True, I guess my point was just that to the extent they start asking questions about what the purpose or goals of life are, they have, to that extent, ceased to be scientists since the question is not capable of scientific resolution via testing of hypotheses in light of evidence. My intuition there is based on the fact that you would first have to agree on what the appropriate method for determining what the purpose and/or goals of life were. Since no one is committed to accepting scientific methodology as the right way to go about doing that, even if a scientist want to propose the scientific method as the way of doing that, their efforts to persuade or justify that use could not (non-circuitously) be based initially on scientific method. Therefore, to the extent they would need to hammer out methodological considerations independently of the scientific method before hand, they would not, to that very extent, be scientists - whatever you want to call them.

I think what

Although many other matters are addressed in the Republic, I think its purpose never strays from answering Glaucon when he asks:

But the case for justice, to prove that it is better than injustice, I have never yet heard stated by any as I desire to hear it. What I desire to is an encomium on justice in and by itself. And I think I am most likely to get that from you."
358d — Valentinus

Says is generally correct. The Republic is essentially trying to answer the typical Socratic question "what is X?", where "X" is usually a moral virtue. In the case of the Republic, X is Justice. i think any similarities to Smith's project in the Wealth of Nations, which I take to be an early form of social scientific inquiry, are probably going to end up being superficial or coincidental.

However, that said, a comparison of the two works might still be interesting in its own right, even if one accepts the objective of each is significantly different from the other.

scientists need to stick to science and stop trying to think of themselves as philosophers. Usually, it seems to me, their grounds for doing so rest on an attempt to make self-referentially fallacious appeals to authority, where they try to get people to believe that because they are experts in one field (science), that entitles them to credibility in another (philosophy).

More importantly, why would they want to venture outside of the empirical certainty of the scientific method to wallow aimlessly in the abstract quagmire of the philosophical? The fact any one of them would want to already raises questions about their motives and undermines their credibility regardless of their authoritative status.

Not every language expresses the idea of 'it's raining" intransitively the same way English does, as at least @Hanover has also pointed out. For example, in Ukrainian the standard phrase is "Dosht' padaje" which translates literally to "rain falls" or "rain is falling". There is no question about what the subject is because its "rain," even though it conveys the exact same meaning or propositional content as its English translation.

Alternatively, in Latin for example, the verb is "pluit" where the subject is marked by the conjugational ending. In language like that, there isn't even a way to ask what the syntactic subject refers to because it is built into the verb itself. It would not raise any more question than the statement "currit" meaning "he/she/it runs". It might invite the question "quis currit?" - "who runs?" - but the sentence as it stand nevertheless conveys meaning. If analogously one were to ask "quid pluit?" - "what rains?", I suppose the answer would be "pluvia pluit" - "the rain rains". That seems like a plausible enough answer in the case of English as well: the "it" just refers to the intransitive (NOT reflexive) activity of the rain itself.

You could also just treat the whole sentence "it is raining" as paraphrase for a sentence with identical meaning where the subject is explicit and unproblematic. For example, it would be shorthand for the semantically equivalent "rain is failing", "rain is happening now" or whatever. There's no point in asking about the meaning of "it" in isolation because it has none independently of its functional role in the sentence as a whole. And what that sentence means is given by whatever truth conditions make it true or false. Those truth conditions, in turn, don't depend on whatever form we choose to express those conditions in within a language, making it arbitrary to prefer one form, e.g. "it's raining", to another, e.g. "rain falls".

Rape can produce a pleasure and convenience for a person who wants to have sex. But does that mean the "utility" of pleasure in the case of rape, means we should continue to condone/permit rape? No, because the victim involved within a rape does not become so insignificant to the point of utility becoming superior. — chatterbears

I think you're confusing hedonism with utilitarianism. Hedonism is the belief that I am morally justified pursuing any activity that gives me pleasure. Utilitarianism is concerned about actions and institutions that create the greatest possible utility for the greatest number. Therefore, what you're describing in the quote above is not a utilitarian justification for rape. At best the rape case is a utilitarian wash because while the rapist gets pleasure, the rape victim does not, so there would presumably be no net gain in utility. Consequently, you're counterexample fails and I am left still thinking utilitarianism might provide a basis for believing animal consumption is ethical.

