I looks like we both have an uneasiness with possible world semantics. I think your unease is more with the metaphysics, while mine is with the application. The PI sections you had mentions, 253 to 256 are typically associated with Wittgenstein's argument around private language. Should this extend to possible world semantics? At first glance, I would say "no". Possible worlds are not suppose to be a private language. In PI, a private language is about language only a single individual understands that refers to purely private inner experiences.

So Kripke just makes a deceptive use of language, to produce the appearance that the table in his hands could also be in another room. — Metaphysician Undercover

He does not say this in the quote I mentioned from N&N. What he says is "Don't ask: how can I identify this table in another possible world, except by its properties? I have the table in my hands, I can point to it, and when I ask whether it might have been in another room, I am talking, by definition, about it."

He is not saying if the table in my hands is also in another room, but whether it might have been in another room. And, he is talking, by definition, about it.

I have no issue with this plain speak. We use this kind of language all of the time in real life. We sit down with old friends, talk about old times and reminisce about "might have beens."

But sometimes philosophers should live well enough only. In this case, they go and introduce the concept of "possible world". My intuition tells me just because you can imagine something does not mean it is possible. And when I use the word "possible", I mean it in the most general sense. Also, alternatively, just because you can't imagine something does not mean it is impossible. For instance, we have learned that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. But some would like to qualify this and say "This is a physically impossible, but not metaphysically or logically." Yet, these limits were not derive from experiments, but are derived conceptually. While one can imagine numbers greater than the speed of light without contradiction, those numbers conceptually would quickly undermine our notions of time, space, and causality, basically reality itself would become unintelligible.

This discussion reminds me what Wittgenstein said in On Certainty 505, “It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something.”

I can conceive going to a community and asking for a glass of pure H2O and the waiter looking at me with puzzlement. I was thirsty so quickly change my strategy and I ask for a glass of water.

I can also conceive going to a community, maybe too scientifically literate, and asking for a glass of pure H2O, but this time the waiter gives me an incredulous look. The waiter explains that they only have 99.8% H2O, 10ppm Na, 30 ppm Ca, 2 ppm Mg, 5 ppm SO4, 25 ppm Cl, 30 ppm HCO3, 0.1 ppm Fe, 300 ppm HDO, and 20 ppm D2O. He also explains to me that there is some uncertainty in these numbers but can provide those values if requested. I was thirsty so I drank this cornucopia of chemicals, even with this analytical uncertainty.

Back at you

I can conceive some gold is Au if fool’s gold gets $4500 oz. Do I need guidance from possible world semantics to clarify that my use of “some” needs correction?

What say you?

"Water is H2O" is statement without context my friend. If the term "water" is being used like "Dihydrogen monoxide" then it is a stipulation and thus analytically true. There is no difference between "water is H20" and "Dihydrogen Monoxide is H2O". If you are using it as a chemist may use it, then it is about composition, not identity. You can call any liquid you like by the name of"water", but an scientific analysis will tell you the composition. And even if you discover that it is mainly composed on H2O molecule, you can still call that liquid by another name depending on the context of the scientific activity.

If you want a reply on this, you are going to have to explain what you are claiming. Are you trying to say something like: "If 'The cat is on the mat' is false (a proposition with sense), how does this imply anything about 'The cat is on the mat or the cat is not on the mat' (a tautology without sense)?" If so, the answer is straightforward: it doesn't imply it in the usual sense. Rather, the tautology is true independently of whether the contingent proposition is true or false. The relationship isn't one of implication but of logical independence—which is precisely the point about necessary truths being "empty" of empirical content. — Banno

OK, to understand what you are saying here, when Kripke says, "Well, if something is false, it's obviously not necessarily true." he is not saying that when something is contingently false, you can infer that it is not necessary true. But that the relationship has something to do with logical independence. Or is that what the Tractatus says, and Kripke would disagree with? I would think the later, and hence my discomfort.

Rigid designation is for proper names. We can use "water" as a proper name like this:

The water in the pool could have been more alkaline.

that bolded section can serve as a rigid designator because we know which water is being discussed. And here:

Water is H20. — frank

My objections have been more around natural kinds as rigid designators, not proper names. Kripke's example "water is H2O" is about a natural kind.

