The Bike Puzzle

The Bike Puzzle Ólafur Páll Jónsson

Definite descriptions occurring within the scopes of psychological verbs provide more puzzles than are traditionally acknowledged. This article presents one puzzle that is particularly intriguing.

In one of her stories, Astrid Lindgren tells us about Lotta, who most of all wanted a bike for her fifth birthday. But she did not get one. Instead she got some lovely gifts: a red purse, a new swing, a picture book and more. And she really liked the gifts and took a walk down the street showing off the red purse. And at that point Astrid Lindgren tells us that: (1) Lotta was in a good mood, and did not think about the bike. But when Lotta returned home she saw the old tricycle which she wanted so much to be replaced by a real bike. And then: (2) Lotta was reminded of the bike and got angry. How shall we understand the definite description ‘the bike’ in these sentences? Some possibilities might spring to mind. (I) ‘The bike’ is an ordinary unfinished description much like ‘the hamburger’ in the sentence uttered by a waiter: ‘The hamburger wants his soda’. But how might we finish the description? We might try ‘the bike Lotta did not get’, but that won’t do, for this description does not denote anything, for all the bikes in the world are bikes she did not get. Similarly ‘the red bike’ or ‘the bike that her father and mother might have bought her’ won’t do, for these also apply to too many bikes. And besides, none of those bikes are bikes that made Lotta angry when she saw the tricycle. (II) ‘The bike’ is a referential description, much like ‘the table’ in ‘The table is covered with books’, where there are many tables, though only one is covered with books. This possibility won’t work since there is no particular bike for the description ‘the bike’ to refer to and, therefore, no way to complete the description so that it singles out a particular bike. It isn’t as if Lotta had seen a bike in the window of some shop Mind, Vol. 114 . 456 . October 2005 doi:10.1093/mind/fzi929

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and was hoping to get that very bike. No, there was no particular bike that Lotta had seen and was longing for. (III) ‘The bike’ refers by means of cross-reference to some previous nominal expression, much like the pronoun ‘him’ in the sentence ‘If I hired a butler, I would have to pay him’. This sentence is true, we might say, since in the closest possible worlds where I hire some particular butler, I will have to pay him. But this won’t work for ‘the bike’ since there is nothing singled out in the first place. In fact, for this strategy to work for ‘the bike’, the following would have to make sense: ‘If I were not to hire a butler, I would not have to pay him’. But this sentence does not make much sense, for the indefinite description ‘a butler’ does not have a reference for ‘him’ to pick up. (IV) ‘The bike’ is like ‘Vulcan’ (once thought to refer to a planet), a device of apparent reference to a non-existent entity. Reference for the name ‘Vulcan’ was postulated as an inference to the best explanation of some peculiarities in the orbit of Mercury. These peculiarities were then explained by the theory of relativity and people realized that the name ‘Vulcan’ never referred to anything. No comparable story can be told about ‘the bike’. We don’t presume reference for the description ‘the bike’ as a defeasible explanation of anything. Moreover, the supposed referent of the name ‘Vulcan’ depends on a definite description, or a cluster of descriptions, which are supposed to single out a determinate object. Those who used the name ‘Vulcan’, and believed that they were thereby referring to a planet, believed that the associated descriptions were either sufficient to determine an individual or could be completed so that they determined an individual. But again, nothing comparable can be said about ‘the bike’. There is no description, or a cluster of descriptions, which is thought, however mistakenly, to single out a referent for ‘the bike’. (V) ‘The bike’ stands for an indefinite description, ‘a bike’, much like ‘the car’ in the sentence ‘I saw the car that will take you across Canada’. The scenario might be something like this: Person A is going to drive across Canada and wants a decent car for the trip. Person B walks past a car dealership and sees a reasonably cheap car which might be suitable. B then says to A: ‘I saw the car that will take you across Canada’. It is true that he has this single car in mind, which makes the definite article appropriate; but of course there are many cars that are equally suitable, which makes the definite article dispensable. In the sentence about the car, we can replace ‘the car’ with ‘a car’ without much change in meaning. But the same is not true of ‘the bike’. It is of course true that there was a bike that Lotta was not thinking about when she went for the Mind, Vol. 114 . 456 . October 2005

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walk with the red purse. But that is not at all relevant, there were very many bikes that she did not think of. Moreover, it was definitely not her being reminded of a bike that made her angry when she came back and saw the tricycle. (VI) ‘The bike’ functions as a fictional name rather than as a definite description. This suggestion can take us into different alleys depending on one’s theory of fictional names. Treating it on par with a name such as ‘Vulcan’ will not do for reasons explained under (IV). But could it rather be comparable to names such as ‘Sherlock Holmes’ or ‘Winnie the Pooh’? In some respects these may seem comparable. We might find a semantic role for ‘the bike’ by supposing that Lotta had been telling herself a story where the main character receives a bike for her fifth birthday and where she is the main character. But there is an important difference between the two cases since in the counterfactual circumstances where Lotta gets a bike for her fifth birthday, the reference of the fictional description ‘the bike’ would be actual. But the same does not go for ‘Sherlock Holmes’. In the counterfactual circumstances where someone happens to have all the characteristics attributed to Sherlock Holmes in Doyle’s stories, the name ‘Sherlock Holmes’ does not refer to that person. The same goes for the name ‘Winnie the Pooh’. (VII) ‘The bike’ is a special kind of a fictional name. The expression is associated with something like a ‘profile’ in John Perry’s sense, where a ‘profile’ is like a filing folder that contains information, in the typical case, on a real individual. Lotta is looking forward to getting a bike on her birthday and has, due to her expectations, begun a profile marked ‘the bike’. She may have added all sorts of information to the profile: she will cycle in the street with Jonas and Mia Maria (her elder siblings), she will go really fast down the hill, and she will cycle without holding her hands like Jonas is not supposed to do. But when she comes home she is faced with the fact that there is no bike—the profile is empty. But this won’t do. Such a profile could just as well be marked ‘a bike’, while the definite article is essential in Lotta’s case. In ordinary cases it may not matter whether the association is between a profile and a definite or an indefinite description. The people in New Orleans may either have started a profile associated with the expression ‘the hurricane’ or ‘a hurricane’. But we may assume that the actual circumstances meet us halfway and the general description ‘a hurricane’ refers, due to context, to just one hurricane which is, therefore, also the hurricane. But in Lotta’s case the context cannot make the definite and the indefinite descriptions interchangeable in this way. Mind, Vol. 114 . 456 . October 2005

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(VIII) ‘The bike’ is just an example of poor style here, and the scenario would have been better described by other and more careful choice of words. This response won’t do. The text reads perfectly well and Astrid Lindgren’s use of the definite description ‘the bike’ does not look strange to anyone but a philosopher who keeps thinking about Frege, Russell, Kripke, Lewis, Donnellan, Devitt, Neale, Recanati and others, even when he reads for his kids at bedtime. It is a perfectly fine use of language, even if it doesn’t fit any philosophical theory. So, what shall we do about ‘the bike’ in sentences (1) and (2)? I don’t know.1

Iceland University of Education Stakkahlíð 105 Reykjavík Iceland [email protected]

ólafur páll jónsson

1 I am grateful to Gabriel Uzquiano, Yoshiki Kobasigawa and Stephen Neale for comments on an earlier version of the paper.

Mind, Vol. 114 . 456 . October 2005

© Ólafur Páll Jónsson 2005

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