Quantifying, Quotation, and a Paradox

Author(s): Robert Binkley

Source: Noûs, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Sep., 1970), pp. 271-277
Published by: Wiley
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 Quantifying, and a Paradox
Quotation,

ROBERT BUILEY
UNIVER~ Y 0F WESTERN ONTAIO

There are good reasons (given, for example,by Quine in [3],

p. 166), for holding that a quantifieroutside quotation marks can
never bind a variable within them when the quantifieris under-
stood in the customary referential or objectual way. It is by no
means clear, however, that this remainstrue when the quantifieris
understood in the substitutionalway (for which see, e.g., Dunn
and Belnap in [1]). The purpose of the present paper is to argue
that it does not remain true, and that one may substitutionally
quantify freely into quotations,subject only to the restrictionthat
a single quantifiercannotsimultaneouslybind variablesboth within
and without the quotation. I shall refer to this as the no-mixing
restriction, and I shall argue that it applies, whichever of two
quite differentways of understandingthe quotation conventionsis
employed.
On the substitutional view, we are to understand such a
sentence as "( 3 x) (x is red)" as conveying the idea that it is pos-
sible to fill the blank in "_ is red"with a name so as to produce a
true sentence. There is no reason to limit this to the category of
names, and so we can say more generally that the function of the
substitutionalexistential quantifieris to indicate that the sentence
gaps marked by the variables it binds can be filled with items of
appropriatesyntactical category to yield a truth.
We need not pursue the ramificationsof this notion any
further to appreciatethe applicationto the case at hand. For this
understandingof the quantifierwould appearto permit us to affirm
the following as a mildly curious truth:
(1) ( 3 n) ("!n"has n letters),
where n' is understood to range substitutionally over English
271

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272 NO-S

number words. That this should be a truth is shown by such true

instantiationsentences as
(2) "Four"has four letters.
We may dispose of a minor point quickly. It might be asked
how we know that (1) does not say that the fourteenth letter of
the alphabet has some number of letters. The answer is that we
suppose conventionsaccordingto which the "n"is to function as a
substitutional variable even when it appears within quotation
marks;consequentlyit does not combine with the quotationmarks
to form the name of an expression.But how then are we to refer to
this persisting variable? More conventions; for example, another
style of quotation marks within which it ceases to function as a
variable. I use ordinaryquotation marks in both these ways, but
context should make clear which is intended.
But the main point about (1) is that it violates the no-mixing
restrictionon quantificationinto quotations.That (1) does involve
a mistake,a mistakeof the sort to warrantprecisely that restriction,
will emerge from the examinationof the nature of quotation to
which I now turn.
One way of using quotationmarksis as a device for forming
abbreviations of descriptions of linguistic expressions. On this
usage, we write (2) as we do because we do not wish to expend
time and space on some such form as
(3) The word spelled by the 6th, 15th, 21st and 18th
letters of the alphabetin that order has four letters.
On this usage, therefore,the sentence (2) will have only the logical
propertiesof (3), its unabbreviatedversion.Now (3), as any other
sentence, offers itself as a basis for quantification.For example, it
will serve as an instantiationsentence for
(4) ( 3 n) (The word spelled by the 6th, 15th, 21st and
18th letters of the alphabet in that order has n
letters),
where "n"ranges as before over number words. It also instantiates
(5) ( 3 s) (s has four letters),
in which "s"ranges over spelling descriptionsof expressions.Now,
(5) does not strictly involve quantificationinto a quotation. How-