Well I don't think it addresses my main concern. My discomfort with Kripke is not merely terminological — it’s that he appears to reify necessity as a worldly fact, whereas for early Wittgenstein necessity belongs to logical form, not reality. (And in later Wittgenstein, necessity is a reflection of grammar and language games, and not facts holding in all possible worlds)

More specifically, Kripke’s phrase “this fact about the world is a necessary one” is exactly what Wittgenstein would reject. Your reply implicitly accepts Kripke’s metaphysical framing instead of explaining why it doesn’t violate Tractarian structures. Also, I don't believe you address how a proposition with sense implies something about a proposition without sense? This violates the saying/showing distinction Wittgenstein stressed throughout the Tractatus.

My main point with this example is if "air" can be non-rigid, then so can "water". But I am open to hear why one would think otherwise.

Another passage I could not but wince at from N&N,

"But what I am concerned with here is a notion which is not a notion of epistemology but of metaphysics, in some (I hope) non pejorative sense. We ask something might have been true, or might have been false. Well, if something is false, it's obviously not necessarily true. If it is true, might it have been otherwise? Is it possible that, in this respect, the world should have been different from the way it is? If the answer is 'no', then this fact about the world is a necessary one. If the answer is 'yes', then this fact about the world is a contingent one." This in and of itself has nothing to do with anyone's knowledge of anything."

This passage seems to offend my Tractatus sensibilities along with a dose of Quinian skepticism towards modal logic. But let us put aside Quine for now, and let me express my Tractatus concerns.

When Kripke says something might have been true or something might have been false, I think it fair to say he is talking about a possible state of affairs. In the Tractatus, the sense of a proposition is simply to picture what might be so, a possible state of affairs. And to grasp the proposition's sense is to grasp both on what it would be like to be true and what it would be like to be false. But what sense can we make of necessarily true proportions, true whatever the circumstance. As Wittgenstein points out, it is necessary that to understand proposition's sense one must understand what it would be like to be true and what it would be like to be false, so this implies that a proposition cannot be true whatever circumstances. So, if a proposition is true whatever the circumstances, whatever might occur in the world, then it pictures nothing in particular. To say something with sense is to picture some definite possibility in particular.

So, from Tractatus point of view, I have these concerns with the Kripke passage:

1. Saying that "....then this fact about the world is a necessary one" seems incorrect. A fact about the world is not because of the nature of logical structure, but whether a possible state of affairs is true or false.

2. Saying that, "Well, if something is false, it's obviously not necessary true." How can proposition that that says nothing, follow from a proposition that says something? From a proposition that says something about the world, how is it obvious that it implies a proposition that shows logical form but states nothing about the world.

Let me give a compare and contrast between Kripke and Wittgenstein and let us see where it goes.

From Naming and Necessity,

"Let's call something a rigid designator if in every possible world it designates the same object, a nonrigid or accidental designator if that is not the case. Of course we don't require that the objects exist in all possible worlds"

and

"Don't ask: how can I identify this table in another possible world, except by its properties? I have the table in my hands, I can point to it, and when I ask whether it might have been in another room, I am talking, by definition, about it. I don't have to identify it after seeing it through a telescope. If I am talking about it, I am talking about it, in the same way as when I say that our hands might have been painted green, I have stipulated that am talking about greenness."

From Philosphicaal Investigations,

80. I say "There is a chair". What if I go up to it, meaning to fetch it, and it suddenly disappears from sight? - "So it wasn't a chair, but some kind of illusion". - But in a few moments we see it again and are able to touch it and so on. - "So the chair was there after all and its disappearance was some kind of illusion". - But suppose that after a time it disappears again - or seems to disappear. What are we to say now? Have you rules ready for such cases - rules saying whether one may use the word "chair" to include this kind of thing? But do we miss them when we use the word "chair"; and are we to say that we do not really attach meaning to this word, because we are not equipped with rules for every possible application of it?"

Both philosophical points, I find, are forcefully made. Kripke's example, I like it because it seems rather apropos for everyday conversations we have about everyday objects. However, when we bring in the metaphysical talk of possible worlds and rigid designation, I start to squirm. As Wittgenstein say in the 81. "All this, however, can only appear in the right light when one has attained greater clarity about the concepts of understanding, meaning and thinking. For it will then also become clear what can lead us (and did lead me) to think that if anyone utters a sentence and means or understands it he is operating a calculus according to definite rules." What Wittgenstein is trying to do in 80 is to illustrate that very point. Can Kripke look at Wittgenstein's "chair" and say, "If I am talking about it, I am talking about it"? So, does this object only exist in a possible world when it appears, and is excluded when it disappears? But should we include this object as a "chair" even when it behavior so radically different from typical chairs. And how do we go about saying it is identical every time it appears/disappears/appears? Are we equipped with rules for this possible application?

Am I not also raising a concern about the process of rigid designation as well?

