Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'What is so bad about Contradictions?', 'Papers of 1913' and 'Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 5. Modern Philosophy / c. Modern philosophy mid-period
13966 Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames]
     Full Idea: The golden age of analytic philosophy (mid 20th c) was when necessary, a priori and analytic were one, all possibility was linguistic possibility, and the linguistic turn gave philosophy a respectable subject matter (language), and precision and rigour.
     From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.166)
     A reaction: Gently sarcastic, because Soames is part of the team who have put a bomb under this view, and quite right too. Personally I think the biggest enemy in all of this lot is not 'language' but 'rigour'. A will-o-the-wisp philosophers dream of.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
13974 If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames]
     Full Idea: If all of philosophy is the analysis of meaning, and meaning is fundamentally transparent to competent speakers, there is little room for philosophically significant explanations and theories, since they will be necessary or a priori, or both.
     From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
     A reaction: He cites the later Wittgenstein as having fallen into this trap. I suppose any area of life can have its specialists, but I take Shakespeare to be a greater master of English than any philosopher I have ever read.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
9123 Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen]
     Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in.
     From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3
     A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13969 Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames]
     Full Idea: By (Kripkean) 'essential' properties and relations I mean simply properties and relations that hold necessarily of objects (in all genuinely possible world-states in which the objects exist).
     From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.168 n5)
     A reaction: This is the standard modern view of essences which I find so unsatisfactory. Kit Fine has helped to take us back to the proper Aristotelian view, where 'necessary' and 'essential' actually have different meanings. Note the inclusion of relations.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
22308 Only the actual exists, so possibilities always reduce to actuality after full analysis [Russell]
     Full Idea: Possibility always marks insufficient analysis: when analysis is completed, only the actual can be relevant, for the simple reason that there is only the actual, and that the mere possibility is nothing.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Papers of 1913 [1913], VII.26), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 42 'Logic'
     A reaction: Quine agreed with Russell on this. You won't get far in life if you deny possibilities. The answer is to recognise that the actual is dynamic, and not passive.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
13973 A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames]
     Full Idea: None of Kripke's many achievements is more important than his breaking the spell of the linguistic as the source of philosophically important modalities.
     From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
     A reaction: Put like that, Kripke may have had the single most important thought of modern times. I take good philosophy to be exactly the same as good scientific theorising, in that it all arises out of the nature of reality (and I include logic in that).
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
13968 Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames]
     Full Idea: For the Kripkean possible states of the world are not alternate concrete universes, but abstract objects. Metaphysically possible world-states are maximally complete ways the real concrete universe could have been.
     From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.167)
     A reaction: This is probably clearer about the Kripkean view than Kripke ever is, but then that is part of Soames's mission. It sounds like the right way to conceive possible worlds. At least there is some commitment there, rather than instrumentalism about them.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 10. Two-Dimensional Semantics
13972 Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames]
     Full Idea: Two-dimensionalism is a fundamentally anti-Kripkean attempt to reinstate descriptivism about names and natural kind terms, to reconnect necessity and apriority to analyticity, and return philosophy to analytic paradigms of its golden age.
     From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.183)
     A reaction: I presume this is right, and it is so frustrating that you need Soames to spell it out, when Chalmers is much more low-key. Philosophers hate telling you what their real game is. Why is that?