One still believes that the Earth is round, even when not giving it conscious consideration.
— Banno

How so? How can you believe something if you are not consciously (as in the agent) believing it. That seems to fly in the face of how we use language in a rational manner. I think 'background belief' might be a better term for that, but it could possibly give the wrong impression of what we generally mean when talking about belief. — I like sushi

I'm not an ordinary-language-first guy, but this is a case where I think we have to start by considering what we do say.

If you ask me, "Do you believe the Earth is round?" my answer is yes. I don't think anyone who speaks English would misunderstand this to mean that, at the very moment I was asked the question, something occurred in my brain/mind that constituted "belIeving Earth is round," whereas before it wasn't there and I didn't believe it. We know what we mean by such a "background belief": It's part of our web of mental constructs, a set of propositions we assent to if asked -- there may be many other ways of putting it (including more behavioral construals), but the main point is that it is not something that requires "consciously (as in the agent) believing it." The belief remains, in this way of speaking, whether I am conscious of it or not, as Banno says.

Now you may feel this isn't a good way to talk. You may feel the ontological commitments are suspect, and we can do better with our terminology when it comes to a big concept like "belief," which has to contain so many different usages and interpretations. And you may be right. But I don't think you can begin by denying that we do talk this way about some beliefs, and are virtually never misunderstood.

. . . studies relating to political beliefs over the past few years — I like sushi

Makes sense that these would be quite emotion-laden, but what about studies of beliefs about Chaucer, or algebra? I'm still dubious about the claim that there is a necessary connection between all beliefs and emotion. Have there really been studies of that?

You are critiquing a "naturalistic," purely immanent explanation of the human good for not including a dimension of ethical/moral goodness, yet you've also expressed disapproval for the notion of any values transcending man and his culture, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. I was trying to understand how you could regard a telos as strictly humanistic or anthropological in some way, not involving transcendent elements. (You said that "such a view of man's telos does not seem prima facie unreasonable.") Personally, I think that if we're talking telos, we're talking transcendence. That is not how I understand the origin of values, because I'm not happy with talking about telos at all. But -- and again, this is the either/or thinking that is so discouraging -- that doesn't leave me in the position of reducing values to purely immanent explanations.

I really think our previous conversations about ethics have gone into this thoroughly.

Yes we have “a-ha” moments, but that does not happen every time we understand something, — Antony Nickles

This suggests to me that we should treat "understanding" as a cluster of concepts and (perhaps) events, and not try to generalize more than necessary about it.

In what circumstances is someone said to get a joke? They laugh, they could tell it, paraphrase what is funny about. — Antony Nickles

But I could do all that to myself, in which case I am the one who gets to say whether I (believe I) understand. Are you saying that translating it into behaviors and having others see them makes them more reliable? That others would be less likely to be fooled, or mistaken? Hmm, maybe, but it sounds a little thin. The possibility of error is always there, and I don't see that "going on" in some way, as opposed to just thinking about it, increases or reduces the possibility.

We have to remember that the question isn't -- or shouldn't be -- "When do we say that someone has understood?" It's "When has someone understood?" You're right that we couldn't say someone had understood without the behavioral signs, but that doesn't mean they haven't; it just means we'd have no way of knowing; we couldn't say.

As I've said, we've been here before!: The equivocation on "good." What is good for a human, using the same sense of "good" as we'd use for a rat, has no bearing on ethical good. Rats don't have ethics, humans do.

I understand that virtue ethics collapses this difference.

But I'm happy to let it go, as I know this is one of those deep and significant differences in interpretation.

Aw, you should keep following this, you have really good insights and questions.

But, supposing we deny that man is a rational being (at least in this sense) and instead claim he is something more like a very clever rat or fox, then it would still be the case that man has a nature that determines the human good — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, that's the difficult leap. Yes, we might be able to discover human "nature," if that is something that science can reveal. (I'm not sure it is, but let's say so.) But learning what such a nature is can't tell us what the human good is. But you and I have been here before! :smile: "Human good" is simply not an anthropological term. Unless you equate it with "survival and flourishing of the human species," which I don't think you do.

