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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
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| Kaplan, D. | Stalnaker Vs Kaplan, D. | I 206 Def character/Kaplan: (= proposition meaning): a function of context to content. Context/Stalnaker: can be represented as centered world (centered poss.w.). centered world/centered possible world/ poss.w./Stalnaker: shall represent the context here. I 207 Content: is here represented by propositions Proposition: function of poss.w. to truth values. Character/Kaplan/Stalnaker: is then a two-dimensional intension. (Kaplan 1989b) StalnakerVsKaplan: this paradigm does not answer the questions of basic semantics to the facts that determine the semantic values. It belongs to the descriptive semantics. That means it is not a theory on the interpretation of thoughts. Thoughts/interpretation/Stalnaker: is a question of basic semantics that means of the facts. Character/content/Kaplan/Stalnaker: the original motivation for the separation was that sentence meanings do not represent the expressed thoughts. Content/Stalnaker: = secondary intension. Content/Kaplan: that what is being said. The thought, the information that the speaker intends to transmit. I 208 Solution/StalnakerVsKaplan: Kaplan's approach must be expanded by a theory of thoughts and a language theory. This allows us to treat a wider domain of expressions as context-dependent than normally. II 5 Double indexing/double index/Kaplan/Stalnaker: (Kaplan Demonstratives, 1968): thesis: 1. a) the meaning of a proposition determines the content relative to the context but b) the content determines a truth value only relative to a poss.w. Stalnaker: so Kaplan's theory was two dimensional or double indicated. Context/Kaplan/Stalnaker: was represented by an index like the one of Montague and propositions were interpreted relative to this index Content/Kaplan/Stalnaker: the actual values of the interpretation function were then, however, the contents and not the truth values, while Def content/Kaplan: a function of poss.w. on truth values. 2. Kaplan second modification: Index/Kaplan/Stalnaker: was limited: Index/Montague/Stalnaker: only a list of time, speaker, place, maybe poss.w.) Index/Kaplan: only: the relations between these must also be considered. That means an index can represent the content only when the agent is actually at the location in the poss.w.. II 6 Context dependence/Stalnaker: is, however, pervasive: adjectives like e.g. "large" are interpreted relative to contextually specific comparison classes. Likewise e.g. "I", "here", "now" (index words). StalnakerVsKaplan: Kaplan (1968) says nothing about this. II 10 Character/Kaplan/Stalnaker: Kaplan was about proposition types. Propositional concept/p.c./StalnakerVsKaplan: are, however, associated with certain statement tokens. This p.c. is dependent on the semantic properties that these tokens have in the poss.w. in which they occur. This is no contradiction to Kaplan's and my theory. It is simply about different issues. II 162 de re/belief/ascription/Kaplan/Stalnaker: ("Quantifying in", 1969) Kaplan has an intermediate position (between Quine and Stalnaker): Ascription/Kaplan: (like Quine) is not ascribed to a certain conviction. de re/logical form/Quine/Kaplan: de re-ascription: existence quantification. Truth conditions/tr.c./de re/KaplanVsQuine/Stalnaker: here Kaplan follows the semantic approach: ascriptions de re are only then true if the believer has to be in a relation with the knowledge. Intensification: the name must denote the individual. E.g. "a is a spy": here a must not only denote Ortcutt, but there are additional conditions 1. for the content 2. for the causal relation between the name, the individual and the believer. Pointe/Stalnaker: it is still possible that all the conditions are fulfilled by two different names. Thus, the examples can be described without having to ascribe conflicting belief. KaplanVsQuine/Stalnaker: his approach also covers cases in which Quine's analysis was too liberal. StalnakerVsKaplan: his approach is an ad hoc compromise. Knowledge/ascription/Stalnaker: in the semantic analysis knowledge is self-evident without it you cannot believe anything. You cannot believe a proposition without having detected the expressions occurring in the concepts in which they are defined. StalnakerVsKaplan: 1. but the need for knowledge loses its motivation when it is grafted to Quine's approach. 2. Kaplan keeps the artificial assumption that de re-ascriptions ascribe no particular belief and he is bound to the sententialism (propositions as belief objects). II 163 At least it have to be proposition-like objects with name-like constituents. de re/ascriptoin/belief de re/StalnakerVsQuine/StalnakerVsKaplan/Stalnaker: thesis: we instead accept propositions as sets of poss.w.. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Possible Worlds | Stalnaker Vs Possible Worlds | I 49 Possible world/poss.w./knowledge/mathematics/StalnakerVsLewis/Stalnaker: I am inclined to say that the poss.w.