I spelled out the exact passage in which you said he does this, and compared it to the passage in Kant — Wayfarer

But that was already done on page 6 and even earlier than that. This began when our resident Kantian, Mww, kept telling us that Kant does not say what Rodl says he does in the OP. So we finally tracked it down, back on page 3, and it looks like Mww was (unsurprisingly) correct.

Here is what Rodl claims Kant says on page 6:

• "the I think accompanies all my thoughts."

And here is what Rodl admits Kant actually says in the endnote:

• "the I think must be able to accompany all my representations."

As noted earlier in the thread, there are two issues here: thought vs. representation, and "accompanies" vs. "must be able to accompany." Rodl misrepresents on both accounts, but the latter is more egregious.

I [...] could discern no difference between them — Wayfarer

I find that hard to believe.

---

Of course Rodl hides behind the strange words, "More precisely..." But that's like saying, "Kant told me that he lives in Virginia. More precisely, he told me that he lives in the United States." That makes no sense. It would have only made sense for Rodl to go in the other direction, "Kant told me he lives in the United States. More precisely, he told me that he lives in Virginia." Rodl is trying to make his interpretation of Kant more than an interpretation, by claiming that Kant himself affirms that interpretation.

What puzzles me in your charge of dishonesty is that it dissolves Rödl's efforts to separate first person thinking from objective judgment. — Paine

I am saying that Rodl lies about what Kant says (and this issue was a theme throughout the early parts of this thread). Why think that if Rodl had not misrepresented Kant then he wouldn't have been able to separate first person thinking from objective judgment?

It's sort of like if Rodl had written an open letter and forged Kant's signature at the bottom of it. Not a huge deal, but the OP depends heavily on that signature.

Edit: Or perhaps you are claiming that Rodl mildly disagrees with the idea that he attributes to Kant? The issue here has primarily to do with the early effort of trying to address the OP at a time when no one had Rodl's book (except J).

So the idea is supposed to be that Rodl lies in the text, and then quotes the source in the endnote that demonstrates it was a lie? — J

Rodl says, "Kant said: the I think accompanies all my thoughts." Did Kant say that or not?

Surely not. — J

You're twisting yourself in knots to read the text contrary to what it says. Does "X must be able to accompany Y" mean that "X always accompanies Y"? Yes or no?

He's trying to make it plain that, since the I think does in fact accompany all our representations, it has to be the sort of thing which is able to do so. — J

Except he doesn't say that at all. Kant gives a reason for his claim, but it is not the reason you supply. In fact Kant seems to contradict you. He says of the manifold representations given in a certain intuition, "(even if I am not conscious of them as such)." I.e. There are representations which we need not be conscious of.

Kant says, "All hamburgers are able to be accompanied by ketchup." Rödl says, "Kant thinks every hamburger has ketchup on it." — Leontiskos

---

Related:

I didn't mean it was a mistranslation of the possessive. I meant that different languages (and different eras) have different senses of what connotes "possession," what sorts of things can be mine. — J

But that's worse, not better.

• "The text doesn't support your theory." "No, I'm right. It's probably just a translation issue."
• "The text doesn't support your theory." "No, I'm right. It's probably just a linguistic-cultural connotation issue."

It is post hoc rationalization to blindly appeal to things like this in favor of one's position. My issue here is that the texts are being ignored in favor of some ideology. The example is, "Rodl is worth reading, therefore he couldn't be lying, therefore 'X must be able to accompany Y' means (or at least entails) 'X always accompanies Y'." The a priori judgment is so strong (and biased) that it overpowers the fact that there is a difference between possibility and necessity.

I suppose another consideration is: "should demonstration proceed from premises that are better known than the conclusion?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see this as the central error of modern philosophy, and I have often considered writing a thread on it. You beat me to it. :up:

Argument (and knowledge) proceeds from premises that are better known to conclusions that are less known. Contravening this Aristotelian dictum has created confusion upon confusion.

The natural and social sciences, and much "proper philosophy," doesn't work like this. It works from established beliefs/knowledge, and then tries to explain what is less well understood in terms of what is more well understood. This doesn't mean current belief is taken to be infallible, but it might be taken as highly credible, or above suspicion until implicated in some way. Biologists and economists, for instance, don't go about their work by doubting all prior publications and theories and trying to work their way back to things that are already assumed to be well understood. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

And note how if one of those things that was "assumed to be well understood" comes up against the skeptic's pet thesis, it always loses. For example, when Hume's highly implausible variety of Empiricism comes up against the idea that causes exist, the idea that causes exist is forfeited. The birthright is forfeited for a bowl of pottage. (See my post <here>)

It's hard to say why folks fall for these sophistries. Part of it is going along with what is fashionable at the time. Part of it is the idea that if Hume has a long string of (sophistical) arguments, and I have only the (illative) belief that causes exist, then the long string of arguments must win on account of quantity. So you have the odd effect where the intelligent become dumb and the common person retains their wits.

