#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.

I actually agree with you. It's pretty strained to say that I could be Obama. It probably just means I'm giving advice, "if I were you..." :grin: — frank

Yes, either "Here's what you should do . . ." or "Here's what I would do if I found myself in your situation . . ." Interesting that the first is about "you", the second about "me".

This might be a good moment to go back to one of your original questions:

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

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

I'd like to hear your thoughts. And are there some target passages from N&N you think we should look at?

So I'd be open to saying even the expected results differ, that we want explanations from the natural sciences but interpretations from the human sciences. That may be. Where I've been hoping to link them is in the process enacted to produce whatever kind of knowledge they produce, all that business about careful procedures and communal self-correction. — Srap Tasmaner

I think you're absolutely right to do this. A good interpretation requires all the same care as a good explanation. Arguably the community that produces the "communal self-correction" may not be as universal for a given human science, certainly not for an art. But we still want "something like the truth," just as we do from science. The big difference, for me, lies in the explanandum. The science of acoustics gives causal accounts of sounds. The human science of musicology gives interpretations of musical events -- which are already being understood as more than sounds.

So, part of me does want to say that there can never be enough data to explain, much less predict, human action, and certainly not unlikely human action like creativity. The "human sciences" would then be marked either by arrogance or folly, as you like — Srap Tasmaner

But does that consign the human sciences to arrogance or folly? Hermeneutics suggests that the job of the human sciences is not to explain but to interpret and understand.

I think you're right that we could never have enough data to explain human actions, even assuming those actions were deterministic enough to be explained. But more often than not, that isn't the right kind of explanation anyway. What we want to know isn't whether Lisa ate the peanut butter sandwich, but why Lisa chose to play what she played. And now we need an interpretation in order for the question to make sense -- in order for it not to be about collisions of atoms and neurons. "What she played" has to be given meaning, not just physical description.

God has all the data, so how does he understand the world and the people in it? — Srap Tasmaner

Right, and I'm positing that even God understands the world through interpretation, not (only) causality.

The data question I was raising about digital recording is a different one, of course. We can connect it to your question about knowing-that and knowing-how, though. My collection of digitized data that I use to produce a piece of music is a great big "knowing-that." It really is "all the data," at least arguably. Where does the knowing-how enter? From me -- but the thing I know how to do is to record the music, not perform it. There's still a techne, but it has shifted a great deal. Hence my worry that the old-fashioned performance techne gets atrophied.

the difficulty of notating jazz correctly — Srap Tasmaner

Right, it's always a compromise. So is any notation, but jazz especially.

those tiny variations that distinguish a good performance from a great one. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd want to say that those tiny moments of musicality shouldn't be notated, even if they could be. This is the place where the musician can express something beyond the control of the composer.
Something has to be left un-notated for true musicality to emerge.

Now, should we say there is no hope of a scientific approach to great musicianship? I actually don't think so. I think the point is that vastly more data is needed than you might at first think, certainly more than you would think if you looked even at a complex score, which is great simplification of what a musician actually does.

Any of that make sense to you? — Srap Tasmaner

Boy does it ever. I do a lot of composing and recording, and this touches on a really tense issue right now, not just for me but for all musicians who avail themselves of digital technology. It would need a separate, not-very-philosophical thread to go into it in detail, but basically: What happens when software approaches the same abilities that humans have, in terms of performance and expressive nuance? With "vastly more data," can we get ProTools (industry-standard recording program) + various samples of instruments + intensive post-production editing tools = "great musicianship"? We are getting very close to this, not via better scores and notation -- that's 20th century, man! -- but via this whole new digital approach to coding and re-playing information.

As a 20th century guy, I find this worrisome and downright offensive. But I can't deny what my ears are telling me. Even more disturbing as a practical matter, if I've recorded a bass part that is "too hard" for me to play well, even with a lot of practice, do I give up and bring in a better player? Nope. I play it the best I can and then fix it, with post-editing. And by "fix it" I don't just mean correct wrong notes or timing -- that's the least of it. I can add "musicianly" nuances and phrasings, subtly adjust pitch and rhythm and groove, and generally massage the thing till it really sounds human-made, including little "mistakes". Human-made by a great musician? That goal is getting closer and closer. I'm deeply uncomfortable about what this is doing to my musicianship, and everyone else's who does this, but technology dictates artistic practice, and we're not going back from this, it's too valuable. (and fun)

PS -- The "vastly more data" as of right now would still include much better sound samples for many important instruments (this is data about timbre, one of the least well-notated aspects of traditional musical practice) -- and of course vocals are in another category altogether. But can that be far off?

he handed it back to her and said, "It's too hard." — Srap Tasmaner

Just an aside: That's a great story, which I'd never heard before. I wish I could have been there; I would have asked him, "Do you mean too hard to play, or too hard to sight-read?" They're both forms of knowing-how.

