Questions about Pronouns, Sex, and 'Wokism'

Elliot Crozat writes, 

During my visit, one of our conversation topics was pronoun usage. If I recall, on one of the hikes, you gave the example "He who hesitates is lost” and asked about the function of ‘He.’ You then said that this pronoun seems to function as a universal quantifier such that, for any x, if x hesitates, then x is lost. I agree. Our agreement suggests that pronouns can function logically in ways that differ from their merely grammatical appearance.

BV: Right. Although 'he' and 'she' are classified grammatically as pronouns, their logical function in examples like the one I gave is not pronominal, but quantificational. Pronouns typically have noun antecedents, but 'he' in 'He who hesitates is lost' has no antecedent. It functions like a bound variable. I can imagine a Yogi Berra type joke. I say to Berra, "He who hesitates is lost," and he replies, "You mean Joe Biden?" (Here is a real Yogi Berra joke. Someone asked Berra what time it is. He replied, "You mean now?")

I spoke today with a friend, a philosopher, who is under some pressure from his employer to use the ‘preferred pronouns’ of colleagues and others even if such 'pronouns' don't align with the biological sex of the 'preferrers.' For various reasons concerning clarity and accuracy of language, freedom of speech and thought, and ideological disagreement, my friend is concerned about how to navigate this progressivist current in a responsible manner. We discussed some ideas.

Here’s one. Suppose a biological male, Mark, desires and requests to be referred to as ‘she.’ Suppose also that, generally speaking, all pronouns that are indexicals (i.e., demonstratives) refer to their respective persons or objects as they objectively are. Smith, a colleague of Mark, attempts to refer to Mark as ‘she.’ It would seem, then, that ‘she’ fails to refer – or that Mark fails to refer via ‘she’ – and thus ‘she’ is a useless and confusing bit of language. Smith’s use of ‘she’ is unhelpful on this account.

BV: I will first make the minor point that an indexical is not the same as a demonstrative. Every demonstrative is an indexical, but not conversely. Suppose I am standing before the deli counter. Having temporarily forgotten that the name of what I want is 'prosciutto,' I say to the deli man, "I'd like some of that." My use of the demonstrative 'that' must be accompanied by a demonstration if I am to succeed in conveying my request. I have to point to the meat I want. But I don't have to point to myself when I utter the indexical 'I' in 'I'd like some of that." 'I' is not a demonstrative. 

A second minor point is that 'I' sometimes functions as a bound variable.  Suppose that in explaining intentionality to a student, I say, "I cannot think without thinking of something." I have not made an autobiographical remark. The proposition I am attempting to convey to the student is that, for any person x, if x thinks, then x thinks of something. 

Grammatical pronouns can function pronominally, indexically, and quantificationally.  Here is a sentence featuring a pronoun functioning pronominally and which therefore has  an antecedent:

Peter always calls before he visits.

In this sentence, 'Peter' is the antecedent of the third-person singular pronoun 'he.'  It is worth noting that an antecedent needn't come before the term for which it is the antecedent:

After he got home, Peter poured himself a drink.

In this sentence 'Peter' is the antecedent of 'he' despite occurring after 'he' in the order of reading.  The antecedency is therefore referential rather than temporal.  In both of these cases, the reference of 'he' is supplied by the antecedent.  The burden of reference is borne by the antecedent.  So there is a clear sense in which the reference of 'he' in both cases is not direct, but mediated by the antecedent. (And if the reference of the antecedent is mediated by a Frege-style sense or Sinn, then we have a double mediation.)  The antecedent is referentially prior to the pronoun for which it is the antecedent.  But suppose I point to Peter and say

He smokes cigarettes.

This is an indexical use of 'he.'  Part of what makes it an indexical use is that its reference depends on the non-linguistic context of utterance: I utter a token of 'he' while pointing at Peter, or nodding in his direction.  The sentence need not be situated in a linguistic context.  Another part of what makes 'he' in the example an indexical is that it refers directly, not just in the sense that the reference is not routed through a description or sense associated with the use of the pronoun that fixes the reference to Peter and nothing else, but also in that there is no need for an antecedent to secure the reference.  Now suppose I say

I smoke cigars.

This use of 'I' is clearly indexical, although it is  purely indexical (David Kaplan) inasmuch as there is no need for a demonstration:  I don't need to point to myself when I say 'I smoke cigars.'  And like the immediately preceding example, there is no need for an antecedent to nail down the reference of 'I.'  Not every pronoun needs an antecedent to do a referential job.

In fact, it seems that no expression, used indexically, has or could have an antecedent.  Hector-Neri Castaneda puts it like this:

Whether in oratio recta or in oratio obliqua, (genuine) indicators have no antecedents. ("Indicators and Quasi-Indicators" reprinted in The Phenomeno-Logic of the I, p. 67)

 For a quantificational use of a grammatical pronoun, consider

He who hesitates is lost.

