Sources and Leapfrogging: Reply to Pickles

Abstract

Failure to meet the condition results in a situation in which we have more readings than the Russellian account can represent. I argued that the knows which criterion does not meet the condition, and hence cannot serve as the quantifying-in criterion. I proposed instead that we develop a criterion exploiting the idea of source. David Pickles complains that the source criterion fares no better. He argues that it too fails the no leapfrogging condition, since, to go back to my original example, Hoover's belief that the Berrigans believed their accomplices would kidnap a high official could have its source in an official, whilst at the same time Hoover could believe that the Berrigans' belief did not have its source in that official. Why should we believe this is possible? Pickles describes circumstances in which he claims it would be true: he asks us to imagine circumstances in which the Berrigans order their accomplices to kidnap an official without specifying which one; and in which Hoover comes to discover who it is they plan to kidnap. But those are not circumstances in which Hoover's belief about the Berrigans' belief has its source in the official. They are simply circumstances in which Hoover has further beliefs that have their source in the official; for instance, a belief that he is the person the Berrigans' accomplices plan to kidnap. If the circumstances Pickles describes do not serve to refute the proposal, might there not be others that do? Originally I thought not; but now I am less sure. Certainly it seems that we can get a grip on a notion of aboutness that obeys the no leapfrogging condition: if I don't believe that