-theory makes assumptions about the nature of their properties that are - unlike the corresponding assumptions of mathematical platonism - incompatible with the representation of the connection between the knowledge subjects and their objects in the case of poss.w.. poss.w./MR/VsModal realism/knowledge/verificationism/StalnakerVsLewis: the modal realist cannot cite any verificationist principles for what he calls his knowledge. Conclusion: problem: the MR cannot on the one hand say that poss.w. things are of the same kind as the actual world (contingent physical objects) and say on the other hand that poss.w. are things of which we know by the same kind like of numbers, sets, functions. ((s) Namely no real existing things.). I 53 StalnakerVsLewis: he contradicts himself because his other thesis about poss.w. about which we can have substantial beliefs contradicts his definition of content (see above). I 58 Contradiction/Lewis: there is no object howsoever fantastic about which one could tell the truth by contradicting oneself. Footnote: Takashi YagisawaVsLewis: why not? What should you expect otherwise? Impossible things are impossible. II 20 Belief ascription/solution/Stalnaker: I always wonder how the poss.w. would be according to what the believer believes. E.g. Pierre: for him there are two cities (Londres and London) E.g. Lingens in the library: for him there are two men, one named "Lingens" about which the other reads something. Relations theory/RelTh/Stalnaker: this can reconcile with the assumption that propositions are the belief objects. (Team: Stalnaker pro Relations theory? (1999)) Index/belief/Stalnaker: nevertheless I believe that convictions have an irreducible indexical element. Solution/Lewis: sets of centered poss.w. as belief objects. StalnakerVsLewis: although I have accepted that such poss.w. then include a representation of the mental state of the believer. But that is not what it is about! It is not sufficient that poss.w. that are compatible with one's convictions then include a person who has these convictions (> e.g. Lingens), the believer must identify himself with the person who has this thought! Proposition/identification/self-identification/Stalnaker: I am not suggesting that this identification is fulfilled by the belief in a proposition. I now think that this is not at all about some kind of cognitive performance. Indexical conviction/Stalnaker: (E.g. Perry: memory loss, library, e.g. Lewis: 2 gods (2 omniscient gods, e.g. Castaneda: memory loss): indexical unknowing. Stalnaker: thesis: people do not differ in what they believe. II 21 E.g. O'Leary knows that he is in the basement and that Daniels is in the kitchen. And Daniels knows the same thing: that he is in the kitchen and O'Leary in the basement. Everyone knows who and where he is and who and where the other is. The poss.w. that are compatible with the convictions of the two are the same. They argue about nothing. Yet there is an obvious difference in their doxastic situation: O'Leary identifies himself with the one in the basement and Daniels identifies himself as one who is in the kitchen. poss.w. semantics/StalnakerVsPossible worlds semantics/Stalnaker: this difference in the belief states of the two is not reflected by a set of poss.w. as belief state. Solution/Lewis: self-ascription of properties, or - equivalently - sets of centered poss.w.. StalnakerVsLewis: I do not want that. StalnakerVsLewis: problem: it is wrong to treat the difference in perspective as a dispute (disagreement). The two argue about nothing. Problem: it is not sure if one can express their agreement with the fact that the set of their uncentered poss.w. is the same. Because E.g. Heimson/Perry/Stalnaker: (Heimson believes "I am David Hume") all his impersonal beliefs about Hume are correct. Suppose they are the same convictions as the convictions of Hume about Hume. Stalnaker: nevertheless it would be wrong to say that they argue about nothing. ((s) unlike O'Leary and Daniels). II 134 Localization/space/time/self-localization/logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: set of poss.w. from which one selects one. Self-localization/physical: in space and time. We usually know where we are. ((s) but we never know all poss.w. in which we could be localized, we cannot distinguish all poss.w. because we do not know everything). Gods example/Stalnaker: the two know exactly where they are in the logical space. II 135 But they do not know where within this poss.w. they are. LewisVsTradition: the doctrine of the proposition is focused only on one of the two types of localized belief. Generalization: is what we need and for that the transition from propositions to properties (as belief objects) serves. II 144 Gods example/Stalnaker: this is also a case of unknowing, which of two indistinguishable poss.w. is actual. One is actually the actual world while the other exactly the sam, with the exception that the god who sits in the actual world on the highest mountain is this time sitting on the coldest mountain and in fact with all the properties that the god on the highest mountain actually has. ((s) two individuals change places but keep all the properties. This is only possible if localization is not a property) Omniscience/Stalnaker: then you have to say, the two gods are not really omniscient regarding propositions, but rather omniscient in relation to purely qualitative criteria. LewisVsStalnaker: Lewis rejects this explanation for two reasons: 1. because he represents the counterpart theory (c.th.) that makes the cross world identity superfluous or meaningless. 