Janus

Actually I have no ide3a what it means beyond the mere assertion that it is so. If I did get it it would be a logical intuition, not a mathematical on...

Well, I am trying to understand whether you think there is a difference between names "having rigid designators" (your phrase) and being rigid designa...

I'm not sure what distinction you are referring to.

So, the alternative to names being rigid designators is that they have rigid designators? Since what is designated by a name cannot itself be the desi...

Do names "have" rigid designators or are they not themselves thought to be rigid designators? As I understand it ( which is not much!) the alternative...

Why should a name have to refer to a concrete entity in order not to be considered "empty"? I mean what possible effective difference could the concre...

I am all for "meaning(s) which cannot be made sufficiently explicit"; poetry, music, visual arts, the arts generally. I'm not sure there are such mean...

It's very much like the mark of a great, as distinct from a mediocre 'sexual': fruitful intercourse as opposed to masturbation, either mutual or solit...

I'm not clear what you are suggesting here. could you elaborate? I think the notion of 'absolute' meaning is incoherent; but I also think that meaning...

So perpetuate rather than perpetrate?

Since this reads like the worst kind of PoMo gibberish, I take it you are attempting to perpetrate a "Sokal".

It has been fun! These kinds of subjects always offer a good bit of a mind workout. They can be somewhat frustrating though, due to the "ordinary lang...

What point exactly are you wanting to make when you say "of course all of this is fine'? Given that the question cannot by definition be answered the ...

By meaning I presume you are referring to indemnification and reference. If we can identify and agree about the features of public entities (which we ...

I think it is acknowledged by science that any entity that cannot be directly observed is a mathematical model. Of course it is assumed that there is ...

Not publicly, as I've already said. I can't see anything puzzling about the distinction between private and public actuality.

Who said that philosophy should not investigate supposed "subjective meaning"? It's trivially obvious that science cannot investigate that! But what d...

What exactly is "absoluteness"? can you spell it out for me? And how exactly can philosophy be critical of " the whole effort to {... } concentrate wh...

Do you deny that the kind of observation, employing unbiased analysis and synthesis, that is characteristic of natural science reveals what is really ...

I don't see any reason to believe this scenario is actually (as opposed to merely logically) possible. There does not seem to be any other method that...

I'd say that on the individual level there is no "walk matching the talk" without settled opinion. On an individual level settled opinion may be a mat...

Surely "the walk matches the talk" (on a societal scale at least) only when there is settled opinion?

Understanding what it is to repeat an experiment, to measure and to predict just are instances of understanding science I would say. So it is really n...

Philosophical systems are generally systems of opinion which purport to plug as many holes as possible; and I don't think it is arguable that philosop...

Sure, but the difference is that science is not about anyone's opinion; whereas literature and philosophy most certainly are predominately about peopl...

I don't think a conception of literature as a kind of overarching science is really supportable, because literature, unlike science, is a phenomenolog...

So it would seem; without it the situation would appear to be utterly hopeless.

The continuing existence and/ or proliferation of nuclear weapons is not the result of a lack of ability of scientists to figure out alternative techn...

Of course it is an assumption, and of course it would entail the brute fact, (if it were true) that objects are not anything over and above their rela...

Trust in the other's sincerity, you mean? If so, yes, that is a matter of trust.

You could say that doubt may also be inconceivable to the external world realist, but I doubt that: I would say she just hasn't acquired the intellect...

OK, that sound fine. I don't think the debate around solipsism vs external world is interesting, or even really coherent, anyway. Also, I assume you m...

Even if I have no doubt about your sincerity that will still not enable me to agree with what you have said, if I don't know what it means.

Well, the recipe for that is simple: education, the accepatnce of what science tells us about the natural world and the elimination of dogma and ideol...

I can't see how it is question-begging. Perhaps you could explain how it is that you see it as such.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you are talking about; so we'd best leave it then if you unwilling to explain yourself.

This is not helpful because I still don't know what your "propositional attitudes" to what I had said are. It's obvious that as a definition your "oth...

I'm not sure which religions you are referring to as the "two main", but in any case I would say that intelligent adherents of all the major religions...

What is the 'otherwise" that you are asserting? I would need to know that as well as what a 'Rogerian agreement" is before I could sincerely assent.

I'm not sure what you mean by "got it wrong"? It could be said that both Marxists and logical positivists have tried to nail it down once and for all,...

Philosophy can consist in a desire to nail it down once and for all; but that is not good philosophy; it is a manifestation of neurosis. Good philosop...

As I see it, faith proper is almost entirely a matter of affect. It consists in feelings: of reverence, of awe, of love, of aspiration, of a sense of ...

Who is "clinging" to a "more is better relationship with knowledge"? It's not a matter of "clinging"; when it comes to managing the environment, the e...

Idealists would say they are not, but it's just an unsupported assumption of a brute-fact.

One person's faith is another person 'wishful thinking". The purported truth, in any propositional sense, of what one has faith in is irrelevant, not ...

Faith, as distinct from merely arbitrary belief, or idle entertainment of ideas, has affective power. No one will feel devotion or love for, or be pro...

Reading through this thread it is clear that what you utterly fail to see is that "the global technological machine" cannot be slowed (except by dire ...

True that!

Yes, the things in themselves do seem to have a strange, shadowy existence; and yet we seem not to be able to do without them.

No need to apologize, Posty, you must have had something in mind. Even if it were nonsense it's good to get it out there for examination. Remember Wit...