So on your account, some things can be a posteriori and yet necessary - agreeing with Kripke. Gold having an atomic number of 79 being one of these.

And further, gold having atomic number 79 is synthetic; it brings together two distinct concepts, atomic number and gold, or if you prefer the phenomenological experience of gold.

Or do we take the discovery of gold to be analytic, post hoc? The very idea of gold contains within it the idea of atomic number 79; to be gold is to have atomic number 79; only we needed to do some experiencing in order to learn this...

Or does this whole structure of a priori/a posteriori and synthetic/analytic fall apart on analysis?



AND is being a priory the same as being necessary? — Banno

I think these are great questions and pretty much sums up this whole debate.

In order for any of this to work we have to have some basic terms that we all agree on (or at least think Kant agreed on). Let me start with the last question:

AND is being a priory the same as being necessary? — Banno

At first, I thought just that- Kant was saying a priori was just a synonym for universal and/or necessary. Now, I'm thinking it is a bit different. I think Kant's thoughts on a priori literally has to do with the term "prior to". That is to say, if terms are derived prior to (or outside of) experiential observations (with the senses usually), it is an a priori-type statement. Thus, geometric rules like "All triangles have corners that add up to 180 degrees" are not derived from experiential observations of the world (this is at least Kant's interpretation of what we are doing). One doesn't need to observe any particular thing in the world, just understand the concepts using our intuition on how triangles, corners, and degrees work when we make judgements on them. Synthetic means that the proposition is additive and not simply a tautology. Thus, 180 degrees, the concept, is not inherent in a triangle per se, but a conclusion only made through a priori investigation. Thus the sum of the degrees of a triangle is a synthetic a priori judgement.

So on your account, some things can be a posteriori and yet necessary - agreeing with Kripke. Gold having an atomic number of 79 being one of these. — Banno

Yes, if I was following Kripke's reasoning, there indeed does seem to be judgments that are made from observing the world, and as a byproduct of how we use language, create necessary a posteriori truth-statements.

And further, gold having atomic number 79 is synthetic; it brings together two distinct concepts, atomic number and gold, or if you prefer the phenomenological experience of gold. — Banno

Yes, I can agree with this.

So we have a necessary synthetic statement: gold has atomic number 79. — Banno

Technically, this would fall under necessary (if defined as being true in all possible worlds), and it is something that is additive, not just tautological in the subject.

Or do we take the discovery of gold to be analytic, post hoc? The very idea of gold contains within it the idea of atomic number 79; to be gold is to have atomic number 79; only we needed to do some experiencing in order to learn this... — Banno

This is I guess what I believe @tim wood (and maybe Kant?) believed. "Gold is the metal that has atomic number 79" would indeed be a tautology so, indeed this would be an analytical statement.

Or does this whole structure of a priori/a posteriori and synthetic/analytic fall apart on analysis? — Banno

And now we come to the real question at hand. It needs a much crisper demarcation between what counts as analytic and what does not, or this indeed does become arbitrary to the person using the concept. It breaks down unless there is absolute certainty on what fits under what category. If it breaks down, it becomes arbitrary as a way to distinguish truth statements.

But we do know gold is an element. AU, then, is AU wherever in the universe you go, in those places where there is gold (maybe none in some places in the universe, maybe where atoms cannot exist). That leaves the question, what does "gold" mean in the context of APW and PWS. My answer: it doesn't mean anything in those worlds because they're just conjectural worlds concocted to test certain logical propositions. Which means in brief, you can't get theah from heah, and you cant get heah from theah, as Bert says to Ernie. And "existence" in any such world does not imply existence in ours. — tim wood

Kripke was concerned with names. That is the main point we must not forget with him. His question is, "How do proper names and natural kinds designate their referent?". Statements like, "Gold is a yellow metal" were not good enough for him. To him, these "descriptivist models" of names and natural kinds were too weak to really designate "that" kind of natural kind. For example, "The definition of gold is a metallic yellow substance" doesn't hold up. In another possible world, metallic, yellow, and substance might not be how to describe gold, but gold would still somehow retain its goldness in those worlds. It is considering what properties hold up in these worlds, that he considers the name gold to actually designate "that" kind of natural kind. Thus, since it is a name that is given to an object after experiencing an object and sensing it in the world, it is a posteriori. However, unlike most other a posteriori statements that are contingent, the NAME gold is always and necessarily attached (rigidly designated) to some essential property in all possible worlds (something like let's say the atomic number 79). If it doesn't have this essential property, the name "gold" does not rigidly designate that object. Thus he says that Kant is missing a category for necessary a posteriori judgements, like the ones (he thinks) are needed for rigidly designating proper names and natural kinds.