It has an indexical in it. I think that rules it out from the jump. — Srap Tasmaner

No, Kripke and Kaplan say indexicals can be rigid designators:

It was part of my view that 'this', 'I', 'you', etc. are all rigid (even though their references obviously vary with the context of utterance. The rigidity of demonstratives has been stressed by David Kaplan. — N&N, 10, ftn

Unless you think the "demonstrative / indexical" distinction is important here? I think my example uses a genuine demonstrative. And in any case, I'm pretty sure indexicals are generally accepted as rigid. @Banno?

What you seem to want is really an in-between category of "rigid-for-you". — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think so, because I don't yet see how my designation differs from the standard model. In what way would it not be rigid for anyone, once accepted?

But, to clarify, is it wrong to rape someone just for fun, who was otherwise just an innocent bystander. — Hanover

OK. But in fairness, what you said was, "Are you willing to go out on a limb and say 'rape is wrong, anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the consensus'?" This inevitably pushes to the foreground the question of the hierarchy of moral rules. I don't think it's possible to say that "getting into" how we prioritize these rules is optional, that we can achieve some kind of moral clarity without doing so.

Also, much as I wish I could agree with you that "gun to the head" dilemmas are "absurd" and "strange examples," in the world I see around me they are irrefutable facts of ethical life. Moreover, I have a hunch they always have been. Humans can be cruel to a degree that will challenge any moral system.

All I’m saying is if you want to have the opinion “all is arbitrary” you can. But if you want to correct me, about anything, you are actually saying something is not arbitrary, or you are lying, or contradicting yourself. — Fire Ologist

Given this, I think your dictum could be phrased more clearly as: "Opinions are plural; anyone can have one. But if your opinion happens to be that there is nothing beyond opinions, no truth, no fact of the matter, then it is meaningless for you to also tell me I am wrong about something."

Does that work for you? It's less snappy, but it captures the self-contradiction you're claiming, which the original version does not. "Can't have" is confusing.

I agree it's not arbitrary, there are frameworks and values underpinning our discourse. What they are not is universal or scientifically binding. — Tom Storm

Yes. Something can be far from arbitrary -- it can have good reasons and justifications -- without needing a universal, cross-cultural explanation.

The idea of a human telos doesn't require anything that transcends man. It merely requires something that transcends man's current sentiments, norms, and beliefs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm having trouble understanding how that "something" would not transcend humans. Is the idea that we could discover such a telos by only studying humans as a species, the way anthropologists do? Or understanding humans' role in relation to other species and to the planet as a whole?

So, is rape wrong? That is, regardless of how a society values women, regardless of what some dictator might say or do, are you willing to go out on a limb and say "rape is wrong, anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the consensus."

If you're not, tell me the scenario where it's ok. — Hanover

If by OK you mean, "Something I might feel ethically obligated to do": Sure. A foul regime imprisons me and my family and indulges its jailers' sadistic fantasies. (This example actually happened in Nazi Germany.). "Rape your daughter," they tell me, "otherwise we'll torture your entire family to death before your eyes." I emphasized might, above, because I don't presume to know what would seem right to me under the circumstances. But I might well decide that the rape was the lesser of two evils.

This highlights two important points. First, if that's not what you mean by OK -- if, rather, you mean "Rape becomes a good thing in this scenario" -- then I agree, this can never happen. Second, while we are helpless in the face of circumstances to rely on rules, that doesn't meant that teaching our children that rape is wrong should always be contextualized. I am not a utilitarian, but this is one area where the distinction between act and rule utilitarianism is useful.

