Naming and necessity Lecture Three.
Given that the N&N thread is mired in a discussion of trivialities, and that I'd like to get some discussion going on the third Chapter of N&N, here is a nice, new, clean thread.
Cheers to @Wallows for brining up the topic. And to @frank for suggesting a new thread.
Here's a brief summary of what I think has been going on in N&N.
Kripke developed a complete semantics for formal modal logic. In N&N he is examining its implications for a workable grammar for modal statements in English. This had been such an intractable issue that it had pretty much been rejected as hopeless by most analytic philosophers - Quine and Russel as cases in point.
But for at least a very large number of modal sentences in English, Kripke has shown how to parse them in a consistent, coherent fashion.
One of the costs involved is that individuals are more fixed than was thought, across our modal musings. Specifically, a proper name fixes one individual across all accessible possible worlds in which that individual exists. An implication of this is that, since a definite description that fixes an individual in the actual world might turn out to be false, or be stipulated to be false, then the theory that the meaning of a name is given by an associated description is bunk.
Rather, in so far as the referent of a proper name is fixed at all, it is by what Kripke calls causal chains, but what I might call shared use.
This analysis can also be applied to kinds. Considered extensionally that seems reasonable to me. If "Dog A" refers to a placental mammal, as does "Dog B" and "Dog C" and so on, so that we conclude that all dogs are placental mammal, we also conclude that being a dog involves being a placental mammal. SO something we come across that is dog-like but not a placental mammal, ought not be considered as a dog - the Thylacine being a case in point. The extension of "Dog" includes only placental mammals, in all accessible possible worlds.
It seems to me that it is the notion of accessibility that pushes this point. In our world, dogs and Thylacines evolved quite separately, so that their common ancestor was neither dog nor thylacine. So the possibility of both dog and thylacine lies open - is accessible - to that common ancestor. But since both developed along quite distinct evolutionary lines, it is no longer possible for a dog to become a thylacine, or vice versa. The two lines have split forever.
Note that this is nothing more than a grammatical stipulation. It remains (perhaps) possible for a scientist to take a dog and modify it genetically so that it has the attributes of a marsupial. Such a creature would not be a thylacine, indeed, it would not be a marsupial, since it did not evolve from other marsupials. At best it would be a marsupial-like creature.
Such esoteric considerations probably will interest no one else but philosophers.
It seems to me that all that is being offered is a grammar that might help us avoid some confusion. The philosophical tool being used here is to ask, when modal musings start to look confused, if we are better off talking about distinct individuals, or distinct kinds.
Should we accept this grammar? SO long as it helps, why not?
Cheers to @Wallows for brining up the topic. And to @frank for suggesting a new thread.
Here's a brief summary of what I think has been going on in N&N.
Kripke developed a complete semantics for formal modal logic. In N&N he is examining its implications for a workable grammar for modal statements in English. This had been such an intractable issue that it had pretty much been rejected as hopeless by most analytic philosophers - Quine and Russel as cases in point.
But for at least a very large number of modal sentences in English, Kripke has shown how to parse them in a consistent, coherent fashion.
One of the costs involved is that individuals are more fixed than was thought, across our modal musings. Specifically, a proper name fixes one individual across all accessible possible worlds in which that individual exists. An implication of this is that, since a definite description that fixes an individual in the actual world might turn out to be false, or be stipulated to be false, then the theory that the meaning of a name is given by an associated description is bunk.
Rather, in so far as the referent of a proper name is fixed at all, it is by what Kripke calls causal chains, but what I might call shared use.
This analysis can also be applied to kinds. Considered extensionally that seems reasonable to me. If "Dog A" refers to a placental mammal, as does "Dog B" and "Dog C" and so on, so that we conclude that all dogs are placental mammal, we also conclude that being a dog involves being a placental mammal. SO something we come across that is dog-like but not a placental mammal, ought not be considered as a dog - the Thylacine being a case in point. The extension of "Dog" includes only placental mammals, in all accessible possible worlds.
It seems to me that it is the notion of accessibility that pushes this point. In our world, dogs and Thylacines evolved quite separately, so that their common ancestor was neither dog nor thylacine. So the possibility of both dog and thylacine lies open - is accessible - to that common ancestor. But since both developed along quite distinct evolutionary lines, it is no longer possible for a dog to become a thylacine, or vice versa. The two lines have split forever.
Note that this is nothing more than a grammatical stipulation. It remains (perhaps) possible for a scientist to take a dog and modify it genetically so that it has the attributes of a marsupial. Such a creature would not be a thylacine, indeed, it would not be a marsupial, since it did not evolve from other marsupials. At best it would be a marsupial-like creature.
Such esoteric considerations probably will interest no one else but philosophers.
It seems to me that all that is being offered is a grammar that might help us avoid some confusion. The philosophical tool being used here is to ask, when modal musings start to look confused, if we are better off talking about distinct individuals, or distinct kinds.
Should we accept this grammar? SO long as it helps, why not?
Comments (133)
Lecture three.
Kripke does a brief summation again, claiming to have made two hits on the descriptivist account. I had thought here were more - I should go back and have another look. But I like these two accounts because they make clear the shift from an armchair theory of how reference ought to work, to taking a good look at how we use them.
There's the point that a reference can be successful despite the absence of a uniquely identifying description.
And there's the point that someone can successfully refer to an individual despite having only false beliefs about that individual.
I read both of these as bringing out the fact that reference is a part of the games we play with language, and hence is inherently social.
There's a bit of a puzzle here for me, looking back. Why would anyone have thought that it was easier to use properties to set up names, rather than names to set up properties? As if it was easier to deal with "orange", "skin", and "narcissist" rather than "Trump".
The next paragraph (starting bottom of p.106) I see as an explanation of his attitude towards the length of the metre stick in Paris, again. He is talking about baptism, and reiterates the point that the individual identified in a more or less formal baptism, may well be identified by a list of contingent properties that form a definite description of said individual. We fix the referent of the name in the actual world and in so doing create a rigid designator for that referent in every possible world.