Philosophy has a strong tendency in the direction of decadence and self-immolation in that way. In the late Medieval period when philosophy became exceedingly subtle and inward facing, the lay population said, "Screw it. This is too abstruse, pedantic, and pointless. We're leaving it all behind." And so they started from scratch with some of the very errors you note. Our age is another philosophically decadent time, when philosophy is (often rightly) seen to be pointless thumb-twiddling about angels and pins, particularly in the English-speaking world where Logical Positivism haunts the landscape.

This post is a bit of a grab-bag, but I would also note how capricious modern and contemporary philosophy is. Individualism captures philosophy and it begins to border on a cult of personality. Further, instead of systematic rigor philosophy becomes a matter of just investigating whatever you happen to want to investigate. Questions of history become passé and history in fact becomes little more than a foil used in service of chronological snobbery. It is the child without a memory committing the same mistakes day after day, with nowhere to go and no larger end to encumber them.

- Thanks Paine. :up:

So - what about this constitutes a lie or a contradiction? — Wayfarer

To say that Kant says something that one knows he does not say is lying, and this is what Rodl does. He demonstrates that in the endnote. And even if we grant for the sake of argument that Kant presupposes Rodl's position (and it seems that he doesn't), it remains false that Kant affirms that position.

A little further along in the same section from the CPR, further argument which lends weight to Rödl's interpretation — Wayfarer

Yes, after listening to McDowell's lecture on Rodl I was able to understand that this is what Rodl is doing, but it still doesn't justify his claim. Unity in a single consciousness is not self-consciousness, even for Kant.

McDowell chastises Rodl for misreading Davidson in a way that helps Rodl justify his own position, and I think that is also what is happening with Kant. The OP itself is premised on that false attribution in the same way: depending on Kant saying something he did not say.

-

They have been for me — J

And yet you can't say what you have gained or even answer the question, "What are they saying?" The danger of obscure thinkers is that they are very easy to read one's own ideas into, thus approving one's preconceptions. The opaque Other is not Other at all, and becomes only one's reflection in the water.

I found a really useful text for your thread: Paul Vincent Spade's, "The Warp and Woof of Metaphysics: How to Get Started on Some Big Themes."

It is a professor's informal introduction to Aristotelian essentialism for his students, using Quine and modalism as a jumping-off point. He construes modern approaches and bundle theories as a form of Platonism vis-a-vis the Timaeus (which makes sense). He then contrasts Aristotle's approach to the Platonic approach, which reveals the two deep metaphysical approaches on offer.

Beyond that, I think the focus on Assemblage Theory in this thread has functioned as an elaborate excuse to avoid the issues of the OP, despite the fact that there are <ways to engage the OP with approaches like Deleuze's>.

We can all recognize a tiger when we see one, even though we cannot say what the essence of being a tiger is. — Janus

Suppose I tell you that you have a heart inside you that allows you to move and to live. You respond, "Watch. I will move my arm. See? We can all move, even without hearts." Or perhaps I would say that you need firing neurons to think and you say, "We can all think. What need is there for firing neurons?"

In general, if you don't know what something is then you should not criticize it. And if you want to criticize something, then you should be able to say what it is. But folks like Banno are going to criticize things like essence with complete ignorance of what it is, and a refusal to say what they are criticizing. It is prejudice on stilts.

Essence is part of an account of knowledge and cognition. No one who understands what an essence is would merely assert that we can recognize a tiger without knowing something of its essence. Essence = quiddity = "whatness." If you know what a tiger is, then you know its essence (or something of its essence - recall the strawman of claiming that essences are known perfectly and a priori).

Another good principle for those who don't want to be dumb is to ask what question a philosophical concept is answering. Instead of saying, "It's fashionable to say essences are dumb, so I'm going to say essences are dumb, even though I don't know what essences are," one should say, "Hey, the concept of essence was developed continually by hundreds of different philosophers for 2,000 years. Maybe I should give it a fair shake. Maybe I should try to figure out what it is and what questions it was attempting to answer, and whether I have better answers to those questions." Someone like Banno characteristically says, "The solution is stupid; I refuse to say what I mean by the solution; and I refuse to answer the question; we just stipulate; it's just what we do." This is prejudice, not philosophy.

Rather than essences, a better entry point into these issues is universals, and The Medieval Problem of Universals is one of the better SEP articles out there. It is historical and pedagogical rather than simply taxonomical.

Is it essentially the idea that the esse (viz., the parts) depend also on the essence (viz., the whole)? — Bob Ross

Well in the first place esse != parts and essence != whole. Esse/essence is not the part/whole relationship.

I agree with this insofar as living beings aren’t just composed like non-living beings: they have a form that has to do with a process of maintaining and developing as an organism. Is that what you are referring to by “substantial form”? — Bob Ross

Sure, that’s part of it. So for example, if you place all of the parts of a frog together in the correct configuration, there will still be no frog. The frog as a whole is something that the parts cannot effect.

I guess I am not seeing the issue. I would say that a form is instantiated by way of the parts arrangement in such-and-such manners; and so the essence is not strictly reducible to the parts which comprise the being which has it; but this doesn’t seem to negate the fact that the essence itself is contingent for its existence on the parts. — Bob Ross

Sure, there is some sense in which the whole depends on the parts, although not all the parts. If a cat loses an ear or a dog loses a leg it has lost a part but the cat or dog still exists.