So talk about stipulation and teaching all you like, but it doesn't get you to that level of originary reference you're chasing, the intentionality you cannot be mistaken about. It relies on that; it doesn't explain it or even describe it. — Srap Tasmaner

This is helpful, and I think you're right, except I wan't really looking for such a level of reference. My chain of thought was mainly an attempt to do better than "That man over there with champagne in his glass", which has all the problems of mistaken reference that you and Kripke and many others have pointed out. And I think there's a valid distinction to be made between a property that we use to designate something rigidly, and a statement we use to do so. Or perhaps I should back up and ask whether the statement-type designation -- "He is the person about whom I say . . ." -- is rigid.

Consider "Let's agree that this thing is Blork". Who teaches who here? Isn't the choice to use "blork" an agreement, if not a commitment? — Banno

Well, yes, but it's fair to say that, in many cases, there is an originator, a teacher, and one who learns. If I wish us to refer to a certain tree outside my window, I have to do the pointing. Then, of course, we can agree.

True. But I still referred to the tree. I don't need your buy-in for that. — frank

This is getting to some crucial questions about the "game" of reference. (OK, sometimes "game" is the right word! :smile: ) Like you, I'm holding out for reference as a potentially private game. Talking, so often, is talking to ourselves, and we need all the apparatus of talking-with-others to do it. Now it may be that a criterion for successful private reference would be that, if challenged, the person could introduce others to the game. Arguably, if you can't make it clear to someone else, you aren't clear about it yourself. But that's a different point. If there's a pile of papers on my floor and I say to myself, "Right, that's the pile I need to file tomorrow," I have performed a very common and useful act of reference. I can now think of the pile that way, compare it with other piles, etc. We could, I suppose, deny that this is an act of reference, and argue for using "reference" in a different way, one that must involve others, but what would be the warrant for that?

You're presuming the entire system of conceptualization and language usage is at your disposal, and then all you're doing is in effect introducing a word by stipulation. — Srap Tasmaner

Well, yes, but isn't that what Kripke is interested in too? He wants to know how we fix the reference of a new term -- a proper name, say. The baby's name is a stipulation, if anything is. And with a proper name, no less than with a shriek, we find ourselves in the middle of a "conceptualization and language system." Don't we have to presume that?

Again, I feel I must be missing something very obvious. Why is the question about teaching others the meaning of my shriek a non-starter? Words of one syllable, please, I'm floundering here! :wink:

independent of all interpretive conditions . . . — Banno

This is a really interesting fulcrum for different styles of philosophy. One might ask a proponent of any philosophical perspective, "Could you specify what conditions, if any, guide your interpretations of the key terms you're using?" You might find some who would claim that interpretation is not an issue at the level of first philosophy, and that would be an important way of categorizing their method.

You can have any opinion you want. But if you are trying to tell me I’m wrong, then you can’t have any opinion you want. — Fire Ologist

Do you mean wrong as in mistaken about something, or wrong as in morally wrong? Or both?

I would extract “disposition” farther away from anything like a sensation, emotion, or internal predilection. I would look at it as a circumstance (PI #149), like a possible state of affairs. — Antony Nickles

Pretty much what I was getting at with "background belief," wouldn't you agree? The important thing is that a background belief really can't be said to cause anything.

So when I understand, it is not a change in my body (that “affects” it), but an opportunity. I may continue or not, but it is only when I do, that we (and even me) can actually judge that I “understand”. — Antony Nickles

But this still seems murky to me. Let's say someone tells a joke, and at first I don't "get it." Then all at once, I do. I have now understood the joke. Are you saying that until I continue in some fashion -- perhaps by making a witty reply -- I can't judge that I have understood the joke? Why would that be?

That something is judged to be blue is dependent on the object judged. Why would it be different for beauty? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, because there is universal agreement on how to recognize and judge blue, and nothing similar in regard to beauty. But in any case, I see the context for the Hamlet quote, thanks.

You want to have in hand an association between an object and something, a name, a referring expression, or a bit of behavior, and for that association to be something you can't be wrong about. — Srap Tasmaner

even if I am making important mistakes about the properties of that thing, even if I misidentify it, I cannot be wrong about it being the object of my thought (or intention). — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Both of these are what I'm aiming at.

