The 'Is' of Identity and the 'Is' of Predication

Bill Clinton may have brought the matter to national attention, but philosophers have long appreciated that much can ride on what the meaning of 'is' is. 

Edward of London has a very good post in which he raises the question whether the standard analytic distinction between the 'is' of identity and the 'is' of predication is but fallout from an antecedent decision to adhere to an absolute distinction between names and predicates.  If the distinction is absolute, as Frege and his epigoni maintain, then names cannot occur in predicate position, and a distinction between the two uses of 'is' is the consequence.  But what if no such absolute distinction is made?  Could one then dispense with the standard analytic distinction?  Or are there reasons independent of Frege's function-argument analysis of propositions for upholding the distinction between the two uses of 'is'?

To illustrate the putative distinction, consider

1. George Orwell is Eric Blair

and

2. George Orwell is famous.

Both sentences feature a token of 'is.'  Now ask yourself: is 'is' functioning in the same way in both sentences? The standard analytic line is that 'is' functions differently in the two sentences.  In (1) it expresses identity; in (2) it expresses predication. Identity, among other features, is symmetrical; predication is not.  That suffices to distinguish the two uses of 'is.'  'Famous' is predicable of Orwell, but Orwell is not predicable of  'famous.'  But if Blair is Orwell, then Orwell is Blair.

Now it is clear, I think, that if one begins with the absolute name-predicate distinction, then the other distinction is also required. For if  'Eric Blair' in (1) cannot be construed as a predicate, then surely the 'is' in (1) does not express predication.  The question I am raising, however, is whether the distinction between the two uses of 'is' arises ONLY IF  one distinguishes absolutely and categorially between names and predicates.

Fred Sommers seems to think so.  Referencing the example 'The morning star is Venus,' Sommers  writes, "Clearly it is only after one has adopted the syntax that prohibits the predication of proper names that one is forced to read 'a is b' dyadically and to see in it a sign of identity." (The Logic of Natural Language, Oxford 1982, p. 121, emphasis added)  The contemporary reader will of course wonder how else 'a is b' could be read if it is not read as expressing a dyadic relation between a and b.  How the devil could the 'is' in 'a is b' be read as a copula?

This is what throws me about the scholastic stuff peddled by Ed and others.  In 'Orwell is famous' they seem to be wanting to say that 'Orwell' and 'famous' refer to the same thing.  But what could that mean? 

First of all, 'Orwell' and 'famous' do not have the same extension: there are many famous people, but only  one Orwell.  But even if Orwell were the only famous person, Orwell would not be identical to the only famous person.  Necessarily, Orwell is Orwell; but it is not the case that, necessarily, Orwell is the only famous person, even if it is true that Orwell is the only famous person, which he  isn't.

If you tell me that only 'Orwell' has a referent, but not 'famous,' then I will reply that that is nominalism for the crazy house.  Do you really want to say or imply that Orwell is famous because in English we apply the predicate 'famous' to him?  That's ass-backwards or bass-ackwards, one.  We correctly apply 'famous' to him because he is, in reality, famous.  (That his fame is a social fact doesn't  make it language-dependent.)  Do you really want to say or imply that, were we speaking German, Orwell would not be famous but beruehmt?  'Famous' is a word of English while beruehmt is its German equivalent.  The property, however, belongs to neither language.  If you say there are no properties, only predicates, then that smacks of the loony bin.

Suppose 'Orwell' refers to the concrete individual Orwell, and 'famous' refers to the property, being-famous.  Then you get for your trouble a different set of difficulties.  I don't deny them!  But these difficulties do not show that the scholastic view is in the clear.

This pattern repeats itself throughout philosophy.  I believe I have shown that materialism about the mind faces insuperable objections, and that only those in the grip of naturalist ideology could fail to feel their force.   But it won't do any good to say that substance dualism also faces insuperable objections.  For it could be that both are false/incoherent.  In fact, it could be that every theory proposed (and proposable by us) in solution of  every philosophical problem is false/incoherent.