The problem begins in premise (4), where you imply that there is an existence in the parts that is not in the whole, and thus we are upbuilding existence from parts to whole. Your idea is something like, “Parts are what primarily exist, and because they exist wholes exist. The existence of wholes is generated by the existence of parts.”

That’s fair, and I hadn’t thought of that. I think this OP, if true, would necessitate that the universe is finite and that matter is not eternal; or at least that matter is eternal only insofar as it subsists in being (from God).

We can also, I would say, object in a similar manner to time, space, and natural laws. None of these have parts themselves, and so they would be immune to the OP; but my point would be that the OP establishes the requirement for God, and establishes the nature of God sufficiently to know that these kinds of things which have no parts themselves must be only in existence through God as well. I would say this because nothing can affect a purely actual being (since it lacks passive potency), granted such a being exists, and given natural laws (or time or space itself—if you are a realist about those) would be a medium which does affect such a being’s ability to actualize, it follows that no such purely transcendent natural laws (or time or space) can exist; for God must be more fundamental than them, as their own actualization. They equally have a potential to exist or not, and God actualizes that potentiality. — Bob Ross

Okay, that’s fair enough.

That is fair, but my thing would be that Aristotelian idea of ‘motion’ is misleading for modern people; and makes them be too dismissive of the argument. — Bob Ross

Why do you say that? It seems to me that motion is more generally accepted than the essence/existence distinction. Of course when Aristotle talks about motion he is also talking about any kind of change, but change too is generally accepted to exist.

Think about it this way: is it easier for someone to deny the essence/existence distinction, or is it easier for them to deny that existence of motion/change?

- Something is composed if it has parts and simple if it has no parts. This is a foundational idea in philosophy. The second premise means that a composed being will stop existing if its parts undergo certain changes. For example, if I chop you in half you will stop existing.

I’ll only add, because of the title, a lot of people will read it to find fault with it, while others (like myself) will read it to find support for their view — Wayfarer

The OP left a bad taste in my mouth given the way it handles Kant. And after an excessive amount of digging we learned that Rodl contradicts himself in the endnote, which to me constitutes a lie:

Kant said: the I think accompanies all my thoughts.³

[3] Critique of Pure Reason, B 131. More precisely, he says that the I think must be able to accompany all my representations, for all my representations must be capable of being thought. This presupposes (what is the starting point of Kant’s philosophy and not the kind of thing for which he would undertake to give an argument) that the I think accompanies all my thoughts. — Rodl, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity

Maybe it was just an unfortunate coincidence that the thread began on such shaky ground, but after the Kimhi threads took a very long time to go nowhere, this sort of equivocation deters.

Yes, and there are those fortunate few who aren't sure! — J

But as the thread on Kimhi demonstrated, you are sure. You are sure that Kimhi and Rodl are important and worth reading. But you don't seem able to give any reasons for that rather dogmatic position. You insist it's worth it and you don't know why:

I have gotten so frustrated with Kimhi over the past month that I've literally screamed, trying to untangle him. But I insist it's worth it. — J

That's fine, but I don't see a neutral or objective reader. I see more of that from Paine, and that is why I am so interested to hear his thoughts.

The only thing that worries me is captured by Srap's response. If anti-Analytic lunges all miss their mark badly, then a real problem is being created. That is, if Kimhi and Rodl don't make any sense, then touting them--explicitly or implicitly--as the champions against Analytic Fregianism only aids the cause of Analytic Fregianism. Honestly, after reading Kimhi I think more of Frege, not less. It's not great when arguments against [Frege] have the effect of improving the general opinion of [Frege].

Additionally, philosophy forums are usually filled with people pretending to do calculus, who do not know how to do algebra. With Kimhi everyone came to the same conclusion, including you, "We don't really know what he is talking about, or where he is going with any of this." The problem created by this can't just be deferred ad infinitum. At some point you have to face the music. But of course Rodl could be different than Kimhi.

So, on the "no privation" view the perfect form of a tiger would be 100% tigerness, just as the form of the perfect circle would be 100% circularity. Same for the Good, Justice, and Beauty. 'No deviation' might be a better term than 'no privation'. — Janus

"Privation" is necessary because you are employing a Platonic version. Note that for Plato there is no "undeviated circle" among the realm of singulars, here below. The perfect Form is never found in a singular.

Therefore, the Platonic answer to the question of what this demonstration was about, namely, that it was about a perfect, ideal triangle, which is invisible to the eyes, but is graspable by our understanding, at once provides us with an explanation of the possibility of universal, necessary knowledge. By knowing the properties of the Form or Idea, we know all its particulars, i.e., all the things that imitate it, insofar as they imitate or participate in it. So, the Form itself is a universal entity, a universal model of all its particulars; and since it is the knowledge of this universal entity that can enable us to know at once all its particulars, it is absolutely vital for us to know what it is, what it is like, and exactly how it is related to its particulars. However, obviously, all these questions presuppose that it is at all, namely, that such a universal entity exists.

