Skip to main content

Reference-fixing as an allagmatic operation (Kripke meets Simondon)

In December 2010, in Gize, I wrote an entry on this blog on the individuation of camels. There I do mention Kripke and Simondon. In fact, one can see reference-fixing procedures as allagmatic operations - operations that take place in the preparation of an individual. Surely, proper names are introduced by baptism, and name-giving is an individualization operation. But reference-fixing could be for instance, introducing the name Hesperus as the evening star or the name Cat for a (natural) kind of animals (no matter if they end up turning out to be also the morning star or robots instead). Descriptions can be wrong and yet work as reference-fixing. If it is so, a wrong description (or an incomplete one) could work as an allagmatic operation that individuates (cats or stars). Of all things, a description picks up one - or what it takes to be one - and this is enough for something to be individuated, and treated as an individual, that can be further investigated later on.

Reference-fixing produces individuals. It is a way to carve the world in individuals, to the extent that we can further say, for instance, that there is not (in the actual world) entities individuated as phlogiston. Analogously, descriptions in fiction (but not only descriptions) individuate things. We can talk about unicorns or Holmes. One of the many meta-stabilizers needed for an individual to be such is reference-fixing. Why is this camel different from all the others? Because it was given a name, and a name, as I said in the 2010 post mentioned above, provides the individual with importance, the importance of being an individual distinct from all others. I guess what is crucial in Kripke's gesture - or in the direct reference theory gesture in general - is not really the defense of the indiscernibility of identicals (or the move to make some kind of substracta theory plausible) but it is rather to show the (allagmatic) complexity of reference-fixing. It is not about satisfaction of description. Rather, it is about point at a part of the world and attempting to provide it with borders.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hunky, Gunky and Junky - all Funky Metaphysics

Been reading Bohn's recent papers on the possibility of junky worlds (and therefore of hunky worlds as hunky worlds are those that are gunky and junky - quite funky, as I said in the other post). He cites Whitehead (process philosophy tends to go hunky) but also Leibniz in his company - he wouldn't take up gunk as he believed in monads but would accept junky worlds (where everything that exists is a part of something). Bohn quotes Leibniz in On Nature Itself «For, although there are atoms of substance, namely monads, which lack parts, there are no atoms of bulk, that is, atoms of the least possible extension, nor are there any ultimate elements, since a continuum cannot be composed out of points. In just the same way, there is nothing greatest in bulk nor infinite in extension, even if there is always something bigger than anything else, though there is a being greatest in the intensity of its perfection, that is, a being infinite in power.» And New Essays: ... for there is nev

Talk on ultrametaphysics

 This is the text of my seminar on ultrametaphysics on Friday here in Albuquerque. An attempt at a history of ultrametaphysics in five chapters Hilan Bensusan I begin with some of the words in the title. First, ‘ultrametaphysics’, then ‘history’ and ‘chapters’. ‘Ultrametaphysics’, which I discovered that in my mouth could sound like ‘ autre metaphysics’, intends to address what comes after metaphysics assuming that metaphysics is an endeavor – or an epoch, or a project, or an activity – that reaches an end, perhaps because it is consolidated, perhaps because it has reached its own limits, perhaps because it is accomplished, perhaps because it is misconceived. In this sense, other names could apply, first of all, ‘meta-metaphysics’ – that alludes to metaphysics coming after physics, the books of Aristotle that came after Physics , or the task that follows the attention to φύσις, or still what can be reached only if the nature of things is considered. ‘Meta-m

Memory assemblages

My talk here at Burque last winter I want to start by thanking you all and acknowledging the department of philosophy, the University of New Mexico and this land, as a visitor coming from the south of the border and from the land of many Macroje peoples who themselves live in a way that is constantly informed by memory, immortality and their ancestors, I strive to learn more about the Tiwas, the Sandia peoples and other indigenous communities of the area. I keep finding myself trying to find their marks around – and they seem quite well hidden. For reasons to do with this very talk, I welcome the gesture of directing our thoughts to the land where we are; both as an indication of our situated character and as an archive of the past which carries a proliferation of promises for the future. In this talk, I will try to elaborate and recommend the idea of memory assemblage, a central notion in my current project around specters and addition. I begin by saying that I