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JOURNAL TITLE: Theoria

USER JOURNAL TITLE: Theoria

ARTICLE TITLE: Identifying reference and truth-values

ARTICLE AUTHOR: Strawson, P. F.

VOLUME: 30

ISSUE: 2

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YEAR: 1964

PAGES: 96-118

ISSN: 1755-2567

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 Identifying reference and truth-values
by

P. F. S T R A W S O N
(Oxford, England)

T h e materials for this paper are: one familiar and fundamental

speech-function; one controversy in philosophical logic; and two
or three platitudes.
W e are to be concerned with statements in which, at least
ostensibly, some particular historical fact or event or state of
affairs, past or present, notable or trivial, is reported: as that
the emperor has lost a battle or the baby has lost its rattle or
the emperor is dying or the baby is crying. More exactly, we are
to be concerned with an important subclass of such statements,
viz. those in which the task of specifying just the historical state
of affairs which is being reported includes, as an essential part,
the sub-task of designating some particular historical item or
items which the state of affairs involves. Not all performances of
the reporting task include the performance of this sub-task-the
task, I shall call it, of identifying reference t o a particular item.
Thus, the report that it is raining now, or the report that it was
raining here an hour ago, do not. But the statement that C z s a r
is dying, besides specifying the historical fact or situation which
it is the function of the statement as a whole to report, has, as
a part of this function, the sub-function of designating a particular
historical item, viz. Caesar, which t h a t situation essentially in-
volves. And this part of the function of the whole statement is
the whole of the function of part of the statement, viz. of the
name ‘Caesar’.
The speech-function we are to be concerned with, then, is the
function of identifying reference to a particular historical item,
when such reference occurs as a sub-function of statement. W e
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IDENTIFYING REFERENCE AND TRUTH-VALUES 97

are to be concerned with it in relation to a particular point of

philosophical controversy, viz. the question whether a radical
failure in the performance of this function results in a special
case of falsity in statement or, rather, in what Quine calls a truth-
value gap. The hope is not to show that one party to this dispute
is quite right and the other quite wrong. The hope is t o exhibit
speech-function, controversy and one or two platitudes in a
mutually illuminating way.
I introduce now my first pair, a complementary pair, of plati-
tudes. One, perhaps the primary, b u t not of course the only,
purpose of assertive discourse is t o give information to an audien-
ce of some kind, viz. one’s listener or listeners or reader or read-
ers. Since there is no point in, or perhaps one should say, no pos-
sibility of, informing somebody of something of which he is
already apprised, the making of an assertive utterance or state-
ment-where such an utterance has in view this primary purpose
of assertion-implies a presumption (on the part of the speaker)
of ignorance (on the part of the audience) of some point t o be
imparted in the utterance. This platitude might be called the
Principle of the Presumption of Ignorance. It is honoured t o ex-
cess in some philosophical proposals for analysis or reconstruction
of ordinary language, proposals which might appear t o be based
on the different and mistaken Principle of the Presumption of
Total Ignorance. To guard against such excess, we need t o
emphasise a platitude complementary t o the first. I t might be
called the Principle of the Presumption of Knowledge. The sub-
stance of this complementary platitude, loosely expressed, is that
when an empirically assertive utterance is made with an informa-
tive intention, there is usually or a t least often a presumption (on
the part of the speaker] of knowledge (in the possession of the
audience) of empirical facts relevant t o the particular point t o
be imparted in the utterance. This is too loosely expressed. The
connexion between the presumption of knowledge and the in-
tention to impart just such-and-such a particular point of informa-
tion may be closer than that of customary association; the con-
nexion between the identity of the particular point it is intended
to impart and the kind of knowledge presumed may be closer
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98 P. F. STRAWSON

than that of relevance. Just as we might say that it could not be

true of a speaker th at he intended t o inform an audience of some
particular point unless he presumed their ignorance of that point,
so we might often say that it could not be true of a speaker th a t
he intended t o inform the audience of just that particular point
unless he presumed in his audience certain empirical knowledge.
So the second principle, in which I am mainly interested, is truly
complementary to the first.
Now this may sound a little mysterious. But a t least there will
be no difficulty felt in conceding the general and vague point that
we do constantly presume knowledge as well as ignorance on the
part of those who are the audiences of our assertive utterances,
and that the first kind of presumption, as well as the second,
bears importantly on our choice of wh at we say. The particular
application that I want to make of this general point is to the case
of identifying reference. To make it, I must introduce the not
very abstruse notion of identifying knowledge of particulars.
Everyone has knowledge of the existence of various particular
things each of which he is able, in one sense or another, though
not necessarily in every sense, to distinguish from all other things.
Thus a person may be able t o pick a thing out in his current
field of perception. O r he may know there is a thing (not in his
current field of perception) to which a certain description applies
which applies t o no other thing: such a description I shall call
an identifying description. O r he may know the name of a thing
and be able t o recognise it when he encounters it, even if he can
normally give no identifying description of it other than one
which incorporates its own name. If a man satisfies any one of
these conditions in respect of a certain particular, I shall say he
has identifying knowledge of that particular. O n e is bound t o
define such a notion in terms of its outlying cases, cases, here,
of minimal and relatively isolated identifying knowledge. So it is
worth emphasising that, in contrast with cases of minimal and
relatively isolated identifying knowledge, thre are hosts of cases
of very rich and full identifying knowledge, and that, in general,
our identifying knowledge of particulars forms an immensely
complex web of connexions and relations-the web, one might
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IDENTIFYING REFERENCE AND TRUTH-VALUES 99

