Descriptive Thought

Descriptive Thought

The above contrast suggests that there are two ways for a thought to be about a thing (e.g., Burj Khalifa) or kind of thing (e.g., water)—descriptively, as in α, or through acquaintance, as in ß.

α has three noteworthy features:

• One can entertain α even if one has no acquaintance with Burj Khalifa.
• α can be true at a possible world w at which the tallest building is not Burj Khalifa. (Following Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions, all that is required is that there are buildings at w and that the tallest among these is less than one year old at w.)
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• α can exist at possible worlds at which Burj Khalifa does not exist.

Singular Thought

Some theorists have held that, in addition to descriptive thought, as exemplified by α, there is also a category of singular thought. According to such theorists, entertaining a singular thought requires acquaintance with the object or objects whose properties and relations determine whether or not the thought is true. For example, my thought that Burj Khalifa is less than one year old seems essentially to involve Burj Khalifa. On certain views, it contains Burj Khalifa as a constituent and, moreover, is about Burj Khalifa because of this fact.

Prima facie, this thought, ß, has three noteworthy features:

• One cannot entertain ß if one is unacquainted with Burj Khalifa.
• ß is true at a possible world w just in case Burj Khalifa exists at w and is less than one year old at w.
• The identity conditions for ß necessarily involve Burj Khalifa—ß cannot exist at a possible world at which Burj Khalifa does not exist.

Descriptive thoughts are object independent; singular thoughts, object dependent.

Doubts about Singular Thoughts

No one doubts that there are object-independent thoughts, but the very idea that object-dependent thoughts exist has been controversial. If, as many have supposed, entertaining a thought involving the concept water requires acquaintance with water, then it seems that one can know that water exists merely on the basis of the fact that one has entertained such thoughts. But it seems doubtful that factual knowledge of this sort can be gained simply by reflecting on one's concepts. Another major concern has been whether the singular-thought theorist can adequately explain how a thought such as ß is about Burj Khalifa, as opposed to some other entity or no entity at all. To claim that ß is about Burj Khalifa simply in virtue of the fact that it contains Burj Khalifa as a constituent merely raises the question, how it comes to contain this entity. Some theorists have sought to analyze this containment in terms of a causal connection between ß and Burj Khalifa. However, it has proven difficult to make this idea precise, and counterexamples to the general approach have been produced (e.g., by Simon Blackburn). In contrast, if we view thought as uniformly descriptive, we seem to have a straightforward account of aboutness: A thought is about x solely in virtue of its containing descriptive information that x uniquely satisfies. Another advantage to holding that thoughts are uniformly descriptive is that it offers an explanation of how Lois Lane can simultaneously believe and disbelieve, of Superman (i.e., Clark Kent), that he is a superhero: Lois can believe Superman to be a superhero under one description and disbelieve this under another description. The singular thought theorist would seem to be at a loss to explain this since, on her view, the thought that Superman is a superhero just is the thought that Clark Kent is a superhero. (Some singular thought theorists invoke object-dependent, nondescriptive thought components to explain Lois's cognitive situation. But the question we considered above arises here as well: One might still wonder what makes it the case that one of these object-dependent thought components comes to contain Superman, as opposed to some other entity or no entity at all.)

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