I'll leave you to explain that, if you feel the need. So far as I can see the notion of essence is either a nonsense or a tautology.

Then there can be no purpose in discussing it.

Or rather, discussing it will not improve our understanding.

Well as far as Einstein was concerned — Wayfarer

And for you?

That's the nub of the issue. In the Einstein-Bergson debate, Einstein, a scientific realist, insisted that time is real irrespective of whether anyone measures it or not. Bergson, as I interpret it, insists that measurement is an intrinsic aspect of time, and that therefore, time is not only objective. And if that goes for time, then the implications are far-reaching. — Wayfarer

Were they talking about the same thing?

Not glad you are sick - glad you were cheered up...


Incidentally, did the link to the NS article work, or was it fire-walled?

Isn't it natural to presume such a dichotomy? — Wayfarer

Sure. Is it right?

http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Quine%20-%20Reference%20and%20Modality.pdf

Yep. New thread, maybe. Although given the present state of the forums it would probably turn into yet another thread about Heidegger and god.

You recognise it as a result of having been taught what a right angle is. Right angles area part of your culture as well as a part of the world.

What's problematic is supposed that they are either in the world or they are only in the mind.

Glad.

Yep. You see a right angle. Read the rest of the sentence... "...a way of talking about and treating the stuff in the word".

The right angle is there becasue we put it there as much as that it is there in some transcendent fashion. Perception does not only proceed from world to mind, but also from mind to world.

Duckrabbits.

God changing is at odds with divine simplicity. So if you are going to say god changes, you will need to re-define god in a fairly extreme way. Perhaps you can do so. For my part, i remain unconvinced that the notion of god can be made coherent.

Perhaps right angles are not a thing in the world, but a way of talking about and treating the stuff in the word.

"And I say the nature of time is analogous to that".

Point being that both time and right angles "exist" becasue we treat stuff as if it includes right angles and time. And we cannot not do so.

I'd be happy to look into this in another thread. A bit too far off topic here.

A topic that might be more pertinent is notions of time in other cultures - cyclic time, for example.

To my eye this thread went awry in considering the intentionality of animals.

Having said that, there was some interesting stuff in New Scientist last week about statistical analysis of whale song, showing that the sounds matched human language in intriguing ways.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2467170-humpback-whale-songs-have-patterns-that-resemble-human-language/

One of Davidson's core conclusions is that if we are to say that some phenomena is a language, we have to be able to translate that language into our own - that we cannot recognise it as a language unless we understand what is being said. These empirical results challenge that.

So far the researchers baulk at calling whale song a language...

However, the researchers emphasise that this statistical pattern doesn’t lead to the conclusion that whale song is a language that conveys meaning as we would understand it. They suggest that a possible reason for the commonality is that both whale song and human language are learned culturally.

So the topic is... topical.

Quine's issue about synonymy doesn't apply to logical truths. — J

Good point. Logical truths are true in every interpretation, so they are supposedly safe from Quine's criticism. One consequence of that is the rejection of de re modality.

It might be worth taking a close look at Reference and Modality post Naming and Necessity. There is a tension here, to be sure, and Quine was correct that folk will try to smuggle Aristotelian-style essences in on Kripke's back. I'm pretty sure we can have our cake and eat it, since rigid designation and referential opacity occur in different contexts. It's a worthy topic.

Did anyone catch the Quarterly Essay Minority Report?

An extract at https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2024/11/minority-report/extract

A podcast interview at https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/bigideas/quarterly-essay-george-megalogenis-australian-federal-politics/104880452

The thesis is that the electoral backlash in Australia is unique in that it rejects both major parties at once. That the Liberals have moved too far to the crazy right, while the Labor party is too afeared to do anything. Well argued and data-based.

It will be an interesting election.

Yep.

Argument by name calling.

The significance of family resemblance just never sunk in, did it.

Yes, they may be stipulated.

Preferably a flat surface — Wayfarer

Not a table, then.

We have made use of the notion of time in this thread. Therefore there is such a notion. There is time.

I'm sorry, I find that risible...

There must be something that makes a table what it is, and this we will call tableness, and we will generalise this to other stuff, and say that what makes something what it is, is its essence.

Contrast that with the idea that it is useful to call some things tables, yet that there need be nothing they all have in common. What counts is that the word "table" is used.

Tableness. The essence of a table is its tableness. — Arcane Sandwich

That's just calling the essence by another name. You've said that the essence of table is that it is a table. Wow.

Not quite. We might choose to use "table" only for things that have four legs at right angles to a flat top. Then the things I pictured do not count as tables. While that is not how we actually use the word "table", it seems to be what @Relativist had in mind.

If you think tables have an essence, tell us what it is.

I seem to have been asking that a lot lately. No one wants to say what an essence is. Puts me in mind of the suit belonging to a certain emperor.

