Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Intrinsic Quality of Experience', 'Anti-essentialism' and 'Naming and Necessity preface'

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5 ideas

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
16984 I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc. [Kripke]
     Full Idea: I do not think of 'possible worlds' as providing a reductive analysis in any philosophically significant sense, that is, as uncovering the ultimate nature, from either an epistemological or a metaphysical view, of modal operators, propositions etc.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.19 n18)
     A reaction: I think this remark opens the door for Kit Fine's approach, of showing what modality is by specifying its sources. Possible worlds model the behaviour of modal inferences.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 2. A Priori Contingent
9385 The very act of designating of an object with properties gives knowledge of a contingent truth [Kripke]
     Full Idea: If a speaker introduced a designator into a language by a ceremony, then in virtue of his very linguistic act, he would be in a position to say 'I know that Fa', but nevertheless 'Fa' would be a contingent truth (provided F is not an essential property).
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.14)
     A reaction: If someone else does the designation, I seem to have contingent knowledge that the ceremony has taken place. You needn't experience the object, but you must experience the ceremony, even if you perform it.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / a. Possible worlds
4943 Instead of talking about possible worlds, we can always say "It is possible that.." [Kripke]
     Full Idea: We should remind ourselves the 'possible worlds' terminology can always be replaced by modal talk, such as "It is possible that…"
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.15)
     A reaction: Coming from an originator of the possible worlds idea, this is a useful reminder that we don't have to get too excited about the ontological commitments involved. It may be just a 'way to talk', and hence a tool, rather than a truth about reality.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
16983 Probability with dice uses possible worlds, abstractions which fictionally simplify things [Kripke]
     Full Idea: In studying probabilities with dice, we are introduced at a tender age to a set of 36 (miniature) possible worlds, if we (fictively) ignore everything except the two dice. …The possibilities are abstract states of the dice, not physical entities.
     From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity preface [1980], p.16)
     A reaction: Interesting for the introduction by the great man of the words 'fictional' and 'abstract' into the discussion. He says elsewhere that he takes worlds to be less than real, but more than mere technical devices.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
12765 Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker]
     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.
     From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], 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?