This is distinct from setting the description up as a synonym for the name. There's a line, found hereabouts, that Kripke is mistaken because we set up proper names in the actual world, using definite descriptions, for use in our modal considerations; but rather than being mistaken in this regard, Kripke actually makes this very point.
But he rejects the notion that every proper name is set up in this way.
The next part reiterates his rejection of identity as a relation between names. Again, it would seem that this should be a simple point; the relation of identity does not hold between "Phosphorus" and "Hesperus" - these are not the same word; the relation holds between Phosphorus and Hesperus. And hence, if such an identity statement is true, it is true in all possible worlds - a necessity.
Singular attributions of existence (p.110)
Throughout this, the existence of individuals is pretty well assumed. But of course this needs some thought, too.
That is, Kripke is rejecting the idea that to be is to be the subject of a predicate. But this is something I've occasionally argued in favour of. The idea is that here are no individuals as the referent of proper names, and that all there is, is sets of properties instantiated together. An individual is no more than a bunch of properties.
Well, perhaps. I don't see how such a view could provide an account of modality any where near as effective as Possible World Semantics - which is reliant on individuals being able to exist in multiple possible worlds; and hence on there being individuals.
The Queen. around p.112.
In some possible world, the Queen was the daughter of the Trumans.
But, says Kripke, that is not a case in which Elizabeth was the daughter of the Trumans, but instead a case in which some other person, the Truman's daughter, took on the characteristics that in the actual world are associated with Elizabeth.
The method Kripke is using here is worth setting out. When the characteristics of same individual are strained by our stipulations to the point where credulity breaks, he suggests we look to the possibility that what we have is a distinct individual.
Especially in cases where the origin of the individual is called into question.
if a material object has its origin
from a certain hunk of matter, it could not have had its origin in any other matter.(P.114(n)
Hence there is a sort of inheritance of individuality...
If B is made from A, and C from D, in no possible world is B the very same as C. SO part of the grammar Kripke is proposing is that if two things have distinct beginnings, then they are distinct in every possible world.
That seems intuitively pretty obvious from the extensional nature of his approach to modality.
Anyhow, that's for a start.
That water is H?O is an empirical discovery.
If we were to find a substance that looks, feels and otherwise functions like water, but had a chemical structure other than H?O, it would not be water.
If we stipulated a possible world in which there is a substance that looks, feels and otherwise functions like water, but had a chemical structure other than H?O, it would not be water.
That is, in every possible world, water is H?O.
That is, water is necessarily H?O.
Hence, there are a posteriori necessities.
http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/reviews/Eco.htm
Well it looks like your ex-contributors are as pig-ignorant as Umberto Eco, poor misguided souls.
So I was looking for Kant and the Platypus, because of this:
Quoting Banno
Because of course the term 'mammal' is associated with the mammary gland rather than the placenta in the first place. And the controversy at the time speaks against the necessity of the necessity. It is a choice, to make causality the priority. We could have decided that All swans are necessarily white, and that those strange birds you have in Oz are therefore long necked crows, just as we could have decided that only Whites are fully human. (But surely that is unthinkable?)
There's no 'if' here. "Heavy water is a form of water that contains a larger than normal amount of the hydrogen isotope deuterium, rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope that makes up most of the hydrogen in normal water". Google tells me.
Is deuterium a kind of hydrogen? If so then D?O is H?O, but one has to say (necessarily?) that both the 'chemical structure' and the properties are not identical. I'm almost inclined to refer to H?O as 'fool's water'.
Tritium oxide would be genius's water. What is the necessity here? That we talk a certain way?, that we prioritise element over isotope? Are heavy water and superheavy water 'really', 'necessarily' water, or not water? I cannot make out what the necessity is claimed to be.
I think the main point of Kripke is that there are essential necessities. But is this the same as essential properties or is there a difference between properties and how he is using the word necessity? Is his use of the word substance somehow connected? Is substance “real” and properties simply nominal if we consider modal logic? If substance is real, and it is essential to a thing, this means that there is ground for essentialism versus everything being mutable in our language or cognition.
So far as I can tell, the reason is historical, and traceable to things that Frege and Russell thought. Their concerns in turn were driven by worries about empty names and epistemological concerns.
Drop the 'really', and then read Kripke as recommending one way among many to talk about modality. Yes, we might have decided to group animals with placentas, rather than breasts, and exclude the poor old Tasmanian Tiger from our own lineage.
But I suspect one can sell more books and obtain more academic merit by saying it is really necessary than that one ought say it is necessary. Even thought they are the very same.
What the word 'water' correctly applies to is a matter of linguistic usage. And so the correctness of this claim depends on whether linguistic usage tracks chemical structure. It does in some technical disciplines, but not in general.
If we found such a substance, would it be water? In all edge cases of the use of a predicate, one has to decide – or not, the predicate can be left with a vague range of applications, with some things perpetually unclear as to whether it applies to them.
Likewise with the cat examples – it's not obvious to me that if we found some new species that looked and acted just like cats, but turned out to be robots, we'd conclude they weren't cats. A perfectly valid conclusion could also be that it turns out some cats can be robots. This is because the word 'cat' does not have a range of application that settles the matter. Further need to precisify the predicate might settle it, or it might not. And where it does settle it, there's no reason to think a priori that it will settle it in the way that Kripke suggests.
Kripke is beholden to a metaphysics of the use of words (those denoting natural kinds being in the first instance predicates, and not names, making the whole discussion a bit mysterious) according to which words intrinsically latch on to some real feature of the world and decide for counterfactual cases which things they would apply to, across worlds – but the use of these words is to a large extent indeterminate, making the modal intuitions equally indeterminate.
But... his modal grammar has as its background a consistent formal system. AS a result I see it as helpful in parsing difficult modal propositions in a way that reduces some apparent philosophical quandaries.
So, even if the choice is more or less arbitrary, I'll support Kripke's grammar.
But the inherent vagueness of natural language is itself interesting, and in a way provides it an expressive power that artificial languages that settle these questions don't have, and Kripke's claims don't do it justice.
