

Prosser (2019: Section 5) on deference and locking of reference (My summarizing

paraphrase):

We may be free to come up with new words even those that are homophonous with words already
shared in the community. But, we cannot choose the reference of a shared word. In using a
common word shared amongst a community we defer to the community for its reference. It is by
means of this that sharing common words ensures a locking of reference between our uses of the
word and those of our conversational partners, since the use/understanding of both is locked with
that of the linguistic community.

Prosser, of course, understands this locking of reference to be epistemic in nature.

For him, while mutual deference ensures the mutual epistemic relation it is the
latter which constitutes samesaying.

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5. Deference and Samesaying: Deference as the Key
to Samesaying

I think this picture is mostly correct, even if misleading. But, it in no way

motivates taking samesaying to be constituted of any specification of mutual
access to the sameness of content. It seems to me that in this picture all the work
that needs to be done is being done by deference itself.

Bringing about samesaying

Grounding trading on the identity of content
Allowing knowledge of/belief in samesaying

Deferring for reference does not mean or consist in knowing or believing

anything. As I see it, it is these deferential intentions alone that lead to
samesaying, not any epistemic relations that may piggyback on them.

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Conclusion

The idea that samesaying consists in mutual epistemic accessibility to the

sameness of content seems attractive on the face of it but once we try to
construct precise accounts of samesaying in terms of any (broad stroke)
specification of mutual epistemic access to the sameness of content we realize
that any such account is bound to either overgenerate, be circular, or
undergenerate. The Epistemic Relationists have honed in on the wrong
relation. Even by their own light it seems that the relation that is best seen to
underlie samesaying is deference. I conclude then that in order to come up
with the correct account of samesaying we need to focus on the notion of
deference and how exactly it effects samesaying.

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References

Campbell, J. (1987) ‘Is Sense Transparent?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 88:
273–92.

Frege, G. (1956) ‘The Thought’, Mind, 65: 289–311. [Originally published in 1918-19]

Onofri, A (2018) ‘The Publicity of Thought’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 68: 521-41.

Prosser, S. (2019) ‘Shared modes of presentation’, Mind & Language, 34: 465–82.

Schroeter, L. (2012) ‘Bootstrapping Our Way to Samesaying’, Synthese, 189: 177–97.

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