Moreover, I want to take this out of "private reference," which would apply only to me, and make it what you're calling a successful reference -- one that I can use with others.

At this point I'm fairly sure I'm not grasping what you see as problematic here. Probably something simple I'm rushing past. Would you mind explaining a bit more? Perhaps using the shriek example? If I teach others that my shriek refers to Mr. Champagne, in what way could this reference fail for others, or be mistaken on my part? What could go wrong in a statement like "The man who I shriek when I see is a really nice guy"? (other than doubts about my sanity) The identifier is my behavior, not anything about him, and I can scarcely be wrong about whether I'm shrieking.

I'm puzzled by this reply because the post says this follows from Hamlet's position, not from a lack of "transcendental or foundational basis." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Didn't you mean Hamlet to be articulating the position that there is no transcendental basis for values?

If Hamlet is right, if "nothing is good or bad (beautiful or ugly) but thinking makes it so," we are left with the question of why anything should be thought beautiful or ugly in the first place. Such notions should be uncaused, and thus random — Count Timothy von Icarus

Others here have focused on this as well. It simply doesn't follow that, because there is no transcendental or foundational basis for aesthetic values, our notions of value are therefore uncaused or random.

No no, that's a duck -- or a rabbit. Witt will explain.

These are all good examples of what might go wrong, if the issue were one of meaning. But I don't think it is.

I was using "glunk" to try to de-fang the meaning question entirely, but perhaps I didn't go far enough. How about this: "The man over there who I make this noise [hideous shriek] when I see is . . . " Now are we outside of possible mistakes and ambiguities of meaning? All that matters is that the shriek fixes the reference.

As I said up here, the category of dispositions are not judged prior to an act, and so do not “affect” them, say, in a causal way. They are determined afterwards by external criteria such as whether I do in fact continue (this distinction separates someone judged to be thinking from the internal self-talk commonly taken as “thought”; or demonstrating my understanding as different from picturing it as a lightbulb that goes off in my head). So the distinction of conscious or unconscious does not apply (PI #149); it is an entirely different matter than turning inward more. — Antony Nickles

Good stuff. But some questions:

- Why would it follow that, because we don't judge a disposition prior to an act, said disposition could not affect whether the act took place or not? (And yes, I'm with you in believing we need to be very careful about invoking "cause" here.)

- My distinction of conscious and unconscious wasn't necessarily pointing to some subconscious mental process going on when we believe or understand something -- the "turning inward more". Rather, I'm thinking of what are often called background beliefs. It's a truism that I continue to believe in, say, the theory of evolution regardless of whether I happen to be thinking about it at the time. This might include a disposition to act on that belief, again without requiring some conscious mental event called a "disposition." This seems different from a "thought", which we do want to say is a particular mental event at a particular time (Fregean "thoughts" aside). If I have a thought at T1 and am no longer having it at T2, we say "You're no longer thinking thought X." This is clearly different from how we talk about beliefs and dispositions.

So I'm agreeing with you (and perhaps Witt) that we need a separate account of what beliefs and dispositions amount to.

Right now it is possible to read someone's brain and have a general idea of what they are thinking about and feeling. It is still low resolution, — I like sushi

I agree with the thrust of this, though even "general idea" seems too high a resolution. Let's just say that Chalmers' "easy problem" -- mapping mental events to areas and activities of the brain -- is a doable project, one of these days.

But this still leaves the issue of what we now know about emotions. I'll repeat my question:

Are you saying that any conscious experience I have will, upon examination, reveal something emotional? Or that it presents as emotional? — J

Has that been shown somehow in the research you're describing?

