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Single Idea 13717

[filed under theme 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity ]

Full Idea

There is no problem of transworld identification with de dicto modal sentence, for their evaluation does not require taking an individual from one possible world and reidentifying it in another.

Gist of Idea

Transworld identity is not a problem in de dicto sentences, which needn't identify an individual

Source

Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.2)

Book Ref

Sider,Theodore: 'Logic for Philosophy' [OUP 2010], p.229

A Reaction

If 'de dicto' is about the sentence and 'de re' is about the object (Idea 5732), how do you evaluate the sentence without at least some notion of the object to which it refers. Nec the Prime Minister chairs the cabinet. Could a poached egg do the job?

Related Ideas

Idea 5732 'De re' modality is about things themselves, 'de dicto' modality is about propositions [Melia]

Idea 12003 De re modal formulae, unlike de dicto, are sensitive to transworld identities [Forbes,G]

The 31 ideas with the same theme [can possible things be the same as actual things?]:

17208 A horse would be destroyed if it were changed into a man or an insect [Spinoza]
12904 If varieties of myself can be conceived of as distinct from me, then they are not me [Leibniz]
11981 If someone's life went differently, then that would be another individual [Leibniz]
11027 To know an object you must know all its possible occurrences [Wittgenstein]
23465 The 'form' of an object is its possible roles in facts [Wittgenstein]
12443 Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine]
9203 We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K]
11965 Could possible Adam gradually transform into Noah, and vice versa? [Chisholm]
14651 What Socrates could have been, and could have become, are different? [Plantinga]
16993 If we discuss what might have happened to Nixon, we stipulate that it is about Nixon [Kripke]
16998 Transworld identification is unproblematic, because we stipulate that we rigidly refer to something [Kripke]
17001 A table in some possible world should not even be identified by its essential properties [Kripke]
4952 Identification across possible worlds does not need properties, even essential ones [Kripke]
11982 If possible Socrates differs from actual Socrates, the Indiscernibility of Identicals says they are different [Plantinga]
11983 It doesn't matter that we can't identify the possible Socrates; we can't identify adults from baby photos [Plantinga]
11985 If individuals can only exist in one world, then they can never lack any of their properties [Plantinga]
11971 The simplest solution to transworld identification is to adopt bare particulars [Kaplan]
12765 Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker]
14072 Possible worlds identity needs a sortal [Gibbard]
14078 Only concepts, not individuals, can be the same across possible worlds [Gibbard]
12011 Transworld identity concerns the limits of possibility for ordinary things [Forbes,G]
12016 The problem of transworld identity can be solved by individual essences [Forbes,G]
13725 □ must be sensitive as to whether it picks out an object by essential or by contingent properties [Fitting/Mendelsohn]
13731 Objects retain their possible properties across worlds, so a bundle theory of them seems best [Fitting/Mendelsohn]
15377 Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds [Fitting]
13081 Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
12235 Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg]
13717 Transworld identity is not a problem in de dicto sentences, which needn't identify an individual [Sider]
15176 The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention [Sidelle]
12889 The limits of change for an individual depend on the kind of individual [Simons]
11887 Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P]