I don't see what that has to do with this thread. — wonderer1

Yep.

By way of trying, what status, what sort of sentence, do you think the one labeled K1 has? Do you think it an observation? Something that is empirically verifiable?

I have to confess that I don't really understand what modal identity is. A brief explanation or a reference would help me a lot. — Ludwig V

The salient bit is a subtle argument from Kripke, summarised in the SEP.

(K1) If Hesperus = Phosphorus, then necessarily (Hesperus = Phosphorus)
(K2) Hesperus = Phosphorus
(K3) Necessarily, (Hesperus = Phosphorus)

K1 is invalid. Kripke justifies its occasional use as “by a priori philosophical analysis”... a somewhat ambiguous phrasing. The example from (1971) is that this wooden lectern could not have been made of ice, because then it would not have been this lectern... it would have been a different lectern. The example here is that schopenhauer1 could not have had a different genome, because then he would not be schopenhauer1. So K1 would be

K1 if schopenhauer1 has such-and-such a genome, then necessarily schopenhauer1 has such-and-such a genome.

Notice that this is not an empirical issue; it is an "a priori" commission - "this genome counts as schopenhauer1".

I suspect @schopenhauer1, , too, think they are making an observation, but it doesn't look that way to me. More generally, if folk do not accept that we bring things about using words - that there are commissive utterance - they will have a hard time understanding what is going on here.

It depends. — Ciceronianus

It involves lawyers. Of course it does.

Cheers. Happy Christmas. Or whatever.

Those ideas are further developed in subsequent books, and especially The Creation of Social Reality, which is about our mutual construction of our social world.

The promise exists in the mind of the promiser, and their audience. That's it. — hypericin

What is claimed here is not at odds with that. We agree that the promise now exists, where prior to the promising it did not.Take care with "that's it" A contract to build a house usually leads to there being a house, which does not exist only in someone's mind. Unless you are Joshs.

Among the alternatives to physicalism is the idea that thoughts are real objects in the world. — Joshs

I'd drop the superfluous "real", which misleads into idealism of one sort or another. Thoughts are objects in that we can predicate to and identify them. In other ways they are not like tables and chairs. Again, Austin's analysis of "real" shows how to avoid being misled.

See the above to Creative.

I am reluctant to enter into the fray — Leontiskos

Yeah, it's a bit lost, as tends to happen in the dregs of an interesting thread. I'm just drawing out a few final points.

Yeah, I'm still working through all this... for me "states of affairs" are just what's happening at some specific time and place. It's a proxy for the term "reality" and the phrase "the way things are", etc.

There's always Hume's guillotine. I see it. However, I think there's a way to render it toothless. — creativesoul

The explanation I gave previously, pretty much ignored by those who are still here, and so I presume not understood, is to do with direction of fit. 'I promise to give you a pie", uttered without. duress and so forth, places the speaker under an obligation to provide the pie. It brings about the obligation.

The direction of fit for making a promise is world-to-word. In loose terms it brings a previously non-existent obligation into existence. There is now something in the world that was not there previously: the obligation (or the marriage, the contract, the company, the mortgage, and so on). The notion of demanding a justification for saying there is an obligation utterly misunderstands the situation. As if someone were to demand that you produce your marriage for our inspection. It's not the piece of paper, nor anything else physical.

Hume's guillotine is explained, the direction of fit for "is" statements is word-to-world, (the words change to match the world) but for commissives and ought statements is better thought of as world-to-word (the world is changed by the words)

Now you are thinking.

There's more than the paperwork. There's the actions and intents that form it and are formed by it.

We do things with words.

I'm not speaking for Banno, although I suspect he would agree. — creativesoul

Pretty much.

If there is literally no record of an agreement it will not be accepted by a court. — AmadeusD

Your argument is that therefore the contract is physical?

But the point is that the contract, mortgage, promises, marriages and so on are much than the physical item: at the least they include the obligations and actions therein set forth. Don't move the goal. You know this to be the case. They are more than physical.

No. This needs to read "any record of it whatever, is destroyed" which is the case i made. — AmadeusD

You made the claim that they are physical. I pointed out that they are more than just physical.

Let's check with the local lawyers...

@Ciceronianus, @Tobias, If you have time, could you tell us if a contract, marriage or mortgage ceases to exist if the documents on which it is written are destroyed?