As far as Kant's synthetic a priori- I think I take back my statement that atomic number 79 being essential to gold is a synthetic a priori statement. In Kant's view, this should simply be synthetic a posteriori. It is gained through experience which makes it a posteriori and it is adding information that is not contained in the subject, so it is synthetic.

Synthetic a priori would be things like cause and effect and mathematics. You don't need to experience things in the world for them be proven, but they are also not contained in the subject by definition.

Eh? Really? There's gold that's not yellow (or "gold" as Banno would have it)? — tim wood

I guess the point is- what makes gold essentially gold? Is it its yellowness? But, I see where you are coming from using Kant's own theory of categories. Before we can define gold, we must figure out what is legitimate in a definition. Kripke and @Banno are claiming that modal logic seems to indicate that only certain essential properties can be considered gold, otherwise it is not designating gold, really.

I can see where the clash comes in though. As I mentioned before, Kant is interested in how we understand the world through our transcendental lens. Thus other possible worlds logic would be conditioned by our very own epistemology. His work did not seem to go beyond the scope of what is possible outside of our own psychological understanding in this world.

Emphasis on the S.

No, not to the contrary. I didn't say that the world wasn't complicated. The world is extremely complicated. You're twisting my words. I was saying that what the issue you raised boils down to isn't complicated, in the sense that there's only two options on the table which can be summed up in just a few words. — S

I meant this particular discussion to be more of a quick one-liner to Bitter Crank..but I see I now have to put my dukes up.. I'll try to put the effort into going down this rabbit hole later.

Yoohoo! Depends on a careful definition of what Kant meant by "yellow," don't you think? You can play with this all you want but the substantive issues don't go away. — tim wood

No I don't. I certainly don't think that yellow is necessarily wrapped up in the meaning of gold, in the same way that bachelors is literally the definition of unmarried males. Yellow seems to me a contingent property of gold- it doesn't have to be a primary property. If it wasn't yellow, it wouldn't make it any less "gold". So that statement synthetic a posteriori.

However, if we took away the atomic number of 79, it certainly wouldn't be gold anymore. However, even according to Kant's own idea of judgements, this proposition wouldn't be analytic. It certainly is something I had to find out in the world (synthetic), but holds universally and necessarily true. However, you can correct me where you think I misapply Kant.

It doesn't have to be so bad. It's really simple. There are two options. Option A) make the most of it. Option B) give up.

You're constantly overcomplicating things and exaggerating one side. It's very irritating. It's more propaganda than philosophy. — S

To the contrary, the world is pretty darn complicated, based on many levels of socio-economic realities and parties. Your desires and wants cause others to be used, just as you are. Even being born itself can be said was not for yourself. I never said we don't have the ability to cope. I cope with your arguments and obvious hostility for example :wink: . The point is, we are not gods, we simply have to deal with realities that we are enculturated to endure and accept as "just how it is" post-facto.

It's funny, that if someone affirms life it is not propaganda, but if someone denies it it is..I never denied that good experiences exist. However, I am pointing out some of the realities of how that good is played out in the real world.

An interesting approach. I like it. — Banno

Cool. Thank you.

Was it just a mistake to include "yellow" in the essence of gold? Perhaps if we remove that, we have some agreement between Kripke and Kant. . — Banno

I think it was, especially keeping in mind the definition of analyticity and with Kripke's further critique using modal logic.

However what would this approach look like if there was agreement when one is using propositions and the other is using purely grammar- when one is looking how we understand the world using propositions, and one is using how we understand names using modal logic?

