But that's not the issue I was pointing to. It's sketched out well in the SEP article on rigid designators. What is the magic that attaches a rigid designator to a particular object in a possiible world? Though this may be unproblematic for you, the SEP article makes clear that it is an unresolved issue. Scott Soames follows a route involving propositions that makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. — Mongrel

The "magic" involved simply is stipulation. There may seem to arise a problem if you endorse some sort of modal realism (i.e. realism about possible worlds). But Kripke was quite opposed to modal realism. To talk about a possible world W such that A is red at W (while A is blue in the actual world) just is to talk about the way the world could possibly be if A were red rather than blue. Thus phrased, the question about trans-world identification doesn't arise.

Suppose you make the counterfactual claim that had your alarm clock not failed to wake you up, you would have arrived to your workplace in time (rather than being late, as was the case in the actual circumstances, let us assume). And someone asks you by what magic you know that this "you" who would have arrived at work in time would be you and not someone else. The question is nonsensical unless you are some sort of neo-Heraclitean who questions the persistence of substances through material and/or qualitative change. But that would be a different issue than the issue of trans-world identification.

So what exactly is it that determines this "numerical identity"? What is it, that is, other than some quality or other, that makes the scenario of the 'France' where humans didn't evolve a "misuse of language" and other alternative scenarios where humans are thought as present not misuses of language? — John

Numerical identity is a relation that holds between something and itself. If A and B are numerically identical, this means that "A" and "B" are two names (or definite descriptions, demonstratives or other singular referring expressions) that refer to the same thing. A country can't be numerically identical with the stretch of land that it occupies since this stretch of land existed before the country was founded (or built) and it can go on existing after the country has disappeared.

And the issue is not about whether the inhabitants of France call it a different name than we do, but that the inbabitants of the purported alternative 'France' call it by a different name, in a different language, than the actual inhabitants of the real France do. So again what is it that makes an imagined purported alternative France numerically identical to the actual France?

The question doesn't make sense. It just happens that we are talking about France as it would be in some counterfactual circumstances, and not some different country merely similar to it. Doing so makes sense inasmuch as the imagined counterfactual circumstances aren't such that France can't exist (or couldn't have existed) were they to obtain. France could still exist if its capital would move (or had moved, or had been different to begin with), but it could not exist if it never had had any inhabitants, just like a hockey team could not have existed without ever having had any player in it, although it could have remained in existence as the same team that it is while undergoing some player exchanges in the past, and just like you can remain in existence while many, or all, the molecules that make up your body are exchanged, etc.

So the meaning of a rigid designator can't be known in any other way than by attending to how it's being used in a particular speech act. You can't just say..." well it ordinarily means X." Agree? — Mongrel

Pragmatics makes a distinction between speaker meaning and conventional meaning ("Utterer's meaning" and "timeless meaning" in Grice). For Kripke it doesn't matter. We are either considering timeless sentences that contain proper names or utterances where the speaker makes use of proper names as they are normally understood. Else you are simply changing the subject away from the use of proper names.

The two cases you outline here seem to be just the same kinds of cases, differing only in terms of degree. If Paris had never been the capital of some geographical region, then the entire history of that geographical region, including what that precise geographical region was called and even the language itself that was spoken there could not have been the same. So, that precise geographical region would not have been called France, and all the people born in that region would have been different than the people that have actually been born there. — John

It doesn't matter how very qualitatively different France might by in counterfactual scenarios that we imagine; It still will be numerically identical to the country that we call "France" in the actual world. Numerical identity and qualitative identity are two different concepts. It also is quite irrelevant what language French citizens would speak in the counterfactual scenarios that we imagine. We stipulate what country we are talking about, and we can imagine its citizens calling their own country whatever name they like without this making it into a different country. The Japanese don't call their country "Japan"; they call it "Nihon koku". It hardly follows that the country that they call "Nihon koku" is a different country from the country that we call "Japan". It's the same country that goes under two different names in two different languages.

Let's look at an example Soames considers. If Saul Kripke exists, he's human. We're going to see if this statement is necessarily true. The fact that the statement starts with "if" means we can judge it across all possible worlds. It works as necessary because we consider humanity to be essential to Kripke. — Mongrel

Sure. Kripke is necessarily human iff he's human in all the possible worlds in which he exists. The possible worlds in which Kripke doesn't exist aren't relevant to the evaluation of this de re modal claim.

Now look at:

Karen said Paris is the capital of France.

To understand any proposition, you must examine context of utterance. On examination, we determine that Karen is talking about the actual France. So Karen could be understood to be saying:

In all possible worlds that contain the actual France, the capital of France is Paris.

And that is necessarily true. Why not?

In that case you aren't evaluating the de re modal claim, regarding Paris (as we ordinarily talk about it), that it is necessarily the capital of France (as we ordinarily talk about it). Neither are you evaluating the different de re modal claim, regarding France (as we ordinarily talk about it), that it necessarily has Paris (as we ordinarily talk about it) as its capital. Under the ordinary meanings of "Paris" or "France", as those words are normally used in English, neither of those de re necessities hold. Karen is free, for sure, to conjure up new meanings for those words such that one or both of those sorts of de re necessities would be true regarding the different objects -- which may coincide in respect of all their actual properties with France and Paris in the actual world) -- that she means to designate with the words "France" and "Paris", respectively. If the objects A and B have different de re modal properties, then they are two different objects, as follows from Leibniz law of indiscernability of identicals, under Kripke's (or Ruth Barcan Marcus') quite reasonable modal interpretation of this law.