But the existence of such an entity seems to be rather precarious. Consider, for instance, the perfect triangle we were supposed to have in mind during the demonstration of Thales’ theorem. If it is a perfect triangle, it obviously has to have three sides, since a perfect triangle has to be a triangle, and nothing can be a triangle unless it has three sides. But of those three sides either at least two are equal or none, that is to say, the triangle in question has to be either isosceles or scalene (taking ‘isosceles’ broadly, including even equilateral triangles, for the sake of simplicity). However, since it is supposed to be the universal model of all triangles, and not only of isosceles triangles, this perfect triangle cannot be an isosceles, and for the same reason it cannot be a scalene triangle either. Therefore, such a universal triangle would have to have inconsistent properties, namely, both that it is either isosceles or scalene and that it is neither isosceles nor scalene. However, obviously nothing can have these properties at the same time, so nothing can be a universal triangle any more than a round square. So, apparently, no universal triangle can exist. But then, what was our demonstration about? Just a little while ago, we concluded that it could not be directly about any particular triangle (for it was not about the triangle in the figure, and it was even less about any other particular triangle not in the figure), and now we had to conclude that it could not be about a universal triangle either. But are there any further alternatives? It seems obvious that through this demonstration we do gain universal knowledge concerning all particulars. Yet it is also clear that we do not, indeed, we cannot gain this knowledge by examining all particulars, both because they are potentially infinite and because none of them perfectly satisfies the conditions stated in the demonstration. So, there must have been something wrong in our characterization of the universal, which compelled us to conclude that, in accordance with that characterization, universals could not exist. Therefore, we are left with a whole bundle of questions concerning the nature and characteristics of universals, questions that cannot be left unanswered if we want to know how universal, necessary knowledge is possible, if at all... — The Emergence of the Problem | Medieval Universals | SEP (italics omitted)

On an Aristotelian conception the form of a triangle is a matter of abstraction:

...For example, I can be mistaken if I form in my mind the judgment that a man is running, whereby I conceive a man to be somehow, but if I simply think of a man without attributing either running or not running to him, I certainly cannot make a mistake as to how he is.[12] In the same way, I would be mistaken if I were to think that a triangle is neither isosceles nor scalene, but I am certainly not in error if I simply think of a triangle without thinking either that it is isosceles or that it is scalene. Indeed, it is precisely this possibility that allows me to form the universal mental representation, that is, the universal concept of all particular triangles, regardless of whether they are isosceles or scalene. For when I think of a triangle in general, then I certainly do not think of something that is a triangle and is neither isosceles nor scalene, for that is impossible, but I simply think of a triangle, not thinking that it is an isosceles and not thinking that it is a scalene triangle. This is how the mind is able to separate in thought what are inseparable in real existence. Being either isosceles or scalene is inseparable from a triangle in real existence. For it is impossible for something to be a triangle, and yet not to be an isosceles and not to be a scalene triangle either. Still, it is not impossible for something to be thought to be a triangle and not to be thought to be an isosceles and not to be thought to be a scalene triangle either (although of course, it still has to be thought to be either-isosceles-or-scalene). This separation in thought of those things that cannot be separated in reality is the process of abstraction.[13] In general, by means of the process of abstraction, our mind (in particular, the faculty of our mind Aristotle calls active intellect (nous poietikos, in Greek, intellectus agens, in Latin) is able to form universal representations of particular objects by disregarding what distinguishes them, and conceiving of them only in terms of those of their features in respect of which they do not differ from one another. — Boethius’ Aristotelian Solution | Medieval Universals | SEP

As it happens, we do know both things, but if we knew as little about Socrates as Socrates himself knew about tables, we presumably could still refer to him, and be unconfused about him in possible worlds. — J

It seems to me that folks take a machination like "possible worlds" or "metaphysically possible" and then start throwing it around without any real sense of what they are doing. "There is a possible world in which Socrates is an alien." "It is metaphysically possible for Socrates to have been a chimp." Does the speaker have any sense of what he is saying with these sentences, uttered in isolation?

We can just pretend/stipulate that we can refer to Socrates without knowing anything about Socrates, but that is merely a promissory note. It begs the question in a discussion about reference.

• "I can refer to Socrates, and I need have no necessity-concept attached to my understanding of 'Socrates'."
• "Why do you think that."
• "For no special reason. Just because I say so. Just because I stipulate that I can."

That is not a real argument against modal essentialism. I don't think anyone talks about Socrates without involving their own essential and accidental properties of what constitutes Socrates. That is why in conversation some of the interlocutor's predications about Socrates will make one question whether the interlocutor is talking about Socrates, and some will not. Some claims about "Socrates" are thought to be incompatible with Socrates, and some are not.

"Possible worlds" is a necessity/possibility contrast. There is no such thing as making a possibility claim without also making necessity claims, at least in the background. And one cannot stipulate that their possibility claim involves no necessity premise.

(For a short defense of modal essentialism vis-a-vis Quine, see the first few pages of Paul Vincent Spade's, "The Warp and Woof of Metaphysics.")

-

• "For every property of Socrates there is some possible world where he does not have that property. Therefore Socrates has no essential or necessary properties."
• "If nothing necessarily attaches to Socrates, then in what does his continuation across possible worlds consist?"

