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Full Idea
We cannot take a token of a word to be an occurrence of it. Suppose there is exactly one occurrence of the word 'etherized' in the whole of English poetry? Exactly one 'token'? This sort of occurrence is like the occurrence of a number in a sequence.
Gist of Idea
A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows
Source
Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], Add 2)
Book Ref
Cartwright,Richard: 'Philosophical Essays' [MIT 1987], p.53
A Reaction
This remark is in an addendum to his paper, criticising his own lax use of the idea of 'token' in the actual paper. The example nicely shows that the type/token distinction isn't neat and tidy - though I consider it very useful.
| 13941 | Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R] |
| 13942 | Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R] |
| 13943 | We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R] |
| 13944 | We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R] |
| 13946 | To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R] |
| 13947 | 'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R] |
| 13948 | For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R] |
| 13951 | Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R] |
| 13950 | People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R] |
| 13945 | A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R] |