I didn't actually respond to your post.

What exactly is Kripke's value in calling them identity statements? — Richard B

It's not just Kripke, and it's about substitution.

In set theory, the Axiom of Extensionality is

$\forall A \, \forall B \, \left( \forall x \, (x \in A \leftrightarrow x \in B) \rightarrow A = B \right)$

Given two sets A and B, if they have the same elements then they are the same set. Now one way to treat this is as a definition of "=". It's also the definition of extensionality.

If we are instead talking about functions,
$\forall x \, (f(x) = g(x)) \Rightarrow f = g$

and for predicates
$\forall x \, (P(x) \leftrightarrow Q(x)) \Rightarrow P = Q$

and in arithmetic
$x = y \rightarrow f(x) = f(y)$

That is, x=y if they denote the same number.

Or generally,
$a = b \quad \iff \quad \forall \varphi \big( \varphi(a) \leftrightarrow \varphi(b) \big)$
In an extensional context, a=b iff for any string, substituting a for b does not change the value of that string.

Now in physics, extensional equivalence might best be thought of as when two sides of an equation are measured in different ways but always yield the same values in every case where the law holds, and the equation is not a definition, but an empirical or theoretical identification.

$F=ma$ and $v = \frac{d x}{d t}$ are definitions, so the extensionality is built in. But in Ohm’s Law, $V = IR$, the two sides of the "=" are measured in quite different ways, and yet their value is the same. Much the same for $\langle E_k \rangle = \frac{3}{2} k_B T$. What's suggested is that $F$ can be substituted for $ma$, $V$ for $IR$, and $\langle E_k \rangle$ for $\frac{3}{2} k_B T$.

There's a catch here, since the circumstances in which the substitution occurs must be carefully controlled. And indeed there is a benign circularity in that extensionality is defined in terms of substitution, and yet substitution is not permitted in cases that are extensional opaque.

If your "⇔" is understood as, in the appropriate circumstances, permitting the stuff on the left to be substituted for the stuff on the right, then it is extensional and does much the same job as "=".

The identity here isn't metaphysical; it's just substitution.

And that's pretty much Kripke's point. If a=b, then you can substitute a for b and get the very same result, provided that you are working in areas where extensionality works.

So if we discover that this lectern is made of wood, then in every possible world in which this lectern exists, it is made of wood. And if in some possible world the lectern before us is made of plastic, then it is a different lectern.

And if we discover that water is H₂O, then ☐(water=H₂O). And so on through the many different examples. Notice how each of these is a hypothetical – an "if... then...", in which the antecedent is found a posteriori - by looking around. But all that is being done here is ensuring that we keep our language consistent. Once we fix reference by accepting the antecedent, we are obligated to respect the modal consequences of that act of naming as expressed by the consequent.

Going back to the "heat is average energy of the molecules" example, Kripke fell over because heat is a sensation, and fails the test of being extensional. But temperature is extensional. That's why changing from heat to temperature works. And that also why his examples of pain and c-fibres are problematic - pain is not extensional.

So much of Malcom's - and your - criticism is valid. But Kripke wasn't entirely wrong, either.

Philosophy is limited to discourse, and so must be the subjects of its questions. Yet a third version would insist on a distinction between "answer" and "subject": thus, we can answer a philosophical question within the realm of philosophical discourse, but that doesn't mean that the subject of such discourse is also necessarily linguistic. — J

The most direct way of responding would be that truth can be distinguished from delusion or falsehood. That truth is what remains when delusion is overcome.

I don't know how many persons of Indian descent you know, but a common name in India is 'Satya' (I worked for one as a tech writer for a few years. I suppose Latin equivalents for such a name might be 'Felicity' and 'Verity'.) Of course many individuals thus named do not therefore exemplify or embody 'truth' but what the name denotes or conveys is the lived quality of truth, 'one in whom delusion no longer holds sway'. It conveys something of the virtuous quality of truth, which is hard to discern, not because it is a difficult concept, but because of the all-pervading and taken-for-granted existence of delusion. According to ancient philosophy, delusion is kind of the default for the human condition, and philosophy the pursuit of the antidote.

Those were the days.

A key distinction was between "ens rationis" (beings of reason/mind) and "ens reale" (real being). "Ens = being" ("esse" is the verb form of "being") and reale comes from "res," which is often translated as "thing." Although "realis" can mean "true" as well (the unity of truth and being in the Doctrine of Transcendentals on display).

