Banno

I'll leave you to explain that, if you feel the need. So far as I can see the notion of essence is either a nonsense or a tautology.

Then there can be no purpose in discussing it. Or rather, discussing it will not improve our understanding.

And for you?

Were they talking about the same thing?

Not glad you are sick - glad you were cheered up... Incidentally, did the link to the NS article work, or was it fire-walled?

Sure. Is it right?

http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Readings/Quine%20-%20Reference%20and%20Modality.pdf Yep. New thread, maybe. Although given ...

You recognise it as a result of having been taught what a right angle is. Right angles area part of your culture as well as a part of the world. What'...

Glad.

Yep. You see a right angle. Read the rest of the sentence... "...a way of talking about and treating the stuff in the word". The right angle is there ...

God changing is at odds with divine simplicity. So if you are going to say god changes, you will need to re-define god in a fairly extreme way. Perhap...

Perhaps right angles are not a thing in the world, but a way of talking about and treating the stuff in the word. "And I say the nature of time is ana...

I'd be happy to look into this in another thread. A bit too far off topic here. A topic that might be more pertinent is notions of time in other cultu...

To my eye this thread went awry in considering the intentionality of animals. Having said that, there was some interesting stuff in New Scientist last...

Good point. Logical truths are true in every interpretation, so they are supposedly safe from Quine's criticism. One consequence of that is the reject...

Did anyone catch the Quarterly Essay Minority Report? An extract at https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2024/11/minority-report/extract A podcast ...

Yep.

Argument by name calling.

The significance of family resemblance just never sunk in, did it.

Yes, they may be stipulated. Not a table, then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNAjW6nkyzw

We have made use of the notion of time in this thread. Therefore there is such a notion. There is time.

I'm sorry, I find that risible... There must be something that makes a table what it is, and this we will call tableness, and we will generalise this ...

That's just calling the essence by another name. You've said that the essence of table is that it is a table. Wow.

Not quite. We might choose to use "table" only for things that have four legs at right angles to a flat top. Then the things I pictured do not count a...

Go on. (Added: It's pretty much Kripke's point, rather than mine. But if you think he is mistaken, go ahead and explain why. )

It's pretty unclear why you think it dumb to claim time exists. Not at all sure what your point is.

You're living in the past. Fine. You can tell me why, later. :razz: You don't see anything incompatible between your comments here and time not existi...

I quite like this one. https://assets.wfcdn.com/im/30141395/resize-h800-w800%5Ecompr-r85/2115/211588546/Braydon+Solid+Wood+Coffee+Table.jpg And I own ...

Only on Sunday. This follows on from my first post, in which I pointed out that the OP was then 19 hrs old. The line of thought is that there is somet...

Wittgenstein didn't care. :smile:

Then it seems to me you did not follow the discussion above. That pile of chip is the table. It is not a table. Here the logic used is Kripke's, seen ...

I can't see how to make sense of that. https://www.markalexanderdesign.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/4162_01.jpg Not a table, then?

That's verging on word salad. When the table is chipped into sawdust and scattered, the functional structure is gone. So, in one sense, it’s no longer...

Cool. The "form" seems to be a misunderstanding of what happens when we decide to count the newly bonded timber as a table - an hypostatisation of a b...

Yep. Again, there is a difference between the type, "table" and the individual, "This table". So you would include some sort of form - we don't only t...

There remains a difference between this table, which is a rigid designated individual, and a table, which is one of a type. What is it that is ground ...

I don't agree that it is counter-intuitive. If the owner came along and asked where their table is, we might well point to the wood chips. Well, obvio...

The obvious reply is, that pile of wood chips is the table.

Nice. Yep. Different properties may be attributed to the same individual under different descriptions. Leibniz's Law says that two things that have th...

The table is the exact same object as the atoms that compose it.

Can you turn this into an argument? What is it that you want to conclude here?

The table here is made up of molecules of cellulose with a few impurities. Some folk conclude that what is real is the atoms and molecules of the cell...

This:

Sure. You can't say of something that does not exist, that it breaths fire. Just showing you one way to make sense of that.

And yet it is true that dragons breath fire. Ergo, fictional creatures can breath. Take a closer look at what is going on. We can set "exists' as a qu...

Why would you think fictional creatures do not breath? Or are you now saying that there are two levels of ontology, stuff that exists and stuff that i...

, ok, so going back to the OP, lived time exists?

At best you might say that some dragons breath fire. Then dragons exist and are fictional creatures. ?(x)(x is a dragon and x is fictional) or ?(x)(x ...

Well, use "Hesperus" and "Phosphorus" instead.

While I'm here, the equation of independent existence and necessity is also fraught. These are two quite independent ideas, conflated. That something ...