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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    The Linsky-Zalta account can explain the intuition that B... — Carmelics
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    Home/Personal Identity
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The Linsky-Zalta account can explain the intuition that Bush might not have existed by appealing to concreteness as a contingent property.

    Modality & PossibilityPersonal Identity
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Linsky and Zalta claim that being concrete is a contingent property of objects.
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    • 2.Bush might have been nonconcrete in some possible world.
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    • 3.When we consider a world in which Bush is nonconcrete, we are inclined to say he does not exist there.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The distinction between 'existing as nonconcrete' and 'not existing' is not grounded in ordinary modal intuitions but stipulated by the theory itself.
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    • 2.If Bush 'exists' in all possible worlds as an abstract object, then our intuition that he might not have existed is not explained but rather explained away.
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    • 3.A theory that systematically reinterprets modal intuitions rather than accommodating them cannot claim those intuitions as evidence in its favor.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Kripke's modal realism about names holds that names are rigid designators tracking individuals through possible worlds, not abstract surrogates for concrete counterparts.
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    • 2.On the Kripkean picture, Bush is essentially a concrete human being, making nonconcrete 'Bush' in a possible world a misdescription rather than a genuine modal alternative.
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    • 3.Linsky and Zalta's account therefore conflicts with the Kripkean essentialist framework that originally motivates the puzzle about singular propositions they claim to solve.
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    Personal IdentityModality & Possibility

    Related

    A theory that systematically reinterprets modal intuitions rather than accommoda...Bush might have been nonconcrete in some possible world.If Bush 'exists' in all possible worlds as an abstract object, then our intuitio...Kripke's modal realism about names holds that names are rigid designators tracki...
    +6 moreShow less
    Linsky and Zalta claim that being concrete is a contingent property of objects.Linsky and Zalta's account therefore conflicts with the Kripkean essentialist fr...On the Kripkean picture, Bush is essentially a concrete human being, making nonc...The distinction between 'existing as nonconcrete' and 'not existing' is not grou...This inclination explains why we intuit that Bush might not have existed, withou...When we consider a world in which Bush is nonconcrete, we are inclined to say he...

    Similar

    The Linsky-Zalta view that concreteness is a contingent property shoul...85%Linsky and Zalta claim that being concrete is a contingent property of...82%We are very reluctant to accept that concreteness is a contingent prop...82%The view must revise the claim so that it applies to nonconcrete indiv...78%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: propositions-singular
    View source passageHide passage
    Matters are more difficult if one is an actualist, subscribing to the thesis that absolutely everything is actual. Then, if one accepts the existence of singular propositions, one has two options. First, one might deny that propositions like (7) are possibly true, accepting that necessarily everything necessarily exists, as Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta, in their (1994) and Timothy Williamson, in his (2001), do. This position is only as plausible as the explanation on offer of the intuitive co
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit