But consider this; do you understand the difference between talking about a possible world where Barack Obama isn't the president and a possible world where there's a man called "Barack Obama" who isn't the president? — Michael

There can be a difference, sure, if I'm imagining the person who I call "Barack Obama" now, as the president, not being president instead, versus imagining a different person called "Barack Obama" now, who is also not president.

No, one proposition can be sensitive to any number of possibilities. — The Great Whatever

Okay, but what I was asking was how many different propositions can the same individual consider at a time?

I don't understand why this matters.

There can be a difference, sure, if I'm imagining the person who I call "Barack Obama" now, as the president, not being president instead, versus imagining a different person called "Barack Obama" now, who is also not president. — Terrapin Station

Then you understand the concept of a rigid designator. When you talk about a possible world where Barack Obama isn't the president the term "Barack Obama" used here doesn't just refer to some person called "Barack Obama" in that possible world but the specific person who in this world is the president (and who might not even be called "Barack Obama" in this possible world).

Because as soon as we start to introduce more scenarios, re propositions someone is considering, we introduce a temporal element during which reference can shift.

I don't understand why you're hung up on this temporal thing. That has nothing to do with what a rigid designator is.

This hits on the distinction between the value of a word as used at the actual world and evaluated elsewhere, versus used and evaluated both at some non-actual world, but doesn't hit on the rigid/non-rigid distinction. This applies also to definite descriptions, for example.

But any term could or could not be a rigid designator per that--it just depends on how I think about it. If I think about the term so that it picks out some specific thing (person, object, phenomenon--whatever) and I think about that thing under another possibility, then that's a rigid designator. Likewise, any term might not be a rigid designator for me, because I can think of it rather as an "office" that can be filled by someone else. It would just be however I think about the term in question at the time in question. (Which is what the initial post of this thread stated)

Maybe put it quasi-formally would help?

Say that the denotation of a term x relative to a world w is [x](w).

So for example, say x is 'the winner.' Then [x](w1) = the winner in w1, say John, and [x](w2) = the winner in w2, say Michael.

Now say x is 'John.' Then [x](w1) = John, and [x](w2) = John.

Notice that the value of 'the winner' changes with respect to the world of evaluation, because the winner might be different people in different worlds: in w1, the winner is John, while in w2, it is Michael.

But the same isn't true for 'John.' Regardless of the world you pick, 'John' denotes John. This is because, regardless of world, John is John, and not anybody else.

So 'the winner' is a nonrigid designator, while 'John' is a rigid designator.

That's ALL it means. It has nothing to do with change in meanings of a word over time, or intentions of the speaker, or anything like that.

What might work for me, although I don't know if this would be agreeable to folks who think that rigid designators make sense, would be to simply say that (a) conceptually, there are "offices" that can be held by different persons (or even objects, etc.) at different times, and (b) there are particular individuals who can hold different offices.

An "office" is simply something like "Mayor of Springfield," or "Central High School janitor," or "largest tree in Sherwood Forest," or "winner of the contest" (to use your example) etc. Whereas particular individuals are "this tree," "that person," etc.

That way it's not about reference, meaning, etc.--since my views are very different about those things, and it's also not even about possible worlds, really. It's just a conceptual distinction where one side of it, (a), hinges on people thinking about things in a certain way, but the other side, (b), does not hinge on that.

If you like, you can think of rigid designation as reference that's not mediated by a property determining what the referent is (whether this is an 'office' or not). A rigid designator simply refers to an individual. The difference between descriptive and singular thoughts or propositions is old in philosophy and seems to be what you're getting at.

I don't think the jury is out on whether rigid designation makes sense, though. There are standard ways of defining it in modal logic and intensional semantics, and many of the empirical consequences are clear. Most of this thread has been misunderstanding of what a rigid designator is, which is not the same as criticism.

The problem with making it about reference is that what makes a reference is simply how an individual is thinking about it.

I don't see how that's true. A name refers to a certain individual by convention. It doesn't matter what you're thinking about.

And the semantic consequences you get in modal contexts like counterfactual conditionals and their truth conditions are independent of your referential intentions.

I don't see how that's true. A name refers to a certain individual by convention. It doesn't matter what you're thinking about. — The Great Whatever

Convention is a matter of a lot of individuals having the "same thing" (per behavioral cues) in mind. So that's ONLY what people are thinking about. Additionally, that's just convention. That's just one answer to what something refers to--the conventional answer. (And often there are multiple conventions.) But there are (practically) countless things that something refers to--every single thing that someone has in mind at every single usage of a term are things that a name refers to.

Semantic consequences can NOT be independent of what persons have in mind (or they just ain't semantic consequences).

Hence why this is muddled unless we make it not about references as I attempted above. It relies on beliefs about meaning, reference, etc. that are completely wrong.

But consider this; do you understand the difference between talking about a possible world where Barack Obama isn't the president and a possible world where there's a man called "Barack Obama" who isn't the president? — Michael

I don't, and this is close to the heart of why I have never been able to make any sense of Kripke's approach.

In my view, 'Barack Obama' is a name that I use to refer to an element of my model of the world and, when I'm talking to someone else, it refers to what I believe to be a shared element of our two models.

Since I cannot talk to someone in a different possible world, the second of these meanings becomes moot. As for the first meaning, I can imagine any world I like, and label any arbitrary element of it with the name Barack Obama - a mountain, a colour, a sort of dance. If I also label a country in that world 'USA' and imagine it having a president then I suppose it's true to say that Barack Obama (the imaginary mountain) is not the imaginary president of the imaginary USA in that world. But I can't see what insight that gives us to anything interesting.

