Dr Laurence Goldstein

Dr Laurence Goldstein
"The Humorous Approach to Non-Substitutivity"

Abstract:
There seems to be a problem. In order to satisfy the conditions of a will, Andrew Seth had to change his name to Pringle-Pattison, and he did. (Not many people know that).

Since Seth and Pringle-Pattison are one and the same person, it would seem that, if you take any true statement containing the name 'Pringle-Pattison', then you ought to get a true statement by exchanging 'Pringle-Pattison' for 'Seth' in that statement. But you don't.

For example, 'Angus believes that Pringle-Pattison was a moderately famous Scottish philosopher' may be true, while 'Angus believes that Seth was a moderately famous Scottish philosopher' may be false. Versions of this problem have been around since antiquity and a host of philosophical, semantical, or psychological theories have been proposed in order to try to solve it. But is this one of those cases for an alternative therapy of the sort that Wittgenstein favoured, where, after scrutinizing the preconceptions that enable us to set up the problem, the problem evaporates?

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