Cheers, all that is interesting, and I haven't got to the article yet, but it still leaves me wondering whether we can coherently say something is water in some logically possible world if we were to remove its defining characteristics. I mean how many of its descriptive characteristics can we do without while still claiming it is not something merely called water, but something that actually is water?

A nice summation. — Janus

Thanks.

So we have a group of distinct, though not unrelated items: actual, real, existing, being...

Possible worlds give us a neat way to talk about what is actual. In the space of possible worlds there is one that is of particular interest, because it is the one in which we happen to find ourselves. But of course, actual is an indexical term, like "here" or "now". It picks out the world of the speaker in a given context. For someone in another possible world, actual refers to their world.

Propositional calculus gives us a neat way to deal with "exists" using quantification. " to be is to be the value of a bound variable" and so on. "Unicorns have horns" vs. "There exists an x such that x is a unicorn and x has a horn." There are not actual Unicorns, yet unicorns have horns. The question "Do unicorns exist?" drops by the wayside.

An account of what is "real" was given earlier in this thread. It's not real, it's counterfeit; it's not real, it's an illusion; and so on. Unicorns are not real, they are mythical.

Numbers exist, since we can quantify over them. U(x)(x+0=x).

Are they actual? well, there are numbers of things in each possible world, even if that number is zero. They do not seem to be within possible worlds so much as a way of talking about the stuff in possible worlds. Like the law of noncontradiction, they are part of the framework in which possible and actual are set out.

Are they real? Some of them. Others are imaginary.

Or, a philosophical perspective that you can't fathom. — Wayfarer

The condescending elitist cop out.

Or, a philosophical perspective that you can't fathom. — Wayfarer

If we can't fathom it, then we have no basis on which to think it a philosophical perspective... :wink:

I didn't say 'we'

The condescending elitist cop out. — Janus

vs truculent atheism ;-)

Atheism for me is simply a lack of belief in God or gods. As far as I am aware you are not a theist yourself. In any case you didn't answer my question about universal mind―are you an adherent or not? If not, as I said, your position is simply totally unwarranted and implausible instead of being merely implausible ( in my view of course, since there can be no precise measure of plausibility).

it still leaves me wondering whether we can coherently say something is water in some logically possible world if we were to remove its defining characteristics. — Janus

In some possible world, water has none of the characteristics it has in our world.

But we know that water is H₂O, so that characteristic could not be removed and water still be water. But this is a metaphysical impossibility, not a logical impossibility. Logically,, assuming rigid designation, we can posit a possible world in which water has none of the characteristics it has in the actual world.

But that would be doing something a bit different. It is logically possible to describe a world in which a substance that is not H₂O is called ‘water’ and has none of the characteristics of actual water. But in doing so, we are no longer talking about water, strictly speaking, under rigid designation.

That is, if we call a substance that has nothing in common with water, "water", perhaps all we are doing is misusing the word.

I didn't say 'we' — Wayfarer

No. But I did.

The result? You can happily indulge in the idiosyncratic use of "philosophical perspective" that you envision, but others need not agree.

You can happily indulge in the idiosyncratic use of "philosophical perspective" that you envision, but others need not agree — Banno

Of course. A large part of philosophy about managed disagreement. I've learned a ton from disagreeing with contributors here.

I'll pay that.

On the proviso that their disagreement is coherent and well defended, and that they talk to the criticisms presented. As indeed, you do.

Others are not so obliging.

Of course. A large part of philosophy about managed disagreement. I've learned a ton from disagreeing with contributors here. — Wayfarer

Acknowledging disagreement is not the same as claiming that others who disagree must not understand. So, I said "elitist cop-out", and in the case of our disagreement, all the more so since you know I once agreed with what you still argue.

Didi I understand it then when I agreed with it and now somehow lost that understanding, or did I apply critical evaluation and realize that what I thought I understood was based on invalid reasoning?

On the proviso that their disagreement is coherent and well defended, and that they talk to the criticisms presented. As indeed, you do. — Banno

I'm sorry but I find it hard to believe you really think that, at least in the context of my discussions with @Wayfarer.

In some possible world, water has none of the characteristics it has in our world. — Banno

Okay, but if that is so I have no idea why we would say it is water and not anything else.

