Answers to Jenn's Qs

Intro
1. What claim is Gibbard arguing for, in general?That identity can be contingent, and even though Kripke seems to successfully undermine the “account of necessary truth as a priori truth” and goes on to attack of reference based on contingent truths.
2. Translate Gibbard’s (1) [p. 100a] into plain English.
A statue is made up of a piece of clay. It is possible that the piece of clay exists and the statue exists and that they are not the same thing.
3. What is Kripke’s claim that Gibbard wants to focus on? Why? How does he use this in relation to his own claims?
Section I
4. What are “persistence criteria”? Give an example of persistence criteria using some object other than a statue or a lump of clay.
Persistence criteria are the specifications of when/how something of a given identity begins to and ceases to exist. An example would be automobile C—C starts to exist when all of its components are mechanically joined together and ceases to exist when the components are mechanically seperated.
5. What “persistence criteria” does Gibbard give to his piece of clay, c?
P comes into existence when all of its parts are stuck together without being attached to another piece of clay. It ceases to be when the pieces break away or are attached to another lump of clay. Wear is taken into account in this persistence criterion in that P will still be P over time, even if some of it wears away.
6. What “persistence criteria” does Gibbard want to count for his statue, s?
A statue comes into being when a piece of clay is shaped, persists in that shape, and changes in a slow, wear-related fashion.
7. Why does it matter that Gibbard specifies “I claim that as I have defined them, pieces of clay and clay statues are objects. That is to say, they can be designated with proper names, and the logic we ordinarily use will still apply.” [102a top]? Specifically, why does it matter that we can designate them with proper names?
It matters because he wants to talk about how the identity of proper names is contingent, and thus he must show how the identity between two objects, objects that can be named (rigidly designated) might be contingent. This is important because of if a named thing such as “Goliath” is made up of another named thing such as “Lumpl” it starts to suggest that these names are not simply names for the same thing, and that their identities are divisible.
8. How does Gibbard’s case of squeezing Goliath before he dries show that Goliath = Lumpl is a case of contingent identity?
This is a case of identity because there is a time when G and L seem to be the same thing, but that when G ceases to exist L can persist to exist. If they were necessarily identical, when G ceased to exist, L would too, but this does not seem to be the case.
Section II
9. What are concrete things, for Gibbard?
Things that are made up in a simple, systematic way from “fundamental physical entities.”
Section III
10. What in Kripke’s account of proper names makes it follow that Goliath cannot be identical with Lumpl?
Kripke’s position is that proper names are rigid designators of a particular thing. Thus is G and L refer to the same thing in one world, they must refer to the same thing in every possible counterfactual. Gibbard gives his example of where in W1 they would not be, thus they could not be identical in Kripke’s view.
11. What qualification does Gibbard want to give to Kripke’s idea of rigid- and nonrigid-designators? What “rough theory of proper names emerges”? [104b]
We have established that are counterfactual situations where G and L would not be identical. In cross world situations it doesn’t make sense to talk about G or L as referring to the same thing; they are different kinds of things. Gibbard wants to add in this idea of “sortals,” where the kind of thing (statues, pieces of clay) are necessary in talking about identity—an object’s identity must be an identity of a kind of thing.
12. What property of the statue Goliath (or the clay “Lumpl”) allows it to be identified as the same statue (or lump) in other possible worlds?
G in W0 has a common origin with G in W1 (they have the same beginning).
13. In words other than Gibbard’s, what is his theory of reference for cases of things denoted by proper names that branch in other possible worlds? [105a]
Gibbard’s theory of reference depends upon objects such as G having a common origin; G might be left to persist in W0 or squashed in W1, but they have a common origin point which makes the G in W0 and the G in W1 the same statue; the point at which W1’s history changes is a “branching” point.
14. Give a (simple) example of a causal chain of reference for a proper name other than Gibbard’s explanation of Goliath and “Lumpl.”
15. How does his example of “Portia” show that “the persistence criteria invoked help determine what entity bears that name”? [105b bottom]
Section IV
16. Does Gibbard do justice to Kripke’s view about rigid- and nonrigid-designators? What I mean is that he brushes off Kripke’s argument of rigid and nonrigid-designators fairly quickly in saying that his [Kripke’s] argument only shows that designators are rigid with respect to a sortal.
G writes: “To show it [here is he talking about K’s Nixon example] rigid independently of any sortal, one would have to go beyond what Kripke says in the passage I have quoted, and show that Nixon could not have been a different entity from the one he in fact is. For that purpose, the ‘simple intuitive test’ Kripke offers will not help. We speak and think of ‘the same person’ but not of ‘the same entity’” [106b].
I am curious about G’s dismissal of K’s Nixon example, because it seems to me to be obvious that Nixon could not have been a different entity from the one he in fact is. At the very least, it seems like in class discussions there is a lot of disagreement about what makes a person a person; however, whenever Florka asks if he could be (say) a tomato and still be him the answer is usually a resounding “no.” Or, to quote a classmate’s blog: “Consider what makes you, you. It seems that we can’t pick out one specific property, save for your humanity…” (thanks Stan - 9 March post). Therefore, why does G think that K’s example does not show this?