What do you think? — frank

The default assumption is that what goes for one, goes for all, if the property in question is putatively essential (as "identity" would be). If I am a mind, why would any other person be anything else? If tiger A is a mammal, why would tiger B be a bird? etc. I'm calling this an assumption, because there's nothing that immediately shows it must be true, but it would take some powerful reasons to unseat it, I think. Remember, we're talking about our world, not just a possible, "idiolecty" world. In our world, we don't declare one person to be a mind, another a body, except maybe in some unusual cases of brain death or similar perplexities. At any rate, we don't do it when there is no other difference between the two.

Ah, but perhaps we should, if the key difference is between "I" and everyone else. That would be the solipsistic possibility I referred to earlier. Maybe there aren't any other minds! But I don't think that's in the spirit of what you're examining.

What does Adorno say about this? And can you say more about how we might understand persons, if they can be categorized as either minds or bodies, depending?

Because it only defers the real question, "Yes, of course, but why do you want to say that?"
— J

Why do you say that's the real question? When Kripke says Nixon could have lost the election, would you say we need to know why he would say that? — frank

Yes, I think so, if we're wondering whether to speak the same idiolect. And K can give the answer, "Because I want to bring out the character of rigid designators, and show what 'N could have lost the election' means." Compare to your being asked, "Why opt for 'frank' as a mind and 'Obama' as a body?" If you reply, "Because that lets me talk about the possibility that I could have been Obama," we then have to decide if "that lets me talk about X" is a good reason. I'm suggesting that it's a genuine, if trivial, reason, but defers the interesting question of why you'd want to talk that way. Whereas the Nixon example is not about "this lets me talk about N losing the election," but about, more directly, "this lets me explain rigid designators." But perhaps there is a comparable reason one could give for your example -- I admit I haven't thought this through in depth.

Were you additionally suggesting it as a real possibility?
— J

What do you mean by "real" possibility? — frank

I should be fined for using "real", against my own strictures. :smile: Let me rephrase: Were you suggesting the "frank=mind / Obama=body" structure as something that might reflect how things stand in our world? I was assuming you were not, but only using the example to probe Kripke.

It wasn't ad hoc. It's what I was thinking about from the beginning of our discussion. — frank

Sorry, didn't mean to say that you were bringing it up in an ad-hoc way here. Rather, if someone were to ask you, "Why opt for the bizarre reference-fixing schema with 'frank' as a mind and 'Obama' as a body?" and you were to reply, "Oh, I did that so I can say that it's possible for me to have been Obama," that would be ad hoc, or makeshift, or at any rate not the sort of answer the questioner was presumably looking for. Because it only defers the real question, "Yes, of course, but why do you want to say that?"

It's just straight Descartes. That we can't say the mind is necessarily identical to the body was mentioned by Kripke in N&N. — frank

The absurdity I was referring to isn't Cartesian dualism -- nothing absurd about that, though I don't subscribe.

No, I was pointing to the idea that identity could in one person's case be mental and in another physical -- or maybe "arbitrary" is a better word than "absurd." I took you to be raising that in order to see if it was consistent with Kripke's views on reference -- which I think it is, for the "mini-community" that uses that idiolect. Were you additionally suggesting it as a real possibility? Not a Cartesian one, at any rate!

:lol:

I don't think that's quite what he meant, but it's funny anyway!

Heh. I like that movie a lot too. Trying to remember . . . doesn't the main character co-inhabit JM's body along with JM? (Though neither can "speak" to the other.) MC doesn't gain control of what JM does; he's like an epiphenomenal consciousness, along for the ride and watching the world through JM's senses. So it isn't an exact parallel to the situation you're imagining, which would require JM's mind to vanish and MC to take over for him. Or I could be misremembering.