I take it we can agree that hallucinating a ship and perceiving a ship are indistinguishable experiences. So we need to explain why the hallucinating episode and the perceiving the ship episode would be indistinguishable. — Clarendon

Well, it is a good thing we don't learn what an hallucination is by evaluating our private experiences since they are indistinguishable from our veridical experiences. But somehow we actually do learn what they are, the advantages of learning a language in a community with other human beings.

My view does this: they are both perceiving relations, it's just that one has as its object an actual ship, and the other has a mental image of a ship as its object. — Clarendon

Yes, the typical imagery of the private theater that no one else can enter.

But on your view in the hallucinating case there is no object at all - but then that means it is not a perceiving relation and thus is a quite different kind of experience from the perceiving one. So why would it be indistinguishable from it? — Clarendon

Those are your words not mine. In principle, you cannot demonstrate to anybody that the two experiences are indistinguishable. However, what you do present is a metaphysical fiction that tries to explain why someone would claim they are perceiving an "apple" when it is not there.

I simply am stating that when someone is hallucinating they simply did not perceive what they claimed.

But if an explanation is needed, let's look no further than a naturalistic one. First, view the human as a color detecting machine, just like colorimeter. In both case, in order to detect color you need to standardize the machine. For example, when a child is learning colors, we present them with standardized swatches. They practice identifying the colors, learn how to verbalize their names, and with enough practice they are able to demonstrate to the human community their ability. Whether a colorimeter is operating as expected will also need to be check using standardized color solutions or filters.

Unfortunately, machines can break down or not put together well. The human can make incorrect color judgments, or the colorimeter can't make the correct reading. In either case, there is no need to construct metaphysical entities like "mental states" or "sense data" to explain what may be going wrong. I better route would be to understand the physical mechanism in which each machine is able to correctly make the necessary color judgments and repair as needed.

I am interested in your opinion on the following and how you would think Kripke would reply.

Take this two terms, "water" and "air". The claim that water rigidly designated H2O in every possible world in which that substance exists.

OK, what about "air"? So, what has science discovered in the case? Again, depending where you look, the composition may be 78% N2, 21% O2, and 1% Ar. OK, in past posts, someone has replied that it does not rigidly designate anything.

But I am puzzled by this response. In the case of "water", which naturally occurs as a mixture everywhere, we somehow can selectively exclude "impurities" to arrive at a single substance. But with "air", this exercise seems not so simple. What justification is given to keep or exclude any particular substance?

All of this feels rather arbitrarily, picking and choosing examples to make your theory work.

The difference, then, between hallucinations and perceptions of mind-external objects is not that one is a perception and the other not, but that one is a perception of something purely mental (but indistinguishable from a perception of something mind-external), whereas teh other is a percpetion of something mind-external — Clarendon

I think you over complicated this scenario. The essential difference between a hallucination and the perception of a mind-external object is in the case of a hallucination we have the absence of a "mind external object." In one case, the success of calling out an apple when an apple is present shows we perceived an object. In the other case, the error of calling out an apple when none is present shows we may have hallucinated, thus, we did not perceived an object called "apple."

I certainly am not questioning his logic here. However, I am questioning what he thinks science has discovered, that "water is H2O".

In Naming and Necessity he states the following:

"Let's consider how this applies to the type of identity statement expressing scientific discoveries that I talked about before-say, that water is H2O. It certainly represents a discovery that water is H2O."

Again, this is not what science has discovered. The following is a more accurate description of what science discovered and how these terms "water" and "H2O" are actually used in scientific discourse and in ordinary language.

1. Science does not discover statements of identity but statements of composition. For example, it is more accurate to say, “liquids commonly named “water” may be composed of “H2O molecules.” Notice, this nicely leave the possibility of a liquid named “water” may not be composed of “H2O” at all. It is contingent truth whether any liquid named "water" will be composed of H2O molecules. One must go through the exercise of analyzing the liquid to see if some level of H2O molecules are present or none at all. After the liquid is analyzed for its components, a renaming of the liquid may occur depending on the purpose and focus of the scientific investigation. For example, if the pH of the liquid was of interest, the liquid might be renamed as an "Alkaline solution" or "Acidic solution".

2. Does it make sense to say one H2O molecule is water? Well, it depends how you use the term “water”. If the term “water” is used like “dihydrogen monoxide” than the answer is yes because “dihydrogen monoxide" means “H2O”. But this is simply a stipulation.