Clearly, 'he' does not function here pronominally -- there is no antecedent -- nor does it function indexically.  It functions like the bound variable in

For any person x, if x hesitates, then x is lost.

But is this token ‘she’ a pronoun in appearance only? It seems to function in some ways like a proper name (perhaps a sobriquet or a tag of sorts) of one who has undergone a name change. On this view, the token ‘she’ wouldn’t function as a rigid designator, since there are possible worlds in which Mark doesn’t use ‘she.’ But the token seems to work as a name or tag for Mark in relevant circumstances.

BV: I would say that 'she' has a sense which requires that any human being  successfully referred to by its use is a biological female. I am inclined to say that if you try to refer to a biological male as 'she,' then the reference won't be successful. But this is none too clear.  

Consider the example of Cassius Clay, who underwent a change in the way he viewed himself and hence selected a new name to reflect his subjective change of ‘self-identification.’ As a matter of respect for Clay as a person, others began to call him by his new name ‘Ali.’

Is the Clay-Ali scenario relevantly similar to the situation of Mark, who in this world subjectively identifies as female despite being biologically male and having formerly identified as male? Suppose Smith speaks about Mark by saying “She went to the market.” Does Smith refer successfully to Mark in virtue of using “she” as something like a proper name rather than a pronoun?

BV: One can change one's religion but one cannot change one's sex. That's an important difference. I myself find it very easy to identify with women, but surely it is impossible for me to identify as a woman if that means:  apperceive or interpret myself or alter my physicality or raiment in such a way as to bring it about that I become a woman. I can no more identify as a woman than I can identify as a cat or a carrot. Of course, I can pretend to be a woman and even successfully pass myself off as one.  (Cf. the movies "Tootsie" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" which you no doubt have seen.) But a man in drag remains a man, even if he is in what I call  'super-drag' where this includes surgical mutilation and augmentation of the body, hormone replacement 'therapy,' etc.  And the sexual frisson/excitation that a man might feel when putting on panties and bra is male frisson is it not? And thus further proof that he remains a man even if he has had his genitalia lopped off and a vagina fashioned from his former penis? 

I am inclined to say that a literal sex change operation is an impossibility. No animal can change its sex or have its sex changed.

Here is a proof from the metaphysics of time. Tell me what you think of it. Every adult woman was a girl. Every adult male was a boy.  The past is unalterable. (Not even God  can restore a virgin.) Now it is possible for a man to become a woman only if it is possible for a man to have been a girl. But that is impossible because it is impossible to alter the past.  Therefore, it is impossible for a man to become a woman no matter how he is altered, even chromosomally. The nature of time rules it out.

Here is another thought. You can change your religion or your political affiliation, but not your race or your sex.  These non-negotiable facts are extra-linguistic. Now with the exception of mere Millian tags, the senses of words determines their reference and not the other way around. I suggested above that one cannot successfully refer to a biological male using 'she.' And this for the reason that 'she' has a sense that is sexually restrictive, assuming that it is being used to refer to sexually-polarized animals such as human beings as opposed to ships and flags as in "She's a grand old flag; she's a high-flying flag . . . ." So is the extra-linguistic fact I mentioned partially determining the sense of 'she'? That's what I am puzzling over at the moment. But I am just 'shootin' from the hip here and perhaps what I have written is not sufficiently clear to permit evaluation.  

If the proper name account doesn’t succeed, perhaps ‘she’ has a non-indexical use. Some pronouns have non-indexical applications. David Braun lists three types of pronoun use: indexical(demonstrative), bound variable, andunbound anaphoric. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/indexicals/#IndNonIndUsePro

Perhaps ‘she’ has a bound variable use, such as: “Every male who subjectively identifies as a female believes she will be better off doing so.” Or maybe ‘she’ has an unbound anaphoric use, such as: “Mark was late to work today. She was caught in traffic.”

These non-indexical accounts seem strained to me, and hence I’m thinking the proper name account might be better. Or maybe there is still another account that best explains what is happening in these linguistically-odd situations. Maybe all efforts to refer to Mark as 'she' fail to refer.

I’d like to hear what you have to say on this issue, since you’ve thought deeply about pronouns and about the philosophy of language. I’d be glad to give you a call this weekend to chat, if you're free. Or we can discuss via email. 

BV: I have time for one more comment. 'Mark was late for work because she was caught in traffic.' If I heard that I would ask, "Who was the female in question and what did her getting caught in traffic have to do with Mark's being late for work?"

Your philosopher friend should politely tell his employer that his preferred pronouns are those of standard English and that, while he is willing to tolerate the linguistic innovations of others, he expects toleration in return. If his tolerance is met with intolerance, then he should politely remind the intolerant about who has the guns.

