Janus

You missed the part where I said that here must be something true in the description.

I don't see any real distinction. I don't think Banno admits that we refer to Thales by description, whether true or false, definite or indefinite, bu...

I can't see why. I can say something false about someone that could not apply to anyone else. Of course there must be something true in the descriptio...

I see no reason why any description, whether definite or not, could not be true or false.

Well, even those are descriptions. And of course we are talking about a man called Thales, who is reputed to have lived in Miletus around 600 BC, and ...

There were some typos and infelicities of expression. I've tidied it up. Here it is again: No, I don't believe that a description that determines the ...

Which Thales are we referring to then, if nothing we think we know about him is true? Or if there were a hundred Thales living in Greece at the time; ...

What replies are you referring to? All the replies I have made are dealing with the same basic issue; if I have repeated myself it is only for emphasi...

No, I don't believe that a description that determines the referent of a name "gives the meaning of the name" because there could be countless other d...

As I've said from the start I don't think that an infallible distinction can be made between indefinite descriptions and definite descriptions, and my...

He may not have existed. In any case, if he did exist, and if everything else we know about him is false, then we have no idea who we are referring to...

Well of course that is trivially true just as what we say about fictional characters is about them. But what you say about Thales does not refer to an...

I don't see that a proper name, by itself, "fixes one individual....". If I set up a counterfactual scenario involving a man named 'Donald Trump' how ...

If you can refer to someone with a false description, then you must know something true about them. Remember that for you to "refer successfully" is f...

You mean idealism is not necessarily at odds with indirect realism? Maybe Kant's Transcendental idealism could be reconciled with IR, I suppose. There...

Yes.

Talk is cheap even, or especially, when it is bullshit... I've been asking the same questions from the start, have received no cogent or relevant answ...

Then it should take far less effort to produce such an outline than it does to keep giving excuses for why you won't.

You write so much to say so little!

Point to one of those, then...or I will assume that you cannot back up what you have been claiming.

Yes, if what you say is true, you should; so....in order to substantiate the truth of what you are saying...start outlining... That's right "nothing a...

If that were true, then you should be able to outline a simple scenario without resorting to any definite description that is in need of no further el...

I don't think indirect realism is equivalent to idealism, because idealism, in one way or another, claims that everything is fundamentally mind, where...

OK, so do you think definite descriptions are not necessary to "successful reference" in possible world discourse, even though necessary to the discou...

So , according to you, what's the difference between something being "not necessary" for something else, and that something else being able to 'do wit...

OK, so do you think "successful reference" in possible world discourse can do without definite descriptions, even though the discourse itself cannot? ...

As far as I can tell, all this says is that ice and wood have different attributes. The different attributes are known a posteriori. And if ice and wo...

I gave you an account of what I thought you were saying. I also told you I disagreed with what I thought you were claiming and why I disagreed with it...

Why must it be so difficult? All I said was that what you wrote, as far as I can tell, offers no reason to believe that possible world discourse can d...

So, this would apply to everything, then. You seem to be saying that the existence of anything and everything depends upon our experience of it. Is th...

So, if you start describing a possible world scenario involving someone called 'Donald Trump', how do I know which Donald Trump (assuming there are mo...

Typically when you can't offer any cogent response you resort to insult. So, I've lost all interest in this exchange.

Another irrelevant comment. I've told you I don't agree with what you wrote, and why. If you disagree with my reasons for disagreement then explain wh...

I think it depends on what you mean by "mind". Clearly we can say that your brain is in your head, but not that your head is in your brain.Via your se...

I don't agree with this because Nixon (any Nixon) is 'a man called Nixon in this world'. What enables us to pick a particular Nixon out from all the o...

Well, if this is true then as @"Pierre-Normand" said earlier, I am not disagreeing with Kripke at all. If this is so it makes my exchanges with @"Bann...

And you haven't explained what you think the distinction is. The rest of what you say does nothing to explain why definite descriptions cannot designa...

How can I answer it myself when I don't know what you mean by 'cats' in you imaginary scenario. Were they just ordinary domestic cats being cut up? Ar...

You say that they were, in this possible world, cutting up cats. On what basis are you able to say that it was cats that they were cutting up? Is it b...

I know this was not for me, but I can't resist asking a question about it. What would it be that determines that what they cut up was a cat?

I'm not attacking you, Banno. I am simply asking for you to respond to argument with relevant counter-argument; then we might get somewhere.

Are you saying that world actually exists? You agree with David Lewis, then?

I'm not assuming bad faith, perhaps you simply can't say anything cogent on this issue; your not saying anything would then not necessarily be a case ...

This is laughable; I have acknowledged that I am not saying Kripke is definitely wrong. I am saying that I, in reading him, have not found satisfactor...

You're reverting back to not saying anything.

So, you beleive that what we experience in the actual world is a result of what people in some possible world have stipulated? And following on from t...

You're picking me up on a mere technicality, an infelicitously expressed thought. I think it is obvious that what I meant is that the CGI is no more T...

Of course it does; it is the world in which all talk of possible worlds is carried out, the world in which possible worlds are stipulated to be as the...

Of course: Trump not being Trump is a contradiction. It is not a case where "some other individual has taken on the name 'Trump'", but a case where an...

Yes, whatever is true of the actual world is true of the actual world in all possible worlds. Conversely whatever is stipulated to be true of some pos...