2. even without counterpart it would not work because Assuming that the two gods of world W have traded places in world V assuming the god on the highest knows that his world is W, not V. Assuming he is omniscient with respect to all propositions not only the qualitative propositions. II 145 V: the world V cannot be relevant because he knows that he does not live there. Problem: there are still two mountains in a poss.w. W where he after all what he knows can live. StalnakerVsLewis: that does not answer the question: you cannot simply stipulate that the God in W knows something and not V. Because after the explanation we proposed that leads to the fact that he knows on which mountain he lives. Lewis/Stalnaker: his explanation is plausible if one conceives it as a metaphor for a location in the logical space: logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: assume that a map of the logical space divided into large regions match the poss.w. and in smaller subdivisions represent the locations within poss.w.. Important argument: then we can tell someone in which large region he is without telling him exactly where he is located in it. Modal Realism/MR/logical space/Stalnaker: for him this image might be appropriate. Actualism/logical space/localization/Stalnaker: for the actualism this image is misleading: to know in which country you are is different to know where in the country you are but it is not so clear that there is a difference between the fact that one knows anything about in which poss.w. one is and knowing which poss.w. is the actual. Lewis also admits this. Stalnaker: my approach seems to be really close to the one of Lewis, but no. Centered poss.w.: one should perhaps instead of indistinguishable poss.w. speak of centered worlds (after Quine). These are then distinguishable. Indistinguishability/poss.w./Stalnaker: distinct but indistinguishable poss.w. would then be the same worlds but with different centers. Attitude/properties/propositions/centered world/Lewis: to treat objects of attitudes as sets of centered poss.w. makes them to properties instead of propositions. Centered poss.w./Stalnaker: I agree that possible situations normally, perhaps even essential, are centered in the sense of a representation of a particular mental state. II 146 StalnakerVsLewis: but this makes the approach (gods example) more complicated when it comes to the relations between different mental states. E.g. to compare past with current states is then more difficult, or relations between the convictions of different people. Information/communication/Stalnaker: we need then additional explanation about how information is exchanged. Two examples: E.g. O'Leary is freed from his trunk and wonders at around nine: a) "What time was it when I wondered what time it was?" Stalnaker: that is the same question like the one he asked then. When he learns that it was three o'clock, his doubt has been eliminated. Solution: the doubt is eliminated since all possible situations (poss.w.) in which a thought occurs at two different times are involved. The centers of these situations have moved in the sense that it is now nine o'clock and O'Leary no longer in the trunk but it may be that the first occurrence of the then thought is what O'Leary is now thinking about. Important argument: this moving of the center does not require that the poss.w. that the propositions characterize are changed. b) "What time was it when I wondered if it was three or four?". (If he wondered twice) Indistinguishability: even if the two incidents were indistinguishable for O'Leary, it may still be that it was the first time which O'Leary remembers at around nine o'clock. StalnakerVsLewis: his approach is more complicated. According to his approach we have to say at three o'clock, O'Leary wonders about his current temporal localization in the actual world (act.wrld.) instead of wondering in what poss.w. he is. Versus: at nine, things are quite different: now he wonders if he lives in a poss.w. in which a particular thought occurred at three or four. This is unnecessarily complicated. E.g. Lingens, still in the library, meets Ortcutt and asks him "Do you know who I am?" – "You are my cousin, Rudolf Lingens!". Stalnaker: that seems to be a simple and successful communication. Information was requested and given. The question was answered. II 147 Proposition/Stalnaker: (Propositions as belief objects) Ortcutt's answer expresses a proposition that distinguishes between possible situations and eliminates Lingen's doubt. StalnakerVsLewis: according to his approach (self-ascription of properties), it is again more complicated: Lingens: asks if he correctly ascribes himself a certain set of properties i. Ortcutt: answers by ascribing himself a completely different set of properties. Lingens: has to conclude then subsequently himself the answer. So all the answers are always indirect in communication. ((s) also StalnakerVsChisholm, implicit). Communication/Lewis/Chisholm/StalnakerVsLewis/StalnakerVsChsholm: everyone then always speaks only about himself. Solution/Stalnaker: Lewis would otherwise have to distinguish between attitudes and speech acts and say that speech acts have propositions as object and attitudes properties as an object. Problem/StalnakerVsLewis: Lewis cannot say by intuition that the content of Ortcutt's answer is the information that eliminates Lingen's doubt. That is also a problem for Perry's approach. (> StalnakerVsPerry) |
R.C. Stalnaker I Stalnaker Ways a world may be Metaphysical and Anti-Metaphysical Essays Clarendon Press Oxford New York 2003 II Stalnaker Context and Content Oxford University Press NY 1999 |