All sorts of problems with meaning as speaker intent. The most significant one is that we do not have access to what you intend, only to what you say. — Banno

But couldn't we get around that in the way I suggested earlier?:

We could rewrite "The man over there who I think has champagne in his glass" as follows: "The man over there about whom I say, 'He has champagne in his glass'." — J

This way, it's a behavior, not a mental intention, and the speaker still can't be "wrong about the reference", because it doesn't depend on whether the man really has champagne, only on whether the speaker says he does. The man is being identified as the subject of a statement, not as a person with a drink in his glass.

But then there's Srap's problem:

This is such a great example because the reference of the word "champagne" is regularly disputed. Are you using the word "champagne" "correctly"? Are you sure? Is there definitely a correct way? — Srap Tasmaner

In this case, I don't think the ambiguity of "champagne" matters. We know what the speaker is saying: "The man over there about whom I say, 'He has champagne in his glass' is . . . " and then presumably he fills it out with whatever he wants to claim about the guy ("is happy," "is an asshole" etc.). Whether the speaker knows what champagne is, and is conforming to an ostensibly correct usage, is surely beside the point of using the statement about the guy to pick him out.

Compare "The man over there about whom I say, 'He likes glunk' is . . . " We don't need to know a single thing about glunk in order to use the speaker's statement to successfully and incorrigibly fix the reference. All that matters is what he says. Turns out he's wrong about glunk? Turns out there's no such thing as glunk? The guy is still the same guy about whom the speaker made his statement.

And we can conclude that the reference was a success, despite the description being wrong. — Banno

That's why I was suggesting that maybe a better way to understand this is "The man over there who I think has a glass of champagne in his hand." That way, the description is not wrong -- he's being identified as being the object of a thought of the speaker.

EDIT: Or no, better to say, "He's being identified using a thought of the speaker." He's the guy I think has a glass of champagne.

#154 “Try not to think of understanding as a 'mental process' at all.— For that is the expression which confuses you. But ask yourself: in what sort of case, in what kind of circumstances, do we say, "Now I know how to go on," when, that is, the formula has occurred to me?” — Antony Nickles

I've pondered this one before. Would you say that dispositions, possibly including beliefs, can be distinguished from thoughts on the basis that they may affect our actions, our "going on," without having to be consciously entertained? And in that sense, are not "mental processes" at all? Something like this seems a plausible reading of Witt.

This raises the question, Could there be a private language of reference? I don't see why not. Sometimes I talk to myself, and need to keep track of things that are relevant only to me. Let's say I have to organize 12 books whose titles I no longer remember. I might recognize their covers, though, and think, "That's the one Jane gave me", "I got that one at Brentano's" etc. I now know how to refer to them. Sure, I could teach someone else how to do it to, but do I need to, in order simply to fix the reference for each?

When does speech about a proper name become nonsense because a contradiction has arisen between an assertion and something essential about the object of the assertion? How did Kripke handle this question? — frank

Before we get to nonsense and contradiction, I want to understand a little better what Kripke is saying about reference. Here's the passage you quoted:

'The man over there with the champagne in his glass is happy', though he actually only has water in his glass. Now, even though there is no champagne in his glass, and there may be another man in the room who does have champagne in his glass, the speaker intended to refer, or maybe, in some sense of 'refer', did refer, to the man he thought had the champagne in his glass. — Naming and Necessity p.24,25

What happens if we change the designation to "The man over there who I think has champagne in his glass is happy"? That's where Kripke himself winds up: "The speaker intended to refer . . . to the man he thought had the champagne in his glass." Has the speaker still made a mistake in reference? I think we have to say no. The reference is now based on something the speaker thought, not something that is the case about Mr. Champagne. The speaker can point out Mr. Champagne to me, explain that the man is being designated according to a belief the speaker has about him, and we can both usefully talk about that man and no other. Whether or not Mr. Champagne really has champagne coudn't be relevant.

So how should we describe this difference? Is it a version of de dicto / de re? Sort of. We could rewrite "The man over there who I think has champagne in his glass" as follows: "The man over there about whom I say, 'He has champagne in his glass'." Certainly the fact that the speaker says this about Mr. Champagne is not a necessary de re property. But it is necessary that he say this in order for the designation to refer.