Well, perhaps recent experience has led me to appreciate Way's integrity, at least compared to others hereabouts. Might leave it at that.

Fair enough―I do agree that he has far more integrity than some...and he's a good fellow to boot.

There are numerous other examples. The upshot is that most philosophers who care now reject description theories. — Banno

Interestingly, John Searle takes a sort of descriptivist internal approach in his book “Intentionality”. He says, “The external causal chain plays no explanatory role whatever in either Kripke’s or Donnellan’s account, as I will explain shortly. The only chain that matters is a transfer of Intentional content from one use of an expression to the next, in every case reference is secured in virtue of descriptivist Intentional content in the mind of the speaker who uses the expression.”

Yep. A ways back. Perhaps he hasn't changed his mind.

I'd take a different path, more in line with looking at use, but taking on some of Searle's other work on status functions and collective intent.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time?

Or, if not, if truth does not contradict truth, then it seems to me that we still have "one" truth and not a plurality of sui generis "truths" (plural).

As I mentioned earlier, a difficulty with social "usefulness" being the ground of truth is that usefulness is itself shaped by current power relations. It is not "useful" to contradict the Party in 1984 (the same being true in Stalin's Soviet Union or North Korea). Does this mean "Big Brother is always right,' because everyone in society has been engineered towards agreeing? Because this has become useful to affirm?

IS there some conclusion that you would like to draw from all this?

Yes, that the one sentence explanation of essences you've offered is metaphysically insubstantial (which was @Wayfarer's point in the other thread). Now, there are attempts to use this basic conceptual machinery to develop a more robust notion of essence. The point made in the articles referenced earlier is that the machinery itself is perhaps inadequate for this task (or perhaps requires modification). It's hard to start with a system designed with nominalist presuppositions and work one's way back to essences, perhaps impossible.

In particular, if it leaves open the possibility that "essential" is only predicated of things accidentally, it is not even really a theory of essences in anything like the classical sense, more a method of stipulation that could be developed into a workable theory of essences.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time? — Count Timothy von Icarus

What I got from @Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view. When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist.

Beyond this, I don’t have a significant interest in the true nature of reality. I imagine you’re unlikely to be a Rorty fan, but didn’t he say that truth is not about getting closer to some metaphysical reality; it’s about what vocabularies and beliefs serve us best at a given time? I'm sympathetic to this, but my interest is superficial.

As I mentioned earlier, a difficulty with social "usefulness" being the ground of truth is that usefulness is itself shaped by current power relations. It is not "useful" to contradict the Party in 1984 (the same being true in Stalin's Soviet Union or North Korea). Does this mean "Big Brother is always right,' because everyone in society has been engineered towards agreeing? Because this has become useful to affirm? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well it may well be useful for one's survival to accept that Big Brother is right, so at one level (that of ruthless pragmatism) sure. But being compelled to believe something out of fear of jail or death is a different matter altogether, isn't it?

What I got from @Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view.[/quote

Of course. Just the ones that are useful to affirm are "true"... and "false." Maybe neither too. Perhaps in the interest of greater tolerance we shall proclaim in this case that there both is and is-not a One True Truth (TM)?

But that doesn't really seem to work. To say "is" and "is-not" here is really just to deny "is." Yet can it be "wrong" to affirm the "One True Truth" in this case?

When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist

Why not just: "there are different ways of describing the same thing that might be equally correct. Some might be more useful in some situations. And some might appear to contradict each other if one is not careful with one's distinctions, simplifying assumptions, definitions, clarifications, etc." as opposed to the idea that something can be both true and not-true depending on what is useful?

I imagine you’re unlikely to be a Rorty fan, but didn’t he say that truth is not about getting closer to some metaphysical reality; it’s about what vocabularies and beliefs serve us best at a given time?

Yes, is what Rorty says true? I know Rorty says it is "more useful." Is it truly more useful? I would deny it. But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't. If there aren't, and we are both just asserting sentiment, then won't this just becomes a power struggle? (I like my chances against Rorty since I still have a heart beat).

Well it may well be useful for one's survival to accept that Big Brother is right, so at one level (that of ruthless pragmatism) sure. But being compelled to believe something out of fear of jail or death is a different matter altogether, isn't it?

