Perhaps contrary to most of the discussion so far, I also think this discussion is almost orthogonal to how reference works. The intersection might be somewhere in the region of Evans' critique of a causal theory of reference that sees no place for predication or contextual cues in referring behaviours. — fdrake

Interesting. Thanks for the links. :up:

I think you can productively read it in the following manner - things have natures which constrain and partially determine how they behave. When you describe such a thing or process, that means setting out that nature in an act of understanding it. The understanding of the thing or process determines which properties we express as necessary to it, that which it could not be understood as it is without. — fdrake

I like how you said this, and especially the emphasis on the act of understanding. It seems like a recognition of the subjective aspect of the act of understanding is what is being overlooked in some of the opposing viewpoints.

Sounds good, I will revisit this text as well in the next few days.

What did I say exactly that is wrong and why? — Alkis Piskas

You said this, as pointed out:

Modus tollens logic is of the form "If A, then B. Not A. Therefore, not B." — Alkis Piskas

I explained why it is wrong here: . Modus tollens denies the consequent (B), not the antecedent (A).

You mixed up the inference of modus tollens with the fallacy of denying the antecedent. Modus tollens denies the consequent, not the antecedent.

I should think that creativesoul won the debate, if only because Banno construed his own position in the form of a particularly bald tautology. That and it seems that Banno has capitulated in the meanwhile.

But the curious thing is that I tend to think Banno's position is correct—the non-tautologous variety. I would want to render propositions this way:

1. All beliefs are intellectual.
2. All that is intellectual is propositional.
3. Therefore, All beliefs are propositional.

Third, I am not convinced there are non-propositional beliefs... I tend to think that implicit beliefs are propositional. For example, if I am driving and I brake when a child runs into the street, I am acting on the belief that, “If I brake I will not hit this child,” even though this belief is not explicit or formulated or conscious. Admittedly the thinking would not need to be discursive or consciously carried out. It is fast thinking, but it nevertheless involves a mental act. — Leontiskos

Obviously I am not thinking about propositions in terms of statements, for I am including unformulated affirmations or acknowledgments. But regardless of the conception of propositions, there seems to be a substantive disagreement with @creativesoul here.

- So let it be written, so let it be done.

Being — Mikie

...

Awareness

To be conscious or cognizant of.

Consciousness

Intellectual awareness.

Thinking

The ordering of ideas.

Time

The viscosity of succession.

Sensation

The perceptible acting of a physical object on a subject.

Perception

The awareness of sensation. Also used metaphorically with respect to cognitive objects.

Mind

The seat of that which thinks in a discursive manner.

Body

That part of the human being which has extension.

Good

That which is in some way desirable.

Happiness

What all men seek.

Justice

The rendering of that which is due.

Truth

The adequation (or correspondence) between thought and thing.

True. Still, I’m sure you use these words like anyone else, and usually mean something by them. So that’s what I was asking for. If a kid would ask for your own take on these terms, would the answer be “it depends on use” or would you have some (albeit provisional) answer? — Mikie

If the current fashionable state of philosophy is to answer with a slogan like “it’s how it’s used,” I think we’re in real trouble. — Mikie

“Philosophy is not x, but more y.”

An explanation of what something “is” or isn’t— that’s dealing with meaning, and is a kind of definition. — Mikie

All good and important points. :up:

Yes, of course all material definitions are nominal. But if you don't admit the existence of [definitions] then you cannot say that A is a better X than B. . . — Leontiskos

So if we take your interpretation of Searle then we get, "B(L, f(a)) is a better construal of belief than B(L,p)." Once we understand what a real definition and a nominal definition are, then this is just to claim that the nominal definition B(L, f(a)) better approximates the real definition of belief than the nominal definition B(L,p). If there is no real definition, then there can be no approximation or comparison. — Leontiskos

(Two years since previous post)

If beliefs attain definite content absent the formation of statements which describe them at the time, why would the content of those beliefs depend upon hypothetical objects which are made later? — fdrake

Quite right. Good post. :up:

If someone restricts intentional state content to declarative sentences' propositional content (eg, making beliefs only target propositional content or propositions) it removes both the character of that content and the means of its interpretation. — fdrake

Another good post. I will have to read you on something I care more about. :grin:

EG, if I claimed that my partner makes me feel a special way and I called it "blimblam", and I described it as a composite of homeliness, horniness, care and calm. You'd know how to use the word. It's not my blimblam thoughts and sensations that are doing the work in the setting up the use of the word, it's leveraging the public criteria we share that characterise the use of those sensations and feeling words we both already know. — fdrake

Aye.

If you're going to do a debate you should agree on a motion. All key terms in the OP's question are vague, and each of you can use that to hedge.

[...]

If you continued like that, Banno could assert his definition of belief, you could assert your definition of belief, and there's a strong chance you'll both address none of the other's points and retreat to hedges. — fdrake

Prophecies are always better when they are written down. :lol:

fdrake seems to be in the way here. Bring it. — Banno

Famous last words.

