Quine vs. Kripke, the final showdown.

This may be the key to all of my problems, or at least those related to my dissertation, and specifically the numerically/phisically identical issues. I will elaborate and then explain...

1. Parfit makes an important distinction in his expostion of 'why our Identity is not what matters', that of being either numerically identical or physically identical - it is possible to be both. The case can be thought of in this way; I am looking at two billiard balls, one yellow and one red. These are neither physically, nor numerically identical. I 'paint' the yellow one red. Now my two balls are phsically identical (for the scientists, please assume that all of the red balls in a billiard set are initally yellow and then painted red - its only an analogy!). Also in this case, the new red ball is numerically identical with my inital yellow one, they are one and the same ball.

2. In order to maintian Personal Identity, it can be argued that you must maintain both physical and numerical identicality.

3. Quine, 'all necessity is based upon definitions'

4. Kripke, ' some definitions provide necessity, but there are some THINGS which are necissary in and of themselves.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I need to go home and think about this some more, will update thoughts as soon as I can.
CM

Quine, On the Sense/Reference Distinction

Another brief synopsis of a lecture I have attended, primarily on Quine's Essays 'Reference and Modality' and 'On what there is'.

1. The discussion begins with a retrospective glance at a Fregean distinction - that of 'sense' and 'reference'. On this model it is possible for the same experiential reference to have two (or more) different senses, to clarify, there can be two (or more) routes to the same destination. This is clearly evident with proper names, for example, 'Venus' and 'Hesperus' are two senses which have the same reference. More diversely, the statement 'the tallest man in Dundee is the fattest man in Scotland' is a combination of two senses/descriptions/routes to arrive and the same reference - the one man who is both. There are many linked parallels to this distinction, sense/reference can also be expressed as intension/extension or indeed, semantics/syntax. This is another instance of the analytic/synthetic distinction.

2. It is important for Quine that we move away from notions of sense and more firmly to the scientific ideas of reference. 'Meaning' in so far as it is 'sense' is indeterminable and not at all scienfically sound. There is nothing in science that can allow us to have proof of ideas like 'belief' and to this end we are encouraged to reject them in favour of the things that we can verify in extenstion. Quine rejects both of the commonly held senses of 'meaning' - either that it is a phsycological object, or and abstract object. 'Phsycologically', meaning is somehow held in the mind and expressed in our phsycological behaviour, 'Abstractly', meaning is more like Plato's forms, something that we can discover as an independant entity and latch on to.

Semantics in 'The two dogmas of empiricism'

3. For Quine, "to be is to be the value of a variable". And as immediate issue, it is impossible to count all of everything in order to equate the functions that we create to discover what it is to 'be'. Take for example the statement, 'all propositions are true or false or senseless.' -> Vp(Tp v Fp v Sp)
(ignoring for the moment the obvious problems of this formulation vis the 'inclusive 'or'' ) Quantifiers and Connectives in Logic In order to count all propositions we need to have encountered all propositions, and this is clearly not possible! If we do not know how many we are putting into the formula, we can not know how much we are going to get out. If the original quantifier is unknown, then the formla is worse then useless. Due to this dubious quantification of ideas Quine rejects this as an 'impossible game' which extends to properties, possibilities, meanings, thoughts, beliefs, desires....! (But not mathematics)
Since all of these things are so difficult, if not impossible to analyse, Quine would have them removed completely from any formulated Ontology.

Links about Kripke

Reference and Ontology after Kripke

The Philosophical Lexicon

Kripke on Naming

Thomas Kuhn’s misunderstood relation to Kripke-Putnam essentialism

Wittgenstein and Kripke

Witgenstein On rules and Private Language Ultimate Homepage

As requested I have added a comments feature to this site.

If you want to comment, please try and take it a little serously, and make it constructive. I have also edited my posts to include paragraph numbers for this purpose, please refer to the paragraph to which you are commenting in your remarks. (if possble refer to line numbers as well, where appropriate)