Читать книгу Reference and Identity in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures - D. E. Buckner - Страница 11
Оглавление14:51 And a certain young man (νεανίσκος) followed him, with a linen cloth (σινδόνα) cast about his naked body; and they took hold of him.
14:52 And with the linen cloth cast off, he fled from them naked.1
Introduction
Mark mentions the young man just once. Perhaps he is the same man “clothed in a long white robe” that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome saw later when they entered the empty tomb (16:5), but Mark does not say. He clearly knows who the man is—he says “a certain” young man (quidam, τις), but he chooses not to identify him. Some have speculated that he was Mark himself. Others, that he represents a flight from Jerusalem, and from martyrdom. Yet I can talk about him, as many puzzled scholars have done in the past. Correggio and others painted him. Given we know so little about him, how is it that we can refer to him at all?
The gospels are rich in characters like the naked fugitive. Many, like him, are nameless. In Mark, these include the Gerasene demoniac (5:1–20) who is introduced as “a man with an unclean spirit”; a woman with a flow of blood (5:25–34) who is cured by touching Jesus’ clothes, “an executioner” sent by Herod (6:27) to behead John the Baptist; a Syro-Phoenician woman (7:24-30) whose daughter Jesus cures of possession. Although there is extended reference to them by the pronouns “he” or “she,” or by descriptions such as “the woman,” none of them are named. Others are merely introduced without further mention, such as “one of Jesus’ disciples” (εἷς τῶν μαθητῶν – 13:1), who may or may not be the same as any of the disciples referred to elsewhere. Others are named, but mentioned only briefly: for example, “Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew and Matthew, and Thomas and James of Alpheus, and Thaddeus [Jude] and Simon the Cananean” (3:18).
Other characters are named, and are the subject of extensive reference within the New Testament, but nowhere else, for example, Simon Peter (called “Simon” in 1:29, 30, 36; “Simon Peter” in 3:16; 14:37; “Peter” in 8:29, 32-33; 9:5; 10:28; 11:21; 14:29; 14:54, 66-72; 16:7; [16:9]). We do not find them in contemporary historical records outside the Bible. Jesus himself, the subject of all four gospels, is referenced frequently in the Acts of the Apostles, as well as occasionally appearing in person, but there is nothing about him in any independent contemporary document. He is mentioned frequently by Paul in his letters, but these are generally thought to have been written before the gospels, and the letters are in any case not independent witnesses. The first independent mention of Jesus is in Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, written probably 93–94 AD, books eighteen and twenty, although there are doubts about the authenticity of these passages.2 The second is by Tacitus, who mentions Jesus’ execution by Pilate in a page of his Annals (c. AD 116), book fifteen, c.44. All subsequent references to Jesus, to Simon Peter and the other apostles, depend wholly on the information about him provided in the New Testament.
This brings me to the puzzle of unbound anaphora, of how singular terms introduced by indefinite description, such as “a man named Moses,” “a woman named Martha,” and “a man in the crowd,” can co-refer in some sense with their indefinite antecedent, even though the antecedent itself does not refer. Mark says that the naked fugitive left the linen cloth, and that he fled. I can now say, using the pronoun “he,” (Gr. ὁ, Lat. ille,), that Mark is able to identify or refer to the young man. I have just made a reference statement! The word “he” in Mark’s text is the mentioned term, the expression “the young man” in my previous sentence is the referring term. I have used the reference statement to tell us who, that is, which individual, the mentioned term refers to. But how can the statement tell us this when we don’t know who the man is? His identity, like the identity of many characters in the Bible, is unknown. Mark’s text does not tell us who the young man is (nor who is the Gerasene demoniac, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the executioner sent by Herod). But I can make a reference statement, and a reference statement tells us which person a term refers to. So I can say who he is referring to, but Mark can’t, apparently. How do we explain this?
Story-Relative Reference
The puzzle of story-relative reference is central to Strawson’s book Individuals. He begins with what he calls story-relative identification.3
A speaker tells a story which he claims to be factual. It begins: “A man and a boy were standing by a fountain,” and it continues: “the man had a drink.” Shall we say that the hearer knows which or what particular is being referred to by the subject-expression in the second sentence? We might say so.
We know which individual is being referred to by the subject-expression “the man,” because it distinguishes the man “by means of a description which applies only to him,” but Strawson says this is relative identification only, for we know which particular individual is being referred to of the two particular creatures being talked about by the speaker, but we do not, without this qualification, know what particular creature is being referred to.4 He distinguishes this from identification within history, saying that the former is identification only in a weak sense.