I wonder if mysticism isn't just a more sophisticated version of this very human desire to encounter certainty. I have no doubt that many mystics are certain about their experiences, what I do doubt is any need to accept their subjective experience of certainty. — Tom Storm

Nowadays mysticism is often proffered as a method to adjudicate knowledge claims, particularly in relation to religions. Yet I think it is becoming widely recognized that the error in this sort of thinking overlooks the fact that mystical experiences are highly conditioned by antecedent beliefs. Thus such a view grossly oversimplifies the relation between the experience and the belief(s). They claim that the experience explains and justifies the belief, whereas it is plausible that the exact opposite is occurring, and in any event the belief conditions the experience (even if it does not explain it).

To take an example, a Buddhist may have an experience where their identity dissolves into nothing, and a Christian may have a very similar experience where they feel united with God (and some dissolving or dissociation is also involved here). An older theory would say that the two experiences are identical, different inferences are drawn based on the belief system, and some inferences are more rational than others. Yet a more recent, more nuanced theory shows that very often the experiences themselves are notably different, and that they tend to cohere with the antecedent beliefs of the practitioner. Further, it is not at all clear where the experience ends and the so-called "inference" or interpretation begins.

It seems to me that mysticism is valuable, but as far as public adjudication goes it is a dead end. Its value lies elsewhere.

A certain amount of transparency with oneself may be beneficial and it may not that once this achieved there may be less need to argue one's position. However, ongoing interaction, such as on a philosophy forum, may be useful for fluidity in thinking and ongoing modification of ideas in the light of new perspectives and development of knowledge. — Jack Cummins

Yes, there is something interesting about philosophy as fulfilling a need versus philosophy as abundance or overflow, and the various shades of both. Argument and philosophical dialogue can be a crutch; it can be a response to a legitimate need for investigation and intercourse; it can be a genuine and unselfish sharing; and sometimes it can even be the consequence of an overflow of our grasped participation in the intelligibility of creation.

Because in every thing, that which pertains to its essence is distinct from its proper accident: thus in man it is one thing that he is a mortal rational animal, and another that he is a risible animal. We must therefore consider that every delight is a proper accident resulting from happiness, or from some part of happiness; since the reason that a man is delighted is that he has some fitting good, either in reality, or in hope, or at least in memory. — Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I.II.Q2.A6

Well, I sometimes suspect that the capacity to giggle might be more common than the capacity for rationality. — Banno

One way to cash this out is to say that risibility or the ability to learn grammar supervene on rationality, and it is rationality that belongs to the essence because it is explanatorily fundamental. Thus a human being is not defined as "A risible animal" or "An animal capable of learning grammar," but rather, "A rational animal." This contains and explains the others.

Aquinas claims that, in a similar way, delight supervenes on happiness, for happiness is essentially the possession of a fitting good and not the possession of delight, and yet delight always follows upon and attends happiness such that they appear indistinguishable.

I should point out yet again that it is one thing to disagree with some real definition and another to disagree with essentialism itself. The latter is much more contentious and difficult, and would seem to involve the claim that no properties are explanatorily prior or posterior.

I have been wanting to come back to this:

Socrates: It is a method quite easy to indicate, but very far from easy to employ. It is indeed the instrument through which every discovery ever made in the sphere of the arts and sciences has been brought to light. Let me describe it for your consideration.

Protarchus: Please do.

Socrates: There is a gift of the gods---so at least it seems evident to me---which they let fall from their abode, and it was through Prometheus, or one like him, that it reached mankind, together with a fire exceeding bright. The men of old, who were better than ourselves and dwelt nearer the gods, passed on this gift in the form of a saying. All things, so it ran, that are ever said to be consist of a one and a many, and have in their nature a conjunction of limit and unlimitedness. This then being the ordering of things we ought, they said, whatever it be that we are dealing with, to assume a single form and search for it, for we shall find it there contained; then, if we have laid hold of that, we must go on from one form to look for two, if the case admits of there being , otherwise for three or some other number of forms. And we must do. And we must do the same again with each of the 'ones' thus reached, until we come to see not merely that the one that we started with is a one and an unlimited many, but also just how many it is. But we are not to apply the character of unlimitedness to our plurality until we have discerned the total number of forms the thing in question has intermediate between its one and its unlimited number. It is only then, when we have done that, that we may let each one of all these intermediate forms pass away into the unlimited and cease bothering about them. There then, that is how the gods, as I told you, have committed to us the task of inquiry, of learning, and of teaching one another, but your clever modern man, while making his one----or his many, as the case may be----more quickly or more slowly than is proper, when has got his one proceeds to his unlimited number straightaway, allowing the intermediates to escape him, whereas it is the recognition of those intermediates that makes all the difference between a philosophical and a contentious discussion. — Plato, Philebus, 16c, translated by R. Hackforth

Can you say more about what this means?

Maybe I can give a superficial reading as a foil. There seems to be an association of "unlimited" with the act in which we "cease bothering about them." This clause seems to almost indicate an endless process of investigation and inquiry: "But we are not to apply the character of unlimitedness to our plurality until we have discerned the total number of forms the thing in question has intermediate between its one and its unlimited number." What follows, then, is that the philosophical discussion is aimed at inquiry, perhaps endless, whereas the contentious discussion presumes that insufficient inquiry was sufficient, and then attempts to wield the product of that inquiry in various ways.

