Not only is that distinction quite slippery, but I don't quite see its relevance.

Paris as the capital is inessential, baguettes are essential. Simple. — jamalrob

And butter?

Yes, butter too. I have a whole spreadsheet here exhaustively and comprehensively listing the essential and inessential properties of France.

France would not cease to be France if the capital were changed. But the fact that Paris has been capital for the time that it has is essential to Francehood when France is considered as an historical entity. And this is a matter of semantic, not empirical essentiality or at least it is only an empirical essentiality insofar as it is an empirical fact that people have believed that Paris is capital. The designation and the belief in it, which has determined that France is the capital, and thus the capitalhood of Paris, is a semantic matter, as opposed to the fact that it has been so believed, which is an empirical matter.

Maybe, I think it depends. There are empirical facts about what people agree to, but some of these 'agreements' when they amount to nothing more than linguistic uses cease to be 'empirical' in the relevant sense from the perspective of the language. For example we might say that a tree is a plant as a matter of English usage, but this is contingent on what people use the words 'plant' and 'tree' to refer to. So there's a difference between the language, being as it is as the result of empirical use, guaranteeing non-empirically that something is the case, and it not even guaranteeing that, even when all the empirical facts about usage are established. If 'capital' literally meant something like 'that which we call the capital' you get into murky waters pretty fast. But I doubt any property-denoting expressions really work that way.

Are you denying that some kinds of propositions may be confirmed by merely looking and/ or are you claiming that Paris being the capital of France is one of those kinds of propositions; that you could go to Paris and just see that it is the capital? It's pretty clearcut as I see it, not "slippery" at all.

I don't have a firm position on essential properties, but I do think there are levels of tolerance people as a rule are more or less willing to accept as essential. For example, I think it makes sense to imagine if France fought for the Axis rather than the Allies in WW2. I have a harder time imagining France having grown up in Southeast Asia rather than Western Europe – this may mean it's more essential to being France that you're in a certain geographical location. But even that seems negotiable. If some country in an alternate history grew up in Southeast Asia that spoke French and had a similar history to the actual France, I think it would be fair to call it France. These things are all negotiable, though some more than others, and there may be no metaphysical facts or facts about linguistic usage that decide them in advance.

Once you say, 'Imagine if France had been in Southeast Asia, and they spoke Hindi, and none of the major battles in French history happened there, and the people were black, and...' then I falter and say, 'I don't see in what we we could possibly be talking about France anymore.' So at the very least some disjunctive conglomeration of these properties are essential.

"merely looking"? What does it matter?

I don't think Kripke meant that we work it out in advance. It happens at the very moment we stipulate a possible world. BAM...

But doesn't x being the capital in a the-capital-is-that-which-we-call-the-capital scenario remain empirical since one must still observe people calling x the capital in order to determine what the capital is?

I think the tricky thing here is "we." by which I mean: Even if x is only the capital because we call x the capital, two people calling y the capital wouldn't change things. power (authority, legitimation?) and history slip in through the we.

If a proposition can be confirmed by merely looking then it is the most basic kind of empirical proposition. That's precisely what I have been saying all along, and have gone to some pains to explain why I am saying it, that "Paris is the capital of France" is not; that it has a much more overtly semantic element.

And yet you have appeared to be objecting to this claim without actually providing any counter-arguments, or have been claiming that you don't understand it (implying that it is trivial or even incoherent?) without explaining what it is that you don't understand, or why you think the distinction I want to make is trivial or not a valid one; and now you seem to be retreating by asking "what does it matter?" (which seems to be just another avoidance in the form of an unargued assertion of triviality).

:-}

When qualifiers come into play, one ought be wary. "basic" here. Even if one accepts this characterization, this would mean that there can be non-basic empirical propositions (otherwise appending "basic" would be empty or tautologous) . And then being 'basic' simply wouldn't be a necessary condition of being empirical.

Either way invoking "basic empirical propositions" doesn't help your argument.

