more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
I cannot think of any point in making the counterfactual supposition that Babe Ruth is a billiard ball; there is nothing I can say about him in that imagined state that I could not just as well say about billiard balls that are not him.
Gist of Idea
Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball
Source
Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.79)
Book Ref
Stalnaker,Robert C.: 'Ways a World Might Be' [OUP 2003], p.79
A Reaction
A bizarrely circumspect semanticists way of saying that Ruth couldn't possibly be a billiard ball! Would he say the same about a group of old men in wheelchairs, one of whom IS Babe Ruth?
12761 | An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists [Stalnaker] |
12762 | Bare particular anti-essentialism makes no sense within modal logic semantics [Stalnaker] |
12763 | Necessarily self-identical, or being what it is, or its world-indexed properties, aren't essential [Stalnaker] |
12764 | For the bare particular view, properties must be features, not just groups of objects [Stalnaker] |
12765 | Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker] |
12766 | Logical space is abstracted from the actual world [Stalnaker] |