You make this kind of statement a lot. — frank
I'm sure you can find someone to engage you. It's not going to be me. :razz: — frank
If I am using "know" metaphorically, ironically, wryly, jokingly, humorously or sarcastically, it is not being used incorrectly. — RussellA
Meta's posts, as always, serve only to confuse. — Banno
Exactly wrong. — Banno
That's why using "this" (though I'm picking up what you mean by "this" not being a name, now, ala Kripke -- since that's what he's speaking against, is Russel's theory of "this" counting as a name) with the lectern sunk home with me -- if descriptions are really all there are to names, then "this lectern is made of ice" is already picking out another lectern. That's why he's focusing on negative predicates, since the lectern he's talking about is necessarily itself, and it is a wooden lectern. And then the description is not picking out another lectern (another "name"), but the same one, even by the description — Moliere
Keep in mind that Kripke is focusing on ordinary language use. This is not an examination of a logical language, so meaning is truly use here.
In a case where "this lectern" is a rigid designator, the baptism is likely to have just happened. It's as if I named the lectern "Bob" but Bob equals this lectern.
The wooden lectern example is pointing to the way we think about objects. Note Kripke's emphasis on what we can and can't imagine. What he's saying should be very intuitive to you. — frank
Cool.My new understanding is: — RussellA
The bits on what we can and cannot imagine are somewhat opaque to me. Not that imagination isn't involved in thinking philosophically, but I'm naturally hesitant to say that imagination is the limit of philosophical thinking. — Moliere
"This lectern" is quite likely to be used as a rigid designator. Banno was throwing some spin in there. There might be cases where "this lectern" is non-rigid, but you'd have to pick that up from context. — frank
We find necessarily true statements that are known a posteriori. — frank
But I wonder what you make of the last arguments of the article, concerning the sensation of heat and states of mind — Banno
There's a long tradition of examining the ways we're bound to think. I think all philosophers make some use of that kind of exploration, but Hume and Kant are particularly notable for asking about the things we can and can't imagine. Kripke joins them in this for the purpose of showing that if we insist that all necessarily true statements are known a priori, this conflicts with the way we think about counterfactuals.
So there's no recipe here for speaking in a certain way. We're not identifying elements of grammar. We're analyzing a historic philosophical bias with the scalpel of...
the way we think. :grin: — frank
I've suggested that this is a misapplication of Kripke's argument, since that argument relies on fairly clear individuation - objects and individuals; but that after Wittgenstein it's not so clear that sensations and states of mind are the requisite sorts of individuals.
Further, the sensation of cold does not correspond to temperature, as shown in the video, and particular brain states do not correspond to particular states of mind, as shown by the irregularity of neural networks.
There's much plumbing to be sorted here, it seems. — Banno
What is difficult to maintain, after understanding Kripke's arguments, is that objects are constituted by essential properties. — Banno
The problem is that the law of identity is just an assumption based in intuition, it really cannot be proven. — Metaphysician Undercover
Hence, it is not that "Kripke seems to want to prove something like the law of identity".