3. Science often uses the term “water” to mean a collection of H2O molecules. In this case, it does not make sense to say one H2O molecule is water. There are scientific implications in using the term “water” to mean a collection of H2O molecules. Can we still say “water is a collection of H2O molecules.”? But this is not quite right. Depending on temperature or pressure, the collection of H2O molecules might exhibit macroscopic states such as “ice”, “water” or “steam.” Each of these terms serves us well in our daily communication, we do say “I swim in water” but we don't say “I swim in steam”; we do say “I breath in the steam” but we don't say “I breath in the ice”; or we do say “The ice melted when exposed to heat” but we don’t say “The water melted when exposed to heat”

4. One can provide a variety of liquids call “water” and not share a common essence, for example, like “sea water”, “purified water”, and “heavy water”.

5. Chemists will name the same liquid differently depending on the property under examination. For example, the underlying component might be primarily H2O, but the name of the liquid might be something entirely different, 0.0.00001M NaOH solution emphasizes the hydroxide concentration while the same liquid could be named 10 Ci/mmol indicating the specific activity of radioactivity relative to the mass of the chemical in solution.

I do not see Kripke getting to an a posteriori necessary truth.

When you actually look at how these terms are being used, we can land into two natural places:

A. Liquid named "water" may contain "H2O molecules" which is a posteriori and contingent

B. "H2O is H2O" which is analytically true, necessary and a priori

Going back to Possible World entry, it starts with the following:

“Anne is working at her desk. While she is directly aware only of her immediate situation — her being seated in front of her computer, the music playing in the background, the sound of her husband's voice on the phone in the next room, and so on — she is quite certain that this situation is only part of a series of increasingly more inclusive, albeit less immediate, situations: the situation in her house as a whole, the one in her neighborhood, the city she lives in, the state, the North American continent, the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy, and so on. On the face of it, anyway, it seems quite reasonable to believe that this series has a limit, that is, that there is a maximally inclusive situation encompassing all others: things, as a whole or, more succinctly, the actual world.”

Is this not a fallacy of thinking, specifically, the fallacy of composition. Thoughts?

.

Yes. But the causal chain is a chain of people learning to refer to Aristotle correctly. Isn't it? What else could it be? — Ludwig V

Yep, and we need not be referring anybody or anything at all for it to be meaningful, as Wittgenstein said we must not confound the meaning of a name with the bearer of the name.

What does “water” mean? "Water" means different things to different people. To a scientist, "water" is necessarily H2O. To me, "water" is necessarily wet, in that if not wet it cannot be water. To a linguist, “water” is necessarily a noun. There is no one meaning of “water”, though each meaning is necessary within its own context.
— RussellA
And yet all these people can communicate. How is that possible? There must be common elements to all these different meanings that enable communication across contexts. Those common elements are what we might call ordinary life, which is the common context that links all three people. — Ludwig V

I would disagree with “to the scientist “water” is necessarily H2O” but I am not going to rehash everything I have said up to this point.

But I would like to add further criticism to this idea that water is essentially H2O. Take the following three types of water (and I could name many more)

1. “Sea water”
2. “Purified water”
3. “Purified heavy water”

Sea water >96% H2O unsafe to drink

Purified water >99% H2O safe to drink but long term use may deplete essential minerals

Purified heavy water >99% D2O ok to drink in very small quantities but very hazardous in larger amounts

All use the term “water” but there is no common essence between them.

I do not think "air" is a rigid designator, and so I am happy to not designate any of the components, whether a majority component or not, as the necessary referent of the term "air." — NotAristotle

Wow, quite an admission. I guess you are saying that when it comes to these general, vague terms like "water" or "air", we have either two choices, one, say possible worlds semantics/rigid designators don't apply, or we can just remove the vagueness and just say "water" means "H2O".

when it so refers it will be the case that necessarily water is H2O as a result of the identity between the stuff and what is referred to by the term in that context. — NotAristotle

If you are indicating that these terms are interchangeable, this is wrong. You would think that if one is saying water is identical to H2O that they would be interchangeable. But that is not the case. For example, can you say that if you had one molecule of water you had one water? No, the term "water" when used in science refers to a collection of H2O molecules that under particular temperature and pressure conditions exhibit the macroscopic properties we typically call a "liquid." But guess what, under others conditions this collection of H2O molecule would not be called "water" anymore, but "steam" or "vapor", and under other conditions you would call it "ice".

So, what is all of this logic posturing by saying "water is H2O"is a posteriori necessary truth to achieve in the realm of science? To make prescriptive linguistic corrections like "Hey scientist, you forgot what Kripke said about "water is H2O", when you call that collection of H2O molecules "steam" you are wrong, please correct yourself and call it "water".

