tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post6431233641802176115..comments2023-10-08T15:51:17.426+00:00Comments on Beyond Necessity: Crane on singularityEdward Ockhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07583379503310147119noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post-64072940490493977962011-05-22T11:40:38.940+00:002011-05-22T11:40:38.940+00:00>>Could you expand a bit on the psychologism...>>Could you expand a bit on the psychologism objection? <br /><br />(a) I think. The distinction between singular and general, I claim, is a logical one. The distinction that Crane seems to draw invokes psychological reasons.Edward Ockhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07583379503310147119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post-8365621114692333782011-05-22T11:31:14.999+00:002011-05-22T11:31:14.999+00:00I'd say that if you want to avoid talk of unde...I'd say that if you want to avoid talk of underlying 'semantic machinery' then 'constancy of referent' will have to be taken as axiomatic. Or better, perhaps, we assume the smallest number of referents needed to make the facts we have been given consistent.<br /><br />Could you expand a bit on the psychologism objection? In OCTP Grayling says that psychologism is the acceptance of some or all of the following, all influentially rejected by Frege:<br />a) a belief that logical laws are 'laws of thought', ie, psychological laws;<br />b) a conflation of truth with verification;<br />c) a belief that private data of consciousness provide the correct starting point for epistemology;<br />d) belief that the meanings of words are ideas.<br />I imagine that c) and d) are the most relevant here, but I'd like to see the arguments.David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post-2478135399805613262011-05-21T11:29:20.748+00:002011-05-21T11:29:20.748+00:00>Jeshion's 'cognitivism' and talk o...>Jeshion's 'cognitivism' and talk of 'mental files' I find congenial and close to my own inchoate ideas.<br /><br />See also Kent Bach. The problem with all these accounts is the psychologism.<br /><br />>>The problem is then to explain how sometimes my mental file coheres with yours sufficiently to give rise to the sense of reference to a single external object. I'm not aware as yet of any argument that this project is untractable.<br /><<<br /><br />Right: there's an important potential objection to the minimalist thesis here, that needs to be addressed.<br /><br />I take it you are comfortable with why the name 'Frodo' refers to Frodo all the way through LOTR? I.e. anyone who thought that different instances of this name, in the sense it is used in that work, could possibly be true of different hobbits, hasn't understood the name?<br /><br />The difficulty is to explain what happens when the same name, <i>used in the same sense</i> occurs in different texts. And to explain exactly what we mean by 'the same sense'. <br /><br />I just noticed I hadn't posted, as I had intended, something on what the 'Two Towers' actually are.Edward Ockhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07583379503310147119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post-84681550250260056162011-05-21T11:07:26.265+00:002011-05-21T11:07:26.265+00:00Yes, I agree there seems something a little fishy ...Yes, I agree there seems something a little fishy about Crane's account. Talk of names sometimes failing to achieve an aim rather suggests he sees a somewhat bigger role for names than the minimalist position allows.<br /><br />I have been dipping into some of Robin Jeshion's papers that Crane cites. Jeshion's 'cognitivism' and talk of 'mental files' I find congenial and close to my own inchoate ideas. I start with the thought that we largely use sentences to modify another's belief states. So I see a sentence like 'Frodo bore the ring' as analogous to a program fragment with operational semantics roughly: find the file labelled 'Frodo' and append the predicate 'bore the ring' to it. Of course, this ignores our awareness of deceit, but it conveys how the sentence is to update our belief state if we do take it as gospel. So proper names are in the first instance labels for personal mental entities. The problem is then to explain how sometimes my mental file coheres with yours sufficiently to give rise to the sense of reference to a single external object. I'm not aware as yet of any argument that this project is untractable.David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post-12768184831331769372011-05-21T10:02:07.105+00:002011-05-21T10:02:07.105+00:00Hello David glad to see you back.
>>Ockham ...Hello David glad to see you back.<br /><br />>>Ockham would say that 'Frodo' refers to Frodo but Frodo doesn't exist<br /><br />Yes, and also that absolutely nothing is Frodo, since Ockham is not a Meinongian and does not hold that Frodo is a non-existing something.<br /><br />>>Isn't this a terminological difference over exactly how we should use 'refers'?<br /><br />I think it is, except Crane has this notion of 'reference failure' which suggests he is confusing <i>his</i> notion of 'refers' with the Ockhamist notion. <br /><br />>>So maybe Ockham's 'reference' is Crane's 'aboutness'?<br /><br />Possibly. I suspect he would agree that 'Frodo' represents Frodo, and that 'Frodo' represents <i>something</i>, and is about something.<br /><br />However, if he does think that a proper name tells us <i>which</i> individual a proposition is about, that is not consistent with the idea that it 'fails'. Unless he means that it can always succeed in telling us <i>which</i>, but that there fails to be such a thing. But I don't think he means that. His 'failure' is not just existence failure, but failure of something the name was 'trying' to do. I think his picture is ultimately incoherent. He, like many others who write about this subject, conflate the ordinary sense of 'refer', i.e. which-telling, with the technical sense, i.e. semantic relation to an extra-linguistic object.Edward Ockhamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07583379503310147119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21308815.post-7684109532479364452011-05-21T09:29:47.091+00:002011-05-21T09:29:47.091+00:00Ockham would say that 'Frodo' refers to Fr...Ockham would say that 'Frodo' refers to Frodo but Frodo doesn't exist, whereas Crane would say that 'Frodo' fails to refer. Isn't this a terminological difference over exactly how we should use 'refers'?<br /><br />On p5 Crane says 'Reference is a relation to an existing thing, by definition; aboutness is the mere representation of some thing in thought, whether or not it exists.' Ockham says 'a proper name individuates: it tells us which individual a proposition is about'. So maybe Ockham's 'reference' is Crane's 'aboutness'?David Brightlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06757969974801621186noreply@blogger.com