You could say the same thing for slave owners, as it brought them convenience to own slaves. And some slave owners would rape the slaves, which brought them pleasure. So does that mean, owning slaves has a utilitarian justification which should be considered as valid? No. — chatterbears

W/re to slavery, there are two ways to respond to this from a utilitarian perspective:

(1) [this is the "bite the bullet" response] assuming we are not necessarily talking about the politically charge experience of race-based slavery in the U.S. and Modern Europe, I would think a utilitarian could, in theory, argue that slavery was beneficial both for slaves as well as for slave owners. In other words, someone opposed to this idea would have to plausibly defend the idea that there are absolutely NO conditions that are humanly possible where it might not be the case that a society that practices slavery is not on the whole better off than if it didn't have slavery. Think of ancient cultures where slavery (usually war captives and their progeny) were closely incorporated into the soceities they were forced to be a part of, and often given positions of authority higher even than non-slave citizens. It seems to me plausible to think that there were some such societies where the slaves on average were better off than they had been in whatever communities they were taken from, such that on average the institution of slavery in that case actually did promote utility in the context of historical cultures as they existed at that time, especially with all of their myriad other dysfunctionalities and shortcomings stemming from their lack of technological advancement.

However, (2) I think the politically safer argument most utilitarians make - and this is similar to the response to the rape scenario above - is that because slavery generates as much suffering as it does utility, it is not justifiable from a utilitarian perspective.

Note, however, that the reason why that's the case is only because there is a one-to-one exchange of human suffering and pleasure in the case of rape and (according to argument 2) slavery. I do not think you can assume that that is necessarily the case in the context of factory farms or the institutions of animal exploitation generally. That is, it seems reasonable for the utilitarian to claim that the value of animal pain/pleasure - while it counts for something - does not count for as much as human pain/pleasure. This is a reasonable assumption because animals, since they are less rational (or in many cases, non-rational) are never going to be as efficient at converting their pleasure (or, in this case, lack of pain) into utility for other utility-agents in the same way humans can.

Are you taking the utilitarian approach? If not, how do you actually define morality. And how do you define how we should determine a bad action from a good action? — chatterbears

I was merely pointing out that animal consumption does seem to be justifiable from a utilitarian perspective. Your claim as I understood it was that it is unqualifiedly unethical. My response essentially was, "well, not necessarily if you're a utilitarian."

That might potentially change things, but as an empirical reality it is not, of course, the case with anyone that they get to make that call. Even if you did have that kind of insight or ability to decide whether to be created or not, then you might still be obligated to carry through with your initial decision. In other words, if you had concerns about the value of life before being put into it, then the rational thing might simply be to opt not to come into being in the first place. Also, it kind of begs the question, since did you create the "real you" or how does that fictional entity come about? If the first possibility, then was there a "really real you" that made the call about the merely "real you"?

What about the argument that since you are not responsible for making your life, it is not moral for you to destroy it. I think this gets made in prior eras in the context of god(s) - i.e. suicide is an affront to god(s) who created you; you are essentially their property and suicide is destroying property you don't have full ownership of. However, leaving the god(s) out of it for the time being, it still seems like there is an argument that it is immoral to take your own life to the extent you had no role in bringing yourself into existence. In this case, you are undoing the handiwork of another (presumably your parents, or maybe an IV lab scientist) without justification. Effectively, it would be still be a kind of property argument: you don't have full ownership of your life and so therefore cannot ethically destroy it.

It seems to me that you can justify the "exploitation" of animals on utilitarian grounds. While the way animals are treated as commodities does produce suffering, that suffering is outweighed by the benefits their exploitation produces. Factory farms, for example, produce nutrition that is available at relatively cheap prices. That means that more people will have access to affordable food in such a way as to either (1) permit their survival where they would otherwise face starvation or (2) once survival is provided for, allow them to allocate resources they would otherwise spend acquiring that nutrition to areas that increase their overall quality of life.