Convention is a matter of a lot of individuals having the "same thing" (per behavioral cues) in mind. — Terrapin Station

No it's not. It's a matter of a complex behavioral pattern. An individual having something in mind isn't enough to override this. If I say 'tree' to mean 'turnip,' I've said the wrong thing, made an error, regardless of what I meant. 'Tree' doesn't mean turnip.

There is a difference between imagining Barack Obama was different, and imagining that a different person was named 'Barack Obama.' I have a hard time believing you don't understand this difference, but I could be wrong.

For example, I could imagine that Barack Obama was named something else other than 'Barack.' This would seem to be incoherent on your proposal, but it's clearly not.

No it's not. It's a matter of a complex behavioral pattern. — The Great Whatever

Yes it is. I said (per behavioral cues)--that's your complex behavioral pattern, but the behavior is what it is simply as a matter of those individuals having in mind whatever they do.

If I say 'tree' to mean 'turnip,' I've said the wrong thing, made an error, — The Great Whatever

No, you haven't. You simply define it unconventionally. It's not wrong or an error to be unconventional. To say that convention makes something correct is to forward an argumentum ad populum.

Words "mean" whatever people use them to "mean," and that's not a statement about the mob. It's a statement about everybody, no matter how idiosyncratic.

n my view, 'Barack Obama' is a name that I use to refer to an element of my model of the world and, when I'm talking to someone else, it refers to what I believe to be a shared element of our two models. — andrewk

'Barack Obama' is a name that refers to Barack Obama (a man, not an element in your model of the world).

No, you haven't. You've simply define it unconventionally. It's not wrong or an error to be unconventional. To say that convention makes something correct is to forward an argumentum ad populum. — Terrapin Station

I don't know how to answer this. Words have conventional meanings, and it's possible to use them wrong. If you deny this, I literally don't know what to say, and we may have reached the end of our disagreement. The Humpty Dumpty school of thought on language is a dead end, of course.

Our philosophy of language should reflect what the world is really like, what's really going on with language usage, etc. Mine does this.

Not really. Words mean certain things in linguistic communities, and you can use them wrong. You can't just make up whatever meanings you want and have them be correct. That's the philosophy of language of Humpty Dumpty from Alice and Wonderland (whose opinions are supposed to be a joke, not a realistic depiction of language).

Individual intentions don't override conventional practices of the linguistic community, which give a word its meaning.

Words mean certain things in linguistic communities, — The Great Whatever

Yeah, per how individuals think about them. To say that they mean something outside of that is simply nonsense.

To say that you can use words wrong is an argumentum ad populum. That doesn't mean that you're using words correctly by just making up whatever meanings--because there is no correct or incorrect.

The conventions just determine the conventions. That's it.

Yeah, per how individuals think about them. — Terrapin Station

No, per how the community uses the term. This is not the same thing: most people don't even think about words much if at all, or understand how they're used, despite using them in a certain way, and competence is distributed across the community. Individuals have little power over this, and intentions of individuals even less.

Yeah, per how individuals think about them. To say that they mean something outside of that is simply nonsense.

To say that you can use words wrong is an argumentum ad populum. That doesn't mean that you're using words correctly by just making up whatever meanings--because there is no correct or incorrect.

The conventions just determine the conventions. That's it. — Terrapin Station

But the convention is itself a rule that can be broken, much like moving chess pieces a certain way. Of course, you're free to make up your own rules and play a different kind of chess, but assuming that you're trying to play a game with someone, there must be some set of rules that you both agree to follow. Linguistic conventions are the rules that a language-speaking community agrees to follow to enable successful communication.

There is a difference between imagining Barack Obama was different, and imagining that a different person was named 'Barack Obama.' I have a hard time believing you don't understand this difference — the great whatever

Last time I checked, saying. 'I assert P. I can't believe you don't understand that P' did not amount to a proof of P.

[That's just a call-out, not a reference to the specific post that generated the blue arrow. Does the @name functionality work on here?] I'm interested in your thoughts on my post, as I think the perspective of someone that is not committed to a materialist ontology (which (being uncommitted) is my position and, IIRC, yours), towards Kripke's designator notions, may be quite different from that of someone that is so committed.

I didn't say it amounted to a proof, but if true it'd give me the impression you lack some basic cognitive capacity or linguistic competence, which makes me think you're being disingenuous or are mistaken.

"Nixon might have lost the election."

This is a bit of language use that would crash a rationalist approach like Leibniz's. He would say that any Nixon who didn't win the election couldn't be Nixon... that winning the election is part Nixon's identity.

I think Hume would also say that Nixon was a bundle of properties (one of which was being a winner).

The concept of the rigid designator is at least food for thought.

it's actually worse for Terrapin's incoherent position than you are painting it. He cannot even play a game with himself of assigning unconventional meanings without relying on linguistic conventions.

How will he tell himself that " I declare that X will mean Y" without accepting and making use of the conventional meanings of "I", "declare". "that". "will" and "mean".

You can't even tell yourself that a conventional word will mean something different, or a completely made-up word like 'splarg' will signify some object, without referring to the object it will signify by using a conventional word that is normally used to used to signify that object.

I didn't say it amounted to a proof, but if true it'd give me the impression you lack some basic cognitive capacity or linguistic competence — The Great Whatever

To disagree with TGW is to lack some basic cognitive capacity or linguistic competence? OK, if you say so.