Interesting approach.

Davidson: Oh. But you have to assume that reference is fixable in order to communicate at all. — frank

I'd suggest rather that Davidson would say reference has a function only within broader theories of truth (or meaning), and there can be no coherent theory of reference per se. Reference is not free-standing.

It's just another realestate opportunity...

If anything is necessary, then everything is necessary? — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's a misrepresentation of the argument. In S5, if there is a necessary being than every being is necessary.

You can find the argument online, or ask your friendly AI to run up a version.

The thread became entangled in animal intelligence, a garden path, to my eye.

Where are you now? Any thoughts?

So the new plan is to turn the Gaza Strip into a 'Mercan playground for the rich?

Shit's gonna fly.

I actually agree with you on that. — Janus

:up:

I can't see how we could know who the name refers to if we didn't know at least one of the following that Socrates is purported to be; that is 'the teacher of Plato', 'the agora gadfly' 'the man charged with corrupting the youth of Athens and condemned to drink hemlock' and so on. — Janus

I agree with that. The point is that the questioner succeeds in picking out Socrates uniquely, and this despite not having a definite description available. They don't know who Socrates is, and yet demonstrably they can talk about Socrates. They can say "I don't know who Socrates is" and that can be a true sentence about their knowledge of Socrates.

Contingent temporal beings that come into and go out of existence depend on Nature or God (Deus siva Natura) for their existence, Nature or God is eternal, does not come into or go out of existence and depends on nothing. — Janus

I don't see what to make of this except as saying that there is stuff. So, yes. And folk want to say more, but as soon as they do, there are all sorts of problems. So I'll leave it at that.

It's not a matter of not understanding the meaning of some reference to Socrates when one has no idea who the name 'Socrates' refers to, but of not knowing who or what is being referred to — Janus

But we do know who the question refers to... Socrates. Yes, there is more that one can learn about Socrates, but that is still about Socrates. Kripke's point, that we do not need a definite description at hand in order for a propper name to function correctly, stand... no?

I have trouble seeing a connection between dependency and modality.

logically the question is about Socrates — Janus

Yes, it is. SO the question is clear, and the referent fixed - the question is about Socrates. It would be odd to answer "But since you don't know who Socrates is, I don't understand your question".

And again, it is clear that reference is a communal activity. Hence, a private "speaker's meaning" is problematic.

Is there any logical reason why there could not be just one necessary being? — Janus

Well, in S5 that would lead to everything being necessary. Much as Spinoza concluded. But that's not a theistic god. It seems pantheism is more logical than theism... :wink:

But does the widespread agreement not come about due to many descriptions that form part of the causal chain? This would seem to be inevitable if there were more than one Socrates and question like 'Which Socrates are you referring to?" or 'I've never heard of Socrates, when did he live and what did he do?'. — Janus

You'll be familiar with the examples. Who is the question "I've never heard of Socrates, when did he live and what did he do?" about? I suggest it is about Socrates, despite the speaker perhaps not having anything available with which to fix the referent. It's not that there are no definite descriptions, but that they are not needed in order for reference to work perfectly well.

Dragging this back to the OP...

There need not be some property understood to apply to and only to Gavagai in order for the word to be understood and used effectively. More broadly, there need not be some fixed, agreed and understood referent in order for the word to be used in the community being examined, and the anthropologist need not have such a fixed referent at hand in order to set out the use of "gavagai" in that community.

Goose.

You are hung up on that word "description," — Leontiskos

That was Kripke. He kinda used the word a whole lot.

Meanwhile, the elephant sits patiently, waiting....

Banno keeps asserting things without argument. — Leontiskos

You made that claim, then immediately quoted and addressed my argument.

:smile:

, you two need to talk... :wink:

Presuming we may now talk about §5,

Parasitic reference to each other’s thought objects between people not sharing each other’s beliefs seems to be a ubiquitous phenomenon.

Returning to 'parasitic' reference, which is apparently where the fool refers to the thought object in the mind of the saint. (I've asked Leon several times if he agrees, but so far as I am aware he hasn't responded.) It was a while ago that I pointed out that there is no way to check the thought-object in the mind of the saint, to see what it is about; there is no way to verify that the thing in the mind of the saint is the thing being referred to by the fool. How do we know that when two people use the same words, they are referring to the same thought object?

Indeed, the very idea of a thought object is opaque. Presumably the aforementioned thought-object Porsche is parasitic on the "real" Porsche... Or will we say that the thought-object Porsche existed prior to the "real" Porsche, in the collective minds of the various designers at Volkswagen? It is after all just a rich man's beetle.

The notion of god is inconsistent.

