I'm not sure why including more than integers would be the same kind of domain change as the one involving Socrates sitting. — J

I recall that when I wrote that I was thinking that (30) restricted the domain. But looking at that again, i can't fill it out. So the conditional in "If Socrates is sitting then necessarily Socrates is sitting" - if this is to make any sense at all - restricts us to only those worlds in which Socrates is sitting. Now (∃x)(x is necessarily greater than 7) can be parsed as ☐(x<7) - in every possible world x is greater than seven, and then bound to "there is an x" so 'there is an x such that in every possible world x is greater than seven".

So I now think you are correct, and I was mistaken.

We have analytic and synthetic necessities. Perhaps we might use "tautology" only for analytic necessities, such as that there in every possible world there is a number greater than seven, and not for synthetic necessities, such as Hesperus = Venus?

We seem to want the term to function both as a description and -- in upper case -- a name. — J

The brightest star in the western evening sky might not be Hesperus - it might be Jupiter. But Hesperus must be Hesperus, and The Evening Star must be Hesperus... Well, being the evening star does not seem to be essential to Hesperus, or Venus. Not in the way that being made of wood is essential to the lectern in Identity and Necessity, or being H₂O (is that ok, ?) is essential to being water... If the lectern were ice, it would be a different lectern, if the liquid were not (mostly) H₂O, it would not be water. But if Venus were not the brightest star in the western evening, it would still be Venus.

"The brightest star in the western evening sky" is not a rigid designator, but "The Evening Star" is.

A question about this, though. "Necessity by accident" has an odd ring. Is the idea that, if "Socrates is currently sitting" is true, then as long as it remains true, it is necessarily the case that Socrates is sitting? The necessity would arise from the fact that there is only one way (allegedly) for a statement to be true, and that is by its stating something that is the case? I'm struggling to phrase the necessity in some understandable way -- maybe you can help.

That true statements are necessarily true is an interesting topic. In Book IV of the Metaphysics, Aristotle points out that, taken alone: "it is true that Socrates is standing" adds nothing to "Socrates is standing." Basically, there is an implied assertoric force in fact statements.

For truth is: "to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not" (Metaphysics IV). Likewise, to say "a man" versus "one man" changes nothing, and the same is true of "a man" and "an existent man." And here we get part of the ground for the Doctrine of Transcendentals re "Being, One, and True."

But this is probably not the most helpful example, since it's pretty opaque. An easier one would be that a man with many siblings is necessarily not "the oldest living sibling" if he is dead. Yet neither is he necessarily dead. The man was alive at one point, and perhaps at some point, when he was alive, he was the oldest living sibling. However, the accident of his death necessarily precludes his being the "oldest living sibling."

Modality was often conceived of in terms of act/potency, not in terms of simultaneous/synchronic "alternative possibilities" (possible worlds ), but rather in terms of diachronic potentialities. Hence, a man is not equally "possibly living and possibly dead," for, to be in act as "living" necessarily excludes being (actually) dead. So too for all contraries: hot and cold, dark and light, etc.

I would just add that what seems like a small difference here might be seen as having huge consequences. Freedom in ancient and medieval thought was often conceptualized as something like: "the self-determining capacity to actualize the good." In modern views, it is often "the ability to do otherwise (other than what is actual)," and this has tremendous import for how people see all sorts of philosophical issues (e.g. Sarte wanting to dispatch any human essence to safeguard freedom, whereas on the earlier view having an essence is a prerequisite for any human good for freedom to achieve).

Avicenna makes a distinction here between necessity per se ("in itself") and necessity per aliud ("by another"). If you throw a rock through a window, it will necessarily break (physical necessity), but the window is not "necessarily broken" per se.

Modern conceptions of modality in terms of possible worlds will probably be inadequate to capture these distinctions. As Plantinga explains, if something is "possibly necessary" in this frame, it is necessary. For, to be "possibly necessary" is "to be necessary in at least one possible world," but then to be "necessary" is "to be in every possible world" (this seems to me analogous to the frequentist account of probability, which has been so popular after the early 20th century). Yet this is clearly not the sort of distinction folks like Aristotle, Al Farabi, and Avicenna are trying to elucidate, since these attempt to look to the why of necessity.

The ideas of potentiality and modality on the one hand, and probability on the other, are obviously related. If something is necessary, it occurs 100% of the time, if it is impossible it occurs 0% of the time. If it is possible, but not necessary, it must be somewhere in between. Hintikka unhelpfully labels to Aristotelian view a "statistical view " on the grounds that Aristotle recognizes this fact, and it's unfortunately all over analytic treatments of modality in earlier eras, making them out to be much more like the dominant (and problematic—"Bernoulli's Fallacy" is a great book here) frequentist paradigm in modern statistics than it actually is.

In particular, Aristotle rejects wholly unrealized potencies because he thinks the cosmos is eternal, so everything that could happen has had time to happen, but very many of his interpreters (particularly Jews, Muslims, and Christians) reject this view. More problematically, it might seem to presuppose that things are necessary or not in virtue of such frequencies, not vice versa (mixing up quia and prompter quid, cause versus effect). This is sort of akin to identifying valid arguments as "those arguments which never have a false conclusion when the premises are true" as opposed to those where the conclusion "follows from" or can be "inferred from" the premises.

