27 ideas
| 20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He said that dialectical arguments were like spiderswebs: although they seem to indicate craftsmanlike skill, they are useless. | |
| From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.161 | |
| A reaction: Useful for the spider, but useless to Ariston. |
| 10455 | Free logic at least allows empty names, but struggles to express non-existence [Bach] |
| Full Idea: Unlike standard first-order logic, free logic can allow empty names, but still has to deny existence by either representing it as a predicate, or invoke some dubious distinction such as between existence and being. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
| 10454 | In first-order we can't just assert existence, and it is very hard to deny something's existence [Bach] |
| Full Idea: In standard logic we can't straightforwardly say that n exists. We have to resort to using a formula like '∃x(x=n)', but we can't deny n's existence by negating that formula, because standard first-order logic disallows empty names. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
| 10453 | In logic constants play the role of proper names [Bach] |
| Full Idea: In standard first-order logic the role of proper names is played by individual constants. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) |
| 10452 | Proper names can be non-referential - even predicate as well as attributive uses [Bach] |
| Full Idea: Like it or not, proper names have non-referential uses, including not only attributive but even predicate uses. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) | |
| A reaction: 'He's a right little Hitler'. 'You're doing a George Bush again'. 'Try to live up to the name of Churchill'. |
| 10456 | Millian names struggle with existence, empty names, identities and attitude ascription [Bach] |
| Full Idea: The familiar problems with the Millian view of names are the problem of positive and negative existential statements, empty names, identity sentences, and propositional attitude ascription. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L1) | |
| A reaction: I take this combination of problems to make an overwhelming case against the daft idea that the semantics of a name amounts to the actual object it picks out. It is a category mistake to attempt to insert a person into a sentence. |
| 10440 | An object can be described without being referred to [Bach] |
| Full Idea: An object can be described without being referred to. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear how this is possible for a well-known object, though it is clearly possible for a speculative object, such as a gadget I would like to buy. In the former case reference seems to occur even if the speaker is trying to avoid it. |
| 10444 | Definite descriptions can be used to refer, but are not semantically referential [Bach] |
| Full Idea: If Russell is, as I believe, basically right, then definite descriptions are the paradigm of singular terms that can be used to refer but are not linguistically (semantically) referential. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s5) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that we can decide what is 'semantically referential'. Most of the things we refer to don't have names. We don't then 'use' definite descriptions (I'm thinking) - they actually DO the job. If we use them, we can 'use' names too? |
| 18383 | Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set). | |
| From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2 | |
| A reaction: To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions. |
| 11891 | Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties. | |
| From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1 | |
| A reaction: This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different. |
| 10446 | Fictional reference is different inside and outside the fiction [Bach] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish 'reference' in a fiction from reference outside the fiction to fictional entities. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
| A reaction: This may be more semantically than ontologically significant. It is perhaps best explicated by Coleridge's distinction over whether or not I am 'suspending my disbelief' when I am discussing a character. |
| 10447 | We can refer to fictional entities if they are abstract objects [Bach] |
| Full Idea: If fictional entities, such as characters in a play, are real, albeit abstract entities, then we can genuinely refer to them. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Nathan Salmon 1998] Personally I would prefer to say that abstract entities are fictions. Fictional characters have uncertain identity conditions. Do they all have a pancreas, if this is never mentioned? |
| 10443 | You 'allude to', not 'refer to', an individual if you keep their identity vague [Bach] |
| Full Idea: If you say 'a special person is coming to visit', you are not referring to but merely 'alluding to' that individual. This does not count as referring because you are not expressing a singular proposition about it. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s2) | |
| A reaction: If you add 'I hope he doesn't wear his red suit, but I hope he plays his tuba', you seem to be expressing singular propositions about the person. Bach seems to want a very strict notion of reference, as really attaching listeners to individuals. |
| 10439 | What refers: indefinite or definite or demonstrative descriptions, names, indexicals, demonstratives? [Bach] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers agree that some expressions refer, but disagree over which ones. Few include indefinite descriptions, but some include definite descriptions, or only demonstrative descriptions. Some like proper names, some only indexicals and demonstratives. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: My initial prejudice is rather Strawsonian - that people refer, not language, and it can be done in all sorts of ways. But Bach argues well that only language intrinsically does it. Even pointing fails without linguistic support. |
| 10441 | If we can refer to things which change, we can't be obliged to single out their properties [Bach] |
