Banno has shown with each of his posts that he simply lacks any real skills of reading comprehension. All of his posts are full of weird shit that does not come from Klima or the paper, and when it is pointed out to him over and over, he just buries his head in the sand and moves on as if nothing has occurred. — Leontiskos
You are hung up on that word "description," and you want to say that Kripke differs from Russell on descriptions. Sure, but Klima already noted that. "Description" is a common word. Klima is quite reasonably reading "designator" as a description, given the belief about the semantic referent condition.
So using Kripke's own example that Klima picks up, consider the referent, "Her husband," in the sentence, "Her husband is kind to her." For Kripke the speaker must believe that the man fulfills the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator, "Her husband." For Kripke, even though he is mistaken, his reference succeeds in virtue of his belief. Klima riffs on that very same example and shows how one can use parasitic reference even without the belief that Kripke requires. If Klima can say, "'Her husband' happens to be her kind boss," (or Roark can say, "The most significant British composer in history is a hack"), without involving the belief that Kripke claims is required, then obviously the theory of reference is different from Kripke's. And that's the point here: the intentional theory of reference differs from Kripke's theory of reference. — Leontiskos
Here's the footnote quoting Kripke:
“So, we may tentatively define the speaker’s referent of a designator to be that object which the speaker wishes to talk about, on a given occasion, and believes fulfils the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator.”
This is in defence of:
In the Kripkean framework, however, it is also assumed that the speaker’s reference is to that which the speaker at least believes satisfies his description.
Notice that the quote does not mention descriptions at all. And notice also the use of the word "tentatively".
Speaker’s meaning depends on context and intent. But Kripke showed that proper names are rigid designators—they refer to the same entity in all possible worlds. Speaker’s meaning is intensional, or if you prefer, subjective. It varies between individuals, and so cannot account for multiple folk talking about the same thing, nor provide modal rigidity.
You and Klima both appear to have read "the conditions for being the semantic referent of the designator" as implying the presence of a description. But the phrase is chosen so as to be neutral. The "conditions" can of course as well be those causal conditions that are the basis of Kripke's theory of reference. — Banno
Ok, I'll keep playing. Yes, the intentional theorist and the causal theorist may well agree that folk can talk about something despite not having a description that fixes the topic.
So what.
What is mistaken is the view that in the "Kripkean framework" the speaker’s reference is to that which the speaker at least believes satisfies his description.
For anyone who wishes to check, here is a better link to Kripke's article: https://www.uvm.edu/~lderosse/courses/lang/Kripke%281977%29.pdf
(added: The crux is that Kripke argues that the semantic meaning of an act of reference can be maintained over the speaker's meaning. He uses this to defend Russell against Donnellen's view. Kripke's argument is that semantic reference is independent of speaker intent.) — Banno
You are falling into yet another ignoratio elenchus, for Klima tells us explicitly that the intentional theory and the causal or historical* theory agree on this: — Leontiskos
This theory agrees with the recent “historical explanation”[19]—as opposed to the Russellian—theory of reference on the fundamental insight that speakers may successfully refer to objects by descriptions that do not apply to these objects. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 4
Those who have read the paper carefully already recognize Banno’s absurd misrepresentations. I invite them to engage with the paper thoughtfully and to avoid falling into the sort of trolling that Banno's whole persona has been reduced to. Engaging those who are not serious and do not have the capacity to authentically interact with the paper is a waste of time. There is no need to waste our time with such people. Tony Roark is a great example of someone who engaged the paper thoughtfully and with intellectual honesty. He is the sort of person we should imitate. — Leontiskos
Yet, this last remark should already highlight why, despite the soundness of Anselm’s proof, one may rationally reject its conclusion. For although it is true that whoever forms in their mind the concept of that than which nothing greater can be thought is thereby committed to thinking that it exists, there is nothing in Anselm’s argument that would force anyone to think of anything as that than which nothing greater can be thought in the first place. — p.10
Here again we hit on the problem of intensional opacity. And here again is the closing off of the argument to critique by those who disagree. — Banno
And here again is the closing off of the argument to critique by those who disagree. — Banno
It is time for you to make explicitly clear what exactly you think Anselm's proof proves and briefly how/why. Just Anselm and you, no one else. Can you do that?Yes, you're lazy. We know. It's written all over. — Leontiskos
This is also very similar to the question-begging atheist:
1. All valid ontological arguments beg the question
2. This is a valid ontological argument
3. Therefore, this begs the question
But how does the inductive (1) get to be so strong? And even beyond that, what is "an ontological argument"? As the very first sentence of Klima's introduction implies, that whole label is anachronistic. Certainly Anselm would wonder how one can know that a whole bundle of loosely-affiliated arguments are known to be faulty a priori. — Leontiskos
Aquinas’ response to Anselm in the Summa Contra Gentiles is quite interesting. On the one hand, it is of the weaker “question-begging” form that we spoke about earlier, given that it does not directly address Anselm’s proof. On the other hand, it is quite different from the other similarly weaker replies that we have seen. In particular, Aquinas’ approach takes the dialogical nature of the exchange as being fundamental, as opposed to the idea that Anselm has simply transgressed an inferential law (e.g. “no-existence-from-words,” which is reminiscent of “no-ought-from-is”). — Leontiskos
3. Does this mean that Anselm’s proof can be sound for the theist while being unsound for the atheist? — Leontiskos
How does one know someone has "the concepts of another person and the thought objects constituted by them"? Apparently by agreeing with them. It is open for the theist to say, of anyone who disagrees with their argument, that they have not spent sufficient time "to go through the same long meditative process that the theist did in building up his own concept of God".
All rather sequestered and distasteful, really. "Mutual understanding" here means "agreeing with me". — Banno
So what seems to be required from the theist to understand the atheist in the first place is to realize how the atheist can look at the world without a God and still be able to conceive of God in a non-committed, parasitic manner, as being an object of the theist’s beliefs, but bearing no relevance to his own beliefs. On the other hand, to understand perfectly the theist, the atheist has to be able to think of God as the theist does, as bearing utmost relevance to everything thinkable. But for this, he would have to go through the same long meditative process that the theist did in building up his own concept of God. — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 5
[we] should not seek sheer “winning” in a debate (for that is the concern of sophists) — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof - Section 5
It is time for you to make explicitly clear what exactly you think Anselm's proof proves and briefly how/why. Just Anselm and you, no one else. Can you do that? — tim wood
You apparently do not understand your own terms. Or maybe you do. I should like to see you make the sandwich of which you have an idea. Of course you won't need anything at all from the grocery store, yes? Or for that matter anything at all that can be called real, or that exists, right? It's ideas all the way down that you're somehow going to make real.
Now I agree you can think about a corned beef on rye, and you can make or buy a real corned beef on rye sandwich. And I will wager that you can tell the difference between the idea of a sandwich and a real sandwich. You can, can't you?
The two terms distinguish what can be real, and what, as idea, cannot be. That's what it says. Maybe read it again?
But if god is necessary, then it must be possible for god to exist? Sure, ☐p→◇p in S5. But not ◇p ^ ☐p....one is saying it is both possible and necessary that god exists... — Banno
So, St. Anselm's question is (1) whether or not God exists only as an intentional object of human thought, an entity with dependent existence, or (2) is an entity with independent existence. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This may be the only way to make sense of it.It is a meditation on his beliefs. — tim wood
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