say, of our historical and geographical knowledge in general,

granted that these adjectives are not to be construed as qualifying
academic subjects alone, but also knowledge of the most unpre-
tentious kind about the particular things and people which enter
into our minute-to-minute or day-to-day transactions with the
world.
The notion of identifying reference is t o be understood in close
relation to the notion of identifying knowledge. When people talk
to each other they commonly and rightly assume a large com-
munity of identifying knowledge of particular items. Very often
a speaker knows or assumes that a thing of which he has such
knowledge is also a thing of which his audience has such knowl-
edge. Knowing or assuming this, he may wish to state some
particular fact regarding such a thing, e.g. that it is thus-and-so;
and he will then normally include in this utterance an expression
which he regards as adequate, in the circumstances of utterance,
to indicate to the audience which thing it is, of all the things in
the scope of the audience’s identifying knowledge, that he is
declaring to be thus-and-so. The language contains expressions of
several celebrated kinds which are peculiarly well adapted, in
different ways, for use with this purpose. These kinds include
proper names, definite and possessive and demonstrative descrip-
tions, demonstrative and personal pronouns. I do not say that all
expressions of these kinds are well adapted for use with this
purpose; nor do I say, of those that are, that they are not regularly
used in other ways, with other purposes.
When an expression of one of these classes is used in this way,
I shall say that it is used to invoke identifying knowledge known
or presumed to be in possession of an audience. I t would now be
easy to define identifying reference so that only when an expres-
sion is used to invoke identifying knowledge is it used to perform
the function of identifying reference. But though it would simplify
exposition thus to restrict attention to what we shall in any case
count as the central cases of identifying reference, i t would not
be wholly desirable. For there are cases which cannot exactly
be described as cases of invoking identifying knowledge, but
which are nevertheless sufficiently like cases which can be so
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100 P. F. STRAWSON

described to be worth classifying with them as cases of identifying

reference. For instance, there may be within a man’s current
field of possible perception something which he has not noticed
and cannot be said actually to have discriminated there, but t o
which his attention may be inteiitionally drawn simply by t h e
use, on the part of a speaker, of an expression of one of the kinds
I mentioned, as part of a statement of some fact regarding the
particular item in question. In so far as the speaker’s intention, in
using the expression in question, is not so much to inform the
audience of the existence of some particular item unique in a
certain respect as t o bring i t about t h a t the audience sees for itself
that there is such an item, w e may think this case worth clas-
sifying with the central cases of identifying reference. Again,
there are cases in which a n audience cannot exactly be credited
with knowledge of t h e existence of a certain item unique in a
certain respect, but can be credited with a strong presumption
to this effect, can be credited, we might say, with identifying
presiimprioiz rather than identifying knowledge. Such presumed
presumption can be invoked in the same style as such knowledge
can be invoked.
So w e may allow t h e notion of identifying reference t o a parti-
cular itcm t o extend beyond the cases of invoking identifying
knowledge. W e must then face the unsurpising consequence t h a t
if, a s we do, w e wish t o contrast cases in which a speaker uses
an expression to perform the function of identifying reference
with cases in which the intention and effect of a speaker’s use of
an expression is t o inform t h e audience of the existence of a
particular item unique in a certain respect, then we shall en-
counter some cases which do not clearly belong t o either of these
contrasting classes, which seem more or less dubious candidates
for both. But this is not a situation which should cause us em-
barrassment, in philosophy; and, having made the point, I shall
for simplicity’s sake speak in w h a t follows as if all cases of
identifying reference were, at least in intention, cases of invoking
identifyinq knowledge.
What I have said so far, in describing the function of identi-
fying reference, is I think, uncontroversial in the sense that t h e
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I D b N l IFYING REFERENCE A N D T K U l IT-VALUES 101

description has proceeded without my having to take u p a posi-

tion on any well-worn point of controversy. It has a consequence,
just alluded to, which should be equally uncontroversial, and
which I shall labour a little now, partly in order to distinguish
it from any prise de position on a matter which is undoubtedly
one of controversy.
I have explained identifying reference-or the central case of
identifying reference-as essentially involving a presumption, on
the speaker’s part, of the possession by the audience of identi-
fying knowledge of a particular item. Identifying knowledge is
knowledge of the existence of a particular item distinguished,
in one or another sense, by the audience from any other. The
appropriate stretch of identifying knowledge is to be invoked by
the use of an expression deemed adequate by the speaker, in the
total circumstances of utterance, to indicate to the audience
which, of all the items within the scope of the audience’s identi-
fying knowledge, is being declared, in the utterance as a whole,
to be thus-and-so. Depending upon the nature of the item and
the situation of utterance, the expression used may be a name
or a pronoun or a definite or demonstrative description; and i t is
of course not necessary that either name or description should
in general be uniquely applicable to the item in question, so long
as its choice, in the total Circumstances of utterance, is deemed
adequate to indicate to the audience which, of all the particular
items within the scope of his identifying knowledge, is being
declared, in the utterance as a whole, to be thus-and-so.
Now one thing that is absolutely clear is that it can be no part
of the speaker’s intention in the case of such utterances t o inform
the audience of the existence of a particular item bearing the
name or aiiswering to the description and distinguished by that
fact, or by that fact plus something else known to the audience,
from any other. O n the contrary, the very task of identifying
reference, as described, can be undertaken only by a speaker who
knows or presumes his audience to be already in posessioii of
such knowledge of existence and uniqueness as this. The task of
identifying reference is defined in terms of a type of speaker-
intention which rules out ascription t o the speaker of the inten-
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102 P. F. STRAWSON

