Aside from the fact that nothing is a necessary truth, the answer is "No." Someone can use "water" to refer to XYZ, too, for example ("XYZ" being the "Twin Earth" substance that looks, tastes, etc. just like water, a la Putnam's "The Meaning of 'Meaning'").

It's not wrong to use "water" to refer to "XYZ," It's just unusual. It's not wrong to be unusual. Saying that common usage makes something right is the argumentum ad populum fallacy. And more bluntly, it's simply kowtowing to conformism.

To know how someone defines something, to know the definitional correlate to their concepts, you need to ask them, especially when they're clearly using a term or concept differently than you use it, different than what you're familiar with.

In the process of thinking and acting, the reason for our thinking and acting, which is to obtain our intended conceptual destination in thought or action, — TheGreatArcanum

I like to put these things on pause as soon as we say something questionable, and this is definitely questionable.

The reason for thinking and acting often has nothing to do with a "conceptual destination." So we shouldn't make this statement as if it's something universally applicable.

It seems that you didn't read the whole thing, — TheGreatArcanum

Me either. Again, I hit "pause" as soon as we say something questionable. Let's fix it so it's okay from the start. You don't want me to just ignore/gloss over problems, do you? (Why would you want that if you do?)

I didn't see how this question was relevant. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your criticism of my comment was based on something not following logically because terms used require a definition.

So presumably, according to you, things only follow logically when terms used do not require a definition.

So I was wondering what an example of that would be. Otherwise, if there are no examples, then we're left with you effectively saying that nothing follows logically, period.

The referent being the same referent each time it is referred to does not logically depend upon the referent being physically unchanging from one moment to the next. — Janus

It's not "literally the same" if it's different, is it?

Philosophy helps you acquire facts about the world? i.e it helps you see "what the world is like factually"? — Zosito

Yes, and I'd have zero interest in it otherwise.

One of the poor quickly realizes he can be more powerful by voting with the rich — ernestm

That seems to come out of left field. First off, it assumes that people vote alike due to economic status (otherwise "voting with the rich" could be voting either way given two options). Secondly, just how would someone figure they'd have more power if they vote the same as someone else (where we're assuming the other group votes in unison)? Are we supposing voting publicly, so that one's vote is broadcast?

I think we'd have to move to inductive logic, but inductive conclusions are debatable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, but I'm still hoping you can give an example.

Do you agree that by standard geometrical definitions, the tape measure has both points and extension, and to mark off a particular segment of extension requires points, which by definition have no spatial extension and are not sensible? — Metaphysician Undercover

That's fine. All I'm asking you about is the fact that you agreed that you can sense the tape measure, but you denied being able to sense some extension of it.

This does not follow logically, because both "point" and "extension" require a definition, — Metaphysician Undercover

Wait, what's an example of something that would follow logically that wouldn't require a definition?

You agreed that you can sense the tape measure, and you agreed that you can sense markings on the tape measure. But you denied that you can sense any extension of the tape measure--that is, (at least) some arbitrary segment of it. So if you can't sense any extension, but nevertheless you can sense the tape measure, you must be somehow sensing a single point of it only, no? (That is, in the mathematical sense of a zero-dimensional point.) Because anything more than that would have some extension. (How there could be a nonextended marking on the tape measure is another issue here.)

I keep having to repeat that I have not said identicality is equivalent to identity. — Janus

Nominalism is saying something about identicality. So if you're not, you're not presenting something contra nominalism. That's why I clarified this a few posts ago: "At any rate, the gist of nominalism is that there's nothing extramental in all of this that's actually identical with numerically distinct or discernible things."

Over the whole time of its existence an entity is obviously identical to itself, — Janus

Here, you're using the word "identical." So the question remains. If there is change, how is it identical at two different points? Or are you saying something about identity there and not identicality, in which case you shouldn't use the word "identical"?

Nominalists agree that we say things like "that's cat x at time T1 and cat x at time T2," but we say that the identity in question ("cat x") is a mental abstraction, which is itself not identical through time.

If it changes how is it identical?