Comments

[Elliott]

Bill, thanks for your response. I appreciate the correction about indexicals and demonstratives. You are right that some indexicals are not demonstratives.

I’m also inclined to say that ‘she’ fails to refer. It’s ironic that if this is a case of unsuccessful reference, then those who are pressured to use ‘she’ are pressured into referential failure.

Your argument from the metaphysics of time is interesting. A similar but less concise argument occurred to me two weeks ago, after watching a clip of the exchange between Senator Hawley and Professor Bridges. In the clip, Bridges seems to insist that there’s no relevant difference between a biological man and a trans man.

Consider:

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, a trans man is, by definition, a “female-to-male transgender person,” i.e., someone who has “transitioned” from female to male.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/articles/glossary-of-terms-1

There is an evident difference between a trans man and a biological man; namely, the former has undergone a “transition,” a process which might involve alterations of a social, medical, and/or cosmetic nature, changes in apparel, etc. The latter is a man without such “transitioning.” He naturally becomes a man after having been a boy.

It is not possible for a trans man to be a biological man because, for any biological man, there was a time t1 at which he was a boy and there was a time t2 (or maybe a range of times t2 - tn) at which he naturally developed from boy to man. But, given the definition of ‘trans man’ and since the past is unalterable, it’s impossible for the trans man to have been a boy, and given facts about biology, it’s impossible for a trans man to have developed naturally from boy to man in the way that a biological man so develops. Both time and biology rule out such things.

Moreover, by definition, for every trans man there was a time at which the trans man was biologically female and another time at which the trans man “transitioned.” But a biological man cannot have a past in which he was a biological female, and a biological man is a man without having “transitioned.”

In short, the natures of time and biology are such that the differences between a man and a trans man are clear. And more: it’s impossible for a trans man to be a biological man.

[Elliott]

"I can no more identify as a woman than I can identify as a cat or a carrot."

Consider the case of Erik Sprague, aka, the Lizardman. Suppose Erik is free to alter his body in the ways one can see in photographs available online. That is, he is free to pretend to be a lizard. It doesn't follow that Erik is an actual lizard, that is, a reptile of the squamata order with scaly skin which sheds, a creature which smells with its tongue, is oviparous, etc. Erik was not hatched from an egg and, given that he wasn't, cannot change that historical fact.

One who is human cannot make oneself into a lizard and thus, in objective reality, achieve a taxonomic switch.

I'd be interested to hear someone provide a principled reason for believing that transitions from male to female or the reverse are successful but that transitions from human to lizard are not successful.

[BV]

Elliot,

This is strange stuff. I'm glad we agree. One question: why “female-to-male transgender person,” rather than F-M transexual person? Is that a tacit admission that no sex change has occurred?

A second question has to do with this definition from the glossary to which you linked: >> Assigned sex at birth: The sex (male or female) assigned to a child at birth, most often based on the child’s external anatomy. Also referred to as birth sex, natal sex, biological sex or sex.<<

If sex can be assigned at birth, why not vital status, i.e. alive versus stillborn? Can a taxonomic status be assigned? Is birth weight assigned? Or is it measured? And so on.

And who does the assigning? A committee? Is a vote taken?

[Elliott]

>>'Mark was late for work because she was caught in traffic.' If I heard that I would ask, "Who was the female in question and what did her getting caught in traffic have to do with Mark's being late for work?"<<

Yes, that statement is confusing. It's an example of why, as I said, these accounts seem strained. Wanting to be charitable to opposing views, I explored what I called the “proper name account” instead. But this account has problems, too.

[Elliott]

“the senses of words determines their reference and not the other way around.”

Here are two possible responses from the cultural far left.

First, at least in some cases, the reference of a word determines its sense. We are free to use words however we desire. Hence, one can point to a “male-to-female-transgender person” and say ‘she.’ The pointing combined with the speaker’s intention to refer to the transgender person fixes the sense of ‘she.’

Second, one might argue that 'she' has a sense that is less sexually restrictive than you suggest. In other words, ‘she’ can be used to refer to the distaff side of sexually-polarized human beings and to transgender females. One might claim that the extra-linguistic fact of “transitioning” is sufficient to determine the sense of ‘she.'

A response to first point: The fact that people are free to use language innovatively doesn’t entail that their innovations are sufficient to fix the sense of the word. If Smith enters a geography classroom and starts using ‘leeward’ to refer to the latest dance at the club, it doesn’t follow that ‘leeward’ takes on this new sense.

A response to second point: If so-called “transitioning” is sufficient to determine the sense of a word, then the Lizardman’s bodily alterations are enough for words such as ‘lizard,’ ‘reptile,’ and ‘squamate’ to refer literally to him. But’s that would be absurd.

