N&N was actually the first real philosophy book I read. Odd place to start but I liked it.

I can accept that, insofar as it is analogous to a claim that no statement is analytical to any degree because the meanings of words might change. Bachelors, for example, might not be unmarried men in the future, if 'bachelor' no longer means 'unmarried man'. But that wouldn't change the fact that "bachelors are unmarried mean' was analytic when the words meant as they do now, or that "paris is the capital of France' has (at least) an analytic element to it in virtue of the present accepted meanings of 'Paris' and 'capital of France'.

ou wouldn't necessarily see "rays" (unless there were clouds or mist about), you'd see the sun shining if it was shining. Checking the news is fine, but as I have argued that introduces the semantic element, because you couldn't tell just by looking at the paper, whether New York is the capital of Paris or not; you'd have to read it. — John

Yeah, idk, I could go to Paris too and talk to people. For sure, a change of capitals would be a social fact, but I don't see how that changes things. I agree sight is involved in one case, not in the other, but I don't think sight is the sine qua non of the empirical. Do you?

That's cheating, John. Anyway, bachelors will always be unmarried men, even if "bachelor" changes meaning and refers to something else. Kripke sorts this out nicely.

Why are we here arguing about, and trying to understand what constitutes the differences between analytic and synthetic? I'm just defending a point that there are degrees of the empirical and the analytical; AP is by no means my main area of interest; but I don't like to be misunderstood or to have what I write mischaracterized.

In general, I think discussion on forums is a waste of precious time that could be spent on much higher level stuff, but it is an addictive indulgence not entirely without any benefit, and I have an addictive personality. so there you have it.

My view is in keeping with Scott Soames' explanation of Kripke's views. Maybe you could add his comments to your tons. — Mongrel

I own and have read the two volumes of his Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century, as well as several of his papers. Although I disagree with Soames on some topics (mainly regarding the metaphysics of propositions, and his views on philosophical method), it never had seemed to me that his reading of Kripke was amiss. It's possible that you misread him too. Maybe another useful introduction to Kripke would be Gregory McCulloch's The Game of The Name.

In terms of the centrality of observation in empirical pursuits, yes I do think so.

You'd feel comfortable saying a blind person cannot learn empirical truths? all blind knowledge is a priori?

Man, I hated Naming and Necessity once I dug into it. I still think to this day that it's an example of how not to do philosophy, and although ultimately I think the Kripkean view of names is basically right, that thesis is kind of small potatoes and doesn't say anything Mill didn't already.

I own and have read the two volumes of his Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century, as well as several of his papers. Although I disagree with Soames on some topics (mainly regarding the metaphysics of propositions, and his views on philosophical method), it never had seemed to me that his reading of Kripke was amiss. It's possible that you misread him too. — Pierre-Normand

Cool. Maybe you could point out where I'm wrong.

Maybe I wouldn't like it so much today. I hadn't read anything else at the time and it seemed like I'd found a genuinely new truth, or at least a stunning clarification.

You're right, bachelors are unmarried men is analytic; whereas Paris is the capital of France is only quasi-analytic; which I what I said in my first post, if I recall.

What is quasi-analytic? My first thought is that any sentence that is true only partly by definition is merely non, rather than quasi.

A blind person can learn via the other senses: I did say the empirical is predominately a matter of visual observation, not solely. Much of what any of us takes to be empirical knowledge is actually semantically gained knowledge based on the understanding and acceptance of the reports of others.

The point is that Paris being the capital of France could be changed by bestowing the meaning 'capital' on another city. Purely empirical truths cannot be changed by fiat like that. And the fact that bachelors being unmarried men cannot be changed by fiat either makes for an interesting complication to the issue. When it comes to human conventions, the point is that they are not merely empirical matters, but partake of the symbolic, the semantic, they consist in meanings. That's all I've been trying to point out.

@John We find the reports of others in experience. I think you just have an eccentrically narrow notion of the empirical. Also we can look at this Kantianly: empirical knowledge may yet depend on a priori concepts of the understanding.

