Naming Necessity Classical Descriptivism Representation Words thoughts have
- Slides: 52
Naming & Necessity
Classical Descriptivism
Representation Words/ thoughts have meanings. They are about things. Why do words, for example, represent the things that they do, instead of other things or nothing at all?
Classical Descriptivism For every name N, there is a description D that we associate with N such that: 1. If x satisfies D, then N refers to x. 2. If N refers to x, then x satisfies the description.
Classical Descriptivism We may say, following Russell: the name “Moses” can be defined by means of various descriptions. For example, as “the man who led the Israelites through the wilderness”, “the man who lived at that time and place and was then called ‘Moses’”, “the man who as a child was taken out of the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter” and so on.
Classical Descriptivism Moses: • Lead the Israelites out of Egypt • Parted Red Sea • Given 10 commandments by God
Classical Descriptivism This guy ü Lead the Israelites out of Egypt ü Parted Red Sea ü Given 10 commandments by God
Classical Descriptivism Moses refers
Classical Descriptivism This guy • Lead the Israelites out of Egypt • Parted Red Sea • Given 10 commandments by God
Classical Descriptivism Moses refers
Kripke against Descriptivism
Saul Kripke, 1940 • Published first completeness proof for modal logic at 18. • Highly influential in philosophy of language and mind. • Developed the causal-historical theory of meaning
Saul Kripke, 1940 Kripke’s account is developed in his Naming and Necessity. The background is that he’s arguing against views on which the meanings of names are descriptions or definitions.
Against Descriptivism Kripke argues that for any name N, there is no description D that we associate with N such that: 1. If x satisfies the description, N refers to x. 2. If N refers to x, then x must satisfy the description.
Ignorance & Error He argues against each claim as follows: Against #1: Arguments from ignorance. Sometimes lots of things satisfy the descriptions we associate with N, but only one is N. Against #2: Arguments from Error. Sometimes nothing satisfies the descriptions we associate with N (or some non-x does), but N still = x.
Ignorance: Feynman What people know: • He’s a physicist • He’s famous • He’s dead • He worked on quantum mechanics
Ignorance: Feynman But Bohr: üHe’s a physicist üHe’s famous üHe’s dead üHe worked on quantum mechanics
Ignorance: Feynman it’s not true that ‘Feynman’ means Bohr and it’s not true that it means nothing. How is that possible for the descriptivist?
Error: Einstein Who is Albert Einstein? What people believe: • Einstein is the inventor of the atomic bomb.
Error: Einstein But “the inventor of the nuclear bomb” can’t be the meaning of ‘Einstein’ because then ‘Einstein’ would refer to Leo Szilard (or whoever).
Causation & Representation
The Mirror Universe
Secondary Qualities
Possibility of Massive Error
Coordination across Theories A related upshot is that two people with radically different theories can nevertheless be talking about the same thing, and hence be meaningfully disagreeing with one another.
The Causal-Historical Account
Kripke’s Picture “Someone, let’s say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends, other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain…”
Kripke’s Picture “A speaker who is on the far end of this chain, who has heard about, say Richard Feynman, in the market place or elsewhere, may be referring to Richard Feynman even though he can’t remember from whom he first heard of Feynman or from whom he ever heard of Feynman. ”
Kripke’s Picture “A rough statement of a theory might be the following: An initial ‘baptism’ takes place. Here the object may be named by ostension, or the reference of the name may be fixed by a description…”
Kripke’s Picture “When the name is ‘passed from link to link’, the receiver of the name must, I think, intend when he learns it to use it with the same reference as the man from whom he heard it. ”
The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that baby ‘Feynman’ Feynman
The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that baby ‘Feynman’ Feynman Historical Chain of Transmission Feynman
The Causal-Historical Theory Feynman Denotation
No Connotations The causal-historical theory, unlike the other theories, does not use mental facts (idea, experience, definition) to determine a referent. Denotations are determined by non-mental facts. * *Plus one intention for each link in the chain.
Natural Kinds Kripke and another philosopher Hilary Putnam wanted to generalize what was true of names to “natural kind terms” (a phrase introduced by Quine).
