You are not reading the book, so you have no idea what he is saying - as is clear form your posts. — Banno
I have said from the start that in my view descriptions are more or less definite. — Janus
A question about Nixon is not about Nixon. This is about as demonstrable wrong as one could get.The question is not really about Nixon at all. — Janus
Yes you will. — Banno
...becasue we both know which Nixon it is about, but for some odd reason you pretend otherwise. — Banno
I don't think we need to explicitly identify a DD that is shared by alternate versions of our protagonist. We just need to be reasonably confident that there would be one. I think in most realistic cases it will be very easy to identify one, given the full details of the counterfactual or hypothetical - eg the male second child of the people that are parents of Nixon in our world. — andrewk
Can a definite description be a rigid designator?
Now a rigid designator refers to the very same individual in all the possible worlds in which it exist.
So your question is the same as "can a definite description refer to the very same thing in every possible world in which that thing exists?"
But remember that if something is true in all possible worlds, it is true necessarily.
So "Can a definite description be a rigid designator?" is the same as asking "Can a definite description be necessarily true of its referent?".
Agreed? — Banno
I think part of the confusion that emanates from N&N is that, so far as I have been able to see, Kripke fails to specify an accessibility relation for the set of possible worlds that are under consideration. Without such a relation, there is no limit to the possible worlds that can be considered, so we end up having to allow silly things like 'if Nixon were a golf ball...' — andrewk
I'd like to consider alternative accessibility relations. Perhaps Kripke does choose one somewhere, and I missed it. If so, I'd be grateful if somebody that has spotted it could point it out. Wallows did you spot an accessibility relation in the text? — andrewk
For me this is a key difficulty with Kripke - possibly the main one.So, the "male second child of the people that are parents of Nixon in our world" would not necessarily have been the same person we call 'Nixon' even if he had been named the same.
And this raises the point as to whether it could be coherent at all to say that Nixon could have been any entity other than the entity he was. — Janus
We focus on what things we wish to consider being different about Nixon, with everything else remaining the same if it does not create a logical contradiction. It will be relevant to consider whether the things that remain the same are sufficient to pick out Nixon in the alternate world. — andrewk
am dubious about whether it makes sense to say that somebody that differs from Nixon in even the slightest way 'is' Nixon in another world. The Nixon of 1971 to whom Kripke referred would have been shaped by his victory in 1968 and the events that followed from that. So to imagine 'him' as not having won in '68 seems questionable. For me it makes more sense to say we are imagining an alternate version of Nixon. — andrewk
It seems to be a matter of feel rather than of proof. That is certainly the yardstick Kripke takes, as he repeatedly refers to what he finds 'intuitive'. All I can say is that in key cases my intuitions seem to be opposite to his - and he notes that his intuitions are different to those of philosophers that went before him. — andrewk
The name 'Jesus' is not generally regarded as meaning the Son of God. Christians use the name 'Christ' to refer to the (believed to be) Son of God. 'Jesus' is the name of a man that is said to have existed in Palestine during the reign of Augustus. The statement 'Jesus is Christ' could be said to be the core belief of Christianity.You might find it a curious case of Jesus exists in all possible worlds, having the definite description of being the Son of God, further being of greater import than the name "Jesus" as a rigid designator in our world. What do you make of an entity that only attains its meaning or import by the definite description that is rigid in all possible worlds?
Also we may raise the question whether a name has any reference at all when we ask, e.g., whether Aristotle ever existed. It seems natural here to think that what is questioned is not whether this thing (man) existed. Once we've got the thing, we know that it existed. What really is queried is whether anything answers to the properties we associate with the name-in the case of Aristotle, whether any one Greek philosopher produced certain works, or at least a suitable number of them. — N&N p29
Could you elaborate on why you think that?That determination of sufficiency for picking out Nixon in an alternate world scenario is always and only established by whether or not the actual language expression being used to refer to Nixon successfully picks Nixon out of this world to the exclusion of all others. If it successfully picks out Nixon to the exclusion of all others in this world, then it most certainly is sufficient for picking Nixon out in a possible world scenario. — creativesoul
That determination of sufficiency for picking out Nixon in an alternate world scenario is always and only established by whether or not the actual language expression being used to refer to Nixon successfully picks Nixon out of this world to the exclusion of all others. If it successfully picks out Nixon to the exclusion of all others in this world, then it most certainly is sufficient for picking Nixon out in a possible world scenario.
— creativesoul
Could you elaborate on why you think that? — andrewk
We look at this world and see whether X identifies a unique individual in it. But that tells us nothing to do with whether X would pick out a unique individual, no individuals, or multiple individuals, in an alternate world. — andrewk
I expect to elaborate on [the content of these lectures] elsewhere, in a forthcoming work discussing the problems of existential statements, empty names, and fictional entities. — N&N p158
My understanding of Kripke's position is that he believes we use stipulation. We mentally point at an individual in the alternate world and stipulate 'this one is Nixon'. See page 44.What do you mean? What else could we possible use as a standard, as ground, upon which to build our position, if not for how we do it in this world? — creativesoul
My understanding of Kripke's position is that he believes we use stipulation. We mentally point at an individual in the alternate world and stipulate 'this one is Nixon'. See page 44.
That is not my position. But as far as I can tell it appears to be Kripke's. — andrewk
The italics on 'him' show that the additional stipulation to which Kripke is referring is that the protagonist in this alternate world, who loses the election, is Nixon. The stipulation is neither by name nor by DD, as both of those may be different in the alternate world. It is by mental pointing.There is no reason why we cannot stipulate that, in talking about what would have happened to Nixon in a certain counterfactual situation, we are talking about what would have happened to him. — N&N p44
The italics on 'him' show that the additional stipulation to which Kripke is referring is that the protagonist in this alternate world, who loses the election, is Nixon. The stipulation is neither by name nor by DD, as both of those may be different in the alternate world. It is by mental pointing. — andrewk
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