Kripke invented the notion of accessibility relations in modal semantics.

I think reading NN without knowing about modal logic is pointless, as evidenced by this thread.

There's a body of data w.r.t. how counterfactuals behave, and a theory to capture them. — Snakes Alive

I have not heard of such a body of data. Where is it?

So, the fact that supplying her with a definite description of the person holding the name is sufficient for that purpose (i.e. understanding the story well enough) isn't sufficient for showing that the description determines the meaning of the proper name. — Pierre-Normand

No satisfactory definite description can be devised because there is no Lady Mondegreen. The mistaken belief that there is such a name and a person bearing that name stems from the eavesdropper misunderstanding what she has heard.

Meh. What makes you think no-one here has studied modal logic?

Russell's theory is probably not right. It makes a number of wrong predictions as to the behavior of definite descriptions in embedded environments. — Snakes Alive

OK, I see. Thanks for the reference. It looks very interesting.

No satisfactory definite description can be devised because there is no Lady Mondegreen. The mistaken belief that there is such a name and a person bearing that name stems from the eavesdropper misunderstanding what she has heard. — andrewk

Sorry, I hadn't read your post carefully enough. I agree. I am unsure how this case bears on the issue of descriptivism about proper names that refer to real individuals.

Not no one, but many of the objections are clearly confused, in a way that it would be unproductive to respond to. The notion of rigid designation, and how the same individual can be referred to across possible worlds, and how this accounts for the modal constructions Kripke is talking about, doesn't need all this explaining if you know how the modal logic works. Then one can focus on the actual claims Kripke is making.

Have you read NN?

That's an interesting article. Like every other example I've seen of philosophers believing they have found a fatal flaw in descriptivism, it relies on an uncharitable reading of what descriptivism would propose.

In particular, it claims that descriptivism would interpret the sentence:

"Hans wants the ghost in his attic to be quiet tonight."

as a sentence like:

"Hans wants there to be exactly one ghost in his attic and for it to be quiet tonight."

A correct descriptivist interpretation would instead interpret the sentence as:

"There is a single ghost in Hans' attic and Hans hopes that that ghost will be quiet tonight."

Those that, like me, believe there are no ghosts, would say that the sentence is false in exactly the same way that 'The present king of France is bald' is false, because the statement that there is a ghost in the attic is false.

That's why, when talking about the false beliefs of others, we prefix them with words like 'Hans believes that....', unless we are being facetious or sarcastic. If a child psychiatrist said a sentence like the above to a patient's parent the parent would have strong grounds for complaint to a medical tribunal that the psych was mocking their child.

A psychiatrist that was not recklessly unprofessional would say:

"Hans hears, or imagines he hears, sounds in the attic, which he believes to be caused by a ghost, and he hopes that he will not experience such sounds tonight".

The only DD in the sentence is 'the attic', and its interpretation is entirely unproblematic.

You've asked me that before. The answer is still the same.
Where is this amazing data?

Possibly. (See what I did there?)

The arguments in N&N stand by themselves. I studied it, then went to modal logic. The formal arguments by themselves don't lend much to philosophy; the stuff in N&N is what counts. While it is somewhat frustrating not to have gotten to the good stuff after 24 pages, we are nearly there.

Do you know what the modal argument is? Can you restate it for me in your own words?

That article isn't addressing descriptivism about names. It's addressing the Russellian account of definite descriptions.

The translation you provide of the sentence isn't one available to the Russellian, though, so your defense here won't work. I can explain why if you want, but I just wanted to flag that this is a separate issue that NN doesn't deal with.

I don't really agree, but it doesn't matter. I think the intuitive glosses on these arguments just lead to interminable confusion. The 'telescope' theory of possible worlds needs to be shown to be undesirable by showing how it would have to be formalized, e.g. by Lewis' unwieldy and unattractive logic of counterparts, as opposed to the elegant Kripke-frames, where the domain of individuals is simply separate from the worlds of evaluation, which captures the phenomena he talks about wonderfully. The notion of a rigid designator is in addition just confusing outside of modal logic, because it's only there that the sense of 'in every world' receives any application: what's meant is in any world of evaluation, which is not a lay concept.

The 'telescope' theory of possible worlds needs to be shown to be undesirable by showing how it would have to be formalized, e.g. by Lewis' unwieldy and unattractive logic of counterparts, as opposed to the elegant Kripke-frames, — Snakes Alive

You are right, except for the "needs", which should be a "can".

An informal comparison of Kripke and Lewis should also show the inelegance of counterpart theory - if done well.

Do you think that Kripke does it well? I ask because andrewk's insistence that these are matters of taste is false – and I doubt this can be shown to him via the text on its own. Once you get to brass tacks, these things can be shown in more interesting ways.