I agree that Kripke doesn't see himself as proposing a way of talking. His views on, let's call it metasemantics, that in virtue of what a word means what it does, strike me as naive.
There is no crevasse between natural and formal languages. Adopting mor formal grammars can help sort out philosophical knots.
When Kripke was talking about his wooden lectern, he said he understood that someone might think it could have been made of ice. But he interprets that this way:
That he could be in a qualitatively identical situation, with the impressions (qualia?) associated with a wooden lectern, but for whatever reason, it's really made of ice. Maybe he's on acid or something. So if we look at these two statements:
A. The lectern is made of wood.
B. If the lectern exists, it is made of wood.
Since a person can be deceived, B is the necessary statement known a posteriori, not A.
So with water, I think he's saying that we have the experience of discovering that water is H20. Both are rigid designators, so it's an identity statement we're looking at, not a description. It could be that our experiences regarding the discovery of that identity statement are illusory. So candidates for the conclusion are:
A. Water is H20.
B. If we aren't completely deluded, water is H20.
Again, it's B that is the necessarily true statement, not A.
I'm happy to be corrected on any of this. Just working through it. Anyway, I've introduced the importance of illusion to the concept of necessary a posteriori. That will come up again when we talk about pain (and whether it can be an illusion, or not.)
It's important to highlight that causal chains are derived from verified or the standard convention of definite descriptions. Baptism can only occur in tandem with definite descriptions being utilized to designate a certain state of affairs that endows meaning onto a name. This process of how that happens is the gist of much of what has been going on in the reading group thread. If you care to elaborate on this process, that might help to get a better picture of the mutual relationship between rigid designators and definite descriptions.
Thanks.
I'm going to try and summon @Pierre-Normand to comment on this, because they have a much better understanding of the distinctions between 'shared use' and 'causal chains' in Evans' 'Varieties of Reference' than I do, and I assume people in the thread will find it interesting.
It wasn't even Evans, it was Luntley being inspired by Evans now that I'm looking at the book again - it wasn't even the book I thought it was, 'Truth, World, Content' rather than 'Varieties of Reference'.
The most important distinction Luntley leverages (I think) is roughly one between a causal chain and a chain of communication. The impact of this distinction is that a causal chain is a necessary feature to explain the relationship of referent and reference, but it is not a sufficient feature; the additional requirement is that relevant information is transmitted between name users (and people learning to use the name). There are three parts of this critique that I'll try to summarise. Before beginning though, I think it's important to note before continuing that Luntley is not a descriptivist, so the angle of attack is different from the previous ones discussed, and Luntley's objectives are thus quite sympathetic to Kripke's.
(1) One example which Luntley discusses (and I am probably missing lots of nuance in my presentation here) is when two things share a name; say we have Cicero my dog and the usual Cicero. The initial baptisms, so to speak, give the same name. Nevertheless, there are causal chains which link the use of "Cicero" when referring to my dog and "Cicero" when referring to the usual suspect, and these causal chains are distinct.
By means of an example, which Cicero am I referring to when I write: "That's Cicero"?
We don't have sufficient information to grasp in which way I am successfully referring with the above expression. This should raise some eyebrows; as this does not mesh well with a theory of successful reference which posits an insensitivity to information about the referent or the pattern of use the name is embedded within.
As the author puts this conclusion: 'Indeed, it (the causal theory - me) is an informationally sensitive account of reference, and it is the informational links you have, not the causal links, which do the work (of securing reference - me).
(2) The second part of the critique is that Kripke's theory of reference is really a theory of deferred reference. As the author puts it: "the thesis that names are rigid designators has nothing to say to the fundamental question of what it is for names to have objects as their semantic values. It speaks rather of the stability of that relation across possible worlds once it is established."
The rough argument goes like; at any given instance of reference, that instance of reference successfully refers because of its antecedent causal chain. You can keep going like this all the way back to the initial baptism. But there is a slight of hand here, the initial baptism cannot use the antecedent causal chain to account for why the name has its chosen object as its semantic value.
(3) The last part integrates the suspicions of the first two, but leans heavily on an example by Evans at the same time. Evans' example is the problem of 'Madagascar'; we inherit that name-object relation from a causal chain beginning with Marco Polo, but this was inspired by a misinterpretation of the native language, it instead referred to a part of the African mainland in that tongue. Here we have a contiguous causal chain in which the semantic value of the name changes. Of course, we can recognise that before it was one thing and after another, but this requires applying a filter of correctness to the causal chain, rather than using the causal chain itself to vouchsafe the reference. The move made here is to notice that this renders raw causal chains with no qualifiers only accidental guarantors of the name-object relation; so we have informational content at play in order to vouchsafe reference in addition to the deference to the causal chain.
I can't find anything like this. There is stuff about illusion elsewhere. I must have missed it.
I haven't thought in these terms - I'd like other to opine.
I was referring back to one of my previous posts. I'll wait till the discussion centers more on the necessary a posteriori.
Quoting Banno
There are cases where there is no shared use. For instance, there are probably rigid designators in texts written in Linear B, but since it isn't translated yet, we don't know about them. When we do translate them, we'll know who they are. Unless you want to call the post-translation state "sharing," which is not what I think you intended, it's more a causal chain by which we'll come to use those names. True?
What kind of accounting are we looking for here? The initial baptism could involve definite description or ostention. If something else is needed, is it something descriptivists allow that Kripke doesn't?
Quoting frank
I don't know the broader account as I've not read the whole book. What I can say though is that the author agrees with Kripke that definite descriptions don't model the reference/referent relation very well.
Do you mean the author agrees that a speaker need not have a definite description in mind when using a proper name or kind name?
Yes. The distinction which the author is operating with is that the relevant information which ensures successful reference is not necessarily descriptive information. Moreover, the chain of communication is recharacterised from Kripke as a chain of knowledge transfer. The author doesn't use the 'That's Cicero' example to illustrate this point, but it will serve.
Consider my example with 'That's Cicero', my reference to Cicero in that instance does not allow anyone else in any derivative causal chain from my reference to ensure success for their reference using the name; successes would be accidental. What remains then is to give an account of what types of information transmitted in these chains of communication ensure the stability of reference using the name; transmitting success from one person to another inducted into this use of the name.