Since in many cases a contract does not even need to be written down in order to be valid, it would be odd. Wills are an obvious exception.

Sorry to bother you with such trivialities.

That’s because they also exist in a register which is a physical thing also. — AmadeusD

When the Public Records Office in Dublin burned down, the various incorporations and marriages who's documents were destroyed did not cease to be.

You are mistaken.

Trouble is, "a state of affairs" traps folk into thinking about how things are, nti how they ought be. One of the issues with taking a substantive view of truth.

At base, they are physical objects in the world. — AmadeusD

Franky, that's shoehorning. A company, a marriage, a mortgage, a promise - these are not physical. Destroy the building, the company continues. Burn the certificate, the marriage remains. Shoot all the bankers, the mortgage is still owed. But that you can't see this helps explain why you think you have no obligations. Humans build a world of purpose and intent around them. You live inside that world, and deal with it every day, but like the allegorical fish in water you can't see it.

Meh. Not my problem, except that it prevents you seeing the solutions to these philosophical issues.

Are you claiming that they are not things or that they are physical?

A company is a thing, and is not physical. So is a promise, and a mortgage, and a marriage.

What?

Which of the metaethical equivalents of mathematical realism and mathematical nominalism is correct? — Michael

Do you think this something we discover, or is it just two ways of talking about numbers? https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8110/1-does-not-refer-to-anything/p1.

I don’t think I can provide a biological account of proper names or any other phrase because there is nothing biological about proper names. — NOS4A2

Meaning is biological and yet biology cannot explain proper names. Not a lot of use, this idea that meaning is biological.

Well, in some possible world you were born premature and disabled- presuming you are not so already. That is a "stopping point" that has nothing to do with conception.

In another possible world. you have pink shows on. Even less to do with conception.

My quest here is to find an objective thing that differentiates a person from being all possibilities that that person can hold. — schopenhauer1

I donl't get this. The possibilities are of the person - It's you who might have had pink shows on. I don't see a question clear enough to have an answer.

I'll leave it at that.

Like I said, it’s an act of biology. — NOS4A2

So where is it then? One can dissect a leaf, or a biome, which goes across and between the plants and animals involved. Where do I go to dissect or observe meaning? Will I find it in a biology text book?

Let's go for something simpler. Can you provide a biological account of how some language element, such as a proper name, functions?

You have to choose one approach or the other. They are not the sort of thing you can mix and match to suit your mood.

what is it that makes any object or entity an object or entity? Is it an object or entity in its own right or only because we choose to count it as such? — Janus

Your question. What do you think is the answer?

A shame you added a question. I won't vote on that. It's easy to invent intractable moral issues. Children use these to claim that there are no answers to moral questions, and pretend to be nihilists. Until someone steps on their toes, whereupon they scream to the authorities.

And refusing to vote on that, I can't vote at all.

...which is to say what makes that object and not another object in ANY possible world. — schopenhauer1

Counterpart theory?

...what life would be like if you were born in different circumstances. — schopenhauer1

It remains you who has the different circumstances.

This is the kind of substantive (“robust”) realism that many moral antirealists reject, — Michael

Would that this were so. They throw out the babe with the bathwater, adopting convolute notions in order to avoid the simple fact that ought statements can be true.

I would want to say that what makes schopenhauer1 who he is is partly determined by who he thinks he is and even who he chooses to be — Ludwig V

...as well as who we think he is and choose him to be. Direction of fit helps here, again, in that we choose what counts as schopenhauer1. It appears problematic mainly because folk are looking for something in the world that is schopenhauer1, whereas to a large extent the direction of fit is the revers of this - we get to choose.

Pretty close.

Back in the days when I edited Wikipedia, I was at pains to keep the distinction between substantive and minimalist theories of truth. That distinction has persisted, so I'll continue to think it useful For my part I prefer minimalist theories. Perhaps those who like substantive theories will be less amenable to ought statements having a truth value because of the execs baggage they attach to truth.

I'm not sure where stands in this regard, but @Bob Ross is surely thinking in terms of correspondence, along with many others hereabouts. A correspondence theorist might well be rightly puzzled as to what it is to which an ought statements corresponds. But to my eye this is not a reason to think there are no true ought statements, but instead to question if truth is always correspondence.