I realize that you assert in the OP that using animal products is unnecessary. I can't argue for or against that claim since it requires significant empirical economic research. I suspect it is ultimately not capable of clear evidentiary proof either way. In any event, you provide no good grounds or summary from the documentary link for believing it's true. My guess is that it could be true for developed countries, but may hold significantly less the less developed a community is.

That said, even assuming it is true that using animal products is unnecessary, a utilitarian justification can still be worked out on the basis of (2) above. In fact, you seem to admit that animal exploitation does produce "pleasure and convenience". Without discounting the former but focusing on the latter, this means that factory farming creates economic possibilities for pursuing other life-enhancing activities that people would not otherwise be able to pursue if they had to direct their resources (personal or societal) to compensating for the lack of factory farms.

Your initial claim was that, unqualifiedly, it

definitely is unethical to support these industries — chatterbears

Since a utilitarian could accomodate the commercial use of animals as being acceptable within their system of ethics, the claim can not be absolutely true since, for them, commercial use of animals is not only ethical, but required given the utilitiy-loss that would result from not using them commercially.

I don't see how 2+1=3 is an expression of identity. You have identified three distinct things, "2", "1", and "3". The "+" symbol says that you add the first two things together, "2" and "1". The "=" symbol says that these things added together are by some standard equivalent to the third thing, "3". — Metaphysician Undercover

You haven't really identified 3 distinct things. You've only identified one thing, the number 3, and the fact that "2+1" is identical to it, or just another way of describing it. In other words, it's just the claim that the expression "2+1" and the expression "3" are two different ways of saying the same thing. It's similar to Frege's evening star/morning star example, albeit analytical and not empirical in nature. If you don't see how that's an identity statement having learned arithmetic, I'm not sure I can explain it any more clearly.

whatever is implied is relevant — Metaphysician Undercover

It's also implicit in logic that there are people around who can think, but no one believes that particular implication has any place in the formulation a formal logical system. Similarly, logic is empirical, but you won't find that assumption anywhere in the axioms or rules, although you might find a reference to it in the introductory part of a logic book. That's because the subject logic takes for itself isn't metaphysics, ontology, epistemology or whatever, but the rules that constitute the limits of proper reasoning. The fact that time or space are necessary for doing logic (or anything) at all aren't rules that govern reasoning, they're preconditions of it, and so, in fact, are not relevant to what logicians takes their subject matter to be. (Leaving aside the fact there are temporal logics, which I take to be the exception that proves the rule.)

That all said, there is a paradox here, because when we get to discussion metaphysic, ontology, etc. the assumption I think most people make is that our reasoning should be logical. In that case, whatever we say on a metaphysical level is going to be constrained by what we think logic requires. However, when we work out what logic requires, we do so with a naïve, inexplicit understanding about the nature of time. So there is a circularity which is what you might be worried about, but I guess most people would just say it's not vicious and be content to live with some degree of fundamental paradoxality, especially given the proven practical benefits and results logic produces being just what it is now.

I'm not convinced that's the case. Perhaps some of the issue is that the formalized LNC, -(p & -p), doesn't have anything explicit to say about properties, only propositions, and so is more akin to the math expression. In the case of the math expression, "2+1=3", I really don't seen any temporality at all. You could read it the way I was proposing, but I think a more natural reading just sees the expression as an identity that holds absolutely and without regard to temporal sequence. I don't see how a things identity with itself necessarily implicates time.

If you claim is more of a metaphysical one - that time is inescapably implicit in any claim about anything whatsoever - such that we just can't think anything unless we assume time is present, I guess it's true but probably tautological. It would be like a Kantian category: a condition of thought itself. I wouldn't take that to be a proper subject for propositional logic, though.

I tend to be a positivist about these kinds of questions so I would say you have a right if and only if there exists a law (and/or an interpretation of that law) that confers such a right. In other words, there are no "natural rights."