Nothing about this shows that the truth of modal propositions depends on the meaning of the terms that we use to designate the objects those propositions are propositions about. It rather illustrates the rather humdrum fact that what propositions are expressed by our linguistic utterances depends on the meanings (either usual, reasonably intended, or merely stipulated for the occasion) of the words that we use to express them. Hence, for instance it is true of Kurt Gödel, but merely contingent, that he has authored the incompleteness theorems. However, someone could utter the sentence "Kurt Gödel is the author of the incompleteness theorems" meaning it is such a way that it is necessarily true as she means it (which could be a misuse of language, where what is said doesn't coincide with what is meant). This could be the case is she meant to be using "Kurt Gödel" as a descriptive name (and made it clear that that is what she meant to be doing). She would thus express a de dicto necessity that has no bearing whatsoever on the de re necessity that we quite reasonably deny when we claim that it is (metaphysically) possible that Kurt Gödel would not have authored the incompleteness theorems.

Said still differently: proper names rigidly designate, but it is of course required in order that an expression normally used as a proper name (e.g. "Kurt Gödel") rigidly designate that whoever is using this expression indeed be using it as the proper name which it is (relying on its already established use in her linguistic community) and not as something else (e.g. as shorthand for a descriptive phrase)!

Isn't that the definition of necessity though-- that there is no other possibility in the context? — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sure, something is necessarily true iff it can't possibly be false, and it is possibly true iff it isn't necessarily false. If "the context" defines the scope of generality, then this is just to say that generalized necessity is the dual of generalized possibility. 'Possibly' and 'necessarily' can thus be interdefined with the use of the negation operator. But if "the context" under consideration is the generalized conditions under which P is true, then saying that P is necessarily true in that context just is the tautological statement that P is true whenever P is true. That's not very philosophically interesting.

Consider the proposition: "In our world, the capital of France is Paris." Is this true of our world? If so, how exactly are other possible worlds relevant?

They are relevant to the evaluation of the modality of the statement, not to the evaluation of its truth. False propositions can not be necessary (since there is a possible world, namely the actual world, where they are false) but true propositions can be either necessarily true or contingently true. They are contingently true if there is a possible world where they are false, which is just to say that, while true, they possibly could have been false.

Why is Paris being true in all possible worlds a requirement if we are only talking about our own actual world?

Because when we are talking about the modality of the proposition -- its being necessary, possible or impossible -- and not just talking about its truth, then we are also talking about the world as it could or couldn't possibly be, and not just about the world as it is.

How would it even make sense to say necessity required the city of one possible world to be present in any possible world? Our Paris cannot be the Paris of another world.

'Possible worlds' aren't other worlds. It's just a fancy name for ways the world either is (actually) or could have been (counterfactually). It's a device for formalizing semantic theories of modal statements.

To say that Paris is necessarily the capital of France in our world, we only need the truth that Paris is the capital of France in our world.

Everything necessarily is, in the actual world, as it is in the actual world. This tautology says nothing about something being necessary or contingent simpliciter. Something isn't necessarily true if the world could have been such that it is false. This is what is meant when we say that there is a possible world in which (or at which, as it is usually expressed in the technical literature) it is false.

Try this:

I wonder what would have happened if Napolean hadn't lost at Waterloo.

In the process of pondering this, I have conjured up some number of possible worlds, one of which is the actual world. In every one of them, the capital of France is... which ever city is was when Napolean was alive. Let's say I'm not sure. I look it up. It was Paris.

In all of my possible worlds, Paris is always the capital of France. Over the range of these possibilities, Paris being the capital of France is necessary. But Napolean's victory isn't.

But then I wonder, what if Napolean had lost two weeks later than he did. Now Napolean's victory is necessary across all my worlds, but the timing of it isn't. — Mongrel

The possibility of Napoleon having won at Waterloo has little bearing on the possibility of Paris not being the capital of France at that time. Further, you can't make a contingent proposition necessary merely through restricting your attention to possible worlds where this proposition is true. A proposition is necessarily true iff it is true at all possible worlds. If you stipulate from the get go that you are restricting your attention to only those possible worlds where it is true, you hardly have shown that the proposition is necessarily true -- only that is is true wherever it is true!

If you are going to consider possible worlds in which Napoleon won at Waterloo, and restrict your attention to possible worlds where historical circumstances aren't so far off from actual circumstances that Paris wouldn't be France's capital, then, fine, you can do that, but you hardly would have shown (and not even stipulated) that France necessarily has Paris as its capital. You've merely stated that this far off historical possibility, and what other propositions can or can't be conjoined with this possible state of affairs, don't interest you.

More Pascal, Pierre. You're making up categories of possibility to cover over the underlying ambiguity. — Mongrel

It's not a different category. France could possibly have had another capital city than Paris just in the same sense (quite plain and uncontroversial) that Kurt Gödel could possibly not have been the author of the incompleteness theorems.

Paris being the capital of France is contingent IFF you stipulate it as such. — Mongrel

If you are going to stipulate that some accidental properties of France are essential to it, then it isn't France anymore that you are talking about, but, maybe, some other entity that you wish to call "France". It is true that, given the already established norms that govern the use of the word France, some of its (so called) essential properties (e.g. its being some sort of a nation state) being indeed essential to is is a matter of stipulation. Those stipulations fix (part of) the sense of the name. I don't see having Paris as its capital being any part of it.

More generally, the equation that you seem to be attempting between (1) some property P being essential to X and, (2) P being stipulated to be essential to X, doesn't hold for Kripke. It may be essential to X being a sample of water that it be composed of H2O, and this being a matter of empirical discovery rather than stipulation. Likewise with Joe being the son of Sue and Tom. Neither Joe, nor anyone, may know who Joe's natural parents are, and yet know that whoever they are, Joe having them as parents is necessary.