One of the reasons being born is bad is that everyone is being used. It is the premise of life. Your pain is on top of the fact that your work is needed, and you need others' work. The purpose of your life is to be used by your fellow humans, use your fellow humans, and try to maximize utility within the framework of use that has been set up by you by your contingent historical socio-economic circumstances.

@Banno I'd be willing to append my first statement above that they are incommensurable if, we consider that Kripke's project was more than grammatical, that his conclusions were also epistemological. That is to say, in truth-statements judgements about the world, we have found a new category that Kant didn't consider. However, the reason Kant didn't consider it, was he was not using the approach of names and grammar, which can arguably make them incommensurable, being two lines of investigation that may not go together.

However, following Kripke's own line of reasoning perhaps, we can say that, IF Kant was to have used a grammatical method (and applying it to modal logic), he would have also included necessary a posteriori statements in his schema. He would notice that you can have contingent "words" apply necessarily to a person or a kind.

However, we may still state that these are incommensurable approaches as Kant was looking at propositions and Kripke was looking at grammar and these two approaches are mutually exclusive.

The unfortunate example provided by Kant, and critiqued by Kripke, is that gold is a yellow metal. Now Kripke and Kant would presumably agree that old is a metal - that something purported to be gold but which is not a metal, is not gold. Kant seems to think that this is also true for being yellow; that something purported to be gold, but which is not yellow, would not be gold. Kripke disagrees; and given that colour is a secondary characteristic, Kripke's view seems to me to be the better. — Banno

I would agree with Kripke's assessment. But, I think Kant just missapplied gold when judging with this own theory. Gold being yellow is a posteriori, as Kripke agrees, and synthetic, not analytic. Unlike bachelor's being unamarried males, there is nothing in gold that automatically makes its definition of being yellow logically necessary- it could have been a different color.

The more interesting question is "What would Kant think of gold's atomic number of 79?". This to me seems like a synthetic a priori judgement. That is to say, you need to experience it in the world to know it (experiment), but it is universally and necessarily seen as true once it is discovered. I could be misapplying his terms myself though, that is where others can try to correct me.

The difference between Kant's approach and Kripke's approach, which @csalisbury was trying to bring up is one of areas of interest (which may be incommensurable). Kant is looking at things from an epistemological point of view and Kripke from a grammatical point of view. From Kant's epistemological point of view, he considers the very universal conditions for even observing the world in the first place. Thus, the reason gold is 79 in all possible worlds, is because of the necessity set up by our brains (time/space,categories of understanding). There is no way the substance we call gold could not be 79.

Kripke, on the other hand, isn't interested in necessities of human understanding like Kant is. He is purely focused on how we use names. Names are inherently arbitrary as what the actual utterance is. What isn't arbitrary is how the name then becomes "attached" (or rigidly designated), in his view. Thus, though we don't need any universal laws of human understanding to have a substance be named "gold", once that substance is named gold, and used over and over from that original instance, it becomes fixed in all possible worlds. These two starting points for understanding the world are very different. That is to say, Kant wasn't worried about how grammar works with names- he was worried about how things could be universally true despite having been derived at empirically. He was worried that Hume was right in his "Problem of Induction".. By Kant saying that universal necessities are actually transcendental (in the very fabric of our understanding of our world), that universal truths can be derived from empirical evidence.

I hate to smuggle in words where they were not explicitly stated but to get your point across to those who don't get Kripke and his idea of natural kinds, you should just mention that he is arguing for what is "essential" to the natural kind before it is no longer "that" particular natural kind. That might solve some confusion on what Kripke is actually doing.

Edit: Oh and he is doing it through the idea of how "names" designate the referent in all possible worlds. I realize you might want his methodology too since I know you are keen on making that distinction that he is mainly doing a grammatical project rather than metaphysics.

Achieving almost complete incoherence! Is it the wanting that does not make these not your cornflakes or not your beard? Are possible worlds just a thought? We joke, but I'm serious. Semanticists can create any animal they feel they need for their ow purposes, but as with any errant creativity, their's is subject to disciplines and controls, and being kept in its cage. "Possibility" is possibility, not license. — tim wood

tim wood, queston: What do you suppose a statement is about gold that is synthetic a priori?

