[Bups-dis] Who says Kripke gets to be the bottom line on Kripke?

[Alex Watt]

I agree with David. I don't see the issue as it relates to advancing
understanding of the argument. The author's text is there and its arguments
can be assessed with or without reference to the author.

If the text is ambiguous then if the author is still living, we can ask them
for further clarification. This new text will be new information. If the
author is dead then we can see if the arguments are consistent with others
advanced by the same author. In either case, the original text is flawed in
its aim of clear exposition.

I am not saying that it is not worth examining the author's intentions but
this seems to be more of a matter of biographical illumination than
philosophy. The intentions are wrapped in a world to which no-one other than
author has access. If the author is alive then we must trust to the
reliability of their testimony about the text which seems to me to be
questionable due to the desire of any author to see their work in the best
light in hindsight. If the author is dead then we have insufficient evidence
other than the text. Consequently, the problem seems hopelessly
underdetermined. We will wind ourselves up in speculation and lose sight of
the aim of the project which is the assessment and advancement of the
argument.

Alex

-----Original Message-----
From: bups-dis-bounces at list.bups.org
[mailto:bups-dis-bounces at list.bups.org]On Behalf Of DAB Mathers
Sent: 26 August 2007 15:39
To: bups-dis at list.bups.org
Subject: Re: [Bups-dis] Who says Kripke gets to be the bottom line on
Kripke?

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Quoting Duncan Crowe <dac43 at cam.ac.uk>:

> To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
BUPS-DIS at bups.org
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>
> Dear all,
>
> I'm afraid this is metaphilosophical again: an itch I cannot stop
> scratching.
>
> In Fitch's /Saul Kripke/ he makes the following remark:
>
> "For a long time, for example, I understood Kripke to mean that a term
> /a /is a rigid designator provided that /a /designates the same object
> at each possible world, whether or not that object exists in that world.
> This was the view that David Kaplan (Kaplan 1989) thought to be Kripke's
> as well. /But Kaplan reports that Kripke has written to him to say that
> his view is neutral /with respect to whether or names designate objects
> at a world in which the object in question does not exist. Hence we were
> wrong in our initial interpretation of what Kripke meant."
>
> The question isn't one about rigid designators (though that's
> interesting enough of itself), but rather whether Kripke is in some
> privileged position to say sans additional argument what his
> philosophical commitments are or aren't. I want to divorce this from the
> example used, to an extent, because in this case it seems Kripke's view
> is entirely reasonable and it turns out there /is /textual support for
> it in 'Identity and Necessity', the question is one of whether when we
> deal with a philosopher's work we should be concerned with (1) what they
> intended to say or (2) what they actually did say.
>
> Obviously, when questions of hermeneutics become involved the line
> between (1) and (2) becomes a little vague, in so far as in order to
> understand (2), if a particular philosopher happens to be rather
> obscure, the interpretation we give of their work to arrive at (2) may
> be contentious and one of the options up for grabs will be a (1)ish (2):
> 'what the philosopher says they said', which it seems reasonable to give
> some priority to.
>
> But questions of obscurity aside; it seems broadly correct to say there
> is such a thing as 'the plainest, most conservative interpretation of a
> work' which seems the correct baseline for (2) and which may well differ
> from what the philosopher intended to say. As a basic (I don't want to
> give this too much weight) example we could give Wittgenstein's: 'what
> we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence'. Now, what Wittgenstein
> intended to fit under the heading of 'what we cannot speak of' is
> largely a personal fact about Wittgenstein (which, postmortem, might be
> gained from biographical sources), whereas what would fit under it as
> regards (2) would be 'whatever cannot be made to fit into the category
> of 'what we can speak of' given the argument in the /Tractatus/', which
> I hope it's obvious is at least theoretically distinct from 'what
> Wittgenstein intended... etc'.
>
> There seems to be an orthodox analytical position on the subject, which
> is to say that we should only be concerned with what actually /is /said
> in the sources, and not what a particular philosopher may have liked to
> have said, or may have intended to have said, or should like it to be
> understood as that to which they are committed. This links with (what I
> see as being) the eschewing of biographical and historical-contextual
> considerations of historical philosophers, except in so far as such
> sources can help to disambiguate 'what is said'. Now, obvious this is
> not very ingrained if people like Fitch practice the opposite, the
> question is: which attitude is correct?
>
> Should we (1) concern ourselves with what a particular philosopher's
> /weltanshaunng /may have been and try to determine what they /intended
> /to argue, even if this goes beyond what can be gleaned from the texts?
> (there is a subdivision: 1b) we should be concerned with this only for
> contemporary philosophers who, still living, are in a position to
> authoritatively report what their intentions are, as in the Kripke
> example as opposed to the more pure 1a) we should do this for historical
> figures as well. Or (2) we should only concern ourselves with what is
> said - which is to say the simplest unambigious interpretation of what
> has actually been written by a philosopher, and what appear to be the
> commitments of it. Or a little of both.
>
> I can see merit in both views, but to return to what was recently a
> theme of discussion of BUPS Dis: what is more likely to be beneficial to
> us as philosophers (or, as philosophy students): should we be concerned
> 'just with the arguments' or do we have something to gain from the
> attempt of becoming deeply engaged with a historical figure within the
> discipline, even if such engagement necessarily goes beyond what is
> written down on the page?
>
> Duncan Crowe.
> _______________________________________________
>
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I'm failing to see a deep question here, though perhaps it just me.
Surely if your interested in the argument(s) of a work philosophically
you just talk about all the different ways that it can be interpreted
asses the merits of each as a philosophical line of argument-maybe
mention any interpretation as being given the blessing of the author
or as seeming to fit more plausibly with the text, but the main thing
is assessing the argument itself. On the other hand if your writing an
introduction to Hume's treatise your interested mainly on getting the
most plausible reading of what the text actually says, but i still
don't really see why you can't say 'well the text most fits
interpretation x, but on the other hand Hume endorsed interpretation y
in his letter to so-and-so.' So basically i see no question to be
resolved here, that has a real answer. You just talk about the text
and how it can be interpreted, what merits the arguments have and
what's been said about it. There's no need to decide what has priority
between how it reads to you and what its author said about it-you just
state and discuss both...
David.






>



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