Funny enough, "ens" can sometimes be translated as "thing" too, so we could be distinguishing between "things of reason" and "thing things." :rofl: But "things of reason" and "true things" might be misleading, since the ens rationis are not illusions.

The best example I can think of are second intentions, which include things like genus. Animals truly exist, but one never will find just "an animal" out in the world. It is always a particular species of the genus. There is also a medieval distinction between the virtual and real. The virtual is contained in things as power (hence sharing a root with virtue/strength), but in the form of a potency that has not yet been actualized.

In "cogito ergo sum," "sum"—I am—is a form of "ens."

If philosophy becomes merely a matter of keeping our language games internally consistent, then it risks becoming a kind of syntax-policing—about saying what can or can't be said, not about what is or must be. That’s a long way from asking what is real and how it might be known.

I would have thought that the existence of necessary truth, and questions as to what that implies, or why they are necessary, are fundamental philosophical questions, about more than simply 'what we can say'.

:up:

The most direct way of responding would be that truth can be distinguished from delusion or falsehood.

Yes, and also what stays the same through mutability, since it does no good to speak only of what has since passed out of being.

And if we discover that water is H₂O, then ☐(water=H₂O). And so on through the many different examples. Notice how each of these is a hypothetical – an "if... then...", in which the antecedent is found a posteriori - by looking around. But all that is being done here is ensuring that we keep our language consistent. Once we fix reference by accepting the antecedent, we are obligated to respect the modal consequences of that act of naming as expressed by the consequent. — Banno

From the same paper, Kripke on Heat and Sensations of Heat, Malcolm says something interesting in his introductory paragraph,

"One thesis of Kripke's is that natural kinds are 'originally identified' by human beings in terms of certain external marks and properties, but that scientific investigations may reveal that none of the properties by which we 'originally identified' a natural kind are essential properties of things of that kind. For example, tigers were originally identified by the properties of being large, feline, carnivorous animals, tawny yellow in color, with black stripes and white belly. But a scientific investigation of the 'internal structure' of tigers might have proved that something could have the all of the 'external appearances' of a tiger and yet not be a tiger because it doesn't have the right 'internal structure'. According to Kripke we might even find out, or have found out, 'tiger had none of the properties by which we original identified them'. This contention seems to me to be exceeding strange."

I as well find this exceedingly strange. Kripke often refers, in Naming and Necessity, to this mysterious "internal structure" that science can discover about tigers, but never mentions what this is specifically. But for me, what is equally mysterious is how does Kripke characterize an activity as a "scientific investigation". I am not sure why he so confidently declares "scientific investigations" as having the final say in what is or is not a natural kind, while human senses are somewhat problematic Take for example "water = H2O". Over millions of years, humans have evolved an exceptional detector of fresh water, called our taste buds and a brain. Our ability to distinguish between fresh water and sea water was essential for survival, the better we can make subtle distinctions of salt level in water, the less damage to our organs, and the less likelihood of dehydration. Without any "scientific investigation", or for that matter any linguistic tools, humans are able to identified fresh water from salt water. Could humans have problems using their fresh water detectors? Of course, injury or illness certainly could play a role in how well we can make this distinction. But, is what we do in a "scientific investigation" significant different? Well, technologically speaking, we need the aid of science to develop some artificial detector made of metal and silicon, combine it with some programming and we can get the instrument to detect H2O in whatever liquid we may inject into the system. Could the instrument malfunction and tells us something in error, of course. But the main difference I see here is one detector is a product of millions of years, and the other is the product of human engineering, but both are fallible.

We establish "natural kinds" because we as humans can agree on definition and judgment as it is applied to our natural surroundings, not because we identified some essence that exists in all possible worlds.

You might find a schoolbook example of a platonic riddle relevant in the context:

A man (not a man)
Throws a stone (not a stone)
At a bird (not a bird)
On a tree (not a tree)

And the answer to the ride is that a eunuch throws a piece of pumice at a bat hanging on to a reed - everything in it is not as it appears.

That was given in Russell’s HWP as example of Socratic essentialism and not being taken in by appearances.

It's a poor example that Kripke chose, and a somewhat difficult idea to get across, but the point Kripke makes is at least in part quite right, if misunderstood.