The Causal-Historical Theory Let’s call that thing a “tiger. ” TIGER
Ignorance: Water In Hilary Putnam’s classic “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” he argues that “meaning just ain’t in the head. ” In particular, he presents his famous Twin Earth thought experiment, which is intended to show that what the word ‘water’ is true of is not determined by what we know or believe about water.
Twin Earth is a planet on the other side of the galaxy. In most ways, it is just like Earth, down to the smallest detail. You have a twin on Twin Earth who’s just like you, I have a twin who’s just like me, they’re sitting in a twin classroom, and my twin is giving a lecture just like this one to your twin. And so on and so forth.
Earth Twin Earth
Twin Earth There is however one difference between Earth and Twin Earth. On Earth, all the watery stuff is H 2 O. On Twin Earth, the watery stuff is composed of a complicated chemical compound we can abbreviate XYZ. H 2 O and XYZ look and behave exactly the same. They taste the same, they boil at the same temperatures at the same distance above sea level, their conductance is the same, etc.
Twin Earth Consider two twins, Arnold on Earth and Twin Arnold on Twin Earth. Neither knows any chemistry. What they know/ believe about the stuff they call ‘water’ is the same. Q: Would it be true for Arnold to call the stuff on Twin Earth ‘water’?
Twin Earth The intuition is supposed to be that, no, Arnold’s word ‘water’ is true of all an only H 2 O, whereas Twin Arnold’s word ‘water’ is true of all and only XYZ
The Moral The conclusion Kripke and Putnam draw from such cases is that we fix the referent of ‘water’ by a description like “the stuff around here in lakes and rivers and streams that falls from the sky and quenches thirst. ” But this description only fixes the referent. If you replaced all the H 2 O on Earth with XYZ, there wouldn’t be any more water here.
Epistemic & Modal Arguments
The Epistemic Argument Kripke had two other arguments against description theories (which he took to support his own account). First, suppose someone says “Aristotle means the last great philosopher of antiquity. ” It is true that if x is named ‘Aristotle’ then x was the last great philosopher of antiquity and vice versa. So this is not a Feynman or an Einstein case.
The Epistemic Argument However, it still seems as though you don’t have the same sort of epistemic access to this fact as to other clearer cases of definition like ‘bachelors are unmarried men. ’ You don’t know for sure that Aristotle was the last great philosopher of antiquity. It could turn out false. It could turn out that Aristotle was just a medieval forgery. If it were a definition, you should know for sure. But you don’t.
The Modal Argument Finally, Kripke argues that the modal properties of names are different from those of definitions: FALSE: If things had gone differently, Aristotle might not have been Aristotle. TRUE: If things had gone differently, Aristotle might not have been the last great philosopher of antiquity.
- My thoughts are not your thoughts
- Naming words and describing words
- 6 faces, 8 vertices and 12 edges
- My former speeches have but hit your thoughts
- Words have meaning and names have power
- Good thoughts good deeds
- Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn meaning
- Alphabet nouns
- Noun naming words
- Non count naming words
- Naming words worksheet for class 2
- What did the big black crow say
- What are naming words
- Advokate police
- Modal verbs for obligation and permission
- Explain the necessity of irrigation
- Necessity advisability and expectations
- Necessity of fuse
- Menurut ir ciputra ada 3 tipe wirausaha
- Ability modal
- French and indian war
- Business necessity definition
- False necessity trap
- Netiquette
- What is the necessity of starter in 3 phase induction motor
- May can
- Does congress have the power to say no mail on saturdays
- Making suggestions with modals + verbs
- You are not rejected
- I have resolved
- Ideas have consequences bad ideas have victims
- Presente simple en ingles
- The zoo dangerous curves
- Modals past tense
- Endoskeleton and usually a spiny skin
- Writing internal dialogue
- What is personality
- Indirect characterization definition
- Cherry valance description
- 3 schools of thought
- Indirect and direct characterization
- Drugs that alter moods, thoughts, and sense perceptions
- Grandiose thinking
- A penny for your thoughts if it's a 1943
- Macbeth fears
- The art of expressing one's thoughts in verse
- Communication exchange of information
- Communication exchange of information
- A sequence of images emotions and thoughts
- Direct characterizations
- Incomplete thoughts
- It is the exchange of thoughts
- Automatic thoughts examples