.

Probability, in my opinion, has to be objective or real. By that I mean it is a property of nature just as mass or volume. So, when I say the probability of an atom of Plutonium to decay is 30% then this isn't because I lack information the acquisition of which will cause me to know exactly which atom will decay or not. Rather, radioactivity is objectively/really probabilistic. — TheMadFool

I don't know whether I agree or disagree. I'm not sure what - in terms of the real world - it would mean for "probability to be real". Probability is maths, and like all maths it's applied to the real world, and so the question is whether it's useful or not rather than whether it's real or not.

A operates with a very "small" probability system, and B with a very large one. A can expand to B, and B can conflate to A. When A expands, the likelihood for throwing a particular number increases until it drops to either zero or hits 1. That's just conditional probability. A's probability table would have to exhaust all probabilities.

What if the universe doesn't have an initial state, just a string of causality that breaks at some point in the past, because stuff like frequency stops working? You could only approximately describe this with a mathematical system, right? Assuming mutliple possible initial states would work, but only if we can describe all those states and their relations such as that they are mutually exclusive.

So, yeah, what does it mean for probability to be real?

Good point. Anything's possible in a game of chance. However, the issue is of predictability. Person B, given he knows the initial state of the system (person A and the dice) is able to predict every outcome; implying that the system is deterministic. However, the system behaves as if that (deterministic character) isn't the case. — TheMadFool

I'm trying to figure out what you think a "probabilistic system" should look like. "The initial state of the system" is different for A and B. For A, it's simply a game of dice. For B, it's the current state of the universe. For A probability only allows six outcomes. B could know that A will die of a heart attack before he ever gets to throw the die (and his hand cramps, so the die doesn't even drop). In my view you're comparing apples and oranges. A asks "What are the odds?" and B asks "What will happen?"

B uses the chain of causality to compute the outcome. A uses probability to compute the odds. Take the following example:

A bag contains only red balls. You draw one of them in the hopes of it being red.

A will use probability theory and know immediately that given that he'll successfully draw a ball it will be red (because there's only one option).

B will have to go through multiple computations to figure out which ball A will draw and then check its colour. B will know, though this process, if A will successfully draw a ball, if so which one, and by implication its colour.

In this limited case, A and B will come to the same conclusion. Why? Because the probability to draw a red ball from a bag that only contains red balls is 100 %. B has a lot more information that pertains to the situation, though, including whether A will draw a ball at all.

I'm not sure I understood you correctly, though. I'm right in assuming that B follows the chain of causality (taking into account all data he has) and doesn't encounter a truly random process (which would contradict determinism)?

Of course, given perfect knowledge in a deterministic system, the question "What are the odds?" is superfluous, because it's always 100 %. But A has very limited knowledge.

A and B have different perspectives: A's tends to be more efficient (but he'll have to contend with risk), and B's tends to be more accurate (but he'd probably die of old age before he finishes the computions).

This result is in agreement with the theoretical probability calculated (4/6 = 2/3 = 66.66%). In other words the system (person A and the dice) behaves like a probabilistic system as if the system is truly non-determinsitic/probabilistic. — TheMadFool

And if A threw a hundred sixes in a row it wouldn't be behaving like a probablilistic system?

Thanks. I never really know how well I make my points, so having feedback helps.

The problem with my post was that it... wasn't sensitive to the flow of the conversation and rewinded the entire thing to a much earlier stage. I didn't notice I was doing that when I was typing. I think the key problem I was having, what caused my confusion, is that I took "crowd subjectivity" instinctively as a synonym for "collective subjectivity", when it's not. In my post, a vending machine could serve as a stand-in for a collective. But a vending machine is obviously not a crowd. Only when I read Galuchat's post did I realise that.

I guess my question would be, then, what's a crowd to begin with (people using the subway vs. people attending a rock concert - I feel there's a difference in output here), and how does it relate to "collective subjectivity"? The prototype? An example?

.

The shop.,.. — Galuchat

A crowd... — Galuchat

Re-reading the thread, I feel I replied to something nobody said. Well, that's embarrassing.

"Some incidental college classes" would have been my first choice, even though it didn't occur to me that "university" and "college" could be synonyms. Thanks for the clarification. I voted now.

I will say that the results so far surprise me some. I was expecting mostly autodidacts, then students, then decreasing numbers of the increasingly higher degrees, and while there are mostly autodidacts and degrees in descending order as expected, I'm surprised that there are no students or associate's degrees. — Pfhorrest

Hm, I don't post much, but I might have voted, as voting as a low-effort activity. But I couldn't because what formal education I have doesn't easily fit into the poll.

First, the subdivision of school/university isn't easily translatable. I'm Austrian, have an elementary school, some sort of middle school, and then some sort of commercial college. After that I went to University where I earned a "Magister" (which is probably somewhat comparable to a Master but in reality might be somewhere between a Bachelor and Master, not at all sure).

Next problem I have is how to map "philosophy" onto my education. Philosophy wasn't part of the elementary school education. "Philosophy" was part of the syllabus in Middle school only in the sense that it was integrated in "German" as part of German/Austrian literary history. It could have been part of my education had I stayed on the school for 4 more years (roughly a highschool equivalent - and I would have had to choose either a humanities or a nat-sci branch) , but I changed to a commercial college, where philosophy wasn't part of the syllabus much (you don't get through a commercial college without hearing about "the invisible Hand" and stuff like that).

However, philosophy was a huge part of may sociology studies at University. Social philosophy (utopias, anarchy, etc.), philosophy of science (even if you didn't take the specifically targeted courses, which I did, you'd hear about Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, etc.), and depending on the theories you end up interested in you'll need to familiarise yourself with certain philosophers, though secondary literature usually suffices. (Marx, Husserl, Derrida...)

I'd say "some incidental university classes" would maybe fit what I went through? I definitely don't have a degree in philisophy, though my univerity degree has included the most philosophy, formally. But it's not easily comparable to either a Bachelor or a Master (though it's definitely not a doctorate). And some of my philosophical knowledge is audtodidact (e.g. whatever little I know about Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein, Sartre...).

