Problems for Supervaluations, by Schiffer and McG/McL*

Schiffer (paraphrased by Weatherson) argues that:

1. Indirect speech reports are true

2. If Supervaluationism were correct, they would be false

3. Therefore Supervaluationism is false.

Why (2)? Well, Bob says, "Alice said that [pointing] is where she and Harold first danced the rumba." In order for Bob's statement to be true, it must be supertrue. What that means is that Alice must have said of every precisification of "that" that that is where she and Harold first danced the rumba. But she couldn't have said all of those things---she only said one thing. And presumably the one thing she said did not exhibit the fineness of grain that all of the precisifications of "that" exhibit.

McG and McL argue likewise suggest (without endorsing) an argument that:

1. People have de re beliefs

2. If Supervaluationism were correct, people couldn't have de re beliefs

3. Therefore Supervaluationism is false.

Why (2)? Well, suppose Ralph (putatively) believes of Kilimanjaro that it is a snowcapped mountain in Africa. According to Supervaluations, Ralph's belief is only true if it is supertrue: that is, if Ralph believes of every precisification of "Kilimanjaro" that it is a s. m. in A. But (i) Ralph's beliefs do not exhibit that fineness of grain; (ii) Ralph has one belief about K, not many.

I am willing to entertain healthy suspicion regarding whether there is a fact of the matter about "how many things" one said or believed (how would you individuate these "things"?)

Weatherson's proposal doesn't put an ordering on precisifications. By refining the naturalness relation, it eliminates all admissible valuations but one. [The fact that the refinement on the naturalness relation takes wide scope over all contentful entities ensures the right "penumbral connections" (ie, coreference) within and between sentences.] This is its purpose--to ensure that there is only one referent of "Kilimanjaro", only one constituent of Ralph's singular belief, and only one thing that Alice said. The proposal contrasts with Akiba's in that it takes the need to make "one out of many" to be the need to find a particular fusion K for all these jobs, whereas Akiba goes instead for finding a whole of which the fusion is a part.

*

Schiffer, "Two Issues of Vagueness" Monist 81.

Weatherson, "Many Many Problems," manuscript.

McGee and McLaughlin, "Lessons of the Many", Phil. Topics 28.