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If two names, "N1" and "N2", are introduced into the language for exactly the same purpose, but are made known to a speaker, S, in different circumstances, then it's possible for the sentences "S believes that N1 = N1" and "S believes that N1 = N2" to have different truth-values. How is this possible on an externalist theory of concepts?

Here's an example:

Suppose that the ancients introduced the names "Hesperus" and "The Evening Star" into the language by pointing to the relevant object in the evening sky and declaring "We hereby name that object 'Hesperus' and 'The Evening Star'".

Now scroll forward however many centuries, and suppose that the name "The Evening Star" is made known to Dave by his mother, when she points to the relevant object in the evening sky and tells him "That's called 'The Evening Star'".

Suppose further that the name "Hesperus" is made known to Dave by his schoolteacher, when he tells Dave "Another name for the planet Venus is 'Hesperus'".

Dave makes no association between what his mother has told him and what his schoolteacher has told him, and so he doesn't believe that The Evening Star is Hesperus, even though he believes wholeheartedly that The Evening Star is The Evening Star and Hesperus is Hesperus.

Remster
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    Dave was incorrect? – Scott Rowe Jun 22 '23 at 10:30
  • Which hat do you have on as you ask? Epistemology? Ontology? Pedagogy? – Rushi Jun 22 '23 at 10:59
  • Semantics. I want to understand how an externalist theory can explain the semantic difference between "Hesperus is The Evening Star" and "Hesperus is Hesperus", in the scenario I've given. I've rephrased my final sentence to clarify this. – Remster Jun 22 '23 at 11:13
  • See [Frege's theory](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frege/#FreLan). – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 22 '23 at 11:23
  • The causal theory of reference is about normative reference of terms, what is considered "correct". That neither Dave nor his mother mastered the meaning of "evening star", and have erroneous beliefs because of it, is not something the theory is meant to explain, or that needs much explaining. People err. – Conifold Jun 22 '23 at 11:31
  • If Dave can unfailingly pick out The Evening Star in the evening sky, in what sense hasn't he mastered the meaning of "The Evening Star" (by an externalist's lights)? – Remster Jun 22 '23 at 11:44
  • Dave thinks it is a star. The "origin" is not just the dubbing. Whatever was the case at the dubbing, subsequent historical chain pronounced such inference incorrect. See [Wettstein](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2026531) explaining that externalists intend "*to understand the institutionalized conventions in accordance with which our terms refer... These conventions associate names not with properties, but directly with individuals. Notice that this account gives us no help at all with the question of a particular speaker's cognitive perspective on the referent of a name he utters.*" – Conifold Jun 22 '23 at 12:13
  • I feel as if I've confused the matter by stating that Dave believes The Evening Star to be a star. I included that only to make the story more credible, but it's irrelevant to the question I'm trying to ask. I've also confused the matter by referring to "externalism" without specifying that I'm talking about externalism regarding the contents of mental states (i.e. concepts), and not externalism regarding the fixing of word reference. I've heavily edited my original post to try and remove these confusions. – Remster Jun 22 '23 at 15:16
  • Would Dave agree with the statement "the name 'Hesperous' refers to a different object than the name 'Evening Star' does."? Is that what the not-equal symbol in your sentences is meant to convey? – Dave Jun 22 '23 at 17:29
  • I should have written "=" rather than "≠" (now fixed), but I can reformulate your question accordingly: Would Dave agree with the statement "The name 'Hesperus' refers to the same object as the name 'The Evening Star' does"? No, I suppose not. – Remster Jun 22 '23 at 18:20
  • If that's what you're saying then I'm in the "Dave is simply mistaken" camp. – Dave Jun 22 '23 at 18:58
  • I think that misses the point. It's a given that Dave is mistaken. The question is how it's logically possible to believe that Hesperus is Hesperus but not to believe that The Evening Star is Hesperus, when the concepts of Hesperus and The Evening Star are identical? They should be numerically the same belief. – Remster Jun 22 '23 at 20:05
  • Externalists believe that concepts have so-called "wide" content, parts of it are outsourced to the environment or linguistic community through which the concept is acquired. It is not at all surprising that users are not in full command of this content when they use a concept, and that it is easy for them to have inconsistent beliefs, as they cannot track logical implications. However, when made aware of the full content of the concept he did use, Dave will admit that he was mistaken. Similarly, one can easily believe axioms of arithmetic and that there are only finitely many primes. – Conifold Jun 22 '23 at 23:28
  • It's like the 5 blind men and the elephant. – Scott Rowe Jun 23 '23 at 01:40
  • @Remster if your text uses the words "Hesperus" and "Evening Star" as two ways to refer to the *identical concept as understood by Dave* then he would in fact assert "Hesperus = Evening Star". If instead, for Dave, the terms "Hesperus" and "Evening Star" refer to different mental conceptions, then the way he's associating concepts with those terms does not match up with their generally expected usage; in everyday language, that mismatch is the mistake. – Dave Jun 23 '23 at 14:35
  • n.b. my previous comment points out something you might want to clarify in this question: what exactly are you denoting with the terms "Hesperus" and "Evening Star" and where/when are you using those as linguistic tokens within Dave's framework, and when are you using them to refer to their actual referent. – Dave Jun 23 '23 at 14:40
  • Even on an externalist account of meaning, Frege's distinction between sense and reference still applies. Two terms may have the same referent and a different sense, where 'sense' would be cashed out roughly as how we determine what the reference is. In mathematical examples, the sense could be an algorithm. The referent of the expression, "the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter" is identical with the referent of "the principal value of the arccosine of -1" but Dave might know the value of one of these and not the other. – Bumble Jun 24 '23 at 01:48

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