Re: SUO: RE: RE: SUO Ballot with 2 Questions
On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 08:58:55PM +0100, Chris Partridge wrote:
>
> Dear Pierluigi,
>
> Your characterisation in the second sentence is, I think, a common
> misrepresntation of the problem.
>
> PL> "I don't think my ordinary uses of the proper names of people I know are
> in any way ambiguous or in need of some semantic or ontological repair. In
> any case, your response here supports, rather than refute, my point that
> 4D-ers tend to look at ordinary ways of communicating as either ill-formed
> or confused."
>
> The issue is that the ordinary ways of speaking have begun to seem to many
> people odd - though as you point out, not to you. The odd claim is that we
> are both the same and different - and this is what needs explaining. It
> seems to me that all the good explanations, whether 3D or 4D lead to
> revisions of so-called ordinary ways of speaking.
>
> Before you leap to the defense of ordinary ways of speaking, there is a long
> history of qualms with the then current loose way of speaking of identity
> that has lead to arguments/discussions. A well-known example is
> transubstantion. I presume that you would accept that many people do not
> follow the ordinary medieval way of speaking now. Interestingly, in this
> case, the stricter notion of identity seems to be linked with developments
> in the information technology of the time (for more on this and other
> examples of cultures with ordinary notions of identity we find odd see David
> Olson - World on Paper).
(Sorry: my responses are almost inevitably late since I simply can't
keep up with the pace of this list.)
Chris, the responses to your response went down a different path, but
I wanted to say this:
Re: revisions: that's not really the question here. I don't believe
that 4-dimensionalists believe we should *say* anything other than
"Mike wrote 2 messages." My point was that there is a temptation on
their part to impute ambiguity to this ordinary occurrence of the name
'Mike'. One needs only review Matthew's reply for seeing this tendency
at work.
But there is no question that a 4-dimensionalist is not forced to
given in to this tendency. One could note, for instance, that an
analogous interplay of ontology and semantics occurs w.r.t. spatial
mereology, which is typically not very controversial even for
3-dimensionalists. For instance, I would surely say "I saw Pierre at the
stube" though I in fact glimpsed exactly his right arm and the back of
his head, recognizing his parts instantly but with the rest obscured
from my view by the other carousers. Not many people would venture
here that I "really mean" (whatever _that_ means) not Pierre but
Pierre's visible body parts (for good reasons, not just for linguistic
inertia).
Similarly, I imagine that a 4-dimensionalist would in no way be forced
to interpret 'Mike' as the same individual who wrote 2 messages
yesterday and fried an egg today. For a 4-dimensionalist, of course,
_that_ individual is a 4-dimensional object, a space-time worm or
whatever. (Ed.'s question: but isn't the 4D type then just speaking like a
3D type? Ed.'s answer: well, yes, but it's their burden to show how
much better 4D would be...)
Re: identity: not quite sure I see how that is involved here. ALso, an
interesting question (perhaps more interesting to more people): do you
see DOLCE as involving "different types" of identity? Somehow I resist
this thought.
best,
--
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