Obviously, you can describe the example above in terms of possible worlds. If a man is dead in the actual world, he is not the oldest living sibling in all accessible worlds. Or "there are no possible worlds where the man is both dead and the oldest living sibling" (a frequentist explanation). This is sort of a flattening though. You could try to trace the distinctions through accessibility relations, but it's really the "because," "in virtue of," etc. questions re necessity that they attempt to address, which is not addressed by comparing frequency across datasets.

"Man is an animal," in contrast, would be a good example of a Kripkean synthetic necessity. There is nothing analytic about the notion; it so happens, though, that we have discovered it to be true. And Kripke would go on to point out that we don't need this necessary truth in order to designate "man" -- we were able to do this quite well before we knew any science. Had it turned out that humans were not in fact animals, we would not have said, "Oh, we we were wrong in our identification of what a human is. We'd better call them doomans instead" Rather, we would have said, "We thought humans might be angelic or unique, but that is not so. They're still humans, just different from what we thought." (This is Kripke's "gold" example in a slightly different wording.)

It's a similar topic approached in a different way. There are actually four modes of per se predication (as well as per se accidents) and they don't map neatly to modern distinctions. "Analytic" statements would fall under per se primo modo, which relate to essential definitions (e.g. a triangle having three sides). By contrast, Kripke, in keeping with his epoch, puts epistemic concerns front and center as opposed to metaphysical ones. For instance, it flows from the essence of fire that it is hot, but what it is to be fire is not identical with what it is to be hot, else all hot things would be fire. All foxes are made of flesh and bones, but what makes a fox a fox is not possession of flesh and bones (hence, we can recognize foxes' eidos in stone statues).

That the Categories and Porphyry's Isagoge were considered introductory, foundational texts in logic, not metaphysics, is perhaps indictive of the difference in approaches.

It is perhaps becoming clear how two somewhat different uses of "necessity" are at work here. One has necessity as opposed to analyticity, the other has necessity as opposed to possibility. Early philosophy did not make this distinction, leading to difficulty. Aristotelian essentialism apparently does not differentiate analyticity from possibility.

In general, the common sin of the medievals is not to fail to make distinctions, but rather to make so many that it becomes difficult to follow them. Where Hume (and Kant, following him) has a two pronged fork grounded in epistemic concerns, they have a minimum of six, generally grounded in metaphysical concerns. But also, essences are known through the senses, not as a priori analytic truths. The Peripatetic Axiom is: "there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses.

Analyticity roughly (but imperfectly) corresponds to predication per se primo modo, which is just one mode of per se predication (there are also per se accidents), and the Islamic philosophers in particular have many distinctions vis-a-vis modality. Some (e.g. Al Farabi), largely do exclude necessity from an indeterminate future, however they still have necessity through causes, not solely through definitions. In some sense, principle/cause must be prior, since the Many that possess disparate definitions are downstream of their unifying principles (One).

There is obviously some relation. If to be a triangle is to have three sides then a triangle cannot possibly have four sides. Likewise a light room can not possibly be dark, in that the two contraries do not admit of being both in act simultaneously (but note that in contrary, as opposed to contradictory, opposition we can meet somewhere in the middle). If something is necessarily in act, its contrary is necessarily excluded, but this relation need not have anything to do with analyticity. Not being a square, hypercube, circle, dodecahedron, trapezoid, etc. is necessary for all triangles, but is not "what a triangle is."

Thanks for your reply.

Modern conceptions of modality in terms of possible worlds will probably be inadequate to capture these distinctions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Isn't the broken window captured by accessibility - from those worlds in which the rock goes through the glass, all accessible worlds contain broken glass. In some possible worlds, the oldest sibling is alive, in others they are dead - and from the latter, only those worlds in which the oldest sibling is dead are accessible. This captures the "becasue" and "in virtue of". Accessibility would seem to capture the notion of being "downstream" that you think absent. What am I missing? I gather you would say that the cause of the glass breaking is absent; that the nature (essence?) of the rock and the window necessitates the glass breaking? But that's just saying that in every world accessible from that in which the rock goes thought the glass, the glass is broken...

The upshot would be to consider systems other than S5, in which all worlds are accessible from all other worlds. So in effect your position seems to be that S5 does not capture certain ways of dealing with necessity.

I still do not follow what an essence is on your account. Is having three sides part of the essence of triangle, and becasue is it analytic that a triangle have three sides?

Added: That is, if you like, essences, even as you set them out, are descriptions of modal properties, of those consequences that follow from being classified as a rock or classified as glass.

Very interesting stuff, thanks.

Returning to my question about "accidental necessity," let's consider your example of the rock and the window.

If you throw a rock through a window, it will necessarily break (physical necessity), but the window is not "necessarily broken" per se. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This introduces a concept of "necessity" that is unclear to me. Which of these two things are you saying?:

1) The act of throwing a rock through a window is, by definition, the breaking of that window.
or
2) If a rock is thrown at a window, the window will necessarily break.

Since you use the phrase "physical necessity," I'm guessing you mean #2. A definitional necessity such as "'through a window' means 'breaking a window'" presumably isn't to the point here.

If I've got that right, can you explain the necessity in #2? Why must the window necessarily break? Is there some sort of ceteris paribus series of premises built into the necessity? Would we equally want to say that "The sun must necessarily rise tomorrow"? These necessities, if that is indeed what they are, seem very different from either "9 is necessarily greater than 7" or "Water is necessarily composed of H2O". Why would all three be described as "necessary"?