As it is, I finished my degree over 20 years ago and have never done anything with it - I'm both out of the loop and unpractised, and I'm not confident at all. I can read logical notation but sometimes need a table to remind myself what some of the less frequent signs mean, and it's slooooowwwwww going in any case. An autodidact with the adequate passion will know more than I do.

So what should I vote? Autodidact? Some incidental college classes? I chose not to vote at all.

But what I'm having trouble discerning is precisely the implications of subjectivity when brought to bear on the phenomenon of crowds. That crowds have different capacities for action than individuals is, I think, a truism. What the snailshell ought to do, I'd imagine, is provide a novel & useful way of understanding crowds. We turn on the 'subjectivity' filter from our snailshell-cockpit and look out over the crowd and see patterns we wouldn't have, had we not turned that filter on. Or, if we're in the crowd, our understanding of subjectivity ought to give us some openness to possibilities of the crowd that others, without that understanding, might otherwise miss. — csalisbury

I've got a university degree in sociology (but am not doing anything with it and am out of touch with the mode of thinking, too), so I have litte trouble with "collective subjectivity". I don't remember anyone actually using the terms in just this way, but the topic is rather central to doing sociology. Early sociology was taking off from positivism, with Durkheim trying to explain suicide in terms of suicide rates, choosing the topic because it's been seen as a very personal topic and thus a topic for psychologists. Basically: sociology is positivist, and it's not about subjective experience, but it can still provide valuable insight into personal topics.

The need to distinguish sociology (as the younger discipline) from psychology remains. But at the same time getting rid of subjectivity altogether didn't appeal to everyone. So after Durkheim's positivist sociology, you get Weber's interpretative sociology. But Weber worked with ideal types: you don't need to reference each person as an individual: you just posit ideal types and see how close you get to what actually happens.

Take a transaction: You can't buy anything if nobody sells anything. Buying and selling are two actions that are intimately tied together. The meaning of the transaction translates, subjectively, into buying for one participant, and selling to the other participant. But it's really a single transaction, in which a "good" changes "owners". Once you're describing transactions like that, though, you're practically forced to separate the actions tied to such subjective positions from the actions tied to the people who fill the roles. Why? Because the more a society's structure differentiates, the more likely it becomes that at least one of the participants is a collective (even if represented by an individual).

Compare:

Private person buys from private person
Private person buys from family shop
Private person buys from corporate shop via shop assistant
Private person buys from vending machine

And so on (I didn't talk about the internet, about brokers, etc.)

You can play the same game for the other position (or "subjectivity" in terms of this thread) in the transaction; just think in terms of "sells to" rather than "buys from".

So, imagine you walk into a shop. You're taking a sandwich to the counter, but find you're one cent short. What happens?

You may be torn between asking to be granted a 1-cent reduction, pay the difference later (if you're "known to the shop"), or apologise and not buy the sandwich. Meanwhile, the shop assistent as a representative of the shop may not be able to grant you a reduction, but may do so as a person - entering into a responsibility relationship to the shop.

There's something here that needs a name, and I have no problem with "subjectivity", because it's actually about "taking the perspective of X", even if X is a set of abstract rules (either codified or understood).

Note that a vending machine will not be able to respond to your being one cent short. It'll simply wait for the final cent until you abort the transaction (or an internal clock says time's up and the machine aborts). In a way, you can think of a vending machine as an inherently stubborn shop assistent (because it has no consciousness and isn't capable of flexibility).

The biggest problem with using the term "subjectivity" for this sort of thing is that, if at any time you find you want to refer to a consciousness' outlook, too, the term "subjectivity" is no longer easily available: you'll either have to find a way to integrate a typology (e.g. personal vs. generalised subjectivity - which could be hard, or might not work as seamlessly as you'd hope), or you'll have to find another term (which could become an entry barrier for other people, when it comes to adopting the terminology).

What utility does the concept have? Are you trying to highlight body feelings in a discourse where performativity and social construction reigns? — fdrake

This is intricately tied in with "being able to pass". The less you look like the gender you feel like, the more often you will have to justify your feelings. Even well meaning people might treat you like a rare specimen. So you might have an operation, or you might only go for hormone treatment, but you can do little about bone structure. Now, that might not be a thing that bothers you, but the incongruity between how your looks are intuitively parsed and how you feel inside leads to an increased need to justify yourself, especially when there's thing you could do but don't want to (I've heard about peer pressure to take voice lessons, for example). That is, during the transition phase there might be a conflict between being at peace with yourself, and being at peace with the community you live in (and that can include the trans community, who are trying to help).

So, the regular pressures to behave according to your genders can be exacerabated when you're trans, because - other than cis-gendered people - there's a need to legitimise your gender. So a transwoman may need to show an effort to be more "feminine" to prove that she's not faking it. You can't prove feelings easily, so all that's left is behaviour.

If we were to accept that (a) trans people exist, and that (b) it's not all and not primarily about outward behaviour, we would adapt our expectation and lessen the burden of proof on daily life.

And now switch perspectives. You're a woman, you're not that interested in conventionally feminine things, but you live in an environment where people keep expecting this. The constant need to explain yourself would be tedious, too. Then you see a transwoman take voice lessons. Maybe she doesn't quite pull it off, yet? This behaviour has as a side-effect the re-inforcement of the annoying gender expectation you have to correct again and again and again.

So at that point, if we would accept that it's primarily about internal body-image (to be at peace with yourself), and we'd just get used to a trans status, then some of the behaviour might fall by the wayside, and behaviour would be more... instinctive?

A trans woman isn't a cis woman, and they know that or there'd be no point to use the word. But that's sort of the big default concept. If we were to accept that a trans woman is not a cis woman, it wouldn't be a surprise for a transwoman to retain some pre-transition elements, if we just took the category for what it is. Otherwise there's a constant need to prove yourself, and the only real option in daily life re-inforces gendered stereotypes. And in turn people think that's what it's about. There's a social push and pull here, that maybe could be lessened by simply accepting the category with all its variations.

(I'm talking mostly about trans women here because they're far more visible online than trans men.)