This seems to be raising a kind of 'Sorites' problem. If we wanted to say that there could be an alternative France in another possible world, exactly what characteristics would it need to have in order to qualify as being a France at all? — John

Mongrel is right that it is a matter of stipulation whether or not this alternative France is or isn't France. Actually, merely calling it an alternative France, as TGW suggested, give the game away, and reveals that it's still France that you are purportedly talking about, albeit France has it could have been, could be, or could become. This stipulation merely concerns the 'numerical identity' of the possible item that you are considering with the actual item. You are stipulating that it is indeed France that you purport to be talking about. It is an altogether different set of stipulations that we, as users of a shared language, are making when we specify the identity and individuation criteria that attach to the general concept that France necessarily falls under (i.e. the 'sortal concept'). Those two quite different stipulations can rub against each other. For instance if you are talking about France as it would be if mankind hadn't evolved from apes at all, then you purport to be talking about France, but you are identifying it with a geographical region, maybe, where the conditions of France's existence as a country aren't fulfilled. Hence you aren't talking about a genuine possibility at all, or you are misusing language. You are using "France" to denote a geographical area, something that isn't the same as the country that may occupy this area at some point in time. However, when you are talking about France not having Paris as its capital, you are contemplating a possibility, historical and/or metaphysical, that doesn't rub against any norm regarding the general concepts that France necessarily falls under. So this is a genuine and unproblematical possibility.

Think so? Let's ponder a possible world in which France is, in fact, a province of a nation known as the European Union. It's not a country any more than North Carolina is. Do you want to try again or do you already see where this is headed? — Mongrel

Yes, France could be swallowed up by the European Union in such a way that it would cease to be an independent nation state. Maybe this new province would go on being named "France". This would raise issues about the identification of the old France with this new (so called) "France" province. Under some conceptions (as a sovereign country), the old France would have ceased to exist, having been assimilated/dissolved into another entity. Under another, looser, conception it would still exist as the same ethnic cum historical cum geographical entity albeit now in a subordinated state. In any case, Paris being its capital (either the capital of the province or the capital of the country) would still be contingent.

If you disagree that the essence of France is matter of stipulation, then could you explain how you understand the essence of France (as something not stipulated) and how that fits in with N&N? — Mongrel

I have no idea what "the" (unique) essence of France is. It falls under the sortal concept 'country' or 'nation state'. So, maybe, falling under such a concept is an essential property France has. In any possible world where France exists, it is a country, and not, say, a turnip, a can opener, or a galaxy. It also likely has some historical roots necessarily, as TGW argued in a spirit similar to some Kripkean claims about necessity of origins for other sorts of items (e.g. human beings having the parents that they have, necessarily). However, to claim that having Paris as its capital is an essential property of France seems to do violence to our ordinary conception of what France is.

Actually, I do think it's important to understand that for something to be empirical does not imply the exclusion of language, symbolic meaning, concepts, and all that. — jamalrob

Agreed. Kripke's general argument regarding rigidity or metaphysical necessity cut across natural and institutional facts. For one U.S dollar bill to be worth what it is, or for it to be worth more or less than a Canadian dollar bill depends on socially instituted rules. The propositions that one of them was devalued with respect to the other one, overnight, still is an empirical proposition. It describes the outcome of a process governed my market forces.

Cool. Maybe you could point out where I'm wrong. — Mongrel

I did already in the first post from mine that you quoted. I explained where you may have gone wrong, though I may have mistargeted my comment at John. Early on in the thread you had commented that: "There is no possible world that contains the thing we've named "France" which has a capital that isn't Paris. That's Kripke's necessary aposteriori in a nutshell." This may involve the incorrect slide from one claim of de re necessity to another one, for one could maybe make the case that there isn't a possible world in which Paris is the capital of some country other than France. But your own statement (regarding France) would not follow from that, and it would still be false.

You also claimed that "The actual France (whose capital is Paris) can not be identical to an alternate France (whose capital is Caen). That's pretty basic. It's two different objects." This would only be true if having Paris as a capital were an essential property of France. You seemed to have been running together numerical identity and indiscernability.

My view is in keeping with Scott Soames' explanation of Kripke's views. Maybe you could add his comments to your tons. — Mongrel

I own and have read the two volumes of his Philosophical Analysis in the 20th Century, as well as several of his papers. Although I disagree with Soames on some topics (mainly regarding the metaphysics of propositions, and his views on philosophical method), it never had seemed to me that his reading of Kripke was amiss. It's possible that you misread him too. Maybe another useful introduction to Kripke would be Gregory McCulloch's The Game of The Name.

Everything TGW says about Kripke in this thread seems about right to me (and I've read N&N twice, and tons of secondary literature). Most disagreements seem to stem from John and Mongrel misreading Kripke in various ways. One issue, though, where John and TGW may be somewhat talking past one another is the question regarding the possibility of Paris not being the capital of France. Thus formulated (and as formulated several times in this thread) the question is hopelessly ambiguous. One could make a broadly Kripkean argument about its being metaphysically necessary (and a de re necessity) of Paris that it be the first capital of France, say. But, and this is where John goes wrong, from this alleged de re necessity (if it is one) would not follow the different de re necessity, regarding France, that it must have Paris as its capital. The latter could still be contingent or false.

Likewise, and this is argued explicitly by Kripke, if Joe's natural parents are Sue and Tom, then it is metaphysically necessary regarding Joe that Sue and Tom be his natural parents (something that we could phrase ambiguously through saying that it is metaphysically necessary that Sue and Tom be Joe's parents, thus inviting the misreading that this is intended as a de dicto necessity). There is no possible world in which Joe has different parents (or so Kripke suggests). But it hardly follows from this, even if we share Kripke's intuition about this case (which I do), that Sue and Tom couldn't possibly never have met, or not have had Joe as a son, or not have had any children. Similarly, if Paris had been somewhat instituted as the first capital of France at some point in time, it could have been metaphysically necessary of Paris that it be the first capital of France. But it would not follow from this modal fact that France could not have had another first capital instead (in which case Paris would not have existed at all) or that Paris could not have ceased to be the capital of France at any subsequent point in time.

