A serpent in the garden?

ABSTRACT

This paper presents Elmar Unnsteinsson’s novel theory of Edenic Intentionalism, on which a speaker cannot refer to an object when the speaker is relevantly confused about its identity. A challenge to the theory is presented and several possible responses considered. The challenge is this: According to Edenic Intentionalism, reference often fails even when speakers seem to refer successfully. Elmar therefore supplements Edenic Intentionalism with an explanation of how communication can succeed without reference. If such an explanation is available, it isn’t clear what need there is for Edenic Intentionalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Edenic intentionalism
• Frege cases
• Semantic reference
• Identity confusion
• Reference nihilism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Elmar has expressed (personal communication) the view that Icelandic patronyms are not names. I therefore refer to him as ‘Elmar’ throughout and list him by his first name in the bibliography, in accordance with Icelandic practice.

2 Heck (2014) and Bowker (2022) present similar views about reference to those presented here.

3 It may be difficult to see how these kinds of confusion are possible. How can I believe that someone is not self-identical, or believe that two different individuals are identical? See Chapter 2 for Elmar’s discussion. I won’t challenge that aspect of the theory here.

4 Of course, there is also a sense in which the speaker referred to Smith, as Smith is in fact the person raking the leaves, but this is not the sense of ‘reference’ that contributes to what they literally say.

5 ‘The speaker’s intention is to utter something which has some specific property that makes it easy for the target audience to figure out which object is the referent … Thus, we can say that the proper function of R-intentional acts is to produce the optimal IB[inference-base]-feature for the hearer’ (108).

6 This is something that Elmar explicitly accepts (154). We can still study the normative aspects of interpretation without relying on a notion of reference.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by HORIZON EUROPE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions [grant number 101063848].