I think one could take your argument and claim that Aristotle and Lavoisier were not pointing to the same thing at all with the term "water." There was complete equivocation. Aristotle was pointing to the stuff found in rivers and lakes, whereas Lavoisier was pointing to H2O, and as Richard B argues, there is effectively nothing in common between the two and therefore "water is not H2O". — Leontiskos
IDK, perhaps some of these can be ironed out but it certainly seems more intuitive to me that fire and water are, and remain, what they are. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The other question is, how could we be wrong in these sorts of cases if what a thing is depends on what we currently think of it? How can we discover that "fire is not phlogiston" if there is no such thing as fire outside of ideas like phlogiston theory? — Count Timothy von Icarus
But then in virtue of what do we speak of some enduring thing, "water," that changes over time as theories change — Count Timothy von Icarus
But this is, at most, an epistemic issue. — Count Timothy von Icarus
But this is, at most, an epistemic issue. The step further, that claims that essences themselves change, has to say that the water that carved out the Grand Canyon isn't the same water we see causing erosion today. I think there are a host of problems with that though, not least of which is "why should our ideas about things evolve in one way instead of any other if there is no actuality that is prior to our speech about things?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
IDK, perhaps some of these can be ironed out but it certainly seems more intuitive to me that fire and water are, and remain, what they are. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I tend to favor the epistemic side over the ontology side -- I understand it's basically a "player's choice", but it's my preference. On the reverse of "How do you know unless you start with what is?" is "How do you know what is unless you start with what you know?"
I think it's in virtue of the things our species relies upon water for -- drinking, cooking, bathing, etc.
Not exactly — Moliere
Thinking through this question now -- Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions is what I have in mind, but with a more materialist mindset which doesn't give into the notion that nature itself changes with the sciences.
Leon.Whom? — Moliere
In recent philosophy a large number of other identity statements have
been emphasized as examples of contingent identity statements, dif-
ferent, perhaps, from either of the types I have mentioned before. One
of them is, for example, the statement "Heat is the motion of molecules."
First, science is supposed to have discovered this. Empirical scientists in
their investigations have been supposed to discover (and, I suppose, they
did) that the external phenomenon which we call "heat" is, in fact,
molecular agitation. Another example of such a discovery is that water is
H₂O , and yet other examples are that gold is the element with such and
such an atomic number, that light is a stream of photons, and so on.
These are all in some sense of "identity statement" identity statements.
Second, it is thought, they are plainly contingent identity statements,
just because they were scientific discoveries. After all, heat might have
turned out not to have been the motion of molecules. There were other
alternative theories of heat proposed, for example, the caloric theory of
heat. If these theories of heat had been correct, then heat would not
have been the motion of molecules, but instead, some substance suffus-
ing the hot object, called "caloric". And it was a matter of course of
science and not of any logical necessity that the one theory turned out to
be correct and the other theory turned out to be incorrect. — Kripke
The step further, that claims that essences themselves change, — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yep. And there is the additional problem of their never quite explaining what an essence is, at least not in a way that is anywhere near as clear as "A property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists". — Banno
That's pretty close. And "A property had by a thing that we cannot imagine it existing without" works for many purposes. The formal definition is somewhat different. The trouble is not just that we can imagine alls sorts of odd things, but that what one person can imagine might be quite different to what another person can imagine....an exploration of what we can coherently imagine... — Janus
at least not in a way that is anywhere near as clear as "A property had by a thing in every possible world in which it exists". — Banno
If water was not H2O in Aristotle's day — Count Timothy von Icarus
It's the thing we were discussing. If water was not H2O in Aristotle's day would this mean that being H2O is neither essential nor necessary for water or that water itself changes? Or could heat be caloric? might be a similar sort of question (or was it?) — Count Timothy von Icarus
Imagining impossible worlds — Janus
Yep. But we are going to have to introduce more terms. There's a hierarchy of possibilities:I have no doubt a physically impossible world could be imagined — Janus
Is there a possible world in which water is not H2O? — Janus
Perhaps the very urge to ask “why is there something rather than nothing?” is a kind of metaphysical craving that misunderstands the role of explanation. Explanations work within the world—given that things exist, why does this or that happen?—but they break down when we try to apply them to existence as such. The impulse isn't deep; it’s a confusion of category. — Banno
...if any role for intuition and understanding is ruled out and reason is 100% discursive, you have an infinite possibility space of possible "games" and no reason to choose one in favor of any other. The authority of reason itself rests on intuition and understanding. — Count Timothy von Icarus
There's a logically possible world in which water ≠ H₂O. But there is not a metaphysically or physically possible world in which water ≠ H₂O. That water=H₂O is a metaphysical fact, not a logical fact. It should be apparent that once we agree that water=H₂O, we rule out the possibility that water ≠ H₂O. — Banno
The Stanford article from which I stole the image has more on this sort of thing. It takes tome to grasp these ideas, however the result is a consistent picture of nested possibilities and impossibilities. — Banno
Asking "What is really real" supposes that there is One True Answer, rather than a whole bunch of different answers, dependent on circumstance and intent and other things. There doesn't seem to be a good reason to hold such a monolithic view. — Banno
This is the question of reference? How is it that "water" refers to water, and nothing else?The question I have right now (which may be resolved after reading the article) is this: if we want to say there is a logically possible world in which water is not H2O, on what other basis could it be said that it would count as being water? — Janus
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