Analytic philosophy characteristically caps off explanations of perennial topics with ad hoc appeals, in this case an appeal to stipulation. What is denied at the front door is snuck in the back door.

It's been pointed out previously and by others that you tend to misrepresent folk and then critique what you want to see — Banno

You always conflate your own opinions with the common opinion.

But pretty much everyone recognizes how silly and vain conversations with you are (or become). For example, from a moderator, "Treat this as an invitation to engage with the thread topic on its own terms... If you want to use this style of analysis, and see the thread through its terms entirely, you're going to remain confused." Many of the posters just ignore you, which I take to be the correct route.

You and Count are both materialists. — frank

Okay, Frank. Thank you for letting us know. :ok:

He seems like a very odd person to me. I would think Aristotle for example would consider him odd — Gregory

I question whether Aquinas wrote everything that is attributed to him. It just so processed and empty that to me it seems the Church has hidden the true story behind their creation. — Gregory

:lol: :lol:

TPF is turning into Reddit, conspiracy theories and all.

- Do you think Rodl might believe that what occurs is consciousness of the activity itself? That was my point - that the option that Kant denies might be what Rodl accepts. Or something close to it, given the way Rodl does not see self-consciousness as accidental to thought.

Care to say more? What do you consider as two ways? — Mww

Using your explanation of Kant, "Consciousness of the occurrence of the activity," and, "Consciousness of the activity itself" ().

(I should have said "could" rather than "can." There are here two different ways of conceiving consciousness of one's own thought.)

Cheers! :nerd: — frank

I think Kripke saw the point I am making and instantiated it in his rigid designators. It's not that hard to progress the thought. Someone using a rigid designator is thinking of something which has continuity across possible worlds, and which therefore has at least one essential modal property.

Indeed, if you and I are arguing about Socrates, then we are both thinking of something which has at least one essential modal property. Then we navigate that difference and close the distance between our two conceptions by reflecting on the other person's essence-conception, or as you said, by "putting ourselves in their shoes." If at the end of the day we end up agreeing (which sometimes happens in the real world), then our two essence-conceptions of Socrates will have become aligned. That alignment is the first step toward better understanding Socrates in a dialogical context. For example, if two scholars of Socrates sit down and talk for a few hours, they may well come away with a more unified historical theory of Socrates, and that unified theory will in turn represent progress towards the goal of understanding the real Socrates.

Although essences are not of individuals, I think this helps to show how we get at the real, whether of individual (objective referent) or species (essence). The operative concepts (referent or essence) are operative throughout the entire dialogical process in tightly nested spirals. We are constantly switching between thinking about our subjective/intentional referents, our interlocutor's subjective/intentional referents, the objective referent that we are both aiming at, and then the various recursive mental acts, such as how our interlocutor is conceiving of our own subjective/intentional referents. In doing this, in allowing reference to be analogical in that it involves a complex intersubjective dance of different shades and colors of reference, we eventually arrive at knowledge of the referent that we are both ultimately aiming at. But if we make "referent" a flat, objective reality independent of our thinking, intentions, and personal understandings, then we are doomed from the start.

(I am obviously appealing to modal essentialism here.)

When I first encountered the Logical Positivist thinking in Banno's thread on Kit Fine, it was very strange. It was strange to encounter folks who think of reference and essence as, "Either we have an infallible pre-packaged reference/essence, or else it does not exist at all." I am still working out how someone can get to such a confused position in the first place. And perhaps that was Quine's motive, "Reference doesn't work that way, kids. You're barking up the wrong tree." The adamant resolution to sever reference from speaker's intention is obviously at the heart of the problem, and this has to do with reifying language as an unchanging something that exists apart from speaker's intentions and extramental objects, and can therefore be studied in isolation from these things.

* Banno is a living example of these problems. For example, even the thought of taking speaker's intention into consideration makes Banno start shrieking, "Humpty Dumptyism! Humpty Dumptyism!" The propaganda campaign is well established by now.

Being human isn't essential to Socrates because he could have been an alien. — frank

Why? Why not say, "Being Socrates isn't essential to Socrates because he could have been Patrocles"?

If there is any rhyme or reason to these claims; if possible worlds are to do any work at all; then there must be some necessary property or properties of Socrates, and once we admit that we're already into modal essentialism.

Yes, but Kripke's essential properties are stipulated. — frank

SEP is correct here:

Even so, the appeal to stipulation is more like a promissory note than the satisfaction of an explanatory obligation. The appeal to stipulation puts off for another occasion any attempt to resolve how we succeed at doing what we take for granted that we manage somehow to do: namely, how we succeed at referring to the right individual, by means of our stipulative effort. — Rigid Designators | SEP

Ok, that makes sense. Yes, how Quine defines "fact" here is at odds with most philosophy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure if Quine uses "fact" in that way, but Banno and frank certainly are.

Here is my thesis: words are not, at least primarily, "what we know," but a "means of knowing and communicating." — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Banno is not a good person to ask about this. — Count Timothy von Icarus

An understatement. Banno reduces all of philosophy to a few idiosyncratic decades in the 20th century and reads everything through that narrow, parochial lens.

