Discussions |
Rigidity and Essentiality: Reply to Gómez-Torrente
Faculty of Philosophy University of Cambridge Sidgwick Avenue Cambridge CB3 9DA
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Abstract |
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Mario Gómez-Torrente (2006) says that whilst theoretical identifications (e.g. ‘All lightning is electrical discharge’) do not entail their own necessitations, they do entail the necessitation of a weaker statement. And he claims that this weaker entailment serves Kripke's purposes as well as the stronger one would have. I argue that this is false. Section 1 says what the weaker entailment is; section 2 says why it matters. Section 3 argues that the entailment identified at section 1 does not meet the purpose identified at section 2. Section 4 rejects two possible objections. The aim is to illustrate (not establish) the general claim that those ‘modal facts’ that are not entirely speculative are quite useless.