You may be familiar with the theory that a name refers in virtue of an associated description, and the various arguments mounted against it after the advent of Kripke's semantics. It was found to be inadequate in certain regards, and few still adherence to it.

What Kripke is doing is pointing out that this applies to types as well as to individuals. It's a hypothetical, in line with the familiar Thales example and others. If we did find out that everything we knew about tigers were mistaken or in error, that would nevertheless be a discovery about tigers. It follows that "tiger" does not refer to tigers in virtue of some description that sets out their characteristics.

In the hypothetical, we had "established" what a tiger was on the basis of an "agree on definition and judgment as it is applied to our natural surroundings" that was, in the hypothetical, wrong. And yet we nevertheless still manage to pick out what is a tiger and what isn't. It follows that we do not pick out what is a tiger and what isn't, on the basis of supposed essential characteristics of tigers.

The upshot is agreement - we indeed do not identify tigers on the basis of some essence that exists in all possible worlds.

The argument is on p.120 of N&N, for those reading along.

Yep. Notice that reference remains intact despite the failure of each description. Hence reference is not achieved by using descriptions, nor by essences.

I read it decades ago but I’ve only recently come to see what it’s about

The problem is the term, "essence". What is an essence? Is it akin to a substance? What is a substance? The issue appears to be a misuse of language, or using words which have no coherent definition which makes them meaningless.

There are simply characteristics that occur together a vast majority of the time. The characteristics of tigers occur together 99.9% of the time. Female and male tigers make tiger babies, not a mixed lot of various baby species.

Just Google, "characteristics of tigers" and you will see the AI response of all the physical and behavioral characteristics of tigers. How can so many characteristics occur together 99% of the time if there isn't something real going on that is not dependent upon some agreement?

Good points there. I am not particularly sure if it makes sense to have more faith in recent scientific theories, as opposed to our bedrock understanding of the human experience, for these very reasons. Given the history of caloric, phlogiston, N rays, absolute space and time, vital substance, and the corpuscular view of the atom and molecule, it seems that more recent theories are more likely to be proven wrong.

Yet what would it take to convince us that our ancestors, in crossing streams or standing out in the rain, experienced an essentially different water from us? Or how would we be convinced that people did not *really* experience our modern tigers or trees?

I would maintain that if one had reason to doubt that the "water" and "rain" of Homer, the Aeneid, Chaucer, or Genesis is essentially what we still mean by "water," or that their "horse" is not what we mean by "horse," etc., this would be vastly more surprising then finding out that, though the periodic table was useful, it is superceded by some other formulation. Indeed, if Homer and Charles Dickens (and so Charles Darwin as well) could be speaking of essentially different forms of "water" and "horse" and "tiger," this would cast doubt on any grasp of human history, which in turn should cast doubt on any faith in scientific institutions.

As John Ioannidis points out in his paper "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False," a lot of scientific findings turn out to be the result of bias and statistical noise. We should have far less faith in recent peer reviewed papers, even those based on experiments, then on many non-experimentally verifiable claims such as "the Boston Celtics won the last NBA championship," or "the US Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776." If the former can be false, we have no reason to have faith in science. Yet our understanding of the former relies on things not essentially changing from age to age or moment to moment.

On a view where knowledge is entirely propositional (or even linguistic), "justified true belief," it makes sense to ascribe a sort of priority to the propositions of science. Personally, I find such a view problematic for a variety of reasons. Yet this cannot lead to the supposition that our ancestors "didn't know water" absolutely, without courting absurdity.

We establish "natural kinds" because we as humans can agree on definition and judgment as it is applied to our natural surroundings, not because we identified some essence that exists in all possible worlds.

And how do we do that? Why do we do that? What's the causal explanation? If natural kinds such as "ants" do not exist until man comes along and says "this counts as an ant," how does he decide on "ant" as a particular type of thing, instead of infinitely many other combinations he could have specified?

Further, why did disparate linguistic groups developing in relative isolation all come up with words to denote "ant" and other different animals? Why did all peoples develop words to denote different members of the same animal species if kinds did not exist until they were positively "established?" (Or did they already exist?)