tion to impart the existence-and-uniqueness information in ques-

tion. All this can be put, perfectly naturally, in other ways. Thus,
that there exists a particular item to which the name or descrip-
tion is applicable and which, if not unique in this respect, satisfies
some uniqueness-condition known to the hearer (and satisfies
some uniqueness-condition known to the speaker) is no part of
what the speaker asserts in an utterance in which the name or
description is used to perform the function of identifying refe-
rence; i t is, rather, a presupposition of his asserting what he
asserts.
This way of putting it is still uncontroversial. For i t is a natural
way of putting what is itself uncontroversial. But it introduces a
contrast, between the asserted and the presupposed, in words
which are associated with an issue of controversy.
W e can come at this issue by considering some of the ways
in which an attempt to perform the function of identifying refe-
rence can either fail altogether or a t least fall short of complete
success and satisfactoriness. There are several ways in which such
an attempt can fail or be flawed. For instance, it may be that,
though the speaker possesses, the audience does not possess,
identifying knowledge of the particular historical item to which
the speaker intends to make an identifying reference; that the
speaker credits the audience with identifying knowledge the
audience does not possess. It may be that though the audience
possesses identifying knowledge of the particular item in question,
the expression chosen by the speaker fails to invoke the appro-
priate stretch of identifying knowledge and leaves the audience
uncertain, or even misleads the audience, as to who or what is
meant. Failures of this kind may be, though they need not be,
due to flaws of another kind. For i t may be that the speaker’s
choice of expression reflects mistakes of fact or language on his
part; and such mistake-reflecting choices are still flaws, even
where they do not mislead, as, for example, references to Great
Britain as ‘England’ or to President Kennedy as ‘the U. S. Premier’
are not likely to mislead.
Though these are all cases of flawed or failed reference, they
are not cases of the most radical possible kind of failure. For my
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IDEN? IFYING KEFERENCE AND TRUTH-VALUES 103

descriptions of these cases imply that at least one fundamental

condition of success is fulfilled, even if others are not fulfilled.
They imply at least t h a t there is a particular historical item within
the scope of the speaker’s identifying knowledge-even if not all
his beliefs about i t are true-such that he intends, by suitable
choice of expression, to invoke identifying knowledge, presumed
by him to be in possession of the audience, of that item. But this
condition might fail too; and that in various ways. I t might be
that there just is no such particular item at all as the speaker
takes himself to be referring to, that w h a t he, and perhaps the
audience too, take to be identifying knowledge of a particular
item is not knowledge at all, but completely false belief. This is
but one case of what might uncontroversially be called radical
failure of the existence presupposition of identifying reference.
It involves no moral turpitude on the part of the speaker. Dif-
ferent would be the case in which the speaker uses an expression,
by way of apparently intended identifying reference, to invoke
what he knows or thinks the audience thinks to be identifying
knowledge, though he, the speaker, knows it to be false belief.
The speaker in this case can have no intention actually to refer to
a particular historical item, and so cannot strictly fail t o carry
out that intention. H e can have the intention to be taken to have
the former intention; and in this intention he may succeed. A full
treatment of the subject would call for careful consideration of
such differences. For simplicity’s sake, I shall ignore the case of
pretence, and concentrate on t h a t case of radical reference-failure
in which the failure is not a moral one.
Our point of controversy concerns the following question:
given an utterance which suffers from radical reference-failure,
are we t o say that what w e have here is just one special case
of false statement or are we to say that our statement suffers
from a deficiency so radical as to deprive it of the chance of
being either true or false? Of philosophers who have discussed
this question in recent years some have plumped uncompromis-
ingly for the first answer, some uncompromisingly for the second;
some have been eclectic about it, choosing the first answer for
some cases and the second for others; and some have simply con-
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104 P. F. STRAWSON

tented themselves with sniping a t any doctrine t h a t offered, while

wisely refraining from exposing any target themselves. In virtue of
his Theory of Descriptions and h s views on ordinary proper names
as being condensed descriptions, Russell might be said t o be the
patron of the first party-the “special case of false statement”
party. O n e recent explicit adherent of that party is Mr. Dummett
in his interesting article on Triith (P.A.S. 58-59). T h e second
party-the ”neither true nor false” party-might be said, with
some reservations, t o have included Quine, Austin and myself.
Quine invented t h e excellent phrase ‘truth-value gap’ t o charac-
terist what we have in these cases (See Word and Object).
Austin (see Performative Utterances and How to Do Things
with Words) contrasts this sort of defiviency or, as he calls it,
‘infelicity’ in statement with straightforward falsity and prefers
to say t h a t a statement suffering from this sort of deficiency is
void-‘void for lack of reference’.
Let us ignore the eclectics and the snipers and confine our
attention, at least for the moment, to the t w o uncompromising
parties. I do not think there is any question of demonstrating that
one party is quite right and the other quite wrong. W h a t we have
here is the familiar philosophical situation of one party being
attracted by one simplified, theoretical-or ‘straightened out’-
concept of truth and falsity, and the other by another. It might
be asked: H o w does ordinary usage speak on the point? And
this, as always, is a question which i t is instructive t o ask. But
ordinary usage does not deliver a clear verdict for one party or
the other. W h y should it? T h e interests which ordinary usage
reflects are too complicated and various for it to provide over-
whelming support for either way of simplifying t h e picture. The
fact that ordinary usage does not deliver a clear verdict does not
mean, of course, that there can be no other way of demonstrating,
a t least, that one view is quite wrong. It might be shown, for
example, to be inconsistent, or incoherent in some other way.
But this is not the case with either of these views. Each would
have a certain amount of explaining and adjusting t o do, b u t each
could perfectly consistently be carried through. More important,
each is reasonable. Instead of trying t o demonstrate that one is
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IDENTIFYING REFERENCE AND TRUTH-VALUES 105