The author leverages a distinction between primary and secondary knowers; a distinction which mirrors the relationship of the originator of a causal chain (the initial baptiser) and those whose references depend upon the initial baptism. A primary knower has a cache of information which is directed towards the object of reference as a topic, this information can be perceptual, competence based, descriptive or anything else relevant; importantly, this information need not be sayable in the form of a proposition. A secondary knower has their reference ensured by the identification done by the primary knowers. To illustrate this, consider 'that's my guitar', the reference could be ensured by the recognition of a sound, and derivative references would be facilitated by my successful identification based on the sound. Thus, these informational states vouchsafe references, and derivative ones can depend solely upon my successful identification rather than the means by which that identification was done.
What, thus, makes this critical modification of Kripke's theory not a theory requiring definite descriptions is that the informational content which vouchsafes reference need not be descriptive or even, more generally, linguistic at all.
Then is it substance based? And what does that even mean?
I don't know what it would mean for the theory I discussed to be substance based. I haven't even seen the word in the bits of the book I've read.
O rly? Can you give me an example of a definite description which is not linguistic?
Are identity statements about names? Or is it that when we say X=Y, we're talking about an object's being identical to itself?
Pointing.
That's not a definite description. 'The X such that F'.... F = pointing...
This is from Noonan's book Kripke.
Well, it’s not descriptive based, and I saw Banno connecting with idea of substance so I assumed that Kripke was making some sort of case that rigid designators are substance based rather than description based. If you think that’s not the case, can you show me what he is trying to say?
How does this work? 'The X such that Y pointed to it at t'? how does that make pointing a definite description? Edit: moreover, why would pointing be required to be equivalent to or induce a definite description in order to vouchsafe reference using it?
Anyway, this is super tangential. The more relevant question would be whether perceptions or states of know-how are amenable to the form 'The X such that F'?.
Where are you in lecture 3?
I don't think he's actually argued that ostension is a type of description, but he considers that it might be (eg. in footnote 42 in lecture 2). In footnote 33 he even opposes the two in the Neptune example - since its reference was fixed through calculations involving gravity -, 'as opposed to ostension'.
It's strange to me that you are treating ostension as a non-linguistic type of description rather than simply a non-verbal or written one. The distinction matters. So the real issues at stake are whether a causal chain suffices to explain the semantic value of names or whether a richer, informational structure which is embedded in a causal chain is required.
So when I challenged you to find a type of description which is not linguistic, I was trying to highlight the distinction between the account I was discussing and a descriptive theory, one that says incidents of reference fixing or the semantic value of names require descriptions or equivalence to descriptions are at least necessary for vouchsafing reference. The point being that it's possible to give a non-descriptive account of the semantic value of names but nevertheless disagree with Kripke about the specifics.
Banno and I are both interested in the theory of mind stuff at the end of lecture 3. I see the on-ramp for it as the concept of the necessary a posteriori. The background is Hume, Kant, Frege, Russell, Searle, and Strawson. In the wings are all the answers to Kripke positive and negative.
The recurring theme with Kripke is externalism. Externalism is sometimes a draw for the more materialistically inclined, but I think Kripke's form has the personal perspective thoroughly embedded, so it will tend to be disappointing for those looking to eliminate something.
The question is: how to discuss it? The last thread ended up being sort of star shaped and devolved into bickering over things people are supposed to know before they start reading N&N. And maybe that reflects the nature of the topic in some ways.
Thoughts?
I gave examples of perceptions and competences as things which can facilitate successful reference, they provide information about the referent which distinguishes them from other things, but not necessarily through the means of any statement, description (definite or no), or even using language at all.
These informational constraints can apply to 'initial baptisms' as much as they can apply to name use further down the causal chain. However, those further down the causal chain can piggyback the name/object relation of successful reference on those who have had an informational state/cache which allows them to make such a distinction or disambiguation. In those cases, while ultimately dependent on information which contributes to the semantic value of the name which distinguishes the referent sufficiently well, we can trust the identification as deriving from such an informational state and make do with that trust and our intentions to successfully refer.
Hello? Not sure if you saw last reply.
The distinction as (I think) the author sees it is, as I stated in this first post, that Kripke's account is that the name-object relation imbued in a naming practice in Kripke's theory consists of a causal chain which is insensitive or not dependent on information about the referent. The first post consists of 3 arguments that seek to highlight how the causal chain must also be a chain of information/communication and is thus information sensitive.
These remarks are intended to intervene in Banno's exegesis here:
Quoting Banno
by highlighting a wrinkle in the equality between causal chains and shared use which is suggested in the quote. Kripke's causal chains are information insensitive, Luntley notes that it is required that they are information/knowledge sensitive in several ways, and fills the holes in Kripke's theory that Luntley highlighted with a knowledge-based account that patches them up.
I did. I just don't care to speculate as I don't see the relevance.
A bit dismissive being it’s a pretty substantive point but so be it.
If I understood what you meant, perhaps by asking your question more precisely and portraying its motivating context, I'd be more likely to be able to say something interesting.
Kripke is against trying to equate a rigid designator as a definite description. Why? In all possible worlds, descriptions can be mutable- able to be changed, and the reference still stands. Thus, what would count as a rigid designator? Well, mere properties wouldn't work as that is a definite description. What is left? Well, he gave the example of H20 being necessary to water. In all possible worlds, any property or description glides off as necessary to water, but H20 will always remain. But what is H20? Its a substance. Thus, there is some residue, some "thing", some substance that is, that is necessary to individuate kinds and individuals in all possible worlds.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's exactly the opposite conclusion than the one he wants to draw. He presents a couple of arguments against the idea that the semantic value of names must be definite descriptions, which were covered in the previous thread and lectures. [hide=some out of order exegesis which should probably be ignored as it would ruin the flow of the thread even more]The strategy he uses is to try to show that names behave in ways descriptions do not. Specifically, names interact with the modality of possibility (and later necessity) differently.