So why would you even say that there aren't any? — Arcane Sandwich

Any what? Tables? Time? Essences?

Go on.


(Added: It's pretty much Kripke's point, rather than mine. But if you think he is mistaken, go ahead and explain why. )

It's pretty unclear why you think it dumb to claim time exists. Not at all sure what your point is.

Today is Sunday (in Argentina). — Arcane Sandwich

You're living in the past.

Nonsense — Arcane Sandwich

Fine. You can tell me why, later. :razz:

You don't see anything incompatible between your comments here and time not existing?

I quite like this one.



And I own one of these:


What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for table-ness? I say there aren't any. Unless you would stipulate some.

Spinozist — Arcane Sandwich

Only on Sunday.

what the blimey this got to do with a Thread called "Ontology of Time". — Arcane Sandwich

This follows on from my first post, in which I pointed out that the OP was then 19 hrs old.

The line of thought is that there is something amiss with an argument that claims to show that time, which is pretty foundational, does not exist. It misuses "time", or "exits", or both.

Deleuze hated Wittgenstein — Arcane Sandwich

Wittgenstein didn't care. :smile:

Then it seems to me you did not follow the discussion above. That pile of chip is the table. It is not a table.

Here the logic used is Kripke's, seen in Identity and Necessity.

I can't see how to make sense of that.

Not a table, then?

That's verging on word salad.

When the table is chipped into sawdust and scattered, the functional structure is gone. So, in one sense, it’s no longer "a table" (a functional object), but in another sense, it’s still "this table" (the individual thing that once was a table).So Identity doesn’t depend purely on form. If it did, then the table would cease to exist the moment it stopped being functional as a table. Instead, identity seems to track something deeper—perhaps continuity of language, history, and the way we rigidly designate things.

Cool. The "form" seems to be a misunderstanding of what happens when we decide to count the newly bonded timber as a table - an hypostatisation of a bit of language use.

Start with a dinner table, then disassemble it. All there parts are still there, but you no longer have a table. — Relativist

Yep. Again, there is a difference between the type, "table" and the individual, "This table".

An object is more than the set of parts that compose it. It's the composed parts + the way they are arranged that makes it something more. — Relativist

So you would include some sort of form - we don't only take the parts and arrange them in a table-like fashion, we need to add, in addition, tableness?

I won't be agreeing with that.

There remains a difference between this table, which is a rigid designated individual, and a table, which is one of a type. What is it that is ground up and distributed across several countries? This table. Sur, it's no longer one of the things that we might count as a table, as of that type.

And yep, we can talk of have fox-trouts if we want.

I don't agree that it is counter-intuitive. If the owner came along and asked where their table is, we might well point to the wood chips.

if you say that the pile of wood chips is identical to the table, then your ontology can't explain artefact destruction (or artefact creation). — Arcane Sandwich

Well, obviously.

There's a play on what it is to be an individual here, that harks back to my initial point, that the table and the atoms are the same. When the collection of atoms existed as a living tree, it wasn't a table, yet it was the table, just as the wood chips are the table.

The table is an individual, and as such may be rigidly designated regardless of the properties attributed to it. It can be parts of a tree, or a pile of wood chip, and yet remains the table. But as the parts of a tree, or as wood chip, it is not a table.

If our aim were to explain the composition of the table, it would be better to start with a different set of individuals, perhaps the cellulose fibres. These can be arranged into a table, a tree or a pile of wood chips.

Which is were we started. The table is the collection of cellulose fibres. It's not as if one arranges the cellulose fibres and then adds something else, the table.

Being able to persist while going through the woodchipper is a property that the collections of atoms has, and the table does not have this property. — Arcane Sandwich

The obvious reply is, that pile of wood chips is the table.

Nice.

...the table and the atoms that compose it have different properties. — Arcane Sandwich

Yep. Different properties may be attributed to the same individual under different descriptions.

Leibniz's Law says that two things that have the same properties are the same thing. It does not say that if something has different properties it is a different thing. You are using the inverse of Leibniz's Law, wanting to argue that if something has different properties, it is a different thing.

In one description the table is brown and solid, in the other it is cellulose and space. These two different descriptions are both true of the table. They are compatible. In order to show that there are two different things, one would need to show that the very same object could not be brown and solid and cellulose and mostly space. But of course you can't do that becasue the table is wn and solid and cellulose and mostly space.

2nd reason: if a table is identical to the atoms that compose it, then if you remove a single atom, you're no longer dealing with the same table — Arcane Sandwich

Yeah, it is. It is the same table if I gouge out my initials in the woodwork. Removing a few atoms will not make it cease to be that table. We use such terms in suitable vague ways quite successfully.

Both examples attempt to be overly precise.

1) If tables exist, then a table is one more object in addition to the atoms that compose it. — Arcane Sandwich

The table is the exact same object as the atoms that compose it.