Thinking out loud, really. Does this make sense?

Let us be clear. There are no Conscious States that appear to be wholly absent of emotional content. — I like sushi

I feel a little dense, but what does that mean exactly? We're talking phenomenology here, right, not science? (I'm assuming there is no scientific description of "emotional content.") Are you saying that any conscious experience I have will, upon examination, reveal something emotional? Or that it presents as emotional? Not sure I'm getting the picture.

Let me just say, I sympathize with your mixed feelings about bringing in the Tao for a subject like this. On the one hand, it's an important reminder that what we're doing here may not have any ultimate metaphysical validity -- that there is such a thing as a world beyond words and categories. But then, if we stayed with that insight, we'd probably not be on TPF at all.

No, the boundaries are not arbitrary at all. Setting up distinctions and boundaries is something humans do. — T Clark

OK. Better say "contingent" or "contextual," perhaps. Just trying to get across the idea that the Tao's-eye point of view, if there could be such a thing, wouldn't include such discriminations.

If the position I attributed to Damasio in previous posts is correct, they can't be discriminated at all, at least not when they function as mental processes. — T Clark

Still not clear on this, though. How does it mean the same thing as:

His hypothesis is that the three are completely interconnected and that it is impossible to discuss the functions of one without realizing that the other two play a role.

Maybe I should be clearer about what I mean by "discriminate." I think of it as a rock-bottom term, one that would apply even when objects or processes are "completely interconnected" and "impossible to discuss" without awareness of the role each plays. "Discriminate," for me, means whatever it is that you and I are both doing when we make sensible sentences using the terms "rational processes" and "emotions." I don't have any big stake in that usage, though -- if you have a preferred way to divvy up the vocabulary, I'm open to it.

A possible middle ground might be that there are no "entities" called reason and emotion, and that we can separate them only conceptually, not physically.
— J

But that’s the way it works. We humans create entities with fixed boundaries while the world moves around like a swirl. Much of the thinking we do is going back and reworking some of those boundaries.

The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao. — T Clark

Well, yeah, but . . . at the level of the Tao, of course all the boundaries and categories are arbitrary. More mundanely, we're happy to talk about some things being physical entities and others not. It may not be eternally true, but it's how we do business, so to speak. At that level, I'm suggesting that rational processes and emotions could be discriminated either as actual physical events, or as "two sides of one coin"-type events, with only conceptual discrimination. I don't think jumping to the Tao level is much of an answer, since it would settle any question whatsoever about discrimination, and we're wanting something more specific.

I'm not claiming that that's your position, you're just telling the eliminative materialist side of the story. It's not a compelling story. — RogueAI

Right on both counts. But I think part of a philosopher's job is to understand, not merely refute. To me, eliminative materialism/physicalism is not compelling, but Daniel Dennett (to pick one) was an extremely smart guy, and if we don't put ourselves in his mental shoes and try to work out his perspective, we'll just be creating a strawman to call "not compelling." We'd also be committed to the position that Dennett was the sort of thinker who is compelled by something obviously not compelling . . . hmm, not too likely.

So, no offense, but "That's absurd" and "Come on!" and "But you don’t believe that. Nobody does" doesn't get us very far. You raise an interesting point about the ethical implications of possible P-zombie-hood: Is it tragic (and morally abhorrent) when a zombie is tortured, if the creature can't feel anything? Well, let's say the answer is no. What would you say should follow from that, about the plausibility of physicalism?

I don't really object to the idea that what goes on in the mind is a blending of cognitive and non-cognitive states. @i like sushi's position was stronger: They claimed it to be a fact that "Reason and emotion are not discrete entities." That is quite different, indeed contradictory to your position. You can't have a blend of A and B if they are aren't discrete in some way. Similar to the point Banno makes here:

The obverse and reverse sides of a coin are inseparable, but that does not prevent us considering them separately as required. We might map how they relate and how they differ. — Banno

A possible middle ground might be that there are no "entities" called reason and emotion, and that we can separate them only conceptually, not physically. If that's what sushi meant, I'd to hear more about the conceptual distinction. To what does it correspond?