Yes she could have, if she had held the strong belief that the risk of driving drunk was so great that it outweighed her impulse to do so. This could only have occurred had there been something different about the past (formation of that belief), but that's reasonable. — Relativist

Right, IF her past had been different, she would have been raised in such a way as to potentially care and emphasize moral values. However, in the scenario you provide, she was not, in fact, raised that way. It is possible that someone having experienced such neglect as a child might be incapable as a practical moral-psychological matter of forming the beliefs and convictions about appropriate behavior necessary to avoid the crash, unless one assumes some intervening corrective event to mitigate the neglect. Since there was no such corrective event in the hypo given, as a result, she was never reasonably in a position to develop such beliefs and convictions and, therefore, should not be held responsible for her actions stemming from not having them.

As a thought experiment: In the actual world, you are presented with a choice between X and Y. You deliberate on the options, weighing pros &cons consistent with your background beliefs and dispositions, and you ultimately choose X (possibly influenced by some sudden impulse). Is there a possible world with an identical history to this one, so that you have exactly the same background beliefs, desires and impulses at the point at which the choice is presented - but you instead choose Y? If yes, then your choice is made for no reason (this seems to be what LFW gets you). If no, then your choice has been caused (consistent with determinism). — Relativist

I think you would have to say more about how you are imaging possible worlds in order for this hold. It doesn't seem to me given that the mere existence of an alternative timeline that differs only with respect to its final event (choice X vs. choice Y) implies that there could be no reason for either choice. You don't even really need possible worlds here. Suppose a person has equally good reasons to make some decision, X, as they do to make some decision, Y. Since the reasons don't preponderate in either direction, they make an "executive decision" to do Y. The decision is arbitrary to some extent, but the fact that it's arbitrary doesn't imply a person has no good reason to do it; they have all the same reasons they had when they were weighing those reasons against the countervailing reasons.

The conclusions of the thought experiment seem to be committed to the view that the only appropriate choice or decision is the one that has a preponderance of reason in its favor. Clearly that will be the best choice, but it's not clear that it's the only rational choice. In other words, the implication is that the only rational choice is the best choice, and I'm not sure that's necessarily true.

As for the requirement of "same time", in previous discussions I've had people on this forum deny this condition as part of the LNC. I, however, think time is crucial to the meaning of the LNC. — TheMadFool

I don't think temporality is any more implied in the formalized LNC than it is, say, in the proposition that "2+1=3". You could read this to say something like: "if you start with two and add one you get three," and then go on to claim that because you move from two to one time is somehow implicit. While certainly it's not inconsistent with the identity to say something like that, one of the goals and advantages of formal systems is that they strive for efficiency. So if you don't need a conception of time in order to do the calculations (except, of course, practically speaking in the sense that it takes time to mentally calculate), whether mathematical or logical, why introduce it?

Well, killings during war are kind of a separate issue since it gets you into questions of just war theory. The basic idea being that if you accept killing in self-defense is not murder and morally acceptable, then a killing during a war being fought for strictly defensive grounds seems to be pretty analogous. The separate question then because what counts as a purely defensive or justifiably waged war. Surely some are. Similarly - and this is admittedly much more tenuous - one could argue that w/re to capital punishment that (1) it is a preventive form of self-defense for society at large or, alternatively, (2) that the capitally convicted criminal effectively willed their own death by violating laws for which that was the punishment. As such, it is more like suicide than murder. I think this is essentially what Kant would say about any kind of suffering that was the result of punishment. In any event, given (1), the argument would go further that given the preventive value to society generally, although the killing of the criminal is intentional on the part of the state, it is nevertheless justified and so, therefore, not murder. Personally, though, I agree with you the state should not be in the business of executions, mainly because any criminal justice system is going to be an inherently unreliable mechanism of accurate, objective judgment.

It seems to me that you and @Tzeentch might benefit from distinguishing b/w "murder" and "killing". Presumably all murder is immoral, but that isn't going to be the case for killing, unless maybe you have a radically pacifist moral theory. Where "murder" is going to be defined as something like "the intentional killing of another without justification."

Motion is simply movement relative to something else. — Terrapin Station

circular: "Motion is movement..."

