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Single Idea 4718

[filed under theme 10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity ]

Full Idea

Putnam endorses the view that necessity is relative to a description, so there is only necessity 'de dicto': relative to language, not to reality.

Clarification

'De dicto' means concerning the words (not the things)

Gist of Idea

If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity

Source

report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.3

Book Ref

O'Grady,Paul: 'Relativism' [Acumen 2002], p.83

A Reaction

Even a realist must take this proposal seriously. The facts may contain de re necessities, but we could be very sceptical about our capacity to know them. Personally I enjoy speculating about de re necessities. They can't stop you.

The 138 ideas from Hilary Putnam

3460 Superactors and superspartans count against behaviourism [Putnam, by Searle]
11904 Express natural kinds as a posteriori predicate connections, not as singular terms [Putnam, by Mackie,P]
11908 Putnam bases essences on 'same kind', but same kinds may not share properties [Mackie,P on Putnam]
17505 Using proper names properly doesn't involve necessary and sufficient conditions [Putnam]
17507 Natural kind stereotypes are 'strong' (obvious, like tiger) or 'weak' (obscure, like molybdenum) [Putnam]
17506 I now think reference by the tests of experts is a special case of being causally connected [Putnam]
17508 Science aims at truth, not at 'simplicity' [Putnam]
7705 The Twin Earth theory suggests that intentionality is independent of qualia [Jacquette on Putnam]
4099 If Twins talking about 'water' and 'XYZ' have different thoughts but identical heads, then thoughts aren't in the head [Putnam, by Crane]
12026 We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O [Forbes,G on Putnam]
3208 Does 'water' mean a particular substance that was 'dubbed'? [Putnam, by Rey]
3893 Often reference determines sense, and not (as Frege thought) vice versa [Putnam, by Scruton]
11192 If causes are the essence of diseases, then disease is an example of a relational essence [Putnam, by Williams,NE]
18890 Putnam smuggles essentialism about liquids into his proof that water must be H2O [Salmon,N on Putnam]
11190 Archimedes meant by 'gold' the hidden structure or essence of the stuff [Putnam]
11191 The hidden structure of a natural kind determines membership in all possible worlds [Putnam]
9937 I do not believe mathematics either has or needs 'foundations' [Putnam]
9941 Science requires more than consistency of mathematics [Putnam]
9943 You can't deny a hypothesis a truth-value simply because we may never know it! [Putnam]
9939 It is conceivable that the axioms of arithmetic or propositional logic might be changed [Putnam]
9940 Maybe mathematics is empirical in that we could try to change it [Putnam]
9944 We understand some statements about all sets [Putnam]
9168 I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam]
5817 Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam]
5818 If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam]
5819 Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam]
9169 A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam]
5820 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam]
9170 We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam]
5495 Instances of pain are physical tokens, but the nature of pain is more abstract [Putnam, by Lycan]
6267 A culture needs to admit that knowledge is more extensive than just 'science' [Putnam]
6266 We need the correspondence theory of truth to understand language and science [Putnam]
6264 In Tarski's definition, you understand 'true' if you accept the notions of the object language [Putnam]
6265 Tarski has given a correct account of the formal logic of 'true', but there is more to the concept [Putnam]
6268 The claim that scientific terms are incommensurable can be blocked if scientific terms are not descriptions [Putnam]
6269 Only Tarski has found a way to define 'true' [Putnam]
6270 The correct translation is the one that explains the speaker's behaviour [Putnam]
6271 How reference is specified is not what reference is [Putnam]
6272 'True' and 'refers' cannot be made scientically precise, but are fundamental to science [Putnam]
6273 Knowledge depends on believing others, which must be innate, as inferences are not strong enough [Putnam]
6274 Empathy may not give knowledge, but it can give plausibility or right opinion [Putnam]
17084 You can't decide which explanations are good if you don't attend to the interest-relative aspects [Putnam]
6284 If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam]
6283 Language maps the world in many ways (because it maps onto other languages in many ways) [Putnam]
6281 Truth conditions can't explain understanding a sentence, because that in turn needs explanation [Putnam]
6280 Realism is a theory, which explains the convergence of science and the success of language [Putnam]
6282 Theory of meaning presupposes theory of understanding and reference [Putnam]
6276 'The rug is green' might be warrantedly assertible even though the rug is not green [Putnam]
6277 Correspondence between concepts and unconceptualised reality is impossible [Putnam]
6278 We should reject the view that truth is prior to meaning [Putnam]
6279 A private language could work with reference and beliefs, and wouldn't need meaning [Putnam]
6275 You can't say 'most speaker's beliefs are true'; in some areas this is not so, and you can't count beliefs [Putnam]
13655 The Löwenheim-Skolem theorems show that whether all sets are constructible is indeterminate [Putnam, by Shapiro]
9913 The Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem is close to an antinomy in philosophy of language [Putnam]
9914 It is unfashionable, but most mathematical intuitions come from nature [Putnam]
9915 V = L just says all sets are constructible [Putnam]
6376 Neuroscience does not support multiple realisability, and tends to support identity [Polger on Putnam]