I think those [dogma, ideology and fundamentalism] are problems in themselves. — Janus

I'm inclined to agree. Maybe not dogma, if we take it literally as "canon of beliefs." But it's no coincidence that "dogmatic" has come to mean rigid and intolerant. So many dogmas encourage dogmatism.

The other two -- ideology and fundamentalism -- are picking out ethical problems. I don't think they can be used neutrally. To subscribe to an ideology is to indulge in false consciousness, whether deliberately or unconsciously. This is likely bad for you, and if you're remotely inclined to act on it, then probably bad for others as well.

Fundamentalism strikes me as similar to "fascism" -- it can be a historical or sociological description of a specific movement, but it's also naming a mindset, an attitude, and a practice which is more general. So we can neutrally talk about fundamentalist Christianity or Islam, as a set of beliefs, but "fundamentalism" is what those beliefs have in common with any rule-bound, indubitable, authority- or holy-text-based belief that insists that others acknowledge this "truth." Such an attitude is ethically obnoxious, for reasons I doubt need explaining.

So by all means let's disparage these attitudes. And if we need yet another reason -- they've done incalculable harm in blinding people to the gentle, compassionate core of what I think of as genuine spiritual and religious practice.

I keep trying to picture my pzombie equivalent getting shitfaced after a stressful day and not being able to. I get wasted because it feels good. But that motivation isn't available to my pzombie counterpart, so why on Earth would he do it? — RogueAI

Let's imagine something more on the lines of Roomba. We could, I suppose, install a program in a Roomba-like robot that would respond to "hard day" (vacuuming!) by "drinking some oil" to loosen the tired ball-bearings. Or whatever, I'm not going take much time on the details. Point is, the robot would still not be feeling anything, but a sort of evolutionary reason has been given to them for engaging in the things that would make them feel good if they had that ability. As it stands, all that happens is that Roomba is better able to do their job; all the action is at the physical level.

You see, it forces the question, Why does getting wasted make you feel good? The argument here would be that the good feeling of being wasted is quite ancillary to the real work being done, namely some kind of resetting of brain activity so as to better cope with life . . . not sure what actually does happen, chemically, but we agree that something does. Mother Evolutionary Nature has cleverly tricked you into thinking that her point is for you to feel better -- ha! As if! The same thing would happen if there was no (conscious) you!

In short, I think we still haven't eliminated P-zombies on purely logical grounds. The story I just told is no more absurd than the one about how my beliefs don't really do the heavy lifting I think they do. There is nothing so implausible that a P-zombie couldn't partake, I'm betting. The only way to get rid of P-zombies is to get rid of the physicalist premise on which they're based.

And yet it's standard physicalism -- Dennett, the Churchlands. I don't believe P-zombies could exist either, but we ought to allow them in our thought experiments since they show what would have to be true if they existed, and that's worth knowing. Eliminative materialists don't see it as a desperate move at all, just science. We need to understand why.

This is a good challenge to P-zombies. Notice, though, that an advocate for the possibility of P-zombies would deny Premise 2: "Beliefs play a central causal role in human behavior. (When I say 'it's going to rain,' that statement reflects a belief that influences whether I grab an umbrella.)".

The argument here would go: "What you're calling a belief plays no role whatsoever in human behavior. A 'belief' is epiphenomenal; what causes things to happen is entirely explainable at the level of physics (and brain chemistry). When you say 'It's going to rain," that statement may well reflect a belief, but you're mistaken if you think the belief influences your grabbing an umbrella. Sorry, it's all physical."

