Terrapin Station

??? No, obviously not. If the person isn't even referring to speech, how would it make any speech acts criminal?

Because it's going to be someone's opinion of just what is problematic or not, just what should be illegal or not, etc. What one individual would call...

As I said above "But I'm defining what I'd name 'criminal threatening.'" It might not have much to do with your, or with any conventional notion of wh...

It would depend on what the person's "criminal insult" criteria would be. We'd have to ask them. Maybe they'd have detailed criteria, most of which do...

No, it isn't. The whole thing is, which doesn't even require speech.

No. Confusion occurs when someone isn't sure what's the case and especially when there seem to be dissonances in the information at hand. Aside from t...

Which is not additional, obviously. So when I say that possibilities are concrete facts, I'm not saying something additional about how they obtain? Wh...

So what are you saying additional that's not the same as an assertion that there are possibilities?

But that's what I did. The world could be strongly deterministic. It's not. That's how (non-actual) possible worlds exist.

"Reasonable" is subjective, "common sense" is often nonsense and appeals to it are one of the lamest rhetorical tactics, and when we're talking about ...

That's a good point, although with the speech issue, I'm not sure off-the-cuff just what the relevant other differences would be, so it would be diffi...

Verbally or otherwise. But as you note, it's not just about (or even necessarily about verbal) threats in the conventional sense of that term. That's ...

I was asked about my view on it. I pasted what my policy would be. If you're not interested in that, then don't read (or bother commenting on) the pos...

If you still have a problem with this, I think you're going to need to state your general criteria for explanations in a way that we can better check ...

Sure, so here's mine again: "There can be a possible world where this planet doesn't exist because the possibility is a result of the world not being ...

If you can show it's not just an idea (per my assessment of course--I don't just mean if you believe you can show it), I'll accept that. We've kind of...

?? But I'm defining what I'd name "criminal threatening." Nothing less than what I'm describing would count. That's why I'm spelling all of that stuff...

No, that wouldn't be at all sufficient. I have specific conditions that need to be met that I make explicit.

So this, for example: "it's an immediate, 'physical' threat in the sense of potential victims being within the range of the threatening instruments (w...

What did you do different than I did? If you're being serious, it seems weird to me that you believe you're doing anything different than I am.

I thought maybe you were talking about borders more broadly, since for whatever reason that's the direction Janus started pursuing.

Again, criminal threatening as I describe it isn't a speech act. It can be accompanied by a speech act--as can murdering someone, raping someone, etc....

As you could probably guess, I don't think that positing real abstracts is either right or reasonable. So should I say you're not offering an explanat...

Where of course you'd need to present what a "proper justification" is supposed to amount to.

I'm asking not what's different about the content of the explanations, but.what's different about them structurally that makes one an explanation and ...

There can be a possible world where this planet doesn’t exist because the possibility is a factor of the material world not being thoroughly, strongly...

That's just saying what a possibility is on your view.

So would you say that there's no real edge of a cliff, say? We just invent that, so if we decided to think about it differently/invent it otherwise, w...

There are speech acts that are threats, but what I'm describing isn't just, or even necessarily, a speech act.

So "positing abstract objects called possible worlds" isn't another way of saying there are possibilities?

What would be the explanation of rain that wouldn't be identical to the fact(s) that enable(s) rain? On your view, isn't that the fact that makes poss...

I posted this earlier in the thread, but here it is again: Threatening anyone should only be a crime when it's an immediate, "physical" threat in the ...

lol re adding "support" to your definition of claim now. Anyway, the only reason I was pressing this is because you were stressing it, but the definit...

The question was about the word "claim."

First, you didn't answer what I asked you: can you find a definition of "claim," in a philosophical context, that suggests that claims must be testabl...

Oxford dictionary via Google.

So here's one common definition of the word "claim": "state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof." Can ...

Why would you say that? Is it just an idiosyncratic way you use the word "c!aim"? (Also, so we're saying that conflating ontology and epistemology is ...

Okay, so why when I'm talking about ontological claims are you reading it as if I'm saying something about them being testable?

Sure. So then you'd agree that some ontological statements aren't either testable or semantic?

The standard definition. Ontology is theory/philosophy of existence or being. So you'd say that all ontological claims are either testable or semantic...

I don't know if you realize it or care, by the way, but every post you type to me comes across like you're a complete asshole who is only interested i...

Not wholly. (Shouldn't that be obvious?) In other words, I don't want to assume that's your complete definition of "empirical." Maybe it is, but I'm a...

You'd have to explain why on your view the fact that the world isn't strongly/causally deterministic isn't an explanation for how possibilities obtain...

Are you (partially) defining empirical claims that way?

I said that it's a possible position. I gave you an example--an idealist nominalist's particular rock. I just said that I can't give you a descriptive...

And that's certainly the case--describing what possibilities are is going to be a case of describing possibilities, right? In other words, it's basica...

It's difficult for me to give a descriptive example of a nonmaterial anything, because personally I don't believe that the idea of nonmaterial things ...

The same thing I've said a couple times already: by simple virtue of the fact that the world isn't strongly/causally deterministic. So, for example, w...

Possibilities are real--they're the fact(s) that the world isn't strongly/causally deterministic. That doesn't hinge on thought, but it's not abstract...