I'm going to let @Banno answer that since he brought it up in this thread and had the disagreement with @tim wood. I just saw that there might need to be clarification before they went any further with how they are defining terms. I guess the way Banno answers this will bear directly on your question.

That's what I'm saying! — csalisbury

Yes, and so is Kripke :smile: .

I get this, I swear! My example - the village- was designed (tho maybe poorly) to accommodate these very ideas. So I know my kid Richard Nixon is really Richard Nixon, but he's not that Richard Nixon. The water, not in the original pond - the water that is just like water except for not being H20 - may very well be 'water' if the people call it that. But it's not the same 'water' as the water in the villagers pool. It has the same name, but its different. Same name, different identity. — csalisbury

Same name, different identity, but the name is fixed to the identity in all possible worlds. Perhaps we cannot get the essential property of the other liquid, so there is nothing to fix, but we can maybe put in X essential property for now. When it is found that specific essential property will be rigidly designated as that liquid (also called "water"). The fact that two different referents can have the same name doesn't matter to this model. It is only the fact that there is some essentialness that stays the same in all possible worlds after the referent is dubbed that particular name.

But one 'water' is water and the rest isn't. The same way I can name my kid 'Richard Nixon' but he still isn't actually Richard Nixon. — csalisbury

This is precisely what he Kripke was against- a "descriptivist theory of names". Saying "Richard Nixon is the guy who was president" is not true in all possible worlds, and thus not the basis for the actual person Richard Nixon. Rather, the proper name is rigidly fixed at some point when he was named Richard Nixon and used continuously by other people after that.

My impression is that Kant is talking about the structure of cognition and the form of reality. And that Kripke is talking about rules about identity - about the relations of things and names - that one must follow to do science and to have meaningful discussion.

It seems to me that to combine the two, without a big big qualifying and explanatory preface, is to mix genres and to generate confusion. — csalisbury

I agree that Kripke definitely seems to veer clear of metaphysics but as far as truth claims, it does intersect. However, I do think there could be different terminologies going on that may make it incommensurable, despite his claim that it does have to do with Kant. It would be obviously in some kind of "What would Kant say if he was around.." kind of way as obviously Kant can't speak for himself, so it is interpretations of Kant as applied to more contemporary philosophy.

Yeah but one water's not actually water and my kid, who I happened to name Richard Nixon, isn't actually Richard Nixon. — csalisbury

The water is actually water (that would be an analytic truth :smile: ). Your Richard Nixon named kid is actually Richard Nixon. In all possible worlds, the "water" (of the village) is rigidly fixed to whatever substance they named. The water that is H20 is also rigidly fixed to H20. They are different referents, but they are rigid designators none the less. In all possible worlds, there is some essential thing that water has that if you took it away it would not be water. It is just that there are two waters, just as there are two Richard Nixons. There are several interpretations of Kripke- once is causal essentialism I believe. That would mean, at some point there was a dubbing of Richard Nixon (the president guy) and Richard Nixon (some other Richard Nixon), and that name is fixed to that referent by this original baptism. I believe Banno has a broader interpretation whereby it is simply the fact that we use the name Richard Nixon in some historical fashion that it gets fixed on to a thing.

My sense is that Kripke isn't talking about a priori a posteriori synthetic analytic etc in the same as Kant. So the introduction of him here is a kind of confusion of genres. — csalisbury

I think that Kripke himself brought up the idea of being connected with Kant in his book. He was the one who said that Kant didn't think of a possibility for necessary a posteriori truths. This I suspect is why Banno is bringing it up perhaps.

This wouldn't change much I think. Just like there can be two Johns who are not the same person, so too do you have two waters. It is not the name itself but the idea that it is fixed to a referent in all possible worlds.