Biological meaning is not ethical meaning (not even the ethical meanings which reference biology). — TheWillowOfDarkness

Thompson would certainly agree. On his view, the validation of ethical principles is internal to practical reason. This is why he agrees with McDowell that ethics can't be validated "from sideways on" with an eye, that is, on empirical biological facts about our own "nature". Substantive biological facts are predicated of individual living organisms according to a form of predication that is brought to the scene a priori, and so is it for normative standards of goodness that attach to specific life forms (such as our own). Here again, it is only the form of predication that is known a priory, not the truth of the substantive propositions that results from such predication (including general ethical principles). What is also known a priori is the scope of the generality of the principles, and this is the class of the bearers of the life form that we belong to (the human form). But this again doesn't entail that there are any biological facts that we can gain a priori knowledge of, let alone them being such as to ground general moral principles (which we rather validate through practical reasoning).

My doubt, I suppose, is about how and whether the life form concept is one of these formal concepts (I know it's in the name, but still), because I can't see exactly how the life form concept differs logically from other concepts that Thompson admits are empirical, such as mammal. — jamalrob

Here is a suggestion: Although 'mammal' may be viewed as a (purely) empirical rather than a formal concept, it can't be applied in experience autonomously without reliance to the formal concept of a form of life, just like the empirical concept of something's being red can't be applied without the formal concept of a 'substance' (or a so called 'spatiotemporal continuant' -- P.M.S. Hacker); or like the "restriction of a sortal-concept" (David Wiggins), such as 'child' can't be employed without also tacitly employing the formal concept of the specific substance 'human being' that it is a restriction of. In this case, the (unrestricted) sortal-concept carries with it all the individuation and persistence criteria needed to single out in thought the singular substances falling under it.

The idea of a 'purely' empirical concept, I think, may be the idea of a common accidental feature that can be abstracted in a principled way (maybe for some explanatory, pragmatic or theoretical purpose) from a range of possible object of experience, albeit not such a highly systematic manner that the object themselves can't be thought of apart from their constitutive relations with this empirical concept. Hence when we have thought of some singular X as being a child (or as being red), we haven't fully individuated this object of experience in thought (i.e. understood what it is, in the Aristotelian sense of quiddity) unless we also have grasped that this individual also is a human being (or a bookshelf) say. However, if we have simply grasped that X is a human being (while ignoring how old she is) or that something is a bookshelf (while being unable to distinguish its color) then we still have fully singled it out in thought.

Maybe 'mammal's status as an empirical concept is contentious since, viewed as an evolutionary separate lineage (i.e. a clade), is it tantamount to a concept of a species, and hence is "formal" at this level. It is, in other words, an essential rather than an accidental property of the individuals belonging to this class. But it is still suitably 'empirical' as a category that is abstracted from experiences we have had of some range of individuals, each of which is independently understood to be an exemplar of a specific life form, and prior to our having individuated them more specifically as belonging essentially to this class. If such a more specific concept is viewed as necessary in order to fully grasp what the object falling under it is, then the more abstract and generic form can thereafter be viewed as a schema that needs being filled up with an index in order to figure in an empirical judgment concerning a singular individual.

"As you're using Kant's phrasing, shouldn't this be the other way around?"

For sure. I caught and fixed this mistake while you were typing your early reply to my post. Thanks for paying attention!

Hi Jamalrob,

I don't have time for a lengthy reply now, but I may make a few tentative suggestions and maybe elaborate later on. I anticipated that most readers would find it puzzling that formal concepts that find application in experience could be known a priori. My suggestion would be to understand judgments that ascribe a form to an item of experience as being expressed by synthetic a priori propositions. Maybe my comments in those earlier -- two -- posts -- about the Kantian distinction between those elements of knowledge which arise from experience, or which begin with experience, may be relevant. I would suggest that only the former, not the latter, can properly be called empirical.

It is a general feature of Thompson's work, as it is of Sebastian Rödl's (who travels a parallel path) that when he speaks of forms of judgment, the forms at issue belong to metaphysical logic, such that they characterize the way elements of thought are joined in a predicative nexus -- making up determinate judgments. Correlative to the form of such judgments (that is, to the way elements of the judgments hang together) are the metaphysical categories. Thus, a judgment that ascribes a category to an item of experience (e.g. a substance or a quantity) is a synthetic a priori judgment since it expresses how such an item can be joined to other items of suitable categories in order make up a determinate judgment. (In Haugeland's framework, we could say that the set of constitutive rules (synthetic a priori judgments) that determine a specific empirical domain express the tacit theoretical understanding a subject must bring to bear a priori to experience in order that her observations be intelligible and contentful. For one to come progressively to master a paradigm, and thus to come to see things aright, is for one to gain an a priori knowledge that "begins with" experience. When one has amassed a sufficient amount of such knowledge -- which adds up to understanding -- then, and only then, can one gain genuine knowledge from experience (that is, understand what one sees).

Don't take the Thompson paper (Apprehending Human Form) off the list please! It is a masterpiece: accessible and deep. The Anscombe paper would be my second choice among the texts proposed so far. Here is another suggestion:

Don S. Levi, Determinism as a thesis about the state of the world from moment to moment, Philosophy, vol 82, issue 3, 2007.

This paper exposes determinism as an incoherent doctrine owing to its reliance on the idea of "the state of the world at a time" and the uncritical acceptance of the assumptions that underlie this idea (both regarding the nature of time and the allegedly complete determinacy of the "states" of material things). The paper makes use of telling examples and isn't technical.

It can be read online with a free subscription to Jstor.org, or people can send me a private message.

The OP was posted in the other forum a few days ago. I'll just reproduce my comment here since my outlook contrasts with with Bitter Crank's, and it didn't elicit any further response over there.

I quite enjoyed the movie though I probably missed some of the sub-text. I wasn't previously acquainted with Olesha, and know Bergson very little. StreetlightX, who posts regularly on this forum, had recently started a thread discussing Bergson's pioneering work regarding the now popular theme of embodied cognition.