I think he takes it as given. — Banno
One of the things about the thermometer definition is it explicitly states how to pick out temperature without telling you anything about temperature. I think that's a feature..........In the case of counter-factuals, when we're talking about "heat is the motion of molecules" vs. "heat is a caloric substance that goes from one object to the other", then I think both must be picking out the same things in the case of the first part, but I'm not sure about the latter part still. — Moliere
The amount of heat gained or lost by a sample (q) can be calculated using the equation q = mcΔT, where m is the mass of the sample, c is the specific heat, and ΔT is the temperature change. — Khan
However, there is much more at stake here than what meets the eye. There is the issue of the difference between an actual object (supposed to have independent existence in the world), and a possible object, (one signified with a name or description, but not necessarily assumed to have independent existence). — Metaphysician Undercover
Kripke's mode of argument effectively dissolves this difference, and this I believe is a serious ontological problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
The most influential arguments against the view that there is a genuine problem of transworld identity (or ‘problem of transworld identification’, to use Kripke’s preferred terminology) are probably those presented by Plantinga (1973, 1974) and Kripke (1980). Plantinga and Kripke appear to have, as their target, an alleged problem of transworld identity that rests on one of three assumptions. The first assumption is that we must possess criteria of transworld identity in order to ascertain, on the basis of their properties in other possible worlds, the identities of (perhaps radically disguised) individuals in those worlds. The second assumption is that we must possess criteria of transworld identity if our references to individuals in other possible worlds are not to miss their mark. The third assumption is that we must possess criteria of transworld identity in order to understand transworld identity claims. Anyone who makes one of these assumptions is likely to think that there is a problem of transworld identity—a problem concerning our entitlement to make claims that imply that an individual exists in more than one possible world. For it does not seem that we possess criteria of transworld identity that could fulfil any of these three roles. However, Plantinga and Kripke provide reasons for thinking that none of these three assumptions survives scrutiny. If so, and if these assumptions exhaust the grounds for supposing that there is a problem of transworld identity, the alleged problem may be dismissed as a pseudo-problem. — SEP
One way to argue in favour of transworld identity (distinct from the defensive strategies discussed in Sections 4 and 5 above) is what we might call ‘the argument from logical simplicity’ (Linsky and Zalta 1994, 1996; Williamson 1998, 2000). The argument begins by noting that Quantified Modal Logic—which combines individual quantifiers and modal operators—is greatly simplified when one accepts the validity of the Barcan scheme, ∀x□A → □∀xA (Marcus 1946). The resulting logic is sound and complete with respect to constant domain semantics, in which each possible world has precisely the same set of individuals in its domain. The simplest philosophical interpretation of this semantics is that one and the same individual exists at every possible world. — SEP
I think you misinterpret the law of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover
But P⊃☐P is invalid, and hence it cannot be an"reformulation" of P=P. And Kripke very carefully does not treat it as such. No consistent substitution into P=P will give P⊃☐P.'If the table is not made of ice it is necessarily not made of ice' for example. This is just a reformulation of the law, — Metaphysician Undercover
In each possible world, the thing denoted by the rigid designator is different from what it is in other possible worlds, having different properties. — Metaphysician Undercover
among the defenders of quantified modal logic and among its detractors. All of this talk seems to me to have taken the metaphor of possible worlds much too seriously in some way. It is as if a 'possible world' were like a foreign country, or distant planet way out there. It is as fi we see dimly through a telescope various actors on this distant planet. — p.174
Here again is the issue of transworld identity. Kripke's answer is now the standard response. — Banno
I might have put my slippers on. I didn't. One way to express this is that in some possible world I put my slippers on. It is trivial that the person who, in that possible world, put on their slippers, was me. There is no issue of "the difference between an actual object and a possible object. — Banno
In several posts you mistook other theorems for A=A. — Banno
But P⊃☐P is invalid, and hence it cannot be an"reformulation" of P=P. And Kripke very carefully does not treat it as such. No consistent substitution into P=P will give P⊃☐P. — Banno
The very same thing may have different properties in each possible world under consideration. — Banno
If you conceive of a counterfactual in which you did put your slippers on, then the person in that possible world is not you, because you put your slippers on. — Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, it is me. That's implicit in "I might have put my slippers on". It's a sentence about me, not about someone else. — Banno
And from there, your account goes astray. What follows in your post is erroneous. — Banno
if we insist that the two are both the same person we violate the law of non-contradiction because we have the very same person with two contradicting properties (slippers on and slippers off) at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you recognize that "A=A" is a symbolic representation of the law of identity, which is properly stated as an object is the same as itself? — Metaphysician Undercover
one is left to puzzle over the logic you are using.the law of identity is not supposed to be valid — Metaphysician Undercover
Simply, a sentence will be necessarily true only if it is true in every possible world.How do you validate "necessarily" here, without reference to the law of identity? — Metaphysician Undercover
No, I'm not. It is not true that I did not put on my slippers in every possible world, because having my slippers on is not a necessary attribute of Banno.Banno is necessarily the individual who did not put his slippers on. — Metaphysician Undercover
Again, no, since the actual world is a possible world. That's been explained to you before.In a possible world there is only possible things. — Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, it's false in this possible world. You are left in the absurd position that the sentence "Banno might not put his slippers on" is not about me.But it's false, you did not put your slippers on — Metaphysician Undercover
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