Wayne A. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199261659
- eISBN:
- 9780191603099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199261652.003.0015
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter shows that the principle of the necessity of identity, which precludes proper treatment of names in standard possible worlds semantics, fails for logical and epistemic necessity. Model ...
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This chapter shows that the principle of the necessity of identity, which precludes proper treatment of names in standard possible worlds semantics, fails for logical and epistemic necessity. Model structures allow contingent identities as long as the co-representation relation is non-transitive. It is shown that there is no sound argument from the rigidity of names to the necessity of identity, and that other well known arguments for this principle are either invalid or question begging. The rigidity of names extends to worlds that are mere logical or epistemological possibilities, and is intensional.Less
This chapter shows that the principle of the necessity of identity, which precludes proper treatment of names in standard possible worlds semantics, fails for logical and epistemic necessity. Model structures allow contingent identities as long as the co-representation relation is non-transitive. It is shown that there is no sound argument from the rigidity of names to the necessity of identity, and that other well known arguments for this principle are either invalid or question begging. The rigidity of names extends to worlds that are mere logical or epistemological possibilities, and is intensional.
Wayne A. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199261659
- eISBN:
- 9780191603099
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199261652.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
Part I of this book is a concise exposition of the expression theory of meaning, according to which meaning consists in the expression of thoughts, their component ideas, or other mental states. The ...
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Part I of this book is a concise exposition of the expression theory of meaning, according to which meaning consists in the expression of thoughts, their component ideas, or other mental states. The theory is founded on the fact that thoughts are event types with a constituent structure, and that thinking is a fundamental propositional attitude distinct from belief. It can account for interjections, syncategorematic terms, pejorative terms, conventional implicatures, and other cases of nondescriptive meaning that have long been seen as difficult for both ideational and referential theories of meaning. Part II defends the analysis of speaker and word reference in terms of the expression of ideas by exploring the vague connection of reference with predication, and reviewing the difficulties of alternative approaches, both descriptivist and causal. Part III shows how the expression theory can account for the meaning of names, and the distinctive way in which their meaning determines their reference. The problems with Millian theories show that the meaning of a name consists in the expression of an idea. The problems with Fregean theories show that the ideas expressed by names are atomic or basic. A name is directly and rigidly referential because the extension of the idea it expresses is not determined by the extensions of component ideas. This account of names does not preclude the use of a possible worlds or situation semantics to systematize their formal referential properties. The referential properties of ideas can also be set out recursively by providing a generative theory of ideas, assigning extensions to atomic ideas, and formulating rules whereby the semantic value of a complex idea is determined by the semantic values of its contents. Arguments for the logical necessity of identity statements expressed using non-synonymous names are shown to be unsound, along with various twin earth arguments.Less
Part I of this book is a concise exposition of the expression theory of meaning, according to which meaning consists in the expression of thoughts, their component ideas, or other mental states. The theory is founded on the fact that thoughts are event types with a constituent structure, and that thinking is a fundamental propositional attitude distinct from belief. It can account for interjections, syncategorematic terms, pejorative terms, conventional implicatures, and other cases of nondescriptive meaning that have long been seen as difficult for both ideational and referential theories of meaning. Part II defends the analysis of speaker and word reference in terms of the expression of ideas by exploring the vague connection of reference with predication, and reviewing the difficulties of alternative approaches, both descriptivist and causal. Part III shows how the expression theory can account for the meaning of names, and the distinctive way in which their meaning determines their reference. The problems with Millian theories show that the meaning of a name consists in the expression of an idea. The problems with Fregean theories show that the ideas expressed by names are atomic or basic. A name is directly and rigidly referential because the extension of the idea it expresses is not determined by the extensions of component ideas. This account of names does not preclude the use of a possible worlds or situation semantics to systematize their formal referential properties. The referential properties of ideas can also be set out recursively by providing a generative theory of ideas, assigning extensions to atomic ideas, and formulating rules whereby the semantic value of a complex idea is determined by the semantic values of its contents. Arguments for the logical necessity of identity statements expressed using non-synonymous names are shown to be unsound, along with various twin earth arguments.
Robert Kirk
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199669417
- eISBN:
- 9780191748769
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669417.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Although the much-debated question of whether the necessary connection from P to Q is knowable a priori or only a posteriori is important, a different one also needs attention: is the necessity ...
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Although the much-debated question of whether the necessary connection from P to Q is knowable a priori or only a posteriori is important, a different one also needs attention: is the necessity logico-conceptual, or does it depend on the necessity of identity? Reinforcing points made in the last chapter, it is argued that a posteriori physicalism as often expressed is not physicalistic; when modified to become so, it requires the l-c entailment thesis – which renders the alleged identities superfluous. Neither a priori or a posteriori physicalism is attacked directly, but it is important to consider how the latter, as usually understood, compares with the redescriptive version as an expression of physicalism, and whether any of the arguments for it threaten redescriptive physicalism. The conclusion is that identity-based a posteriori physicalism is at best problematic.Less
Although the much-debated question of whether the necessary connection from P to Q is knowable a priori or only a posteriori is important, a different one also needs attention: is the necessity logico-conceptual, or does it depend on the necessity of identity? Reinforcing points made in the last chapter, it is argued that a posteriori physicalism as often expressed is not physicalistic; when modified to become so, it requires the l-c entailment thesis – which renders the alleged identities superfluous. Neither a priori or a posteriori physicalism is attacked directly, but it is important to consider how the latter, as usually understood, compares with the redescriptive version as an expression of physicalism, and whether any of the arguments for it threaten redescriptive physicalism. The conclusion is that identity-based a posteriori physicalism is at best problematic.
Trenton Merricks
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- February 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780192843432
- eISBN:
- 9780191926068
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780192843432.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter defends the claim that every good answer to the following question implies being numerically identical with: The Why Question: What way of being related to a (conscious) person at a ...
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This chapter defends the claim that every good answer to the following question implies being numerically identical with: The Why Question: What way of being related to a (conscious) person at a future time explains why that person will have (at that time) what matters in survival for you? So this chapter defends the claim that personal identity is necessary for what matters in survival. This chapter also shows that Derek Parfit’s famous argument to the contrary fails. But there is no single way in which Parfit’s argument uncontroversially goes wrong. Rather, the way in which that argument fails depends on this or that controversial metaphysics of persistence. So that argument fails in one way given endurance, and it fails in a different way given (for example) stage theory. Most importantly, there is no metaphysics of persistence on which that argument succeeds.Less
This chapter defends the claim that every good answer to the following question implies being numerically identical with: The Why Question: What way of being related to a (conscious) person at a future time explains why that person will have (at that time) what matters in survival for you? So this chapter defends the claim that personal identity is necessary for what matters in survival. This chapter also shows that Derek Parfit’s famous argument to the contrary fails. But there is no single way in which Parfit’s argument uncontroversially goes wrong. Rather, the way in which that argument fails depends on this or that controversial metaphysics of persistence. So that argument fails in one way given endurance, and it fails in a different way given (for example) stage theory. Most importantly, there is no metaphysics of persistence on which that argument succeeds.