Does that get at it in part? One thing I wish to better understand is the method itself, the moving back and forth between the one and the many.

In fending off the arguments, ↪Leontiskos is obliged to take extreme measures. Hence "If the definition of Thales is stipulated to be "the man who fell into the well," then Fred is Thales". His approach cannot envision, let alone articulate, the possibility that Thales did not fall into the well, because for him "Thales" is exactly "He who fell into the well". I hope others will accept that "Thales might not have fallen into the well" is a clear enough English sentence that might even have been true. — Banno

But you missed the point, which is that your construals are the ones requiring extreme measures. We don't generally stipulate definitions in the way you are presupposing, and so my antecedent is abnormal precisely because it reflects your approach ("If the definition is stipulated to be...").

Specifically, I was replying to your claim:

Suppose that the only thing we know about Thales is that he fell into a well. On the descriptivist account, "Thales" and "The fellow who fell into a well" are synonymous, then on your view "The fellow who fell into a well" is what we mean by "Thales" — Banno

This is completely wrong on my view, but if we accept it then Thales is Fred.* When I say, "The only thing I know about Thales is that he fell into a well," I am not committing myself to your synonym, nor am I committing myself to the view that "The fellow who fell into a well" is what we mean by "Thales". I think these claims of yours are altogether strange and wrongheaded. You seem to be significantly misunderstanding the meaning and intention behind the phrase of a novice, such as, "Isn't Thales the one who fell into a well?"

But his logic has been superseded. Leontiskos has attached himself to the descriptivist view, and thus to the supposed utility of Aristotelian logic he holds dear. He has taken the next, predictable step, when Kripke shows your argument to problematic, attack the character and authority of Kripke (↪Leontiskos). — Banno

First, when you talk about descriptivism you are talking about Russell. You (and Kripke) are arguing against a phantom that I do not hold to.

Second, my point about Kripke is that I accept his authority no more than you accept Aristotle's. So when you cite him and simply expect to receive assent, you should check yourself. I have no respect for Kripke (and Frank's recent thread attests to the reason why). Neither do I have any special disrespect for him, and as I pointed out, the view you are here attributing to him doesn't even seem to be his. But the deeper point is that if you think Kripke is right then you have to argue for him. You don't get to merely cite him. I am doing the same with Aristotle.


*

Thus, rather than a metaphysical extravagance, a more definitional concept of essence is attuned to the practicalities of language use in a manner a modal logical characterisation must be blind to.

Ultimately that blindness comes from severing the connection between the target of the definition and how it seamlessly dwells in the world - beyond the words, its essence. What it means to count as a bachelor is different from what it means for a bachelor to count as an unmarried man. — fdrake

Thanks, great post. Related:

There is nothing archaic or 'metaphysical' about the doctrine of real essences: that doctrine merely supposes that among the properties of substances and stuffs some are explanatorily basic, others explanatorily derivative. — Introduction to Posterior Analytics, by Jonathan Barnes, p. xiii

It seems to me that the lack of a teleological cause might be a basis for making this claim -- basically anything which is a natural kind would participate in all four causes. — Moliere

You can definitely think about it in terms of teleology. That may be the easiest way to do it. I was just trying to point out that Aristotle doesn't think about it solely in those terms, although it does play a significant part.

So if we think about it in terms of teleology (final cause), then we can see that a hammer or a horse-and-rider does not have a final cause. It is not ordered to anything in particular. It will not "go in some direction" left to itself. It seems to me that this is a perfectly good starting point for thinking about substances. An olive and an olive tree, on the other hand, do have final causes. The most obvious final cause of an olive is its orderedness towards an olive tree.

I'm going back to the four causes because it seems to me that hammers have a definition, and so I would have said that a hammer has an essence on that basis from my understanding of Aristotle's notion of essence. — Moliere

It is true that if something has an essence then it has a definition. Trouble is, we are using "definition" in a loose sense (and therefore we are also using "essence" in a loose sense). Such loose usage is fine as far as it goes, but it does make things confusing if you are trying to grasp Aristotle. For Aristotle if we wish to speak strictly then the hammer has neither an essence nor a definition.

If we want to speak more strictly then we could talk about an understanding of a hammer. One who uses a hammer has an understanding of it and a conception of it, even if they are unable to set out that understanding in a formal description.

(the strange thing here being that the basic materials participate in teleology by having a proper place to be in the stack... which clearly goes against how we understand matter to operate today) — Moliere

You would have to say more on this.

I take it your beliefs are Aristotelian-inspired, but since you're also saying "for Aristotle" it seems you may also be thinking about your account as different. — Moliere

Yes, I am trying to stick closer to Aristotle in this conversation than I am wont to do in my general philosophical inquiry. I don't think I actually disagree with him on these topics, however. A large part of it is that we are deviating from Aristotelian usage, and I am trying to accommodate the different usage.