-

Have you guys read Kripke? — J

Kripke flirts with essentialism:

Kripke would evidently agree that there is something that it is to amount to you, as opposed to anything else, and that your essence is what qualifies an object—you—to be the designatum of your name with respect to any possible world (he doesn’t say that your essence is qualitative though, and he outright rejects certain versions of that claim). But Kripke would deny that a speaker would have to know this essence, or to rely upon any other nontrivial criteria distinguishing you from world to world, in order to refer to you by way of a rigid designator (Kripke 1980, pp. 15–20; see also Plantinga 1974, pp. 93–98). — Rigid Designators | SEP

Medieval theories of signification and ampliation addressed much of this in greater detail than contemporary philosophy manages, and it's no wonder that the perennial problems of metaphysics began to return as soon as Logical Positivism died its own strange death:

In any case, if we look around the scene of contemporary philosophy -- which, despite all its eclecticism, is markedly different as a whole from the philosophical landscape of the beginning of this century -- what first hits the eye is the fact that metaphysics, despite its allegedly irrevocable and irreversible death, proclaimed repeatedly by several philosophical authorities of the past two centuries, is still alive and kicking. Well, of course, if someone were to say that this metaphysics is no longer that metaphysics, he would obviously be right. For most contemporary metaphysical studies are (quite paradoxically) the direct descendants of the logical positivist/analytic movement,[5] which in turn established its platform on a radical rejection of traditional metaphysics (proclaiming it to be simply meaningless). So, contemporary metaphysical investigations (here we should think of works of authors such as Armstrong, Bealer, Butchvarov, Gupta, Fine, Kripke, Lewis, Parsons, Plantinga, Putnam, Quine, van Inwagen, etc.) are radically different in their methods and principles as well as in their goals from anything that might pass for "traditional metaphysics". Nevertheless, one cannot fail to notice that in the works of contemporary metaphysicians, who in general are not quite familiar with, and who in fact do not care much about, traditional metaphysics, there is a slew of obstinately recurring traditional metaphysical problems: for example, considerations concerning "rigid designators" and "natural kinds" directly lead to contemporary views flirting with Aristotelian essentialism, problems with personal identity and "transworld identity" are closely related to the traditional problems of the principle of individuation, while questions regarding meaning and reference led to the revival of several aspects of the old problem of universals. Indeed, in general, the contemporary realism-antirealism debate with all its ramifications can quite fairly be characterized as being centered around the traditional problems of the relationships between modi essendi (modes of being), modi intelligendi (modes of understanding) and modi significandi (modes of signifying), primarily approaching the issue from the last member of this triad. In this situation, it is no wonder that we find a number of philosophically-minded historians as well as historically-minded philosophers (such as Adams, McCord Adams, Barnes, Burrell, Geach, Gracia, Henry, Kretzmann, Kenny, McInerny, Normore, Stump, Wolterstorff, etc.) who, being versatile both in analytic philosophy and in traditional metaphysics, are bringing the scholastic discussions directly to bear upon contemporary metaphysical problems and techniques. — Gyula Klima: What can a scholastic do in the 21st century?

“…. What is thought first-personally contains its being thought….” (Pg 2)

….what does that say except thought is what is thought; IS thought and BEING thought are exactly the same thing; was there ever a thought that wasn’t first-personal? Watahell’s a guy supposed to do with any of that? — Mww

It does look tautologous, whether we construe it that way or whether we construe it as saying that a self-reflective thought contains its being thought.

My initial objection was slightly different. A first-personal thought for Rodl is something like thinking "I think 2+2=4." Does that contain its own thought? Even supposing it does for the sake of argument, not all thought is "first-personal," and therefore not all thought contains its own thought in this way (self-consciously). Maybe Rodl develops this later on.

But the other question is, "In what sense is it contained?" When you say that for Kant, "“I think” represents the consciousness of the occurrence of the activity, but not the activity itself," we are distinguishing two different ways in which one can be conscious of their own thought, That strikes me as an important distinction.

- It does seem to be. :up:

I know I've never really laid out a case, if there is one, for why Rodl's perplexity about "content" makes sense. — J

It is worrisome that after reading so much Rödl you're still not sure what he is objecting to in Frege. Is the same true of Kimhi?

I would try visiting Geach to find out, as he is the basis of the criticism for both Kimhi and Klima (and note that Rödl is indebted to Kimhi on this score). Geach is the first domino that I know of who critiques Frege in this way.

"Assertion," by Peter Geach
"The Frege-Geach Problem 60 Years Later: A Tribute to an Enduring Semantic Puzzle"

The closest to it I found, and which inspired the argument from composition over motion, was Aquinas’ argument that if all essences do not in-themselves necessitate esse than none of them could exist; and so there must be an essence which is identical to its existence—God. It makes more sense to me to formulate it in terms of ‘composed being’ than forms and matter. — Bob Ross

Yes, and I thought you might be doing this. The difficulty is that essence/existence is a contentious form of composition, and a lot of people will fight you on this.