One way he highlights this is to consider the statement:
(A) "Benjamin Franklin is the man who invented bifocals", let's assume that this provides a complete account of the semantic value of the name 'Benjamin Franklin'. Now, 'Benjamin Franklin' should behave the same as 'the man who invented bifocals', they are stipulated to mean the same, and this is stipulated to be a definite description.
Now consider three other statements about Benjamin Franklin.
(B) "Possibly, Benjamin Franklin was not the first postmaster general of the USA"
(B2) "Benjamin Franklin possibly was not the first postmaster general of the USA"
(C) "The inventor of bifocals possibly was not the first postmaster general of the USA"
Keeping track of the subject of the sentences, (B) and (B2) have the same subject, Benjamin Franklin, and thus they must. The subject of (C) however does not have to be Benjamin Franklin, stipulating a world where the inventor of bifocals was not Benjamin Franklin. The big distinction is that changing the location of 'possibly' between (B) and (B2) does not change the subject, where as it absolutely would in (C) - we only ensure reference to our desired Benjamin Franklin when evaluating in our actual world. By contrast, the name Benjamin Franklin refers stably over all possible worlds. This stability of reference over possible words is called 'rigid designation', and Kripke has attempted to show why descriptions don't have this property whereas names do!
Nevertheless, descriptions can be used in 'reference fixing' behaviour, whereby we institute the use of a name to refer to an object, which Kripke refers to an initial baptism (by some means, possibly a description or ostension, or perhaps other methods). The impact is that while a description can be used in reference fixing behaviour, that description does not provide the complete account of the semantic value of a name. As Kripke puts it, paraphrased, 'providing a description to a name (during an initial baptism) is not giving a synonym of it, it is rather fixing the reference'.
I should note that the exegesis here is based mostly on 'Truth, World, Content' by Muntley rather than Naming and Necessity itself.[/hide]
How is that exactly the opposite? I said he was AGAINST the idea that rigid designators are definite descriptions.
I misread you then. Sorry.
Importantly, it's not directly relevant here to set out a theory of reference. This thread was set up to escape the unending interference of @Janus, so that a discussion of the ideas of the third lecture could take place. I would be quite happy to participate in another thread on theories of reference, but I think we have enough good stuff here with Kinds.
That is, I don't wish to discourage you from participating, but I'd like to take the reference stuff as read, at least here.
Cheers.
My interests in engaging with your exegesis were in clearing up my thoughts on rigid designators and the causal theory of reference, rather than actually doing real scholarship on the book. As these concerns are largely orthogonal to yours, and you're doing the majority of the heavy lifting, I'll buzz off.
I'll be floating around like a bad smell anyway. Silent but deadly.
I guess that's not a bad interpretation from a non-analytic perspective. I guess that sounds patronising - tough.
Substance is not a term that an analytic philosopher would happily use. Kripke does talk in terms of the necessity of the origin of certain individuals. His table, for example, could only have been made from that certain piece of wood, and if it had been made from some other piece of wood, it would be a different table.
While his account for him is metaphysical, I'm reading him as providing rules for modal discourse - a grammar, in the broader sense.
So I guess you might read him as saying that the substance an individual is made of is essential to that individual.
I would think of that as too broad, though. For example a waterfall is an individual that does not always consist of the same substance.
I'm not sure how to work this in to the discussion of kinds.
I'm just not sure about the "not deluded"part. I'd like more on that. it's in the text, indirectly, but I hadn't paid it much mind, so I may have missed something.
there's a tendency hereabouts to make an idealist move from what is the case to what we know is the case. I think that move sucks; or to be more polite, is more a rhetorical device than a philosophical clarification. I have read Kripke as talking about what is the case, or might be the case, rather than what we believe or know.
So, am I wrong?
At some place - and forgive me for not finding the reference - Kripke is quite explicit in saying that identity is about individuals, not names. He criticises and rejects the suggestion that X=Y might be about names.
The argument, from memory, is something like that while Hesperus is Phosphorus, and that's a fact about Venus, "Hesperus" is not "Phosphorus" - the names are quite distinct.
I'm using the convention of putting names treated as word in quotes.
He isn't trying to build a staircase to the existence of knowledge, if that's what you mean. But the issue of knowledge is important in N&N.
He would say that the inventor of the rules of chess knew those rules a priori. The rules were passed from person to person and eventually everybody who knows the rules, knows them a posteriori.
Some philosophers would say that if one learns the rules a posteriori, that means the rules are contingent. And of course, it seems obvious that the rules of chess could have been different.
But is that true? Would that really be chess if the rules were different? Or would it be some other game?
Maybe not that case, but similar cases involving names: Kripke says the concept of rigid designation and possible worlds will help produce the right answer. The perception of the speaker ends up being highlighted, though, not shuffled under a rug.
That seems pretty good evidence to me of some sort of substance based metaphysics. We can call it whatever you want or feel comfortable with if you like. If you have a term for it, please let me know.
Quoting Banno
I'm just trying to follow you when you are talking about his more controversial parts- the necessary a posteriori. This is where I thought you were going with it, some more "substantive" metaphysical claims (that to me are more interesting than simply his use of grammar). Maybe that's my "non-analytical" bent as you might claim. As far as the modal discourse, I think it is cool that he uses possible worlds to evaluate an individual/kinds reference, but I think it was more aimed at theories of description that came from other analytic philosophers of his time and earlier, and is more interesting if one was involved in those debates.
Quoting Banno
Someone might say that a waterfall would simply be an abstraction. The water and the cliff it is flowing over are the "substance", their pairing would then be a secondary pairing of the two in a location in order to play more precise language games for ease of communication. In all possible worlds, only water being H20 and the cliff being (X,Y, Z substance) would matter. This is pretty radical in terms of how we identify things in everyday speech, but I guess if we are talking metaphysics, things can be different than how we are used in our ordinary understanding. That might be an interesting implication from Kripke though. Hidden how we name individuals and kinds is an underlying metaphysics that is not as ordinary as we think. However, none of this might matter to his theory, if his theory of naming only applies to proper names, and not necessarily generic, non-living individual objects in nature. I am not sure if that is the case though. He does talk about H20 so I am guessing non-living generic objects of nature can be considered, not just kinds. Again, I don't know. That specific water versus another specific body of water is an interesting concept to throw in all of this.
