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Single Idea 15166
[filed under theme 19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
]
Full Idea
The causal theory of reference appears to give us a way to get at an object while leaving it undetermined what its essence or necessary features might be.
Gist of Idea
Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open
Source
Alan Sidelle (Necessity, Essence and Individuation [1989], Ch.1)
Book Ref
Sidelle,Alan: 'Necessity, Essence and Individuation' [Cornell 1989], p.11
A Reaction
This pinpoints why the direct/causal theory of reference seems to open the doors to scientific essentialism. Sidelle, of course, opposes the whole programme.
The
22 ideas
from Alan Sidelle
15032
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Necessary a posteriori is conventional for necessity and nonmodal for a posteriority
[Sidelle, by Sider]
|
15167
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Empiricism explores necessities and concept-limits by imagining negations of truths
[Sidelle]
|
15165
|
A priori knowledge is entirely of analytic truths
[Sidelle]
|
15168
|
That water is essentially H2O in some way concerns how we use 'water'
[Sidelle]
|
15166
|
Causal reference seems to get directly at the object, thus leaving its nature open
[Sidelle]
|
15169
|
Metaphysics is clarifying how we speak and think (and possibly improving it)
[Sidelle]
|
15164
|
We seem to base necessities on thought experiments and imagination
[Sidelle]
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15172
|
Clearly, essential predications express necessary properties
[Sidelle]
|
15173
|
That the essence of water is its microstructure is a convention, not a discovery
[Sidelle]
|
15171
|
The necessary a posteriori is statements either of identity or of essence
[Sidelle]
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15176
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The individuals and kinds involved in modality are also a matter of convention
[Sidelle]
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15174
|
A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference
[Sidelle]
|
15175
|
Evaluation of de dicto modalities does not depend on the identity of its objects
[Sidelle]
|
15180
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There doesn't seem to be anything in the actual world that can determine modal facts
[Sidelle]
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15181
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Being a deepest explanatory feature is an actual, not a modal property
[Sidelle]
|
15177
|
Contradictoriness limits what is possible and what is imaginable
[Sidelle]
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15179
|
To know empirical necessities, we need empirical facts, plus conventions about which are necessary
[Sidelle]
|
15178
|
Can anything in science reveal the necessity of what it discovers?
[Sidelle]
|
15182
|
Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles
[Sidelle]
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15185
|
We aren't clear about 'same stuff as this', so a principle of individuation is needed to identify it
[Sidelle]
|
15184
|
Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities
[Sidelle]
|
15183
|
'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term
[Sidelle]
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