Yes, I understand. But it is still a strain to say that 'all possible worlds' of yesterday excludes the actual world of today. — unenlightened
I think all that is required is that the speaker believes the DD to be true. The speaker uses a proper name P that she associates with an object that she believes to be part of the world and to satisfy the description D and to be the only object in the world that satisfies that description. If that is the case then the speaker has 'successfully referred to' the object. That is so even if P=Godel and D includes that Godel developed the Incompleteness Theorems and in fact those theorems were developed by Schmidt and only copied by Godel.However, unless a proponent of descriptivism holds that descriptions must be true, I think that some of his remarks about that are off target. On second thought, I suppose that one would have to hold that descriptions be true... wouldn't they? If they were not, they most certainly could not pick out the individual unless they were accompanied by a name. — creativesoul
I think all that is required is that the speaker believes the DD to be true. The speaker uses a proper name P that she associates with an object that she believes to be part of the world and to satisfy the description D and to be the only object in the world that satisfies that description. If that is the case then the speaker has 'successfully referred to' the object. That is so even if P=Godel and D includes that Godel developed the Incompleteness Theorems and in fact those theorems were developed by Schmidt and only copied by Godel. — andrewk
I have no opinion about whether I have 'successfully' referred to Nixon or not in that sentence. But I do know that I have asked a clear question, which is all that matters. — andrewk
Yes, but only because that's commonly the case and the question of false beliefs had not yet (to my notice) been raised. I don't think I said that the DD has to be true and if I implied that anywhere it was a mistake. My approach is that, in order not to be an insane rambling, a DD only has to be believed by the speaker, because the speech act only needs to make sense to the speaker in the first instance. Whether the speech act is intelligible to anybody else and the proper name used causes the listener to pick out the same individual as the speaker intended depends on a whole raft of other factors including context, language, elocution, volume, idiom and commonality of experience and knowledge.Aren't all the earlier examples that you gave examples where the speaker not only believes the definite description that she is making use of but the definite description also happens to be true of the individual that she is thinking about?
Yes, but only because that's commonly the case and the question of false beliefs had not yet (to my notice) been raised. I don't think I said that the DD has to be true and if I implied that anywhere it was a mistake. — andrewk
My approach is that, in order not to be an insane rambling, a DD only has to be believed by the speaker, because the speech act only needs to make sense to the speaker in the first instance. Whether the speech act is intelligible to anybody else and the proper name used causes the listener to pick out the same individual as the speaker intended depends on a whole raft of other factors including context, language, elocution, volume, idiom and commonality of experience and knowledge.
Yes, where I differ from Kripke is that I require identification of the individual that does the associating. For a DD to be associated with a proper name, somebody has to associate it. In my view, the associater is the one speaking. When they use the proper name, they are referring to the object that is picked out for them, in their system of beliefs and experience, by the DD they associate with that proper name.We were talking about a definite description associated with a proper name. — Pierre-Normand
Yes, I understand. But it is still a strain to say that 'all possible worlds' of yesterday excludes the actual world of today.
— unenlightened
I don't know what you mean by that. Who is saying or implying that? Can you make the thesis that you believe to be strained a little more explicit? — Pierre-Normand
"One Metre" once referred, in every possible world, to the length of the stick.
We now use "One Metre" to refer, in every possible world, to a different length determined by vibrations and stuff.
Two different uses of "One Metre", talking about different lengths. But one Metre is the same in all possible worlds. You might sometimes have to specify which one you are using. — Banno
When I think about it, there have been very few tasks where the relation of the measure I was using to the 'official metre', whatever that was at the time, mattered. — andrewk
However, unless a proponent of descriptivism holds that descriptions must be true, I think that some of his remarks about that are off target. On second thought, I suppose that one would have to hold that descriptions be true... wouldn't they? If they were not, they most certainly could not pick out the individual unless they were accompanied by a name.
— creativesoul
I think all that is required is that the speaker believes the DD to be true. — andrewk
Not if you take your tape measure with you :joke:It matters when you go shopping. — unenlightened
There is no such thing as a contingent necessity. — Noah Te Stroete
Beth works in an office and occasionally sees a person that works on a different floor of the same company, That person has a disability that causes him to slur his words and need a walking stick to get about. Beth doesn't know about the speech disability and thinks the person is always drunk.False description unaccompanied by proper name will not pick out the individual, will it - regardless of the speaker's belief? — creativesoul
Me too.I studied this book in college. — Noah Te Stroete
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