To my mind, the most plausible explanation as to "why did disparate peoples develop names for the ant and identify different types of ants as ants," is "because ants already existed before man named them." Biology agrees on this point. But then there was something that made ants ants that existed prior to man calling them such. Organisms existed as organic wholes (the fern , the dinosaur, etc.) prior to language. Yet this is all the "essence" is originally called in to do in the first place, to explain how different sorts of things are (as opposed to merely being called) different sorts of things.



Also good points.

"Essence" and "substance" have been subject to profound mutations and many formulations, but this doesn't mean that there aren't well developed definitions for each individual different traditions. We actually have multiple well developed definitions that contradict one another.

The same applies to all sorts of important terms such as "true," "real," "physical," "matter," "virtual," "reason," "intellect," "form," "idea," etc.

So, such terms need to be understood in their context.

Although "99.9%" probably undersells things. Do ants, or trees, or ducks, or men every give birth to tigers? Has anything but a tiger ever given birth to a tiger?

Even in hybrids, the hybrid's traits are an admixture. Horses and donkeys give birth to mules, not cats and frogs, etc.

Note that this also defines what humans find "useful." If one tries to breed one's male pigs to one's female sheep, the family will starve.

Indeed, if Homer and Charles Dickens (and so Charles Darwin as well) could be speaking of essentially different forms of "water" and "horse" and "tiger," this would cast doubt on any grasp of human history, which in turn should cast doubt on any faith in scientific institutions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

When someone is faced to take the initial plunge into any institution, whether religious, scientific, or philosophical, one can have faith to compel themselves into action to learn what this institution is all about. With time, one begins to learn the history, language, values, and ability to judge in that institution. Along the way. we also can learn its limitations and deficiencies. The next step, I believe, should be pragmatic. This is when faith is left behind and one uses what experiences they have gathered and apply them on how they see fit. There is a challenge in reacting in such a manner. All of these institutions will sometimes instill behaviors that can lead to rigid thinking and intolerance. I could find a religious practice that can calm my anxiety, and a medical technique that is useless. Or, find a philosophical idea inspirational, while a religious doctrine oppressive. Obviously, my tradition has shape me in such a way that I view myself as a free agent who can do this risk/benefit analysis. But even in such a tradition, there are challenges to having this position as well.

In an extensional context, a=b iff for any string, substituting a for b does not change the value of that string. — Banno

Forgive my ignorance. That suggests that you have an independent definition of "extensional context". But I thought that intersubstitutability was the definition of an extensional context. ?

If we did find out that everything we knew about tigers were mistaken or in error, that would nevertheless be a discovery about tigers. It follows that "tiger" does not refer to tigers in virtue of some description that sets out their characteristics. — Banno

Are you possibly confusing "All the propositions that we think we know about tigers are false" with "Each of the propositions that we think we know about tigers may be false"? Consider the discovery of black swans. How did they know that those black birds were swans? Similarly, a big cat with no stripes might not be a tiger.

Notice that reference remains intact despite the failure of each description. Hence reference is not achieved by using descriptions, nor by essences. — Banno

So now I'm wondering how reference is achieved.
I seem to remember that Kripke thinks it is achieved by an unbroken causal chain between the original christening and my use of the term. That might work for the purposes of logic, but it doesn't seem a likely candidate for explaining how we achieve reference. Any history we have of the term might also turn out to be false. So how is it achieved?

So how is it achieved?

A bajillion theories of reference (or supposition) have developed over the years; apparently it's a tough question.

Some of the "problems" that crop up seem to be tied to particular metaphysical assumptions though, e.g.:

Concerns of this sort are hardly new. W.V.O. Quine (1960), for instance, famously claims that reference is ‘inscrutable’, or that there is simply no matter of fact what a given referential term refers to. His arguments, however, depend on certain methodological constraints that many would now be inclined to reject. Not so with the related ‘problem of the many’, popularized at roughly the same time by Peter Unger (1980) and Geach (1980). To see the issue, consider someone using an utterance of ‘that’ to refer to a cloud in the sky. What exactly is this cloud? The obvious answer would seem to be: a set of water droplets suspended in the air in such-and-such region. But what about some droplet right on the edge of that region? Should it be counted or not? In fact, there will be innumerable such droplets, and we seem to have no systematic way of answering this question: if we say ‘yes’, we face a continuous march outwards; if we say ‘no’, we face a continuous retreat. Neither option seems even remotely satisfactory, and yet if we cannot provide an answer to the question of what exactly the cloud is then it might well seem that we have equally well failed to answer the question of what the relevant use of ‘that’ refers to.[19]

The "problem of the many" strikes me as only particularly problematic for a certain sort of supervenience metaphysics for instance.