Anything follows from an inconsistency.

Therefore Jesus is God.

Good question. I've no idea. I can see arguments for, as well as against. — Arcane Sandwich

And we might well chose to go either way. There is no fact of the matter, only how useful it is for us to talk one way or the other. I'd be inclined to suggest that a ten-legged fruit fly would still be a fruit fly, and so choose to count it as an insect. That'd be to remove having six legs as a necessary attribute of insects. Some other fact might replace it, perhaps a genetic marker or a different morphological characteristic. But whatever is chosen, at some stage that too might come into question.

What's salient is that over time we might well change what we regard as the essence of insect, but that each time we do this we are changing something about the use of the word, not about the beasts. That is, essence is about word use, rather than ontology. We are not discovering that characteristic that determines what is an insect and what is not, but deciding which characteristic determines our use of the word "insect".

I think this is in line with Kripke's discussion of essences.

Compare the discussion of simples around Philosophical Investigations, §48.

I don't see these responses helping much.

A metaphorical use is different to a literal use. Calling your ex an insect works becasue of the literal use. We could have a discussion of the best way to define 'literal', but that'd be yet another step away from Quine.

The extension of a predicate is the list of individuals to whom it applies. In your example, the set of animals having six legs is an insect, and it's not correct to say of something without six legs, that it is an insect. That is, the set of animals that have six legs and the set of animals to which the word "insect" applies are the vey same. they are extensionally equivalent. (Part fo the problem here is the one mentioned much earlier, where it remains unclear what you think an essence is, especially in extensional terms).

We do not find out what an insect is by looking only at the use of the word, but finding out what an insect is, is the same as finding out how to use the word "insect" coherently. The example of "fish" is informative here. Whales were once called fish, but as we refined the use of that word it became clear that there were considerable differences between, say, teleosts and Cetacea; too great to justify the use of the common name. The word "fish" dropped out of use for Cetacea. More recently it has been suggested that there is nothing that is common to all and only fish; that there is no essence of "fishness". That's what prompted Stephen Jay Gould to joke that there was no such thing as a fish. If you insist that there must be an essence of fish in order to justify our use of the word "fish" you will be defying the science. Of course there are fish, which is to say nothing more than that it is useful to have that word at hand to talk about some of the animals that live in water and cook up nicely. It does nto imply, as you seem to think, that there must be an essence of fishness for us to be able to use the word at all.

I am not suggesting that word use determines what something is. Nor is it true that what something is determines word use. I said previously that such a juxtaposition is fraught. I am pointing to the interplay between word use and our interactions with the world. We divide the world up not on the basis of some prelinguistic ontology, but on the basis of what works for us.

This is not to "collapse the distinction between sign and referent" but as Davidson phrased it "In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but reestablish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false."

Well, yes, as I said, it's not a great example. We might get out our CRISPR and re-arrange the genetics of a fruit fly so that it has an extra body segment and two more pairs of legs. Is it still an insect?

I'm suggesting that this is as much a question of word use as it is of entomology.

...there is also nothing essential to insects? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sticking to the example, which isn't a great one, insects have six legs. Now will we count that as a bit of ontology, in that having six legs is a special feature of insects, or will we count it as a bit of language use, as in it's not correct to say of something without six legs, that it is an insect?

How are these questions distinct? Extensionally, they are identical.

And there is no such thing as a fish.

So you do think insects existed prior to anyone deciding what counts as an insect? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure. I've argued similar points at length, elsewhere. There is gold in those hills, even if no one knows about it.

"What counts as an insect" is much the same question as "How should we use the word insect". There's books about that, if you are interested.

If your philosophy of language forces you to ho and hum and deflect away from questions like "did cockroaches not exist until humans decided to 'count' them as such?" then yes, that seems like a rather major defect. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, it sure would be., Who says that?

Kripke argued that the essence of a gold atom is the property of having an atomic number of 79, which is the number of protons in the nucleus of a gold atom. — Arcane Sandwich

Yep.

Tim seems to be advocating some form of species essentialism, in which species are static groups with inherent essences. See the conversation with @Apustimelogist.

Kripke advocates a modal essentialism, such that certain properties of object and kinds are essential. The properties he has in mind are those that the object or kind has in every possible world. So Gold has the property of having 79 protons in its nucleus, because that's what the word "gold" refers to. See the thread Kripke: Identity and Necessity. There's a fair bit involved.

Must we pretend? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Pretending isn't such a bad thing. This counts as a 'dog' - let's pretend. It gets us by.

Use is pretty ubiquitous - not just a "key use"; we don't just refer with word, we question, demand, command, name, promise.

