tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.comments2024-01-13T11:31:45.396+01:00The bLOGOSDan López de Sahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.comBlogger222125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-91126147405803639292010-10-14T01:44:05.686+02:002010-10-14T01:44:05.686+02:00Couldn't King reply to what I said by saying: ...Couldn't King reply to what I said by saying: the length of 20 kilometeres is not the same as the length of 12.43 miles, because the first length has the property of being 20 kilometers in length, and the second length has the property of being 12.43 miles in length, and the property of being 20 kilometers in length is not the same as the property of being 12.43 miles in length. The problem with that position is this: any single thing has more than one property, and many of the properties it has are different from one another; so, if the fact that properties a thing has are different makes the thing more than one thing, then any single thing would be many things. Let me illustrate this point by example: Annie has the property of being female, being warm blooded, being human, being bipedal, being a mammal, among others. These properties are all different. If the fact that the properties a thing has are different makes the thing more than one thing, then Annie is, at least, five different things. But, of course, Annie is just one thing. Therefore, the fact that the properties a thing has are different does not make the thing more than one thing.thealcoholicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02542234961775042666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-13812995267639799982010-10-12T22:17:05.703+02:002010-10-12T22:17:05.703+02:00If, as you say, King's position is that a prop...If, as you say, King's position is that a proposition IS a fact that consists of an object standing in certains relations or having certain properties, then how does he account for the difference between the propositions expressed by the sentences, "Annie ran 20 kilometres" and "Annie ran 12.43 miles"? In other words, what is the difference between the fact consisting of Annie running 20 kilometeres, and the fact of Annie running 12.43 miles? They both appear to be the same fact: Annie is identical to herself; the running relation that she bears to the length that she ran is identical to itself; and the length that she ran is identical to itself. Therefore, the difference being expressed by the sentences "Annie ran 20 kilometres" and "Annie ran 12.43 miles" is not dependent on the fact that makes the sentences true. The difference is dependent on the mode of presentation (as Frege would say) of the length that she ran: in the first sentence, the length she ran presents itself as 20 kilometres; in the second sentence, the length she ran presents itself as 12.43 miles. The mode of presentation of an object is supposed to be a constituent of a proposition. But if a proposition is just a fact, then it cannot be: because the length of 20 kilometres is the same thing as the length of 12.43 miles. So, a proposition must be something other than a fact.thealcoholicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02542234961775042666noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-57004807732587213012010-04-15T11:07:42.596+02:002010-04-15T11:07:42.596+02:00I think the situation would be clearer, if King ha...I think the situation would be clearer, if King had actually considered the question as to what kinds of entities propositions are in relation to the question of what theoretical roles they should perform (tell me what they do, and I tell you what they are). In contrast, what he does is to state something like Simplicity as a reason to believe that propositions exist, and then develop his account of what they are mostly independent of the roles they play. The main constraints he imposes on his account seem to be i) that the account should clearly state what they are and ii) how they manage to have truth conditions. <br /><br />For instance, he seems to leave it somewhat mysterious why we should expect them to be as fine-grained as he thinks they are. Except that this follows from his transparent account of what they are. On the other hand, it we follow proper methodology and answer the question as to what they are in relation to what theoretical roles they perform, I think their role as compositional semantic values gives us reason to uphold principle P. (One of King's motivation seems to be to account for the semantics of that-clauses; but this motivation is in accord with principle P, since that's just the question of how they embed within "believes-that" contexts).<br /><br />Moreover, it seems that King's level of fine-grainedness makes them inapt to play some of the roles propositions traditionally were supposed to play: what is preserved under (strict) translation, what is common to beliefs/sentences with the same representational content... (Maybe King can give us some kind of ersatz-objects to play these roles; e.g. equivalence classes of distinct fine-grained propositions.)