Would be interested to hear what you think about it. — NotAristotle

There is a good quote from the Introduction in Noam Chomsky's book "Cartesian Linguistics" by James McGilvray that I find useful in this case:

“This is because, as Chomsky suggests, in the domains of mathematics and the natural sciences, one finds strong ‘normative’ constraints on same-use, constraints not found in the use of natural language, where people employ and enjoy linguistic creativity. Everyday speakers are not engaged on a unified project. And as Chomsky also points out, it is no surprise that Fregean semantic theories – those that suppose a community with shared thoughts and shared uniform symbols for expressing these thoughts, and an assumed constraint to be talking about the same thing whenever they use a specific symbol – work quite well with mathematics and the natural sciences. But they do not work with natural languages, a hard lesson for the many philosophers and semanticians who try to adapt Fregean semantics to natural languages.”

This is the problem Kripke has with using the natural language term "water" and trying to call it identical with the scientific term "H2O". His only choice is to massage that vague term "water" into a precise term like "H2O" to fit in with his domain of logic. Chemistry sort of does that by applying the chemical naming convention by calling H2O, "dihydrogen monoxide".

In Chomsky's "New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind" he gives many useful examples showing this difficulty,

"Even in such usage, with its questionable invocation of natural science, we find that whether something is water depends on special human interest and concerns, again in ways understood without relevant experience; the term "impurities" covers some difficult terrain. Suppose a cup1 is filled from the tap. It is a cup of water, but if a tea bag is dipped into it, that is no longer the case. It is now a cup of tea, something different. Suppose cup2 is filled from a tap connected to a reservoir in which tea has been dumped (say, as a new kind of purifier). What is in cup2 is water, not tea, even if a chemist could not distinguish it from the present content of cup1. The cups contain the same thing from one point of view, different things from another, but in either case cup2 contains only water and cup1 only tea. In cup2, the tea is an "impurity" in Putnam's sense, in cup1 it is not, and we do not have water at all (except in the sense that milk is mostly water, or a person for the matter). If cup3 contains pure H2O into which a tea bag has been dipped, it is tea, not water, though it could have a higher concentration of H2O molecules than what comes from the tap or is drawn from the river."

The composition may change in terms of NaCl, etc., but if you do not have H2O then you do not have water. Your response? — NotAristotle

Another way to answer this is "if you do not have H2O you do not have H2O, but something can always be named "water".

But please provide your response to this: If you discovered "air" is composed of 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 1% Argon, what is rigidly designated in every possible world? Which one do you say, if you don't have X you do not have "Air"?

It seems you cannot use the same rationale like you do for "water", the most dominant component.

I think the real answer here is it does not matter what you say, only what we humans agree upon. Wittgenstein in PI 49 says something similar, "But I do not know whether to say that the figure described by our sentence consists of four or of nine elements! Well, does the sentence consist of four letters or of nine? And which are its elements, the types of letter, or the letters? Does it matter which we say, so long as we avoid misunderstandings in any particular case?"

My point with the example is prior to any Atomic Theory of Matter, the community can name the liquid and solid to assist in identifying macroscopic objects and processes without any consideration of microscopic structures. In the example, they simple refer to what is a clear liquid and a white powder and name both “warder”. The name functions for them, “Go fetch me a bottle of ‘warder’ from the shelf so I can perform the experiment” or “After the transformation, warder became a solid powder.” Naming in this example serves the community to identify macroscopic objects to fetch, focus attention, or call out. Knowledge of the composition of both need not stop one from using such a name to carry out these functions. There is no need to appeal to essences in all possible worlds to understand what the name is referring to in this example.

This is why I say there is no error in naming.

The composition may change in terms of NaCl, etc., but if you do not have H2O then you do not have water. Your response? — NotAristotle

Please take a look at my earlier response to this. But I like to address this in a little different way.

Let us say some fictitious community commonly calls a particular liquid "warder". One day they decide to place the liquid in a pot and place it over a fire to see what would happen. After several hours, they notice the liquid was gone, and there was a white powder remaining. In amazement, they thought the liquid was transformed in the white powder by the heat of the fire. They called this powder "warder" as well, for them it was just a transformation into a different physical state, a solid.