quite right and the other quite wrong, it is more instructive to

sce how both are reasonable, how both represent different ways
of being impressed by the facts.
As a point of departure here, it is reasonable to take related
cases of what are indisputably false statements and then set
beside them the disputed case, so that we can see how one party
is more impressed by the resemblances, the other by the differen-
ces, bctwcen the disputed case and the undisputed cases. The
relevant undisputed cases are obviously of two kinds. One is that
of an utterance in which an identifying reference is successfully
made, aiid all the conditions of a satisfactory or allround successful
act of empirical assertion are fulfilled except that the particular
item identifyingly referred t o and declared to be thus-and-so is,
as a matter of fact, not thus-and-so. It is said of Mr. Smith, the
new tenant of the Grange, that he i s single, when he is in fact
married: a statement satisfactory in all respects except that it is,
indisputably, false. The other relevant case is that in which an
explicit assertion of existence aiid uniqueness is made. It is said,
say, that there is one and not more than one island in Beatitude
Bay. And this is false because there is none a t all or because there
are several.
Now, it might be said on the one side, how vastly different from
the ways in which things go wrong in either of these undisputed
cases of falsity is the way in which things go wrong in the case
of radical reference-failure. A judgment as to truth or falsity
is a judgment on what the speaker asserts. But we have already
noted the uncontroversial point that the existence-condition
which fails in the case of radical reference-failure is not something
asserted, but something presupposed, b y the speaker’s utterance.
So his statement cannot be judged as a false existential assertion.
Nor, evidently, can it be judged as an assertion false in the same
way as the first undisputed example, i.e. false as being a mis-
characterisation of the particular item referred to. For there is
no such item for it to be a mischaracterisation of. In general,
where there is such an item as the speaker refers to, and the
speaker asserts, with regard t o that item, that i t is thus-and-so,
his assertion is rightly assessed as true if the item is thus-and-so,
X
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106 P. F. STRAWSON

as false if it is not. In the case of radical reference failure, the

speaker, speaking in good faith, nzeans his statement to be up
for assessment in this way; he takes himself similarly t o be as-
ser ting with regard to a particular item, that it is thus-and-so. But
in fact the conditions of his making an assertion such as he takes
himself to be making are not fulfilled. W e can acknowledge the
character of his intentions and the nature of his speech-perfor-
mance by saying that he makes a statement; but we must
acknowledge, too, the radical character of the way in which his
intentions are frustrated by saying that his statement does not
qualify as such an assertion as he takes it to be, and hence does
not qualify for assessment as such an assertion. But then it does
not qualify for truth-or-falsity assessment a t all. The whole asser-
tive enterprise is wrecked by the failure of its presupposition.
But now, on the other side, i t could be said that what the dis-
puted case has in common with the undisputed cases of falsity
is far more important than the differences between them. In all
the cases alike, we may take it a genuine empirical statement is
made; a form of words is used such that if there were as a matter
of fact in the world (in Space and Time) a certain item, or certain
items, with certain characteristics-if, to put i t differently, certain
complex circumstances did as a matter of fact obtain in the world
(in Space and Time)-then the statement would be true. The
important distinction is between the case in which those complex
circumstances do obtain and the case in which they don’t. This
distinction is the distinction we should use the words ‘true’ and
‘false’ (of statements) to mark, even if we do not consistently
do so. And this distinction can be drawn equally in the disputed
and the undisputed cases. A false empirical statement is simply
any empirical statement whatever which fails for factual reasons,
i.e. on account of circumstances in the world being as they are
and not otherwise, to be a true one. Cases of radical reference-
failure are simply one class of false statements.
It no longer seems to me important t o come down on one side
or the other in this dispute. Both conceptions are tailored, in the
ways I have just indicated, to emphasise different kinds of interest
in statement; and each has its own merits. My motives in bringing
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IDT NTIFYING REFERENCE A N D TRUTH-VALUES 107

