RE: BHA: Bearded men

["Wallace Polsom" <wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Colin,

But surely people have all sorts of mistaken beliefs about all sorts of
people, and yet I don't think we would want to say that the people who
_hold_ the mistaken beliefs are unable to REFER to those whom beliefs are
_about_. If you hold a description theory of reference for names, then, yes,
I believe your conclusion follows, which is why I supported Devitt's causal
theory of reference in the truth thread a while back. In the case of names,
so long as we follow a causal chain of Jesus back to a SPECIFIC historical
figure that people, on various occasions, dubbed Jesus, then we must say
that contemporary references to Jesus succeed. But then, what is SAID about
(the historical) Jesus just turns out to be a pack of half-truths and
outright lies, no?

The Christians who are willing to follow the causal chain back to a specific
historical personage are setting themselves up for a fall, so to speak,
because then we have a human being rather than a spectre to argue about.

I might believe that Colin is Santa, or JC, or God itself, and I might also
believe that he is currently working at a Pizza Hut in London, Ontario, but
this doesn't prevent me from referring to Colin using the name "Colin," does
it Colin?

Wallace



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Colin
> Wight
> Sent: Friday, June 12, 1998 4:06 AM
> To: bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: BHA: Bearded men
>
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> A good thought experiment at that. I'm not convinced that it changes the
> logic of my argument though. If indeed there was a happy character located
> somewhere in historical time out of which the narratives of Santa are
> constructed, then I concede. Santa existed, because he existed, or, at
> least we might uncover a historical account of someone somewhere who seems
> to fit the bill. But would this be Santa? I don't think so, anymore than I
> think that the person who wandered round the Holy Land was Jesus (defined
> as the son of God). I do think it possible/likely that there was a person
> who acted in certain manner, that played a particular political and
> religious role out of which the stories of Christianity are constructed.
> However, was he Jesus? Well it seems to me that a depth realist ontology
> and fallibilist epistemology has to leave open the possibility that
> christianty has simply got it wrong and that the person the Romans
> crucified was not Jesus, the son of God, but some con-man on the make.
>
>  The mere existence of someone claiming to be Jesus, or claimed by others
> to be Jesus, doesn't make them Jesus. In order to do that they would have
> to meet the criteria by which a reference to Jesus can be said to succeed.
> If by Jesus you simply mean the person the Romans dealt with,
> then we might
> say your reference succeeds, but if by Jesus we mean the son of God, then
> it may fail.
>
> There are deep poststructuralist traps, it seems to me, waiting round the
> corner in this debate, if we aren't clear about what our referents are. I
> know there has been much debate about who Shakespeare really was and that
> it doesn't matter who really wrote some of the material. It does to me I'm
> afraid, at some level at least.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dr. Colin Wight
> Department of International Politics
> University of Wales
> Aberystwyth
> Tel: (01970) 621769
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
>
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>



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