I want to parse like Superman (was Re: Identity)

[Reynolds, Gregg]

Okay, you guys got my philosophical homunculus in an uproar.  He insists
that I splutter thusly:

	You should quote, not only the names "Clark Kent" and "Superman",
but all others as well.  The question is perhaps more fruitfully stated as
"how can we determine that two names have the same denotation".  The classic
example is: the names "Sir Walter Scott" and "the author of Waverly" have
the same denotation, whether anybody knows it or not (although they may have
different senses).  But we can't directly talk about any denotation; we can
only use names.  So "Clark Kent" and "Superman", qua names, have the same
denotation, whether "Lois" gets it or not.  They also have clearly different
meanings, as "Lois" would surely attest.

	"Appearance" is something completely different, unless it is
construed as a purely symbolic notion.  That is, "Superman"'s "appearance"
and "CLark"'s "appearance" have the same denotation (but don't belong to
it).  On the other hand, "what 'Clark' looked like this morning" is also a
name, which denotes his appearance, but not him.

	What fun!

-gregg
	

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at locke.ccil.org]
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 5:37 PM
To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: Re: I want to parse like Superman (was Re: Identity)


David Megginson scripsit:

> Here's an interesting problem -- in the world of DC comics, there
> exists no time T in which Superman and Clark Kent both exist
> simultaneously, and as a corollary, there exists no person P such that
> P is both Superman and Clark Kent.  On the other hand, there does
> exist a person who is always *either* Clark Kent or Superman.  

I think I understand what you mean, but it is a problem of appearances,
not identity.  The appearances labeled "Clark Kent" and "Superman"
belong to a single being; Clark Kent is identical to Superman,
in the same sense that the evening star is the morning star, though
they don't have the same appearances (one is in the west, the other
in the east).
> Does this constitute identity?  If so, then I'd imagine that the same
> IP addressed used serially for foo.com, bar.com, and foo.com again
> also establishes the identity of those domains.
> 
> 
> All the best,
> 
> 
> David
> 
> -- 
> David Megginson                 david at megginson.com
>            http://www.megginson.com/
> 
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-- 
John Cowan					cowan at ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.

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