up the issue are three, two of which have already partially shown
themselves. First, I want t o disentangle this issue of controversy
from other questions with which it is sometimes confused.
Second, I want to dispel the illusion that the issue of controversy
can be speedily settled, one way or the other, by a brisk little
formal argument. Third, I want to indicate one way-no doubt
there are more-in which, without positive commitment to either
rival theory, we may find the issues they raise worth pursuing
and refining. I shall say something on all three points, though
most on the third.
First, then, the issue between the truth-value gap theory and
the falsity theory, which has loomed so large in this whole area
of discussion, has done so in a way which might be misleading,
which might give a false impression. The impression might be
given that the issue between these two theoretical accounts was
the crucial issue in the whole area-the key, as it were, to all
positions. Thus it might be supposed that anyone who rejected
the view that the Theory of Descriptions gives an adequate
general analysis, or account of the functioning, of definite descrip-
tions was committed, by that rejection, t o uncompromising adhe-
rence to the truth-value gap theory and uncompromising rejection
of the falsity theory for the case of radical reference failure. But
this is not so a t all. The distinction between identifying reference
and uniquely existential assertion is something quite undeniable.
The sense in which the existence of something answering t o a
definite description used for the purpose of identifying reference,
and its distinguishability by an audience from anything else, is
presupposed and not asserted in an utterance containing such an
expression, so used, stands absolutely firm, whether or not one
opts for the view that radical failure of the presupposition would
deprive the statement of a truth-value. I t remains a decisive
objection to the Theory of Descriptions, regarded as embodying
a generally correct analysis of statements containing definite
descriptions, that, so regarded, it amounts t o a denial of these
undeniable distinctions. I feel bound to labour the point a little,
since I may be partly responsible for the confusion of these two
issues by making the word ‘presupposition’ carry simultaneously
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108 P. F. STKAWSON

the burden both of the functional cbstinction and of the truth-

value gap theory. Only, a t most, partly responsible; for the line-
up is natural enough, though not inevitable; and though there is
no logical compulsion one way, there is logical compulsion the
other. One who accepts the Theory of Descriptions as a correct
analysis is bound to accept the falsity theory for certain cases
and reject the truth-value gap theory. One who accepts the truth-
value gap theory is bound to reject the Theory of Descriptions
as a generally correct analysis. But it is perfectly consistent to
reject the view that the Theory of Descriptions is a generally
correct analysis, on the grounds I have indicated, and also to
withhold assent to the truth-value gap theory.
Now for my second point. I have denied that either of t h e two
theories can be decisively refuted by short arguments, and I shall
support this by citing and commenting on some specimen argu-
ments which are sometimes thought to have this power. First,
some arguments for the truth-value gap theory and against the
falsity theory:
A (1) Let Fa represent a statement of the kind in question.
If the falsity theory is correct, then the contradictory of Fa is
not -FA, but the disjunction of -FA with a negative existential
statement. But the contrahctory of Fa is -Fa. Therefore the falsity
theory is false.
(2) If ’false’ is used normally, then from I t is f a l s e t h a t S
is P i t is correct to infer S i s not P. But it is agreed on both theo-
ries that S is iiot P is true only if there is such a thing as S. Hence,
if ’false’ is used normally, I t is false t h a t S is P is true only if
there is such a thing as S. Hence, if ‘false’ is used normally in
the statement of the falsity theory, that theory is false.
( 3 ) The question I s S P? and the command Bring it a b o u t
t h a t S is P may suffer from exactly the same radical reference
failure as the statement S is P . But if an utterance which suffers
from this radical reference failure is thereby rendered false, the
question and command must be said to be false. But this is
absurd. So the falsity theory is false.
Now arguments on the other side:
B (1) Let Fa represent a statement of the kind in question
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IUkNTIFYING REFERENCE AND TRUTH-VALUES 109

(e.g.Thc king of France is bald). Then there may be an equiva-

lent statement, Gb, (e.g. France has a bald lzirzg) which i s
obviously false if there is no such thing as a. But the two state-
inents are equivalent. So F a is false if there is no such thing as a.
So the truth-value gap theory is false.
(2) Let P be a statement which, on the truth-value gap
theory, is neither true nor false. Then t h e statement that P is true
is itself false. But if i t i s false that P is true, then P is false. In
the same way we can derive from t h e hypothesis the conclusion
that P is true, hence the coiiclusion that P is both true and false.
This is self-contradictory, hence the original hypothesis is so too.
The defender of either view will have little difficulty in coun-
tering these arguments against it. Thus to B2 the reply is that if
a statement lacks a truth-value, any statement assessing it as
true simpliciter or as false simpliciter similarly lacks a truth-value.
So 110 contradiction is derivable. T o B1 t h e reply is t h a t t h e argu-
ment is either inconclusive or question-begging. If ‘equivalent’
means simply ‘such that if either is true, then necessarily the other
is true’, i t is inconclusive If it also means ‘such t h a t if either is
false, then necessarily the other is false’, i t is question-begging.
To A3 the reply is that there is no reason why what holds for
statements should hold also for questions and commands. To A2
the reply is t h a t t h e inference is not strictly correct, though it is
perfectly natural that w e should normally make it. T o A1 the
reply is that it is question-begging, though again i t is perfectly
intelligible that we should be prone t o think of contradictories in
this way.
It is just an illusion to think t h a t either side’s position can be
carried by such swift little sallies as these. W h a t we have, in the
enthusiastic defence of one theory or t h e other, is a symptom of
difference of direction of interest. O n e who has an interest in
actual speech-situations, in t h e part that stating plays in com-
munication between human beings, will tend to find the simpler
falsity theory inadequate and feel sympathy with-though, as I
say, he is under no compulsion, exclusively or a t all, to embrace-
its rival. O n e who takes a more impersonal view of statement,
who has a picture in which the actual needs, purposes and pre-
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110 P. F. STRAWSON