?? "Dynamic" refers to changing. So if it's changing somehow (from one place to another), it's dynamic. — Terrapin Station

fair enough

That's why I wrote this above: "*understanding that I'm using 'object' loosely, so that it can refer to dynamic interactions of parts, such as molecules." — Terrapin Station

The argument in the first place was related to the above where you appear to identify objects with dynamic interactions, in effect signaling that what objects are is to some extent dynamic. This would be in contrast to interpreting "objects are in motion" as predicative so that motion is just a way in which objects behave, not part of their nature. My reply was

it seems to me that to think of objects as dynamic by nature is going to lead to a lot of confusion. — Mentalusion

And I think I've given reasons to believe that claim is true, if you believe objects include as part of their definition "interactions," i.e. motion.

Consequently -

That part is nonsensical. — Terrapin Station

- the fact that it is nonsensical is exactly my point. That's how a reductio works.

Next,"at time t1 01 will be in position x2 at t2" is just an ungrammatical mess that reads incoherently. — Terrapin Station

Admittedly the formatting could be improved. However, pedantic stylistic concerns aside, this is a very common way of describing events not only in philosophy, but in scientific disciplines as well. If something was unclear, ask. The fact that you understood what was generally being communicated is clear from your comment about "time slices" that follows. Consequently, the grammatical criticism seems slightly disingenuous.

A time-slice being a "point" is just an abstraction we make. — Terrapin Station

True, but it seems to be useful and implicit the definition of motion. Since there's no alternative definition of motion on the table, it would appear we're stuck with time slices

what time is in the first place is motion or change. — Terrapin Station

A chicken-and-egg problem that doesn't need to be resolved because the issue isn't about the nature of time or motion per se, but only of how the motion of an object is determined, and it is determined by the object being in one position, x1, at one time, t1, and at another position, x2, at another time, t2. Interestingly, in any such case, the change the object undergoes will not be "dynamic" since the only change relevant is the "being" in one place rather than another.

.

perhaps it's better left for another thread. — andrewk

Start it up!

You're thinking that changing = disappearing??? — Terrapin Station

Well, maybe in some sense, yes. Here's the reasoning:

1. To be dynamic is to be in motion.

2. Motion is defined as an objects change in position from time t1 to t2.

3. Assume objects are dynamic, i.e. that they are by definition in motion.

4. Assume then that at some time t1 object O1 is at position x1.

5. However, because objects are in motion by definition, that means that at time t1 O1 will be in position x2 at t2, since motion is defined as an objects change in position over time.

6. So, at time t1, O1 is actually at x2 at t2 which contradicts the assumption in #4.

7. In other words, at t1 O1 will have disappeared from position x1 if it is the case that by definition objects are dynamic.

Maybe, I wasn't making any claims about either evolution or morality being in error, only that the attempt to find an analogy b/w the theory of biological evolution and the development (if there is any) of morality is going to fail because the types of phenomena they deal with are decidedly different. Evolution deals with biological facts, whereas morality deals with norms. The only error is trying to extent theories designed to explain phenomena in one set to the other. It doesn't follow from the inability to make that analogy that there are, therefore, no possible grounds for finding epistemic or other kinds of justifications for moral norms. It's only that the attempt to explain moral institutions via evolution doesn't seem like it's going to be useful.

The primary reason for this is that evolution is based on a solid foundation whereas normative ethics is not. — A Seagull

I'm not sure why you would assume this. As noted, they're entirely different kinds of phenomena, so the "bases" for each are also going to be entirely different. Perhaps you have an argument for privileging one over the other, though. If that's the case, what is it?

I'm not sure it's really all that important but at the most general level I use it to distinguish things from other things that are not physical. That is, I think it signifies what is material, made of stuff, has 3 or 4D extension, etc. I'm happy to consider any definition that gets to roughly some idea like that.

Wel, you think that molecules are physical, right? Do you think that motion is physical? — Terrapin Station

Above is a definition of what I take motion to be: change in an object's position over time.

I don't see anything in the definition that commits one necessarily to believing that motion is something physical or itself an object.

What's the difference between the unique state of the objects being measured and a property of the objects being measured? — Terrapin Station

Depends which property your referring to. Maybe no difference at all.

What is temperature in addition to the state in your opinion? — Terrapin Station

As I said, the measure of the state, i.e. a unique designator of the state of affairs relative to other possible (similar) states of affairs

No idea why you'd think that. You measure it relative to something else — Terrapin Station

How can you measure an object's change in time if by definition its always changing? As soon as you try to say where it is at time t1, it's already gone!