| Full Idea: We can refer to things which change over time, which suggests that in thinking of and in referring to an individual we are not constrained to represent it as that which has certain properties. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems a good argument against the descriptive theory of reference which is not (I think) in Kripke. Problems like vagueness and the Ship of Theseus rear their heads. |
| 10442 | We can think of an individual without have a uniquely characterizing description [Bach] |
| Full Idea: Being able to think of an individual does not require being able to identify that individual by means of a uniquely characterizing description. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s1) | |
| A reaction: There is a bit of an equivocation over 'recognise' here. His example is 'the first child born in the 4th century'. We can't visually recognise such people, but the description does fix them, and a records office might give us 'recognition'. |
| 10445 | It can't be real reference if it could refer to some other thing that satisfies the description [Bach] |
| Full Idea: If one is referring to whatever happens to satisfy a description, and one would be referring to something else were it to have satisfied the description instead, this is known as 'weak' reference,...but surely this is not reference at all. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.1 s7) | |
| A reaction: Bach wants a precise notion of reference, as success in getting the audience to focus on the correct object. He talks of this case as 'singling out' some unfixed thing, and he also has 'alluding to' an unstated thing. Plausible view. |
| 10457 | Since most expressions can be used non-referentially, none of them are inherently referential [Bach] |
| Full Idea: An embarrassingly simple argument is that most expressions can be used literally but not referentially, no variation in meaning explains this fact, so its meaning is compatible with being non-referential, so no expression is inherently referential. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L2) | |
| A reaction: I think I have decided that no expression is 'inherently referential', and that it is all pragmatics. |
| 10463 | Just alluding to or describing an object is not the same as referring to it [Bach] |
| Full Idea: Much of what speakers do that passes for referring is merely alluding or describing. ...It is one thing for a speaker to express a thought about a certain object using an expression, and quite another for the expression to stand for that object. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.3) | |
| A reaction: Bach builds up a persuasive case for this view. If the question, though, is 'what are you talking about?', then saying what is being alluded to or singled out or described seems fine. Bach is being rather stipulative. |
| 10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
| Full Idea: Context does not determine or constitute reference; rather, it is something for the speaker to exploit to enable the listener to determine the intended reference. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
| A reaction: Bach thinks linguistic reference is a matter of speaker's intentions, and I think he is right. And this idea is right too. The domain of quantification constantly shifts in a conversation, and good speakers and listeners are sensitive to this. |
| 10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
| Full Idea: If one ducks starts quacking furiously, and you say 'that duck is excited', it isn't context that makes me take it that you are referring to the quacking duck. You could be referring to a quiet duck you recognise by its distinctive colour. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
| A reaction: A persuasive example to make his point against the significance of context in conversational reference. Speaker's intended reference must always trump any apparent reference suggested by context. |
| 10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
| Full Idea: To illustrate speakers' intentions, consider the anaphoric reference using pronouns in these: "A cop arrested a robber; he was wearing a badge", and "A cop arrested a robber; he was wearing a mask". The natural supposition is not the inevitable one. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L4) | |
| A reaction: I am a convert to speakers' intentions as the source of all reference, and this example seems to illustrate it very well. 'He said..' 'Who said?' |
| 10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
| Full Idea: It is a fallacy that all the information in an utterance must come from its interpretation, which ignores the essentially pragmatic fact that the speaker is making the utterance. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Barwise and Perry 1983:34] This is blatantly obvious in indexical remarks like 'I am tired', where the words don't tell you who is tired. But also 'the car has broken down, dear'. |
| 10458 | People slide from contextual variability all the way to contextual determination [Bach] |
| Full Idea: People slide from contextual variability to context relativity to context sensitivity to context dependence to contextual determination. | |
| From: Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3) | |
| A reaction: This is reminiscent of the epistemological slide from cultural or individual relativity of some observed things, to a huge metaphysical denial of truth. Bach's warning applies to me, as I have been drifting down his slope lately. Nice. |
| 3049 | The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: The chief good is to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice. | |
| From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.2.1 |
| 3549 | Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas] |
| Full Idea: Ariston says that rules are useless if you are virtuous, and useless if you are not. | |
| From: report of Ariston (fragments/reports [c.250 BCE]) by Julia Annas - The Morality of Happiness 2.4 |
| 20704 | A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B] |
| Full Idea: Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world. | |
| From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes' | |
| A reaction: This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary. |