Perhaps we might use "tautology" only for analytic necessities, such as that there in every possible world there is a number greater than seven, and not for synthetic necessities, such as Hesperus = Venus? — Banno

That might work. Or "tautology" may be more trouble than it's worth, since it has two common usages that are easily conflated. In logic, a tautology is meant to be true by virtue of the logical connectives alone, so very similar to analytic necessity. But when we ask if two statements are tautologous, we usually mean something different. We're asking if they "say the same thing", a much looser conception. "9 is greater than 7" is analytically true, and so is "10 is greater than 7", and for the same reason. It would be impossible to understand one without understanding the other. But do they say the same thing? Kinda sorta -- depends on how you want to frame "the same thing". They surely say the same thing about arithmetic.

if S is a statement containing a referential occurrence of a name of 2, and S’ is formed from S by substituting any different name of Z, then S and S’ not only must be alike in truth value as they stand, but must stay alike in truth value even when ‘necessarily’ or ‘possibly’ is prefixed.

The error here then is to supose any name may be substituted. What can be substituted salva veritate is a rigid designator. So much for singular terms.

The crux of the trouble with (30) is that a number z may be uniquely determined by each of two conditions, for example, (32) and (33), which are not necessarily, that is, analytically, equivalent to each other.

The error here is to think that analytic and necessary are the very same. So much for quantification.

Those all seem like physical necessity to me. Some things can pass through others without breaking them. For instance, a beam of light from a flashlight will pass through a window just fine, and a rock could pass through a layer of water without "breaking it" (it might break the surface tension, but this would reform).

The fact that a rock's passage through a window entails it breaking has to do with what rocks, windows, and the surrounding cosmos are. Rocks and windows, being more or less heaps of external causes, wouldn't be the sorts of things that we would tend to think of as possessing self-determining natures (although possession of a nature/essence is also not a binary).

"The sun must necessarily rise tomorrow"?

Why not exactly? To be sure, there might conceivably be something that could stop the sun from rising. A large exo-planet could utterly destroy the Earth, leaving nothing for the sun to rise on I suppose. Perhaps similar cosmic-scale events could occur as well. But barring any of these, the sun will rise. To deny this would be to deny that the past determines the future, and it's hard to think of anything there is more evidenced to suggest than this relation. Yet that's part of the nature of physical necessity. What comes before dictates what comes after. Indeed, even when we speak of non-temporal dependence and causality we nonetheless use the language of temporal ordering, e.g. "prior," "consequent."

And, given how we learn about the world, how we learn to speak and reason, etc., it seems fair to assume we learn about consequence and entailment through the senses. This sort of relation is abstracted from the senses.

These necessities, if that is indeed what they are, seem very different from either "9 is necessarily greater than 7" or "Water is necessarily composed of H2O". Why would all three be described as "necessary"?

Right, hence the distinctions in terms of the modes of predication or something like Avicenna's necessity per aliud versus per se.

The latter two examples involve what is true of multitiudes and water intrinsically. The former case is necessary in the sense that the present appears to in some sense contain the future. Causes contain their effects in a way akin to how computational outputs are contained in the combination of input and function perhaps. It has to do with how the cosmos is, as a whole.

On the pancomputationalist view, which is fairly popular in physics, past physical states determine future ones (or a range of them) in exactly the way the output for some algorithm given some input is determined (and necessary). Perhaps this is so, but the philosophy of information has so many open questions that it's hard to know what this really means, and the use of digital computers as the model for being seems pretty suspect to me. Back when the steam engine was new the universe was conceived of as a great machine, the human body as a great engine, and while this got something right, it left out quite a bit.

You could consider "George Washington was the first President of the United States." Is it possible for this to become false? If not, then it seems it is in some sense necessary, although it also seems to be something that was contingent in the past. A way this might be explained is to say that it is not possible for any potency to have both come into act and not come into act. So if Washington was the first president (and he was) this is necessary de dicto (although not de re, since president is not predicated of Washington per se).

Those all seem like physical necessity to me. — Count Timothy von Icarus

"The sun must necessarily rise tomorrow"?

Why not exactly? To be sure, there might conceivably be something that could stop the sun from rising. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But if something could stop the sun from rising -- or, in the case of the rock and window, prevent the rock from breaking the window -- why would we call the event "necessary"? You can of course stipulate that "necessity" can refer to something that is overwhelmingly likely, such as the sun rising tomorrow, but I can only reply that this isn't what discussions about necessity are usually about.

A large exo-planet could utterly destroy the Earth, leaving nothing for the sun to rise on I suppose. Perhaps similar cosmic-scale events could occur as well. But barring any of these, the sun will rise. To deny this would be to deny that the past determines the future, — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is what I meant by ceteris paribus conditions. Sure, if certain conditions hold steady, then certain results will occur. This is the same as saying that in some possible worlds the sun will rise, while in others it may not -- which is hardly "necessity". This has nothing to do with denying that the past determines the future; if some unlikely intervening event occurs, that will be the past in that possible world.