Sheep are an "organic whole" only until they reach the abattoir. What counts as a whole depends on what you are doing.

Your essentialism is showing.

It doesn't say anything about it; it says that when a speaker's does use a description, the "speaker's reference" is that to which they think it applies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Perhaps that was his speaker's intent - that might explain the foux pas. But it would still be a mistake, as the example shows - and as Kripke argues - semantic meaning might well take priority. Sarah believes she is referring to Kripke when she is talking about Kaplan.

It will not do to reply that her speaker's reference is to Kripke, because the indicative picks out Kaplan.

Yeah, but I want to talk about meaning and reference :D — Moliere

Well, there's your problem, right there... :wink:

so why do you think. ...implies anything to the contrary? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't understand. The first says that Kripke does not think a description is needed in order to fix a referent. The second, that Kripke thinks the speaker has at hand a description in order to fix the referent.

What you talk'n 'bout?

Sure, some ways of divvying don't work.


We can juxtapose two views, that either the dog is an whole regardless of language, or it is a whole in virtue of language. Then we can pretend that the one must be true, at the expense of the other.

But perhaps the juxtaposition is fraught with problems. We might treat the trout as a whole while catching it, becasue that's what works. Then we filet it, treating it as a compound, then serve it along with spuds, greens and a béchamel as a part of a meal. What counts as whole or part is a result of what we are doing.

And language is a part of the stuff we do.


Meaning is not found, it's made. Or better, drop meaning and reference altogether and talk instead about use.

Tim apparently thinks that there is at most one correct way in which the world can be divvied up. God's way, presumably.

Others, perhaps you and I and maybe @Dawnstorm, think that there may be multiple ways to divvy up stuff, each of them capable of being coherent if not complete.

Does that help?

In any case is God compelled to fix our mistakes? This comes back to the obvious fact that he has no created a perfect world, not if a world, to be perfect involves no suffering for any creature. — Janus

For consistency god must have created the world of necessity. In modal logic (S5) if there is a necessary being then everything in every possible world is necessary. That is, god does not make choices.Whatever god does he is compelled to do out of necessity. The alternative, of course , is that there are no necessary beings.

The Best Possible World, But Not For Us is a curiosity rather than a serious proposal.

I almost agree with your critique of the causal chain theory of reference. It does not quite satisfy me, either. However I will say that it's advocates might not disagree with you that there is most likely a description involved at some point in the chain. But the success of the reference here and now is not dependent on that description. So at some stage Socrates was names "Socrates", perhaps using some description of the form "I name this baby before me'Socrates'". But now, given the ubiquity of the use of the name, there is a widespread agreement as to the referent of "Socrates" such that it is not dependent on that particular act.

Hence this from SEP:

2. On the causal model, words refer in virtue of being associated with chains of use leading back to an initiating use or ‘baptism’ of the referent. Extending this model beyond names has proven difficult, but one option is to insist that it is really the perceptual connection that underlies most baptismal events that runs the show. In that case, perceptually-grounded uses of demonstratives, deictic pronouns, and definite descriptions can be folded into the picture relatively easily, with anaphoric uses treated as something akin to links in a chain of reference-borrowing — Reference (SEP)

Notice "...leading back to an initiating use or ‘baptism’ of the referent".

Their target was the idea, from Russell and others, that a name refers in virtue of a description, and so that description must be at hand for a reference to be successful. This theory of reference is difficult to make work in a modal semantics.


Added:

Kripke’s entire argument in Naming and Necessity is that names refer via causal chains, not definite descriptions. — Banno

Actually, looking at that again, it's much too strong. The casual chain argument is not at all central to N&N. It is offered as an example of the sort of thing that might serve as an alternative. The main line of argument is against the necessity of a reference being associated with a description, and how possible world semantics shows this to be fraught with contradiction.

Compare and contrast

believes satisfies his description

against

believes fulfils the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator.

See how one is about a description, and the other is about the referent?

Now Kripke rather famously showed that names do not refer in virtue of some associated description.

So it is an error to claim that Kripke thinks a description is needed in order to fix speaker's reference.

The example given shows that speaker's reference is not as clear-cut as might otherwise be supposed. It provides a direct counterexample. The key issue here is not just what Kripke’s general definition says, but whether it applies universally. The case of Sarah misidentifying Kaplan demonstrates that speaker’s reference can diverge from belief, precisely because reference is not determined solely by belief but also by contextual factors like pointing.

