Do you assent to, or are you proposing, the following?

For all x, x is a planet iff x is called a planet

So you think that a stove can become a planet if everyone uses the word 'planet' to refer to it?

Doesn't that strike you as an absurd position? If not, we may have to dig a little deeper into why you think this. It strikes me as completely insane. I'd say myself it's still just a stove, and obviously not a planet; but now the word 'planet' can be used to refer to stoves, is all. — The Great Whatever

As I said in my previous post, I'm not saying that a stove can become a celestial body moving in an elliptical orbit round a star if everyone uses the word "planet" to refer to it (which is the misinterpretation that I assume you're making).

I do not think that at any point in human history Pluto became, or ceased being, a planet. Part of the confusion here I think is we're trying to treat linguistic practice as if it rested on decisions made by experts, which it doesn't. — The Great Whatever

Who does it rest on, then? The wider linguistic community? Then consider an analogous situation where it wasn't a small group of experts that redefined the word "planet" but every English-speaking person.

But you are saying it can become a planet if everyone uses the word 'planet' to refer to it?

But wait, didn't you just describe a planet? Something doesn't add up here. If it can't become a celestial body...then it can't become a planet. That's what a planet is, after all.

So tell me whether you assent to the above schema or are taking it seriously as an option; otherwise, I don't see how we can move forward.

But you are saying it can become a planet if everyone uses the word 'planet' to refer to it? — The Great Whatever

I'm saying that if we use the word "planet" to refer to stoves then the meaning of the word "planet" would be such that "stoves are planets" would be a tautology.

To be a planet is not to be a stove, regardless of what word we use to refer to stoves. If we refer to stoves using 'planet,' they're simply stoves we use the word 'planet' to refer to, not planets.

After all, a planet is a celestial body; since as you admit stoves would not become celestial bodies by virtue of being called 'planets,' it follows that they would not thereby becomes planets.

Suppose it was my goal to turn a stove into a planet. Would a reasonable way of going about this be to ask everyone to call it a planet?

Are you proposing the above formula?

I've repeatedly told you that I'm not claiming that we can turn a stove into a celestial body by naming it a planet. So I don't know why you keep bringing it up.

What I'm drawing attention to is the fact that Pluto was a planet but now isn't, even though nothing material about Pluto has changed – only our use of the word "planet". Therefore there is a connection between a thing's identity (as a planet) and our naming of that thing.

I've repeatedly told you that I'm not claiming that we can turn a stove into a celestial body by naming it a planet. So I don't know why you keep bringing it up. — Michael

But, since a planet is a celestial body, you can't change something into a planet without changing it into a celestial body. But you seem to be claiming that if everyone calls a stove a planet, then it will become a planet; but since it will not become a celestial body, this is wrong. Hence your position is incoherent, and merely protesting against the fact that I'm pointing this incoherence out will not help you, since the problem lies in your position and not any misunderstanding I have of it.

What I'm drawing attention to is the fact that Pluto was a planet but now isn't — Michael

Nonsense. According to my idiolect, Pluto was a planet and still is; according to the scientists, it isn't and never was. If it was the case that they determined whether Pluto was a planet based on the use of the word 'planet,' then they would have appealed to linguistic data in their decision, not data about Pluto's physical qualities.

I reject your datum; it's not the case that Pluto's planethood changed recently.

Again, do you accept the above schema, or are you proposing it? It's difficult to criticize your position if it can't be pinned down.

Nonsense. According to my idiolect, Pluto was a planet and still is; according to the scientists, it isn't and never was. — The Great Whatever

And according to my idiolect, Pluto was a planet and now isn't.

It's difficult to criticize your position if it can't be pinned down.

I've explained it quite clearly:

a) Pluto was a planet,
b) Pluto isn't a planet,
c) The only relevant change has been in our use of the word "planet"
d) Therefore our use of the word "planet" influences a thing's identity as a planet

But, since a planet is a celestial body, you can't change something into a planet without changing it into a celestial body. But you seem to be claiming that if everyone calls a stove a planet, then it will become a planet; but since it will not become a celestial body, this is wrong. Hence your position is incoherent, and merely protesting against the fact that I'm pointing this incoherence out will not help you, since the problem lies in your position and not any misunderstanding I have of it.

I'm questioning the notion that to be a planet is to be a celestial body. I'm suggesting that to be a planet is to be named a planet. Therefore, since a planet is a thing named a planet, you can change something into a planet by changing it into a thing named a planet. If everyone names a stove a planet then it will become a planet, since it will become a thing named a planet.

It's quite coherent.

Fuck.... Michael and TGW.... I have just realized that you pair of obsessives have argued, beyond reasonable termination, over precisely this pedantic point (or pointlessness) at least once before.