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QUANTIFYING, QUOTATION, AND A PARADOX 273

ever, it is easy to imagine conventionsaccordingto which, as a way

of remindingourselves that instantiationsof (5), such as (3), will
have abbreviationssuch as (2), we allow ourselves to rewrite (5)
as
(6) ( 3 n) ("n"has four letters).
Construedin this way, that is, as a device for producingsentences
such as (6) as suggestive rephrasingsof sentences such as (5),
quantificationinto quotations is clearly quite harmless. This way
of construingit, however, also precludes the formation of
(1) ( 3 n) ("n"has n letters),
and requiresthe no-mixingrestriction.For while the rightmost"n"
in (1) is to be instantiatedwith number words, the one to the left
of it would be a part of a complex symbol, involving quotation
marks,which is as a whole to be instantiatedwith descriptionsof
expressions,full or abbreviated.
The mode of quotationjust considered,however, is something
of a logician'sartifice;the ordinaryquotationconventions,to which
I now turn, make more essential and explicit use of the fact that an
instance of the expressionbeing referred to appears between the
quotationmarks.On this conception, quotation marks are a device
for makingwhat I shall call Lagadoreferenceto linguistic types (in
honorof the wise men of Lagado, visited by Gulliveron his voyage
to Laputa,who for the sake of their lungs renouncedwords in favor
of things). By Lagado reference I mean a mode of referring to
properties, classes, individuals, linguistic types, or whatever, that
essentially involves the wielding of an object which possesses the
property,belongs to the class, is the individual, is a token of the
linguistic type, etc. to which reference is being made. To refer to
the pitch middle C by singing it is to make a Lagado reference to
it. Lagado reference as a regular part of the language is practical
only in domainswhere objects of the appropriatekind are ready to
hand. This condition is met in the case of linguistic types, and the
quotation mark conventions enable us to make Lagado references
to them systematically.To refer to a type, one simply places a token
of the type inside quotationmarks.Or so it seems.
On these conventions,it does appear that the first "n' in
(7) "n' has n letters

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274 NOS

is to be instantiatedwith a number word since it marksthe place

where we are to insert a token of a number word type, and so the
objectionsto
(1) ( 3 n) ("n"has n letters)
which arose with the first type of quotation seem now to have
evaporated.
That they actually have not, however, can be demonstrated
by means of the following paradox.If we may quantify substitu-
tionally into Lagado quotationin violation of the no-mixingrestric-
tion, then we may introduce a predicate, analogous to "hetero-
logicar', as follows:
(8) Hx = Df ( 3 0) (x is a token of "0" & -Ox),
where "0" ranges over monadicpredicates. This definitionseeks to
tell us that "H"is true of an object if and only if the object is a
token of a predicate type which is not true of it.
Let the reader now baptise with the name "a"the physical
object which is the token of "H"in his copy of (8) above, and let
us raise the question whether "H"is true of a. That "H"is indeed
true of a can be demonstratedby the following reductio argument:
(9) -Ha Hypothesis
(10) -( 3 0) (a is a token From (8) and (9)
of "0" & --0a)
(11) (0) (a is a token of From (10)
"0" 30a)
(12) a is a token of "H" Observablefact
(13) Ha From (11) and (12)
Readerswise in the ways of paradoxwill be eager to know to
what sort of absurditythis conclusionitself can be reduced. Not to
a contradiction,at any rate. Applying the definitionto (13) yields
(14) (3 0) (a is a token of "0' & -0a)
which, assertingmerelythat some predicatetype having a as a token
is not true of a, seems harmless.All the same, one cannot help won-
dering which predicate type (or types) this is. It cannot be "H"
since, if it were, we would have
(15) a is a token of "H"& -Ha
which contradicts(13), a statementwe have just accepted. Sentence

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QUANTIFYING, QUOTATION, AND A PARADOX 275

