"The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.' "
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel
interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is called. The name really is,
'The Aged Aged Man.' "
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?"
Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: That's quite another thing! The song
is called 'Ways and Means': But that's only what it's called,
you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really
is "'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
LEWIS CARROLL
This is the only chapter of "Logic" that starts off with a quote, and this quote's a dandy, isn't it? If you take the time to work through it, you'll have a better understanding of the use of names than most folks.
On to Rosser's discussion:
A statement about something generally contains a name of that thing,
but it must not contain the thing itself.
Applied to natural objects, this seems quite obvious, since in such
case the statement usually could not contain the thing itself. Consider
the statement "Georgia is a southern state." This contains the word
"Georgia," which is a name of the state in question. Clearly it would
be impracticable to replace the word "Georgia" in this statement by the
state itself.
Similar considerations apply to "The moon is made of green cheese,"
"The Atlantic Ocean is wet," "The Equator is long," etc.
For small objects, these considerations are not quite so conclusive.
In the statement "This thumbtack is round," one could conceivably erase
the words "This thumbtack" and in the empty space stick the thumbtack into
the page. One can make rather cogent objections that the resulting
conglomeration of two words and a thumbtack is not a statement, but a rebus
or charade. In any case, any other statement about that particular
thumbtack positively could NOT contain the thumbtack, since the thumbtack
has now been preempted to appear in the particular place indicated.
Further, and for the same reason, if one wished to repeat the same statement
the repetition could not contain the thumbtack but must contain some name
of the thumbtack, such as the words "This thumbtack."
For these and other reasons, it is generally agreed that, although
one could put together a combination consisting of a thumbtack followed
by the words "is round," and although this combination would doubtless
convey information, nevertheless the combination does not constitute a
statement.
This seems fair enough. Certainly not all means of conveying
information are necessarily statements. If a policeman at a busy
intersection waves us to stop, he has certainly conveyed information, but
hardly in the form of a statement.
To summarize, it is generally agreed about statements that a statement
about something must contain a name of that thing, rather than the thing
itself. We shall conform with this usage.
TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW TO TALK ABOUT STATEMENTS!