An older question was: "what do our words signify, our own concepts, or things?" I suppose that if one goes with the first, some problems of reference (including the above) disappear, but you get new ones.

It seems obvious that people have things in mind that they intend to refer to in most cases. However, what about a stop light? It signifies "apply your breaks" to drivers, but not to pedestrians, and then reverses who it signifies "go" to with nary a thought.

"Today, as usual, I came into the room and there was the bowl of flowers on the table. I went up to them, caressed them, and smelled over them. I thank God for flowers! There's nothing so real to me as flowers. Here the genuine essence of the world's substance, as its gayest and most hilarious speaks to me. It seems unworthy even to think as erect, and waving on pillars of sap. Sap! Sap!"

O.K. Bouwsma, "Decartes' Evit Genius"

"Save the surface, and you save all." Sherwin-Williams

From, Pursuit of Truth, W.V. Quine

I'm not too keen on talk of essences, either. Whatever they are, they are peripheral to the issue of what is real and what isn't.

We have three or four differing views of the nature of essences here.

There's the older view in which to understand what something is just is to understand it's essence. That's perhaps what Tim is thinking here. On that account, being real and having an essence are pretty much the same thing.

There's the more recent analytic natural language view, from the later Wittgenstein through Malcolm and maybe @Richard B, and close to that taken more formally by Quine and friends, that there's not much more to essences than confusion.

Then there's Kripke's suggestion, that if we must think of essences we can think of them as the properties had by something in every possible world in which that thing exists. This has the benefit of being formalisable and reasonably clear while keeping to a minimum any metaphysical consequences.

Then you may be suggesting that we can be rid of essences by doing some sort of Bayesian analysis that allows us to conclude that tigers are real. Maybe.

But you and I might agree that essences have little to do with what is and isn't real.

Thanks for the clear response, Ludwig

Forgive my ignorance. That suggests that you have an independent definition of "extensional context". But I thought that intersubstitutability was the definition of an extensional context. ? — Ludwig V

No, that's right, this is the circularity I mentioned. It's an extensional context if substitution works. Being extensional and allowing substitution that preserves truth are the same thing. We are either in an extensional context, or not.

Are you possibly confusing "All the propositions that we think we know about tigers are false" with "Each of the propositions that we think we know about tigers may be false"? — Ludwig V

I don't believe so. The idea is that we learn what some thing is, name it, and then discover that everything we knew about it was false.

I couldn't locate the original Thales example - I think it was Kaplan - so I had ChatGPT reconstructed something similar:

Consider the historical figure Thales of Miletus. Tradition holds that he was the first philosopher, perhaps the first to suggest that water is the fundamental substance of all things. Yet, on closer inspection, our supposed knowledge of Thales collapses into uncertainty. Were these views really his? Were the anecdotes true? Or are they accretions of later doxography and myth-making?

As historical scrutiny deepens, it becomes clear that we know almost nothing about Thales with certainty. Yet this very realization—that we know nothing about him—is itself a fact about Thales. It is not a fact about someone else or a mythological construct; it concerns the very individual to whom the name "Thales" refers.

Therefore, paradoxically, our ignorance becomes a form of reference. The name "Thales" successfully picks out an individual in history, even though our beliefs about him may be largely mistaken or minimal. This supports the view that the name refers rigidly and directly, independent of any particular descriptive content we might associate with it. The denotation succeeds not despite our ignorance but is revealed in it. — ChatGPT

What this shows is that we don't manage to pick out Thales in virtue of what we know about Thales, a somewhat counterintuitive result. There's a bunch of such examples, from Kripke, Donnellan, Kaplan and others, that have pretty much undermined the so-called "descriptivist" account. The suggested replacement - the "causal" account - has about twice as many adherents on the PhilPapers survey, despite not being all that well articulated.