<br /><br />I thought that David's example was a real life case. Also, as far as I know there are languages that differ syntactially just in whether they put they verb in initial or final position. Surely, we can have sentences there that undeniably have the same meaning. <br /><br />Bottom line: I can't really see what motivates King's account of propositions. And he seems forced to give up on some of the theoretical roles that they are traditionally assumed to play.Clashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10621141785588099475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-71490603412082399632010-04-13T13:33:34.786+02:002010-04-13T13:33:34.786+02:00Yeah, I agree that is could be a worry for King. O...Yeah, I agree that is could be a worry for King. One question is, is it a worry beacause people have different intuitions about that kind of case or because there are other substantial reasons? I have to confess that I don't find David's case that counterintuitive. First of all, I guess King's opponent should present us with an actual case, and not just a possible one. All languages I know of (very few, indeed) have two nodes for "snow is white". That, I guess, is because translating "snow" in these languages gets you one word, not many. But imagine now that the word for snow in a weird language is something that would more literally be translated as "the white thing falling from the sky" (say, the language is spoken by people who've only heard of snow, somewhere on the equator :-)) Don't you have the intuition that there is another proposition expressed? King talks about these issues in connection with translation, and I tend to find what he says quite compelling. If I remember Dave's point from our discussions, I guess his way to resist to King is to insist that principle P is true. I myself am not sure what to think of principle P :-)Dan Zemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02853927138627550301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-53514649229657594072010-04-11T08:44:13.060+02:002010-04-11T08:44:13.060+02:00Hi Dan,
sorry for hijacking your post to discuss...Hi Dan, <br /><br />sorry for hijacking your post to discuss Simplicity. However, I think that Dan's question is quite relevant for your original worry. If we're not really clear about the theoretical role that propositions are supposed to play, then we're stuck in the unfortunate situation where King ends up in. I.e. the mere trading of intuitions about when two sentences express the same propositions and when don't. This is bad methodology, I think. <br /><br />Furthermore, if for instance we think of propositions as compositional semantic values, then King's rejection of principle P in chapter 3 seems rather unmotivated [roughly: two sentences S, T express different propositions iff there is a sentential connective O such OS and OT differ in truth value]. Why assign two sentences different semantic values, when there is no linguistic context in which that difference would ever show up? <br /><br />Something more to the point of your initial question: David Ripley has given an argument in an unpublished paper that involves sentences of different languages. Let's assume we have several sentences from different languages that all clearly mean that snow is white. However, the sentences fall into two groups. One has three terminal nodes at LF, the other only two. We might want to individuate proposition so finely that sentence from different languages never express the same proposition. However, King allows that they sometimes do. This forces him into a rather unhappy situation. He is committed to claiming that the sentences in the first group express the same proposition, and that the sentence in the second group express the same proposition, but that the two groups express different propositions, even though all sentence mean that snow is white. This seems to be a rather bad result.Clashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10621141785588099475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-2835208027080696082010-04-09T16:59:26.451+02:002010-04-09T16:59:26.451+02:00OK, I don't mean to be disrespectful to your L...OK, I don't mean to be disrespectful to your Lewisian proclivities :-), but I think that whether King accepts or not Simplicity is irrelevant to the problem at issue. Indeed, as Clas said in the first post, he takes propositions to play all these roles (and more). But even if we need more than one thing to play those different roles, under the assumption that we need propositions to play at least one of them, the issue of what proposituions ARE still arises. So, King's book connects with such issues as the unity of the proposition, how can propositions bear truth-values, what exactly are they from a metaphysical point of view, etc. Actually, I take it that King's pride and joy is the thought that his view has solved the problem of the unity of the proposition (no more nor less). He does that by conceiving propositions as facts of a certain kind, facts that have as one of their constituents sentential relations, which is what binds words together in a sentence and from which propositions themselves inherit "the glue" that keeps their constituents together. Also, the book has a chapter dedicated to the defense of the structured view of propositions, which makes it clear that the debate King is entering is that