Clapp (2023) develops an account for explaining the meaning of later utterances of mythical names called the Conversely Conditional Co-reference proposal (hereinafter cococo-reference proposal for short). According to Clapp, this proposal consists of three components: a complex intention, an intermediary disjunctive content, and a final content. In this essay, I examine the cococo-reference proposal to reveal a flaw in it. I argue that the cococo-reference proposal actually has a fourth component, namely a principle called “the consistency between intention and belief”. This principle is embedded implicitly in Clapp’s argument. Once the consistency principle is uncovered, I combine it with the complex intention and also the intermediary disjunctive content, to reveal that the cococo-reference proposal cannot coherently explain the meaning of a later utterance of sentences such as “Vulcan does not exist”. This is because the explanation offered by this proposal results in a conflict between belief and intention: we will be required to hold intentions that our beliefs prevent us from holdings, and we will be ascribed beliefs that are in conflict with our intentions. Therefore, the explanation of later utterances of sentences such as “Vulcan does not exist” is the Achilles’ heel of Clapp’s cococo-reference proposal.