What this doesn't rule out is the sort of view that might be seen in a Wittgensteinian account, in which reference is an aspect of the more general language games in which we participate, or even a sub-game within those games. On such a view a reference may be counted as successful if we get on with what we are doing, regardless of how it managed to denote it's target. I think Malcolm's concerns were misplaced (@Richard B)

So now I'm wondering how reference is achieved. — Ludwig V

Good question. To my eye, it's clear that we sometimes do work out a reference from a description associated with it; it's just that we can show that this is not what happens in every case. Indeed, it should hardly be a surprise to learn that there is more than one way for a reference to succeed.

And even less reason to suppose that references are dependent on some sort of essence.

I've my own ideas about how to explain reference and such, (@J), but we might move on without a general theory of reference, if we agree that somehow it manages to work despite our not understanding quite how.

A bajillion theories of reference (or supposition) have developed over the years; apparently it's a tough question. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you suggesting that you think it is not a tough question? If so, I would love to know more.

The "problem of the many" strikes me as only particularly problematic for a certain sort of supervenience metaphysics for instance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, the cloud issue is just a sorites paradox. You're right, it makes very specific assumptions, which, IMO, are, let us say, unhelpful.

It seems obvious that people have things in mind that they intend to refer to in most cases. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is indeed. But explaining what that means is less clear.

It's an extensional context if substitution works. — Banno

OK. It's just that I'm not sure that it does work. But perhaps that's beyond our scope here.

I don't believe so. The idea is that we learn what some thing is, name it, and then discover that everything we knew about it was false. — Banno

There's something very odd about saying that we learn what some thing is, and then discover that what we have learnt about it is false. What is the "it" here?

What this shows is that we don't manage to pick out Thales in virtue of what we know about Thales, a somewhat counterintuitive result. — Banno

Yes. But that means that we do know how to pick out Thales.

Try a different example. Homer. I'm sure you know about him, and that there are good grounds for thinking that he never existed. But those stories exist; someone must have written them - or perhaps they are folk tales with no author in the sense that we apply the term. So our expectations when we learn the Homer wrote those epics are disappointed. But not everything that we learnt when we learnt the name is false.

Good question. To my eye, it's clear that we sometimes do work out a reference from a description associated with it; it's just that we can show that this is not what happens in every case. Indeed, it should hardly be a surprise to learn that there is more than one way for a reference to succeed. — Banno

I agree with that. One alternative way is by means of an ostensive definition - which, of course, isn't a definition at all by the usual standards. Nonetheless, it works.

What this doesn't rule out is the sort of view that might be seen in a Wittgensteinian account, in which reference is an aspect of the more general language games in which we participate, or even a sub-game within those games. On such a view a reference may be counted as successful if we get on with what we are doing, regardless of how it managed to denote it's target. — Banno

I agree with that. I'm still a bit puzzled about why I think that "how it managed to denote it's target" is not a answerable question, but "how do you know that Thales is not Homer" is.

Although "99.9%" probably undersells things. Do ants, or trees, or ducks, or men every give birth to tigers? Has anything but a tiger ever given birth to a tiger?

Even in hybrids, the hybrid's traits are an admixture. Horses and donkeys give birth to mules, not cats and frogs, etc.

Note that this also defines what humans find "useful." If one tries to breed one's male pigs to one's female sheep, the family will starve. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, usefulness is dependent on what is real or true. For something to be useful means that there is some sense of truth attached to it.

I used 99.9% to represent the fact that species evolve and species cannot evolve unless the present species mutates in some way.

I think that when we speak of "essences" and "substances" we are referring to those distinct clusters of shared characteristics that occur together 99.9% of the time. Species that share some characteristics of others, or where characteristics overlap are typically the descendants of the other species, or share a common ancestor with another species.

Yep. Notice that reference remains intact despite the failure of each description. Hence reference is not achieved by using descriptions, nor by essences. — Banno

There is no reference if the scribbles refer to something that is not the case. One can only confirm there is a reference by making some observation about what the scribbles refer to. If there is no reference then they are just scribbles and not words. It's just that we often trust people are not lying when having a conversation with them so we don't feel a need to confirm everything that is said.

Scribbles are just scribbles unless they refer to something. What makes a scribble a word and not just a scribble?

You can draw any scribbles on this page but what makes some scribble meaningful? You might say it depends on how it is used. And I will ask, "used for what? - to accomplish what?" To use anything means you have a goal in mind. What is your goal in using some scribbles?

Then there's Kripke's suggestion, that if we must think of essences we can think of them as the properties had by something in every possible world in which that thing exists. This has the benefit of being formalisable and reasonably clear while keeping to a minimum any metaphysical consequences.