.

Of course temperature relates to or "deals with" physical stuff. That doesn't in any way imply that temperature itself is physical (I mean, it might for you b/c you think numbers are physical, but I don't think most people believe that, even math platonists. At any rate, I don't believe it and you've provided no reasons why I should).

Further, I didn't claim temperature was a property or quantity, physical or otherwise. As a type of measurement it is simply a conventional way of designating states of affairs. For example 75 F = 23.8889 C. Both are temperatures and both describe the same state of affairs. Neither is more accurate than the other and neither is a property of the object(s) being measured, although they do signify that the objects being measured are in a certain kind of unique state. The state the objects are in that generates the temperature is not itself "temperature" though.

In addition, it seems to me that to think of objects as dynamic by nature is going to lead to a lot of confusion. Something is dynamic because it constantly changes, which in terms of physics usually means that it's in motion. However, by definition motion is the measure of the change in the position of an object over time. If an object by definition is in motion, then you can't measure its change, which means it won't have motion, which is a contradiction...but that is maybe a discussion for a different thread.

I wasn't asserting anything, just trying see where your belief that molecules are categorically not hard stems from. Claiming that you think numbers are physical objects does help to understand a bit where you might be coming from. I disagree with that claim, but if it's what you think it could explain what seems like an eccentric use of "category error" to me. It also seems to me that if you think numbers are physical objects, you shouldn't assume (as I do) that asking whether they are hard constitutes a category error. Rather, that seems like it could be a legitimate property to ascribe to numbers given your beliefs about them. I am assuming that it is a sensical question to ask about any physical object, whether it is hard or not. The answer may be "no" - it could be a soft or gaseous or liquid physical object - but asking the question isn't categorically mistaken.

W/re to temperature, what I understand it to be essentially is the measure of molecular motion under different conditions and so would not call it either an object or physical. In fact, strictly speaking, as a type of measurement, it's by definition conventional, even if what it's measuring is (let's assume) not the product of convention.

Of course referring to fictional entites as "empty names" is a category error — Dawnstorm

I think it would be more accurate to ask whether referring to names that reference fictional entities as "empty" constitutes a category error. And, as I said, it may be wrong to say that, but it's not a category error. Even if what you mean by "empty name" is a name that designate nothing and further assume that, by definition, all names designate unique objects (leaving aside paradoxes about referring to non-being), it's still not a category error. It would be like asking "are all primes are divisible by 2?" The statement is wrong analytically, but it's not a category error because "being divisible by 2" is still a property that belongs to numbers and so is within the same category as primes. Similarly, talking about empty names is wrong - and wrong analytically - on certain reasonable assumptions about how names work, but it is still in the category of a linguistic claim so not a category error.

So there are some physical objects for which it is impossible that they ever be hard, whatever we decide it means to be "hard"?

If you think all that stuff is physical, then do you think hardness is a possible predicate/property/etc. of all physical objects or just some or none?

So you don't think molecules are physical objects?

That's not what a category error is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

I think the approximation is built into the concept of limit so you don't need the extra notation — Mentalusion

What you're suggesting isn't necessarily wrong, it's just unnecessary and inefficient. Math already has enough goofy notation for people to keep track off. Why introduce symbols you don't need?

What might happen is someone evaluates a limit and then they take the result as precise when it's only approximate — Devans99

If someone did that, they wouldn't understand properly what a limit is and would be trying to get out of it something which it doesn't purport to be able to achieve.

Like I said above, it might not be a scientifically interesting question, but it's not a question that implicates a category error. I still don't see anything in your account that justifies calling the question about NaCl and hardness a category error. Maybe if you explained what you think a category mistake is, that might make me understand your use a little better.

I don't see there being any real epistemic issue (over and above issues with epistemology generally) as long as one understands that what it means to "know" about social phenomena is a different and less rigorous kind of knowledge from science or math. But that's why the analogy to biological or other scientific models breaks down in the case of social sciences. In terms of methodology, my initial intuition is that statistics is good way to investigate social "facts" with some degree of precision. I'm not sure how helpful that methodology will be though in the case of morality treated as a social institution since, unlike social statistical facts, social institutions, as I noted, are inherently normative. Statistical facts might provide some evidence for arguing about what those institutional norms should be, but they won't determine them.