I am afraid that in practice we feel that the burden of proof rests with the statement that is farthest from common sense. — Jedothek

This is basically correct. The burden of proof is on the claim that is contentious or contrary to the prevailing consensus, and this could also be expressed in terms of common sense.

this criterion is sloppy, sheeplike, and depressing — Jedothek

No, it's not, and there's an important point at play here. In philosophy today people like to follow Descartes and think that everything ought to be crystal clear and perfectly certain. They think <Conclusions ought to be apodictic; but deriving the burden of proof from prevailing consensus is not apodictic; therefore this is an incorrect way to derive the burden of proof>.

This is a completely wrongheaded way to think about precision. Not everything is or should be apodictic, and the burden of proof is one of those things. The burden of proof is itself little more than a loose convention with respect to debate and dialogue. It cannot be ascertained in an apodictic way; it is not susceptible to a high degree of certainty; it is not a very important concept in the first place; and it is itself just as sloppy as notions such as consensus and "common sense." Simpler: if the burden of proof were not a sloppy concept, then it would require a non-sloppy alternative; but the burden of proof is a sloppy concept.

We must be content if we can attain to so much precision in our statement as the subject before us admits of; for the same degree of accuracy is no more to be expected in all kinds of reasoning than in all kinds of handicraft. — Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.iii

Yes, great points. I think what you say is fairly accurate.

If hammers don't have essences, then what does? And on what basis are we to exclude tools from having being (or, perhaps they have being, but no essence?)? — Moliere

Yes, for the Aristotelian they would have being but no essence.

I'm a bit pressed for time today, but for Aristotle the fundamental issue is that a kangaroo has an essence whereas a hammer does not, and this is because only the first is a cohesive thing (substance) with its own proper mode of being and acting (and this also includes teleological considerations). A hammer is an aggregate of substances thrown together for a human purpose.

A simpler example would be a horse-and-rider. A horse-and-rider is not a substance, and it has no essence. Instead it is a composite of two substances (a horse and a human rider). We can talk about the essence of a horse-and-rider in an analogical way, as if it were just a single thing, but technically this is not quite right.

I am not opposed to talking about the "essence" of a hammer or the "essence" of a named individual, just so long as we do not forget that for Aristotle there are no such essences. More broadly, it makes sense for the Aristotelian to say that the human has being in a more primary sense than the hammer does; or that the name attached to a perceptual 'description' is more primary than the name attached to the conceptual 'description' (and that the latter should take its cue from the former). Such a distinction may seem quite odd to the modern mind, but it may also be at the root of some of these issues.

I just did a quick search for Kripke on naming, to refresh myself. Google returned some class notes on the topic, which I skimmed (link).

[Kripke's] argument counts against the view that the meanings of names are given by their associated descriptions, but not against the view that the reference of a name is fixed by its associated descriptions. — Nd.Edu Lecture Notes on Kripke

From the skim it seems that Kripke wants to say that proper names and definite descriptions do not have the same meaning (and this is something I have acknowledged multiple times). He tries to provide a causal alternative to "description," and his alternative seems problematic and unimpressive.

He also seems to think that the name and the description come apart in a very significant sense, and on this I disagree. If the reference of a name is fixed by its associated description, then the claim that the name and its description can come far apart involves the claim that the name and its reference can come far apart, which I think is mistaken.

The most recent thing I have read on Kripke (by philosophers who I actually take to be authoritative) spells out his misunderstanding of intention, and I can't help but wonder if the same flawed view of intention is on display in this realm (link). He apparently wants to talk about names in an objective way, apart from the subjective intentions of the speakers who are using the names. If so, this is a mistake similar to the one I <pointed out earlier>.

It may also be worth noting that I am not using "description" in any specialized sense, and that Banno introduced this term, not me. I would want to say that, primarily, names are associated with objects of perception, and that the rigidity of names pertains (primarily) to the uniqueness of such perceptions. This is why I think my example about identical twins is much more interesting than Donnellan's example about Thales. Names which are not associated with perception-"descriptions" are derivative in relation to this more primary use of names.

Your supposed reply begs the question by supposing that "Thales" sans description does not refer to Thales. And yet, "What if every description we have of Thales were wrong?" is clearly a question about Thales. — Banno

The reason I am not begging the question is because I am giving arguments. Arguments such as the following require a response:

Suppose, ex hypothesi, that the novice has no description of 'Thales'. If this were so, then what in the world do you propose they would be asking about when they ask about 'Thales'? In that case they could not be asking about a man, because if they were asking about a man then 'Thales' would have a description. They could not be asking about a previously existing thing, because if they were asking about a previously existing thing then they would have a description. They could not be asking about a name from their textbook, because if they were asking about a name from their textbook then they would have a description, etc. — Leontiskos

Suppose that the only thing we know about Thales is that he fell into a well. On the descriptivist account, "Thales" and "The fellow who fell into a well" are synonymous, then on your view "The fellow who fell into a well" is what we mean by "Thales" — Banno

If the definition of Thales is stipulated to be "the man who fell into the well," then Fred is Thales. We have then given Fred a second name. If the definition of Thales is stipulated to be "the man who fell into a well and who is referred to as 'Thales'," then on your account Thales does not exist, because no one matches that definition. Hence my point about predicates (1), (2), and (3). You don't seem to have a clear account of which parts of the description are thought to be necessary and which are not.

