The term "Cats" has been found, a posteriori, to refer to a machine. Yes?
5m ReplyOptions — Banno
So, for the folk in that world, anything that is not a machine is not a cat — Banno
Maybe. They might also conclude that an animal can have machine parts. Depends. — frank
I can imagine a world where that happens. — frank
The actual world holds no special place in the logic of possible worlds
— Banno
Yet it has something to do with a cat's essential properties? — frank
Neither world has a special place in the logic of possible worlds. — Banno
The general answer to the objector can be stated, then, as
follows : Any necessary truth, whether a priori or a posteriori,
could not have turned out otherwise. In the case of some
necessary a posteriori truths, however, we can say that under
appropriate qualitatively identical evidential situations, an
appropriate corresponding qualitative statement might have
been false.(p.142)
have not found satisfactory answers to, for example, why definite descriptions cannot be rigid designators. — Janus
Definite descriptions can be rigid designators, and Kripke acknowledges this. However, ordinary descriptions used in natural languages are typically not. — Snakes Alive
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