Janus

No, all words are spoken within the actual world. Other words could have been spoken in possible worlds. There is a difference between actuality and p...

The relevant part is that it designates the man who was president, if indeed there was such a man.

Would Trump be Trump if he didn't exist? As I pointed out there could be a conspiracy such that Trump is a CGI. He is then no more Trump than he is pr...

Thanks for you response, but I disagree on two counts. First, I am not saying that 'the man who was president of the US at such and such a time and da...

I don't think my objection being "spread over a dozen or more pages" is really the issue. I haven't even made direct reference to Kripke's text; or ev...

I haven't said, or even implied, that you are "under some obligation" to me. This is a discussion forum that should proceed on the basis of good faith...

You haven't even tried, Banno. I suspect it is because you don't actually have the goods; you just want to make it appear as if you do.

Right, so if you can't adequately deal with the problems of the first, why have you moved on to the third? If you think what I have been saying is a m...

No point moving to the third lecture if the problems in the first have not been adequately dealt with.

Why would you say that? If you think you found something mistaken in what I had written, that you are responding to with this unhelpful comment, why n...

Of course common naming of kinds and attributes is necessary for description, but proper naming is not. And as for proper names being rigid designator...

Descriptions consist in describing and categorizing the entity being referred to. Ostention consists in pointing to or at the entity being referred to...

Can you tell me what question it did not answer, and why you don't think it answered it? Then I would be happy to elaborate on what I said, and consid...

I already gave the short answer. If you respond to that first then the discussion may continue.

No it was the president of the united states as of now. Of course 'now' always refers to the present, and the present, obviously, does not stand still...

What are you talking about?

You're missing the point. Of course counter-factually Trump in other possible worlds may not be president (either now or ever) but that definite descr...

I read p127 and I am still no clearer on its relevance to my comments or your responses to them. What do you think the problem I postulated was? How d...

No, because that can be used to pick out Trump in all possible worlds. We are always necessarily speaking in "this world, at this time" just as texts ...

Does not "the present president of the US' now unfailingly pick out Trump provided he is still president?

I read Searle as suggesting that we know that 'the inventor of bifocals' is a rigid designator, We know this is true, even if we don't specify who it ...

What seems to work?

Can you explain why you don't think it is a problem?

How much does "much the same way" have to be before it becomes the same way, and hence and example of conflation, or subsumption?

Yes, but we can only imagine possible or counterfactual states of affairs as involving actual particulars and individuals. 'What if that house had bur...

As Banno pointed out, a different person might have won the election. So the man who won the election is a rigid designator only in the actual world.....

This conflates proper names for particular entities with names for general types of things. We would only be wrong to think that he was Nixon, if we s...

I don't have much time, so I'll keep it short. I haven't thought this through extensively; but it occurred to me that there are three ways in which we...

Yes, that is precisely what I have been arguing. But, we also refer by designation and the fixing of designation is dependent upon ostention and/ or d...

I'm not convinced. Being convinced does not mean you think there could not possibly be any reason to doubt. Convictions, unless they are untestable fa...

"Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous...

Both are expressions of belief, aren't they? I am convinced that p is the case if I can find no good reason to believe that it is not the case. 'I am ...

Infinite means in-finite, not finite or not discrete. It is only finite things which have a size. If God is infinite that does not mean God is infinit...

Yes, I would agree that it doesn't need to be true that she was almost hit by a car. The description would have more accurately been 'the women who ap...

I would say she must at least remember having seen him, even if not what he looks like, in order to refer to him. This memory must be under some form ...

To say that she is referring to a man she saw yesterday, even allowing that she totally mis-remembers his appearance (which is itself highly implausib...

You're contradicting yourself: if she knows what Joe looks like then she would not be "picking out Joe by virtue of a false description alone", but by...

I'm not sure I have ever dreamed lucidly. I may have realized I was dreaming some time(s) but I can't remember for sure. I cannot deliberately initiat...

So, now you claim that Jane doesn't know what he looks like after all? The point is that Jane doesn't "successfully refer to Joe by virtue of false de...

What's the point of discussion in a context of differing usages unless you were to discuss the virtues of the one usage over the other?

It shows that Jane cannot refer to Joe on the basis of a false description alone; she needs to know something true about him; at the very least what h...

I already have.

How could she know that he "looks like the person she believes killed Bob" if she didn't know what he looks like? To know what he looks like just is t...

Right, so she knows what he looks like, and she refers to him as Joe. So she can successfully refer to that particular man, because she know what he l...

She must at least know what he looks like as I said. In order to identify a particular person you must know something about them.

If all she is saying about Joe is that he killed Bob, then she is saying something false about Joe. But this reference depends on her knowing who Joe ...

I don't think that "attachment and ownership" are what real love consists in at all. Feeling love is not a "symbol" of anything, it is simply a feelin...

It seems obvious that there could never be any empirical evidence "one way or the other", since the empirical is what it is regardless of what we migh...

Sure, although I wasn't responding to that issue anyway, but to your fallacious argument in the paragraph I responded to.

Of course neural processes (as well as hormonal and other somatic processes) are also chemical! What led you to think I am denying that? Emotions are ...