Centuries past, the community developed an Atomic Theory of Matter. Soon they discovered that the liquid they called "warder" was composed of 98% H2O and 2% NaCl. When they perform the same experiment of heating in the pot, they discovered the white powder they called "warder" was compose of 100% NaCl. But even with this discovery, they continue to refer to both liquid and white power as "warder". Have they made some error in this case? What is the nature of this error? Scientifically there is no error, the composition they got right. An error in naming? But one can use the same name to refer to multiple object anytime in language, context will clarify any confusion. If you say there was some metaphysical error committed here, well what was it? I don't think we can make any sense of what a "metaphysical error" would be in this case.

We are talking about naming a sample of liquid. Why we name a liquid is not because it identifies some essence in all possible worlds. For example, it would be wrong to say "0.00001 M NaOH is water", or "0.00001 M NaOH is H2O" This is the naming convention scientists use to describe the composition of the solution labeled "0.00001 M NaOH." The information the name provides tells the chemists that the solution is a base and the pH the solution is approximately 9. The term "water" would not convey this information because it is scientifically too vague. The chemist would prepare this solution with purified water, but this would demonstrate that 0.00001 M NaOH is not purified water. One difference, the pH would be different in both solutions, indicating different levels of hydroxide ions. Also, the solution would have the relatively large concentration of sodium ions. Simply put, 0.00001 M NaOH is not identical to purified water. However, in an entirely different context, you can go to the store and buy yourself a bottle of "Alkaline Water", which typically has a pH of 9. In this case, the seller is using the name "Alkaline water" to indicate that this is something you can drink."

So, if a read Kripke correctly, once we baptized that solution of "0.00001 M NaOH", it necessarily refers to what is the underlying chemical structure in every possible world. However, equally, if that same solution is baptized as "water", it necessary refers to what is the underlying chemical structure in every possible world. The underlying chemical structure referred to in 0.00001 M NaOH would be a covalent bonds with H20 molecule as well as the hydrogen bonding occurring between the H2O and hydroxide ions, and ion-dipole interaction between h2o and sodium ion. The underlying chemical structure for the solution called "water", according to Kripke, would be just H2O molecules. The very same solution with two completely different essences called out in every possible world.

There is a simple way out of this conundrum. First, scientific statements are about composition, not identity. Two, sometimes in language we use vague terms like "water" in a variety of ways to serve purposes other than scientifically precise ways.

Kripke’s Possible World Semantics is logic demanding purity in language and purity in reality. However, neither is pure when studied closely and neither need be.

Kripke asserts that science discovers that “Water is H2O” is a statement of identify. This is not the case. Utilizing the empirical implications of Atomic Theory of Matter, science discovers the molecular composition of everyday objects that we name like water”, “air”, “soil”, etc. One finding that science discovered is naturally occurring samples named “water” consistently will be composed of “H2O” molecules and other isotopes, gases, organics, and dissolved salts. Science is concerned with statements of composition not identity.

This poses a problem for the process of rigid designation. In rigid designation, the term “water” must refer to H2O in all possible worlds, because that is the structure it referred to when the name was first introduced (or “baptized”) in our world. This is quite a feat given that this was prior to any understanding of Atomic Theory. Somehow when naming any liquid we called “water” we somehow miraculously only referred to H2O and selectively excluded any other molecules that may have beenpresent, like “D2O”, “NaCl”, etc.

Kripke may respond that "water" fixes its reference to the dominant underlying chemical structure in our world. But this sounds more like linguistic legislation, the stipulation of essence. Consider the term “air”, another term that was used well before the development of Atomic Theory. What is the dominant underlying chemical structure that was reference when the term was first introduced? Nitrogen? Oxygen? Argon? According to Kripke, science discovers that “Air is N2” because it is the dominant underlying chemical structure. But this seems misaligned with how we typically use this term, “We took a trip to the mountains to breathe fresh air.” We could counter with another stipulation, and consider biological function to fix its reference, “Air is O2”.

Kripke imagines humans selectively baptizing a particular microscopic molecule and ignoring others by decreeing what are the dominant underlying chemical structure. What he really seems to be doing is performing a metamorphosis of the term “water” into the term “H2O” to gain that purity. “Water is H2O” is not what he is talking about, but “H2O is H2O”. This is the purity he longs for and easily fits into his Possible World Semantics. However, it seems at a cost, what was once a posteriori knowledge now turns into a priori analytical truth.

Sure thing, my critique would begin with natural kinds, and the “infamous” example “water is h2o”.

As a self proclaimed naturalist and a zealot follower of Wittgenstein, if you interested in Kripkean modal semantics and how its rigidity distorts what science actually discovers and how language is actually used, I would most happy present my lengthy criticisms on this type of thinking and its application. But i think this thread wants to enlighten these views, not critique them.