I hope it clear that in this case Thales certainly exists, but we do not have to hand a description that sets him apart, he has no "essence", so it seems, and yet we can still talk about him. — Banno

But it seems very obvious that when we use a name we are talking about something, and that if we don't know what we are talking about then we can't use the name in any meaningful sense. You don't seem to be taking this fact of experience into account. It can't simply be ignored.

The deeper problem is that your specifications are mistaken. When someone talks about Thales they are not defining him as "the man who fell into the well" (i.e. they are not assigning that as the one necessary property of Thales (along with existence)). If they were doing this then Thales would just be Fred. When someone talks about Thales they have a large number of predicates in mind, some of which are necessary and some of which are not. If historical existence is a necessary predicate then it is a real name; if not it is a formal name. To simplify and avoid the debate of the OP, we can simply say that the nominal definition aligns with the necessary predicates.

But first things first, you must specify which are necessary and which are not, instead of making wily assumptions on that score. Mistakes about necessary predicates will be decisive in undermining the speaker's intention; while mistakes about non-necessary predicates will not be. The kind of mistake will depend on the kind of predicate, as assigned in the speaker's intention. (E.g. Whether a name is formal or real will depend on what the speaker intends with respect to the existence-predicate.)

A consequence of this is that one might specify a possible world in which the characteristics that supposedly set out the essence of that individual do not apply. Nevertheless, what they do not apply to is that same individual. — Banno

If Kripke thinks that an individual can be identified without a description then he is hopelessly confused. On my reading he does not think this, but it is apparently an implication you wish to draw out.

As far as I can see this solution dissolves the supposed problem. Much ado about nothing... — Janus

:up:

In the OP I said people crave it, and I definitely still believe that - even if they do not know it. — ToothyMaw

Okay.

It is usually just so-and-so is evil, too extreme, too centrist, too censorious - and no one provides practical solutions, even if those solutions are just favorable tradeoffs. — ToothyMaw

Yes, I can see this as well. I suppose the difficulty is that if we are to go beyond "duty for duty's sake" then we are effectively required to proffer a moral argument, and this is difficult in the midst of such strong skepticism.

You claim that a novice asks about Thales while having no description of Thales. I pointed out why you are wrong and I gave a number of different arguments to that effect. In response you provide nothing at all.

The difficulty is that your argument simultaneously requires that the name identify and not-identify Thales:

The argument is pretty straight forward. Suppose that it turned out that nothing we thought we knew about Thales were true; that he did not think all was water, did not fall into a well... Who is it that the previous sentence is about? Well, it is about Thales. — Banno

So let's look at these three properties of the (formal) name 'Thales':

1. 'Thales' existed and lived in ancient times.
2. 'Thales' believed that all is water.
3. 'Thales' fell into a well.

Why do you think the sentence is about Thales on the basis that (1) is true and (2) and (3) are false? How do those truth assignments ensure that the sentence is about Thales? Your privileging of the existence-predicate (1) seems arbitrary. I see no reason to believe that such a speaker would be talking about a man named 'Thales' who lived in ancient times but did not believe that all is water and did not fall into a well. In fact I think we can be confident that is not who (or what) he is talking about.

But if, "in order to use a name the thing to which it is attached must be identifiable", we now have no way of identifying Thales, which would imply that the sentence is not about Thales. — Banno

For the sake of simplicity, I've been focusing on the third... — Banno

If there is no way of identifying Thales, then of course the name cannot be used. The speaker who uses the name necessarily has a description in mind. This is the same false assumption that you gave earlier:

A novice who asks "Who is Thales?" does not have at hand a description of Thales, and yet they are asking about Thales. — Banno

But the novice does have a description of 'Thales'. If they had no description they would not be able to ask the question. Specifically, if they did not believe that 'Thales' described an ancient philosopher, they would not be able to ask the question. "Thales was an ancient philosopher" is a description, as is (1).

Suppose, ex hypothesi, that the novice has no description of 'Thales'. If this were so, then what in the world do you propose they would be asking about when they ask about 'Thales'? In that case they could not be asking about a man, because if they were asking about a man then 'Thales' would have a description. They could not be asking about a previously existing thing, because if they were asking about a previously existing thing then they would have a description. They could not be asking about a name from their textbook, because if they were asking about a name from their textbook then they would have a description, etc.

So again, you are contradicting yourself in simultaneously holding that the novice has no description of 'Thales' and nevertheless uses the name in a meaningful sense.

In this passage Locke shows that he supposes it to be understandable what individuals are called Wewena, Chuckery and Cousheda without its yet being determined whether these are proper names of men or what. To point and say ‘That is Wewena—and I mean that “Wewena” is the proper name of that’ should prompt the question ‘That what is Wewena?’ Or, what comes to the same thing: ‘And how am I to go on using the name Wewena?’ Locke writes as if an intelligible reply would be ‘so long as it is the same individual’. And hence the question which often concerns philosophers: ‘What is an individual? What is a particular?’ — Elizabeth Anscombe, On Russell's Theory of Descriptions

I was saying to NOS that we had the same heuristic but applied to completely different realms (I am against forcing life onto someone, he is against forcing government onto someone). — schopenhauer1

Ah, fair enough. I was not familiar with this history. I was talking past you. :up:

In the context that we are speaking, the claim is that it is unjust to put someone in the compulsory situation in the first place. — schopenhauer1

Okay, but isn't it true that government puts people in compulsory situations whereas nature does not? The key here is that the government is a responsible agent, capable of injustice, whereas nature is not. Nature "gives rise" to compulsory situations, but it does not "put" people into them, because it does not will this or that.