Yes, but if you're the one doing the "compelling" it can be plenty "useful" right? Truth becoming a power relation doesn't ensure that you always win the power game.

We can talk about water because we learned what water is from our teachers, and they in turn from theirs. And so the reference to "water" is independent of any description, including finding out that water is H₂O.

On this account, the basis is a casual chain stretching back through time rather than any particular attribute of water.

Something like that. — Banno

I'd say: exactly like that. This is pure Kripke, and explains why he says things like "we don't need a telescope to identify the table" etc. This is a theory about what words identify, not about what things are. Kripke presumes a difference. As it happens, water is H₂O. The word "water" knows nothing of this. We would surely use the same word, just as our ancestors did, if water were something else. An account of what water actually is -- some sort of essence? -- is quite a different matter.

It is logically possible to describe a world in which a substance that is not H₂O is called ‘water’ and has none of the characteristics of actual water. But in doing so, we are no longer talking about water, strictly speaking, under rigid designation. — Banno

I think @Janus' question remains. "None of the characteristics" is quite a leap, even in terms of logical possibility. I can do without the characteristic of having two hydrogen atoms, but being clear and wet? Just how much "waterness" do we need in order to say, Ahah, this is what the causal chain is identifying?

if we call a substance that has nothing in common with water, "water", perhaps all we are doing is misusing the word. — Banno

I'd say so, leaving aside terminological ambiguities like whether ice should count as water.

So if "One Truth" (I guess I will start capitalizing it too) is "unhelpful," does that mean we affirm mutually contradictory truths based on what is "useful" at the time?
— @Count Timothy von Icarus

What I got from Banno seems to be that pluralistic or context-based truths don’t mean that every contradiction is true. Instead, truths depend on the situation, purpose, or point of view. When contradictions happen, it usually means they come from different ways of looking at things -not that truth doesn’t exist. — Tom Storm

I'd say further: In the context of "What is really real?" (the context in which @Banno said what he said), there is no truth, because the terms are hopelessly vague. Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! Different philosophers and traditions will use "real" to occupy different positions in their metaphysics. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this; we often need some sort of bedrock or stipulated term to hold down a conceptual place, and "real" is a time-honored one. The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real.

But there are either facts about what is "truly more useful" or there aren't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Subject to certain purposes, you might say. But there aren’t facts about usefulness in the transcendent or metaphysical sense. What we can point to is broad agreement, shared standards, and better or worse outcomes within a community or set of practices. Context and intersubjectivity.

Id say further: In the context of "What is really real?" (the context in which Banno said what he said), there is no truth, because the terms are hopelessly vague. Maybe the right way to say it is, There is no Truly True answer to the question of what is Really Real! Different philosophers and traditions will use "real" to occupy different positions in their metaphysics. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this; we often need some sort of bedrock or stipulated term to hold down a conceptual place, and "real" is a time-honored one. The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real. — J

Nicely put.

Subject to certain purposes, you might say.

And these are true measures of usefulness, or only "useful" measures for usefulness? The problem is that this seems to head towards an infinite regress. Something is "useful" according to some "pragmatic metric," which is itself only a "good metric" for determining "usefulness" according to some other pragmatically selected metric. It has to stop somewhere, generally in power, popularity contests, tradition, or sheer "IDK, I just prefer it."

So:

what we can point to is broad agreement,

So popularity makes something true? Truth is like democracy?

shared standards

Tradition makes something true?

and better or worse outcomes within a community or set of practices.

Better or worse according to who? Truly better or worse?

I hope you can see why I don't think this gets us past "everything is politics and power relations." I think Nietzsche was spot on as a diagnostician for where this sort of thing heads.



Well, either there is a truth about which truths are "pluralistic, context-dependent truths" or there isn't, right? Is "which truths are pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" a question for which the answers are themselves "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?"

To be sure, if one starts throwing around all sorts of capitalized concepts without explaining them, they will be confusing. I would generally assume that when someone asks a pluralist re truth about what is "really true," though, they are asking about the existence of truths that are not ultimately dependent on what some individual or community currently considers to be useful or true.

The mistake comes when we think we've consulted the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky and discovered what is Really Real.