So while it is not necessarily so (the coin could be tails), something can be both possible and also be real at the same time. — EricH

I am a little unclear on what you mean here. When you say “something can be possible and real at the same time” what are you referring to when you say “something” The real coin? So, a real coin that landed on heads is the same as a possible coin that may land on heads.

If the actual world was not a possible world, then it could not exist. — Ludwig V

Something is very puzzling on what is being said here. It suggests colorful scene, as if I should go to a private room close by eyes and think about three possible worlds, then, upon opening them I realize that one of the three was the actual world around me and thus, I conclude, all in one fell swoop, one of the possible worlds I consider was the actual world and it exist too. Now I can say to myself, "If the actual world was not a possible world, then it could not exist."

It reminds me of what Wittgenstein said in the Tractatus in section 5.5303 "Roughly speaking, to say of two things that they are identical is nonsense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is to say nothing at all.

It seems to me that the what is be said, that "If the actual world was not a possible world, then it could not exist." seems to fall in the latter camp, that it is to say nothing at all.

Hence, I conclude that talking about faith means abandoning it. As soon as you try to convey faith, you rationalize it, and therefore betray its nature. According to Kierkegaard, the only true preacher is the one who lives faith in silence. — Astorre

This reminds me of Tolstoy’s short story “The Three Hermits”. In the story, a bishop visits an island where tales describe three old hermits who live a simple life of prayer. Upon arrival, he is surprised on how they pray. “Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us” is recited to the bishop. The bishop is shock of their lack of traditional formality of prayer and thus teaches the correct way of prayer. After feeling satisfied they know how to correctly pray, the bishop leaves the island. As the boat moves away from the island, a light is seen from the direction of the island, the crew see the hermits walking on water towards the ship begging the bishop to teach them the right way to pray for they have forgotten. The bishop humbled and in awe by what he saw said, “Your own prayer will reach the Lord, men of God. It is not for me to teach you.”

1. Free will is an uncaused cause.
2. Everything has a cause.
3. Free will is incoherent.
4. We don't have free will.
5. We are caused and we cause.

3, 4, and 5 seem to follow from 1 and 2.

Are 1 and 2 true?

1 seems to be assumed true, a definition to be accepted as true for the sake of the deduction. Without proof or demonstration. What about 2? Is this another “assumed to be true” premise? If not, how does one prove everything has a cause?

This looks like religious dogma to be accepted without question, and see what consequences it has on one’s life after indoctrination.

Isomorphically, the world shares the same logical form as our thoughts and language. That explains why the world makes sense to us.

That there is stuff is still no more than a brute fact. — Banno

Looking at this from an early Wittgenstein perspective, a fact is just what is the case. And what is the case is some combination of objects. These objects are simple, can only be name, and spoken of but not asserted. A proposition presents the existence or non existence of facts. The totality of true propositions is what science strives for. Thus, the world is the totality of facts, not of things. So what are these things/objects? They are metaphysical presuppositions assumed in order to show how we come to understand the world around us.

Why not start with the premise that the world is pretty much just as it seems to be, and look for evidence to the contrary? — Banno

How can they do that? They construct the ladder from their senses to arrive at the conclusion their senses cannot be trusted. See the straight stick, see the crooked stick, trust enough on what we see, to understand what we see cannot be trusted.

It might be interesting to look at Malcolm's approach through the lens of one of the formal intuitionist logics. Perhaps relevance logic would be informative. — Banno

Not sure what formal intuitionist logics or relevance logic exactly means but saw some general descriptions and I wonder if the following two examples from Malcolm's body of work is something you have in mind.

From "Kripke and the Standard Meter",

"I have argued that in relation to actual operation of institution or "language game" of measurement with a meter stick, the sentence 'One meter is the length of S' is not a contingent statement. Do I hold then that this sentence expresses a 'necessary truth'? I would not say this either, especially if a 'necessary truth' is supposed to be something that is 'true in all possible worlds'. Certainly there is no requirement to hold that if the sentence is not a contingent statement then it must be a necessary statement. To think that this sentence should be characterized as either contingent or as a necessary statement seems to me to be looking at it in a wrong way. The sentence, 'One meter is the length of S', is correctly characterized as being, in relation to the institution of metric measurement, the definition of 'one meter' and also as a rule for the use of the term 'one meter'. One can also rightly say that this sentence was used to make a fiat or a decree."