The dying man's meditations about loss of control and his feeling of distantiation from the world through language raises interesting issues regarding the conceptuality of thought. Some proponents of the essentially embodied nature of cognition take themselves to follow Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty in stressing the primordial non-conceptual character of our experience of the lived world, which we make contact with primarily through acting and finding our footing in it. However, other philosophers also suggest that our conceptual engagement with the world through the use of language doesn't normally detract from our intimacy with it. Inasmuch as the world extends beyond the limited scope of our immediately perceptible surroundings or the immediate opportunities it afford us, for satisfying our desires and carrying out our plans, language can indeed enable us to get into more intimate cognitive contact with regions of the world that only are distant from us in a merely contingent manner (that is, just because we aren't presently concerned or engaged with them at the time when we are thinking about them, though we are still capable of such engagement).

Hence, the remark from the dying man that he is losing contact with large swathes of his previously lived existence, and that the thin connection that he retains with them, merely through the use of elements of language (e.g. names and concepts) that now seem meaningless and drained of their significance, may actually be seen as exemplifying part of the truth that resides in both of the aforementioned accounts of language and embodiment. When the capacity for engagement is diminished through sickness or despair, language use becomes abstract because it is drained from the significance that it is normally endowed with when used in the context of a life filled with concerns and hopeful projects. This suggests that the "therapy" one requires -- if such is possible or desirable at all -- when faced with the diminishment of one's own capabilities is identification and empathy towards those who go on living (such as the children portrayed in the movie) rather than a narrow identification with one's own "stream of consciousness" or idle reflection about one's own foreclosed opportunities.

On edit: Here is the post, mentioned above, by StreetlightX regarding Bergson and embodiment.

At some point we start becoming increasingly responsible for who we are, what we are, and what we do. While fetal development may determine that someone is born psychopathic, even the psychopath can exercise restraint and self-control. "control" isn't the critical absence in psychopathy, it's guilt. Pedophiles feel guilt just fine, but they can not 'not desire' what they desire. They can choose, however, to pursue, or not pursue, their desired object. And so can the rest of us. — Bitter Crank

You are telling a story about complexity and unpredictability, and then suddenly transition ("...At some point...") to talking about control. I certainly agree that control is required for freedom. But I believe it to be a good point compatibilists make against (some) libertarians: that freedom actually requires some form of determination by past "circumstances" ("circumstances" that are, however, "internal" to the agent) and thereby also allow some degree of predictability. Her own actions must at least be predictable by the agent herself; though the way in which she "predicts" them normally proceeds through her deciding what she ought to do rather than through her making inferences on the basis of her own habitual behavior.

The actions of the agent must thus be the intelligible outcomes of (some of) her desires, commitments or intentions, and, optionally, of some episodes of explicit deliberation, for them to count as her own actions as opposed to things that merely happen to her. For sure, a fair amount of organizational complexity must be required in order that a living animal be capable of being acculturated, and capable of reasoning practically. But if an agent is thereby unpredictable from the standpoint of the laws that govern the complex physical evolution of her material parts (e.g. the firing of her neurons, etc.) it need not follow that her actions only are free inasmuch as they are unpredictable by anyone or by her. Quite the contrary, some capricious or arbitrary choices that a person makes may be quite unpredictable albeit quite unfree, owing to them not being intelligible even to the agent herself, while some other actions may be highly predictable by people who know the agent, owing to those actions being perfectly intelligible for her to perform in the circumstances. A parent saving his/her child from an obvious danger, or a thief grabbing an unattended wallet, may be highly predictable actions that are nevertheless free and intelligible, such that the agent is thereby fully accountable for them.

I was kind of thinking around the same way as you regarding punishment. It's not possible to abandon punishment; not only do we, the victims, need closure and a feeling of security but the perpetrator needs to understand that these actions are not acceptable. Just because these actions are pre-determined does not mean that the person himself can just sit back and let his body do all the work. — darthbarracuda

That's right. The person being punished needs to understand that her action was unacceptable. The point of the punishment may be to coax her into building up such an understanding (leaving the rationale of deterrence on one side for now). But this hoped for nascent understanding only will be of any use if the person has the capacity to act well as a result of it -- that is, as an outcome of correct deliberation -- in the sort of circumstances where she previously failed to act well. That she has this general capacity entails that when she in fact failed to act well, that was a failure to exercise this capacity, and not due to her lacking the capacity altogether. If she were lacking the capacity, then the punishment would be pointless.

A hard determinist may argue that although she had the general capacity to act well, her failure to exercise this capacity (and deliberate properly) in the particular case was causally determined by her lack of understanding (or, equivalently, by her vicious character) and she was thus powerless, at that time, to display a character that was any better. But this reasoning relies on conceptually lumping together the external circumstances that may impede the actions, or practical reasoning, of an agent with the "internal" circumstances, including features of her own character and cognitive apparatus, that make her up as an agent.

The point of this distinction between two kinds of "circumstances" may be highlighted by a simple example. Consider the case where the agent was caught shoplifting and was sentenced to perform 50 hours of community service. First, let us suppose that the punishment coaxes her into thinking twice the next time she will have an opportunity to shoplift. That is, the main effect of the punishment is an ongoing deterrence effect. In that case, we may say that her heightened awareness that she might get caught, and punished again, refers to an external circumstance that she takes into account while deliberating. It inclines her to act well (that is, refrain from shoplifting) but it also restricts her "freedom" to acquire free stuff.

There is another possible outcome, though. During the time when she serves her sentence, she may reflect about the wrongness of what she did, talk to other people about it, feel remorse, etc. The outcome might be that, when another opportunity to shoplift occurs, her temptation to do so is diminished on grounds that mirror those of a person who simply is aware that doing so isn't a worthwhile way of living because, e.g., it wrongs others. In that case, on what possible ground might we say that her freedom is restricted? She is now acting well (or, at any rate, more likely to do so) out of her own cognizance of her opportunities. In a sense, she is less "free" to acquire free stuff, but that isn't because of a constraint that is merely external to her, as it was in the first scenario. Acquiring free stuff at the expanse of others isn't something that she wants to do anymore.