His story consists of two sentences, but there is nothing to prevent us from adding new anaphor sentences, which refer back to the initial indefinite antecedent, or from creating new indefinite sentences introducing new characters, indeed this is how the Biblical stories can be told at all. For example, Mary is introduced (Luke 1:27) by the indefinite description “a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David.” The narrative continues with the definite description “the virgin’s name was ‘Mary,’” after which Luke refers to her by a pronoun or her proper name. For example: “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb” (Luke 1:41). Likewise, Elizabeth is introduced by the indefinite description “a descendant of Aaron [whose] name was ‘Elizabeth.’” Nearly all the characters in the gospels are identified in this story-relative way, being mentioned in no other contemporary historical source. These include all the twelve disciples, and other disciples, such as Bartimaeus, Jairus, his daughter and wife, Joseph of Arimathea, and Mary Magdalene. Other references, such as to Isaiah, Moses and Elijah, are to individuals in the Hebrew Bible, but they, like the majority of individuals mentioned there, are mentioned nowhere else.
Story relativity was a puzzle for Strawson. The focus of his work, and of the work of his student, Gareth Evans, was a criterion for a form of absolute reference, which he believed would be stringent enough to eliminate relative identification.5 He claimed to have found it in the spatio-temporal network in which we as speakers are located, which gives us—because of our place in that network—a point of reference that individuates the network itself, and so helps us to individuate the other particulars within the network by means of dating and placing systems. He sought to ground identification in terms of demonstrative identification, arguing that even if an individual cannot itself be demonstratively identified, “It may be identified by a description which relates it uniquely to another particular which can be demonstratively identified.”6 Much of this book is an examination—and rejection—of that claim. In this chapter, I shall address the problem of how a story can introduce characters indefinitely, for example as “a” young man, or “a” woman with a flow of blood, yet go on to refer to these characters using anaphoric chains of co-referring definite or singular terms.
How can a definite term co-refer with an indefinite term? A definite term can refer back 7 to an indefinite one.
There was a young man. The man was wearing a linen cloth.
But what about that initial description or name? What term does it refer back to, and what individual does it refer to, simpliciter? In the previous chapter, I provisionally defined co-referring terms as those whose meaning requires that, if they have a referent at all, they have a common referent. So it seems that the terms “a young man” and “the man” have a common reference, assuming the young man existed at all. But can an indefinite term like “a young man” refer?
Transportability
I shall show that singular terms in a story-relative context, even proper names, do not have a meaning that is transportable.8 By a transportable meaning, I mean one that can belong to any token, regardless of context or order. Consider
There was a young man. He was wearing a linen cloth.
The two sentences imply that some young man was wearing a linen cloth. Can any other term in the narrative have the same meaning as the pronoun “he”? Certainly, if the term occurs later in the natural order of reading. It will co-refer in some sense, and is anaphorically connected with the antecedent indefinite description “a young man.” But no term that comes before the antecedent can have that meaning, for the whole purpose of an indefinite term is its indifference to what comes before: “a young man” means any young man, not necessarily a specific man already mentioned. That is:
He was wearing a linen cloth. . . . There was a young man.
does not imply that some young man was wearing a linen cloth. Perhaps “he” was an old, or a middle-aged man, or just some other man. But the inference depends on the meaning of the pronoun, any term with that meaning will validate the inference, yet no term prior in the order of reading can have such a meaning. Pronouns cannot refer forward to an antecedent term in the way that they refer back: the back reference is a part of their meaning, therefore the meaning is not transportable as I have defined it.
It may be objected that in English, as well as Latin and other languages, a pronoun can anticipate a postcedent that occurs later in the text. For example: “In his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume raises doubts about our knowledge of necessary connection,” where “his” anticipates “Hume.” Or in Latin: Is qui bene se exprimit hoc scripsit, where “is” anticipates “qui.” In reply, in such cataphoric co-reference, the semantics of the definite cataphoric term is in suspension, rather like a musical suspension, until the postcedent is identified, at which point the co-reference is understood, and the meaning of the cataphor is clear. Thus, the meaning of the cataphor is not transportable to a position before the postcedent, even if the term itself is transportable.9
Such non-transportability is obvious in the case of the pronoun, but the same is true of proper names. The sentences
There was a young man called “Mark.” Mark was wearing a linen cloth.
together, and in that order, also imply that some young man was wearing a linen cloth. The proper name has some semantic connection to the indefinite antecedent “a man called ‘Mark’” that licenses the inference. But this is no longer valid if the name occurs before the antecedent. For example
Mark was wearing a linen cloth. . . . There was a young man called “Mark.”
Tokens of the same proper name may have different meanings, and the indefinite “a man called ‘Mark’” could be introducing us to another person with the same name. For example, Acts 12:12:
He went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark
Is this the same as Mark the evangelist? This idea is suggested by 1 Peter 5:13, where Peter says “She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark,” but this is not a logical inference, but a probable or possible one. Proper names are essentially ambiguous, unless their meaning is resolved by context. In the case given earlier, the context is the indefinite antecedent, which can only occur before in the sequence of reading, never afterwards. In a story-relative context, not even proper names have a transportable meaning.