You're welcome. I find it helpful. There are downsides to the model, but the people who created it seem genuinely interested in trying to provide a means to an unbiased perspective. And yes, it is only about American politics.

If I want to understand an issue I will generally read articles from both sides, so the quotes and links that flipside provides are an easy entryway into the different perspectives.

Well, this goes back to word games and sense and reference. I was playing with words here a bit. We are a "serf" to the burdens and overcoming of harms that life offers. There is no getting around this taskmaster (metaphor obviously). This is why I have always maintained that life provides "de facto" dictates that we must follow. — schopenhauer1

Sure, but I think this will all depend on the original objection. One could object that government is unjust, or one could object that government gives rise to compulsion. The point about nature applies to the second objection but not the first, because nature does give rise to compulsion and yet it is not unjust.

(Granted, the notion of the injustice of nature does seem to arise at times via theism, but I am leaving this to the side.)

- https://www.theflipside.io/

To quote the eminent philosopher John McCrea:

When you sleep,
Where do your fingers go?
What do your fingers know?
What do your fingers show? — When you Sleep, by Cake

The reason I follow their rules is because they are allowed to kidnap me or kill me if I do not. — NOS4A2

Peter L. P. Simpson has often drawn attention to the fact that the state has a monopoly on coercion (and violence) in the modern world, and that this is different from any time in the past.

Thus, your life is always in a way a serf. Your very procreation means that you must comply (with the game of life) or die. — schopenhauer1

I think the difference is that nature is not a feudal lord. Nature has no will and therefore does not coerce. Neither is it capable of injustice.

I think that’s a great point. The larger the aggregate, the more difficult it is to discern the extent to which its members relate. — NOS4A2

Right, and they also relate in a much more diffuse and indirect way.

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That is to say, our ethical obligations are to individuals, and not abstractions. — schopenhauer1

Yes, and I think the first thing to do is to specify the level of abstraction. Apparently everyone agrees that a mere abstraction has no dues (nothing that it is owed), but there is disagreement over whether, say, the object of socialism is a mere abstraction (or a mere aggregate).

A family is not simply an abstraction, although it is a collective-relation (a relation between a number of individuals in which their ends or goals become unified). So it makes sense to make a sacrifice for the sake of the family, because the family is a real thing even though it is also a collective or a relation. The sacrifice is not made for the individuals qua individuals, but it is also not made for a mere abstraction. It is hard to identify this notion of a common good for which the sacrifice is legitimate, but it is something like the good of a unitary organism, an organism which is composed by the members of the family. Then if this analysis makes sense, we can approximate the real-ness of a collective—the degree to which it is not a mere abstraction—in terms of the extent to which it is a unitary organism.

Unlike loose aggregates of individuals sharing a roof, families are raised by one another, play with one another, work together, love one another, and so on. The dynamics of their relationship are different. They are not only nominally or proximally bonded, but have a history together. — NOS4A2

But if a family is a real collective, then is not also an extended family a real collective? And a clan? And a tribe? A village? A town? A city?

Once we grant that a marriage or a family is a real collective or a real relation, then it only becomes a question of where to draw the line.

The essence of a thing is the rigidity with with which we designate it.
the essence of :—
Frodo is the ring bearer.
King Arthur is the legendary hero of an imaginary magical realm on the pattern of Britain.
Thales is that he fell down a well and thought everything was water, and was one of the founders of Greek philosophy.
Lavender is the fragrance.
unenlightened is his willingness to make up shit on the fly.

I imagine some tedious archeologist finding the remains of a real king called Arthur, and his wife Guinevere, and some record of his reign that did not include quests or saving damsels in distress or the Holy Grail, or the round table. "Oh, that King Arthur, no one is interested in him." I would say, as if allowing that names are not always unique, while maintaining the rigidity of my designation. — unenlightened

This is not bad as far as it goes. The key here is that there is a big difference between saying, "But how do you know that that definition captures this essence," and saying, "But it has no essence at all." There seems to be a lot of conflation between these two questions, where skeptics drawn to the first fall into the second. Whether the preserving quality of salt belongs to its essence is a coherent question; whether salt has an essence at all is not a coherent question. Or so I say. For once we admit that salt and sugar are different, they must be different in virtue of some real quality. They must be different in virtue of what they are; their what-ness; their quiddity; their essence.

I would say, as if allowing that names are not always unique, while maintaining the rigidity of my designation. — unenlightened

The other important thing here is intention, and this is a place where modern philosophy is characteristically poor. Names with the same token obviously do not all have the same designation, else every name "John" would point to the same man. The referent of a name is therefore tied to the intention of the speaker, and I believe we must interpret names according to intention (including "formal" names—hence the unraveling of Donnellan's conundrum). It is first in the intention where the name is attached to the description (or as Anscombe calls it, the "identifying predicate").