sutnptioiis of speakers and hearers are of slight significance-in

which, as i t were, there are just statements on the one side and,
on the other, the world they should reflect-he will naturally
tend to brush aside the truth-value gap theory and embrace its
simpler rival. For him, one might say, the subject of every state-
ment is just the world in general. For his opponent, it is now this
item, now that; and perhaps sometimes-rarely and disconcer-
tingly enough-nothing at all.
And now for the third matter, which we shall find not uncon-
nected with this last thought. I t seems t o be a fact which advo-
cates of either, or of neither, theory can equally safely acknow-
ledge, that the intuitive appeal, or prima facie plausibility, of the
truth-value gap theory is not constant for all example-cases of
radical reference-failure which can be produced or imagined. We
can, without commitment to either theory, set ourselves to ex-
plain this variation in the intuitive appeal of one of them-which
is also an inverse variation in the intuitive appeal of the other.
The attempt to explain this fact may bring into prominence other
facts which bear in interesting ways upon speech-situations in
general, and those involving identifying reference in particular.
I shall draw attention to but one factor-no doubt there are
more-which may contribute to the explanation of this fact in
some cases. In doing so, I shall invoke another platitude to set
beside, and connect with, the platitudes we already have.
First, w e may note that the truth-value gap theory can be ex-
pressed, in terms of the familiar idea of predication, in such a way
as to secure for i t a certain flexibility in application. Let us call
an expression as and when used in a statement with the role of
identifying reference-whether or not i t suffers in that use from
radical reference failure-a referring expression. Then any state-
ment containing a referring expression, E, can be regarded as
coiisisting of two expression-parts, one the expression E itself, t o
be called the subject-expression or subject-term, and the other
the remainder of the statement, to be called the predicate-expres-
sion or predicate-term. In the case of a statemect containing more
than one, say two, referring expressions, i t is to be open t o us to
cast one of these for the role of subject-expression, while the
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IDENTIFYING REFERENCE AND TRUTH-VALUES 111

other is regarded as absorbed into the predicate-term which is

attached to the subject-term to yield the statement as a whole.
The adherent of the truth-value gap view can then state his view
as follows.’ The statement or predication as a whole is true just
in the case in which the predicate-term does in fact apply to (is
in fact ‘true of’) the object which the subject-term (identifyingly)
refers to. The statement or predication as a whole is false just
in the case where the negation of the predicate-term applies to
that object, i.e. the case where the predicate-term can be truth-
fully denied of that object. The case of radical reference failure
on the part of the subject-term is of neither of these two kinds.
It is the case of the truth-value gap.
Now consider a statement consisting of two referring expres-
sions one of which is guilty of reference failure while the other
is not. Then it is open to us to carve u p the statement in two
different ways; and different decisions as to carving-up procedure
may be allowed to result in different assessments of the statement
for truth-value. Thus (1) we can see the guilty referring expres-
sion as absorbed into a predicate-term which is attached to the
innocent referring expression to make up the statement as a
whole; or (2) we can see the innocent referring expression as
absorbed into a predicate-expression which is attached to the
guilty referring expression to make u p the statement as a whole.
Now if we carve u p the statement in the second way, we must
say -according to our current statement of the truth-value gap
theory -that the statement lacks a truth-value. But if we carve
it up in the first way, we m a y say that i t is false; (or, sometimes
--when negative in form-that i t is true). For to carve it u p in
the first way is to think of the statement as made up of the satis-
factory or innocent referring expression together with one general
term or predicate into which the guilty referring expression has
been absorbed. The question whether that predicate does or does
not apply to the object referred to by the satisfactory referring
expression remains a perfectly answerable question; and the fact
t h a t the predicate has absorbed a guilty referring expression
’ This way of stating it is in fact implicit in the fundamental definition of
prrtlication which Quine gives on p. 96 of Word and Object.
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112 P . F. STRAWSON

will, for most predicates affirmative in form, merely have the

consequence that the right answer is ‘No’. Thus, if we look a t
such a statement in this way, we can naturally enough declare it
false or untrue, and naturally enough affirm its negation as true,
on the strength of the reference failure of the guilty referring
expression.
In this way, it niight seem, the truth-value gap theory can
readily modify itself to take account of certain examples which
may seem intuitively unfavourable to it. For example, there is
no king of France; and there is, let us say, no swimming-pool
locally. But there is, let us say, an Exhibition in town; and there
is, let us say, no doubt of Jone’s existence. If we consider the
statements
(1) that Jones spent the morning at the local swimming-pool
and (2) that the Exhibition was visited yesterday by the king of
France
i t may seem natural enough to say (1) t h a t it is quite untrue, or
is false, that Jones spent the morning at the local swimming-pool,
since there isn’t one; that, however Jones spent the morning, he
did i20t spend it at the local swimming-pool, since there’s no such
place; and similarly (2) that it is quite untrue, or is false, that the
Exhibition was visited yesterday by the king of France; that,
whoever the Exhibition was visited by yesterday, it was not
visited by the king of France, since there is no such person. And
the modified truth-value gap theory accommodates these intui-
tions by allowing the guilty referring expressions, ‘the local swim-
ming-pool’, ’the king of France’, to be absorbed into the predicate
in each case.
This modification to the truth-value gap theory, though easy
and graceful, will scarcely seem adequate. For one thing, it will
not be available for all intuitively unfavourable examples, but oiily
for those which contain more than one referring expression. For
another, it will remain incomplete inside its own domain unless
some pviiiciple of choice between alternative ways of carving u p
a statement is supplied. The theory might resolve the latter
question self-sacrificially, by declaring t h a t the carving-up opera-
tion was always to be so conducted as to permit the assignment
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IDLNIIFYING REFERENCk AND TRUTH-VALULS 113