If to know is to hold a justified true belief, then what is the justification here? I know it is a picture of him because I recognise it as such? But that is to say just that I know it is a picture of him because I know it is a picture of him... — Banno

I don't think recognising the person in a picture is necessary for me to know that this is a picture of N (for example, N is the author of a book, I don't know what he looks like, but I see what I recognise as an "author photo"), nor do I think that me recognising N in a picture necessarily means that I know it's a picture of N (for example, if I know that the picture is a picture of an event X and I know that N was no longer alive at the time of event X, I have sufficient reason to doubt my recognition, and yet the recognition could be compelling enough to spook me). So, no, I don't think recognising N makes that justification circular.

It does point out the source of a possible error, though, and if you specify "How do you know this is a picture of N?" as "How do you know you're not mistaking the person in the picture?" then that would indeed be circular. Basically, every justification for a knolwedge claim involves itself knowledge that you can question, and I don't think "I know this is a picture of N" and "I recognise N in this picture," are on the same level of abstraction. The latter is more concrete.

The wording in the quote, though, is interesting: "suddenly I had to think of him", "suddenly, a picture of him floated before me..." The language leaves open (and even suggests to me) the possibility of an illusion. In that case, since there's no objective picture, isn't the act of recognition consitutitive? Is it even recognition?

I've always thought there's a great deal of overlap between thought experiments in philisophy and short stories. Every take on the trolley problem, for example, is a character waiting to happen. The biggest difference is that short stories are allowed, maybe even encouraged to spin out of control.

I find one of the most important skills in both thought experiements and story writing is not to automatically dismiss that which seems silly. If something seems silly, seize it, double down on it, until it's normalised. It's only one approach, or maybe even only one part of many potential approaches, but it can work. I mean nearly everything seems silly. Imagine woodpeckers don't exist, and someone approaches you with the concept:

I have this idea for a bird. It eats things that live in trees, but it's not patient enough to wait for them to come out, see, so it bangs its beak against the bark again and again and again, and very fast, too, and... What? No, it's not prone to concussions. So, anyway, that's how it makes holes in trees, and... Wait, where are you going?

The "it" in "it is raining" cannot syntactically refer to the weather in the trivial way the "it" does in "it is sunny" because the syntax differs. — Baden

In the exchange Herg provided (What's the weather doing?/It's raining.) it can. People may consider it awkward, but "it is raining," as an analogue to "the weather is raining," as a reply to "what is the weather doing?" is plausible (but not necessary; it's ultimately an empirical question - I do agree with Terrapin Station that it's all in the head).

The conversation says nothing about dummy it, though, other than in the case of a plausible antecedant for "it" a sentence might be ambiguous between dummy it and anaphoric it.

There are two possible readings of your "B: It's raining.", as follows:
1. 'It' refers to the bumble bee. In this case, since a bumble bee can't rain, the speaker is uttering nonsense.
2. (much more likely in real life) 'It' refers to the weather, and B is not answering A at all.

So semantics matters. You can't simply assume that in 'it's raining', 'it' refers to the subject of the most recent sentence uttered. As Terrapin Station has said, 'it' is indexical, and in any sentence about the weather, suich as 'it is raining' or 'it is sunny', 'it' refers to the weather. — Herg

I could say the same thing about your example. Maybe B didn't hear what A was saying, and is just commenting about the weather, the connection being a co-incidence.

Your example proves nothing, because you're basing the proof on the same imputed connection that I did in this example. But if the connection is there, you have anaphoric it and not dummy it. It's not the same situation.

A: What's the weather doing?
B: It's raining.

Assumption 1: B responds to A. Anaphoric it.
Assumption 2: B ignores A, and is randomly commenting on the weather. Dummy it.

Two different situations. It's just more obvious with the bumble bee example.

You can err on any utterance; but that's a question for pragmatics or conversation analysis rather than either syntax or semantics.

Yeah, context matters. But it matters on more than one level, and you have to be careful not to mix them up.

A: What's the weather doing?
B: It's raining. — Herg

A: What's the bumble bee doing?
B: It's raining.

So "it" refers to the bumble bee.

The conversation makes no sense, but the syntactic connection is sound. In your conversation "it" refers to the weather; in mine to the bumble bee. But it's a question of syntax, not semantics.

Does it matter that your conversation makes sense and mine doesn't, for determining reference?

Again, I'm guessing the context. It's context-dependent. — Terrapin Station

We're talking past each other.

As I said, ""What I'd normally take the subject to be in lieu of other information" — Terrapin Station

If you have enough information to parse an expression without actual context, it's not indexical, though.

What way? As an indexical. That's what we're talking about. — Terrapin Station

But if "It" in "It's raining," were indexical, then you couldn't be arguing that "it" refers to the weather or anything, because you couldn't tell what it was referring to until you had a context.

If I say, "He's a carpenter," then you know that someone's a carpenter, but you don't know who, if you lack context. How does "It's raining," remotely behave like that? That's what I don't understand.

It does if you think about it that way. — Terrapin Station

What way? I don't understand.

"It" is indexical because the meaning depends on the context. "It" doesn't have a "fixed" meaning like "cat," say. Like all indexicals, the reference of the term can be completely different in different contexts, they function more like variables. — Terrapin Station

I know that. But you don't need any context to parse "It is raining," correctly: "it" doesn't behave like the usual indexical "it" in this sentence.

"It" from above, 3. used in the normal subject position in statements about time, distance, or weather.
"it's half past five" or 5. used to emphasize a following part of a sentence. — Bitter Crank

Yes, in those cases I say it's referentially empty and only fills a syntactic function. (Also in 2., 4., and 6., for what it's worth).

Again, on my view, re semantics, terms mean, terms refer to whatever individuals consider them to mean/refer to. In other words, meaning is subjective. Contra Putnam, it is "just in the head." — Terrapin Station

I agree with this. But meaning in praxis, i.e. when you use "it" in "it is raining," is not quite the same as the meaning you assign in analysis. The latter can be adequate to the former or not. In other words, agreeing on what "It is raining," means is a lot easier than agreeing on the proper analysis of the component "it".

So maybe you refer to something when you say "it" in "It is raining," and I don't; but this difference (should it exist) causes precious little problems for successful communication should either of us say that sentence.

