Intuition and the Substitution Argument

Abstract

Abstract The ‘substitution argument’ [CB3]purports to demonstrate the falsity of Russellian accounts of belief-ascription by observing that, for example, the sentences (LC) “Lois believes that Clark can fly” and (LS) “Lois believes that Superman can fly” could have different truth-values. But what is the basis for that claim? It is widely supposed that it is simply an ‘intuition’ that could then be ‘explained away’. This supposition plays an especially important role in Jennifer Saul’s defense of Russellianism, based upon the existence of an allegedly similar contrast between the sentences (PC) “Superman is more popular than Clark” and (PS) “Superman is more popular than Superman”. The latter contrast looks pragmatic. But then, Saul asks, why shouldn’t we then say the same about the former? The answer is that the two cases are not similar. In the case of (PC) and (PS), we have only the facts that these strike us differently, and that people will sometimes say things like (PC) but never say things like (PS). By contrast, there is an argument that (LS) can be true even if (LC) is false, and this argument does not appeal to anyone’s ‘intuitions’. The chapter’s main goal is to present such a version of the substitution argument, building upon the treatment of the Fregean argument against Russellian accounts of belief itself in “Solving Frege’s Puzzle”. A subsidiary goal is to contribute to the growing literature arguing that ‘intuitions’ simply do not play the role in philosophical inquiry that ‘experimental philosophers’ have supposed they do.