of a truth-value whenever possible. But this more might be too

self-sacrificial, turning friends into enemies, turning intuitively
favourable cases into unfavourable ones.
So let us consider further. Confronted with the classical ex-
ample, “The king of France is bald”, w e may well feel it natural
to say, straight off, that the question whether the statement is
true or false doesn’t arise because there is no king of France. But
suppose the statement occurring in the context of a set of answers
to t h e question: “What examples, if any, are there of famous
contemporary figures who are bald?” O r think of someone com-
piling a list in answer t o t h e question, “Who has died recently?”
and including in i t the term “the king of France”. Or think of some-
one including t h e statement “The king of France married again”
in a set of statements compiled in reply to the question: “What
outstanding events, if any, have occurred recently in the social
and political fields?” In the first two cases the king of France
appears t o be cited as an instance or example of an antecedently
introdirced class. In the last case the statement as a whole claims
t o report an event as an instance of an antecedently introduced
class. The question in each case represents the antecedent centre
of interest as a certain class-the class of bald notables, the class
of recently deceased notables, the class of notable recent events
in a certain field-and the question is as to what items, if any,
the classes include. Since it is certainly false that the classes, in
each case, include any such items as our answers claim they do,
those answers can, without too much squeamishness, be simply
marked as wrong answers. So t o mark them is not t o reject them
as answers t o questions which don’t arise, but t o reject them
as wrong answers t o questions which do arise. Yet the answers
need include oiily one referring expression for a particular item,
viz. the one guilty of reference failure; and the questions need
not contain any at all.
This suggests a direction in which we might look for the missing
principle of choice in the case of our previous examples, those
about the swimming pool and the Exhibition, which contained
two referring expressions. The point was not, or was n o t solely,
t h a t each contained an extra and satisfactory referring expression.
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114 P. F. STRAWSON

I t was rather that we could easily see the centre of interest in

each case as being the question, e.g. how Jorzes spent the morning
or what izotable visitors the Exhibition has had, or how the Ex-
hibition is getting on. And the naturalness of taking them in this
way was increased by the device of putting the satisfactory refer-
ring expression f i r s t , as grammatical subject of the sentence, and
the unsatisfactory one last. W e might, for example, have felt a
shade more squeamish if w e had written “The king of France
visited the Exhbition yesterday” instead of “The Exhibition was
visited yesterday by the king of France”. We feel very squeamish
indeed about “The king of France is bald” presented abruptly,
out of context, just because we don’t naturally and immediately
think of a context in which interest is centred, say, on the question
What bald notables are there? rather than on the question What
is the king of France like? or Is the king of France bald? Of
course, to either of these two questions the statement would not
be just an incorrect answer. These questions have no correct
answer and hence, in a sense, no incorrect answer either. They
tire questions which do not arise. This does not mean there is
no correct reply to them. The correct reply is: “There is no king
of France”. But this reply is not an answer to, but a rejection of,
the question. The question about bald notables, on the other
hand, can be answered, rightly or wrongly. Any answer which
purports to mention someone included in the class, and fails t o
do so, is wrong; and it is still wrong even if there is no such
person at all as it purports to mention.
I should like to state the considerations I have been hinting a t
a little more generally, and with less dependence upon the notion
of a question. Summarily my suggestions are as follows.
(1) First comes the additional platitude I promised. State-
ments,or the pieces of discourse to which they belong, have
subjects, not only in the relatively precise senses of logic and
grammar, but in a vaguer sense with which I shall associate the
words ‘topic’ and ‘about’. Just now I used the hypothesis of a
question to bring out, with somewhat unnatural sharpness, the
idea of the topic or centre of interest of a statement, the idea of
what a statement could be said, in this sense, to be about. But
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lL)EN1‘IFYING RI:FI.RCNCE A N D TRUTH-VALUES I15

even where there is n o actual first-order question to pin-point for

us with this degree of sharpness the answer to the higher-order
question, ‘What is the statement, in this sense, about’?, it may
nevertheless often be possible to give a fairly definite answer t o
this question. For stating is not a gratuitous and random human
activity. W e do not, except in social desperation, direct isolated
aiid unconnected pieces of information at each other, but on the
contrary intend in general to give or add information about what
is a matter of standing or current interest or concern. There is
a great variety of possible types of answer to the question what
the topic of a statement is, what a statement is ’about’,-about
baldness, about what great men are bald, about which countries
have bald rulers, about France, about the king, etc.-and not
every such answer excludes every other in a given case.-This
platitude we might dignify with the title, the Principle of Rele-
vance.
(2) It comes to stand beside that other general platitude which
I announced earlier under the title, the Principle of the Presump-
tion of Knowledge. This principle, i t will be remembered, is that
statements, in respect of their informativeness, are not generally
self-sufficient units, free of any reliance upon what the audience
is assumed to know or to assume already, but commonly depend
for their effect upon knowledge assumed to be already in the
audience’s possession. The particular application I made of this
principle was to the case of identifying reference, in so far as
the performance of this function rests on the presumption of
identifying knowledge in the possession of the audience. When I
say that the new platitude comes t o stand beside the old one, I
mean that the spheres of (a) what a statement addressed to an
audience is about and (b) what, in the making of that statement,
the audience is assumed to have some knowledge of already, are
spheres that will often, aiid naturally, overlap.
But ( 3 ) they need not be co-extensive. Thus, given a statement
which contains a referring expression, the specification of that
statement’s topic, what it is about, would very often involve
inentioiiing, or seeming to mention, the object which that expres-
sion was intended t o refer to; but sometimes the topic of a state-
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116 1’. F. STRAWSON

