For anyone who's interested as to why the view is wrong, it's because it predicts a de dicto reading of "Nixon might not have been named Nixon" that is contradictory. — Snakes Alive
One also has to deal with the thorny question of how to characterize name-bearing in a non-circular manner if one seriously adopts such an analysis – think about it seriously for five minutes, and it will dawn how utterly bizarre things become. — Snakes Alive
The bad de dicto reading is if you don't use the indexical. — Snakes Alive
The general answer to the objector can be stated, then, as
follows : Any necessary truth, whether a priori or a posteriori,
could not have turned out otherwise. In the case of some
necessary a posteriori truths, however, we can say that under
appropriate qualitatively identical evidential situations, an
appropriate corresponding qualitative statement might have
been false. The loose and inaccurate statement that gold might
have turned out to be a compound should be replaced (roughly)
by the statement that it is logically possible that there should
have been a compound with all the properties originally known
to hold of gold. The inaccurate statement that Hesperus might
have turned out not to be Phosphorus should be replaced by
the true contingency mentioned earlier in these lectures : two
distinct bodies might have occupied, in the morning and the
evening, respectively, the very positions actually occupied by
Hesperus-Phosphorus-Venus.
But don't critique a sentence that nobody has written. — andrewk
It's later in the same sentence, and relies on the setup that is done in the first part of the sentence, which meticulously avoids using a proper name as subject.There's an example with a proper name subject right there. — Snakes Alive
I haven't come across that idiomatic expression before. I like it! What does it mean? Is it a reference to the elevated railway, which in some US cities is colloquially referred to as 'the L'?Take the fucking L, man. — Snakes Alive
The 'Nixon might not have been named Nixon' sentence is a classic example of how analytic philosophy often disappears up its own fundament, — andrewk
But don't critique a sentence that nobody has written. — andrewk
The 'Nixon might not have been named Nixon' sentence is a classic example of how analytic philosophy often disappears up its own fundament, by agonising over the meaning of a sentence that nobody would ever use, and claiming that the analysis is somehow relevant to how people do use language. — andrewk
Indeed, I had the liar sentence in mind as I was writing that. The similarities are strong. I also agree that it is fun to play around with such sentences. We only get ourselves into a muddle if we start to believe it tells us anything about how people really use language. — andrewk
Just say he had been called not Nixon but Schuyler, do you think he would still have gone into politics?'
The subject of the question is not identified by the name 'Nixon' but rather by 'he', which refers to the person the friends have all been talking about. There is no de re / de dicto distinction in this sentence, because the subject is not identified by a word ('Nixon') or DD that is capable of such a distinction. — andrewk
Hmm, that's a more interesting and complex question than I thought at first. The actual-world properties by which we identify the person depend on what our counterfactual is. Given this counterfactual is about them (1) having a different name - presumably at birth, since it is their surname, and (2) not entering politics, we need a way to identify him using information prior to the birth. We can try to do that via the parents, but without necessarily using the name Nixon. We could envisage them changing the name by deed poll but, given the counterfactual is about feeling that one might have aristocratic lineage, that wouldn't really satisfy the purpose of the counterfactual. The name Schuyler would have to go back a few generations into his ancestry at least.Which person are we talking about again that could have been named otherwise, but was not? — creativesoul
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