Posted by alexandra_k on August 28, 2005, at 18:03:35
In reply to mystery of the missing indexical.. » alexandra_k, posted by zeugma on August 28, 2005, at 15:01:09
> hi alexandra, you know I can't resist this topic!
lol! indeed. you like the hard stuff (imo)... language and metaphysics. i'm more fond of mental representation...
> The variant developed by David Kaplan which is indeed a modal semantics (he calls it ‘two sorted’, my perception is kinda fuzzy right now so looking at it I can’t tell if it’s two dimensional or not…ah. i remember kaplan (a little) from a couple years back... what gets hard is that people use the same term with a different meaning / reference (aargh! this gets hard to talk about). what i mean is that for some philosophers meaning just is reference. whereas for others there is a distinction between varieties of meaning. it can be hard to figure out how much is verbal dispute with people using terms differently in philosophy of language...
> > The two dimensions aren't 'dennotation and connotation'. My mistake - the two dimensions are extension / reference and intension (standard meaning).
> Denotation and connotation is a variant terminology for extension/intension.:-) so i was right after all! i think i have heard of a distinction between intension and connotation somewhere. where intension was part of standard meaning and connotation was more to do with idiosyncratic variations between speakers. so the intension of 'water' might be 'watery stuff', but the connotation of 'water' might be 'sacred substance' for some individual or smaller group of individuals. but then i've also heard of connotation being used synonomously with intension. so it is hard...
> > 'I am here now'.
> > This statement is necessarily true.> But is it true that I am here now, barely dressed and in front of my computer, is a necessary truth?
> The utterance-type 'I am here now' is one that gets assigned value 'T' every time it's used. The two dimensions of demonstrative logic (which I believe you're talking about) are content and character.hmm. bells are ringing...
i shall have to have a go with kripke, because i am more familiar with his terminology (though i'll try and get the hang of kaplan's usage as i go...)
a rigid designator designates the same individual across all possible worlds...
'alexandra_k' is a rigid designator because it dennotes alexandra_k in all worlds in which it dennotes anything at all.
'the new zealander who posts about philosophy on psycho-babble' is a flaccid designator. in this world (the actual world) the description is enough to pick out one and only one individual (alexandra_k). but there is a possible world in which alexandra_k never posted to babble. my officemate might have posted to babble instead and he may have even posted philosophy stuff. in that world the description 'the new zealander who posts about philosophy on psycho-babble' would pick out a different referent. thus it is a contingent truth that that description picks out me. there are other possible worlds in which that same description picks out other individuals.
'i am here now' is a flaccid designator. the 'i' picks out different individuals in different possible worlds.
the 'here' picks out different places in different possible worlds.
the 'now' picks out different times in different possible worlds (because possible worlds are just supposed to be ways this world might be including ways it was / will be in the past / future.the sentance 'i am here now' is necessarily true whenever it is uttered, wherever it is uttered, by whomever it is uttered.
but the person place and time that are referred to change as a function of the context of utterance.
i can know 'i am here now' is necessarily true without knowing who i am, where i am, or when i am.
>The character of 'I am here now' is such that it cannot be used falsely.
so... character is what i might be tempted to call... standard meaning / intension.
>But its content is just everyday contingent truth. I could be somewhere else on a Sunday afternoon (though highly unlikely, of course).
and the content is externalist, which is just to say that the content is the reference / dennotation.
> Both content and character are aspects of sense or intension. Content is the part that ties in with possible worlds, and hence propositions (if you consider that a proposition is either the possible world that makes the utterance true, or the ordered triple of persons, places, and times that make up what I mean when I say 'I am here now.')are you sure that content is part of intension? maybe this is wrong... is content a function that maps character on to contexts in order to deliver a reference?
> Character is the route by which we proceed to the proposition. I use the utterance-type, 'I am here now,' to convey the content that I am here now,
to flaccidly designate who, when, and where you are
>and you do not know what it means until (getting to the reference part of the equation) you know the referents of each of those terms I just used, including the indexicals 'I', 'here', and 'now' (such bewildering little words).
or is it that i do not know what you are referring to until i am able to map the character (standard meaning) onto the context (your environment) thereby getting to the reference?
>This is kind of neat because utterances have two varieties of sense (content and character) and words have extension (reference), and the doctrine that words acquire meaning only in the context of a sentence is borne out.
ah. this really is ringing bells...
> So, it is not the referents that vary across possible worlds... it is the senses.???
I thought the character is standard (standard meaning). so the character of 'i' is that it refers (flaccidly) to the speaker.
The content varies depending on circumstances. if I say 'I' the context is such that i refer to alexandra_k.
and the content... just is the reference (because we are being content externalists).and the content is flaccidly designated because we are getting to it via an intension (description) where the reference of the description varies across all possible worlds. whereas if i refer to myself as alexandra_k then that refers to alexandra_k across all possible worlds.
so...
1. 'i am here now'
2. 'alexandra_k is babbling at 10.49 on monday the 25th of august'.
in the actual world both utterances dennote / refer to the same thing.
but when we go modal...
1. is necessarily true (true in all possible worlds) but the dennotation changes as the 'i' pick out different individuals, the 'here' picks out different places, and the 'now' changes.
2. is a contingent truth. while it is not possible that 'i am here now' is false, 'where' i am, who 'i' am, 'when' i am varies...so while it is true that i must be indentical with myself (at one point in time) in order to count as the same thing...
any description of me is only contingently true (in that the description may not obtain to me) across different possible worlds.
except for essential properties which an individual must retain in order to retain its identity as that individual.
kripke reckoned that what was crucial for being the 'same person' was 'descended from that (gesture) sperm and egg combination'. i don't like that. i like to think it is possible that i could have had different biological parents :-( still... i guess he's talking bodily criterion (same human being) rather than psychological criterion.
>But this world has Alexandra in it :-)
:-)
Ah... But you might prefer one or the other of my counter-parts :-)
poster:alexandra_k
thread:541758
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050807/msgs/547779.html