ment containing such an expression could be specified without

mentioning such an object. Let us call the first type of case Type 1
and the second type of case Type 2. (Evidently a statement could
be of Type 1 relative to one referring expression it contained and
of Type 2 relative to another).
Now (4) assessments of statements as true or untrue are com-
monly, though not only, topic-centred in the same way as the
Statements assessed; and when, as commonly, this is so, we may
say that the statement is assessed as putative information about
its topic.
Hence (S), given a case of radical reference-failure on the part
of a referring expression, the truth-value gap account of the con-
sequences of this failure will seem more naturally applicable if
the statement in question is of Type 1 (relative to that referring
expression) than if it is of Type 2. For if it is of Type 2, the
failure of reference does not affect the topic of the statement, it
merely affects what purports to be information about its topic. W e
may still judge the statement as putative information about its
topic and say, perhaps, that the failure of reference has the coii-
sequence that it is nzisinformative about its topic. But we cannot
say this if it is a case of Type 1. If it is a case of Type 1, the
failure of reference affects the topic itself and not merely the
putative information about the topic. If we know of the reference-
failure, we know that the statement cannot really have the topic
it is intended to have and hence cannot be assessed as putative
information about that topic. I t can be seen neither as correct,
nor as incorrect, information about its topic.
But, it might be said, this account is self-contradictory. For i t
implies that in a Type 1 case of radical reference-failure the state-
ment does not really have the topic which by hypothesis it does
have; i t implies that a statement which, by hypothesis, is about
something is really about nothing. To this objection we must reply
with a distinctiolii. If 1 believe that the legend of King Arthur is
historical truth, when there was in fact no such person, I may
in one sense make statements about King Arthur, describe King
Arthur and make king Arthur my topic. But there is another
sense in which I caiiiiot make statements about King Arthur,
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IDENTIFYING REFERENCE A N D TRUTH-VALUES 117

describe him or make him my topic. This second sense is stronger

than the first. I may suppose myself to be making statements
about him in the second, stronger sense; but I am really only
making statements about him in the first and weaker sense. If,
however, my belief in King Arthur were true and I really was
making statements about him in the second sense, i t would still
be true that I was making statements about him in the first sense.
This is why tlie first is a weaker (i.e. more comprehensive) sense
than tlie second and not merely different from it.
Bearing this distinction of sense in mind, w e can now frame
a recipe for distinguishing those cases of reference-failure which
are relatively favourable to the truth-value gap theory from those
cases which are relatively unfavourable to it. The recipe is as
follows. Consider in its context the statement suffering from refe-
rence-failure and frame a certain kind of description of the
speech-episode of making it. The description is t o begin with
some phrase like ‘He (i.e. the speaker) was saying (describing)
. . . . . . ’ and is to continue with an interrogative pronoun, adjec-
tive or adverb, introducing a dependent clause. The clause, with
its introductory conjunction, specifies the topic of the statement,
what it can be said (at least in the weaker, and, if there is no
reference failure, also in the stronger, sense) to be about; while
what is said about i t s topic is eliminated from the description in
favour of the interrogative expression. Examples of such descrip-
tions based on cases already mentioned would be:
He was describing how Jones spent the morning
He was saying which notable contemporaries are bald
He was saying what the king of France is like.
If the peccant referring expression survives in the clause intro-
duced by the interrogative, the clause which specifies what the
original statement was about, then w e have a case relatively
favourable t o the truth-value gap theory. If the peccant referring
expression is eliminated, and thus belongs t o what purports t o
be information about the topic of the original statement, then we
have a case relatively unfavourable to the truth-value gap theory.
There can be no true or false, right or wrong, descriptions-of-
what-the-king-of-France-is-like, because there is no king of
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118 P. F. STRAWSON

France. But there can be right or wrong descriptions-of-how-

Jones-spent-the-morning, and the description of him as having
spent i t at the local swimming-pool is wrong because there is no
such place.
It is easy to see why the relevance of these factors should have
been overlooked by those philosophers, including myself, who,
considering a few example sentences in isolation from possible
contexts of their use, have been tempted to embrace, and to
generalise, the truth-value gap theory. For, first, it often is the
case that the topic of a statement is, or includes, something refer-
red to by a referring expression; for such an expression invokes
the knowledge or current perceptions of an audience, and what is
of coiicern to an audience is often what it already knows some-
thing about or is currently perceiving. And, second, i t often is
the case that the placing of an expression a t the beginning of a
sentence, in the position of grammatical subject, serves, as it
were, to announce the statement’s topic. The philosopher, think-
ing about reference failure in terms of one or two short and
isolated example sentences beginning with referring expressions,
will tend to be influenced by these facts without noticing all of
what is iiifluenciag him. So he will tend to attribute his sense of
s o m c t h i r i g m o r e r a d i c a l l y wrong than falsity t o the presence alone
of what is alone obvious, viz. a referring expression which fails
of reference; and thus will overlook altogether these considera-
tions about aboutness or topic which I have been discussing.
Let me remark that I do not claim to have done more thall
mention one factor which may sometimes bear on the fact that
a truth-value gap theory for the case of radical reference failure
is apt to seen1 more intuitively attractive in some instances than
it does in others.