So you're agreeing that we don't look at all possible worlds. We look at all relevant possible worlds... specifically where our rigid designators pick out an object that exists in that world. — Mongrel
To interject...there is a paper by Michael Weisberg called Water is not H20. I liked it. Distilled water, maybe, although I gather chemists would prefer greater precision even then. But this topic gets me into hot, erm water. Someone turned me down for a Master's course over a paper i wrote about it. Water just is H20, she exclaimed. How then can heavy water be a form of water? How can the polluted water in my local canal be water? — mcdoodle
It is not a "purported alternative France" that I was talking about; it is France. France would still be France if, counterfactually, at some point in time, its history had diverged from its actual history in some inessential respects. — Pierre-Normand
Maybe you are an actualist. Many of your comments point in that direction. Actualists believe that whatever P is actually true is necessarily true, and whatever Q is actually false is necessarily false. Hence, anything that is possible is necessary, on that view; there is no non-actualized possibilities. But that is a rather contentious metaphysical doctrine.
If the object mentioned in the statement does't exist in some possible worlds, then the statement can't be evaluated at all, so those worlds aren't relevant — Pierre-Normand
In any case, I didn't want to get into modal philosophy at all. I was originally making a point about the differences between the kinds of knowledge exemplified by "Paris is the capital of France" and "the Sun is shining at such and such a location at such and such a time", and TGW and Jamalrob denied that there is any valid distinction in kind between those two propositions. That there is such a valid distinction is all I have been arguing for. — John
If the statement can't be evaluated at all at those worlds, then it certainly isn't true at them. — Mongrel
The difference you are still failing to see is that the fact that the sun is shining is directly observable; whereas the fact that Paris is the capital of France is not, The latter is a kind of secondary fact that can be known only by accepting what others have said; it is derivative on the fact that people say that they designate and consider Paris to be the capital. If people ceased to designate and consider Paris to be the capital tomorrow it would cease to be the capital. — John
I hold that Samuel Clemens is Mark Twain can only be true at a possible world that contains an object picked out by Samuel Clemens.
If you disagree, we have an impasse, but all I can say is I think you're wrong. — Mongrel
I hold that in the case of any utterance, it will have to be sorted out somehow what it means. You can't just point to what you understand to be linguistic convention.
You apparently disagree with that as well. Again.. I think you're wrong. — Mongrel
And this just to show that the analytic/ synthetic divide is not as clear cut as it is sometimes made out to be. — John
I don't disagree. I quite agree. You misread me. I denied that the evaluation of this sentence at possible worlds where Samuel Clemens doesn't exist is relevant to the determination of the modal status of this sentence. — Pierre-Normand
I certainly don't disagree with this either. I am questioning the inferences that you are drawing from this. It is one thing to evaluate what is said by a speaker who makes use of a sentence, accounting for pragmatic considerations and contextual features of the utterance, and another to evaluate the modal status of the claim being made. You wish to make the latter rest entirely on the former, but questions of a posteriori necessity obviously outrun mere considerations of the utterer's intentions. If they would rest entirely on intention and/or convention then those modal claims would be a priori, stipulated by mere fiat. — Pierre-Normand
It's relevant, and I would say critical to grasping the concept of aposteriori necessary truths that we're talking about statements that are true over a limited number of possible worlds as opposed to true over all possible worlds. — Mongrel
As it is, your position seems to leave you endorsing a contradiction. Intention matters when discerning meaning, but not when evaluating modal claims. That just seems crazy to me. — Mongrel
That something is necessary rather than contingent just means that it could not have been otherwise in any circumstance — Pierre-Normand
That seems rather trivial to me. If someone purports to make some statement of a posteriori necessity, then, in a first step, you may indeed have to pay attention of the circumstances of her utterance, and her communicative intentions, etc., in order to understand what it is that she is claiming to be a posteriori necessary. Then, in a second step, by dint of the fact that her claim can only be known to be true a posteriori, you have to investigate what it is, in the world, that makes it true (e.g. investigate the nature of water, or seek out, by means of investigative journalism, if Clark Kent and Superman really are the same person, as she claims them to be. — Pierre-Normand
Having determined the meaning of a statement, one need not at any point abandon that meaning for some convention for the sake of predicating truth.
No philosopher I know of would disagree with that. Do you know of one? — Mongrel
This is a confusing statement. Necessary modifies true. I guess it could modify false... that could be managed. You seem to be thinking of some.... thing? as being contingent or necessary. Some thing that could have been otherwise if it's contingent. — Mongrel
And if a statement is necessarily true, it's true in all possible worlds. — Mongrel
It's relevant, and I would say critical to grasping the concept of aposteriori necessary truths that we're talking about statements that are true over a limited number of possible worlds as opposed to true over all possible worlds.
But in that case, once it is established what de re necessity it is someone is purporting to express, you haven't shown how this claim being a posteriori necessary could depend in any way on the intentions of the speaker (beyond specifying what she means to say), or -- what has been centrally at issue between us -- how it could depend on some arbitrarily restricted range of possible worlds being single out for special consideration by the speaker (e.g. worlds in which France has Paris as its capital city) — Pierre-Normand
Yes. That's what I am claiming. And that's what you seem to have been denying consistently: — Pierre-Normand
Is there some reason a speaker could not say "France" and mean a country that has Paris as its capital? — Mongrel
Point to where I denied that. — Mongrel
(My bold)It's relevant, and I would say critical to grasping the concept of aposteriori necessary truths that we're talking about statements that are true over a limited number of possible worlds as opposed to true over all possible worlds.
It is generally understood that it doesn't have Paris as its capital essentially. — Pierre-Normand
"... over a limited number ... as opposed to all possible worlds" would appear to contradict "...in all possible worlds." — Pierre-Normand
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