I vote for keeping P-zombies to help us understand some of the implications of hardcore physicalism, this being one of them. Personally, I'm committed to beliefs (and reasons) as having an explanatory role, but we can tolerate the zombies as we look into the question. Besides, they're kinda sweet! Like my Roomba.

Yes, and the whole belief-forming process, as @Banno reminded us, is different depending on the object of the beliefs; what would lead us to form them; how we decide we must justify them; and much more. To me, this leaves room for saying that some beliefs may be formed strictly by rational process, some may be formed strictly by affective/intuitive relations, and many (most) are some combination.

This is an interesting way of helping us see how "belief" really refers to many things, in various combinations. I will definitely read the McCormick piece, thanks.

This is a fact rather than an idea. Reason and emotion are not discrete entities. — I like sushi

Uhh . . . how do we know it's a fact? Even allowing that "entities" probably isn't the best word. Is it falsifiable?

What about literary theory? That's a bit like musicology I suppose. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, but with an intriguing difference. We know what the "uninterpreted bones" of musical sounds are -- the paraphernalia of acoustics, which is a science and can be mastered without any reference to music. What would be the equivalent for literature? It's tempting to say, "the 'uninterpreted' marks on paper" (scribbles, as @Harry Hindu often says), but is that right? The information we get from acoustics is immediately applicable, and essential, to most of what we want to say about musical events. That's not the case for "scribbles" and literature though. Nothing about the physical composition and shapes of (what we learn to recognize as) letters seems even slightly relevant to the interpretation of literature. It's as if the "bones" of literature begin with interpreted objects -- letters, words, sentences.

Congratulations -- this is actual evidence that helps settle an actual question! We philosophers don't often get to experience such a giddy pleasure.

Thanks for chiming in here, very helpful. I was going to say something about de re / de dicto at this point too. We can stipulate a property that's necessary de dicto without making any commitments about its de re characteristics. And Kripke seems rather nonchalantly to cross this bridge, as you say:

The second part of Kripke's account, which pertains to the object's necessary properties . . . — Pierre-Normand

I'm not sure what to say about this. Is "our general conception of such objects" good enough to be going on with? I agree that Kripke seems to think it is. Or maybe that's a bit unfair -- he does try to analyze these conceptions, but it seems to me that he's doing so in terms of how we talk about them, so there's one foot back in de dicto contingency and necessity.

I hope this conversation will continue to work on this, because I'd like to come out with a better understanding of whether Kripke is really an "essentialist" in some semi-Aristotelian sense.

"Elizabeth Windsor was born of different parents" -- would that be an example?
— J

I think so, yes. — frank

OK, still working on this.

For these two reasons, having a name is not usually considered as having the property of having that name. Being referred to by a name is not part of the logical property structure — it belongs to the semantic interpretation.
— Banno
Many thanks for this. I can see the sense in it.

if I additionally ask about how "a" comes to stand for the Eiffel Tower, we can't answer that in terms of the interpretation of "a" -- that is, the various properties that can now be predicated of a based upon our interpretation. We have to move to a different level and talk about how or why "a" has the reference it has, which is not a feature or property of a, any more than my name is a property of me.
— J — Ludwig V

If I'm understanding @Banno correctly, he's agreed with, and explicated, my talk about a "different level." To say, "The fact that 'a' has the reference it has is not a feature or property of a" is basically the same as saying, "Being referred to by a name is not part of the logical property structure -- it belongs to the semantic interpretation." Or so I believe, and if that's wrong, it's on me, since Banno has been perfectly clear.

But part of my puzzlement was because of an apparent asymmetry between referring to something and being referred to by something. You don't explicitly say much about "a". But fixing the reference must involve both "a" and a. So I would have thought that "a"'s referring to a is also not a property of "a". Is that right? — Ludwig V

The thing is, "a" has no properties at all. It's a name. So there is actually a symmetry of sorts! "'a' refers to a" is not a property of a, and "a is the reference of 'a'" isn't a property of "a", not because it isn't included in the list of "a"'s properties, but because there is no such list.