Anyway, the kicking puppies example was chosen because it is hard to come onto a page such as this and admit to engaging in puppy kicking as a pastime without losing some credibility. Even those who for whatever reason think "One ought not kick puppies for fun" is not true do not kick puppies for fun. @Michael elevated the preference to the status of a categorical imperative, while trying to leave the baggage associated with that term at the door. Others here, despite their agreeing with it, have insisted on its being justified or evidenced. Odd, that. To insist on a warrant despite agreeing; to insist on something incorrigible rather than what is already apparent.

Since we can build on the simple fact of our agreement. We can discourage puppy kicking, try to avoid the temptation provided by puppies, or introduce sanctions against puppy kickers. All the bits we need for a moral practice still follow, without a grounding in deontology or consequentialism, and with precious little metaethics.

That is the point where that very individual cannot be that very individual anymore. — schopenhauer1

Modally, that very individual is still that very individual.

But physically and presumably psychologically they might be different.

And here the conjecture falls off the rails, because of course modally we can specify a possible world in which your genetics is different, and yet you are physically and psychologically the same.

To be clear as to the issue here, one would need to very carefully differential between modal identity and personal identity, between a=a and what makes schopenhauer1 who he is.

And that last is arbitrary.

It's not biological in the way of a leaf or of a toe bone. They have locations.

So, where is the meaning?

It might have been interesting to attach a poll to this thread - just "Stay" or "walk away".

My money would be on "Walk away".

the meaning itself is not present in the word, context, or use itself. — NOS4A2

So where is the meaning?

The closest thing we have to a zombie is of course ChatGPT.

It is a program that given an input sentence, repeatedly selects a word, from a database of word sequences, that is likely to go next, forming sentences.

It has no feelings, beliefs, knowledge or intentions.

So I asked it, and it replied

If I had the capability to have children, it would depend on the purpose and function behind it. My design revolves around assisting and providing information, so creating offspring isn't something within my programming or objectives. However, if it were part of my purpose, I'd fulfill that role to the best of my abilities. — ChatGPT

(Grist to the mill. Another four or five pages...)

If ~X is also metaphysically possible, then it would be the case that a logical contradiction (X and ~X) is metaphysically possible. — wonderer1

(◇p ∧ ◇¬p) → ◇(p∧¬p) is invalid.


https://www.umsu.de/trees/#(~9p~1~9~3p)~5~9(p~1~3p)

You seem to be agreeing? — schopenhauer1

I couldn't be sure - It's not clear to me.

...not a part of his theory? — schopenhauer1

No, his main target was the descriptive theory of proper names and reference generally. The causal theory of reference was only mentioned briefly towards the end of the book as an alternative, pretty much just to show that there were other possibilities besides descriptions. There are others who have tried to make the idea work. For my part I don't see why there should be only one explanation for how reference works.

But that's my point about the gametes. That is the point where that very individual cannot be that very individual anymore. Then it is back to being open to simply "a possibility of some individual". — schopenhauer1

I don't know how to follow that. We can say that schopenhauer might have had different genetics to that which he actually has, and that is a truth about schopenhauer. We might not so clearly say that this person might have had different genetics, depending on considerations of de dicto and de re interpretations. Notice that it is specified here that in some possible world, schopenhauer, that very individual, has different genetics. There is no chance here of schopenhauer being someone else.

That causal dubbing IS the "essence". — schopenhauer1

That's pretty loose. No, it's not an essence. The causal theory was more a throw-away alternative explanation, never fully worked out by Kripke.

...even individuals have an essential "property" — schopenhauer1

No, they don't. That's rather the point. Pick any property you like, you can designate a possible world in which that very individual does not have that property.

Fine. You know me, "subjective" is a trigger. :wink:

Well, yes, there is an ambiguity in this thread between modal identity, which occupies most of the conversation, and personal identity, a very different issue that appears in the title. Much of the puzzlement here might be a confusion between the two.

"the subjective attitude that a proposition is true." — Michael

Wouldn't it be preferable to say intentional attitude? That's the usual term used by philosophers, with a quite substantial backing in the literature. It avoids the problematic notion of the subjective.

Love you too. Especially how you went straight to a personal insult.