A "mistake." Are you saying it would be wrong to affirm this? Curious. Would this be another of those "non-serious" philosophies that we can dismiss? But let me ask, are they "truly non-serious,' or would truths about which philosophies are "wrong," "mistakes," or "unserious" be "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?"

Second, what separates a pluralism that sees assertions of non-pluralism as mistakes from the "crude pluralism" discussed earlier? The problems of the "unity of dogmatism and relativism," the way their reinforce one another, do not seem resolved here.

“The external causal chain plays no explanatory role whatever in either Kripke’s or Donnellan’s account, as I will explain shortly. The only chain that matters is a transfer of Intentional content from one use of an expression to the next, in every case reference is secured in virtue of descriptivist Intentional content in the mind of the speaker who uses the expression.” — Richard B

Hey Richard,

Isn’t the above similar to just saying: “if we define our terms we can say whatever we want.”

“from one use” distinct from “to the next” is the defining of terms notion.
“Intentional content in the mind of the speaker” is the whatever we want notion.

So we have a group of distinct, though not unrelated items: actual, real, existing, being...

Possible worlds give us a neat way to talk about what is actual. In the space of possible worlds there is one that is of particular interest, because it is the one in which we happen to find ourselves. But of course, actual is an indexical term, like "here" or "now". It picks out the world of the speaker in a given context. For someone in another possible world, actual refers to their world.

Propositional calculus gives us a neat way to deal with "exists" using quantification. " to be is to be the value of a bound variable" and so on. "Unicorns have horns" vs. "There exists an x such that x is a unicorn and x has a horn." There are not actual Unicorns, yet unicorns have horns. The question "Do unicorns exist?" drops by the wayside.

An account of what is "real" was given earlier in this thread. It's not real, it's counterfeit; it's not real, it's an illusion; and so on. Unicorns are not real, they are mythical.

Numbers exist, since we can quantify over them. U(x)(x+0=x).

Are they actual? well, there are numbers of things in each possible world, even if that number is zero. They do not seem to be within possible worlds so much as a way of talking about the stuff in possible worlds. Like the law of noncontradiction, they are part of the framework in which possible and actual are set out.

Are they real? Some of them. Others are imaginary. — Banno

Effortlessly brilliant.

This is why I wish you and I could get along.

The only part I think I don’t follow is “real” and “imaginary” as applied to numbers.

It seems the sense of “real” when talking about unicorns, counterfeits, and illusions is one thing, but imaginary numbers (or not-real numbers) is more of a technical term and not the same sense of “real” as with the others.

I guess I’m asking, do imaginary numbers serve a similar function when used in an equation as say a unicorn functions in a proposition? Such that we can call one number “real” and another number “imaginary” in the same way as we might call a horse “real” and a unicorn “imaginary”?

(And you would be helping me by answering, which, I appreciate could be asking too much. I hope not.)

Distinctions between our intuitions about the real, actual, existing, etc. are the bread and butter of metaphysics. Indeed, words like actual, virtual, essential, substance, form, information, idea, being, potency, existence, etc. come from this tradition, which influenced the development of English.

Of course, it's unhelpful to make vague distinctions. But that's not generally what metaphysics does (at least, there is some attempt at clarification). When people refer to the "common sense" meanings of such terms, they are sort of appealing to the residue of millennia of metaphysical and theological speculation. It is also unhelpful to use the same terms in different ways, and metaphysics often does this. It does this precisely because it is always striving to make these terms more definite. I would say that historically, the terms are vague precisely because so many people have tried to clarify them in different ways.

Formalism is one way to try to clarify terms. But a difficulty here is that not all explanations and understandings are equally easy to formalize. Hegel's dialectic couldn't be formalized until the 1980s with major advances in mathematics, particularly category theory. Analogical predication, the a core feature of classical metaphysics, has yet to be convincingly formalized. Indeed, arguably logic is rightly the domain of univocal predication alone.

Certainly, discussions of logic and the form of arguments and discourse can inform metaphysics. But I think the influence tends to go more in the other direction. Metaphysics informs logic (material and formal) and informs the development of formalisms. This can make pointing to formalisms circular if they are used to justify a metaphysical position.