I am not aware of anything in which Anscombe directly addresses Donnellan and Kripke. IF you come across something, I'd be most interested. — Banno

Yes, I also like Anscombe. I did run across an article relating to Kripke, albeit relating to his sceptical argument. It is in the same volume, and is named, "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language."

(There was another article or typescript she wrote on Kripke, but I would have to look to find it again.)

The argument is pretty straight forward. Suppose that it turned out that nothing we thought we knew about Thales were true; that he did not think all was water, did not fall into a well and did not say "know thyself". Who is it that the previous sentence is about? Well, it is about Thales. But if, "in order to use a name the thing to which it is attached must be identifiable", we now have no way of identifying Thales, which would imply that the sentence is not about Thales. — Banno

But this is a confusion of a name with an individual, and it hinges on that mistaken assumption that the referent of a name must be an existing individual. Specifically, "the previous sentence is about" <concept-Thales>, or in Anscombe's Medieval language, a formally assigned name. Following her usage, I will talk about formal names and real names.

Again, there are two things attached to the name 'Thales' in the class that the novice takes on ancient philosophy. One is the formal name, which is fit to function in the dialectical philosophical narrative. The other is the real name, which specifically depends on a person who actually existed in the past. I really do think these referents overlap (although there is a primacy of the formal name in the context of the philosophy class because the non-existence of Thales will not impede the purpose of the philosophy class). But if you like we can be pedantic and keep the two designations separate. In that case the non-existence of Thales would undermine the real name but not the formal name. The identification of the formal name depends on a conceptual scheme vis-a-vis the received view about the dialectical history of philosophy. The identification of the real name depends on historical investigation. In both cases the referent is identifiable.* In the latter case the legitimacy of the name will depend on the historical investigations (ergo, it is ostensive).

I'm sorry that you haver been unable to identify the argument. — Banno

It seems that I identified it just fine and addressed it earlier in the thread. To reiterate, he is wrong when he claims that the non-existence of Thales entails that 'Thales' has no referent; and he is wrong that a name must have an existent referent. Apparently Anscombe came to just the same conclusions in response to a very similar view.

Donnellan is apparently being tripped up by the fact that mistakes are possible, or that there is such a thing as an ostensive name (or that a name can be applied to a historical hypothesis). This apparently relates to @schopenhauer1's point about the errors which occur when logic attempts to dominate language. I will leave this to the side for now.


* Note that it is very different to say that "We don't know whether Thales existed," versus, "We don't know what the real name 'Thales' means or references." It ostensibly refers to a real historical person, and sufficient historical data will allow us to verify or falsify his historicity.

That has less to do with how effective duty is as a motivator and more to do with perceived ethical obligations. — ToothyMaw

Okay, fair enough.

Read my reply to ↪schopenhauer1 — ToothyMaw

Yes, I did read that exchange, and I think it is on point.

The thing that is interesting about duty is how powerful it is... — ToothyMaw

It seems to me that a sense of duty is powerful given the nature of duty, but at the same time a sense of duty is becoming harder and harder to find. Duty is powerful in a practical sense because it concerns precisely what ought to be done, but I find that a lot of people no longer experience a sense of duty, and this is especially true as familial ties continue to weaken.

I think contemporary philosophy is generally averse to duty and normative morality, and I wonder if this explains some of the motivation behind your "open letter." Is it in part an admonishment for philosophers to stop undermining the notion of duty, and to approach the idea more constructively?

@Banno,

I have been perusing Elizabeth Anscombe’s writings due to the fact that she forms a helpful bridge between Aristotelian-Thomism and contemporary philosophy, particularly in the Anglophone world. In one of her unpublished typescripts she expresses some of the exact same things I have been getting at. The essay comes from, "From Plato to Wittgenstein: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe."

In a rebuff to Locke, Mill, and Russell, she says:

But it is absurd to speak of any name at all without a nominal essence; if a name can be without a nominal essence, there can be no right or wrong about its repeated use. — Elizabeth Anscombe, On Russell's Theory of Descriptions

She goes on to note the way that Locke sidesteps the issue of how the referent of a name is identified, just as you are doing:

In this passage Locke shows that he supposes it to be understandable what individuals are called Wewena, Chuckery and Cousheda without its yet being determined whether these are proper names of men or what. To point and say ‘That is Wewena—and I mean that “Wewena” is the proper name of that’ should prompt the question ‘That what is Wewena?’ Or, what comes to the same thing: ‘And how am I to go on using the name Wewena?’ Locke writes as if an intelligible reply would be ‘so long as it is the same individual’. And hence the question which often concerns philosophers: ‘What is an individual? What is a particular?’

That a word is a proper name is some information as to its meaning: it means that it has a very special kind of use; this is parallel to the information that a word is the name of a colour. The further enquiry ‘What kind of thing is it a proper name of?’ should elicit an answer such as ‘a city’, ‘a river’, ‘a man’, ‘a trumpet’, which we may reasonably say gives the full meaning, or connotation of the word. Thus Mill would have been nearer the truth if he had said that proper names have both denotation and connotation, but predicates only connotation. A small boy gave a moving spot of light that appeared in his room the proper name ‘Tommy Noddy’. Locke writes as if one could know what individual Tommy Noddy was without knowing that this was the proper name of a spot of light. To see the mistake in this, imagine that someone who had grasped that ‘Tommy Noddy’ was a proper name, asked to have Tommy Noddy pointed out to him. The child points to Tommy Noddy at a time when the spot of light is on a human being.

