Two (Related) World Views

objects may serve to give a secondary reading to what appear to be denotationless descriptions, in order explain how they can be used in true sentences. In the next section, we consider the analysis of belief reports and identity statements. In contast to guise theory, we construe our special objects as the senses of terms that denote ordinary objects and offer a strict analysis of identity statements. In the final section, we look at the language of fiction. Here our special objects serve as denotations; for example, they serve as the denotations of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘the fountain of youth’. When Castañeda turns to the analysis of sentences of ordinary language, he has only one option when faced with the question, what do proper names and descriptions refer to? His answer must be that they refer to guises. Castañeda employs guises primarily at the level of reference, no matter whether the language is about real or fictional objects. In the following passage, Plantinga first describes Castañeda’s view, and then quotes from one of Castañeda’s articles: Furthermore, our definite descriptions—“my willow tree,” “the cleverest Guatemalan philosopher,” “the meanest man in North Dakota,” for example—refer primarily to guises and only secondarily to ordinary objects. Castañeda puts it thus: 2. Guises are units of individuation manageable by (finite) minds: they are the primary objects of reference, and hence, of perception and beliefs. 3. Guises are exactly what individual referring expressions of the form ‘the F’ refer to, e.g., ‘the man next door [at present]’, ‘the Queen of England in 1973’. 4. The objects of the world are secondary objects of reference; when one thinks of the so-and-so, taking it to exist, one refers primarily to (the guise) the so-and-so and secondarily to a postulated infinite structure of guises which assumedly includes (contains or involves) the so-and-so. (Castañeda [1975], p. 128) (Plantinga [1983], p. 68) This pretty well encapsulates the approach that guise theory takes to natural language. 13 Two (Related) World Views Plantinga discusses a sentence that can serve nicely to introduce the discussion concerning simple predications. He considers the following: (29) My willow has leaves. This sentence appears to be a simple predication, in which the property of having leaves is predicated of Plantinga’s willow. As Plantinga correctly points out, however, from the perspective of guise theory, this sentence is ambiguous, and has at least four different readings. Here is Plantinga’s understanding of the four readings: On Guise Theory, the sentence (29) is ambiguous; it may express any of (30) c{being my willow tree} internally posseses having leaves, (31) c{being my willow tree} consubstantiationally possesses having leaves, (32) c{being my willow tree} consociationally possesses having leaves ,