I have also seen people try to work through NN over and over, and the same mistakes tend to be made, and explanation of them doesn't seem to help dispel them.

I gather that you and Andrew have history. I'm not interested in playing. Yet.

The errors shown in this thread strike me as a result of too casual a reading of N&N rather than there being something in the content that is too inscrutable to be put into English.

I'm ready to move on.

Me too. i find myself needing to read quite a bit. The next few pages are setting up the issues around identity and necessity. We have Hesperus is Phosphorus, Cicero is Tully, light is a stream of photons, pain is a material state of the brain - contingent or not?

Now it becomes interesting.

And Kripke's view:

First, that characteristic theoretical identifications
like 'Heat is the motion of molecules', are not contingent
truths but necessary truths... Second, that the way in which these
have turned out to be necessary truths does not seem to me to
be a way in which the mind-brain identities could turn out to
be either necessary or contingently true.

So this is where we are heading.

I gather that you and Andrew have history. I'm not interested in playing. Yet. — Banno

Not that I remember or am invoking.

It may be just that I have been exposed to NN too much (people return to it often, because analytic philosophy is light on 'classics').

So where is @Ciceronianus the White?

May I call you Tully?

I agree that what is actually true at all times of Gödel (and hence might figure in a definite description of him) isn't necessarily true of him. — Pierre-Normand

If being necessarily true requires being true in all imaginable possible world scenarios, and being actually true requires being true in this world(regardless of what's imaginable), and what is actually true is not necessarily true, then what is true in this world is not part of the criterion for what's true in all possible world scenarios.

That's a big problem.

When we say "what is actually true at all times of Godel" we are talking about true statements about Godel. When we say these statements aren't necessarily true of Godel, it is as a result of the fact that we can and do stipulate alternative circumstances while using the name "Godel" without sacrificing successful identity/reference of the name "Godel".

We can say anything we want about Godel and still be talking about Godel. There is no need for what we say to be actually true. So, we can imagine circumstances that aren't actually true. Our ability to do so, while retaining identity/reference, somehow purportedly warrants our saying that the imagining of false circumstances is adequate ground for saying that what is actually true is not necessarily true.

Such are the pitfalls of what counts as being necessarily true(the historical possible world notions of necessity/contingency).

It seems that we cannot stipulate any specific circumstance(s) that must always be stipulated in order to retain identity and/or successful reference. We can always stipulate alternative ones and still know who/what it is that we're talking about. It only follows that identity and/or successful reference in possible world scenarios is not dependent upon specific circumstances.

How does this hold up to scrutiny regarding composites?

If all A's consist in/of B, C, and D in this world, and there are no examples of B, C, and D - in combination in this world - that do not constitute being an A, and the removal of B, C, and/or D results in insufficiency for being an A, then it is the case that B, C, and D are elemental constituents of all A's. It is also the case that all A's are existentially dependent upon B, C, and D both individually and in combination. When and where there are no B's, C's, and/or D's, there can be no A's. When there are no B's, C's, or D's in combination, there can be no A's.

Let A equal water. Let B equal hydrogen. Let C equal oxygen. We'll lose D here.

We can posit a hypothetical/counterfactual/possible world scenario "what if water doesn't require oxygen"? We could go on and continue to stipulate all sorts of other circumstances which lend logical support to that. We do this sort of thing all the time with "what if's". We think in terms of what else it would it take for a "what if" to be true.

So, we can imagine that water is not existentially dependent upon and/or does not consist - in part - of oxygen.

Are we still talking about water in such cases?

The purpose of a definite description is to uniquely pick up an individual, not just to pick it up under a description that it will never (and could never) cease to satisfy.
— Pierre-Normand

Then definite descriptions do not always take account of elemental constituents. — creativesoul

Are what you call "elemental constituents" something akin to essential properties? In that case, the item referred to could not persist though the loss of those properties, but they may still not guarantee that the item is uniquely being described by them since other items of the same essential kind also would have those properties.
— Pierre-Normand

This misses the point. Indeed, all of those particular items cannot exist without their elemental constituents.

We can state otherwise. — creativesoul

Why would we need to be able to pick out an individual water molecule in order for a definite description to pick up all water molecules, and nothing else?

Liebniz monadology or logical atomism?

They are equivalent in my view.

Are those the only two choices?

Are those the only two choices? — creativesoul

What else do you propose when talking about simples (atomic facts, logical simples, monads?)?

It's about existential dependency.

Why would we need to be able to pick out an individual water molecule in order for a definite description to pick up all water molecules, and nothing else? — creativesoul

Think about this for a moment or three...

I'm pointing at inherently inadequate frameworks...