What are we talking about when we talk about necessary, a-posteriori facts? And what does it have to do with Kant? — csalisbury

Kripke introduces "all possible worlds" to the idea of natural kinds. So, in all possible worlds, the term "water" is always H20. This means that water is necessarily H20.. It didn't have to be H20 before it was named thus, but once someone used it as a name for water, it became a necessary truth "after the fact". It didn't have to be from the outset like a synthetic a priori truth. If it was a synthetic a priori truth, H20 would always have to have been named water, but that would be silly. So at least in the cases of proper names and natural kinds, there may be a kind of truth statement that Kant didn't account for which is necessary a posteriori truths.

So, is being a priori the very same thing as being necessary? Or is it rather that all a priori things, amongst others, are necessary? — Banno

I believe he thought a priori truths to be necessary and/or universal. I would assume he is saying they are the same thing. Really the tricky part with Kant is his idea of analytic and synthetic. Analytic seems to be a sub-set of a priori that are tautologies. The meaning is in the subject- you don't have to look any further. Many philosophers think that math is just this.

However, if a priori means necessary and universal, then there is another sub-set people don't think about- synthetic truths that are always necessary and universal. Thus, many proofs in math are universal and necessary, but are not tautologies, they have to be found out in the world. Where does this ability come from to gain universal truths that are not just odd pairings (pace Hume)? It comes from a priori synthetic categories of our psychology.

Necessary Vs. contingent: it's necessary if it is true in all possible worlds; otherwise, it's contingent. This is where I would expect Tim and I to disagree. — Banno

First thing that might cause confusion is the addition of necessary and contingent. Though very related to synthetic and analytic, it is different, and by the time of Kripke there might have been further refinements as to analytic vs. necessary and synthetic vs. contingent. Thus, we might not be speaking in the same languages and creating a sort of category error.

To move forward we should give examples. Banno said:

Hence: synthetic a priori: two distinct ideas that are associated without looking around. — Banno

So what would be your ideal example? Kant uses certain scientific truths that can only be gained through our a priori psychological predisposition for space/time/causality (and other categories).

I could be wrong, but looking at this debate, it seems that the basis for your confusions as to each other's arguments and conclusions is not clearly defining the difference between something that is "synthetic a priori" (pace Kant) with something that is necessary (analytic?) a posteriori. I think much of the confusion will dissipate if these two are clearly differentiated.

If I am going to treat Kripke's book as setting out an acceptable approach to grammar, then I'm not that interested in some sot of substance ontology.

although his examples might appear to be in terms of substance, I'll read them as about how we use the words for one substance or another. — Banno

Granted, but besides eschewing descriptivist theories of names, what is the significance of his program for grammar if not implications that are metaphysical in some way?

Well, they might. I'm not sure that Kripke thinks they must; and I certainly don't. I just don't see for a dubbing or baptism. The use of the name will suffice.

I'll have to think on more of your post. — Banno

Can you explain this approach of fixing rigid designators? I know that causal theories have problems because you can designate a name as rigid, but causally fix it to no particular referent (e.g. the most joyful person can be different in all possible worlds but they will be dubbed "Joy" if they are the most joyful person in the room. There is no referent but the designator is rigid). Perhaps you are trying to avoid this critique by not assenting to this interpretation.

What I've been saying is that matter and mind aren't illusions, rather they are types of information. — Harry Hindu

Then this obviously needs to be fleshed out in order for me to agree or critique it. The question at hand is what is mind. The hard part is the very awareness that mind provides is needed to investigate itself and anything else, thus making it different than analogies which live inside the awareness, if you will.

You seem to be saying that the sensory data itself is an illusion. What does that even mean? Effects are not their causes. To imply that the mind is the world, and not an effect of the world, is the illusion - that category mistake I spoke about. — Harry Hindu

I don't know, you mentioned everything is information, not matter or mind- which causes dualism, or something like that. I thought you were saying that mind is an illusion, like the illusion of the bent straw, but maybe you weren't. My point with the illusion thing was that some people (maybe not you), like to say that mind is an "illusion", just like X illusion (a mirage perhaps), and thus, wipe their hands and think they are done. The ground of understanding anything in the first place though, would be this "illusion" that is the very thing to be explained. By the fact that it grounds everything else that we know, makes the idea that it is an illusion silly. Illusions happen within the general framework of cognition, the very thing that is first necessary to say it is an illusion. Illusion needs the general backdrop of cognition to understand that this particular phenomena is an illusion. What is the general backdrop of cognition but itself?