Anyway . . . does your situation play by Kripkean rules? Let me paraphrase what I think you're saying: You, frank, can fix references as you see fit, and as long as someone -- J, let's say -- accepts what you're doing, the two of us know what we're talking about. And in this case, you have the breathtaking audacity to fix the reference for "frank" one way and the reference for "Obama" another! "frank" will refer to a mind, "Obama" to a body. Using that interpretation (borrowing from @Banno here), either one of us can indeed say "frank could have been Obama," because we know what we've agreed that would mean, and there's no contradiction involved.

So far, so good. I think Kripke would be on board too, in the very limited sense that you and I, as a mini-community, can agree to speak as we see fit. But the picture thus described faces challenges.

The first is that the "argument" can only work for you and me. It can't be used to persuade anyone who won't use our idiolect. Which leads to the second: Naturally we'll be asked why the references of "frank" and "Obama" should be fixed in such radically different ways. This would amount to asking, "Why should I join you two in this particular reference-fixing?"

I see a non-serious and a serious answer to this. The non-serious answer is, "Well, it's an ad hoc way of allowing us to speak about the possibility that frank could have been Obama." A reason, admittedly, but not a very good one, since nothing of philosophical interest follows from such ad-hocness.

The serious answer is, "We all know how to use phrases like 'if I were you' and 'if I'd been Obama'. Our idiolect explains, in simple terms, what those phrases mean, and why they're so handy. When we use them, we're automatically adopting an interpretation of each term that allows one to 'be in' the other. Then, when no longer needed, we drop that interpretation and go back to our usual usage. All this is so common as to be literally unremarkable. You could call it a type of equivocation, but it's useful, not confusing." (This isn't my own preferred analysis of how 'if I were you' works, BTW.)

So, two questions: First, is this allowed? And second, At what point do we need to step in and protest that such reference-fixing is ludicrously out of step with how the world is?

I think it is allowed. Again, two people can agree to talk any way they want, as long as they don't expect agreement from others. But now your OP question arises:

how far a rigid designator can be stripped of properties and still be valuable. — frank

This example isn't so much a matter of being stripped of properties as it is of being saddled with absurd ones. In our mini-community, we wish to maintain that some subset of persons (which includes frank) are minds, and another subset (which includes Obama) are bodies. I don't know how we'd get that off the ground, as we "look out at the world," to use your phrase. Just for starters, how do you tell the difference? Well, radical solipsism, maybe.

So let me stop, before I confuse myself, and say that the difficult question lies right here: What does Kripke's view about reference commit us to, concerning metaphysics? Because "the world" is metaphysics. You can't jump from how we use language and logic to how such use relates to the world without bringing along your basket of metaphysical assumptions -- about physics, about causality, about realism, about how we know stuff about the world, and much more. When we ask whether our "frank/Obama" idiolect could represent a picture of our world, not just a possible world, we're asking a metaphysical question, IMO.

This isn't about necessity in general. It's that when I pick an object, like the pillow with the red button, I'm only looking at possible worlds where that object exists. There are possible worlds where the pillow doesn't have a red button, but I don't care about those. For the purposes of my communication, the red button is necessary because it's in all the possible worlds I'm paying attention to. I magically made the red button necessary by fiat. — frank

Yes. In fact, maybe we should say, not that the object now has the properties, but rather that those properties (which were always there) are now made necessary. That way we can work our stipulative magic without the illusion of adding or subtracting properties to what we're talking about.

He's saying that when I rigidly designate an object, like the pillow with the red button, you're supposed to pick up on what I mean by it. It's all about me and my intentions as a speaker. — frank

I think this is a good explanation, thanks. It broadens "idiolect" to include not merely the language that happens to be spoken, but the particular idio-syncratic intentions of the speaker.

The subjectivity/circularity issue is perhaps even clearer in what Kripke goes on to say here:

If one was determining the referent of a name like 'Glunk' to himself and made the following decision, 'I shall use the term "Glunk" to refer to the man that I call "Glunk"', this would get one nowhere. One had better have some independent determination of the referent of 'Glunk'. — 73

Pretty clearly, you can't cite the fact that you refer to something as X as the criterion or determination for why you do so!

Would you agree that #6 of the theses explains how an object obtains necessary properties? It's a matter of the speaker's intentions. That's at least one way.. — frank

Yes, one way, and on one understanding of necessity (a priori). And notice how we're forced to phrase it: the object obtains the properties. Is this magic? :smile: Can this be what Kripke literally means?

BTW, do you take "in the idiolect of the speaker" to be Kripke just being careful (like "in language L"), or is he making some additional point?