Everything TGW says about Kripke in this thread seems about right to me (and I've read N&N twice, and tons of secondary literature). Most disagreements seem to stem from John and Mongrel misreading Kripke in various ways. One issue, though, where John and TGW may be somewhat talking past one another is the question regarding the possibility of Paris not being the capital of France. Thus formulated (and as formulated several times in this thread) the question is hopelessly ambiguous. One could make a broadly Kripkean argument about its being metaphysically necessary (and a de re necessity) of Paris that it be the first capital of France, say. But, and this is where John goes wrong, from this alleged de re necessity (if it is one) would not follow the different de re necessity, regarding France, that it must have Paris as its capital. The latter could still be contingent or false.

Likewise, and this is argued explicitly by Kripke, if Joe's natural parents are Sue and Tom, then it is metaphysically necessary regarding Joe that Sue and Tom be his natural parents (something that we could phrase ambiguously through saying that it is metaphysically necessary that Sue and Tom be Joe's parents, thus inviting the misreading that this is intended as a de dicto necessity). There is no possible world in which Joe has different parents (or so Kripke suggests). But it hardly follows from this, even if we share Kripke's intuition about this case (which I do), that Sue and Tom couldn't possibly never have met, or not have had Joe as a son, or not have had any children. Similarly, if Paris had been somewhat instituted as the first capital of France at some point in time, it could have been metaphysically necessary of Paris that it be the first capital of France. But it would not follow from this modal fact that France could not have had another first capital instead (in which case Paris would not have existed at all) or that Paris could not have ceased to be the capital of France at any subsequent point in time.

If you thought that the sense of 'Paris' somehow encoded its referent being the capital, though, you might not think that. It might be that Paris' (that city's) being the capital, because people call it the capital, is an empirical matter of fact, but given that the language has settled on this, and as a result come to be such that 'Paris' somehow means or is defined as the capital of France (though the meaning of the word could itself empirically changed), then you might end up with 'Paris is the capital of France' being something like an analytic truth despite that fact that its analyticity is propped up entirely by empirical facts about people's behavior.

But the fact that 'Paris is the capital of France' is not anything like an analytic truth shows this to be false, contra what people are claiming in this thread.

That's interesting. That way of thinking, though I don't know how I feel about it, actually slightly inclines me to John's position. Precisely because most people, who have never been to Paris, know paris first-and-foremost as 'the capital of France.' I think if you asked most people 'What is Paris?' the answer would be "the capital of France". Knowing that paris is the capital of france is knowing how to use 'paris.' Yet I am quite certain "paris is the capital of France" is not analytic.

Paris is the capital of France, and it may be the property of Paris most people are familiar with: but the word 'Paris,' so the thought goes, simply denotes a certain city. You can correctly describe that city using the description 'the capital of France,' but this is a contingent description.

Likewise, most people might know Aristotle as the teacher of Alexander the Great, but it seems 'Aristotle' does not in any sense mean 'the teacher of Alexander the great,' because we can say that Alexander might not have been Alexander the Great's teacher.

There's a long and very boring history in analytic philosophy talking about these kinds of issues, but I've never found the pull toward 'descriptivism' all that compelling, and looking back on it I'm never sure why people thought names acted like definite descriptions to begin with.

Sure, but I am arguing that there can be non-basic empirical propositions or if you prefer propositions, the truth or falsity of which, may be more or less semantically determined. That is all I have been arguing.

If I say the sun is shining right now at such and such a location, how would you know whether that is true or false? Really, you'd have to be there, wouldn't you? Whereas if I said New York is the capital of France, you don't have to do any empirical checking to know that is wrong do you?

