I find the notion of 'absolute truth' at least just as flawed as you. It's not helpful here.

Good. Then what does 'mistaken' mean to you, if it is neither 'can be proven to be wrong' nor 'is in contradiction with absolute truth'?

Good. Then what does 'mistaken' mean to you... — andrewk

I've already answered this.

Being mistaken is always a result of having false belief. It is not the only result.

As it pertains to the earlier parts of this conversation, you and Janus are both sorely mistaken as a result of believing that successful reference is moot and/or irrelevant to N&N. You've pointed out that Kripke doesn't mention "successful reference". I can only assume that you believe that that lack of mention somehow warrants the subsequent belief - expressed by your claim - that successful reference is moot and/or irrelevant to N&N.

If lack of mention constitutes warrant to believe that that which is not mentioned is moot and/or irrelevant, then it would only follow that all of Kripke's original terminological use explicating his doctrine of rigidity is irrelevant to any and all of the philosophical positions he's targeting simply because those positions did not mention his doctrine and/or it's terminological use.

:brow:

All of Einstein's conceptions would be moot and/or irrelevant to all of that which they expanded upon. Every single paradigm shift that begins with new ways to talk about the same things; all of the new language would be moot and/or irrelevant.

That's patently absurd.

There's more than one way to show that a position is mistaken. You and Janus are both sorely mistaken if you think/believe that successful reference is moot and/or irrelevant to N&N.

My feeling is that Kripke finds it unsatisfactory to say it is about 'a world that was identical to this' and wants to say that the key protagonists in the novel are the same entities as in this world, rather than simulacra thereof. — andrewk

The Man in the High Castle was written 5 years after the Many Worlds quantum theory was proposed. Kripke wasn't trying to assess that theory. :)

The internalist view is that a speaker must have in mind a definite description, as if all proper names and kind names are shorthand for definite descriptions (Russell) and that conundrums appear if we don't consider sense (Frege).

Frege pointed to the Hesperus/Phosphorus situation to explain sense:

1. Bill knows that Hesperus is the Evening Star.

2. Hesperus is Phosphorus.

C. Bill knows that Phosphorus is the Evening Star.

C doesn't follow from 1 and 2, but by a Millian theory of reference, it should. Mill said names have denotation, but not connotation. The name just points straight to the object and there's no need to know the context of the speech act. Frege solves the problem by abandoning Mill and positing that we have to consider something beyond just the denotation and consider how the words are being used. That's what he means by sense.

Kripke doesn't go all the way back to Mill, but he does pry Russell's and Frege's grip off of reference a little by pointing out that we don't always have a definite description in mind when we use proper names and kind names. For instance, I might speak of Albania, but I can't give you a definite description of it. It's a country somewhere over there. I'm sure of that.

Do we all sort of agree with the above? Or do I have something wrong?

because without them there would be no context, just names without referents floating around in the void. — Janus

And that's not what Kripke proposes. A lot of the time we obviously do have access to definite descriptions when we're communicating. And when we don't, we would, on reflection, say that we expect them to be out there somewhere. And that's an example of externalism. In the same way part of your brain is outsourced to your phone, part of your ability to refer is outsourced far and wide.

I bring up "on reflection" because I'm interested in bringing in Heidegger. But that would make a frank-kripke, just like Banno tends to express a Banno-kripke, which is fine by me. That's 100 times more interesting to me that trying to be a philosophy historian. :)

Kripke doesn't go all the way back to Mill, but he does pry Russell's and Frege's grip off of reference a little by pointing out that we don't always have a definite description in mind when we use proper names and kind names. For instance, I might speak of Albania, but I can't give you a definite description of it. It's a country somewhere over there. I'm sure of that. — frank

I'd say that your knowing that Albania is " a country over there", is entertaining a definite description. Not as definite as it might be, but all descriptions could be more definite, as in more uniquely specified. So "over there" could become 'Europe' or 'South-Eastern Europe' or 'bounded by some set of definite coordinates'. Implicit in 'a country' is the idea that it has borders and excludes other countries, and that it is a unique entity with its own customs and culture, probably its own language, and so on.