between structured and unstructured propositions (hence my mentioning in the post of the unstructured view and ways out for it). My impression was that his dismissal of some intuitions is something that the unstructured view guys could appeal as well.Dan Zemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02853927138627550301noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-5293763443727292002010-04-09T06:45:15.006+02:002010-04-09T06:45:15.006+02:00I agree. However, one might try to use proposition...I agree. However, one might try to use propositional attitude ascriptions as a kind of bridge from semantic values of sentences to the contents of propositional attitudes. This seems to require assuming compositionality + the claim that the content of that-clauses and that of the reported attitudes are the same (which is not trivial). And even if there is this link, it is not obvious that the relation has to be as strong as identity. It might e.g. be enough that semantic values of sentences somehow encode the relevant content of propositional attitudes. <br /><br />Another link might be that between assertion and belief: we utter sentences to express our beliefs. However, this also does not commit us to identify the two contents. Furthermore, there might be another gap between semantic values of sentence types in contexts and the content of assertions; e.g. as in Lewis' framework.Clashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10621141785588099475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-59037423806780158782010-04-08T16:28:42.548+02:002010-04-08T16:28:42.548+02:00Even if it turns out that the features shiftable b...Even if it turns out that the features shiftable by operators happen to be those with respect to which the objects of attitudes' values are relative to (say: worlds and times), lacking a principled reason why this need be so makes the Simplicist identification of semantic values and objects of attitudes ungrounded, do you agree?Dan López de Sahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-8671449959103460442010-04-08T00:40:52.883+02:002010-04-08T00:40:52.883+02:00And once we give up the implausible claim that onl...And once we give up the implausible claim that only eternal propositions can be the objects of attitudes, it turns out that, ironically, King's opponent - the modalist - is in a much better position to hold onto Simplicity than King himself. Since then, we will have temporal propositions as comp. semantic values and as objects of attitudes.Clashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10621141785588099475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-64901323087874481912010-04-08T00:28:12.063+02:002010-04-08T00:28:12.063+02:00In the paper, he takes it for granted that the vie...In the paper, he takes it for granted that the view is "attractive"- because it is simple, I assume. However, he tries to defend it against the Operator Argument, since the OA shows that we will need temporal propositions as comp. semantic values, but, according to King, we need eternal propositions as objects of attitudes. I have just tried to show in a paper that his defense of Simplicity is unsuccessful, since on his schmentencite alternative, we will also have two different entities playing the respective roles. We will have sets of assignments (schmopositions) as arguments for temporal operators (quantifiers), i.e. compositional semantic values, but eternal propositions as objects of attitudes.Clashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10621141785588099475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-22030085511937267222010-04-07T16:02:41.419+02:002010-04-07T16:02:41.419+02:00That there is something playing those various appa...That there is something playing those various apparently independent roles is part of what Cappelen and Hawthorne call Simplicity. Does King argue for this or just assumes it?Dan López de Sahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-58385738454309023192010-04-07T11:32:21.018+02:002010-04-07T11:32:21.018+02:00Not quite sure what he says in the book... However...Not quite sure what he says in the book... However, in his "Tense, Modality, and Semantic Values" he characterizes propositions as entities that play all of the roles you mention; plus a couple of others.Clashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10621141785588099475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-50055140149313250912010-04-06T18:45:01.624+02:002010-04-06T18:45:01.624+02:00Pardon my ignorance, but which role characterizes ...Pardon my ignorance, but which role characterizes the notion of a "proposition" in King's? Being the semantic value of sentences in context? Being the object of psychological attitudes such as believe? Being "what is said" in certain linguistic exchanges? Or other?Dan López de Sahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-84613495830443870592010-04-06T06:09:12.607+02:002010-04-06T06:09:12.607+02:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.