[Tom Tillett]

The two of you make some solid points, but not the main one: pronoun use is primarily a political issue, not a linguistic or philosophical problem. It is the imposition of a political position that is explicitly grounded in a metaphysical and ontological set of beliefs that defy any common sense notion of reality. What makes it a political issue is that they do not try to persuade anyone to use the adopted pronouns, but instead try to force us to use them, through shame or some form of consequences. This puts us squarely in the position of having to defend our rights of free speech and conscience, in order to uphold our devotion to the truth and to our own inner integrity. This is the reason, I believe, that Jordan Peterson first resisted and launched himself into an international conversation about these and other matters.

And all this is doubly true where, as here, the pronoun issue is linked to a wider political program to devalue a woman's uniqueness qua woman in our society, e.g. allowing biological men to compete in women's sports, and the forced conscription of women into the armed forces.

Compare: if no one else in the world had a pronoun issue, but one troubled co-worker did. Out of charity and compassion, I think most of us would accommodate him. But since it is a political movement in this country, that makes it important that we resist the pressure to acquiesce in an obvious lie.

[Elliott]

“And who does the assigning? A committee? Is a vote taken?”

Who assigned the assigners? Is it committees all the way down?

[BV]

Tom writes, >>The two of you make some solid points, but not the main one: pronoun use is primarily a political issue, not a linguistic or philosophical problem.<<

You are right if 'main' means: hot-button, of burning concern to non-philosophers. But Elliot and I have both a theoretical interest in pronouns and how they function in general and in relation to classical philosophical questions pertaining to the self, e.g, How is 'ego' functioning in *Ego cogito ergo sum*? and a practical-political interest.

Above, Elliot and I are mixing these two interests.

But the rest of what you say, I agree with, and I think Elliot does as well.

[BV]

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

I say resist the language abusers. Don't play their game. Break your contacts with 'woke' folk. Easy for me to say! I've made mine. But let's say you have a family to support and need your job. Then you are in a very tough spot. If you acquiesce in the madness I won't blame you.

As Tom suggests, it's a fee speech issue. But 'liberals' have abandoned their trad. commitment to free speech. Just look at how the ACLU has changed over the last decade or so.

There's a bad moon risin' and trouble's on the way.

[Elliott]

Tom, you're right to be concerned about the political and moral issues you raised. Freedom of speech is especially important. But as Bill noted, we were primarily addressing issues in the philosophy of language and metaphysics.

For example, analytic philosophers generally agree that sense determines reference. But the wokist view of language seems to involve a denial of this claim. It seems the wokist wants to say that reference determines sense. This assertion seems clearly false because two terms or phrases can have the same reference but different senses.

Important issues are at stake here with respect to our use of language to discuss reality. These issues are not merely theoretical; they have practical influence, as we are now seeing.

[Elliott]

Hi, Bill. I’ve been thinking more about this topic.

I read Robert May’s Frege on Indexicals (2006, prior to the popularity of 'preferred pronouns). May argues that sense determines reference and can do so in two ways, since sense comes “in two varieties; those that contain modes of presentation and those that do not.” (491) The former category concerns those senses that determine reference by presenting (i.e., describing) it. Indexicals fall into the latter category. The sense of an indexical determines its reference by “constraining” it. (491) May writes: “The senses of indexicals and demonstratives are constraining senses; what is required for such senses is that they contain enough information to connect the present reference to the thought expressed, such that it can be determined in context whether it is a true or false thought.” (491-92)

The idea here, I take it, is roughly that an indexical has a sense that, despite the context-dependent quality of the indexical, restricts the scope of its use, excluding some information and requiring other information. May continues: “So, for example, the sense of “he” must contain at least the information that the present reference is male, unitary, and neither the speaker nor addressee.” (492)

If May is correct, then it seems that:

(a) so-called 'preferred pronouns' cannot operate as proper names, since pronouns (including preferred ones) are context-dependent and refer by constraint while proper names generally are context-independent and refer by presentation, and

(b) like other pronouns, “preferred pronouns” have senses which determine their reference by requiring specific information and excluding other information. Pronouns are, by nature, not inclusive of all information. Pronouns are quite exclusive. (Note the irony of people trying to be ‘inclusive’ by using words that are not inclusive.) Consider: ‘he’ requires that the referent is male, one and only one person, and neither the speaker nor the addressee; ‘she’ requires that the referent is female, one and only one person, and neither the speaker nor the addressee; etc.

Now, if pronouns don’t refer by constraint, then they don’t refer at all. Hence, sentences which contain pronouns which fail to refer are non-referring sentences and thus false.

Suppose, then, that an employer forces employees to use the ‘preferred pronouns’ of colleagues and others although such pronouns don't align with the biological sex of the 'preferrers.' Given May’s argument, it seems that such an employer would be forcing employees to make false (because non-referring) statements.

https://philosophy.ucdavis.edu/people/rcmay/robert-mays-home-page/indexicals.pdf