Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Mirrors Again

London Ed sends the following:

‘this mirror image of this face’

That’s a referring expression which refers to something. Does it refer to the same thing as ‘this face’ refers to? If so, it is problematic.

'This mirror image' does indeed refer to something. It refers to a mirror image. 'This face' also refers to something. It refers to the face of the man standing before the mirror and looking into it (not at it).  Now no one's face is identical to a mirror image.  (If there were no artificial or natural mirrors, there would be no mirror images, but there could still be faces of men and other animals.) 

So I say that the two demonstrative uses of 'this' have numerically different referents.  When I say 'this mirror image,' I point toward the mirror; when I say 'this face' I point toward my face. The two different directions of demonstration shows that the two occurrences of 'this' have numerically different referents.

But knowing Ed, he has something up his sleeve; there is some puzzle in the offing. He needs to remind me what it is.

Man-looking-at-himself-in-the-mirror-and-pointing-photo-2164403749

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Bill Vallicella

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3 responses to “Mirrors Again”

  1. oz Avatar
    oz

    It’s an old dispute. Seneca Quaestiones Naturales “There are two opinions about mirrors. Some think that we discern simulacra in them, i.e. the shapes of our bodies emitted from, and separate from our bodies. Others do not assert that there are images in the mirror, but that those bodies are seen thrown back to the glance of the eyes and reflected back in them”.
    Those who hold the first opinion are ‘multipliers’. Those who hold the second are ‘unifiers’.
    The problem for a unifier is that if ‘this mirror image of this face’ refers to the same thing as ‘this face’, then we should be able to substitute the first expression for the second, salva veritate. Thus ‘this mirror image of this mirror image of this face’. But clearly we run into an infinite regress if so. Some regresses are benign. This one, I fear not. So I am a multiplier.

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  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    Let me see if I understand the problem.
    Either what I see in the mirror is me, or what I see in the mirror is not me, but an image of me. The first is the unifier view, the second the multiplier view.
    I am a multiplier.
    Your third paragraph, however, is less than pellucid. You need to spell it out more clearly. What not just say that a man’s face is made (in part) of skin, whereas no mirror image is made of skin; ergo, no man’s face is identical to a mirror image of his face?

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  3. oz the ostrich Avatar
    oz the ostrich

    I thought the third para was very clear. (1) If the two terms ‘this mirror image of this face’ and ‘this face’ have the same referent, then we should be able to substitute one for the other without change of reference. So (2) make that substitution. Then we get the term ‘this mirror image of this mirror image of this face’. I.e. we have put the term in italics into the place previously occupied by ‘this face’. Perhaps you missed what was going on there?
    But (3) it is clear that there is a regress going on, at least to me. We still have the term ‘this face’, so we can make further substitutions ad infinitum.
    On your premiss ‘no mirror image is made of skin’, a unifier would say it is false, because if ‘this mirror image’ refers to a face, and if a face is made of skin, ergo some mirror image is made of skin, contradicting your premiss.

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