Beyond that, I'm not sure why you say that pronouns are indexical, if you think it's all in the head. I'll come out and say it: when I say "it" in "It is raining," I have no referent in mind. None whatsoever. When I say to you, "It's black with pink spots," you probably have no idea what I'm referring to. "It" is indexical, and you're not privy to the context (disclosure: there is no context - I made up a random sentence). When I say to you "It is raining," you probably have a good idea what I'm talking about, because all the information you need is in "is raining". Here "it" is not indexical; it's referentially empty and only fills a function. Please explain the difference in opaqueness of the sentences, if "it" is indexical in both sentences.

If "it" were indexical in "It is raining," it would have a different meaning whenever you use the sentence, and I'd have to parse "it" first before I can understand the sentence, like in "It is black with pink spots." In fact, the general indexicality of pronouns is fairly good argument against the fact "it" in "it is raining," or "it is five o'clock", or similar sentences is referential. If it were, we couldn't fully understand the sentences until we figure out what "it" means (because the meaning of "it" would depend on the context of speaking).

Anyway, if we were avoiding semantics and ONLY talking about grammar per se, then obviously the subject of "It is raining" is "It." — Terrapin Station

Yes.

As soon as you ask "What does 'it' refer to" you're doing semantics. — Terrapin Station

Yes.

Semantically, "It" is "the meteorological conditions outside." — Terrapin Station

That's the tricky part. It is not a given that "it" is referential in the first place. One possible answer to "What does "it" refer to," is nothing, and for most (but not all) linguists that's the answer.

One question we can ask about subjects (as arguments of verbs) is what the participant role of the subject is in relation to the verb. Is it an agent as in "I go to school," where going is an action the speaker undertakes? Is it an experiencer, as in "I'm dying," where the speaker is experiencing death?

What is the relation between the verb and it's primary argument?

My take on this topic is that any attempt at answering these questions is post hoc; the meaning is emergent rather than referential. "It" is referentially empty and has no semantic function until you enter the meta level and ask what sort of function it might have.

I also don't see any reason to ask these questions. Syntactic relations are enough. I do realise that it's not a clear cut issue. Take a potential exchange:

A: "It's raining."
B: "No, it's not; it's snowing."

There are three "its" in this exchange, and if I speak carelessly, I'd say that all three its refer to the same thing. Except it's a dummy it and refers to nothing, so how can it have the same reference? This is a problem, so at the very least your position is valid, if not even right.

Consider this sentence:

"It's true that it's raining."

Two its, both dummy its, but clearly not "referring" to the same thing in the way the three its in the previous examples do.

This is a situation where I see problems on either side, but my personal priorities find the problems with a generalised referent to be more severe.

To summarise, I think the meaning of "it" arises out of the interection of grammar with the semantics of the verb and is thus vague and general. It's not referential; but it has some sort of substance, such that you can differentiate between different sorts of dummy-its. What that semantic substance is like is a problem I'm not sure how to address, but it's not a problem severe enough for me to abandon the dummy-it interpretation.

Does this make sense?

(To make matters worse, we shouldn't be confusing subject-predicate of philosophical propositions with subject-predicate of a sentence structure. It's harder than it should be.)

"Fuck you." makes perfect sense, but it lacks a subject. — Bitter Crank

Actually, that's an interesting case. "Fuck" in "Fuck you," looks like a lot a verb in the imperative, where people usually posit an understood subject, "you". However, if that were the case, we'd be expecting "Fuck yourslef," as in "Buy yourself a drink."

I still think it's a normal sentence whose verb is in the imperative mood. I'm not sure what to do about the "you", though. It looks like an object, but if it were I'd expect a reflexive pronoun.

When it comes to "It's raining," I prefer the "dummy subject" interpretation: "It" is all syntax and no reference. The verb carries all the referential meaning in the text.

? Not that I agree with the idea of "empty names" in the first place (as I stated earlier, I think the whole notion of there being a problem stems from misconceived theories of reference), but names for fictional characters are often given as an example. Why would that be a category error then? — Terrapin Station

I think it would be more accurate to ask whether referring to names that reference fictional entities as "empty" constitutes a category error. And, as I said, it may be wrong to say that, but it's not a category error. Even if what you mean by "empty name" is a name that designate nothing and further assume that, by definition, all names designate unique objects (leaving aside paradoxes about referring to non-being), it's still not a category error. It would be like asking "are all primes are divisible by 2?" The statement is wrong analytically, but it's not a category error because "being divisible by 2" is still a property that belongs to numbers and so is within the same category as primes. Similarly, talking about empty names is wrong - and wrong analytically - on certain reasonable assumptions about how names work, but it is still in the category of a linguistic claim so not a category error. — Mentalusion

You're both skipping ahead of what I'm actually saying. The piece about "category error" was part of bigger and more complex point I was trying to make, and it was about type/token not "empty names". I wish I remembered why the type/token distinction has come up. I wasn't part of that conversation until it was nearly done, and none of the original participants ever engaged me on that. What I'm saying is about names in general, not "empty names" in particular.

The sample sentence I gave was:

"The Harry Potter from Rowling's book is an empty name." (I should have said "books".)

The category error is this: "Harry Potter's" name is an empty name; Harry Potter himself is a character.

This is so obvious that it's normally not worth saying. I think I may not have made my point very well, if you think I mean to say that "Harry Potter's name is an empty name." You probably haven't picked up why I think it's worth it's saying in this context.

A name that's not assigned yet is still a name. It follows that names must have meanings as themselves, too. If I type sample sentences, like "Joe likes to sing in the shower," then you recognise "Joe" as a name. But the person behind the name is even less real than Rowling's Potter, since I just typed a random sample sentence, without any reference in mind. The sentences gains its meaning from the fact that we all know how naming works, and how we use them. Just using the name in not even a fictional context conjures up the expectation that there's a person (how ever hypothetical its existance). What's more, we recognise the name as a name other real or fictional people held.

"Joe", as a name, is one name in a list of names we might choose for our children, and this is the meaning we inwoke when we attach articles to the name.