Something that I don't think is often addressed in this stuff in this: just what, exactly, does Kripke take himself to be doing? Is he supposed to be describing how people actually use language? If not, what is he doing? Is he offering a proposal for a recommended way to use language?
Correcting it per what, though? In other words, what's the truthmaker for it?
If it's true that names are such and such in modal logic, then it's true by virtue of something, right? Not just by one guy's stipulation presumably.
Person one:
Names in modal logic are just descriptions.
Person two:
Names in modal logic are not descriptions.
What do we look at to adjudicate who is correct between those two people?
(Does it still not make sense to you what I'm asking about?)
But we can ask the same thing about definitions. What are we trying to do when we forward them? Are we describing how people use a term? Prescribing a usage? Or what?
Another way to ask what I'm asking is this. If we make a statement about something, are we making an observation? (And if so, an observation where we're looking at what?) Are we creating something? For what purpose? Or are we doing something else?
He seems to think he is solving metaphysical issues. I take him as recommending a way to use language.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Actually...
I've actually read it a couple times, including in school. I don't recall him really addressing what he takes himself to be doing on a meta level. If he's just recommending a way to use language, okay, but that would need more of a campaign behind it to really be effective.
I am yet to see anyone provide a cogent logical distinction between 'X' and 'the entity referred to as 'X'' in everyday use. For modal logic you would need to extend the description to 'the entity referred to as 'X' in this world' to make it refer rigidly across possible worlds. Both versions of the latter are descriptions as far as I can tell.
He'll tell you to read it again, probably. Apparently you can't read it and understand it, without agreeing with it, even though no reasons for believing that contention can be given. :rofl:
For ostensive terms, this issue disappears if you assume something lacking in Kipke's Naming and Necessity. Namely, a form of counterfactual definitiveness across all possible worlds, guaranteeing an accessibility relation between them to stipulate that the same entity in our world, called "water", is, in fact, H20 in all possible worlds.
But, this fails when trying to denote entities that have no referent, like empty names, fictional entities, and such.
Wallows, what you want to say here is not clear, could you explain further. Specifically I don't know what you mean by "if you something assume something lacking in Kripke's Naming and Necessity", or " a form of counterfactual definitiveness across all possible worlds". And I'm not sure what you are saying "fails when trying to denote entities that have no referent, like empty names, fictional entities and such", and of course once I know what fails I'd like to know why you think it fails.
Maybe I should rephrase the issue, as I am working on how to conceptualize possible worlds that are defined through counterfactuals that only exist in our world and who's laws of science/math/physics are identical to our own, so we have some way to establish an accessibility relation to our own, as in the example of water being H2O that is necessarily true in all possible worlds where that accessibility relation holds true.
Or in other words, in Frege's Sense and Reference, Kripe successfully addresses the issue of "reference"; but, what I think has been going on in the other thread is conflating a name's sense with its reference.
Does that make better sense? I'm still working on the idea; but, I think we both know why Kripke tells us on the first page that he won't be addressing the issue of empty names or fictional entities in his Naming and Necessity. In my opinion, this is because you have no referent for empty names or fictional entities and thus you can't separate the sense (or the sum total of descriptive content for an empty name) from a non-existent referent.
Or to sound nonsensical, the description of the empty name stands in for the designation of the term, much how like the "It" in the sentence of "It is raining", is a dummy subject/indexical and not a real one.
Can you explain how you see that conflation; perhaps give an example to make it clearer?
Quoting Wallows
I'm not sure what you mean by "empty name". For me an empty name is simply a name on its own, for example, 'Peter', and I don't think names, as such, have senses or "sum totals of descriptive content". I'm not sure that names that refer have any necessary descriptive content, 'within' the name. Although I do think a name (even one that does not specifically refer) can rightly be said to have logically associated, or better equivalent, descriptive content: so, as I have said, the name 'X' is logically equivalent to 'the entity called 'X'".
Quoting Wallows
For me the 'it' in 'it is raining' (which I think is really equivalent to 'it is rain') refers to the process of raining or the state of rain. So I don't see it as a "dummy subject/ indexical" any more that the 'it' in 'it is a tree' is. To be sure, the process of raining or the state of rain does not seem to be as determinate as a tree; the state of tree or the process of treeing. If we free up our thinking we can easily see noun-subjects as verb-subjects; and this is the beauty of process approaches.
I rather like the idea that it grew in the playing. That's what it's history suggests. Ill come back to this.
Note also @Janus’ refusal to look at the text on which this thread is based.
Janus, et al, would you mind staying on another thread?
Would you mind pulling your head in? It is not for you to dictate where and what comments I can make in a free public forum, provided they are not obscene, gratuitously derogatory, sexist, racist, flaming or trolling. My first comment here was perfectly relevant to the comment made by @schopenhauer1. You are free to ignore any and all of my comments, Banno; but I am not responsible to your ego; to your apparent desire to control proceedings.
That's fine; I am confident that if they are fair and unbiased I will be allowed to continue to comment in this thread. If I am not, then I will no longer participate in this site at all, because I would then be forced to the conclusion that the moderators are not unbiased.
I can agree to my second comment being removed if needs be.
He clearly states that they are essential to [the] full presentation of the viewpoint argued here, especially that of existence statements and empty names, had to be omitted altogether.
We can omit existence statements, as that seems to delve into phenomenology or whatnot. But, empty names, we should at least mention here. Where does Kripke elaborate on the existence of empty names? This should also resolve the dispute between @Janus and @Banno.
I am not sure what you are thinking here, Wallows, but I would certainly like to see a coherent and consistent resolution to that!
I believe that fundamentally the difference between you and Banno in regards to what Kripke says in N&N, is that of semantic value for names or how names attain them in the actual world and/or in possible worlds. Is this correct?