Even merely knowing that Albania is a country is to know a description, which together with the name 'Albania' most likely becomes a definite description (that is if it is the only country called 'Albania'). I'd say reference is to the entity which is being named 'Albania', and its being so named is actually part of its definite description.

So, I'd say descriptions don't have to be "in mind" (whatever that could actually mean) but are instead implicit insofar as they constitute the contextual web of meaning and reference in which usages of names are established and maintained.

I find the notion of 'absolute truth' at least just as flawed as you. It's not helpful here. — creativesoul

Being mistaken is always a result of having false belief. — creativesoul

What does it mean for a belief to be 'false' if there is no absolute truth?

All of Einstein's conceptions would be moot and/or irrelevant to all of that which they expanded upon. — creativesoul

Science is forward-looking. It would not matter one whit if Einstein's theory of relativity were irrelevant to Newton's theories of motion and gravitation. It would be easy to conclude that too, as Einstein does not - as far as I recall - mention Newton in his key papers on relativity. We would still use Einstein's theories when useful, and Newton's when they are useful, just as we do now. Fortunately, in most cases, science is about getting results that are interesting or useful, not about scoring points off past writers. I suggest that many philosophers would do well to follow that example.

I can't add anything to Janus's response re Albania. My position seems to be the same as his on that.

On Frege and the Hesperus/Phosphorus example: while I think it can be useful to distinguish between meaning and referent, or any of the other words that are used to indicate the difference between the pointer and the pointed-at, I don't find the Hesperus-Phosphorus example a good one. I think it is simply poor communication to say 'Hesperus is Phosphorus', because it can have so many different meanings. What is actually being said is that there is a planet (Venus) that appears in the evening and has been referred to as Hesperus in that manifestation, and appears again in the morning and has been called Phosphorus in that manifestation. So I reject arguments that contain enigmatic statements like 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' in them, because to accept them requires accepting so many dubious, implicit assumptions about exactly what was meant.

over there" could become 'Europe' or 'Northern Europe' or 'bounded by some set of definite coordinates'. — Janus

I dont think it's in northern Europe. Anyway, you're venturing off the map that N+N focuses on.

, I'd say descriptions don't have to be "in mind" (whatever that could actually mean) but are instead implicit insofar as they constitute the contextual web of meaning and reference in which usages of names are established and maintained. — Janus

Contextual web?

Like Janus, you aren't talking about anything related to N+N.

I dont think it's in northern Europe. Anyway, you're venturing off the map that N+N focuses on. — frank

Of course, you're right, and it just goes to show how impoverished is my mental map of Europe or how careless I can be in assuming that I know something when I don't! (I corrected it).

I'm perhaps not agreeing or disagreeing with Kripke, but I'm trying to examine the same semantic practices he focuses on. If I come at those from another angle, and can show that it is free of problems and an equally or even more consistent and useful way, phenomenologically speaking, to look at those practices, would that be "venturing off the map"? If it were, then how could we critique Kripke's way of looking at things at all without "venturing off the map"?

Contextual web? — frank

I think it is basically Kripke's 'causal chain' without all the constituting descriptions artificially 'sublimed out'.

I'd say that your knowing that Albania is " a country over there", is entertaining a definite description. — Janus

There's your problem.

I don't have a problem, it would seems the problem is yours. I might come to have a problem if you can explain convincingly why I should.

SO, why would you think it is not a more or less definite description? Why would you think that being called Albania is not also part of its definite description?

What's the problem exactly, are you able to explain precisely what you think it is?

↪frank I can't add anything to Janus's response re Albania. My position seems to be the same as his on that. — andrewk

And again.

What's the problem exactly, — Janus

You are misusing the term definite description.

Of course, you're right, and it just goes to show how impoverished is my mental map of Europe or how careless I can be in assuming that I know something when I don't! (I corrected it). — Janus

I looked after I wrote that. I thought it was further east.

it were, then how could we critique Kripke's way of looking at things at all without "venturing off the map"? — Janus

Well, you dont want to completely strawman him. I think Mill is probably closer to the view you want to criticize.