Is "which truths are pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" a question for which the answers are themselves "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, generally.

A "mistake." Are you saying it would be wrong to affirm this? Curious. Would this be another of those "non-serious" philosophies that we can dismiss? — Count Timothy von Icarus

You seem to have me confused with someone else. :smile: I am not a relativist about truth or, in most contexts, values. I do, however, believe that relativism can't be dismissed by pointing to the standard problems of self-reference. Nor do I think that acknowledging "pluralistic, context-dependent truths" makes someone a relativist. Anyway, being doubtful about "real" isn't at all the same as being doubtful about "true," at least not for me.

would truths about which philosophies are "wrong," "mistakes," or "unserious" be "pluralistic, context-dependent truths?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course, so much so that I'd hesitate to talk about "truths" here at all. Or maybe I don't understand what a non-context-dependent truth about a philosophy would be.

Second, what separates a pluralism that sees assertions of non-pluralism as mistakes from the "crude pluralism" discussed earlier? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not sure I understand this. Are you referring back to a characterization I gave of "crude relativism"?

I am not a relativist about truth

No? And yet to the question of where relativism applies you say that this itself is subject to relativism.

Of course, so much so that I'd hesitate to talk about "truths" here at all. Or maybe I don't understand what a non-context-dependent truth about a philosophy would be.

Presuming that philosophy includes epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, logic, and natural philosophy/the philosophy of the special sciences, this would mean that there are no non-relativized, pluralized truths vis-á-vis most of human knowledge though, no?

But the very claim that the truths of philosophy are relative is a (presumably non-context-dependent and potentially contradictory?) claim about metaphysics and knowledge.

At any rate, I'm curious, if one is not a relativist, but assumes that there aren't truths about epistemology, metaphysics, logic, or ethics, how does one go about demonstrating the relativism is not correct? What would be your counterargument to the relativist?

I'm assuming there is some misunderstanding here because it seems to me obviously impossible to accept that there are no non-pluralized truths about philosophy generally and to move from this to an anti-relativist stance, particularly if we have also affirmed that the question of whether or not any topic is relativistic or not is itself relativistic.

What is the argument against relativism given these starting premises?

Nor do I think that acknowledging "pluralistic, context-dependent truths" makes someone a relativist.

I agree here. The truth of: "it is raining," is context dependent for example. However, if one expands pluralism to the whole of logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of nature, or if the justification of logic and predication rests on "we decide" I cannot see how a fairly all-encompassing relativism wouldn't be the result.

Certainly, discussions of logic and the form of arguments and discourse can inform metaphysics. But I think the influence tends to go more in the other direction. Metaphysics informs logic (material and formal) and informs the development of formalisms. This can make pointing to formalisms circular if they are used to justify a metaphysical position. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So I appreciate this.

I just thought that, given how Banno’s post was so clear and succinct, I’d ask about the one point that I didn’t follow, namely how the use of “real” as in “real numbers” was somehow similar to “real” as in “are unicorns real”.

I’m not a math guy, and the use of “real” and “irrational” numbers always seemed like poetry about math to me. But I think mathematicians see these as distinctions that add philosophic/metaphysical weight to the different types of numbers.

The terms used to distinguish numbers from natural to real to irrational to imaginary, both fascinate me (as a philosopher who needs to use these same terms all of time), and perplex me (as they seem like technical mathematical distinctions, and don’t actually mean anything like “natural” or “real” or “imaginary” as a philosopher otherwise means them. Or do they? Which is my question here about “real” numbers.

Certainly, discussions of logic and the form of arguments and discourse can inform metaphysics. But I think the influence tends to go more in the other direction. Metaphysics informs logic (material and formal) and informs the development of formalisms. This can make pointing to formalisms circular if they are used to justify a metaphysical position. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that's exactly right. I think the reason Analytic philosophy likes "possible worlds" is because its reified formalism is logically manipulable in a very straightforward way. On that single criterion it is better than Aristotelian essentialism. But in no other way is the notion of "possible worlds" more helpful or intuitive or functional then the notion of "essence." The common person will use the latter and hardly ever use the former. The claim that "possible world" means something substantive relies on circular reasoning. The notion of possibility is entirely impotent without some undergirding metaphysics.