It could be objected that the singular anaphor term could be replaced by an indefinite noun phrase that included the content of the antecedent.10 Then we could translate the two sentences
(1) A young man was wearing a linen cloth. He ran away.
as something like
(2) A young man was wearing a linen cloth. A young man who was wearing a linen cloth ran away.
The definite noun phrase “he” is replaced by the indefinite noun phrase “a young man who was wearing a linen cloth.” This yields the required inference: the content of the conclusion is identical to the content of the second premiss. But this is problematic for a number of reasons. First, we have to suppose that every singular term in the anaphoric chain means the same as an indefinite term containing everything that was previously asserted in the chain. So the term “Moses” in “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died” is equivalent to “a man who was born into the tribe of Levi, who was abandoned by his mother, taken in by Pharaoh’s daughter, killed an Egyptian etc.” This is wholly implausible. The term “Moses” does not mean that, and the sentence itself does not contain that information.
Second, what if there is another such man?
(3) A young man was wearing a linen cloth. Another young man who was wearing a linen cloth ran away.
The second sentence of (3) includes the content of the second sentence of (2), which is supposed to signify that the man, that is, he, is the same man, but the term “another” says that the man is different. It would be like saying “another the same man”!
The same line of reasoning shows that the meaning of unique definite descriptions cannot be captured by a unique indefinite description. Consider:
(4) A uniquely omnipotent being is creating. That same being is loving.
We want to describe the content of the second sentence in way that captures how the being that is loving is the same as the omnipotent being that is creating. No analysis based on Russell’s theory of descriptions will do the trick.11 Suppose we analyze the second sentence as follows.
(5) A uniquely omnipotent being who is creating, is loving.
But we could equally say
(6) Another uniquely omnipotent being who is creating, is loving.
which includes the content of (5), so (5) cannot possibly mean that the being is the same one as mentioned in the first sentence of (4). Of course, (6) contradicts the first part of (4). Both cannot be true, for there cannot be two uniquely omnipotent beings. But it does not contradict itself, as it would do if “the same as X” meant “possessing the same unique attribute as X.” If it did, it would assert that someone who is both the only omnipotent being, and not the only omnipotent being, is loving. But it does not. It simply asserts that someone who is loving is the only omnipotent being, and implies that some other being (the object of the first sentence) is not. The theory of descriptions is inadequate to capture the sense of “sameness” that is asserted or implied to hold between the subjects of different propositions. Of course, if we talk on different occasions about the Prime Minister of the Great Britain, we normally imply that the same person is in question. But that just relies on the assumption that we are talking about the same individual. Assertion of some unique attribute implies or suggests sameness, it does not assert it. Otherwise we would not be able to say that any other individual possessed the attribute.12
Reference Statements
The second thesis of this book, the reference thesis, is that the truth of a reference statement depends entirely upon co-reference, as I have defined it. I claim that the reference statement is true if and only if (i) the term mentioned by the statement co-refers with the term used in the statement, and (ii) the mentioned term is an anaphor, that is, has some antecedent in the chain of co-referring terms to which it belongs. Therefore, since co-reference (as I have defined it) is a purely semantic relation between the terms, and obtains whether or not there is an external object they are related to, its truth is independent of any such external relation. It is true that “Asmodeus” refers to the demon Asmodeus, whether or not there is such a thing as Asmodeus.
I argue as follows. If a story-relative meaning is not transportable, it follows that the meaning of the corresponding reference statement is not transportable either.
1. There was a young man called “Mark.”
2. Mark was wearing a linen cloth.
3. The name “Mark” refers to him.
The third sentence is a reference statement as I have defined it. The mentioning term is “The name ‘Mark’ above,” the mentioned term is the first token of the second sentence, that is, “Mark.” The used or referring term is the pronoun “him.” Clearly, the statement is true if and only if the used term and the mentioned term co-refer, as they do here. But both the mentioned and the used term refer back to the indefinite antecedent “a young man,” back-reference is not transportable, hence the meaning of the reference statement is also not transportable, and the standard theory of reference statements seems to be false.
Note the first “if” in “if and only if.” I claim that a reference statement is true if the term that is mentioned co-refers with the term that is used, and if the mentioned term is an anaphor, so that the statement can be true even if there was never any such person as the naked fugitive (e.g., if the author of the gospel invented the character). That is a strong claim, but it is a corollary of the co-reference thesis, as follows.
Both the anaphoric theory of reference and the standard theory of reference start with the pre-theoretical conception of reference, namely the “whichness” signified by singular terms. A singular term such as a proper name signifies which particular thing (as opposed to which kind of thing) the speaker or writer is talking about. The sentence “Moses led the people out of Egypt” tells us which person it was who led the people out of Egypt. Singular terms such as proper names, definite descriptions, and pronouns can perform this task of “signifying which,” and a proper name performs this function without signifying anything else. To paraphrase Mill, a proper name shows us, that is, signifies, which thing it is that we are talking about (or purport to talk about), without telling us anything else about it.