Further, since statistical methods are already in frequent use by social scientists, I wouldn't think you'd need a more complex mind to deal with them. Our present minds should work just fine since we're only trying to understand behavior that arises from minds of similar complexity.

The problem being if you take the result =0 and use it somewhere else, you have lost the information that it never actually =0, if you see what I mean. That could lead to an error. — Devans99

If you could provide an example of such an error that would make discussion a little easier. I tend to think several centuries of people successfully using calculus for a variety of applications weighs against there being any errors short of theoretical technicalities.

'is the textbook definition correct?' — Devans99

It's a defined concept so the only way that it might be "incorrect" is if someone introduced a concept that fulfilled a similar role that had better computing or explanatory results w/re to describing how functions behave.

I think I basically agree with you. If one is working with a theory of naming based loosely on the notion of a Kripkean rigid designator (which I am) or anything similar then there will never be "empty" names since by definition every name rigidly designates one and only one object in the world. In the case of fictional entities like Harry Potter, etc. what is designated is not some actual object/person, of course, but something else, whether you want to say the collective description of Potter in Rowling's works or the ideas people have about those works or whatever, you're right the name is not empty. The name refers to and designates something, just not an actual person.

Also, I agree that if you alter the postal carrier scenario such that it might involve a prank, or however else you want to change it, that changes the interpretation of the situation. But I think until such qualifications are noted, you have to assume people's intentions will follow reasonable expectations under the circumstances. It was for that reason the scenario didn't seem to me to get at the issue of "empty" names as well as other examples.

That said - and this is a parenthetical issue - I still don't think calling references to fictional entities "empty names" constitutes a category error. It's not the correct use of the concept of a name to be sure, but it's not a category error. It's just wrong. Not everything that's wrong is a category error.

I think the approximation is built into the concept of limit so you don't need the extra notation

The idea was just that there are long standing and, I believe, unresolved and unresolvable criticisms of any social evolutionary theory because of the disanalogy of biological facts with social "facts". The former are capable of discrete definition and identification. The latter, I think cannot be discretely determinable. On the contrary, almost all social concepts, including all concepts of social institutions, are subject to a range of contested interpretations. Further, even if people could agree at some high level of generality about what the relevant concepts of given social institutions are, they will always disagree about how those concepts apply or should apply in actual practice. This makes analyzing or even talking about social phenomena on a strictly scientific basis impossible. This is because all social institutions are essentially normative, whereas scientific facts are not.

Don't know, maybe it's inability to permeate other molecules? The point was only that it's not inherently non-sensical to ask the question in the same way it would be to ask whether, for example, numbers are hard. It might not be a scientifically interesting question to ask, but that doesn't make it a category error. Also, realize the issue isn't even whether molecules real are hard or not, but whether it even makes sense to ask the question about them. I don't see anything in the common understanding of either molecules or hardness that necessarily prevents them from having that quality however you define it. In fact, it's a typical question to ask about physical bodies (which I take molecules to be) whether they are hard, soft, extended, geometric, colored, etc. This is much different from asking "hey, are numbers hard?" To which the response is "uhhh..."

I'm actually a little unclear as to why people think molecules wouldn't, in fact, be hard in some relevant way in the first place.

There was a relatively popular trend of "social Darwinism" shortly following and capitalizing on the popularity of Darwin's theory of natural selection/evolution. I think most people today would agree that theory was severely misguided and led to dangerous results. The main criticisms, I believe, relate to (1) the dis-analogy of social processes from biological processes and (2) the tendency of people to misinterpret what the theory of natural selection actually claims. A contemporary example of this is Richard Dawkins who proposes a kind of evolutionary theory for "memes" which he basically understands as the cultural analogue to genes in science. Most people like what Dawkins has to say about genes inherent tendency to self-propagate, but criticize and reject his extension of that biological theory to social phenomena.