I'm familiar with the debate (and I think it's clear why Russell thought it was a good idea, even if it isn't) But, so that's just it, with that way of thinking, my example still stands. Even if a capital is that-which-we-call-a-capital, it remains a city first, a capital second

I'd be interested to know why (you think that) Russell thought it was a good idea, because I don't have a clear sense of that myself. It might be I just got oversaturated with the view's opponents. There are some traditional purported problems with the direct reference view, but they all seem to me to be based on confusions arising from pretty clearly false assumptions: for example, the issue with 'empty names' like 'Pegasus' only matters if, for some reason, you think it's impossible to refer to things that don't exist, which seems straightforwardly wrong, and it puzzles me why historically people have thought such things. But then, that is speaking as someone from a different generation.

And yeah, I think you're right. I'll leave it to John to defend what he means.

Well I'd have to go to that location and check for rays. In the latter case, I'd have to check the news to see if something crazy happened (and sometimes crazy stuff happens.) Course I'd be boggled as fuck at NYC being the capital, slightly less boggled at Marseilles being the capital. I don't see the essential difference between the two cases.

But, and this is where John goes wrong, from this alleged de re necessity (if it is one) would not follow the different de re necessity, regarding France, that it must have Paris as its capital. — Pierre-Normand

Firstly, I haven't misread Kripke, since I haven't read him at all and have not mentioned him in any of my arguments.
Secondly I haven't claimed that France must have Paris as its capital. I have already said that could change. I don't know enough about modal logic to have an opinion about the modal question of whether there could be a possible world in which Paris was not the capital of France.

What I have claimed is that I know that Paris must be the capital of France right now, and that it was the capital in the past, unless it is the case that there has been a massive deception about the historical capitalhood, and/or in regard to its present capitalhood another city has been designated as capital since I last heard. I have also claimed that I don't need to go out into the world to do any empirical checking to know these things, so they are, to that degree at least, analytical.

Whereas if I said New York is the capital of France, you don't have to do any empirical checking to know that is wrong do you? — John

This is just because he already knows it's not true, not because it's analytic or a priori. If he didn't know, he could check.

You wouldn't necessarily see "rays" (unless there were clouds or mist about), you'd see the sun shining if it was shining. Checking the news is fine, but as I have argued that introduces the semantic element, because you couldn't tell just by looking at the paper, whether New York is the capital of Paris or not; you'd have to read it.

Well yeah, I think it's the pegasus thing. I don't disagree that this is a confused way of looking at things. But I can understand a frail and tidy aristocrat enamored of logic and irritated by untidy Meinong taking to it. (I'm being just a bit facetious but I don't have it in me to post a full-fleshed response on a phone. I think it ultimately stems from the british empiricist idea that imagined things are amalagations of experienced things combined with a sympathy for plato's susicions of sophists, who make what isn't seem like it is)

How does he already know it is not true? Knowing that New York is not the capital of France is a complex semantical feat of understanding how humans designate, and assign symbolic functions to locales. It's not at all like knowing the sun is shining.

I have also claimed that I don't need to go out into the world to do any empirical checking to know these things, — John

This seems wildly implausible. Surely you learned this fact in school?

What I have claimed is that I know that Paris must be the capital of France right now, and that it was the capital in the past, unless it is the case that there has been a massive deception about the historical capitalhood, and/or in regard to its present capitalhood another city has been designated as capital since I last heard. I have also claimed that I don't need to go out into the world to do any empirical checking to know these things, so they are, to that degree at least, analytical — John

If it's possible you could be deceived about it, as you admit it is, and it's possible that the capital of France might change in the future, as you also admit, then 'Paris is the capital of France' is not analytic to any degree at all--though I think I do see where you're coming from now.

Everything TGW says about Kripke in this thread seems about right to me (and I've read N&N twice, and tons of secondary literature). Most disagreements seem to stem from John and Mongrel misreading Kripke in various ways — Pierre-Normand

My view is in keeping with Scott Soames' explanation of Kripke's views. Maybe you could add his comments to your tons. :)

@John
I may disagreee with you, but more importanly I don't have any sense of what you think is at stake or what roads your distinction opens. What are you ultimately driving at?

All due respect, I've also read N&N (tho a long time ago) and a bit of secondary literature & am similarly confused by your reading of him.