Combining Philosophers

Ideas for B Hale / C Wright, Allan Gibbard and Jason Crease

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3 ideas

19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
Naming a thing in the actual world also invokes some persistence criteria [Gibbard]
     Full Idea: The reference of a name in the actual world is fixed partly by invoking a set of persistence criteria which determine what thing it names.
     From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], III)
     A reaction: This is offered as a modification to Kripke, to deal with the statue and clay. I fear that the 'persistence criteria' may be too vague, and too subject to possible change after the origin, to do the job required.
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference
Reference needs truth as well as sense [Hale/Wright]
     Full Idea: It takes, over and above the possession of sense, the truth of relevant contexts to ensure reference.
     From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9)
     A reaction: Reference purely through sense was discredited by Kripke. The present idea challenges Kripke's baptismal realist approach. How do you 'baptise' an abstract object? But isn't reference needed prior to the establishment of truth?
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths
Many conceptual truths ('yellow is extended') are not analytic, as derived from logic and definitions [Hale/Wright]
     Full Idea: There are many statements which are plausibly viewed as conceptual truths (such as 'what is yellow is extended') which do not qualify as analytic under Frege's definition (as provable using only logical laws and definitions).
     From: B Hale / C Wright (Intro to 'The Reason's Proper Study' [2001], 3.2)
     A reaction: Presumably this is because the early assumptions of Frege were mathematical and logical, and he was trying to get away from Kant. That yellow is extended is a truth for non-linguistic beings.