If by that you mean that I think names are logically equivalent to the minimalist description 'the entity such and such' then yes, I do think that is correct. I also think that names rely on descriptions (outside of ostensive contexts, which is most of the time) to fix their referents. It may come down to two different ways of looking at names, but the point for me is that argument is needed to establish which is the more comprehensive and useful way of looking at them. Obviously, I think some kind of descriptivist model (if not the so-called 'classical') is best suited to understanding how names are mostly used.
Yeah, so if we talk about "empty names", which Kripke does not want to introduce into N&N, by already stating that in the first page of Lecture I., in Naming and Necessity, due to the problem that it would entail with reconciling all of his views held in N&N wrt. to "empty names", then we are left with an incomplete picture of his philosophy or incomplete to my mind as I want to know what are Kripke's thoughts about "empty names", as they seem to only exist as descriptions without a referent, thus leaning on the descriptivist theory of reference to elucidate their semantic value if Kripke can't or doesn't want to address them.
So, you're saying that empty names, such as Kripke's example 'unicorn', are only empty in the sense that thy have no referent but are not, and in fact cannot be, semantically empty if they are to be names at all, because they would then just be scribbles on a page or sounds, without the descriptions that give them sense? If that is what you are saying then I agree. But this is in relation to names of natural kinds.
Proper names may also be empty, as I said earlier, if they are not being used to refer to anyone (well, in themselves they just are referentially empty). And proper names are also pretty much semantically empty (although etymologically they may not be empty, for example 'Peter' means 'stone' and so on). So, I would not say that descriptions, beyond the minimal 'the entity called such and such' are inherent in names; descriptions are contingent upon the actualities of this world that obtain in relation to the entities being named.
Yes, I don't disagree with that. I just thought of empty names as provides a counterargument towards Kripke's criticism of the descriptivist theory. So, @Banno, that seems to be the issue here in my view, that Kripke doesn't talk about empty names, where @Janus or I, might as well address the elephant in the room and say 'why not'?
[quote=Kripke](e) SantaClaus,p.93andpp.96-7.Gareth Evans has pointed out that similar cases of reference shifts arise where the shift is not from a real entity to a fictional one, but from one real entity to another of the same kind. According to Evans, 'Madagascar' was a native name for a part of Africa; Marco Polo, erroneously thinking that he was following native usage, applied the name to an island. (Evans uses the example to support the description theory; I, of course, do not.) Today the usage of the name as a name for an island has become so widespread that it surely overrides any historical connection with the native name. David Lewis has pointed out that the same thing could have happened even if the natives had used 'Madagascar' to designate a mythical locality. So real reference can shift to another real reference, fictional reference can shift to real, and real to fictional. In all these cases, a present intention to refer to a given entity (or to refer fictionally) overrides the original intention to preserve reference in the historical chain of transmission. The matter deserves extended discussion. But the phenomenon is perhaps roughly explicable in terms of the predominantly social character of the use of proper names emphasized in the text: we use names to communicate with other speakers in a common language. This character dictates ordinarily that a speaker intend to use a name the same way as it was transmitted to him; but in the 'Madagascar' case this social character dictates that the present intention to refer to an island overrides the distant link to native usage./quote]
[quote=Kripke]I hold similar views regarding fictional proper names. The mere discovery that there was indeed a detective with exploits like those of Sherlock Holmes would not show that Conan Doyle was writing about this man ; it is theoretically possible, though in practice fantastically unlikely, that Doyle was writing pure fiction with only a coincidental resemblance to the actual man. (See the characteristic disclaimer: 'The characters in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone, living or dead, is purely coincidental.') Similarly, I hold the metaphysical view that, granted that there is no sherlock Holmes, one cannot say of any possible person that he would have been Sherlock Holmes, had he existed. Several distinct possible people, and even actual ones such as Darwin or Jack the Ripper, might have performed the exploits of Holmes, but there is none ofwhom we can say that he would have been Holmes had he performed these exploits. For if so, which one?
I thus could no longer write, as I once did, that 'Holmes does not exist, but in other states of affairs, he would have existed. ' (See my 'Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic', Acta Philosophica Fennica, Vol. 16 (1963) pp. 83-94; reprinted in L. Linsky (ed.), Reference and !vlodality, Oxford University Press, (1971 ; p. 65 in the Linsky reprint.) The quoted assertion gives the erroneous impression that a fictional name such as 'Holmes' names a particular possible-but-not-actual individual. The sub stantive point I was trying to make, however, remains and is independent of any linguistic theory of the status of names in fiction. The point was that, in other possible worlds 'some actually existing individuals may be absent while new in dividuals . . . may appear' (ibid, p. 65), and that if in an open formula A (x) the free variable is assigned a given individual as value, a problem arises as to whether (in a model-theoretic treatment ofmodal logic) a truth-value is to be assigned to the formula in worlds in which the individual in question does not exist.[/quote]
Quoting Wallows
The fictional elephant has left the building.
If you could provide me with the full text, I would appreciate that. All I gathered is that empty names have semantic value dependent on the social and cultural or historical context of said empty name. Yeah, but so does any name for the matter also share this characteristic although to a much lesser degree than an empty name.
https://academiaanalitica.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/kripke-saul-a-naming-and-necessity-cambridge-harvard-university-press-1981.pdf
I wasn't going to bother. Janus refuses to read the book anyway. But thanks.
https://www.ichess.net/blog/history-of-chess/
It started out as something else - perhaps "the elephant game", but in a form that we might not recognise. Over time the rules and associated terms changed into the formally recognisable game we see today.
So the rules were never known by a single inventor, a priori.
And Chess 960, Crazy Chess and the other alternatives are still chess.
There may be a "family resemblance" running through all of the variations. It's the historical use of the term "Chess" that makes all these variations, games of chess and not draughts.
We could set up a game in which we changed each of the rules, one by one, until we had something that was utterly different; and yet, since we started with the rule of chess, we would be justified in calling it a form of chess.
And that's what Kripke is saying happens with names.
Any and all.
So I am reluctant to conclude that there is a connection between names and substance, since we can name things that have no substance.
Let's do that, then.
