PhB Bachelor of Philosophy Philosophy of Language 2

Question 1

Saul Kripke's concept of a 'rigid designator' refers to a term that:

Accepted Answer

Designates the same object in all possible worlds in which that object exists

Answer

Kripke argued in Naming and Necessity that proper names are rigid designators—they pick out the same individual across all possible worlds, unlike definite descriptions.

Question 2

Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment was designed to demonstrate that:

Accepted Answer

Linguistic meaning depends partly on factors external to the speaker's mind

Answer

Putnam argued that 'water' refers to H₂O on Earth and XYZ on Twin Earth, even if speakers are internally identical, supporting semantic externalism.

Question 3

The causal-historical theory of reference, developed by Kripke and Donnellan, holds that a name refers to its bearer by:

Accepted Answer

Being connected to the bearer through a causal chain tracing back to an initial dubbing

Answer

On the causal theory, a name's reference is grounded in a historical chain of communication back to an initial naming event, not in descriptive content.

Question 4

W.V.O. Quine's thesis of the 'indeterminacy of translation' claims that:

Accepted Answer

Multiple incompatible translation manuals can be equally consistent with all observable behavior

Answer

Quine argued in Word and Object that no empirical evidence uniquely determines the correct translation of a speaker's utterances, leaving translation radically underdetermined.

Question 5

Propositional attitudes (e.g., believing, desiring, fearing) are characterized by having:

Accepted Answer

A subject, an attitude type, and a propositional content

Answer

Propositional attitudes are mental states directed toward a proposition, combining a psychological attitude (belief, desire) with intentional content (that p).

PhB Bachelor of Philosophy Practice Test

PhB Bachelor of Philosophy Practice Test

PhB Bachelor of Philosophy Philosophy of Language 2