Now, more sophisticated versions of this "illusion" (non-answer) is the idea of information. Language bootstraps matter into a logic that has many feedback loops that become "experience" or "consciousness". There are so many holes in this, it doesn't hold water. Language may be a big part of the equation as to how cognition functions (if you are inclined to believe computationalist models of sorts), but how it bootstraps matter into awareness, is not explained without assuming the very thing it is explaining.

I see what you (Kripke?) are getting at. This idea is that there is a sort of "prime cause" for which kinds/individuals can hearken back to as their original "baptism" or "dubbing". Thus rigid designators are defined by their origination baptism from the first naming event. I get it. However, what are we defining as real here? Games are not natural kinds. It seems to me that Kripke's only uses examples of individuals (who are humans, and thus natural), and kinds in nature (like species). This to me, seems like he only thinks rigid designators are applied to natural things. However, I could be prove wrong with simply some Naming and Necessity quotes to the contrary.. I don't have the book in front of me now, and honestly I don't feel like looking it up. So far I've seen references to Nixon, Hesperus, H20, Venus, etc. These are all natural in some way.

But, I see a general theme either way. He seems to at the least be an essentialist. His essentialism for proper names is based on causal essentialism. That is to say, a posteriori necessity of a proper name's identity has to do with its "origination event" and the causal pathways that it follows, like a "genealogy of cause".. no matter how many changes occurred over time, it has some sort of genetic link to that origination event that makes the name a rigid designator.

On the other hand, natural kinds, have a substance essentialism. That is to say, the a posteriori necessity of a natural kind's identity has to do with an essential substance that makes that kind what it is and not something else.

Thus out of this, purely based on speculation, but kind of interesting to me, is that metaphysically one can argue that there is a substance ontology, but epistemologically, language has its own built in causal essentialism in regards to how we use proper names.

A mirage still looks the same (like a pool of water). The only difference is that I don't believe that it's a pool of water. The straw still appears bent even though I know it's not. So an illusion is only an illusion when you misinterpret what you are seeing. You are seeing light, not objects. You see objects indirectly through the behavior of light. Matter is the result of how your visual system interprets and categorizes the information it receives from the light entering the eye. Everything is information, not matter and/or mind. It is the use of those terms ("matter" and "mind") that cause one to think dualism is the only way out. — Harry Hindu

But these illusions are happening in the bigger "illusion". Everything that takes place, is a priori taking place in the illusion (of representation, of consciousness, of experience, etc.). That is to say, it grounds all other things we might analogize to it, and thus eludes the analogy in a big way.

Really though, I think stratifications of being don't neatly track stratifications of substance, precisely because we end up with things like emergence and multilayer dependence of things which are supposed to have an independent nature. — fdrake

These are problems that arise from the hard problem of consciousness. These are the (practically) intractable, ever-debatable problems and hence the more interesting question, in my opinion.

Nature is more aligned with interdependence and transformation acting over all and intermingling all ontological registers, than a stratification into separable mediums of variation. — fdrake

Of course this itself is a claim that needs its own justification. The fact that you mention ontological registers, means there is a substantive difference. What are these differences is the question I am posing.

Being the subject of a different set of investigation techniques doesn't say anything about the constitution of what's considered. Calculus doesn't have to overlap with anatomy, and on this basis we should not conclude that the entities of mathematics aren't related to those anatomy studies. How surprising it is that the impact of a fall has effects on the body, and that falling often leads to pain. Surely pain, falling and bodies are made of different substances, then. Philosophy should really deal with the interaction problem of falling down and the pain of grazing knees. — fdrake

It was just an example, but how it is that all material is mental or all mental is material is the hard question. The OP mentioned that often one or the other will call the other side of the duality an "illusion", but the illusion itself must be explained as "something" which makes it a de facto duality again. Physical objects seem to be of a different fundamental constituent than mental phenomena. Thoughts, experiences, qualia, cognition, etc. seem wholly different than chemicals, matter, physical objects, etc. It gets even stickier when we realize that in order to understand one, you need the other, otherwise understanding itself isn't even possible. But just the fact that the two interact, does not say much about the fundamental nature of each.