I hope I've made clear how clean the distinction is between syntax and semantics in formal systems. — Banno

You have indeed. And it makes it clear that my question arises around what you call a possible third level "where we seek to understand what we are doing in a natural language by applying these formal systems." Using the Eiffel Tower example, we agree that the fixing of the reference "Eiffel Tower" is a semantic step. We have a rough-and-ready language system that shows us how to pick out objects and name them. On the analogy with formal systems, what part of that rough-and-ready system do we call syntactic? It precedes any talk of naming or interpretation, doesn't it? So I still want a way to characterize the difference between saying "The Eiffel Tower is tall" and "That object [pointing] is called 'the Eiffel Tower'". Yes, the first is a property and the second is not, but where do these statements fall on the syntactic/semantic spectrum?

OK. So this harks back to the idea that there might be something constitutive of the experience itself which allows us to ID it as a purported memory. The indexical is a feature, a marker, if I can put it that way. Let me walk through this.

what marks a memory as such . . . is a constitutive part of its content — Pierre-Normand

That is, the "past" indexical ("yesterday", etc.) presents with any purported memory. It is not only constitutive, but can be recognized to be so.

since your ability to locate the thing remembered in time (even just roughly, as something past) . . . — Pierre-Normand

Again, this refers to the indexical -- that is what gives me the ability.

. . is essential for identifying what it is that you are thinking about (i.e. for securing its reference). — Pierre-Normand

The interesting move here is making "securing its reference" a synonym for "identifying what it is that you are thinking about." Consider two interpretations of "what it is": 1. my childhood bedroom; 2. a memory of my childhood bedroom. #2 requires the past indexical. But does #1? Under that description, perhaps so, but if I were in my childhood and merely looking at the bedroom, it gets a different indexical. Once again we're faced with a possible representation that is abstracted from any feature that marks it as a purported memory. The bedroom is atemporal -- it could even, granted precognition, be a vision of the future.

So . . . on this construal, the past indexical is essential for identifying "what it is that you are thinking about" if we interpret that as #2. I think you're saying that we can't fix the reference at all -- we can't represent "childhood bedroom" -- without the indexical. That would make the indexical essential for #1 as well.

I'm still mulling this over, but before I go further I should ask: Have I more or less understood you?

the question of whether Kripke was doing analysis or building a metaphysical picture — frank

Yes, the quoted passage shows him doing the former. He's trying to lay out the requirements for a consistent picture, not choosing among pictures -- that would be one way of putting it.

Maybe as we look more deeply into Kripke, we'll see whether this is always his strategy.

Do you want to examine the lectern example in this thread? Or a different one? — frank

Not surprisingly for a thread called "What is real?" this one has taken a lot of detours. How about a new thread?

This makes the issue much more precise, thanks. I agree that my question may be, in part, a question about syntax and semantics, about what can be said pre- and post-interpretation.

My question was:

". . . whether "how a reference is fixed for X" is part of the list of X's potential properties; or whether we're mixing discourses by thinking of it that way." - J

I'll switch back to "a" rather than "X", to fit your usage.

So reference-fixing is giving an interpretation, yes? We're agreeing what "a" will stand for. Now a will also have a number of properties. Let's say a is the Eiffel Tower. We can list some of them: tall, made of metal, speaks French :wink: etc. And you're pointing out that, 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.

If I've got this right, then my only question is: Is "syntax" the right name for this second level? Doesn't all the syntax get specified before any a or b or c can be referred to? A question about reference-fixing doesn't seem syntactical so much as stipulative. As you say:

Notice the difference between saying that a is f, f(a), which happens within the interpretation, and saying that "a" stand for a, which is giving (stipulating) the interpretation? — Banno

I guess my question is why giving the interpretation qualifies as syntactic. I would have said that both kinds of statements are semantic, it's just that one happens within the interpretation and the other does not. Does that make it syntactic by default? So that the best way to think about "'a' stand for a" is as a syntactical premise?