On the other hand, this very meaning implies that there are person who are referents for those names: when used for individuals (without an article) the name actually starts functioning as a name: in a way it becomes active.

"A Joe" in "A Joe has eaten your cake," and "Joe" in "Joe has eaten your cake," work differently with respect to the type/token distinction: it exists in the former case, but not in the latter.

A thought experiment: A group prepares pseudonyms for participants at a meeting who wish to remain anonymous. Those names are assigned at random. Fewer people than expected show up. Some names have not been assigned. In what ways did the meaning of the unassigned names differ from the assigned ones during the meeting?

For me, there's a disjunct. If I talk about the names themselves, they don't really differ. They're all different from each other and they were potentially to be assigned to people (some were, others were not). But they're all names.

When we look at the transcript of a meeting, only the assigned names show up, and when they do they refer to the person in question. This is what they're supposed to do. But the connection is unique. If they re-use the names for the next meeting with different people involved, again assigned at random. The name, considered as a name, has now the property "Provided twice, assigned once" or "Provided twice, assigned twice", but that's something we know about the name. The relation between person and name, though, resets. The facts about the name itself are irrelevant, except when we look at the person as a token of the type "has been assigned the name".

Or do situationally assigned (or chosen) names differ from names who have all your life? (That's been an issue is in this thread.) The question of "real names".

Basically, if you insist on physical objects as the referents of names (as I understood the concept, and as the wikipedia link seems to suggest), how do you conceptualise the difference between a name that's been assigned to a fictional person, a name that is neither assigned nor used (see my thought experiment), or a name that is never assigned but used anyway (e.g. in a sample sentence)?

Out of those three situations, the name of a fictional character seems the least empty. However, a name that isn't used doesn't actually work like name. And invoking the name in a sample sentence can invoke the idea of a person, even though the name has never been assigned.

I'm not sure how to deal with this, but my hunch is that a name is something a person "has" not something a person "is". Referring to an individual entity is the function of a name, but unlike regular words, they confer no meaning unto the entity who's assigned it.

That's different from regular words, where a word confers meaning: a [word] is something that you are, not something that you have.

The problem with this is that a lot of this is dependent on the how any society organises the institution of naming. Telling names aren't impossible, but in general names need to be meaningless in themselves so that they can refer to individual entities continously (impervious to change). Basically, to be an idiot you have to behave like an idiot, and if you stop behaving like an idiot, you stop being an idiot. Similarly, to use a name you need to have that right (however that's organised), and if you lose that right, you no longer have that name.

In the case of words, the assignation of the sign to the thing is extrinsic to the meaning behind the sign. In the case of a name, the assignation of the sign to the thing is instrinsic to the meaning behind the sign. Beyond that, any real life behaviour of the object creates connotations, not denotations.

I think my conclusion would be: all names are empty when considered as names; no names are empty when used as names. Or something like that. I'm not sure.

It was for that reason the scenario didn't seem to me to get at the issue of "empty" names as well as other examples. — Mentalusion

I used the scenario in response to a question why the holder of a name isn't the token of a type (or so I understood the question). It wasn't meant to get at the issue of empty names.

That said - and this is a parenthetical issue - I still don't think calling references to fictional entities "empty names" constitutes a category error. It's not the correct use of the concept of a name to be sure, but it's not a category error. It's just wrong. Not everything that's wrong is a category error. — Mentalusion

Of course referring to fictional entites as "empty names" is a category error. A fictional entity is not of the category "name", therefore your What am I missing here?

I'm also not quite sure how you see the relation between what a person intends to say, and what that person actually says. Grammar is something you learn as you go; it's something you can get wrong. At the same time, if enough people get the same thing wrong for a long time it changes. The category error is on the language level, not on the concept level.

Generally I don't have an issue with your claims about how syntax can operate with proper names, and even think the type/token distinction could be useful for explaining the non-definite use of the proper name vs. the definite. I took my claim about the "lexical entity 'john smith'" to be basically consistent with that. However, my concern is exactly with what the actual context of the situation is here and the intentional state of the postal carrier. The package carrier not standing at the door wanting to give the package to anyone who happens to be named John Smith so he can happily walk off feeling like he did his job competently. Rather, he wants to give the package to the John Smith to whom the person who sent it addressed it to, he just doesn't know who that is. In other words, s/he isn't just looking for "a" John Smith, he's looking for "the" John Smith the package is addressed to. So, I just don't see that the syntactic distinctions you bring up - while legitimate in and of themselves - apply to this particular situation here since, in fact, given the context, it does not seem to me that either of the names are empty in the example given. — Mentalusion

But a lexical entity "John Smith" being different from a proper name "John Smith" or not is highly relevant for the type/token distinction. (I've had some minor linguistic education, but I know most about syntax and less about semantics, so there's that to bear in mind when reading my posts.)

Yes, there's an ambiguity with the names. But to talk about the ambiguity you need a word that encompasses both names.

With respect to empty names, ambiguity matters, too. "Harry Potter" is not itself an empty name. You need to know who it refers to (i.e. a fictional character) to know whether it is empty.

We have three cases, here:

1. "John Smith is a common name." -- Referent of "John Smith": a name

2. "This parcel is for John Smith." -- Referent of "John Smith": a specific person.

3. "This parcel is for a John Smith." -- Referent of "John Smith": a group of persons defined by holding the name "John Smith"; Referent of "a John Smith": a specific (but not specified) person.

"Harry Potter is an empty name," uses "Harry Potter" in the first meaning, but there's an implicit assumption as to the identy:

The sentence "The Harry Potter from Rowling's book is an empty name," is a category error. The Harry Potter from Rowling's books is a person, not a name. You'd have to say "Harry Potter is an empty name when it refers to Rowling's character." When I'd be arguing that "Harry Potter" is not an empty name because my neighbour is called that, I'd have misunderstood the concept.

Now, it is actually possible to create a concept of "empty names" such that an "empty name" is only an "empty name" if there are no real entities with that name. "Harry Potter (= 1) is an empty name because there is no Harry Potter (= 3)" is a different concept from "Harry Potter (= 1) is an empty name because Harry Potter (= 2) does not exist", and it's useful, if at all, in different contexts.