I think the best argument against this view of physical necessity is to ask: Where do you draw the line? Exactly how likely does a certain set of circumstances have to be before you're willing to declare the result "physically necessary"? Even phrasing it this way seems contrary to the idea of what "necessary" is supposed to mean, but let's grant it. You want to say that, in our world, the sun rising tomorrow is physically necessary. Suppose we get warning of a breach in spacetime -- has the likelihood decreased? Suppose the rapture occurs? Still "necessary"? You see what I mean: You have to make a judgment call on each of these possibilities, or else outright deny that they are possible, which you don't want to do, and rightly so. I would argue that this approach takes us much too far away from how "necessity" is used and understood.

The former case is necessary in the sense that the present appears to in some sense contain the future. Causes contain their effects in a way akin to how computational outputs are contained in the combination of input and function perhaps — Count Timothy von Icarus

"The former case" refers to "9 is necessarily greater than 7", yes? Are you positing "7" as being in the present, and "9" in the future? And that 7 thus causes 9? I must not be understanding your meaning here.

You could consider "George Washington was the first President of the United States." Is it possible for this to become false? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Certainly. As Kripke helps us understand, this could become false in two different ways. 1) We might discover that someone else briefly held that office, but this fact was suppressed for conspiratorial purposes. 2) We might discover that the man who first held the office was not the man we designate as "George Washington". It turns out that the real George Washington was murdered as a young man, and replaced with an impostor.

These are absolutely ridiculous suppositions. But something doesn't become necessary just because the possible counterexamples are ridiculous. Necessity is supposed to mean that there are no counter-examples -- that it is not possible for the truth to be other than it is.

Perhaps you don't accept that as a working definition of "necessity." But then I think the burden of argument is on you to make a case for why extremely likely events should be given the same name as absolutely necessary events.

But if something could stop the sun from rising -- or, in the case of the rock and window, prevent the rock from breaking the window -- why would we call the event "necessary"? You can of course stipulate that "necessity" can refer to something that is overwhelmingly likely, such as the sun rising tomorrow, but I can only reply that this isn't what discussions about necessity are usually about.

That wouldn't be it though. Necessity is not just a case of high probability. Obviously, many things might stop a ball that has been thrown at a window from breaking the window. It could hit a bird, like that time Randy Johnson accidentally killed a pigeon with a fastball. The point is rather that if none of those things happen, and the ball goes through the window, then the window will necessarily break.

It might be easier to think in terms of the "necessary versus sufficient" conditions of counterfactual reasoning. If a plant is to grow, it is necessary that it receive water. If causes are sufficient to bring about a seeds' germination and growth, it will necessarily occur.

Or, you could consider St. Thomas' framing in terms of act and potency in the commentary on Book IX of the Metaphysics. Here is an example he uses: a human body will naturally tend towards health (and homeostasis) if nothing hinders it. Medicine is thus in some sense primarily the removal of external impediments of the movement from potency to act. This is a case of necessity involving natures.

This is what I meant by ceteris paribus conditions. Sure, if certain conditions hold steady, then certain results will occur. This is the same as saying that in some possible worlds the sun will rise, while in others it may not -- which is hardly "necessity". This has nothing to do with denying that the past determines the future; if some unlikely intervening event occurs, that will be the past in that possible world.

Yes, the synchronic view of possible worlds is different. One can of course collapse any distinction between metaphysical, existential, physical, etc. necessity and try to explain it solely in terms of frequency across synchronic possible worlds. In which case "necessary" only applies to what is true in all possible worlds (and hence whatever is possibly necessary is necessary tout court). This seems to me like an impoverishment of concepts though.

Even phrasing it this way seems contrary to the idea of what "necessary" is supposed to mean, but let's grant it.

Sure, if what "necessary" is supposed to mean is just whatever a narrow clique of Anglo-Americans Baby Boomers decided it must mean in their infallible wisdom :grin: (I am being facetious here, to some degree, since Leibniz did have similar notions earlier). Avicenna or Al Farabi would disagree.

They're different views of modality; they will not agree in every respect.

You want to say that, in our world, the sun rising tomorrow is physically necessary.

I never said that though. I said that if conditions are sufficient to bring about the sun's rising then it will necessarily rise, and that this can be explained in terms of physical necessity in that things necessarily act according to their nature. It has nothing to do with things that might not happen being necessary. Likewise, if the sun rose, it is necessarily true that it rose.

"The former case" refers to "9 is necessarily greater than 7", yes? Are you positing "7" as being in the present, and "9" in the future? And that 7 thus causes 9? I must not be understanding your meaning here.

No, sorry I was referring to the sun rising. The reference to popular theories in physics might make more sense now :rofl: .

Certainly. As Kripke helps us understand, this could become false in two different ways. 1) We might discover that someone else briefly held that office, but this fact was suppressed for conspiratorial purposes. 2) We might discover that the man who first held the office was not the man we designate as "George Washington". It turns out that the real George Washington was murdered as a young man, and replaced with an impostor.

This just seems bizarre to me. A lie is true if enough people believe it and then becomes false when people discover it is false?

A misattribution is correct until it is corrected?

I don't recall Kripke ever advancing such a claim, but it would essentially amount to defaulting on truth being anything other than the dominant current opinion. "Adolf Hitler was the first US President" would "become true" if enough people thought it was true, which seems to veer towards a sort of Protagotean relativism.

These are absolutely ridiculous suppositions. But something doesn't become necessary just because the possible counterexamples are ridiculous. Necessity is supposed to mean that there are no counter-examples -- that it is not possible for the truth to be other than it is.