Gibbard thinks that Kripke’s view leads to the strange statement “Nixon could not have been a different entity than the entity he was” and this is dangerous because in our everyday intuitions (Gibbard’s referring to K’s simple intuitive test), we are not thinking about Nixon in the broad sense of an entity, but rather with respect to his humanity. Gibbard is suggesting that this entity question is irrelevant because we aren’t questioning Nixon’s existence when we ask the question ‘Might Nixon have been a different man from the man that he in fact was?’ Gibbard also suggests that this question of an entity’s identity being rigid is complex enough to warrant systems that characterize the identity of an entity and “comparing their implications.” Nixon’s identity is rigid in respect to the human sortal, but it is nonsensical to talk about the rigidness of his identity unless we are identifying him with a specific mode of existence.

Gibbard's "Contingent Identity" Study Questions

1.** What exactly is a “persistence criteria”? Give an example of one (perhaps you could write out the persistence criteria for yourself) and describe its component functions. Judging on what we read in “Identity and Necessity,” do you think Kripke would accept Gibbard’s incorporation of the persistence criteria in identification?

2. Does it make sense to name the piece of clay Lumpl when it is also the statue “Goliath”? Gibbard suggests that it might seem strange to when we aren’t talking with our metaphysicians’ glasses on, but do you think it is possible that when something like a piece of clay becomes a statue, that it stops being a piece of clay?

3.* Gibbard’s goal is to devise a system of for concrete things; a “well-confirmed fundamental physics” (103 a). Could his system or parts of his system be useful for non-concrete things as well? One example might be if an abstraction such as an idea could have a persistence criterion (one that may or may not involve point instants or changing sets of particles.)

4.* What is Gibbard’s point in suggesting that it makes no sense to try and to designate the identity of the statue that is “squeezed out of existence” (104 a)? Why doesn’t it make sense to say that it is either a piece of clay or a statue?

5. What is the exact difference between referring to something and referring to something as something? Does Gibbard believe we ever refer to something without referring to it as something?

6. Is it possible for something to be x rigid and y rigid, with x and y both sharing the same persistence criteria (point instants and changing sets of particles), and for x ≠ y? Give an example in either case.

7*. In Gibbard’s theory of reference, what is a “branching world” (105 a)? How does a branching world possess a reference link to the real world?

8*. What is the relationship between persistence criteria and fixing references? What is the origin of a tradition that passes on a name? How does a persistence criterion help determine the identity of an entity?

9. What is Gibbard’s argument for his claim that situations can be fully stipulated even if the identity questions about an object remain unsettled?

10. What distinguishes Gibbard’s theory of rigid and non rigid designators (considering the application of sortals) and Kripke’s theory?

11. Explain how time functions in Gibbard’s account of how “Goliath” and Lumpl are contingently identical i.e. how does a consideration of each thing’s history influence the view that they are not necessarily identical?

Focus paper on the epistemology and metaphysics of F

The difference between something being an F and how we know it is an F rests in the difference between something possessing a certain property and our ability to know about a property. Our ability to know about a property depends on two avenues of inquiry: through empirical evidence and through analytical reasoning. Suppose our F is actually the letter “f.” We might know the letter is “f” because the symbol is linked to a sound. We also know where “f” falls in the alphabet (this is included in the definition of f-ness, along with its sound), so that we know something is f given its sound (except in cases like “philosophy”) and by its position in the alphabet. We understand some rudimentary rules of English, and then all questions about the identity of “f” become fairly obvious. For example, given this question: “what is the letter between “e” and “g”?” the answer is obvious because part of the definition of “f” is that it falls between these two letters. This is a case of analytically based epistemology; another case would be knowing that a letter is “f” by getting this description: “the sixth letter of the alphabet.” Gaining analytical knowledge of “f” inherently involves understanding the alphabet system. I am uncertain as to whether it actually is possible to gain a priori knowledge of something like an alphabet system. It seems like this system is a conceptual framework of sorts, but it also seems that the only way one can come to any kind of knowledge about the alphabet would be through experiencing it. Is being told about the alphabet or seeing it written out enough to be considered experiencing it? It doesn’t seem as though we can experience it in any other way, or that we could come to any understanding of it aside from what has already been mentioned.

Let us return to the example of knowing “f” by its sound. Before we had cases of analytic understanding of how a letter is “f”; I think that coming to an understanding about “f” through an experience (a posteriori) with its particular sound is gaining empirical knowledge about “f.” It seems that this happens for us as children; we hear the sound and then later we are taught that the sound corresponds with a certain symbol. We are gaining empirical knowledge about a language, something artificially created by humans. A case would be as a child, I don’t know how to say a certain word starting with “f”. I go to my mother and ask her to say it for me. I hear the sound and then understand through my experience of having my mother read it aloud that the letter-sound corresponds to the symbol “f”. This is a case of empirically based epistemology. After empirical knowledge is gained about the alphabet, then it seems that analytical rules can be understood.

Something is an F when it possesses some essential property; it’s F-ness. I take this to go beyond the meaning that something is an F when it is necessarily identical with itself. In other words, something could not be an F unless it has property x in every counterfactual. For example, “f” would not be “f” unless it was a letter. If we try to imagine a counterfactual where “f” is a number (I don’t mean a variable), then I think we should be inclined to say that the thing we are talking about is no longer “f”. It seems that we could imagine a number system that replaces every symbol we take as a letter for a number value, and in this sense “f” could be a number. This would be placing “f” in a new system. But I am still inclined to believe that a symbol that looks identical to “f” outside of our current conceptual framework of language would not actually be “f.” Something is an F because of certain essential properties: for “f” some of them would be a. being a letter, b. corresponding to a certain sound, c. being a certain kind of letter (a consonant), etc.