From "“Anselm's Ontological Arguments",

"I do not know how to demonstrate that the concept of God-that is, of a being a greater than which cannot be conceived-is not self-contradictory. But I do not think that it is legitimate to demand such a demonstration. I also do not know how to demonstrate that either the concept of a material thing or the concept of seeing a material thing is not self-contradictory, and philosophers have argued that both of them are. With respect to any particular reasoning that is offered for holding that the concept of seeing a material thing, for example, is self-contradictory, one may try to show the invalidity of the reasoning and thus free the concept from the charge of being self-contradictory on that ground. But I do not understand what it would mean to demonstrate in general, and not in respect to any particular reasoning, that the concept is not self-contradictory. So, it is with the concept of God. I should think there is no more of presumption that it is self-contradictory than the concept of seeing a material thing. Both concepts have a place in the thinking and the lives of human beings."

The sceptic's argument is irrefutable, but pointless.) — Ludwig V

Has this been proven to you, "The sceptic's argument is irrefutable".? If so, please let me know what this demonstration looks like.

But I don't quite see why you say both that you don't agree that the sceptic's argument is irrefutable and that it is impossible to prove or disprove. — Ludwig V

Let's see if I can make this a little clearer. I am not saying, I can prove or disprove the radical sceptic's argument. What I am saying is one can't talk about proving or disproving the radical skeptic's argument. Why? Radical Skepticism acts like a work of fiction. A work of fiction does not make assertions to prove or disprove, the very nature of a work of fiction is an absence of any assertion about the world. There is nothing to confirm or falsify in a work of fiction. So, like a work of fiction, there is nothing to confirm or falsify in the skeptic's argument as well.

The sceptic's argument is irrefutable, but pointless.) — Ludwig V

You say the skeptic’s argument is irrefutable, but pointless. We definitely agree it is pointless. However, I am not sure I want to agree it is irrefutable, which I take to mean impossible to disprove. If I present to you a work of fiction, and you assert that this work of fiction is irrefutable or impossible to disprove, what could you mean by such an assertion? I make no claim that it is supposed to be true, nor that it should be entirely coherent. Or was it just to mean, we typically don’t talk about proving or disproving a work of fiction?

From my perspective, the skeptic’s argument is like a work of fiction. The main difference seems to be the intention of what is being present, one being “possibly real” and the other “make believe”. We are not trying to prove or disprove the intentions of the author, but what is being said by the author. And what is being said in both case makes no sense to even talk about proving or disproving.

As Wittgenstein says in the Tractatus,

“6.51 Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.”

I don't believe so. The idea is that we learn what some thing is, name it, and then discover that everything we knew about it was false. — Banno

Nice summary of Kripke's view. Let me see if I can make sense of it.

Going back to my example of human beings able to distinguish between fresh water and sea water, you could also say humans have the ability to "pick out" a liquid that is fresh water and "pick out" a liquid that is sea water. As I indicated, this is with their biological machinery. From this perspective, humans do not need "names" or "descriptions" to perform this very act, it is a matter of survival. Again, there may be error along the way, due to sickness or injury (but to understand this notion of error, we need a notion of success). Additionally, we could use "names" and "descriptions" to describe this human act of picking out fresh water which in turn can be used to teach other humans. Nevertheless, if a human successfully "picks out" the fresh water, hydrates themselves, and survives to see another day, don't we want to say he knows how to "pick out" fresh water? If the answer is "yes", in this scenario, what sense can we make that this human could later discover "that everything we knew about it was false"? Seems we are flirting with radical skepticism.

I am reminded what Wittgenstein said in "On Certainty",

"If I now say "I know that the water in the kettle on the gas-flame will not freeze but boil", I seem to be justified in this "I know" as I am in any. 'If I know anything I know this',- Or do I know with still greater certainty that the person opposite me is my old friend so-and-so? And how does that compare with the proposition that I am seeing with two eyes and shall see them if I look in the glass? - I don't know confidently what I am to answer here.-But still there is a difference between the cases. If the water over the gas freezes, of course I shall be astonished as can be, but I shall assume some factor I don't know of, and perhaps leave the matter to physicists to judge. But what could make me doubt whether this person here is N.N. whom I have known for years? Here a doubt would seem to drag everything with it and plunge it into chaos."

"Save the surface, and you save all." Sherwin-Williams

From, Pursuit of Truth, W.V. Quine

"Today, as usual, I came into the room and there was the bowl of flowers on the table. I went up to them, caressed them, and smelled over them. I thank God for flowers! There's nothing so real to me as flowers. Here the genuine essence of the world's substance, as its gayest and most hilarious speaks to me. It seems unworthy even to think as erect, and waving on pillars of sap. Sap! Sap!"

O.K. Bouwsma, "Decartes' Evit Genius"