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Economics Dictionary of Arguments

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Rigidity, philosophy: Rigidity is an expression for the property of names to stand for the same object in all possible worlds, as opposed to descriptions that are not rigid and can change their reference. E.g. it is pointless to ask whether Napoleon might have been someone else but Napoleon in a possible world, but it is not meaningless to say that there is a possible world in which Napoleon is not the winner of Austerlitz. See also descriptions, names, possible worlds, range, necessity, possibility, reference, semantics of possible worlds, intensions, propositions.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Gareth Evans on Rigidity - Dictionary of Arguments

Stalnaker I 198
"Dthat" rigidity: is a rigid-making operator: the object should thus be defined as the same in all possible worlds.
Rigidity/rigid/Evans: e.g. Julius/Zip/Evans/Stalnaker: "The inventor of the zip, we call him Julius" - the example can be interpreted in two ways: A) as an abbreviation of a complex singular term "dthat [the inventor of the zip]". Then "inventor of the zip" is part of the meaning. And it is a logical truth that he invented it. B) as a determination: that Julius is the name of the person.
Then it would be a semantic ((s) non-logical connection) between name and person. - Then the role of the description would be to set the reference. For example, someone hears the name: Case A) then he/she does not understand the utterance - then "dthat [the person to which Stalnaker referred to in the situation]" ad B) if the semantic properties of "Julius" are part of the historical causal chain, then the competent speaker does not need to know anything about it. Cf. >Operators.


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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

EMD II
G. Evans/J. McDowell
Truth and Meaning Oxford 1977

Evans I
Gareth Evans
"The Causal Theory of Names", in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 47 (1973) 187-208
In
Eigennamen, Ursula Wolf, Frankfurt/M. 1993

Evans II
Gareth Evans
"Semantic Structure and Logical Form"
In
Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell, Oxford 1976

Evans III
G. Evans
The Varieties of Reference (Clarendon Paperbacks) Oxford 1989

Stalnaker I
R. Stalnaker
Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003


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