Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Language, Philosophy of

  • Ortcutt and Paderewski: Against the Millian Theory of Proper Names

    Saul Kripke's Paderewski puzzle put me in mind of a rather similar puzzle — call it the Ortcutt puzzle — from W.V. Quine's seminal 1956 J. Phil. paper, "Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes" (in The Ways of Paradox, Harvard UP, 1976, pp. 185-196).  Back to Ortcutt! The ordinary language 'Ralph believes that someone is a spy' …

  • Background for a Discussion of Kripke’s “A Puzzle About Belief”

    London Ed wants to discuss the Paderewski example in Saul Kripke's  "A Puzzle About Belief."  But before doing so we should see if we agree on some preliminary points.  Knowing Ed, he will probably find a way to disagree with a good chunk what I am about to say.  So I expect we will get…

  • Do Muslims Worship the True God?

    It depends. Suppose the true God is the triune God.  Then two possibilities. One is that  Muslims worship the true God, but not as triune, indeed as non-triune; they worship the true God all right, the same one the Christians worship; it is just that the Muslims have one or more false beliefs about the…

  • A Puzzle About Direct Reference

    The paradigms of direct reference are the indexicals and the demonstratives.  The English letter 'I' is not the English word 'I,' and the word 'I' — the first-person singular pronoun — has non-indexical uses.  But let's consider a standard indexical use of this pronoun.   Tom says to Tina,  I am hungry. Tom refers to himself…

  • Reference: Some Distinctions

    Do you want to comment on the following post?  Here is how to do it properly.   You must address head-on what I say.  For example, in (A) below I make a distinction between referring and non-referring terms.  Tell me whether you agree or not. If you don't, tell me why.  Or you can ask me…

  • In What Sense Does an Indefinite Noun Phrase Refer?

    London Ed propounds a difficulty for our delectation and possible solution: Clearly the difficulty with the intralinguistic theory is its apparent absurdity, but I am trying to turn this around. What can we say about extralinguistic reference?  What actually is the extralinguistic theory? You argue that the pronoun ‘he’ inherits a reference from its antecedent,…

  • Same Cause, Same Referent? More on the ‘Same God’ Problem

    Tree and Scarecrow Suppose I point out a certain tree in the distance to Dale and remark upon its strange shape.  I say, "That tree has a strange shape."  Dale responds, "That's not a tree; that's a scarecrow!"  Suppose we are looking at the same thing, a physical thing that exists in the external world…

  • Trinities Podcast 121: Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Part II

    Master podcaster Dr. Dale Tuggy and I continue our discussion. He's got a great voice for this medium, doesn't he?  Me, I'm too sotto voce.

  • Do Aquinas and Spinoza Refer to the Same God?

    I put the following question to Francis Beckwith via e-mail: Thomas Aquinas and Spinoza both hold that there is exactly one God.  Would you say that when they use Deus they succeed in referring to one and the same God, but just have contradictory beliefs about this one and the same God?  When I put…

  • Do Christians and Muslims Believe in the Same God? Francis Beckwith and the Kalam Cosmological Argument

    Francis Beckwith mentions the Kalam Cosmological Argument in his latest The Catholic Thing article (7 January 2106): 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence. Suppose that a Muslim and Christian come to believe that God exists on the basis…

  • Edward Feser on Christians, Muslims, and the Reference of ‘God’

    So far, Ed Feser's is perhaps the best of the  Internet discussions of this hot-button question, a question recently re-ignited by the Wheaton dust-up, to mix some metaphors.  Herewith, some notes  on Feser's long entry.  I am not nearly as philosophically self-confident as Ed or Lydia McGrew, so I will mainly just be trying to…

  • A Searle-y Objection to the Causal Theory of Names

    I have been arguing  that whether 'God' and equivalents as used by Jews, Christians, and Muslims refer to the same being depends on one's philosophy of language.  In particular, I suggested that only on a causal theory of names could one maintain that their respective references are to the same entity.  The causal theory of…

  • Trinities Podcast 120: Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God? Part I

    Master podcaster Dale Tuggy presents the question and then he and I discuss the 'public square' and 'technical' aspects of the question.  You can also hear it on YouTube.  Part II in a week or so.

  • More on ‘Same God?’: Richard B. Davis Responds to Beckwith and Rea

    Here. (HT: Steve Hays)  Davis is on the right track:  his critique is consistent with mine. Related articles The Duty of LInkage NRO: One Crappy Website Saturday Night at the Oldies: Two Fortuitous Finds

  • Worship, Reference, and Existence: An Aporetic Triad

    Each of the following three propositions strikes me as very reasonably maintained.  But they cannot all be true. A. Worship Entails Reference:  If S worships x, then S refers to x.B. Reference Entails Existence: If S refers to x, then x exists.C. Worship Does Not Entail Existence: It is not the case that if S…