Most philosophy reduces to this sort of thing in the end. ;)

Edit: You referring to an old topic on horses?

This type of question is a challenge for semantic holism, btw. Atomists can handle it, but they have other troubles... like trying to imagine some causal chain from the first impetus to say "planet" which determines what I mean by it.

Oh, God, I hope not! :-d

Okay, I deny your starting point, so it looks like we aren't making any progress. I cannot make sense of the idea that something could be a planet, then not be a planet, without changing.

In any case, I still don't know exactly what your position is, and you've ignored my question over and over; but clearly the schema I outlined above is wrong, so I'm guessing that's not what you're saying. And it still makes no sense to say that you can turn a stove into a planet without turning it into a celestial body; that is like saying you can turn a stove into a chipmunk without turning it into an animal.

I think you are deeply confused about the way in which words denote properties, and that your position basically amounts to thinking that all properties denoted through language are themselves meta-linguistic, that the use of language must mean that what the language talks about must itself be linguistic. I think this is wrong, and that I can demonstrate to you the way in which it is wrong, and that possibly after seeing this you'd be willing to abandon your original purported datum. But I can't say anything else unless you clear up your position with regard to the proposed equivalence schema.

So, the atomists would say that meaning is established by a causal chain back to something like Kripke's "initial baptism".

Precisely.

What I'm suggesting is that a thing's identity is not (directly) determined by its pre-linguistic properties but by its linguistic categorisation. A thing's properties are only relevant to the extent that they influence the way we talk about them. But we can change the way we talk about things even if their properties stay the same, and in doing so the identity of those things change.

This is obvious in the case of proper nouns. I was once Yahadreas and now I'm Michael (so not Yahadreas). Muhammad Ali was once Cassius Clay. I'm simply extending this principle to common nouns (a real-life example of this is the pre-op transexual who newly identifies as a different gender; "I was a woman but now I'm a man").

What I'm suggesting is that a thing's identity is not (directly) determined by its pre-linguistic properties but by its linguistic categorisation. — Michael

I don't know what you mean by, 'a thing's identity.' Do you mean, whether it is a planet or not? But this is just not so; things were planets before anyone called them anything, and in those cases their physical properties were relevant and not to the extent we talked about them at all. In fact, we can counterfactually say, even if there were no language at all, there would still be planets.

This again seems to commit you, also, to saying that we can make things planets by calling them by a certain word, which is manifestly false (and again, your objection does not work, as I've outlined above).

Consider: suppose that to be water, something only needs to be called 'water,' and must be. Now, suppose I'm an alchemist, trying to transmute wood into water. According to your account, merely changing its physical properties is not enough: I cannot change wood into water, for example, by rearranging its molecular structure. Rather, the fact that I've done this will only be efficacious to the extent I've made something that people then go on to call 'water.' But this is absurd; to complete the transmutation, I only change the wood's physical qualities, to make it water. No one needs to then call it water to make it water. It was already water; we call it water because that's what it is, it is not water because we call it that. Likewise, there are plenty of planets out there that no one ever has, or ever will, call anything. Yet planets they remain, in virtue of their physical qualities, and not because of the tendency of these qualities to make us call them by a certain word. To put it simply, nouns denote properties; they do not denote the property of being called by the very word. A little thought will show you that this is circular and impossible to institute in practice (but we can go over that too if you want).

This is obvious in the case of proper nouns. I was once Yahadreas and now I'm Michael (so not Yahadreas). Muhammad Ali was once Cassius Clay. I'm simply extending this principle to common nouns (a real-life example of this is the pre-op transexual who newly identifies as a different gender; "I was a woman but now I'm a man"). — Michael

Proper nouns are semantically distinct from common nouns. The former are referential expressions that denote individuals; the latter are predicative expressions that denote properties.

There is a way of talking about name-bearing properties and using proper names as common nouns; we can say there are two Michaels, for example, by which we mean there are two people named 'Michael.' And then, yes, I agree, there is nothing to being a Michael other than being called 'Michael.' That is because name-bearing properties are metalinguistic, but other properties, like being a planet, are not. And there are principled reasons for this, I think, but I don't want to get into it (I work on name-bearing and proper names, which is a fascinating subject in its own right). In many languages, proper names used as common nouns are marked differently from ordinary common nouns, showing quotative marking that highlights their metalinguistic character. This is because, I hold, they are derivative of the corresponding referential expression, much as, say, the common noun 'she,' meaning 'feminine individual,' is derivative of the pronoun.

Then, if such a causal chain could be definitely established, it might work for a particular planet; but it seems it might still get into difficulties over the category 'planet'.

Yes, exactly, I had forgotten it was 'horses', but that is the one I had in mind.