Klima assumes that 'conditions for being the semantic referent' must involve a descriptive element, but Kripke’s entire argument in Naming and Necessity is that names refer via causal chains, not definite descriptions. So Klima’s reading is not just mistaken—it contradicts Kripke’s core argument. Merely citing Kripke’s general definition does not refute the point. The question is whether all cases of speaker’s reference conform to this model, and the Kaplan/Kripke case shows they do not.

Is this important? Perhaps not, perhaps it was just a slip on Klima's part. Or perhaps it indicates some reservations he might have towards Kripke's semantics.

For me a far more telling argument would be that God should be able to create a perfect world but hasn't. That throws in doubt either omnibenevolence, omniscience or omnipotence. On that point it seems that the latter two must go together, or at least if Gord were omnipotent he must be omniscient, but neither require omnibenevolence. — Janus

Did you see the argument, from a recent Philosophy Now paper, proposing that this was the perfect world, but not for us?

The Best Possible World, But Not For Us

@Gnomon started a thread on it.

Sure. What do we make of this? If god sees what we have done, and so cannot change it, then there is something god cannot do. Or god does not know what we will choose, in which case there is stuff he doesn't know.

Not long ago we had a chap who insisted that god's omnipotence included his ability to perform paradoxical acts - make round squares and so on. I suppose one might go down that path.

Or one might choose Kierkegaard's approach, accepting the paradox as an act of faith.

There isn't an answer here. The dialogue is interminable.

I don't agree that the notions of omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence are logically incompatible per se. — Janus

Well, there is an argument from Broad to that conclusion. If God is omnipotent, he should be able to create a being with free will, but if he is omniscient, he should know what the being will do, which would take away the being's free will.

And we can take this a step further, pointing out that a being with any two of these characteristics might be consistent, but that a being with all three is inconsistent. And yet, a being with all three would be greater than a being with any two. Hence, the notion of a greatest being in inconsistent.

To be sure, these are not arguments to which one might attach much practicality, but they can be amusing.

no one seems to want to give an argument for their claims — Leontiskos

There's a difference between arguments unpresented and argument unacknowledged.

You really will do anything to avoid addressing the elephant sitting opposite you at the table.

Ok, I'll keep playing. Yes, the intentional theorist and the causal theorist may well agree that folk can talk about something despite not having a description that fixes the topic.

So what.

What is mistaken is the view that in the "Kripkean framework" the speaker’s reference is to that which the speaker at least believes satisfies his description.

For anyone who wishes to check, here is a better link to Kripke's article: https://www.uvm.edu/~lderosse/courses/lang/Kripke%281977%29.pdf

(added: The crux is that Kripke argues that the semantic meaning of an act of reference can be maintained over the speaker's meaning. He uses this to defend Russell against Donnellen's view. Kripke's argument is that semantic reference is independent of speaker intent.)

Here's the footnote quoting Kripke:

“So, we may tentatively define the speaker’s referent of a designator to be that object which the speaker wishes to talk about, on a given occasion, and believes fulfils the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator.”

This is in defence of:

In the Kripkean framework, however, it is also assumed that the speaker’s reference is to that which the speaker at least believes satisfies his description.

Notice that the quote does not mention descriptions at all. And notice also the use of the word "tentatively".

Speaker’s meaning depends on context and intent. But Kripke showed that proper names are rigid designators—they refer to the same entity in all possible worlds. Speaker’s meaning is intensional, or if you prefer, subjective. It varies between individuals, and so cannot account for multiple folk talking about the same thing, nor provide modal rigidity.

You and Klima both appear to have read "the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator" as implying the presence of a description. But the phrase is chosen so as to be neutral. The "conditions" can of course as well be those causal conditions that are the basis of Kripke's theory of reference.

Look, I can do bolding too!

~~

Language is not the only case of signification in the world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep.

Notice Quine is concerned with language?

I'm not seeing how this addresses my post. I do not see where your diagrams take into consideration the fact of language as social phenomena, as the interaction of multiple people, doing things with words.

I think the actual real life interpretation can't complete until we add the third level of analysis: pragmatics. — Dawnstorm

I quite agree.

The diagram shows a relation between symbol and referent, linked by thought. Quine, Austin, Searle Grice and others showed this to be a somewhat keyhole version of what is going on. There is more to language than just reference, so a diagram that explains only reference will explain only a small part of language.

You have still not said what you think parasitic reference is.

And then this:
"But throughout this process, the questioner thinks of the same thought object as the answerer, without knowing under what description or name the answerer identifies this thought object."
The issue here is clear enough: how could we know that "the questioner thinks of the same thought object as the answerer"? And further, how can the "thought-object" in the mind of the saint be said to be the same as the "thought-object" in the head of the fool - and indeed, how could they be said to be different? — Banno