SO we get to p.144, and identity. Three different ones:
1. Identity of mind with body
2. Identity of (for example) pain with a certain neural pattern
3. Identity of types of mental states with types of brain states.
Now at one stage earlier - I'm sorry, the post is lost in the confusion of the other thread - I think it was @Snakes Alive who suggested that a pain was not an individual; and hence that it could not be the very same thing as a particular brain state.
But if Kripke is restricting himself to types, then perhaps that counter does not work...
Nevertheless, the suggestion raises the issue of whether a pain is an individual, and whether pain is a type in the way water, lightening, and gold are types.
I see what you (Kripke?) are getting at. This idea is that there is a sort of "prime cause" for which kinds/individuals can hearken back to as their original "baptism" or "dubbing". Thus rigid designators are defined by their origination baptism from the first naming event. I get it. However, what are we defining as real here? Games are not natural kinds. It seems to me that Kripke's only uses examples of individuals (who are humans, and thus natural), and kinds in nature (like species). This to me, seems like he only thinks rigid designators are applied to natural things. However, I could be prove wrong with simply some Naming and Necessity quotes to the contrary.. I don't have the book in front of me now, and honestly I don't feel like looking it up. So far I've seen references to Nixon, Hesperus, H20, Venus, etc. These are all natural in some way.
But, I see a general theme either way. He seems to at the least be an essentialist. His essentialism for proper names is based on causal essentialism. That is to say, a posteriori necessity of a proper name's identity has to do with its "origination event" and the causal pathways that it follows, like a "genealogy of cause".. no matter how many changes occurred over time, it has some sort of genetic link to that origination event that makes the name a rigid designator.
On the other hand, natural kinds, have a substance essentialism. That is to say, the a posteriori necessity of a natural kind's identity has to do with an essential substance that makes that kind what it is and not something else.
Thus out of this, purely based on speculation, but kind of interesting to me, is that metaphysically one can argue that there is a substance ontology, but epistemologically, language has its own built in causal essentialism in regards to how we use proper names.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, they might. I'm not sure that Kripke thinks they must; and I certainly don't. I just don't see for a dubbing or baptism. The use of the name will suffice.
I'll have to think on more of your post.
I'm not sure what that would mean...
If I am going to treat Kripke's book as setting out an acceptable approach to grammar, then I'm not that interested in some sot of substance ontology.
although his examples might appear to be in terms of substance, I'll read them as about how we use the words for one substance or another.
They chose the name. They knew a priori what his name was.
First, convince me that it has to be one or the other: a priori or a posteriori.
So how do you understand Kripke's contingent a priori?
Kripke says that anytime you want, you can fix a reference by picking a contingent property, like Beth, the waitress at the diner. Being a waitress isn't a necessary property of Beth, but you know a priori that the Beth under consideration is a waitress. Why? You say:
"If the Beth I'm thinking of exists, she's a waitress."
Contingent a priori.
Agree? This is important because the necessary a posteriori is sort of a mirror image of the contingent a priori.
Can you explain this approach of fixing rigid designators? I know that causal theories have problems because you can designate a name as rigid, but causally fix it to no particular referent (e.g. the most joyful person can be different in all possible worlds but they will be dubbed "Joy" if they are the most joyful person in the room. There is no referent but the designator is rigid). Perhaps you are trying to avoid this critique by not assenting to this interpretation.
Granted, but besides eschewing descriptivist theories of names, what is the significance of his program for grammar if not implications that are metaphysical in some way?
Fixing a rigid designator is just using a name. How that name came to be used to talk about its referent is a quit seperate issue to how it is used to talk about possibilities.
If you like, we can use proper names as rigid designators.
We do this by presenting a possibility. What if Elizabeth Windsor abdicated? In order to present such a possibility, we take this sentence to be about Elizabeth Windsor.
saying "we designate a name as rigid" misunderstands the process.
Now coming towards the end of what I take as a model of good analytic critique, this argument is irksome. Why can't the identity theorist just assert that B cannot have existed without Jones feeling any pain at all? Indeed, isn't what the theorist must assert?
Consider a theorist who wires Jones up to induce a dull throb in his left toe - A. If he produces a stabbing pain instead, they have not located B correctly, and the stimulation must be altered. B will only have been correctly located when, every time B is stimulated Jones has a throbbing left toe; and every time Jones has a throbbing left toe, B is observed.
Kripke argues that A must be a pain, and that B is not a pain. Isn't that much the same as arguing that water must be wet, and yet a few molecules of water cannot be wet, and hence that water is not the very same as H?O?
It seems I must be mis-reading Kripke; that he is saying that it will not suffice to claim that 'B caused A' is contingent. It must be necessary.
Then:
So if the theorist is going to claim that A is B, they must claim it to be necessarily so.
Lecture I, page 28. I was just reading that part. I'm behind, catching up.
If B is identical to A, then B couldn't be said to cause A. I think what the identity theorist really means to say is that there is no such thing as A. All there is, is B. Kripke would have no objection to that wording (whether he'd agree or not, I don't know.) But the identity theorist can't say that A is B.
But we say that Hesperus is Phosphorus - not that there is no Hesperus, only Phosphorus...
Kripke says that identity statement is necessarily true.
Do you agree that we can imagine that the brain state exists, but there is no accompanying pain?
I think the posited position of the identity theorist is that the brain state exists if and only if the pain exists.
Supposing otherwise would falsify their theory.
The trick for them is to find, empirically, the right brain state.
Is it? Maybe after Kripke they realized they have to assert necessity.
I think a large part of the trick is to replace 'state' which has a static connotation, with 'process'. Talking of brain states, I start to imagine the evil scientist inducing a 'state of pain' and then dropping the brain into liquid nitrogen and preserving the hell indefinitely. But that is not what anyone theorises, but rather that a static brain is unthinking unfeeling and dead.
And then, one could point out that part of the brain process that is identical with a pain is an ongoing sensation, accompanied by an ongoing interpretation and judgement thereof. Thus even if, empirically, one can induce the toe ache with a particular localised stimulation of the brain, nevertheless, the whole brain is part of the process, just as it is if one induces a toe ache by treading on the toe.
Thoughts?