I think it's an important distinction, because it's easy to slip, and there may be contexts in which it's not clear what's being talked about, or in which the distinction is meaningless.

In my scenario, there is no empty name. But if someone played a prank and there is no "John Smith" at that address, then one of the names would be empty. (Or formulated for people who don't like the homonym theory: The name would only be empty if it referred to the non-existent recipient of the prank parcel.)

[For what it's worth, this thread is the first I ever heard of "empty names". My intuition was that it's about names that really don't refer to anyone. Maybe an author has made up a name, but is undecided if he'll ever use it and certainly has no character in mind. Such a name would exist, but it'd be "unused" and have no reference - i.e. the name can't be traced to any person fictional or real.]

I'm not sure the example gets to the difference between type/token and proper names. It seems to me that both speakers there are using proper names. the only possible type/token implication is that one could see the lexical entity 'john smith' as a type for the two token names "John Smith [1]" and "John Smith [2]" given the name is a homonym. I think the more nature description though would just be say there's any ambiguity in the name: they just sound alike but in fact reference two different things, like a river 'bank' vs. a financial 'bank'. — Mentalusion

When two or more people have the same name, there's ambiguity. You're right about that. But the hint, here, is in how language treats words syntacticly:

A proper name doesn't take articles; semantically, it doesn't need to, because a proper name is definite by itself. Normally, ambiguities are resolved pragmatically rather than through syntax: "Joe" is far from a unique name, but if you say "I'm talking to Joe," people usually know who you mean through context. (It's, of course, possible to miss parts of the context and create an ambiguity that your conversation partner doesn't automatically resolve.)

If you resolve the ambiguity syntactically, by adding articles (either indefinite, or definite), you make a shift from a proper name to regalur noun: "a John Smith" does not have the same meaning as "John Smith", even though the same person can be the referent for both (more precisesly "a referent" in the former case and "the referent" in the latter case). In the case of "a John Smith", he's part of a class (all people named "John Smith" are "a John Smith" - being named like that becomes the meaning of a type, and having that name makes you a token); in the case of "John Smith" he's uniquely named (and it doesn't matter that other people have the same name).

What's philosophyically difficult here, I think, is the precise relation between semantics, pragmatics and syntax (and theoretically morphology - but not in this case).

I'm basically asking you why aren't proper names also referred to as tokens for things? Is this an issue? — Posty McPostface

Consider the following exchange:

A: Am I speaking with John Smith?
B: Yes. How can I help you?
A: Please sign this receipt for...
B: Oh no, you want my uncle.
A: No, I want John Smith. That's you right.
B: I'm also a John Smith, but the John Smith who sold....

In this exchange, A uses "John Smith" exclusively as a proper name, but B, in the last line of the exchange, uses "John Smith" as type/token word with the meaning "people named John Smith".

Words generally have meanings, and then you check whether an object qualifies for those meanings.

Proper names don't work like that. There's a 1:1 relationship of reference between the name and a single object. The object can change completely; what matters is that it retains the name, and that's a matter of social convention and not meaning. You don't have to fulfill any sort of semantic criterea to qualify for any proper name attached to you; the continuity of the relationship between the name and the ting itself is what matters, and it's also what's invoked when you say the name.

It seems clear to me that types are the descriptive content of tokens. So why not include token under the monkier of proper names which would designate that descriptive content?

Because there's no descriptive content in a proper name. "Harry Potter" describes nothing - it's just the name assigned to a fictional character. I assume there are Harry Potters in real life, and they don't have to be anything like the fictional character. I could call my favourite coffe cup "Harry Potter", if I wanted to. The act of assigning a name is all that matters for proper names. That you henceforth associate the proper name with the person/thing in question and expect certain features of the person/thing to remain constant has little to do with the name itself.

Yes, but haven't I already proven that we are posting anonymously with my silly nickname? — Posty McPostface

No, you haven't. Your posting under an alias, which is different.

All post written by the user "Posty McPostface" are attributed to that user. No other user is called "Posty McPostface". If ALL users would change their name to "Posty McPostface", then we'd all be posting practically anonymously (of course, we'd also have to choose the same avatars, or have the board disallow avatars.)

I don't know about that. You can always be wrong about me being a nice Posty McPostface and am evil instead. When is "enough information" accurate in forming a picture about someone? — Posty McPostface

You may never have enough information to form an accurate picture of a person. Luckily, that's not a requirement to connect a person to a name. But if I at least get the name right, I can tell who it is that I have an incomplete or even wrong picture of. Finding the referent of a proper name is a lot easier than making a list of all referents of a less exclusive category. (There are different people with the same name, I know, which can cause confusion.)

Imagine what a fun forum this would be if we were all posting anonymously.

But you just created meaning right now by referring to the place where I post under the guise of "Posty McPostface". — Posty McPostface

Rather than "it has no other meaning," I should have probably said, "it has no other type of meaning," or something like that? It's not that easy to talk about - names identify, they don't describe. That would be pretty straightforward, if you didn't need some sort of description to identify things.

The point is this: as long as I have enough information to identify you, it doesn't matter how accurate my picture of you is.

Also, I just squished a tomato a little, and now it's got a rather ugly brownish spot. I need to get better at judging pressure.

I agree, and think that Posty McPostface is just a persona on these forums. Nothing more to it given the limitations of this form of communication between us. If I were to meet you in real life, I could tell you my real name. — Posty McPostface

Okay, let's say I lie so convincingly that you end up thinking my hobby is polishing tomatoes. Since that's a rather unusual hobby you remember it. So we meet, and you say "Ah, you're that guy who's hobby it is to polish tomatoes." You'd be wrong, but you'd be referring to the right person.

Proper names work like that. They identify unique things; they don't describe them. Sure, I can ask the question with the meaning you have in mind, too: "Are you Posty McPostface?" But that's a derived usuage that means something "Is that really how you are?" It's a philosophical question about identity and little to do with naming. "Are you Posty McPostface?" is equivent to the question "Are you the person who posts on thephilosophyforum.com under the name Posty McPostface?" It has no other meaning. That you can add a nomen-est-omen layer to the question and transform it into something else isn't relevant for determining reference.