Then you may be suggesting that we can be rid of essences by doing some sort of Bayesian analysis that allows us to conclude that tigers are real. Maybe.

But you and I might agree that essences have little to do with what is and isn't real. — Banno

For me, things are real if they possess causal power. Rocks and ideas are real because they possess causal power. You can use your ideas to change things in the world and rocks can make you feel pain when you drop one on your foot. Essences would be akin to how different things interact with each other. For instance light is either reflected or passes right through objects depending on what the atomic structure of those objects, and which wavelengths of light are reflected or absorbed is dependent upon the same atomic structure.

When we go to the Moon and Mars we find rocks and mountains. So rocks and mountains seem to be supported by what Kripke is proposing. We also have something called convergent evolution where similar traits arise in similar environments. On Earth, having eyes is very useful as the atmosphere allows visible light to pass right through it. On similar Earth-like planets with a transparent atmosphere we would expect organisms to have eyes.

Scribbles are just scribbles unless they refer to something. What makes a scribble a word and not just a scribble?

You can draw any scribbles on this page but what makes some scribble meaningful? You might say it depends on how it is used. And I will ask, "used for what? - to accomplish what?" To use anything means you have a goal in mind. What is your goal in using some scribbles? — Harry Hindu

I'm thinking mutual agreement.

I'm thinking mutual agreement. — Patterner

Mutual agreement about how to use scribbles, or what the scribbles refer to? If the former, then what exactly are we agreeing on using the scribbles for - to accomplish what? If the latter then we use scribbles to refer to things.

Could we manage if we didn't agree on both?

Manage what - talking past each other? Sure.

I think you edited just before I posted.

The accomplishment is that we can communicate without audible speech. We often want or need to be able to do this. Sometimes so others in earshot don't know what we are communicating. Sometimes because we are not able to hear each other, such as when we are too far from each other, or when it's too noisy to hear each other. Sometimes because we want to preserve information so that people in the future will receive it.

Yes, scribbles refer to things. They refer to the sounds of spoken language. Sand, sorry, and song all start with the same scribble because the spoken words they represent all start with the same sound. Obviously, there is not a perfect matchup. Things change. Laugh, Ralph, and sniff all end with the same sound, but different scribbles represent that sound for each. There are multiple reasons for such differences. But we all still agree on things.

The key word here is "communication" and not "gaming". We use scribbles to communicate, not to play games - although we could play games with words and but that isn't the primary use of language.

The scribbles do not refer to the sounds of a spoken language. It is the sounds and the scribbles that refer to the same thing that is not another sound or scribble, just as the different sounds and scribbles of different languages refer to the same thing and is what makes it possible to translate languages in the first place. Because we often learn the sound before the scribble, we are actually translating the sound to the scribble when writing, but the sound refers to something else that is neither a sound or a scribble.

"Leia is my seven year old pet cat." is a string of scribbles that refers to something that is not another string of scribbles, but a living entity that both the sounds and scribbles refer to. Choosing to say it vs write it is dependent upon your intended audience, as you have explained, which is no different than choosing which language to say it in, which is dependent upon your audience.

The scribbles and sounds we use to refer to things that are not sounds and scribbles are arbitrary so we need rules for which string of scribbles/sounds refers to which things and events in the world. That is what we are agreeing on - the rules of reference.

I agree with everything except this:

The scribbles do not refer to the sounds of a spoken language. — Harry Hindu

Wikipedia says: An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language.

Britannica says: alphabet, set of graphs, or characters, used to represent the phonemic structure of a language.

Vocabulary.com says:An alphabet is a set of all the letters in a written language. The letters in an alphabet represent the different sounds in that language.

Google's AI Overview says:. An alphabet is a system of letters that represents the sounds of a language.

I would be surprised if any source said the scribbles don't represent the sounds of the spoken language.

Sure, the strings of scribbles refer to things. But they do so by representing the spoken sounds that refer to the things. It's not a coincidence that sand, sorry, and song all start with the same scribble. It was intentional. Spoken language came first. Then people came up with this particular way to represent the sounds they were speaking. If that was not the case, there would be no reason sand, sorry, and song all start with s, or plod, goad, and mind all end with d. And we wouldn't tell people just learning to read to "sound it out."