I think you're missing the point by focusing on epistemic issues. Discovering that something you thought was true is not true is not the same thing as facts about past events becoming true or false. The latter implies that becoming occurs in the past, not just in the present, which seems like a contradiction in terms.

Suppose it is indeed true that George Washington was the first president. There is no conspiracy, no misattribution, no epistemic issue. This is true and we know it. Is it possible for this to become false in the future? Might it one day be true that Adolf Hitler was in fact the first US President?

The sun rose yesterday. Is it possible that it did not rise yesterday, that the proposition "the sun rose yesterday should become false be the sunset today?

If it is not possible, then it is in some sense necessary. If you just look at frequency over possible worlds, where "possible worlds" gets loosely imagined as "whatever we can imagine" then it will be impossible to identify this sort of necessity though. But what then, are all facts about the past possibly subject to change in the future?

Why would we think that? It seems obviously false. Hence, a notion of physical and accidental necessity is needed.

Is there a "possible world" where the sun didn't rise yesterday and we just think it did? Only for the radical skeptics.

But if Venus were not the brightest star in the western evening, it would still be Venus.

"The brightest star in the western evening sky" is not a rigid designator, but "The Evening Star" is. — Banno

This can be tied into the Ship of Theseus as a way to explain how rigid designators get their designation. That is to say, why is "Venus" or "The Evening Star" a rigid designation to begin with? What makes it rigidly designated? In every possible world Venus is X. But what is X? That "essentialness" of Venus? It is the causal conditions for which the term "Venus" is picked out amongst other things in the world. Thus causality seems to play the foundational role in all of this designation. There is a chain of events leading back to the baptism of the object that leads it to be rigidly designated to that object. Ok, well that works for proper names. How about scientific kinds like H20? I guess it can be the same causal foundation that links the name by necessity.

The tie in with the Ship of Theseus is, that if Venus was to miss X component or Y component or Z component is it still Venus? Well, according to Kripke, that would be a contingent circumstance, and thus not what makes designator pick out that object. So what is it? Again, it seems to be causality in a chain of events starting from its initial baptism or naming.

You might capture this in terms of accessibility, yes. The question then is if we might want some notion of physical necessity (i.e., related to changing, mobile being) as an explanatory notion.

My last response to J above points out part of the case for this. If "George Washington was the first US President" is true, and it is not possible for it to become false, it is in a sense necessary. However, it is clearly not necessary in terms of being true de re. Being president is a relation. And it is not true in every imaginable possible world.

In terms of essences, the articles Leo posted are quite good, particularly the ones by Spade and Klima.

You might capture this in terms of accessibility, yes. The question then is if we might want some notion of physical necessity (i.e., related to changing, mobile being) as an explanatory notion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can Gandalf also have a necessity of Gandalf like Water is H20? If so, what is the thing that makes both point to the referent and rigidly designate to it? It isn't physicality. Is it causality? The initial "dubbing" of referent to the name? Why must physical things be the only things to be rigidly designated?

And then of course, if causality is the key, can this be questioned? What if in all possible worlds, causality does not hold or some such?

Well, you could follow Quine and try to get rid of proper names and say that: "there is some X that gandalfizes." Spade's article, which is quite good, points out some of the ways in which Quine's approach is more similar to Platonism. The variable, being a sort of bare particular (substratum, bearer of haecceity) sort of takes on the role of matter (the chora), with properties fulfilling the role of forms.

Sheer "dubbing" runs into the absurdities of the "very same Socrates" who is alternatively Socrates, a fish, a coffee mug, Plato, a patch on my tire, or Donald Trump, in which case we might be perplexed as to how these can ever be "the very same" individual.

The problem with the broadly "Platonic" strategy is that it does indeed have difficulty explaining how particulars exist and if the substratum lying beneath them to which properties attach is either one or many. This is complicated even more by certain empiricist commitments that would seem to make proposing an unobservable, propertyless substratum untenable. Without this substratum though, you often end up with an ontology that supposes a sort of "soup" prior to cognition, with the existence of all "things" being the contingent, accidental creation of the mind (e.g. The Problem of the Many, the problems of ordinary objects, etc.).

Hence, the Aristotelian idea of particulars as more than bundles of properties, as possessing an internal principle of intelligibility, self-determination, and unity (although they are not wholly self-subsistent).

The problems of broadly Platonist approaches are perhaps less acute in philosophies with a notion of "vertical reality" (described quite well in Robert M. Wallace's books on Plato and Hegel). They seem particularly acute in physicalist ontologies that want to be "flat."

One solution is essentially hyper voluntarist theology with man swapped in for God. So, instead of "a deer is whatever God says it is," we get "a deer is whatever man says it is."

- :up:

Well, you could follow Quine and try to get rid of proper names and say that: "there is some X that gandalfizes." Spade's article, which is quite good, points out some of the ways in which Quine's approach is more similar to Platonism. The variable, being a sort of bare particular (substratum, bearer of haecceity) sort of takes on the role of matter (the chora), with properties fulfilling the role of forms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But then the problem of contingency as far as what properties makes a Gandalf.

Sheer "dubbing" runs into the absurdities of the "very same Socrates" who is alternatively Socrates, a fish, a coffee mug, Plato, a patch on my tire, or Donald Trump, in which case we might be perplexed as to how these can ever be "the very same" individual. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not so much if it the "dubbing" entails a chain of causal events that lead back to the dubbing. Of course you can ask all sorts of things like, "Can the dubbing be mistaken?" Can there be a faux dubbing that never really happened and all are mistaken in a contingent world?