I used to be very interested in Albania, because it was closed off from the world throughout my youth - mysterious! All I knew about it was that it was a Southern European country that was closed off to the world, and it had an authoritarian communist government.

In your view does that constitute a definite description? It seems like one to me.

What if I knew even less? What if all I knew is that there was a country called Albania?
It seems to me that just a name can suffice as a DD for a country where it cannot for a person, because no two countries on the Earth have the same name.

I wonder if Kripke would agree that 'the country called Albania' is a DD.

looks fine to me.

Well, you dont want to completely strawman him. I think Mill is probably closer to the view you want to criticize. — frank

Perhaps, but as I've said, I'm not definitely asserting that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with Kripke. I've mainly been responding directly to the discussion in this thread, which is comprised of other's interpretations of Kripke, and trying to get a discussion going which unpacks and analyses just what it is it that Kripke wants to assert regarding definite descriptions.

The closest I've seen to an explanation of why I might not be disagreeing with Kripke is @Pierre-Normand's contention that Kripke acknowledges the role of DDs in "fixing" reference, but not in "determining" it. However, I am still unclear as to what the purported distinction between fixing and determining is.

I imagine it is something like this: fixing refers to the role of DDs in explaining (perhaps most clearly seen as per the examples I've given, to someone who doesn't know) what a name refers to. Determining then would be the "causal chains" of reference which establish and maintain the usages of a name to refer to a particular individual over time (in the cases of historical individuals sometimes very long times).

The problem here for me is that I cannot see how such causal chains of reference are separable from the DDs that have historically fixed them. So, separating rigid designation form definite description seem artificial to me. The artificiality and vacuousness of such separation seems to be exemplified statements like "To ask about Thales is to refer to Thales"; in the fact that they are of a merely tautologous nature and don't reflect the fullness of our practices

I think as mentioned previously, definite descriptions can be categorized under certain conditions as rigid designators. What do you or anyone else think of this?

I think they can. 'Thales', if it is being used to refer to the famous Greek philosopher and not some other Thales, seems to me to be equivalent at minimum of something like 'The man named 'Thales' who lived in Ancient Greece and was a philosopher'.

That whole statement seems to me to be a definite description that rigidly designates that man (in case there was in fact such a man, and there was in fact no other). If there was no such man, then the statement rigidly designates an apocryphal character. If there was another such man then the name designates but does not rigidly designate, just as the description is of, but is not definitely of, a particular man.

I wonder if Kripke would agree that 'the country called Albania' is a DD. — andrewk

If it is, it would have to be synonymous with the name Albania. IOW, it would have to be necessarily true that Albania is the country called Albania. And it's not, because it could have been called something else.

That seems strange to me, to say that all the propositions in a DD must be necessarily true, in order for it to be a DD. That would make a DD the same as a RD (Rigid designator). Do you have a ref that indicates Kripke has that position?

DD is more of a Russell, Strawson, and Searle thing. Kripke is responding to their internalist picture.

Full disclosure: I'm not really sure what the answer to your question is. I gave my first stab. I'll either give a second attempt later or somebody else will wander along and answer it. :)

You are misusing the term definite description. — Banno

Bishops move diagonally.

My definition of a definite desciption would be something like: " Infallibly picks out a particular entity".

As I explained already the DD " the man who was POTUS at midnight New Year's Eve 2018" picks out the man we refer to as 'Donald Trump' as infallibly as 'Donald Trump' does.

We've already been all through this, so for you to claim that my usage is wrong without having explained why you claim that is puzzling.

I find the notion of 'absolute truth' at least just as flawed as you. It's not helpful here.
— creativesoul
Being mistaken is always a result of having false belief.
— creativesoul
What does it mean for a belief to be 'false' if there is no absolute truth? — andrewk

As much as I'd love to get into this. I'm not. It's too far off track. Besides, I just wanted to explain how and that your charge of irrelevance was unfounded. That's been done.

Back to Kripke's N&N...

My definition of a definite desciption would be something like: " Infallibly picks out a particular entity". — Janus

Then you're equivocating. There have been numerous descriptions that are not capable of picking out a unique individual that you've referred to as "definite". "A country over there somewhere" is one.

not when they discuss Kripke, it seems.