That is to say, with every proper name there is associated a predicate x, such that when a proper name is assigned to an x, the proper name is rightly used for the future to name the same x. The information ‘Tommy Noddy is the name of a spot of light’ thus gives the sense (meaning, connotation) of the proper name. . . — Elizabeth Anscombe, On Russell's Theory of Descriptions

She then goes on to talk about the notion of an "identifying predicate," which accompanies a name.

She also disagrees with Russell's idea that names require existent referents in the same way that I disagreed with Donnellan's assumption that names require existent referents (and seems to be saying something very similar). I used the distinction of 'real' and 'conceptual'. Anscombe uses 'real' and 'formal'. Her second thesis is:

that [Russell] is wrong in that conception of ‘logically proper names’ which demands the existence of a logically guaranteed bearer for every real proper name; — Elizabeth Anscombe, On Russell's Theory of Descriptions

In defending this, she says:

I fear the correct reply to this may seem to muddy the clear waters of logic; but that may be an illusion, and at any rate I have no doubt it is correct. We should distinguish between a formal and a real assignment of a proper name. The assignment is formal when it is simply an assignment to a bound variable in the narrative. King Arthur is a character of uncertain historicity: thus ‘There was a man—and only one—who was King in Britain such that the stories of the Arthurian cycle derive from or are embroideries on stories about him’ may be true, but it is not certain; and the assignment of the proper name is a formal assignment to the variable in ‘an x such that x was a man who was King etc’. (In ordinary language the bound variable is represented by ‘who’, ‘which’ and the personal pronouns when they have e.g. ‘someone’, ‘anything’, ‘no one’ as antecedents.) But when such narratives are (a) certain, (b) secondary to the use of the proper name itself, as in ‘There was a man called Churchill who was Prime Minister in England for the greater part of the Second World War’, then the assignment of the proper name is real and not formal and is prior to the existential narrative. An historical assignment can be real and not formal when we have the proper name by tradition from those who used it of its bearer.

Where the assignment, necessary for an ostensible proper name to be a real one, is real, then the proposition containing that proper name (or any sub-clause containing that proper name) is a genuine predication and is true or false if the predication makes sense for φs, where φ is the identifying predicate associated with the proper name. Where the assignment is pretended or clearly only formal, then there is no genuine predication (except within the scope of the existential quantifier) and no proposition either true or false. When the assignment is neither pretended nor real we can say that we do not know if a genuine predication has been made; and that an analysis of the proposition will show the relevant formal assignment. — Elizabeth Anscombe, On Russell's Theory of Descriptions

Anscombe talks about the character "who was King in Britain such that the stories of the Arthurian cycle derive from or are embroideries on stories about him." I spoke about "the person-concept [...] which is fit to function in the fictional accounts in question."

The Donnellan arguments show that a name may work even when the associated description fails.

And that it follows that the name's referring is not dependent on the description. — Banno

I read the part of the paper relating to Thales and I find that the arguments do nothing of the sort. If you wish to try to argue for such a conclusion you will have to present actual arguments or actual quotes from Donnellan, rather than simply gesturing towards a 25-page paper. So far the only thing you have provided in that vein is the claim that the novice uses 'Thales' without any description. I pointed out why that claim seems to be false, and I don't see that you have responded to this.

I can flesh out my position a bit more by way of an informal argument. This is the same argument that was implicitly present in my first post.

1. A name is always attached to some thing.
2. In order to use a name the thing to which it is attached must be identifiable.
3. The identification of things occurs via description.*
4. Therefore, names presuppose description.

* The fuller account of 'description' was given in my first post. Specifically what is needed is a set of perceptual or conceptual qualities which are used to identify the name's referent. If you actually believe that (4) is false, you will have say why the argument fails, and what alternative there is for identifying the referents of names.

When studying language, one could heed Wittgenstein's suggestion to delve into the anthropological route. — schopenhauer1

I want to circle back to this. I think you are right that anthropology is crucial. If Aristotle is correct about the nature of reality and knowledge, then anthropology will have a certain primacy.

@Moliere began a discussion of essences with the example of hammers. This is a strange move from the perspective of an Aristotelian, because hammers have no real essence. A hammer is a derivative being, a human artifact. Hammers should always be studied in relation to humans, because their existence is dependent upon humans.

In a very real sense the same thing holds of language. Trying to study language apart from man (anthropos) is a bit like trying to study hammers apart from man. For Aristotle the reason is obvious: language is an act of man, and originally an act expressed vocally. The actor is more primary than the action (even though it is true that language conditions man in various ways). Language therefore cannot be cordoned off and studied apart from a study of man and anthropology. Such an attempt leads to distortion and confusion. The same holds for logic.

(Of course philosophical anthropology and general anthropology are slightly different, but in many ways they are similar.)