Sorry, I see how that might be confusing in the OP: I will rewrite that part. — Bob Ross

That's alright. I had figured it out by the time I wrote my next post, and I understand why you wrote it the way you did. You need "beings" to include parts, wholes, and simples. I had mistakenly assumed it excluded parts, which was a slip on my part.

The idea is that there is a form instantiated in matter by way of particular things arranged in particular ways—and so, as a side note, this argument presupposes realism about forms—and complex being has its form contingently on the parts which make it up (in some particular arrangement). This means that, similarly to how Aristotle notes that an infinite per se series of things changing do not themselves have the power to initiate that change (e.g., an infinite series of inter-linked gears have no power themselves to rotate each other, so an infinite series of rotating gears is ceteris paribus absurd), forms comprised of other forms comprised of other forms comprised of other forms <…> ad infinitum do not have the power to keep existence (let alone to exist at all). If each is dependent on the smaller comprised thing—which exists with a form and matter alike in the same contingency patter—then there could not be anything at all there (without something that they subsist in); just as much as if each gear does not have the power to move itself then there can’t be any of them moving (without some outside mover). — Bob Ross

When I first read the argument I thought of what David Oderberg calls "Reverse mereological essentialism," and you've here confirmed that this is an issue. It's not quite right to say that substantial wholes depend on their parts, because in a more primary sense the parts depend on the whole. One might be able to get away with that language insofar as corruptible entities are contingent on account of their composite nature...

But the problem is that you are upbuilding existence, which amounts to a kind of reduction of wholes to parts (qua existence). You seem to be saying, "Why does a whole exist? Because its parts exist. Why do its parts exist? Because their parts exist. But since no part is self-existing..."

For Aquinas existence is granted to the parts and to the whole, but it is not granted to the whole mediately through the parts. This is actually a really key difference between Aristotelian substantial form and a mechanistic composite whole. Our modern age thinks of organisms as machines, with upbuilding parts. For Aristotle an organism is very different than a machine, having a substantial form.

For Aquinas’ essence version, it is the idea that the essence of a thing normally does not imply its existence, and so the essence of a thing is distinct from its existence. If there were an infinite per se series of composition of things sorts of essences, then none of them could exist; for they are all contingent. There would have to be some essence—which he argues is only one of this kind—where it just is identical to its existence (i.e., is a necessary being). — Bob Ross

Yes, but very few people around here are going to grant you this without a lot of argument.

There are two Aristotelian rejoinders to your argument. The first is not exactly a rejoinder, but simply the fact that Aristotle did not posit created things as essence/existence composites (and in fact he never considered the matter). The second is more difficult, and it is Aristotle's belief that prime matter is uncreated and the universe is eternal. Aquinas is very conscientious of Aristotle's position on this.

Now perhaps you are not positing a finite universe, but I think a subtle difference on the nature of prime matter (between Aristotle and Aquinas) may come into your argument. This is because if prime matter is necessarily eternal, then in some sense it is not a composition of essence and existence.

That’s a good question. I would say, if the thing is spatial, then it must have parts; because anything that is spatiotemporal can be broken up into smaller parts. Anything, e.g., with extension must be capable of being broken up into the succession of some unit—e.g., a succession of dots form a line. Something is space is necessarily the succession of some some smaller things; and something in time is the succession of a thing temporally, which is also a form of being dissimilation. — Bob Ross

Okay. You seem to be saying that Atomism is false because divisibility never ceases with material objects. A lot of this draws back to the form of dependence that composition represents (and that is an interesting Thomistic query). But the heart of your argument seems to be the essence/existence distinction.

Why doesn't Aquinas appeal to the essence/existence distinction very often in his simpler works? I think it is because it is difficult to understand and know. Contrariwise, in his first argument for God's existence in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas begins with motion because, "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion." He begins with something that is very obvious and cannot be denied, and works from there. That's a key principle of all argument.

(Double post - server stutter)

I really do not think you have understood Quine. — Banno

I was responding to Count, not exegeting Quine.

rather than addressing the issues raised — Banno

You are <the one who can't address the issue for the life of you>.

Humpty Dumpty — Banno

Trolls will troll. The ignorant will demonstrate their ignorance.

which is from Lock — Banno

Wrong again.

I will make a thread that includes the topic of intentional reference/identity sometime in at least the next month. It will be a reading group, so trolling will not be tolerated.

If arguments from undetermination show there is no "fact of the matter" about something... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that:

translation is underdetermined to some extent — Leontiskos

We are always in via, growing in knowledge, whether it be with essences or references or logic, etc. A robust epistemology of what is being referred to would note not only that 'gavagai' is underdetermined, but also that it is not indeterminate. "Gavagai" has something to do with rabbits. Even someone with a poor theory of language will understand that much. And the fact that signification can be narrowed down makes all the difference between underdetermination and indetermination. The experiences of the linguist constitute a narrowing of the meaning of "gavagai" to something that has to do with rabbits. Further narrowing can then take place, which is what actually happens in reality when folks learn new languages, even through pure immersion.

Quine's complexification of the situation fails if he thinks it shows that there is no starting point; that there is pure indetermination.