I would answer the question with a question; does it make sense to consider two things as being entirely distinct and non-related when they interact? I have a craving for ice cream. This expresses a relation between me and ice cream; my desire isn't extended or capable of temperature except in a metaphorical sense, it isn't the motion of a body nor is it at rest, nevertheless if I were to indulge and satisfy my desire, I'd eat the ice cream and satisfy my desire. It makes as much sense to separate desire and its objects through some prior stratification of being as it does to separate my mouth, the ice cream, and its taste.

Why should we grant logical priority to an intuition of separation when we can establish they are not separate through our acts? — fdrake

The ice cream has a molecular structure- explained through chemistry. Desires have perhaps a molecular counterpart (interactions of the brain), but it would be odd to say, "my desires are molecular" (other than trivially/metaphorically). Rather, your desires have a psychological aspect, that is to say, it is explained through psychology rather than chemistry. It is these type of distinctions that the interactions of the psychology on the material that you are describing, do not answer simply because of its interaction.

How they interact is a different question from whether they interact. Noticing such an interaction evinces that they indeed do. — fdrake

Granted. I think these are two different questions. Yours might help in answering the solipsism question, "Can mind and matter interact?". But I think the main question here is, "How can everything be considered the same thing, when one cannot neatly be subsumed by the other?"

The confusion arises when considering the domain of conception as different from what it concerns, positing a 'here' and a 'there'; isolated domains; which nevertheless, and now problematically, interact. — fdrake

How does, let's say, "my desire for food" (desire interaction?), or "the ability to use a computer" (technology interaction), answer the question of how matter and mind are connected other that indeed the mind can think of technological thoughts and have desires.

However, thoughts and actions, matter and mind do relate, eg through desires and technology, so are of the same domain because relations obtain of the entities within them. Projecting this 'blending of attributes' back to substance offers the conception that substance is that which is characterised by relational closure tout court. This is close to a traditional monism, having one domain of interaction, when there is but one closed set of interacting entities; when there is one domain of interaction. — fdrake

But most people are discussing how mind and matter are the same or different, not just how mind projects itself into the world. The hard questions of consciousness would not accept this, but perhaps a theory of cognition in the easier questions realm would.

Even if you try to fold the duality back into oneness, the monist can't account for the event of the fall itself. The 'illusion' of a duality would constitute its own ontological realm.

All of which is to say: Monism is always a moralistic or aesthetic corrective to a dualism or pluralism it finds itself in. It can't reflect reality. It always has to be a cognitive project driven by some sort of need. — csalisbury

This is exactly what I've been trying to say regarding my complaint with Schopenhauer's monistic metaphysics between Will and representation or any monism. However, this argument can be used against anyone who claims, for example, that mental events are subsumed in the material.

They may say, "The mental is an illusion".
Then you will say, "What then is this illusion you speak of"?

And then ensues their inability to tidily account for the illusion in anything other than a duality.

I don't think proper names can be descriptions in modal logic. As far as the other thing there, you are trying to understand a theory of truth between claims.. I would imagine using modal logic is like the definition of deductive reasoning, but perhaps not. So he is saying.."You say this using this logic".. but you didn't consider this kind of logic which would defeat that claim". Beyond this, I don't know how else to answer your question.

Again, I don't know what you mean. I guess he is using modal logic as his proof of this. That is part of his innovation I think.

I don't know what you mean, but he is countering arguments made earlier by philosophers like Russell who argue for a descriptivist theory of names.

As far as I know, he is correcting the idea that proper names and kinds are just placeholders for descriptions using modal logic. Thus using modal logic, in all possible worlds that is, all descriptions of a person can be different, but there is still something that makes that individual stick to that proper name- what he calls a "rigid designator". How does this rigid designator come about? Through a causal chain of events where he was at one point "dubbed" by someone (like a parent) that name and from there, all references are fixed so that person is always designated. @Banno can correct my very brief synopsis if he will.