The problem with the broadly "Platonic" strategy is that it does indeed have difficulty explaining how particulars exist and if the substratum lying beneath them to which properties attach is either one or many. This is complicated even more by certain empiricist commitments that would seem to make proposing an unobservable, propertyless substratum untenable. Without this substratum though, you often end up with an ontology that supposes a sort of "soup" prior to cognition, with the existence of all "things" being the contingent, accidental creation of the mind (e.g. The Problem of the Many, the problems of ordinary objects, etc.). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep, how does an object not simply decay into only its properties. However, we can say the patterns present themselves in forms, and these forms are delineated and made into technologies and testable experiments. That seems to indicate that the world is presenting something beyond mere convention or habit of thought. But this can of course go into Kantian Idealism, and how the mind by necessity structures the world vs. various realisms, etc. Either way, both would be contra mere conventionalism, I would think.

Hence, the Aristotelian idea of particulars as more than bundles of properties, as possessing an internal principle of intelligibility, self-determination, and unity (although they are not wholly self-subsistent). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed, but what is this internal coherence? It's asserted but not explained other than its needed to say this object is this and not that.

The problems of broadly Platonist approaches are perhaps less acute in philosophies with a notion of "vertical reality" (described quite well in Robert M. Wallace's books on Plato and Hegel). They seem particularly acute in physicalist ontologies that want to be "flat." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, are there principles behind the physical aspects at work, etc. Some people propose a mathematical one, etc.

One solution is essentially hyper voluntarist theology with man swapped in for God. So, instead of "a deer is whatever God says it is," we get "a deer is whatever man says it is." — Count Timothy von Icarus

One might retort that realism is shown through outcomes that are out of our control but lead to technologies and repeatable testable results. Interesting enough, I wonder if this kind of response can even work for Gandalf or Bilbo. Bilbo is a hobbit, hobbits are this but not that. One cannot make a hobbit to X if he cannot do X, thus if a TV series takes the stories and breaks them, they are panned as inauthentic.

This just seems bizarre to me. A lie is true if enough people believe it and then becomes false when people discover it is false?

As misattribution is correct until it is corrected?

I don't recall Kripke ever advancing such a claim, but it would essentially amount to defaulting on truth being anything other than the dominant current opinion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course not. Our wires got crossed here. Your wrote:

You could consider "George Washington was the first President of the United States." Is it possible for this to become false? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I took you to mean, "Is it possible for this putatively true statement to be shown to be false?" and responded accordingly. I thought you were giving it as an example of a "physically necessary" truth.

I now see you must have meant, "Is it possible for this true statement to become false in the future?" which requires a totally different answer.

The rest of your response bears this out. We have no disagreement. True statements can't become false in this sense (barring some bizarre extremes we might imagine, which aren't to the point). If it is the case that I am sitting in a chair now, that statement, with appropriate tense modifications, stays true. A more interesting question is, Was it true before I sat in the chair? This is a version of the question that arises in philosophy of history: Is it true to say that the 1st president was born in 1732? Yes, we reply. Well, but was it true in 1732? Hair begins to be pulled out . . .

If it is not possible, then it is in some sense necessary. If you just look at frequency over possible worlds, where "possible worlds" gets loosely imagined as "whatever we can imagine" then it will be impossible to identify this sort of necessity though. But what then, are all facts about the past possibly subject to change in the future? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is a different matter, and quite interesting. First, help me with the grammar. Is there a typo or a word missing in your final question, about change in the future? I can't quite parse it.

Is there a "possible world" where the sun didn't rise yesterday and we just think it did? Only for the radical skeptics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, yes. How would that make it impossible?

You want to say that, in our world, the sun rising tomorrow is physically necessary.

I never said that though. I said that if conditions are sufficient to bring about the sun's rising then it will necessarily rise, and that this can be explained in terms of physical necessity in that things necessarily act according to their nature. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wish you had said what you now say, as it would have avoided misunderstanding. What you did say was, in response to my asking if 'The sun must necessarily rise tomorrow' was on a par with 'The rock must necessarily break the window':

"The sun must necessarily rise tomorrow"?

Why not exactly? To be sure, there might conceivably be something that could stop the sun from rising. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which says nothing about sufficient conditions to bring about the sun's rising. This is no big deal, I'm sure you meant to be clear, as did I.

What makes it rigidly designated? In every possible world Venus is X. But what is X? That "essentialness" of Venus? It is the causal conditions for which the term "Venus" is picked out amongst other things in the world. — schopenhauer1

"Venus" rigidly designates Venus becasue we choose it to work in that way; nothing more. We are using the word "Venus" to mean that exact same thing in every possible world in which Venus exists. There may be a causal chain leading to a baptism in the actual world, but there need not be any such causal chain in every world in which Venus exists. Once it's "picked out", it is designated rigidly. I'm not sure if this is what you are saying, of if it disagrees with what you are saying. So Theseus' ship may change completely, and yet it continues to make sense to refer to it as the Ship of Theseus, using that name as a rigid designator.

is correct. I should have avoided the rock/window example, as it has lead to folk confusing physical and logical necessity. Quine is concerned here with logical necessity.

The question then is if we might want some notion of physical necessity (i.e., related to changing, mobile being) as an explanatory notion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not so much. Causation is a whole other topic.