蔥爆牛肉Vivianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15125993192313513388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-64944514029546130352009-11-13T14:28:21.968+01:002009-11-13T14:28:21.968+01:00Right!Right!Ross Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01900752201200020829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-70655863267722663002009-11-13T09:07:11.921+01:002009-11-13T09:07:11.921+01:00Thanks, Ross, this clarifies things for me! I was ...Thanks, Ross, this clarifies things for me! I was under the impression that you were willing to call ‘truthmaking’ the underlying in virtue of relation between truths itself. (I think this is what Yablo decided to do in recent work, but I might be wrong here again ;-)!) I see how your choice allows you to keep the talk about entities other than truths making truths true. Arguably, some of the traditional motivations for truthmakers would still be not available---appealing to the “insight” of truths requiring anchoring in reality, as to be about things, not free-float in a void, etc. But I seem to remember from the discussion in Barcelona that you were not very impressed by these motivations anyway.<br /><br />Regarding the other issue, things are clearer to me now as well. I thought you thought I didn’t truthmake <i>because</i> I wasn’t fundamental, but now I see that I am not fundamental for you <i>because</i> I don’t truthmake, right?Dan López de Sahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-74188728499976095932009-11-12T22:25:59.790+01:002009-11-12T22:25:59.790+01:00hola, me parece un tema bastante penetrante en la ...hola, me parece un tema bastante penetrante en la vida de cualquier persona, lo curioso es que no se que hago en esta pagina, porque estaba buscando información sobre mi proyecto llamado <a href="http://www.buygenericviagra.net/" title="Generic Viagra" rel="nofollow">Generic Viagra</a>,pero escogí esta pagina en google y me pareció interesante, gracias por compartirla!Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00483639711338393704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-38039148890246553112009-11-11T21:55:19.721+01:002009-11-11T21:55:19.721+01:00So, just for the record: I certainly accept (ii). ...So, just for the record: I certainly accept (ii). To be real/fundamental is to be a truthmaker, and to be derivative is for the fact that you exist to be made true by something other than yourself.<br /><br />RE (i). I think that A makes p true iff p is true in virtue of the truth of [A exists]. So truthmaking itself isn't a relation between truths (at least, not always): it's a relation between some thing(s) and some truth. But it goes hand in hand with the obtaining of the in virtue of relation between truths.<br /><br />That on its own doesn't say anything about whether one of these relations is prior to the other, of course. But I'm somewhat tempted by the view (and I think this is what Dan has in mind by attributing (i) to me) that it's the in virtue of relation that's prior, with truthmaking defined in terms of it via the above biconditional. Why? Economy, and I don't think there's a neat way to define in virtue of in terms of truthmaking.Ross Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01900752201200020829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-52022392486733563262009-11-11T15:05:01.567+01:002009-11-11T15:05:01.567+01:00Thanks Dan!
Basically, I want to do what you thin...Thanks Dan!<br /><br />Basically, I want to do what you think won't do. I want to hold the following: that if you have your present intrinsic nature partly in virtue of having the property F and it's not true that you have your present intrinsic nature partly in virtue of having the property G, then it's not true that you have your PIN partly in virtue of having the conjunctive property being F and G. All the work is being done by F, none at all is being done by G, so what settles your PIN is your being F, nothing to do with G, so the conjunctive property F&G isn't helping settle your PIN, only the one conjunct is.<br /><br />Now, maybe there's a liberal notion of in virtue of according to which (*) follows from (#). (Maybe!) But as long as there's *some way* for me to make the required distinction, that's all I want. So perhaps the only admissible properties are those that play a role in the minimal difference-making base. I can't see a reason to doubt that there's some way of distinguishing difference-making properties such that a conjunctive property with a difference-making property as a conjunct doesn't itself automatically count as a difference-making property.Ross Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01900752201200020829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-53149847423260405222009-11-04T23:00:05.667+01:002009-11-04T23:00:05.667+01:00I'm no expert on the truthmaker literature, bu...I'm no expert on the truthmaker literature, but I'm pretty sure Ross would accept (ii): things like me and you don't serve as truthmakers. I think that's because he wants fundamentality and truthmaking to be tied together: to be fundamental is to do truthmaking work. Or at least he's up for something like that. <br /><br />I'd be surprised if Ross was okay with (i) though.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10363491906489167637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-8225114402983934102009-11-03T14:11:22.616+01:002009-11-03T14:11:22.616+01:00Hi Rich!