2330 If humans and molluscs both feel pain, it can't be a single biological state [Putnam, by Kim]
2587 Temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy, but they are two different concepts [Putnam]
2588 Is pain a functional state of a complete organism? [Putnam]
2589 Functionalism is compatible with dualism, as pure mind could perform the functions [Putnam]
2591 Total paralysis would mean that there were mental states but no behaviour at all [Putnam]
2590 Dispositions need mental terms to define them [Putnam]
2592 Functional states correlate with AND explain pain behaviour [Putnam]
17645 An alien might think oxygen was the main cause of a forest fire [Putnam]
17644 Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam]
17648 It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam]
17643 Shape is essential relative to 'statue', but not essential relative to 'clay' [Putnam]
17642 The old view that sense data are independent of mind is quite dotty [Putnam]
18199 Indispensability strongly supports predicative sets, and somewhat supports impredicative sets [Putnam]
18200 Very large sets should be studied in an 'if-then' spirit [Putnam]
8857 We must quantify over numbers for science; but that commits us to their existence [Putnam]
3663 How can you contemplate Platonic entities without causal transactions with them? [Putnam]
18949 The universal syllogism is now expressed as the transitivity of subclasses [Putnam]
18951 For scientific purposes there is a precise concept of 'true-in-L', using set theory [Putnam]
18950 Physics is full of non-physical entities, such as space-vectors [Putnam]
18952 '⊃' ('if...then') is used with the definition 'Px ⊃ Qx' is short for '¬(Px & ¬Qx)' [Putnam]
18953 Modern notation frees us from Aristotle's restriction of only using two class-names in premises [Putnam]
18954 Before the late 19th century logic was trivialised by not dealing with relations [Putnam]
18956 Asserting first-order validity implicitly involves second-order reference to classes [Putnam]
18955 Having a valid form doesn't ensure truth, as it may be meaningless [Putnam]
18957 Nominalism only makes sense if it is materialist [Putnam]
18958 In type theory, 'x ∈ y' is well defined only if x and y are of the appropriate type [Putnam]
18959 Sets larger than the continuum should be studied in an 'if-then' spirit [Putnam]
18960 Most predictions are uninteresting, and are only sought in order to confirm a theory [Putnam]
18962 Unfashionably, I think logic has an empirical foundation [Putnam]
18961 We can identify functions with certain sets - or identify sets with certain functions [Putnam]
4716 The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact [Putnam, by O'Grady]
4714 Putnam's epistemic notion of truth replaces the realism of correspondence with ontological relativism [Putnam, by O'Grady]
14214 If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis]
4718 If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady]
7624 The word 'inconsiderate' nicely shows the blurring of facts and values [Putnam]
7611 Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam]
7610 A fact is simply what it is rational to accept [Putnam]
7612 Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam]
7613 Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam]
14200 'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam]
14204 Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam]
14206 There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam]
14202 Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam]
14201 Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam]
14205 The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam]
14203 Intension is not meaning, as 'cube' and 'square-faced polyhedron' are intensionally the same [Putnam]
14207 If cats equal cherries, model theory allows reinterpretation of the whole language preserving truth [Putnam]
7616 Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam]
7617 Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam]
7618 Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam]
7620 Some kind of objective 'rightness' is a presupposition of thought itself [Putnam]
7623 For ancient Greeks being wise was an ethical value [Putnam]
8828 Truth is rational acceptability [Putnam]
2334 Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam]
2335 Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam]
2336 Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam]
2338 Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam]
2339 Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam]
2343 Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam]
2340 We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam]
2341 Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam]
2342 "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam]
2344 If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam]
2345 Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam]
2346 Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam]
2347 Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam]
2348 Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam]
2349 Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam]
2351 Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam]
2352 The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam]
2354 "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam]
2331 Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam]
2332 Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam]
2074 Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam]
2071 If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam]
10066 Putnam coined the term 'if-thenism' [Putnam, by Musgrave]
2605 If everything uses mentalese, ALL concepts must be innate! [Putnam]
2606 No machine language can express generalisations [Putnam]
10269 Mathematics eliminates possibility, as being simultaneous actuality in sets [Putnam]
22181 Putnam says anti-realism is a bad explanation of accurate predictions [Putnam, by Okasha]
6782 Realism is the only philosophy of science that doesn't make the success of science a miracle [Putnam]