| Quine, W.V.O. | Lewis Vs Quine, W.V.O. | IV IX LewisVsQuine: Realism in relation to unrealized possibilities. IV 27 Possibility/Quine: Vs unrealized possibilities: the identity criteria are not clear. LewisVsQuine: But identity is not a particular problem for us. Individuation/possible worlds: in every world, things in every category are as individual as in the actual world. Identity/Possible World: Things in different worlds are never identical. (Because of P2) The counterpart relation is the correspondence of identity across worlds (cross world identity). Lewis: while some authors say they can do different things in different worlds and have different properties, I prefer to say that they are only in the actual world and in no other worlds but that they have counterparts in other worlds. IV 32 Essentialism/LewisVsQuine: we actually have the ability to say which properties are essential regardless of description. And also regardless of whether the attribute follows analytically from any other descriptions of the thing. For example, the single-digit sentence φ and an object that is designated by the singular term ζ To say that this attribute is essential means to claim the translation of N φ ζ (N = necessary). IV 147 Centered possible worlds/de re/de se/Quine/Lewis: (Ontological Relativity, "Propositional Objects"): For example, a cat that is chased by a dog wants to go to the roof to be safe. de dicto: the cat wants a state of affairs, which is the class of all possible worlds in which it is on the roof. It fears the class of all possible worlds where the dog catches her. Problem: Crossworld Identity. Question: which of the many similar cats in the many possible worlds (with many dogs and roofs) is it? Some cats are on roofs, some in the dog's claws. Does the cat belong to both the desired and the feared conditions? Solution: centered possible world: pairs consisting of a world and a designated time in space, the desired state is then a class of centered worlds. In fact, the gravitational center is the cat's pineal gland. No centered world belongs to two classes (desired and feared). It would be problematic if the wish were fulfilled under one centering and not fulfilled under another. Quine: does not accept this solution in the end. He prefers the shared theory that the objects of "simple settings" are classes of stimulus patterns, while the more complex settings are linguistic. LewisVsQuine: the benefits of unified objects (properties only) should not be given away. Property/Lewis: corresponds to a class of centered worlds, more precisely a property of space-time points, but also a property of cats. Let X be a class of centered worlds, Y be a property. Then the class corresponds exactly to the centered worlds that are centered on a cat with the property Y. It cannot be centered on two different cats. To rule that out, we can redefine centered worlds as pairs of a world and a designated inhabitant in it. Quine/Lewis: he has actually replaced propositions by properties through centering. IV 148 I'm not sure what his reasons are. They are not the same in relation to Catilina and the Great Pyramid (> ontological relativity) (here he wants to avoid the counterpart relation) but certainly in the cat example. Possible World/LewisVsQuine: big difference: by possible world I simply mean big individual things, of which our actual world is one. Possible Worlds/Quine: means certain abstract entities, certain classes of classes of quadruples of real numbers. ((s) space-time points). Quine/Lewis: I suspect that he at least distinguishes our concrete world from the abstract "replacement world" that it represents! Let's call it "updated ersatz world" to distinguish it from the world itself. Lewis: Variety of concrete worlds. Quine: Variety of abstract ersatz worlds, one of which represents our special one. Stalnaker: pro Quine: corresponds better to everyday language than "how it could have been". Lewis: the actual ersatz world is special only because it represents our concrete real world. And it is special not only from its own point of view, but from every world. One could assume the following now: therefore it is not contingent special, because contingency is variation from one possible world to another. LewisVs: in this way it looks like it is a non-contingent fact, which is updated by the many possible worlds. And that is wrong! ((s) Then every fact in the actual world would be necessary, every movement. >Determinism.) Schwarz I 46 Possibility/LewisVsQuine: there must be a theory of what would be true under these or other conditions. But not only because they are needed for the analysis of dispositions and causality. Schwarz I 132 Def Event/Quine/Schwarz: (1960b(1),171): Suggestion: to identify them with the space-time region in which they occur. Vs: this is too coarse-grained for effects and causes. For example, if a ball flies through the air and rotates, then flight and rotation occupy the same region, but only flight causes the window to break. Counterfactual analysis/counterfactual conditional/CoCo/Possible World/Similarity/Lewis: the next possible world in which rotation does not take place are not the next possible worlds in which flight does not take place. The two events correspond to the same space-time region in the real world, but not in all possible worlds. ((s) "Next" is not decisive here). Event/Identity/LewisVsQuine: Modification: Events are identical if they occupy the same space-time region in all possible worlds. Def Event/Lewis: is then the class of all regions (in all possible worlds) in which it happens. (1986d(2)). Schwarz I 220 Def Analytical Truth/LewisVsQuine/Schwarz: a sentence is analytical when its primary truth conditions cover all situations. Schwarz: More interesting is his thesis that practically every sentence can empirically prove to be wrong. Our theories cannot be divided into a revisable empirical and an unrevisable analytical component. 1. Willard Van Orman Quine [1960b]: Word and Object. Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press 2. David Lewis [1986d]: “Events”. In [Lewis 1986f]: 241–269 |
Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
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