We were mainly people working partly on ...Hi Rich!<br /><br />We were mainly people working partly on metaphysics, but I know the kind of eye-rolling you mention.<br /><br />Interesting stuff about the relation between the relation between (say) parts grounding the wholes they compose and that between (say) these parts (or wholes) making some truths true.<br /><br />Re Ross, if I don't misremember he holds two relatively unorthodox views about truth-making, right? (i) That it is a relation between truths as opposed to things such as myself and truths and (ii) that (truths corresponding to) non-fundamental, derived things such as myself don't truthmake. Hmmm...Dan López de Sahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-41924649716221545782009-11-03T11:44:37.421+01:002009-11-03T11:44:37.421+01:00Hey Dan,
My own take on the matter is that we nee...Hey Dan,<br /><br />My own take on the matter is that we need some kind of hyperintensional notion in metaphysics, and various people -- Ted, Kit, Ross, Jonathan -- have put different options on the table. And I think anyone tempted towards those views will look upon the (1)-(2) inference as being obviously sound. What I've found interesting is (i) how lots of <b>metaphysicians</b> don't like these kinds of views -- eyes roll when you mention naturalness or quantificational structure. (Not in Leeds, of course ;)) but (ii) how lots of <b>non-metaphysicians</b> tend to find the views natural and appealing. So I'd be interested to hear what the demographic was in the session when you read it, and especially whether the metaphysicians were more reticent to accept the (1)-(2) proof, and the move to fundamentality.<br /><br />FWIW, and since you mentioned the paper, I'm not totally happy with Schaffer's view. On reason is that he's focusing mainly on the case of entity-grounding, whereas we want a more general account of grounding that tells us what grounds the truth of propositions. I can see how this might go, within Schaffer's setting, but I'm a bit concerned it either (i) collapses into Ross's view (truth-grounding = truth-making, and entity-grounding drops out) or (ii) needs to invoke ugly primitives (i.e. states of affairs, facts, or somesuch structured entities).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10363491906489167637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-14854625515924311562009-10-27T19:13:13.000+01:002009-10-27T19:13:13.000+01:00I thought the discussions about this on the occasi...I thought the discussions about this on the occasion of Dan LdS's presentation at the LOGOS-Jean Nicod meeting were clarifying. I would say that the examples only show that with one and the same "utterance" (individuating utterances relative to the physical properties of the uttering-output) one can make different "utterances" (now individuating them on the basis of constitutive semantic properties, such as the contribution of indexicals). Egan also appears to go for this (pp. 269-71), although he is not ultimately fully committal. But I agree with Dan's main claim, that there is a natural way of interpreting Lewis' framework of sentences, indexes and context that can also accommodate the examples.m g-chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09291599601885624567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-46259760592867917292009-10-27T19:04:11.941+01:002009-10-27T19:04:11.941+01:00Yes, I had a discussion with him about this last y...Yes, I had a discussion with him about this last year at a St. Andrews conference, and it was clear that he was defending a view similar to MacFarlane's.m g-chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09291599601885624567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37474993.post-29194027056903623722009-10-27T17:59:30.869+01:002009-10-27T17:59:30.869+01:00Thanks for this!
Lasersohn also commented on the ...Thanks for this!<br /><br />Lasersohn also commented on the issue, replying to <a href="http://blebblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/lasersohn-2005-vs-non-indexical.html" rel="nofollow">this post</a> on why the view in (2005) is not non-indexical contextualism but (radical) relativism proper.Dan López de Sahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16716694655307652854noreply@blogger.com