[FOM] A question about Church

[Harry Deutsch]

In "Intensionality and the paradox of the name relation" (in Themes from Kaplan, Oxford, 1989) Church writes:

"Languages are of course possible within which no two primitive constants denote the same thing. For given any primitive constant we may delete from language all but one of the class of primitive constants that concurrent [co-referential] with it. [The following is italicized by Church] Whether it is always effectively possible to cut down the vocabulary of a given language so that no pair of concurrent but non-synonymous primitive constants remains is an open question.  The difficulty lies in a method by which to determine in regard to each pair of primitive constants whether they are concurrent."

I think that the "but non-synonymous" is not necessary to the problem Church is posing.  The constants just have to be different.  In any case, does anyone know the answer to this "o;pen question?"

Harry Deutsch