We can set up a regression where the actions of this moment were determined by the conditions of the immediate prior moment, and so on. How far into the past? Practically, we can't determine pre-existing conditions very far back, so let's just stick with everything since one's individual conception. [...]

For most of us, most of the time, our behavior is a combination of external determination and internal decision, mixed together somewhat so it isn't crystal clear at any given moment why we are doing what we are doing. — Bitter Crank

If the argument sketched in your first paragraph is sound, then the claim in your last paragraph (with which I agree) is false. It would rather follow from it that everyone, all of the time, has their behavior entirely determined by conditions outside of their control (since they were conditions that already held prior to the time of their conception).

The view that people (and things) don't have the power to do differently than they actually do has been called "actualism". It is the view that there aren't any unactualized powers, that anything that is possible is actual (and, correlatively, that anything non-actual is impossible). It has been argued to be a consequence of scientific determinism. On that view, if I didn't refrain from committing some bad deed, then I didn't have the power to so refrain. And if I didn't have this power at all, then it indeed wouldn't be reasonable to hold me responsible.

But we ordinarily do make a distinction between things that we didn't do because it wasn't in our power to do them, and things that we didn't do because we chose not to do them (even though we hold that it was in our power to do them). How do you account for this distinction, which we must necessarily be sensitive to when we deliberate about what to do while considering the range of our real options? Is it an illusory difference, or just a consequence of a lack of knowledge about our real powers, on your view? Hume, who was an actualist, thought that it was a fallacious distinction.

Holding oneself (through pride and remorse) and others (through praise and blame) accountable for our deeds just is to recognize the practical significance of the aforementioned distinction between a lack of power to do (or refrain to do) something and the merely unactualized power to do (or refrain to do) it. Punishment need not be assimilated to vengeance. It can be justified as a form of blame that is foisted on someone in circumstances where ordinary verbal admonestation wouldn't stick (or where deterrence is sought). It need not be viewed as the fulfillment of a desire to make someone justifiably suffer as much as a means to help awaken her to her own responsibilities, and to the power (as of yet unactualized) that she has to do better. Of course, punishment can be abused and the need for it may be invoked as a cover for a desire for vengeance. But the fact that punishment can be abused, and perverted into cruelty, doesn't abolish the metaphysical distinctions that justify its ordinary use.

This is not legislating morality, but rather following the laws of a country. Illegal immigration is harmful because 1. it breaks the laws of the country, 2. it disrespects the country and the authority of the law, 3. it promotes disobedience. Therefore, illegal immigration is always wrong - even if you're running away from North Korea it's wrong so long as the country you're running to doesn't want to accept you legally. — Agustino

This seems to imply that, on your view, some people's choice not to suffer and die miserably is wrong because their only means to avoiding an undeserved death constitutes a misdemeanor and is disrespectful of the law. Or maybe you just mean "wrong" pro tanto.

So you're telling me that I should license the breaking of the law for people who are smart enough to commit to actions, under cover, which makes them very difficult to remove from society, such as illegal immigrants getting married, and having children on American soil? — Agustino

Suppose there would be a 20 years prescription period (maybe assorted with some other restrictions, such as the lack of a criminal record, say). It seems unlikely to me that a prospective illegal immigrant would chose to move to the USA with the hope not to get caught during the next 20 years, but would cancel her plan if there were no prescription period. Maybe there will be a precious few that would be thus influenced, but likely not enough of them to justify the harm caused to society by the forced deportation of scores of long established individuals and families.

So you're telling me that I should license the breaking of the law for people who are smart enough to commit to actions, under cover, which makes them very difficult to remove from society, such as illegal immigrants getting married, and having children on American soil? If I license such behavior, then we will have no more laws. — Agustino

So long as the penalty produces the desired deterrence effect, there is no need to increase its severity further than that, except maybe as a means for the legislator to obtain political gain through demagoguery. Deporting families that have been long established and that may have contributed positively to society may be a penalty that is unnecessarily draconian and that harms society more than the marginal gain from the enhanced deterrence effect would justify.

The same as finding all sorts of ways to license immoral behavior, because the consequences of not licensing it are too harsh. This is nonsense. It's not practical, and it removes the legitimacy and power of the law.

You are suggesting that it's not practical for there to be prescription periods for some forms of offence. But it is quite commonplace, seems to work, and can minimise harm to society. It's also quite unclear that illegal immigration qualifies as immoral. In some cases, it may be a vital necessity. So, I don't see there to be a slippery slope towards licensing immoral behavior.

Yes, still, it is just that illegal immigration is wrong, so it follows that this, being a just law, must be enforced adequately. — Agustino

Some law may be deemed "just" only in the sense that it proscribes an action that can reasonably be considered unjust on independent grounds (and/or because it institutes fairness for all concerned), while the prescribed penalty -- e.g. forced deportation and breakup of families, in this case -- is unjust due to its excessiveness, or due to an excessively long prescription period, or the lack of any such period.

Illegal immigrants should be out of the country though. The law is the law, and it must be respected. That's what justice is no? — Agustino

Justice is a concept that is more fundamental than the bare idea of respecting the law; for if justice reduced to that, then the very idea of an unjust law would be incoherent. I think some of the Republican presidential candidates were aware of the need to reform immigration law until Trump came along with his poisonous rhetoric, and they suddenly felt uncomfortable standing on his left.

On edit: It seems that John Kasich, to his considerable credit, resisted the pressure, though.

I'm arguing causality is ridgidly determative. The future is ridgid because there is one outcome which occurs. My point is this ridgidness is concurrent with possibility. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The determinist and the indeterminist both agree that only one outcome will be realized. The determinist claims, in addition to this, that there is only one possible outcome that can (and therefore will) be realized consistently with the present state of the universe and natural laws. So, what does it add to the account of the indeterminist to say that the future is "rigid"? She agrees with the determinist that only one future will be realized. So. in what sense is the future that will be realized "rigid" if one isn't a determinist? The actual future that will be realized is "rigid" in relation to what?

