Timeline for A clarification related to Saul Kripke's argument for posteriori necessity
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 31, 2018 at 9:26 | history | edited | Schiphol | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
and more clarification
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| May 31, 2018 at 9:18 | history | edited | Schiphol | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
More clarification
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| May 31, 2018 at 9:10 | history | edited | Schiphol | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Format and a typo
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| May 31, 2018 at 8:39 | comment | added | Curious | I am using names as you suggested. I don't think the problem lies there. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:33 | comment | added | Schiphol | This might help: you should not think of names as mere strings of characters or sounds. In the tradition you are engaging with now they are more like institutions, individuated by name-using practices. That's why, I was saying, our 'Phosphorus' and the homophone in Twin-English might be different names after all. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:26 | comment | added | Curious | I am using names that we use to describe the object in possible worlds. People in that possible world may assign a different name. I am saying we change the meaning of morning star after observing some evidence. Before observing evidence, by morning star we meant an object which could be an evening star as well. After observing the evidence, we use the name to refer to only those morning stars which are evening stars as well. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:23 | comment | added | Schiphol | I think you are perhaps confusing names as used in that possible world with the names we use to describe that possible world. They may well say correctly "Hesperus is not Phosphorus'" but that's because their idiolect (call it 'twin-English') lacks our names 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' and has two homophones instead. We, on the other hand, cannot say with truth 'in that world Hesperus is not Phosphorus'. That would be tantamount to saying" Venus is not Venus". | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:18 | comment | added | Curious | But we will be referring to distinct objects properties with the same name. In some possible world, morning star is evening star as well while in another world this is false. On this view, we will be referring to distinct objects with the same name. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:13 | comment | added | Schiphol | You can understand "the morning star" as a bona fide description that will pock out whatever morning star there is in the situation at hand. But 'Phosphorus' is not (no longer, perhaps) such a definition. It's a proper name, and the semantics of proper names in not that of description, or so would Kripke (and the orthodoxy in contemporary philosophy of language) have it. | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:09 | comment | added | Curious | It seems to me that on this account, the definition of proper names change after observing some fact. For example, before observing Venus, by morning star we meant an object seen first in morning which could or could not be evening star. After observing Venus, we define morning star as an object which is necessarily evening star as well | |
| May 31, 2018 at 8:06 | history | answered | Schiphol | CC BY-SA 4.0 |