Do you just mean its truth value? — Terrapin Station
in those cases, though, just how are any designators rigid? — Terrapin Station
its value is invariant over possibilites by virtue of what? — Terrapin Station
Because the issue is not what the words might have meant, but what they do mean. Given what a name does mean, its value doesn't change over possibilities. — The Great Whatever
But what a word means is simply what people use it to mean at any given time. That can shift (and it's also not universal). So it wouldn't be rigid. — Terrapin Station
What's rigid is that their referent doesn't change with respect to world of evaluation. — The Great Whatever
One thing we should probably clear up is the possible world ontology we're using. Are we talking about possible worlds in a "realist" sense--that is in a Lewisian or MWI sense, where there literally are other worlds where counterparts of us exist? Or are we simply talking about counterfactuals and possibilites in our one world? — Terrapin Station
If the latter, by the way, and we're focusing on how a term is actually used, then it turns out that there's only one possible world--the actual world. — Terrapin Station
However, as soon as we say something like "'Michael' always denotes the same guy," we're introducing a temporal element — Terrapin Station
is only the case if we're talking about whoever is uttering the sentence, for all T, having the same guy in mind as a referent. But we don't at all know that that would be the case. — Terrapin Station
It doesn't matter. The question of rigid designation is an empirical semantic one, independent of these metaphysical claims. Rigid designation can be employed in any ontology of possible worlds. — The Great Whatever
This is false, insofar as languages have explicit mechanisms for evaluating relative to non-actual possibilities, including modal adverbs, sentential modals, conditionals and counterfactuals, attitude reports, and so on. — The Great Whatever
No. Again, this is not about the change of meanings over time. It is about which individual is denoted relative to which possible world. — The Great Whatever
What a name refers to doesn't depend on who someone has in mind. — The Great Whatever
It depends on what the word means — The Great Whatever
If I confuse Michael and Brett, and say 'Brett is the winner,' when Brett lost, and I meant that Michael is the winner, I've literally said something false about Brett — The Great Whatever
If we're talking about real alternate worlds, we have no idea what our counterpart might be actually using a term to refer to in that alternate world. — Terrapin Station
But that makes no sense. If we're talking about real alternate worlds, we have no idea what our counterpart might be actually using a term to refer to in that alternate world. — Terrapin Station
You're ignoring the "focusing on how we're using the term in the actual world" part. It's vacuous if we're not talking about real possible worlds to say that "in all possible worlds we're using the term to refer to x" if we're focusing on how we're using the term in the actual world, because with respect to how we're actually using the term, there's only ONE possibility--the actual way we're using the term. I'm not saying there aren't counterfactuals and so on. But if there's only one real world, there's only one actual way we can be using the term. There are no other worlds for usage of the term. There's just usage of the term in talk about counterfactuals and so on (though we're limiting ourselves to a single moment in time, so we can't do too much talking about counterfactuals and so on). — Terrapin Station
What I'm referring to is the word always. That's a temporal term. — Terrapin Station
Of course it does! That's ALL it depends on. That's all there is to it. — Terrapin Station
You can't use words incorrectly. — Terrapin Station
Well, how many things in how many other worlds can the same person talk about at the same time though?It's not about what terms they use to talk about things in their world. It's about what terms we use to talk about things in their world. — Michael
Here 'always' means 'in any situation,' — The Great Whatever
It depends on the conventions of the linguistic community, which aren't reducible to any single speaker's intentions. — The Great Whatever
Yes you can, as evidenced by the fact that you can use them correctly. — The Great Whatever
Well, how many things in how many other worlds can the same person talk about at the same time though? — Terrapin Station
Any number. Suppose you say 'John might be home.' This means there's a possibility he's home (say, given what we know to be true), not that he actually is. This roughly means that among all the possibilities that we can consider (say, compatible with what we know), among them are at least some in which John is at home (and maybe others in which he's not). — The Great Whatever
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