To put it simply, nouns denote properties — The Great Whatever

Sure, and which properties they denote depends on how we use the noun. If we use the noun "planet" to refer to stoves then the noun "planet" would denote those properties that stoves have (and so not those properties that Jupiter has). And given that a planet is whatever thing has the properties denoted by the noun "planet", a planet is whatever thing is referred to by the noun "planet", which in this hypothetical situation is stoves.

Sure, and which properties they denote depends on how we use the noun. If we use the noun "planet" to refer to stoves then the noun "planet" would denote those properties that stoves have (and so not those properties that Jupiter has). — Michael

That is correct.

And given that a planet is whatever thing has the properties denoted by the word "planet" — Michael

That is not correct. Extensionally, these two things happen to coincide because of linguistic practice. Intensionally, they come apart. If 'planet' were used to refer to stoves, planets would still be planets, and the property of being a planet would not change. All that would change is that 'planet' would now refer to stoves, and refer to the property of being a stove.

If we call stoves 'planets,' then they are called 'planets.' That is tautological. But they are not planets. They are stoves; planets are celestial bodies, which stoves are not.

There is actually one reading of that sentence where you are saying that, but it's not the relevant reading. Definite descriptions are subject to de re / de dicto ambiguities, and the de dicto reading is the one you want.

In any case I am not seeing how this relates to what I said above. Yes, counterfactually the word would refer to a different property. But that's just it -- it would relate to the property of being a stove, not of being a planet. Stoves would still be stoves, not planets. If anything, this underscores my point.

Roughly, your confusion is to think that because our linguistic practices can alter which property a word refers to, therefore it must follow that the words themselves reference the language itself in their definition: roughly, that for any noun N, its meaning is 'that which is called 'N''. And this is not so. Kripke has a great bit on this, how we cannot get off the ground assuming that by 'horse,' what we mean is that which people call 'horse.' It would result in all sorts of absurdities: for example, you could not say truly of any animal that it was a horse, unless someone had called it that before (and at some point someone would have had to have said it erroneously!), and so we could never identify new animals as horses.

What I'm drawing attention to is the fact that Pluto was a planet but now isn't, even though nothing material about Pluto has changed – only our use of the word "planet". Therefore there is a connection between a thing's identity (as a planet) and our naming of that thing. — Michael

No, I would say the identity of a thing is not the same as the name of a thing. The name is merely a placeholder. When Pluto was considered to be a planet it was thought to be a certain kind of thing, and later when it was considered to not be a planet it was no longer thought to be that kind of thing. Its identity however, as the unique object it is (with whatever set of characteristics it has) remains unchanged.

In any case, as I said in a previous post:

There is a threshold of mass above which gravity ensures that agglomerated celestial objects become, at least in appearance, spherical. I think that would be the best criterion for planethood.

Under this criterion alone, though, many moons would be counted as planets; so another criterion, "that to be counted as a planet, a celestial body must orbit around no other body than a star", would need to be added. — John

I think Pluto, by the most reasonable criteria, still qualifies as a planet.

When Pluto was considered to be a planet it was thought to be a certain kind of thing, and later when it was considered to not be a planet it was no longer thought to be that kind of thing. Its identity however, as the unique object it is (with whatever set of characteristics it has) remains unchanged. — John

But the identity of planethood changed. So one thing that had the identity of being a planet no longer has the identity of being a planet.

I look at it from a Wittgensteinian perspective. Meaning is use. What it means to be a game depends on how we use the word "game". What it means to be a horse depends on how we use the word "horse". What it means to be a planet depends on how we use the word "planet".

Also, apologies for the deleted post. Meant to edit it but it's 3:15am here and I'm a little spaced so clicked the wrong button.

It's true that something may be identified, for example, as a planet, but I don't think identification equates to identity; the former is more a matter of characteristics and definitions. Pluto's identity is as that unique entity, Pluto, whatever it characteristics might be, or however it might be defined, or even however it might be properly as opposed to categorially named (say, variously due to change of name, or in different languages and so on).

What the word 'horse' means depends on how the word 'horse' is used. This is not the same as saying that what it is to be a horse depends on how the word 'horse' is used, which is what you're claiming. You seem to think these two are the same, which is a confusion, whether or not you'd still hold the view once you differentiated them properly.

In fact I find your views kind of fascinating, almost to the extent that I would give them to undergraduates as essay prompts as examples of linguistic confusions for them to untangle in the Wittgensteinian mode.

In fact I find your views kind of fascinating, almost to the extent that I would give them to undergraduates as essay prompts as examples of linguistic confusions for them to untangle in the Wittgensteinian mode. — The Great Whatever

Ooooohhhh...

I didn't mean that to be rude, I really think this is fascinating, utterly wrong but wrong in a fascinating way.

Yes, I know what you mean, and I do tend to agree...