What are "thinglys" as you describe them? — Posty McPostface

"Thingly" is merely an adjective that means "of or related to things". I'm not sure philosophers use the term; I don't read a lot.

But, ontologically I exist as a concept in your mind made possible through our context of my interactions with you on this forum. — Posty McPostface

Yes. And that's the only mode of your existance that's accessible to me. I do think that's not the full extent of your existance, though.

The thingly is a concept as you have noted, no?

Well, the divisions between concept/thing and between phenomenon/thing are themselves concepts, but within that concept, things are things, not concepts, and only accessible as phenomena.

Phenomena are things as they appear, and the as-they-appear part is what connects things to concepts, though concepts exist even if no things appear. It's a little messy.

Can you expand on this? It's quite interesting... — Posty McPostface

Well, I come from linguistics, not philosophy, here. In linguistics, there are (at least) two major ideas of meaning:

The first is the semantic triangle: We talk about the real world. We see a thing, we associate a conept with it, and then we encode that in a word - then the word is decoded into a concept and the concept related back to a thing. (That's Ogden/Richards.)

The second is the structuralist approach, where a word consists of signifier (a sign) and a signified (a concept). The structuralist approach keeps reference within the word, and words derive meaning from the difference between words rather than the real world. The common way to illustrate is that if you point to a tree and say "tree", you can't possibly know that what the other person actually means is "tree". He could be saying "big," or "plant", or "look!"...

Both approaches have their limitiations, but I find them both useful. Neither of them go deeply into what constitutes real life, though. And that's what's sort of difficult here:

When we use words to define other words, we're firmly in the structuralist territory. You say "Posty McPostface" is your alter ego, but by saying that as Posty McPostface you imply some level of overlap. That overlap is an overlap of signfireds, though, of concepts. We can play a game: "Posty McPostface is a person." Ture or false? A series of such questions can make the meaning more clear, but all the while I have no access whatsoever to any referent - there's only my imagination. And while you <i>do</i> have access to the referent, it doesn't seem like you care much about it: in fact, you seem to be taking it for granted and try to make some difference that you can't count on others going along with. But that's only possible because there's a body out there that carries both tags (according to social levels of appropriateness).

Now when it comes to the thingly layer, I find Husserlian phenomenology attractive: it's unaccessible in pure form; all we know are phenomena. That complicates things for the current issue:

Back to the structuralist pointing at a tree: he's seeing a phenomenon, something that presents itself as a tree. It's not that the tree isn't a tree, and while others might not know whether he says "tree", he himself does. My "tree" may not be your "tree", but there's a referent out there, a thing, that arbitrates between us. We can run into trees, for example, they're solid. We should have similar experiences.

So the question is: Is this putative referent, the thing behind the phenomenon that serves as referent, relevant to "naming"?

A name is also a type of phenomenon: it's a tag. When I read a post by "Posty McPostface", I contrue a continuity there - a person behind the post. I have no other access whatsoever to you, nor do I seek one. But because of the meaning I attach to "person" I assume that there is a phenomenon out there that correlates to Posty McPostface in the same way that Dawnstrom correlates to "me" (which is the only fist person experience I have access to). As such, "Posty McPostface" is primary to me, and if we were ever to meet by accident and uncover our mutual identies (alter-egos, if you will), then that's the only shared history we have, and it should dominate our real-world interactions, too. It's all about day-to-day relevance structure: which name applies does not change according to who we are; it changes according to who we are with or in what context we move. Meanwhile, there is no other body who can bear the label of "Posty McPostface" and no other body than mine who can bear the lable of "Dawnstorm". The names say nothing about us; they just identify us phenomena. Because we know the meaning of a name, and because we apply the name, a persony thing becomes a bit more of a person.

Your "Posty McPostface" persona may differ from your other personae in many ways; but it's no less what you're doing with your body. And that's what makes negotiating when to use what name possible in the first place. It's a perspective game: if I meet you in real life, Posty McPostface is the only label I have for you, and you have to decide whether you're fine with that, or whether you don't want that name in that context. But none of that is a question of whether or not I have the right referent. Similarly, if I meet you in real life, and I refer to you as Posty McPostface, I'm clearly not reducing you to your online posts. I can't meet your online-posts in any other way than on a computer screen. The only thing that the name would imply is that this person before me at one point in the past made those posts. You're Posty McPostface if that's true, and you're not Posty McPostface if that's not.

Your online name and your offline name(s) have only one thingly referent - there can be no other.

What do you mean by that? — Posty McPostface

Well, when you use a word you have a meaning in mind, and when I hear the word I have a meaning in mind, too. Those meanings don't have to be the same; they just have to be compatible in a way that they don't cause problems in our interactions (or that they cause problems that don't lead to the termination of the interaction, or whatever). What connects us in communication is a real world, and the assumption that we're to one degree or another talking about it.

So when I'm taking a bath, I'm not Dawnstorm, but when I'm typing a forum post I am. In the real world, there's really only one me, and if I'm typing a forum post and someone interrupts, I'm both Dawnstorm and not Dawnstorm at the same time. All that is analytic nonsense, though. There's only one of me. I can want to save that distinction, because it matters in one way or another, but I - as the referent - don't change no matter what name I go by.

So here's the problem: if what name applies to me depends on activities, the name refers to a bundle of activities or maybe a related and perceived identity: that's a concept, though, and not a thing. That's the reference and not the referent. I'm really only talking about the difference between signifier and signified. But if a name names a person than that referent would have to be me, no matter what I'm doing. I can't exclude Dawnstorm from the more comprehensive person and say only the more comprehensive person is real. That's nonsense.

Insofar as names are bound by context, names have no direct referent. The reference, the meaning of the word, is always a layer we push over real things.

Insofar as names refer to things, I'm the referent of both the name "Dawnstorm" and "XXXX", because there's nothing else that applies. Clearly, the concepts, the reference, the signified, differ in its properties to one degree or another, but there's only one real world object that is me, no matter with how many concepts I might frame it.

