That's not a better answer, as (a) it doesn't address that the answer depends on who is using the term in a particular occaasion, and (b) depending on what the quote-free Richard Nixon refers to to you, your answer could very well be wrong with respect to a particular utterance of "Richard Nixon."

(a) it doesn't address that the answer depends on who is using the term in a particular occaasion — Terrapin Station

Because it doesn't matter. It always refers to Richard Nixon.

(b) depending on what the quote-free Richard Nixon refers to to you, your answer could very well be wrong with respect to a particular utterance of "Richard Nixon." — Terrapin Station

Words don't refer to someone 'to me.' They have conventional referents.

This was just my point. Hence the revisionism, insofar as 'contingency speech' is an ordinary feature of language as revealed through counterfactuals. Andrewk is poised to reject an entire grammatical construction as literally nonsensical. — The Great Whatever

True. And you're doing the same thing with different biases. I'm not saying there is any unbiased approach, but noting that we're all doing it might reveal to us that we're not talking about freakin' rigid designators. We're talking about our ontological preferences.

Not at all. My position does not require me to declare an entire category of speech literally senseless or mistakenly used.

I don't know why "entire category" is important here. Any revision is a revision.

Perhaps I misunderstood what you were saying about identifying essential properties. It appeared that you were saying that there's some nonsense there.

Yep... thanks TS.

What am I revising?

This doesn't make an individual 'equivalent to' a set of properties, though, which strictly speaking sounds like nonsense to me, a category error. — The Great Whatever

The individual is to his properties as a building is to its bricks.

If when we refer to a building we're referring to its bricks then to suggest that that building might have been constructed from different bricks is to suggest that those bricks might have been different bricks. But then it doesn't make sense to claim that they're the same bricks.

Alternatively, when we refer to a building we're not referring to its bricks. But then what is the ontological nature of the building? Concrete or abstract? Realist or anti-realist?

Because it doesn't matter. — The Great Whatever

Very funny. Of course it matters. That's what extension is--what someone has in mind as the extension of a term.

Words don't refer to someone 'to me.' They have conventional referents. — The Great Whatever

Yes they do. All that "conventional" is is the fact that a lot of people have the "same" thing in mind with a reference. It's a lot of "to mes"--it's to Betty and Joe and Frank and Gina and everyone who happens to have that thing in mind on a particular occasion.

I think this is confused as it treats properties like mereological parts of an individual. They're not – a property is just sort of a mapping from individuals to truth values, or a group of individuals if you like,

If when we refer to a building we're referring to its bricks then to suggest that that building might have been constructed from different bricks is to suggest that those bricks might have been different bricks. But then it doesn't make sense to claim that they're the same bricks. — Michael

This doesn't seem right to me. You can suppose a building were made of different bricks just fine without assuming that the bricks themselves were different (perhaps they were used for the construction of yet another building).

I think this is confused as it treats properties like mereological parts of an individual. They're not – a property is just sort of a mapping from individuals to truth values, or a group of individuals if you like, — The Great Whatever

Then individuals are just elements of some logical model, which makes them an abstract thing. So either Platonism or anti-realism.

This doesn't seem right to me. You can suppose a building were made of different bricks just fine without assuming that the bricks themselves were different (perhaps they were used for the construction of yet another building).

Then the term "building" here doesn't refer to its bricks. Which means it refers to something other than those bricks. So is this other thing concrete or abstract? If the latter than Platonic or conceptual?

Very funny. Of course it matters. That's what extension is--what someone has in mind as the extension of a term. — Terrapin Station

Something's extension is what someone has in mind as its extension? Why is it not just its extension? Clearly I can't give a speech and use 'Richard Nixon' to refer to Dwight Eisenhower. When everyone inevitably tells me I'm using the wrong name, I can't protest and say I wasn't, because I meant to refer to Nixon, making everyone in the audience wrong and not me.

Yes they do. All that "conventional" is is the fact that a lot of people have the "same" thing in mind with a reference. It's a lot of "to mes"--it's to Betty and Joe and Frank and Gina and everyone who happens to have that thing in mind on a particular occasion. — Terrapin Station

'Richard Nixon' refers to Richard Nixon. Not to whoever you want it to refer to. I can't make sense of saying something like, "to me 'Richard Nixon' refers to Dwight Eisenhower." How can something refer to someone 'to me?' It just refers to whatever it refers to by linguistic convention. What you're proposing isn't a convention at all, but individual whim, which is very different.

There's glory for you!'
'I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. 'Of course you don't — till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
'But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.'
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they're the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'
'Would you tell me please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'
'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'
'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'

Nope. An individual is whatever it is – a person, a brick, or whatever. Individuals as formal objects in models do just that; they model. It's not as if when I write down how the model works the individuals are somehow in my head or the formal system or the piece of paper. They're wherever they are; the model models their behavior.

Something's extension is what someone has in mind as its extension? — The Great Whatever

Yes.

Why is it not just its extension? — The Great Whatever

What extension is is what they have in mind. There's no "just its extension" aside from that.

Clearly I can't give a speech and use 'Richard Nixon' to refer to Dwight Eisenhower. — The Great Whatever

You could have anything conceivable in mind with the terms you use, including what other people would name "Dwight Eisenhower" instead. And people will assign their own meanings to the terms you use--as they must, since meaning is inherently mental/subjective/private.

When everyone inevitably tells me I'm using the wrong name, I can't protest and say I wasn't, — The Great Whatever

Your speech might be not understandable to others. And that could be because you have something very unusual in mind with the terms you're using. You can't be using them incorrectly (or correctly). You could be using them unconventionally though. When people can't understand you, then usually they spend some time trying to ferret out just how you might be using terms in an unusual way. This certainly happens, and it happens fairly frequently.

