Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Language, Philosophy of

  • Use, Mention, and Identity

    Ed plausibly maintains that the following argument is invalid: Hesperus is so-called because it appears in the eveningHesperus = Phosphorus————–Phosphorus is so-called because it appears in the evening. But then he asks: if the above is invalid why isn't the following argument also invalid? 'Hesperus’ designates HesperusHesperus = Phosphorus————-‘Hesperus’ designates Phosphorus. I say both arguments…

  • Lukáš Novák on Use and Mention

    From a comment in a now fast-receding earlier thread: An editor trying to impose a clear use-mention distinction on authors soon realises that most certainly words can be both used and mentioned, and that it is not inherently wrong. BTW, the Scholastics believed that in the case of the so-called material supposition it is regularly…

  • Logical Form, Equivocation, and Propositions

    Ed Buckner wants to re-fight old battles. I'm game. The following post of his, reproduced verbatim, just appeared at Dale Tuggy's site: The concept of logical form is essential to any discussion of identity, and hence to any discussion of the Trinity. Here is a puzzle I have been discussing with the famous Bill Vallicella for many…

  • A Question about Use and Mention

    Here is a curious sentence suggested to me by London Ed: 1) The last word in this sentence refers to cats. (1) is part of a larger puzzle the discussion which we leave for later.  My question is this: Can a word be both used and mentioned in the same sentence?  It would seem so.…

  • Names on Grave Stones

    The names on grave stones are proper names for a time, while the memories of survivors provide reference-fixing context. But with the passing of the survivors the names revert to commonality. After a while the dead may as well lie in a common grave.  What lies below the stone is not Patrick J. McNally, but…

  • Against Ostrich Nominalism

    As magnificent a subject as philosophy is, grappling as it does with the ultimate concerns of human existence, and thus surpassing in nobility any other human pursuit, it is also miserable in that nothing goes uncontested, and nothing ever gets established to the satisfaction of all competent practitioners.  (This is true of other disciplines as well,…

  • The Primacy of the Intentional Revisited

    Long-time reader writes, I was going through some of your posts from earlier this month (Belief, Designation, and Substitution, January 10, 2017) and was interested in seeing your comment that "[l]inguistic reference is built upon, and nothing without, thinking reference, or intentionality."   . . . I have to say that your above sentence was…

  • Belief, Designation, and Substitution

    Suppose it is true that Sam believes that Hesperus is a planet.  One cannot substitute 'Phosphorus' for 'Hesperus' in 'Sam believes that Hesperus is a planet' and be assured that the resulting sentence will also be true.  And this despite the fact that Hesperus is Phosphorus. The reason is that Sam may be ignorant of…

  • Yet Another Exchange on the Necessity of Identity

    The Opponent by e-mail: Still puzzling over this. I think Kripke believes we can get to N of I directly, via rigidity of designation. If names are rigid designators, then there can be no question about identities being necessary, because ‘a’ and ‘b’ will be rigid designators of a certain man or thing x. Then…

  • Another Round With the Opponent on the Necessity of Identity

    The Opponent writes, The Maverick Philosopher has a comment on my earlier question about the necessity of identity. Can we get from ‘a=b’ to ‘necessarily a=b’ in a simple step? He thinks we can. Now if ‘H’ and ‘P’ designate one and the same entity, then what appears to be of the form a =…

  • The Necessity of Identity: A Puzzle and a Challenge

    The Opponent comments in black; my responses are in blue: Here is the puzzle: how can we establish the necessity of identity without appealing to principles which are either insufficient, or which are not universally valid? The principle of identity (necessarily, a = a) is not sufficient. We agree that necessarily, Hesperus is identical with…

  • Luke 2:21: Can the Not-Yet-Existent be Named?

    Luke 2:21 (NIV): On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived. (emphasis added) This New Testament passage implies that before a certain human individual came into existence, he was named, and therefore could be named.  The implication…

  • Identity and Quasi-Epistemic Contingency

    The Opponent sends the following puzzle to vex us: Story: there was someone called 'a', and there was someone called 'b'. This is all we have of the story. Let the predicate F be 'The story is consistent with anot being identical with ___'. Then clearly Fa is false, and Fb is true.  This is…

  • An Imagined Exchange With Yogi Berra

    Me:  He who hesitates is lost. Yogi:  You mean Peter? …………….. What inspired this imagined exchange?  The thought that the grammatically third-person singular masculine pronoun has logically non-pronominal uses.   Related articles Direct and Indirect Reference The professor vs. the pronoun warriors

  • Is Beef Food?

    Beef is the flesh of a formerly sentient being, a dead cow.  And of course beef is edible.  For present purposes, to be edible is to be ingestible by mastication, swallowing, etc., non-poisonous,  and sufficiently nutritious to sustain human life. But is everything that is edible food?  Obviously not: your pets and your children are…