It's possible that I, Dawnstorm, am lying, and that the person currently typing this post is part of a collective who alternately handle this account. In that case, the me typing this post is not the whole Dawnstorm, but only part of Dawnstorm. In that case, the difference between "Dawnstorm" and "XXX" would be a difference in referent: I'm not Dawnstorm, I'm part of it.

It's also possible (no it's not, but humour me), that I'm one of the infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of keyboards supposed to be produced Shakespear, but failing and coming up with this instead. In that case, no only am I not who I claim to be, this isn't really a conversation, and none of this is meaningful on my end, though it might be on yours. In that case, Dawnstorm would be fictional, and so would be the "XXX" I keep referring to, but they'd still putatively be the same real-life referent, if that referent had a physical reality.

So when you say that "Posty McPostface" doesn't refer to your true self, you're talking on the level of concept, not on the level of thing. The concept of "referent" is genrally the thing-level (I'm not 100 % confident about that, but that's how I've always seen it). The person typing your posts is no less real than the person eating dinner. Whether either of them has a true self is a completely different question whether they have a name. And the same person can have two names at once - which one to use is a matter of convention, not reference. Or differently: if I were to address you as Posty McPostface during dinner, and you say that you're not Posty McPostface right now, I'd read that as an appellative rather than as a descriptive speech act, because I assume you know that I know that you're not engaged right now with a forum post. (You don't have to worry about me suddenly showing up in real life; I'm speaking hypothetically. I don't even really know if your proper ego usually eats dinner. That's just a non-absurd assumption of mine.)

I think that's what I'm getting at here. I think the point here that I'm making is that contextualism is the only way to go about discerning meaning present in empty names. There really doesn't seem to be any other alternative. — Posty McPostface

I don't really have anything against that, except framing it like this I agree with StreetlightX: all names are empty. It's sort of like the move from Ogden/Richards to Saussure and eliminating the referent. The problem is that no-matter what meanings you attach to them real world referents aren't really divisible in any other way than analytically.

Yes, no disagreements apart from the fact that I am known on these parts by the nick I go by. My usage of "my" is indicative of showing that I identify with my nick. But, again it doesn't denote my true self. — Posty McPostface

But your usage of personal pronouns doesn't differentiate. Neither does mine. I've been Dawnstorm online forever, with only two exceptions, once preceding the name, and another having to do with forum etiquette on that particular forum. I also have a name given to me by my parents, and I share a family name with them. All those names have the same referent (i.e. real world object), and that referent is simply me, not anything as specific as a "true self", which is a good thing, too, since I have no such thing and couldn't be referred to at all. I'm a horrid compartmentaliser: different personae for every social context, even one for when I'm alone in my head. It would be impossible to name my true self. But it's rather easy to name myself - with different names for different context. If someone were to approach me in real life and ask me whether I'm Dawnstorm, I'd be rather surprised. I'd have to ask which Dawnstorm, before answering, too, since it could be a rather strange coincidence, and the other person could have arranged to meet with someone under a code name. In the age of doxing it might be a good idea to walk away instead, though, to be safe. In any case, under the alternat-ego interpretation, "Not right now," might be a possible answer to "Are you Dawnstorm," in that context. Right now, as far as I'm typing, I'm definitely Dawnstorm, though. I'm also still going by my given name, and I'm not using that here. "I" as the origin of first-person experience is the only constant, here. And in the end it doesn't much matter what name I go by. Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.

My alter-ego, Posty McPostface. — Posty McPostface

This is a post from Posty McPostface, right? So are you, Posty McPostface, claiming that Posty McPostface is the alter ego of Posty McPostface? If the theory of the person behind Posty McPostface is correct than that person can't use "my" for anyone else than Posty McPostface. And when I say "you", I'm talking to Posty McPostface, and not that person. Therefore Posty McPostface can't be your alter ego, it's that person's alter ego. However, I have this - perhaps far-fetched - theory that the person whose alter ego is named Posty McPostface slipped and attempted to refer to himself with a first person pronoun, not properly realising that the pronoun must refer to Posty McPostface in a post by Posty McPostface.

This post might be flippant, but I'm actually sincerely curious how you explain usage of first person pronouns in a post where the referent is necessarily ambiguous between proper and alter ego, if the two do not refer to the same real world referent. First person pronouns are not names; they're indexical expressions, and their referent is whoever is uttering them. According to your theory that is... who or what? Who or what do first person pronouns in Posty McPostface's posts refer to, so that the quoted reply above makes sense in the way that we both presumably understand it?

Like my age? That changes on my birthday? I am always "my age," but my age changes. "people my age remember the assassination of President Kennedy." A stable truth using a changing predicate. — unenlightened

Hm, this is actually surprisingly difficult to answer for me.

On the surface of it, I have an easy "no, not like that". "My age" has a stable meaning, no matter when you say it. "Grue", in my reading, does not. "Grue" does not mean "first green, then blue". It means "either green or blue, depending on which side of time T we check".

There is something they have in common though: they both invoke context. To endow "my age" with meaning, you need to know who speaks and - approximately - how old s/he is. To endow "grue" with meaning, you need to know when the utterance is spoken in relation to time T.

At the same time, though, there's still a difference. You can point at a picture of a man and say "that's a man my age", and if it was true when the picture was taken, it's still true when you look at the picture. However, if you take a picture of grue object and look at it after time T, you're not looking a grue object, even though the object was grue when you took the picture and the colour hasn't changed.

Similarly, when you say "I want to see a grue thing," you know that you want to see either a green or a blue object, and that seeing a green thing too late or a blue thing to early won't count.

Words like "my" are indexical. Words like "mortal" describe a typical form of change. Words like "grue"... have something much like natural language change worked into the definition? The closest real-life equivalent I can think of is applying legal terms when laws change the interpretation of the terms at a certain date (except it's defined into a word from the get go and isn't actually change; you could define "grue" as undergoing a the meaning change every other day (even/odd dates), except defining it like this creates a regularity you can observe and isn't very useful for challenging induction).

I thought Goodman proposed a predicate that involves a scheduled meaning-change of a word, rather than word that describes a change in an object. Am I wrong?