Donal wrote, Turning to the substance of the thread: of course, the following [sentence fragments of JL's] only appear to contradict:-
*John Locke--my favourite English philosopher ever--mostly influential in Oxford…'
**Thomas Hobbes--my favourite English philosopher EVER…'[Donal] Not only has time passed between the first and second claim in which a change of opinion is logically possible and indeed permissible, but they are perhaps logically compatible provided "ever" and "EVER" are not equivalent "substitutionally" a la early Kripke.
[RP] If I understand this at all, it would seem that Donal is saying that * and ** might be incompatible if 'ever; and 'EVER' meant the same thing (something the Romans didn't have to worry about). For some reason Kripke is invoked here.
[RP] The common sense view would be that they do 'contradict' each other, or are incompatible with each other in some different way. Most of the time the tacit temporal subscripts ('at t' e.g.) are just that—tacit—in ordinary discourse (like this).
No one but a philosopher would accuse the grocer of (some kind of) inconsistency if on Tuesday, he placed a sign in the window that read CARROTS $1.25 lb,' and on Wednesday, one reading. CARROTS $1.29 lb. I mean: consider the price of gasoline. Or newspapers.
James, at t says, 'Alice is the only girl for me,' yet at t+1 says, 'Condoleezza is the only girl for me.' James, of course, does not contradict himself, if he says at one time that it's Jane, and later says it's Condoleezza. Geach does not contradict himself if in 1948 he gives a reading of 'Bedeutung,' and, in 1950, sees that he'd been mistaken, and sets forth a new and different one.
No one but a philosopher would accuse the grocer of (some kind of) inconsistency if on Tuesday, he placed a sign in the window that read CARROTS $1.25 lb,' and on Wednesday, one reading. CARROTS $1.29 lb. I mean: consider the price of gasoline. Or newspapers.
When I first read JL's comments, on the Philosophy Now list, my eyes passed over his expression of admiration and esteem for Hobbes a few seconds after they'd passed over his expression of admiration and esteem for Locke. Not hours, days, months after.
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, reads the headline in the Chicago Times. Does their later retraction represent a change in its editors' opinions?
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