I take him to be assessing the way a person normally comes up in conversation. He's analyzing the way we think and speak, not revealing necessity in the realm of selfhood. — frank

The informal style of N&N does leave this somewhat open, I agree. Kripke certainly talks as if he means not just how we think, but what is in fact the case. He says, for instance:

The question really should be, let's say, could the Queen -- could this woman herself -- have been born of different parents from the parents from whom she actually came? . . . Let's suppose that the Queen really did come from these parents . . . [etc.] — N&N, 112

But you're wondering whether he means, more precisely, to be asking: "Would we refer to this woman as the Queen if she came from different parents?" Possibly. "Necessity in the realm of selfhood" would be something about this woman that must pick her out from all others, in all possible worlds. So we're asking, Can such a property exist, or inhere, within the woman herself, as opposed to within the process of picking-out? One is tempted to reply, "Yes indeed. The genes, the DNA. They are there regardless of whether we use them for any reference-fixing."

the way Kripke uses the concept of essence in N&N. Is that use fraught in your view? — frank

Well, yes, in the sense that he's availing himself of terminology that has a long fraught history. And I'm not sure he's always consistent about invoking essences. For instance, he says, about gold:

Any world in which we imagine a substance which does not have these properties is a world in which we imagine a substance which is not gold, provided these properties form the basis of what the substance is. — N&N, 125

All well and good, but is "properties that form the basis of what the substance is" the same thing as "essence" or "essential properties"? How does an essence, if that's what we're talking about, form the basis? Again, the conversational character of the book makes me want a bit more precision. A brilliant book nonetheless.

I'll get some cool quotes together. — frank

Excellent.

Kripke asks (of Queen Elizabeth):

How could a person originating from different parents, from a totally different sperm and egg, be this very woman? . . . It seems to me that anything coming from a different origin would not be this object. — N&N, 113

And at several other places he's clear that what makes a person that person is being born of certain parents. Whether this equates to an essence is a fraught subject, of course.

Can you say more about the context question? I read Kripke as saying, not that one could refer to an Obama who has certain parents, but that we must -- that's where the "baptism" starts.

That's fair. I was agreeing with Kripke's view here.

EDIT: and it raises the interesting question of whether the cogito generates a personal identity. I'm inclined to say no, but it's certainly arguable.

I wonder how we make sense of such claims as "if I were you then ...." (or to use proper names, "if Michael were Banno then...") — Michael

But this analytic interpretation of the phrase seems misplaced. It's not how we ordinarily understand it. — Michael

Yes. See the exchange above about "If I were Barack Obama . . . " Taken literally, it can only mean "If I were not I . . . " which can't get off the ground. When we say things like "If I were you . . . " we mean either "Here's what I think you should do/think etc." or "If I (still being me!) were in your situation, here's what I would do; perhaps you should do the same."

But this claim also coheres with the thesis what what you are entertaining isn't a representation of your childhood bedroom but rather is an act by yourself of representing it (and taking yourself to remember it) to be thus and so. And it is because, in some cases, you are representing it to yourself as looking, or visually appearing, thus and so that we speak of "images." — Pierre-Normand

This is fine. I don't think we're disagreeing. That's what I was trying to get at by talking about a "seeming image." All we can do is report what it seems like. Where does the representation come from? Is it somehow formed directly from a memory? Or is it constructed by myself and presented as an act of remembering? All good questions, but not, strictly speaking, questions we could answer based upon the experience itself. Unless . . .

The "image" only is a putative memory when it is an act by yourself of thinking about what you putatively knew, and haven't forgotten, about the visual features of your childhood bedroom. — Pierre-Normand

Here you're suggesting a way we might answer those questions about the origin of the representation, based only on how it presents to us. You're saying, I believe, that we should regard the identification of a putative or purported memory (which was my OP question) as a necessary outcome of the previous process of construction by myself. That previous process is required, on this view, in order for the purported memory to present as such. That is, if I hadn't "thought about what I putatively knew, and hadn't forgotten" etc., then the experience would not present as a purported memory. It would be more like the idle daydream, which lacks that clear ID as "memory."

That is quite ingenious and plausible. But it still leaves unanswered the question: By what feature or fact, if any, do I make this identification? Am I recognizing something about the process of constructing a representation? Or am I merely inferring it from the fact that the representation has presented as a purported memory?

I have to emphasize again how simple-minded my question really is! I just want to know how we're able to do it, in the moment. "How" as in "how am I able," not "how" as in "how (or why) does it happen."

That is honestly, in my view, utterly bananas my guy. — AmadeusD

this claim is one for which I would want to prevent you from holding office its so absurd. — AmadeusD

flabbergastingly made-up — AmadeusD

Gee, you really make me want to continue the conversation! :wink:

I can see I've pushed your buttons, so I'll let it drop, no hard feelings.