Okay, I get you, I think. I agree that knowledge is about more than bare sensation, but then I'm not sure there is such a thing anyway.

Cool. Maybe you could point out where I'm wrong. — Mongrel

I did already in the first post from mine that you quoted. I explained where you may have gone wrong, though I may have mistargeted my comment at John. Early on in the thread you had commented that: "There is no possible world that contains the thing we've named "France" which has a capital that isn't Paris. That's Kripke's necessary aposteriori in a nutshell." This may involve the incorrect slide from one claim of de re necessity to another one, for one could maybe make the case that there isn't a possible world in which Paris is the capital of some country other than France. But your own statement (regarding France) would not follow from that, and it would still be false.

You also claimed that "The actual France (whose capital is Paris) can not be identical to an alternate France (whose capital is Caen). That's pretty basic. It's two different objects." This would only be true if having Paris as a capital were an essential property of France. You seemed to have been running together numerical identity and indiscernability.

@John Actually, I do think it's important to understand that for something to be empirical does not imply the exclusion of language, symbolic meaning, concepts, and all that.

I think that's irrelevant; we find everything in experience, one way or the other. My point is merely that there are useful distinctions to be made between kinds of empirical knowledge; it is not all one monolithic mass. There are degrees and interminglings of empiricality and analyticity, It is all interrelated and on a broad spectrum. I actually think it is you rather than I going for the conventionally narrow, as opposed to the eccentrically broad, definition of the empirical here.

I have no doubt that empirical knowledge does depend on a priori concepts of the understanding, ( and what might we think they in turn depend on? embodiment? anamnesis?) but that's an entirely different kettle of fish (or can of worms) than the one we have been trying to examine here.

Definitely agree...

Actually, I do think it's important to understand that for something to be empirical does not imply the exclusion of language, symbolic meaning, concepts, and all that. — jamalrob

Agreed. Kripke's general argument regarding rigidity or metaphysical necessity cut across natural and institutional facts. For one U.S dollar bill to be worth what it is, or for it to be worth more or less than a Canadian dollar bill depends on socially instituted rules. The propositions that one of them was devalued with respect to the other one, overnight, still is an empirical proposition. It describes the outcome of a process governed my market forces.

I agree with all or very nearly all of that, but it's a more nuanced point than you were making before. In putting your case too strongly I think you went wrong.

EDIT: actually I don't agree that analytic-synthetic is a spectrum, although I'm sympathetic to the idea that a priori-empirical is a spectrum.

I did already in the first post from mine that you quoted. I explained where you may have gone wrong, though I may have mistargeted my comment at John. Early on in the thread you had commented that: "There is no possible world that contains the thing we've named "France" which has a capital that isn't Paris. That's Kripke's necessary aposteriori in a nutshell." This may involve the incorrect slide from one claim of de re necessity to another one, for one could maybe make the case that there isn't a possible world in which Paris is the capital of some country other than France. But your own statement (regarding France) would not follow from that, and it would still be false. — Pierre-Normand

Here's where I think you're going wrong. In contemplating a possible world, there is no claim of necessity in regard to any particular property. A claim would entail the possibility of confirmation (as through a telescope, as Kripke puts it.) The content of a possible world is stipulated.

If I stipulate a possible world that contains an object, France, an essential property of which is having Paris as it's capital, then this property is necessary (although I learned the facts of the case aposteriori.)

You also claimed that "The actual France (whose capital is Paris) can not be identical to an alternate France (whose capital is Caen). That's pretty basic. It's two different objects." This would only be true if having Paris as a capital were an essential property of France. You seemed to have been running together numerical identity and indiscernability. — Pierre-Normand

Yes. It would be true if Paris is an essential property of France.

If you disagree that the essence of France is matter of stipulation, then could you explain how you understand the essence of France (as something not stipulated) and how that fits in with N&N?