You could consider "George Washington was the first President of the United States." Is it possible for this to become false? If not, then it seems it is in some sense necessary, although it also seems to be something that was contingent in the past. A way this might be explained is to say that it is not possible for any potency to have both come into act and not come into act. So if Washington was the first president (and he was) this is necessary de dicto (although not de re, since president is not predicated of Washington per se). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This mixes a few different notions of necessity. First, it is not a necessary fact that George Washington was your first president (Assuming you are 'Mercan?). We can stipulate a possible worlds in which he just sold apples. But you add "become", and here we can use accessibility. We can stipulate that from any world in which Washington became your first president, only those worlds in which he was the first president are accessible - we stipulate a rule of accessibility. If we do this then it follows that from that world, all accessible worlds have Washington as your first president - for those worlds, necessarily, Washington was your first president. Doing this puts limitations on the worlds that are under consideration - as it should. One of those is that in no world in which he was your first president, could he not be your first president. This should be obvious from considerations of consistency... And it is not true in every possible world, since that would be a different stipulation.

All this by way of showing how possible world semantics sets out what is problematic with

If "George Washington was the first US President" is true, and it is not possible for it to become false, it is in a sense necessary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's down to accessibility.

Nothing here so far involves essences.

Why must physical things be the only things to be rigidly designated? — schopenhauer1

They need not be. Anything that can be given a proper name can be rigidly designated. Kinds, such as gold or H₂O, can also be rigidly designated. But again, while causality may be the answer to how it is that a name refers to an individual, once that link is established, the causal chain becomes unnecessary. So Hesperus = Phosphorus even though the casual chains to their baptism differ.

Well, you could follow Quine and try to get rid of proper names... — Count Timothy von Icarus

But the problem then is that you have thrown the babe of rigid designation out with the bathwater of explaining reference.

Sheer "dubbing" runs into the absurdities of the "very same Socrates" who is alternatively Socrates, a fish, a coffee mug, Plato, a patch on my tire, or Donald Trump, in which case we might be perplexed as to how these can ever be "the very same" individual. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If someone were to misuse a term in this way, wouldn't that be apparent? Sure, someone could use "Socrates" to refer to some fish, but it would quickly become apparent that they were talking about something other than the philosopher. Doesn't "Deer" man whatever we choose it to? Note the collective "we".

Indeed, but what is this internal coherence? — schopenhauer1

Very much, yep. Essence remains unexplained, apart from the occasional hand wave to "x=x". So the best explanation we have is still from Kripke.

Sorry for any misunderstanding. There are, of course, views that deny any such sufficiency, on the grounds that cause is just observed constant conjunction that may vary at any time. As points out and I said earlier, one can get at this with accessibility. The benefit I see in conceptualizing modality in terms of potentiality and actuality is that you are then explaining modality in terms of a principle that is already in play and useful throughout metaphysics, philosophy of nature, and epistemology and because it seems to how much closer to the necessity of common sense counterfactual reasoning.

And yes , the example with Washington would not involve essences. Physical necessity involving natures would come into play with something like counterfactual reasoning about growing a bean plant. Watering the plant is a necessary condition for its sprouting and growing. We can well imagine a world where this is not the case, where Jack throws the beans on the ground and a bean stalk reaching into the clouds sprouts up. Yet watering your beans seems to be a necessary prerequisite for their growing in reality.

Likewise, to St. Thomas' point on Metaphysics IX, if we come across a dead man, we know that there is necessarily some cause of death. It might be foul play or it might have been a heart attack or stroke. However, he won't have died "for no reason at all." This seems trickier to capture in terms of accessibility, but in terms of potentiality and actuality it is just the notion of entelécheia, "staying-at-work-being-itself."

Indeed, but what is this internal coherence? It's asserted but not explained other than its needed to say this object is this and not that.

But it isn't? One might say the Physics and the 2,000+ years of commentaries and extensions on it is flawed, but it certainly presents both explanation and argument.

Once it's "picked out", it is designated rigidly. I'm not sure if this is what you are saying, of if it disagrees with what you are saying. So Theseus' ship may change completely, and yet it continues to make sense to refer to it as the Ship of Theseus, using that name as a rigid designator. — Banno

It is the "once picked out, it is designated rigidly" that I am trying to go back to. "What" is causing this rigidity of the designator? And thus I brought up what I think is integral to Kripke- the causal theory of reference. Thus the foundation seems to me, to be causality that is the root of this rigidity.

They need not be. Anything that can be given a proper name can be rigidly designated. Kinds, such as gold or H₂O, can also be rigidly designated. But again, while causality may be the answer to how it is that a name refers to an individual, once that link is established, the causal chain becomes unnecessary. So Hesperus = Phosphorus even though the casual chains to their baptism differ. — Banno

Ok, so if the causal chain becomes unnecessary, what makes it still a rigid designator? Because if you use anything other than causality, I would be at a loss to how it is so. If a proper name refers to the same thing in all possible worlds, there needs to be a reason for why it does. The reason is the causal chain. One may not be able to actually trace it, but that's what creates the referent to be rigidly designated. Ship of Theseus has a causal link that goes back to X dubbing. Now, it gets tricky as to when THE Ship of Theseus as a philosophical concept is actually designated versus some ship of Theseus, but that's just the application of the concept.

