Janus

Who voted him to be leader? I haven't seen much evidence of his competence. I don't have time to read N&N again, so all I've been doing is questioning...

Then you should be able to give a concise summary of my position and why it is wrong. If all you are saying is that I don't strictly adhere to Kripke'...

It's not trivial because it shows that the rigidly designative capacity of names is dependent on description (or ostention) in ways that I have repeat...

There is a lot here to reply to, so due to limited time I will respond bit by bit, as time allows. I would say these states are correlated with awaren...

All the referents there: you, Asda, Aldi are established by reference to this world, so I am not clear what point you are trying to make here un.

I haven't said the name is not a rigid designator and the fact might or might be be "trivial", but that is irrelevant since I was merely correcting yo...

That is not a counterargument I didn't say it was; I said it was contingent upon the man named Donald Trump being so named in this world. All referenc...

OK, I can see that is true from a purely abstract terminological point of view. But all modal logic depends on what is the case in this world, and sin...

Those are some very interesting quotes; thanks.

So you want to claim that "A country called Albania which borders Greece" is not a definite description? Your reasoning? Why should I "accept it and m...

Perhaps, but all ideas have a cultural origin. To have ideas you need languages and languages are culturally evolved. For sure what I call an internal...

No, I have been saying they are correlated; which obviously means they are not unrelated. What I am saying is that the relationship is not causal. Urg...

I haven't said there are "more than two of me", though. When I pit ideas against each other in my own thoughts that takes the form of a conversation b...

'A country called Albania which borders Greece' is a definite description because there is only one of them; the logic is obvious. I don't see why the...

Directly and relevantly address what I have written if you want a response.

It's a pedantic point you're both making. 'A country bordering Greece' does single out all individuals that belong to the class of countries that bord...

Actually, it does, it singles out ONE class.

As an example, your reasons for doing something or thinking something is not intelligible in terms of neural processes. You think what you do for reas...

I would put it in terms of 'which voice is listened to?', and I'd say that it would hopefully be the most rational one.

I haven't said that the two processes, the intentional and the physical, are identical. I have said they are correlated, and that each has its own res...

"A country bordering Greece" is a definite description that distinguishes all countries bordering Greece from those which do not. "A country called Al...

"That country over there" if "there" is implicitly referring to a continent is a definite description that distinguishes countries over here or any wh...

This is a very nice and clear statement and completely in accordance with my view.

Can someone "successfully refer" to some entity if they have absolutely no idea at all what that entity is? You might say, in a case where someone hea...

It depends on context. 'Some country over there' is a definite general description of European countries (in the context of this discussion 'Europe' i...

You're misunderstanding me. Imagine you're looking at a tree and thinking about the tree. the phenomenological description is that this is a perceptua...

Why not a conversation with oneself; an "internal dialogue"?

Not equivocation, rather allowing for the obvious fact that descriptions can be more or less definite. It's not black and white and there may even be ...

No I acknowledged that DDs are more or less definite. Read again and discover the facts about what I wrote. (Of course it is taken as read that "over ...

My definition of a definite desciption would be something like: " Infallibly picks out a particular entity". As I explained already the DD " the man w...

I think they can. 'Thales', if it is being used to refer to the famous Greek philosopher and not some other Thales, seems to me to be equivalent at mi...

Perhaps, but as I've said, I'm not definitely asserting that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with Kripke. I've mainly been responding directly to the disc...

I don't have a problem, it would seems the problem is yours. I might come to have a problem if you can explain convincingly why I should. SO, why woul...

Of course, you're right, and it just goes to show how impoverished is my mental map of Europe or how careless I can be in assuming that I know somethi...

Coming to think philosophically at all can be understood to be a dialectical process. Hegel's notion of dialectic is roughly that every idea presuppos...

As I interpret it 'subjecthood' implicates the attributes of awareness, knowledge, intelligence, intention, purposeful motivation, concern and action,...

If for every intentional state, there is a corresponding physical state and vice versa, then it could be said, as Spinoza does, that they are the same...

I'd say that your knowing that Albania is " a country over there", is entertaining a definite description. Not as definite as it might be, but all des...

I pretty much agree with @"andrewk" that the notion of "successful reference" is moot or irrelevant. Say in our hypothetical conversation the novice h...

I don't see it that way. As I said, in asking "who is Thales?" the questioner is assuming that there is a definite description of just who he is, and ...

You need to ask yourself a very simple question: how many numbers are there? Is there a limit?

Oh, OK, I see what you mean now. :smile:

Well, if a conversation is about Thales,the famous Presocratic philosopher, then right there is a definite description of who the conversation is abou...

Yes, likewise.creativesoul, as they say "it takes two to tango", and I admit that I can jump to conclusions, be impatient and rude sometimes.

The answer that Thales is a Disney character would do if Thales was a Disney character. I don't know where you are going with this. I agree that 'Thal...

Well, I don't interpret it that way: I say the question "Who is Thales" is equivalent to the question "Which individual does the name Thales (in this ...

But again the obvious question to "There is no definite description that singles out Thales" is (unless you know by description who Thales is) 'Who is...

Actually my example was 'What if Donald Trump had not been born a women" , and the point was to show that there is an implicit description, something ...

But they are definite descriptions if they determine which Thales we are referring to, which you seemed to be claiming that they do, when you used the...

I think we are talking about two different things. I have said that a definite description does not need to be wholly true to refer uniquely to someon...