In putting your case too strongly I think you went wrong. — jamalrob

From my point of view I haven't been putting my case more or less strongly; so I think it might have been a matter of how what I said was taken, rather than how it was intended. I do admit I made at least one mistaken claim though, but I think it was not relevant to the main thrust of my argument.

EDIT: actually I don't agree that analytic-synthetic is a spectrum, although I'm sympathetic to the idea that a priori-empirical is a spectrum. — jamalrob

The problem I see here is the a priori covers only the necessary part of the semantic. So, in seeing that the semantic and the empirical are on a spectrum, and in assigning the part of the semantic which is not necessary meaning, but contingent meaning, to the analytic, I am left with the conclusion that the analytic and the empirical are on a spectrum. If, for instance, to go back to the example of bachelors being unmarried men; it is thought to be analytic, and analytic is thought to be forever; that seems to raise the problem that the analytic is defined as that which is true by definition, and definitions may change. In view of that perhaps we could say that unmarried men being bachelors remains synthetically a priori true, even if the meanings of the words are changed.

If you disagree that the essence of France is matter of stipulation, then could you explain how you understand the essence of France (as something not stipulated) and how that fits in with N&N? — Mongrel

I have no idea what "the" (unique) essence of France is. It falls under the sortal concept 'country' or 'nation state'. So, maybe, falling under such a concept is an essential property France has. In any possible world where France exists, it is a country, and not, say, a turnip, a can opener, or a galaxy. It also likely has some historical roots necessarily, as TGW argued in a spirit similar to some Kripkean claims about necessity of origins for other sorts of items (e.g. human beings having the parents that they have, necessarily). However, to claim that having Paris as its capital is an essential property of France seems to do violence to our ordinary conception of what France is.

. It falls under the sortal concept 'country' or 'nation state'. So, maybe, falling under such a concept is an essential property France has. — Pierre-Normand

Think so? Let's ponder a possible world in which France is, in fact, a province of a nation known as the European Union. It's not a country any more than North Carolina is. Do you want to try again or do you already see where this is headed?

However, to claim that having Paris as its capital is an essential property of France seems to do violence to our ordinary conception of what France is. — Pierre-Normand

So, again... you're using the word claim. What is a claim?

This seems to be raising a kind of 'Sorites' problem. If we wanted to say that there could be an alternative France in another possible world, exactly what characteristics would it need to have in order to qualify as being a France at all? If for example it existed for the same time period as our France and we posit provisionally that it had all the same towns and cities, but counted a different one of them as its capital for all the time that our France had counted Paris as its capital, is it even plausible to think that all its other towns and cities could look the same and have had the same history, or that there could actually be all the same towns of the same size, locations and so on. Could the alternative Paris be the same size given that it was not the capital. Could all the trade routes and hence all the trading relations between all the regions have been the same. Would it have had all the same citizens as our France has? Once you change one really significant thing ( such as the capital) there wouldn't seem to be much that would be plausibly left the same, such that we could feel justified in thinking of it as an alternative France, rather than simply a different country.

Think so? Let's ponder a possible world in which France is, in fact, a province of a nation known as the European Union. It's not a country any more than North Carolina is. Do you want to try again or do you already see where this is headed? — Mongrel

Yes, France could be swallowed up by the European Union in such a way that it would cease to be an independent nation state. Maybe this new province would go on being named "France". This would raise issues about the identification of the old France with this new (so called) "France" province. Under some conceptions (as a sovereign country), the old France would have ceased to exist, having been assimilated/dissolved into another entity. Under another, looser, conception it would still exist as the same ethnic cum historical cum geographical entity albeit now in a subordinated state. In any case, Paris being its capital (either the capital of the province or the capital of the country) would still be contingent.

In any case, Paris being its capital (either the capital of the province or the capital of the country) would still be contingent. — Pierre-Normand

Pierre. You're missing the point. Read N&N a third time. Add in another reading of the Soames.

Paris being the capital of France is contingent IFF you stipulate it as such.