If I have understood you, you are saying that freedom consists in acting, or believing, for reasons. It is the very determinative character of reasons that constitutes freedom. — John

Actually, I never thought about defining freedom in that way. I merely accept the idea that freedom requires the ability to have done otherwise in the circumstances in which one acted (i.e. I am accepting the weak version of the PAP). And I am questioning the strange and -- I would argue, incoherent -- construal that the determinist makes of the notion of an agent's "circumstances" such that anything that occurs within her own body constitutes for her such "circumstances". This confused notion gives rise to what I have termed the strong version of the PAP, which I reject. It depends on one conceiving the agent as something essentially disembodied. This strong version of the PAP often seems to be tacitly endorsed by both the compatibilists and the incompatibilists in a large portion of the literature on free will (with many notable exceptions).

What is "historically necessary" for an agent is, then, determined by antecedent worldly events; like the bus might be predetermined to be late. So it will be historically determined that the agent will not catch the bus. But then, she might do any of a range of other things.

Yes, what it is historically necessary that an agent will do is relative to the circumstances of her action. It consists in what it is, in those circumstances, that it is not up to her to prevent anymore (or ever). Hence, the range of what it is historically necessary that will occur increases over time (from my perspective, say) since the range of the possibilities for action that are open to me diminishes over time (in other words: I settle things over time); and this range isn't the same for me as it is for you, since different persons don't have the same powers and opportunities.

However it is a strong physicalist claim that whatever she does will ultimately be determined by neural activity.

Yes. It is a reductionist claim that goes beyond the claim that she is materially constituted and that her bodily motions (as they may be described in purely physical terms) are governed by the laws of physics. The reductionist claim goes further than this claim about material constitution since it also presupposes that actions, in a sense, supervene on bodily motions in such a way that whatever determines bodily motions also determines actions.

The questions then become: is she determined by the micro-physical brain activity or is she determined by her reasons?

At this stage in the argument, I think the compatibilist will rightly point out that the question sets up a false dichotomy. The microphysical brain activity settles what bodily motions will occur and the person deliberates and choses what she will do. The former may be part of a story about what it is about the person's neurophysiology that enables her powers to do the latter (i.e. deliberate and act).

Are the reasons only a post hoc rationalization of her actions or is there a genuine 'top down' effect; a kind of 'formal causation' that is itself not reducible to micro-physical determination?

I think downward causation is ubiquitous in nature, and it isn't mysterious. Pretty much all irreducible explanations of anything that occurs in nature, and that refer to the powers or dispositions of things, are of that kind. The availability of those explanations, as genuine explanations and not mere "rationalizations", is what is contested by reductionists and eliminative materialists. (To be fair, the reductionist may grant that there are such genuine explanations at the higher level, but question their independence from explanations of what occurs at the lower level).

For sure, explanations of the actions of human agents are, for the most part, rationalizing explanations. But they are not mere (i.e. illusory or false) rationalizations but rather genuine explanations as to why someone acted in one way rather than another way. For instance, I didn't go to the supermarket because I was informed that it was closed. This genuinely explains why I didn't go. It would have been irrational for me to go (because I need to buy some milk, say) while I knew that it was closed. A close examination of what went on in my brain could explain how I was able to reason that it was useless for me to go, but whatever this inquiry discloses doesn't compete with the rational explanation of my action. It merely changes the subject of the inquiry.

Can it make sense to say that she is determined by both, and if we want to say that, how do we understand the relationship between causal and rational determination?

Rational determination is a species of causation. It explains things that occur at a higher, more relevant, level of the activity of human beings. It is an inquiry that is concerned more about their intelligible actions rather than being concerned about the etiology of their "raw" bodily motions, or about the physiological enablements of their cognitive abilities. Those three different modes of inquiry are possible, and compatible, but they have three different topics.

It doesn't seem logically coherent to claim that any kind of genuinely efficacious formal rational determination of action or belief could be compatible with a rigid micro-physical determinism, and that is why I said that it could only be compatible with micro-physical indeterminism, because that would allow for genuine novelty and creativity.

This seems incoherent only if you endorse (maybe inchoately) a contentious metaphysical doctrine such as eliminative materialism and can't allow for there being consistent explanations of what happens at different levels of organization/description. Those may be explantations that have different topics altogether. Though, as is the case for the neurophysiological explanations of our cognitive powers (which need not be reductive explanations), some constraints on our abilities are thereby disclosed -- as are explanations of some of our irrational actions, or habitual cognitive biases -- but they are constraints that fall short from determining our actions, in most cases, or so am I prepared to argue.

As a side matter it would be pretty easy using existing technology to give a barrage of tests on potential power positions through mandating a MRI scan on such people and having either tests done to detect the occurrence of lies or falsehoods being made by a subject or doing a statistical analysis done on their brain structure as compared to confirmed psychopaths... — Question

If the candidate leader is to have absolute power, then, assuming "psychopathy," as potentially suffered by an individual, is a unified syndrome, such a screening could have some effectiveness. But what if the power structure is more complex, shared among many individuals, and the "psychopathy" of a regime arises from a bad social dynamics, such that the individual who represents nominal power (e.g. the President or Prime Minister) just is a brainwashed tool who believes she is serving the greater good, or doing the best she can in conditions of great urgency? In this case, the psychopathology could be collective while no individual actor is a psychopath. But this could also happen to a benevolent dictator who would fall prey to her own ideological mirage. An fMRI can't screen off an individual's suitability to dangerous ideological conviction since no such physiological test can distinguish sound from unsound political and/or moral belief.