Right, so you'd be saying that some pattern A on occasion 1 isn't just similar to pattern B on occasion 2, but it's literally the same pattern, as in there's just one, and it's somehow instantiated in A and B at both occasions. How would that work ontologically? The pattern isn't just the one particular in that case, but somehow transcends the particular and is then instantiated in it. How would that work? Where would the pattern be located, for one?

At any rate, the gist of nominalism is that there's nothing extramental in all of this that's actually identical with numerically distinct or discernible things.

Great reading comprehension.

Not at all, it is merely to recognize entities. — Janus

We could say that one is recognizing something that has a particular set of causal connections to a prior existent.

To identify is to establish, if not to conceptualize, identity. So, now you are admitting that identity as it is established is not an abstraction. — Janus

To "establish identity" is to formulate the abstraction in question. Again, why would you doubt that brains would be able to do this evolutionarily prior to human brains?

As I said before, even animals can identify objects and entities in their environments; and I doubt they are capable of abstraction — Janus

Why would you doubt that? Why would it only be something that would evolve once we get to human brains and not in brains prior to human brains?

But you ignore what I have said which is that identicality (of parts) is not equivalent to identity (of the whole). — Janus

I addressed that already. The latter is simply a mental abstraction that we make.

Re the idealist nonsense, I've no interest at the moment in sidetracking to a big discussion about that, too.

The reason to doubt indentity through time is pretty simple. If there's a change in what we're calling "x," then "x" isn't identical at each of those "points."

I haven't said that it would or would not imply that. I don't even know what it could mean or what an "extramental" world could be. — Janus

Oy vey. :brow:

Ah--got it now. Most of Aristotle I see as an example of "mistakes to avoid," so the notion of him being of "absolute value" was pretty far from my mind.

I don't know. What "absolute" thing was on the table?

But as a nominalist, you know that nothing is absolute, so why would we begin to think such about Aristotle? — Merkwurdichliebe

"Think such about Aristotle"--think something "absolute" about him?

I wouldn't say that we observe things, examine things, etc. without performing both type/universal and genidentity (persistence through time) abstractions. Could we forego those abstractions? It would probably be possible for some people, but it would take a lot of practice to get used to it, and most would feel there's little benefit to it. We naturally think in terms of those abstractions.

This, however, does not imply that the abstractions obtain in the extramental world.

You just like the extra teeth.

So, what relevance do they have? Can we determine them or not? — Janus

Well, they'd be relevant to the way things are/to facts, including relational facts, to people who are interested in facts, etc.

We can determine this by looking at something in a particular reference frame and abstracting out the observational interaction, for example.

So was that a yes or no?

Would your opinion change if I "prove" mine to you?

"Change is only mental" isn't an empirical claim?

So when you sense the tape measure, the markings on it, you're sensing a point?

I don't see any relevance in what you say here. — Janus

Relevance to?

At any rate, I didn't say whether we can determine anything or not. I said let's be clear that ontological facts do not hinge on how we determine anything.

Numbers? I was asking you about a tape measure. You said you can sense a tape measure, including that you can sense markings on the tape measure. I'm simply asking you now if you can sense some length of the tape measure, that is, some extension of it, some section of it.

because there exists at least one final cause, first causes must exist, — TheGreatArcanum

Isn't that simply saying that just in case someone does something in a goal-directed or purpose-oriented way, the goal-directed or purpose-oriented action must occur, and that requires an initial state followed by a consequent state?

What that has to do with a claim that change is necessarily mental is something that likely only you have any inkling of, if indeed it makes any sense to you (which I doubt).

Aristotelian nonsense? Seriously?

First, let's be clear that ontological facts in no way hinge on how we determine anything. Only ontological facts of our determining actions as such would hinge on that.

So, when is a particular object that particular object then? — Janus

When it doesn't change in the contextual frame in question.

So can you sense any length--any extension of the tape measure, or do you just sense a point?

So you can't sense the tape measure stretched between two rocks?

because you deny that there is any persistent identity across time, and thus any persistent entity, which could be identified as an object. — Janus

There's no requirement for objects to be identical through time.