'Richard Nixon' refers to Richard Nixon. Not to whoever you want it to refer to. — The Great Whatever

The only way that anything refers to anything is by an individual thinking about it in a particular way. And an individual can think about it any conceivable way. Again, this is all that reference is. If you posit it as something else, well, then you've how language works factually wrong.

How can something refer to someone 'to me?' — The Great Whatever

Again, that's what reference is. What an individual has in mind (extensionally) by a term.

Nope. An individual is whatever it is – a person, a brick, or whatever. Individuals as formal objects in models do just that; they model. It's not as if when I write down how the model works the individuals are somehow in my head or the formal system or the piece of paper. They're wherever they are; the model models their behavior. — The Great Whatever

Individuals as formal objects in models. So we have two separate notions of an individual. We have the ontological individual, which just is the concrete thing (e.g. a collection of bricks), and the formal object, which is a conceptual/linguistic imposition (unless you're a Platonist about these models).

So suppose someone hears the word 'Richard Nixon' and asks me what it means, or who it refers to. I respond 'it means whoever you want it to mean.'

Is that a reasonable response? Or is it stupid?

An abstract object is not in your head.

Agreed. But then I don't see the force of what you're saying. Individuals are just what individuals are according to vulgar opinion, various sorts of things. We can also use the term 'individual' to describe whatever we use to model them. But then it's misleading to claim that individuals are just abstract objects in formal models.

Also, the formal object doesn't need to be a linguistic imposition. It could be an M&M if you want. You could say, let this blue M&M stand in for / model Barack Obama.

Agreed. But then I don't see the force of what you're saying. Individuals are just what individuals are according to vulgar opinion, various sorts of things. We can also use the term 'individual' to describe whatever we use to model them. But then it's misleading to claim that individuals are just abstract objects in formal models. — The Great Whatever

Well, andrewk's position seems to be that when we talk about Obama we're not talking about a formal object, but the actual person. So that the formal object Obama can coherently be supposed to have different properties is not that the actual Obama can coherently be supposed to have different properties.

Well, andrewk's position seems to be that when we talk about Obama we're not talking about a formal object, but the actual person. — Michael

Well, I agree. Of course when we're talking about Obama we're talking about Obama.

And of course the actual Obama can be supposed to have different properties. We do it all the time.

And of course the actual Obama can be supposed to have different properties. We do it all the time. — The Great Whatever

So now we're back to the issue of the building and its bricks. If when we're referring to the building we're not referring to its bricks then what is the building? A formal object?

No, the building is a building. It's made of bricks, sure, but it's not identical to them, just like people aren't identical with the cells that make them up. It's just the Ship of Theseus observation.

A building is lots of things. It's a physical object with certain physical constituents, but also a socially delineated area that can survive a change of its material parts (perhaps within reason). Where exactly the boundary is drawn is perhaps not clear, but the fringe cases don't make the obvious ones less intelligible. I submit that we all know what a building is.

No, the building is a building. It's made of bricks, sure, but it's not identical to them — The Great Whatever

So is the difference between the building and its bricks a concrete difference or an abstract difference? Is the difference the sort of thing that obtains in the absence of us thinking and talking about it in a certain way, or is the difference a conceptual/linguistic imposition?

A brick is a chunk of material, and maybe a chunk of material in a certain physical configuration, or posed to be in such a configuration, and maybe a chunk of material in a certain social configuration involving construction.

A building is also a chunk of material, but one that has to fit certain minimal requirements of shape that make it possible to enter it and distinguish it from an outside, and also which possible fits in a larger social configuration allowing it to be something that's conventionally entered into.

I think it's sensible to say that a naturally occurring structure that's not a building might become one even without redesign if people began to inhabit it. I don't think that means it's a conceptual or linguistic distinction, it just means unsurprisingly that social facts about the world and how people behave can change things.

But presumably the building isn't identical to its bricks-being-used-a-certain-way? Otherwise it doesn't make sense to consider a counterfactual claim about that building having different bricks or being used a different way. So the question still stands; what's the nature of the difference between the building and its bricks-being-used-a-certain-way?

I don't understand what you mean by 'the nature of the difference.' Bricks are hunks of construction material, and a building is an edifice. An edifice need not be identical to its material parts, because it can retain a functional identity even when they're swapped out, even entirely over time.

An edifice need not be identical to its material parts, because it can retain a functional identity even when they're swapped out, even entirely over time. — The Great Whatever

So in what sense are two physically different things the same thing? Obviously they're not physically the same thing. If it isn't a concrete identity then I suppose it must be an abstract identity? Which either means a conceptually-imposed identity or a Platonic identity. And which also means we're talking about the thing as a formal model, and it is only with this that the counterfactual claim makes sense (else we're suggesting that the bricks are different bricks but still the same bricks).

What is it exactly we are talking about when we refer to the Earth?

I don't know what you're talking about. You mean a building with different parts? Suppose you knocked a brick off a building. Is it a different building? No, it's the same one, missing a brick. Is this difference abstract? Obviously not.

What is so hard to understand about that?

Well, andrewk's position seems to be that when we talk about Obama we're not talking about a formal object, but the actual person. So that the formal object Obama can coherently be supposed to have different properties is not that the actual Obama can coherently be supposed to have different properties. — Michael

Does the formal identity 'Obama' signify a totality of processes from birth to death, or the entity that undergoes these processes?