display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
15793 | We can take 'ways things might have been' as irreducible elements in our ontology [Stalnaker, by Lycan] |
Full Idea: Stalnaker suggests talking 'ways things might have been' as sui generis elements of our ontology - actual abstract entities in their own right, not to be reduced to more familiar items. | |
From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Possible Worlds [1976]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 09 | |
A reaction: This seems to rest on an ontology of 'states of affairs', favoured by Armstrong, and implied in the Tractatus. How big is a state of affairs? How manys states of affairs can be co-present? |
14072 | Possible worlds identity needs a sortal [Gibbard] |
Full Idea: Identity across possible worlds makes sense only with respect to a sortal | |
From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], IV) | |
A reaction: See Gibbard's other ideas from this paper. I fear that the sortal invoked is too uncertain and slippery to do any useful job, and I can't see any principled difficulty with naming something before you can think of a sortal for it. |
14078 | Only concepts, not individuals, can be the same across possible worlds [Gibbard] |
Full Idea: It is meaningless to talk of the same concrete thing in different possible worlds, ...but it makes sense to speak of the same individual concept, which is just a function which assigns to each possible world in a set an individual in that world. | |
From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], VII) | |
A reaction: A lovely bold response to the problem of transworld identity, but one which needs investigation. It sounds very promising to me. 'Aristotle' is a cocept, not a name. There is no separate category of 'names'. Wow. (Attach dispositions to concepts?). |
14079 | Kripke's semantics needs lots of intuitions about which properties are essential [Gibbard] |
Full Idea: To use Kripke's semantics, one needs extensive intuitions that certain properties are essential and others accidental. | |
From: Allan Gibbard (Contingent Identity [1975], X) | |
A reaction: As usual, we could substitute the word 'necessary' for 'essential' without changing his meaning. If we are always referring to 'our' Hubert Humphrey is speculations about him, then nearly all of his properties will be necessary ones. |