(And because substance metaphysics is true and widespread, most people will begin with the thesis that 'gavagai' names the rabbit rather than, say, its ear, and they will usually be right.)

Similarly, our supposition that "gavagai" means rabbit might be worth considering on the basis of our other beliefs about the community we are interpreting.

We need to take care here. There need be no truth to the matter of what it is that "gavagai" refers to, but there might well be. If the men go off hunting gavagai and return with rabbits, and if they offer you gavagai and hand you rabbit stew, that may well suffice. — Banno

This is just you having your cake and eating it, too. If reference is inscrutable then we cannot be confident. If we are justified in our confidence then reference is not inscrutable.

There need be no truth to the matter of what it is that "gavagai" refers to, but there might well be. — Banno

The chorus throughout this thread has been, "There is no fact of the matter. There is no fact of the matter. There is no fact of the matter." Now you have switched direction, "There need be no truth to the matter, but there might be." Your self-contradiction hasn't gone unnoticed.

So after all that wind, you agree with what was said. — Banno

Maybe if you wouldn't go around lying, trolling, and making up shit we would all save a bit of time. You still haven't managed to address the central issue raised <here>, but that's no surprise.

That's not the point though. — Janus

It is the point, though, because you are giving the tired argument, "Show me a perfect essence if you want to justify essentialism," and I am saying, "What essentialist has ever claimed to have access to perfect essences?"

What essentialism says is that we have an imperfect grasp of essences. Someone who studies tigers or triangles has a better grasp of their nature than someone who does not study them.

It seems uncontroversial that Plato considered the forms to be perfect and their physical manifestations imperfect. Do you deny this? — Janus

Even Plato never claimed that we have perfect knowledge of the Forms, or that we can give a perfect account of the Forms.

This notion of a perfect form, eidos or essence is the traditional understanding of essentialism. — Janus

So this is a good example of the very post you were responding to. Here is my response:

The response, "Show where you are getting the idea that [absurdity] comes with essentialism." Objections to essentialism tend to be strawmen through and through. — Leontiskos

What source do you use to come to this idea about "this notion of a perfect form"?

- Here are some of the places where I objected to this use of "fact":

The important thing here is to set out what one believes Quine's intended conclusion was. I would suggest avoiding vague words like 'fact' in setting that out. — Leontiskos

* Again, "fact" being a weasel-word. — Leontiskos

A very remarkable weakness of modern theories of reference is that they do not manage to account in any way for speakers' intentions, such as the Medieval theory of "immediate signification" does. This is why I think modern philosophers talk themselves in circles when it comes to reference, and all of this is related to philosophy of language as first philosophy. And it is certainly true that we cannot pretend that this bad theory of reference does not bleed into all sorts of other areas, such as belief, knowledge, doubt, etc.

- I can sort of make your argument work, but most people who are not familiar with the metaphysical background are going to have questions in many different places.

7. Therefore, a series of composed beings must have, ultimately, uncomposed parts as its first cause. (6 & 3)
8. An uncomposed being (such as an uncomposed part) is purely simple, since it lacks any parts.
9. Two beings can only exist separately if they are distinguishable in their parts. — Bob Ross

Here an Atomist will say that atoms (or whatever fundamental building block they choose) is purely simple and yet distinguishable via its "spatiotemporal properties." That is, the spatial location of something is an accident of that thing, but why think it is a compositional "part" of that thing?

- That's an understandable argument. :up:

Well, if your argument had only two premises and a conclusion, like a syllogism, then it would be easier for people to read, and more difficult for people to attack. It would also be easier for you to defend, and more difficult for you to even formulate to begin with, which is one of the reasons why your argument has 41 premises to begin with instead of simply 2. — Arcane Sandwich

But what is easy is not always good. I think the forum could use less easy. Three-premise arguments are almost necessarily superficial, especially in the context of an OP.

To wrap this up, I invite you to a discussion, help me understand one thing: was I wrong in expecting something in return when loving someone, or I did the thing I was supposed to, but the other person wasn't for me? — Dmytro

Great question, and your debacle is unfortunately quite common.

I think you are talking about a relationship or a romantic friendship, not simply love. Friendship always involves mutuality: friends love each other. So if one person loves and expresses their love, and the recipient does not reciprocate, loving in return, then there is no real relationship or friendship (and instead there is a relation between benefactor and beneficiary). That is, friendship requires a measure of equality, including equality of effort and interest. It doesn't have to be completely equal, but if it is completely unequal then it cannot be sustained as a friendship (including a romantic friendship).

That's the foundation, but things can go wrong in many ways. Maybe she was no longer interested in you. Maybe she was being selfish and will regret her behavior. Maybe you were being overbearing and were creating more pressure than the relationship could be asked to bear. Maybe something happened to her that she chose to keep secret, and yet which made a mutual relationship with you impossible. There are many things that could have happened, but relationships cannot survive without mutuality.

Does this mean that love in a romantic context is conditional? I wouldn't phrase it that way, but it is not unconditional. A romantic relationship is a symbiotic growing together. That merging of selves is not based on conditions or contracts, but it does necessarily involve mutuality.

(Cf. Nicomachean Ethics, Books 8 and 9)