(14), therefore,must be telling us that some predicate type other

than "H"is tokened by a. Yet in (12) we have already stated, as a
matter of observablefact, that a is a token of "H",and so we are
forced to conclude that a is a token of at least two distinct types,
"H"and some other, mystery, type (or types). It is clear that the
same will be true of every other token of "H",which thus turns out
to sufferfrom an ambiguityof a particularlyineluctable form. It is
a word which one can never use to mean one thing without sim-
ultaneously meaning something else as well.
This, while curious, is not a contradiction, and those un-
deterredby anythingshort of a contradictionmay rest content with
this result, though they will need to contend with the fact that
"Tx= Df ( 3 s) (x = "s & s)", "s"ranging over sentences, seems
to define a truth predicate "T"in the object language, which will
open the way to a liar paradox. But the prospect of irresolvable
ambiguityof this degree is an affrontto such basic ideas about the
whole point of logic that many will want to look for a way out.
By raising the issue of ambiguity, the paradoxitself provides
a clue. We must re-examinewhat is involved in Lagado quotation,
and note that when we add the machineryof Lagado quotation to
the language, we give every expressionin the language a second
role and thereby render it ambiguous.Every expressionwill have
its originallinguistic role, and now also the role of combiningwith
the Lagado quotation apparatusto produce a reference to a lin-
quistic type. (We may note in passing David Kaplan's Fregean
treatmentof quotationin [2] which similarlystresses the ambiguity
of expressions as used in and outside of quotation marks.) The
ambiguity is ordinarily harmless, since context will make clear
which role is being played; one has merely to observe whether or
not the expressionappearswithin quotationmarks.The ambiguity,
therefore, is quite different from the just noted ambiguity of "H".
Indeed, the ineluctable ambiguity of "H"may now be seen to re-
sult from attempting to combine both sides of the ambiguity
generated by Lagado quotation into a single symbol.
We may put this point more clearlyby saying that a linguistic
type is a combinationof a shape (visual or auditory) and a lin-
guistic role. When Lagado quotation is added to the language,
every shape acquires an additionalrole, and so is associated with
at least two types. Types will come in pairs, or larger families,
distinguishablefrom each other by role, not shape. We may call
this new type the Lagado correlateof the original type. It follows

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276 NOUCS

that the rule for Lagado quotation must be restated. We do not,

after all, place a token of the type being referred to within the
quotation marks; instead, we place there a token of the Lagado
correlate,a type having the same shape but a differentrole.
This has a direct implicationfor substitutionalquantification
into Lagado quotation. For substitutional quantification is over
types, not shapes; we may not quantify substitutionallyinto "The
bank was built on the bank of the river",to produce "( 3 x) (The
x was built on the x of the river)". The occurrencesof variables
bound by a single quantifiermark gaps to be filled by tokens of
the same type: sameness of shape is not enough. And from this it
follows again that while we may quantify into quotations,we must
observe the no-mixing restriction.For a single type can never be
tokened both in and out of quotation marks. Inside the quotation
markswe will have at best a token of the Lagado correlate of the
type tokened outside them, never a token of that type itself.
This clears up our paradoxby leading us to reject the defini-
tion (8) of the embarrassingpredicateon the groundthat it violates
the no-mixingrestriction.
Two final points. First, we must deal with the question how
the Lagado correlate types are themselves to be referred to. A
second set of quotationmarkswon't do; if I write
(16) " "four"",
I refer to a complex type composed of the quotation mark type
together with the Lagado correlatetype. To refer just to the latter,
we must introduce another quotation mark shape, say asterisks,so
that while we say
(17) "Four"is a number word,
we say
(18) *Four* is the Lagado correlateof a numberword.
This is, of course, just the beginning of an endless series. We will
need a third style of quotationmark to say, for example,
(19) #Four# is the Lagado correlateof the Lagado correlate
of a number word,
and so on. But there is no harm in a series like this. And it is not
hard to see how the no-mixingrestrictioncan be extended to cover

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QUANTIFYING, QUOTATION, AND A PARADOX 277

it. Roughly, a quantifiermay only bind variablesthat are similarly

nested in quotation marks.
Lastly, there is the problem how to express the truth about
numbers and number words which the now discredited (1) was
intended to state. This may be done by making explicit use of a
semantical term. Thus, letting "n" range over number words and
C over Lagado correlatesof number words, we may say,
(20) ( 3 c) ( 3 n) ("c"denotes n & "c"has n letters).

REFERENCES
[1] M. Duen and N. Belknap, "The Substitution Interpretationof the Quanti-
fiers," THIS JOURNAL, II (1968): 177-185.
[21 D. Kaplan, "Quantifying In," Synthese, XIX (1968): 178-214.
[3] W. V. Quine, Word and Object, Cambridge, Mass. 1960.

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