If they form an orderly queue, they can be accommodated; otherwise they will have to go to Cantor's night shelter which has infinite rooms each of infinite capacity on each of it's infinite floors. Breakfast is not provided. — unenlightened

Real numbers, pretty much by definition, can't form an orderly queue. That would mean that they are countable, which they aren't. But it Cantor's night shelter has just two floors, each of which has just two single rooms, each of which has only two sub-rooms, each of which has only two sub-sub-rooms, etc. ad infinitum, then, yes, they can be accommodated.

You may be overly pessimistic. So long as Vermin Supreme still is in the race, there is hope for America.

Pierre, sorry about the delay responding. As it seems to me you have given an account, in your post 175, which differentiates between two different conceptions of "historical necessity" based on two different perspectives; the first and third person perspectives.

You have posited an ideal observer that can see every motivation of the agent and all the laws of physics and can thus predict precisely what will inevitably happen. And you have posited a less than ideal agent who cannot see her every motivation and presumably cannot see the laws of physics and so cannot predict what will inevitably happen. This is just like Spinoza's example of the stone rolling down the hill (or flying through the air?) which, if it could experience as we do would feel itself free in its rolling (or flying?). — John

That's not quite my argument. I am not relying on an essential limitation of the knowledge that an agent would face regarding her own cognitive state and causal antecedents, such that in light of this limitation, she would be enabled to picture herself as free (i.e. not predetermined) while an external perspective would reveal her to be thus predetermined by circumstances external to her.

Although there indeed is such an essential limitation of the knowledge that an agent can have of her own internal "cognitive states", for obvious logical reasons, that is not the source of her freedom, on my view. Rather, my main point is that those unknown "internal states" are irrelevant to the identification of the cause of the agent's actions. The external observer who may have a better (or even, let us assume, a perfect) knowledge of the internal states of the agent (and antecedent circumstances) may thereby better, or even perfectly, predict her actions, but will not necessarily understand *why* those actions occurred. In order to understand why they occurred, the external observer, just like the agent herself, must rather adopt the practical perspective of the agent in order to disclose her reasons for acting thus and so, when she does. This perspective will show that the action was only externally constrained by whatever was historically necessary relative to the practical circumstances of the agent, at the time when she deliberated. This is the relevant perspective that must be adopted by both the agent herself and the external observer if they are to assess the action and its causes. But that is not all.

Most importantly, those historical necessities (including some "historical necessities" that the agent might ignore -- such as the bus being poised to arrive late at the bus stop where she is now waiting) only partially constrain the agent's action, since they leave open a whole range of possible options. The choice that the agent makes between those options can't be explained through reference to historical necessities because many of the antecedent "determinative circumstances" of her bodily motions actually make up, or enable, the cognitive functioning of the agent and aren't thus "external circumstances" that constrain her. They rather constitute enabling "circumstances" that make her up, as it were, as a cognitive agent. And those internal "circumstances" can't be understood as what they are except in reference to the agents rational abilities. They are thus only disclosable by means of the interpretation of the agent's reasons for acting.

That the agent acted for some reasons or other, therefore, doesn't show that her action was predetermined or unfree (and this is one main insight of compatibilism). It only shows that the agent's action was determined jointly by the necessary restrictions imposed on her by genuinely external circumstances (what I called historical necessities -- i.e. circumstances that she has no power to change even when apprised of them) in conjunction with the actualization of her power of practical reasoning. It is thus her, and not "external circumstances", that explain, and is the cause, of the unique choice that she makes between all the options that are historically possible, that is, open to her from the point of view of her practical deliberation perspective. This perspective can be disclosed not only to her (as it must be when she deliberates) but also to the "perfect" external observer.

The external observer may be very good at predicting what the agent will do, but that's not because the agent was predetermined by circumstances external to her, but rather because the observer was in a position to anticipate what it is that the agent would have good reasons to do -- or that she would merely believe to have good reasons to do -- and that she would thereby do precisely for those reasons.

Or else, the observer may be able to only predict the bodily motions that the agent would exhibit without understanding what actions those bodily motions constitute in context. In that case also, the observer can't construe the actions of the agent to have been predetermined, since the observer doesn't have a clue what the predetermined bodily motions of the agent amount to, qua intentional actions. So, in order to establish that a specific action was predetermined, one would have to know what action concept the bodily motion realizing it falls under, but this can't be deduced from the antecedent circumstances and the deterministic laws governing them qua material occurrences. The relevant action concept must rather be disclosed consistently with an intelligible interpretation of the agent's rational perspective. And thus the question under which action concept some predetermined bodily motions fall isn't settled by antecedent material "circumstances" and by deterministic laws just because those uninterpreted "bodily motions" might be thus predetermined.

Luckily there are always more rooms everyone can run too. It all sounds like some sort of Hellscape mystery-adventure platformer. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If a new set of guests arrives that represents the real numbers, then, in that case, Hilbert's Hotel won't be able to accommodate them all.

I wonder if that would count as a reductio ad absurdum of actual infinities (despite Hilbert's defence of them)? — Michael

Since the result merely is counterintuitive, but doesn't generate an actual contradiction, I don't think it militates against the idea of actual infinities as Cantor conceived of them (whatever one may think of infinities realized in nature -- your actual actual infinities). I am unsure how intuitionistic mathematics deals with all of Cantor's results in therms of potential infinities. It is true that the "paradox" of Hilbert's Hotel doesn't seem to arise from the point of view of merely potential infinities (since the "process" of moving the guests to new rooms in order accommodate new guests is never ending). But it still merely is a pseudo-paradox from the point of view of a Platonist mathematics that makes provision for actual infinities (e.g. actually existing sets that have transfinite cardinalities). Just like the idea of relative simultaneity in the theory of special relativity, the idea of a set that can be mapped on a proper subset of itself just is something that our intuition can be reformed to accommodate when prejudice is overcome.

I assume this paradox only arises in the case of actual infinities? — Michael

You may be referring to Aristotle's distinction between actual and potential infinity?