Yet watering your beans seems to be a necessary prerequisite for their growing in reality. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes - accessibility again. Beans are such that if we would be successful bean famers we ought consider only those possible worlds in which beans need water. This is an issue of practicality rather than ontology. Think of physical necessity as pruning the tree of logically possible worlds...

"What" is causing this rigidity of the designator? And thus I brought up what I think is integral to Kripke- the causal theory of reference. Thus the foundation seems to me, to be causality that is the root of this rigidity. — schopenhauer1

Ok, so if the causal chain becomes unnecessary, what makes it still a rigid designator? — schopenhauer1

Rigid designators are not discovered, they are stipulated. When one asks what the world might be like if Thatcher had lost her first election, one is stipulating a world in which, if anything, Thatcher exists in order to lose the election. The stipulation is what makes it a rigid designation.

This is choosing amongst a set of grammars - semantics - that we might make use of. In other approaches, such as David Lewis' proposal, there is no rigid designation. Using rigid designation keeps stuff consistent and fairly intuitive. That's not to say that it doesn't have a few issues, but very few in comaprison to other approaches.

Rigid designators are not discovered, they are stipulated. When one asks what the world might be like if Thatcher had lost her first election, one is stipulating a world in which, if anything, Thatcher exists in order to lose the election. The stipulation is what makes it a rigid designation. — Banno

Definition of Stipulation:
a condition or requirement that is specified or demanded as part of an agreement.

This is choosing amongst a set of grammars - semantics - that we might make use of. — Banno

So it looks like your theory here is that we agree (i.e. follow a convention), that such-and-such is picked out across all possible worlds. However, the convention doesn't convey where the rigid designation comes about. If I say X = Sam, Sam is referring to X because of the causal chain that dubbed it so somewhere in the history. This gives it the rigid designation in the first place. Otherwise, X = Sam is just a hollow analytic statement.

However, the convention doesn't convey where the rigid designation comes about. — schopenhauer1

Sorry, lets' try to be clear here - the rigid designation comes about as a result of the stipulation. That the name refers to the object might well be the result of a baptism and causal chain, but that plays no part in the name being treated as a rigid designator.

So you can say Sam := X; then ask "In some possible world, what if Sam were not X?" And still be referring to Sam.

Sorry, lets' try to be clear here - the rigid designation comes about as a result of the stipulation. That the name refers to the object might well be the result of a baptism and causal chain, btu that plays no part in the name being treated as a rigid designator.

So you can say Sam := X; then ask "In some possible world, what if Sam were not X?" And still be referring to Sam. — Banno

I guess what I mean then is how is it that the stipulation is constrained to "Sam" and not something else? Which seems to be the question there. Causal-historical chain of events seems to be Kripke's answer.

I guess what I mean then is how is it that the stipulation is constrained to "Sam" and not something else? — schopenhauer1

Well, "In some possible world, what if Sam were not X?" is a question about Sam...

Keep in mind that the casual theory of reference was a quick explanation for a possible alternative tot he descriptive theory of reference, and never filled out by Kripke.

I don't see a problem here. "Sam" refers to Sam, "Washington" to Washington, that's just what we do with those words. If there is a problem as to which Sam or which Washington is being named, that may be sorted to our mutual satisfaction by having a chat.

I don't see a problem here. "Sam" refers to Sam, "Washington" to Washington, that's just what we do with those words. If there is a problem as to which Sam or which Washington is being named, that may be sorted to our mutual satisfaction by having a chat. — Banno

If I said "Sam is X", and you say "No no, Bob is X". How do we sort this out? Well, someone misremembered or mislabeled something here. Maybe I thought Sam was Bob this whole time. What resolves this is the causal set of events that leads Sam to have been referred to Sam and not something else like Bob. I think we are kind of saying the same thing, but I am giving the mechanism for the stipulation. If I said, "No no, I know Sam is Bob, but I am not calling Sam Sam but Bob from now on", well, that would just be another causal-historical event that connects Bob with Sam.

I'm not seeing this as a problem for Quine, or for Kripke. It could as well be settled by saying "Ok, We'll call this one "Fred", and that one "Harry". Nothing to do with modality.

I'm not seeing this as a problem for Quine, or for Kripke. It could as well be settled by saying "Ok, We'll call this one "Fred", and that one "Harry". Nothing to do with modality. — Banno

It's not a problem for Quine if you think we are just labeling stuff and it's just convention. For Kripke, I would think there needs to be a mechanism for which the same word is necessarily that referent in all possible worlds. That mechanism is the causal-historical events that goes back to its dubbing (or in this case its possible "redubbing"). Even if we say Harry was Bob was Sam, we can have a world in which Harry and Bob and Sam refer to the same thing, but they didn't know the previous iterations. At some point in the history the name was dubbed, and the name was used by stipulation, and in this case, that name was changed, and then used by stipulation. And then again. In fact, what if the original name was lost to time, but then someone remembered that this was the original name of that person? Well, the causal theory allows it to be a rigid designator that will always rigidly designate that person. Sam was the initial dubbing, Bob and Harry were subsequent dubbing, and by convention others have used it, and all these convoluted namings of that same person would hold as that person and not another because of its stipulation in causal-historical events.

For Kripke, I would think there needs to be a mechanism for which the same word is necessarily that referent in all possible worlds. — schopenhauer1

The mechanism is the stipulation.