Sounds reasonable.

($*) Everyone has the intuition that ‘Godel’ refers to Schmidt.

Clearly ($*) is false. But do you agree that if ($*) were true, it would speak against the truth of ($)?

If so, then consider

($**) Everyone (with the exception of Kripke, three people Kripke surveyed, and Dustin Locke) has the intuition that ‘Godel’ refers to Schmidt.

This is also false, of course. But if this were true, and established by empirical research, then it seems like that would also speak against the truth of ($), and that the five of you should distrust your intuitions. If all that is correct, then it seems like empirical data about people’s intuitions is indeed relevant to our consideration of ($). Mind you, the data might vindicate Kripke’s claim. Does that sound reasonable?

Of course, based on what I’ve heard about the study (which I haven’t examined directly, I confess), like you Dustin, I’m not yet convinced that Kripke needs to recant his assertion of ($). (Is anyone claiming that he should??) If divergence of intuitions about ($) moves along (rather than cutting across) cultural lines, then might different notions of reference be at work? If so, the study may actually end up supplying confirmation of ($) since the relevant cultural group did agree with ($). In that case, perhaps Kripke was justified in making the assertion with little more than his own (strong) intuition and a tiny bit of informal polling. I’m not so much arguing for this, as I’m entertaining it. I’d be curious to hear people’s thoughts.

“Readers of this story almost universally agreed that the word ‘Gödel’ did not, in fact, refer to Schmidt. Any theory which declared Schmidt to be the referent of ‘Gödel’ was therefore assumed to be incorrect.
A question arises, however, as to whether everyone shares this intuition or whether it is only shared by the kinds of people who normally read Anglo-American philosophy. The philosophers Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich recently ran an empirical study to address this question. All subjects were given the story of Gödel and Schmidt. But the design of the study included a surprising twist. Some subjects were Americans; others were residents of Hong Kong. As expected, the American subjects shared the intuitions of most analytic philosophers. But the Hong Kong subjects showed a quite different pattern of responses. Among subjects in Hong Kong, the majority said that the word ‘Gödel’ did indeed refer to Schmidt.
This recent result — along with similar results from studies in ethics and epistemology — suggest that Asian people may not share many of the intuitions on which widely accepted philosophical theories have been based.”

Even IF (and this is a pretty big if) this study shows that not everyone shares Kripke’s intuition, how is this relevant to Kripke’s argument. Again, his premise is not

$“) Everyone has the intuition that ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt.

Nor, importantly, is the premise of Kripke’s argument:

$“`) Kripke has the intuition that ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt.

The premise of his argument is

($) ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt.

What I want to know is this: how is the (alleged) falsity of ($“) relevant to the truth/falisty of ($)?

Here’s one possibility: the (alleged) falsity of ($“) is evidence that Kripke’s intuition that ($) is true is unreliable. Thus, since Kripke’s belief that ($) is true is based on his intuition that ($) is true, his belief lacks justification (warrant, evidence, what have you). If this is the answer one wants to defend, then here is one’s challenge:

(1) Why is the (alleged) falsity of ($“) relevant to the reliability of Kripke’s intuition and
(2) Why is the reliabilty of Kripke’s intuition relevant to whether he is justified in holding a belief based on it?

Does it just SEEM to you that the (alleged) falsity of ($“) is relevant to the reliability of Kripke’s intuition? Does it just SEEM to you that the reliability of Kripke’s intuition is relevant to whether he is justified in holding a belief based on it?

It SEEMS to me that this process must stop somewhere. So the question is where? Where Kripke stopped or where the x-phiers stop? I suggest that it is where Kripke stopped, because I find the claim that ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt much more intuitively plausible than the assumption that the (alleged) falsity of ($“) is relevant to the reliability of Kripke’s intuition and the assumption that the reliability of Kripke’s intuition is relevant to whether he is justified in holding a belief based on it.

I should say that I do in fact find those other assumptions pretty darn intuitively plausible. And I don’t think I need to reject one of them quite yet, because I don’t think that the study actually shows that ($“) is false–there’s just too many other (plausible) explanations for the results.

experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com (this should be a link but who knows?)

where edouard machery (incidentally, one of the authors of the godel/schmidt study) has a really interesting post about what the project of experimental philosophy is and is not, and about the role of empirical claims in philosophical debate. highly recommended reading.

will attempt a more substantive comment when i am more fully caffienated (sp? more coffee!)

Yes. All non-circular arguments rely on some assumptions that are not argued for.

Re: “What empirical studies might show is that he does not have the right to generalize from his own intuition and assume the truth of ($).”

I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand what you mean here. If Kripke “generalized from his own intuition” the conclusion of his generalization would be “everyone (most everyone) has the intuition that ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt”. But that is NOT a premise of Kripke’s argument. The premise of his argument is ($), not ($`) or even

($“) Everyone (most everyone) has the intuition that ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt.

Re: “Insofar as reference is part of our linguistic practice, rather than some out-there fact, surveying people’s linguistic practice seems like a sensible first step to figure out their implicit theory of reference. That is, a first step in figuring out what DOES the name ‘Godel’ refer to.”

Two worries:

Minor worry: how would such a survey work?
Major worry: what’s with the “that is”?

Regarding the major worry, since when does ‘their implicit theory of reference’ determine what ‘Godel’ refers to? You seem to be making a pretty big assumption about reference, namely, that ‘their implicit theory of reference’ determines reference. To assume THAT begs the question against Kripke’s causal theory of reference. Also, how are we to empirically determine whether that assumption is true? Empirical research? How would such research go? Would it not rest on that, or some other assumption about reference?

Re: “[Kripke] simply wanted to know if people agreed with a premise of his argument. If they did not, there would be no use in assuming it. … But if they did agree, he could simply assume it… as he did, because they did.” I think Alex’s most recent comment, the one containing a similar-sounding Frank Jackson quote, serves as a response. Kripke’s argument crucially relies on ($), and he does not argue for ($). What empirical studies might show is that he does not have the right to generalize from his own intuition and assume the truth of ($).

“Concerning your question, Kripke’s causal theory of reference clearly makes empirical assumptions (which seem to be false) about the character of our referential practices.”

That sounds right. But could you give me a specific example of an assumption that Kripke’s theory makes that he can be faulted for not having empirically tested?

“It seems that the intuition he presents here is a pretty straightforward claim

($) “Godel” does not refer to Schmidt.

If everyone agrees with ($), then that is pretty good evidence against descriptive theory. If many people do not agree, then it is not good evidence. So before we can build a theory out of the evidence, wouldn’t it be prudent to see if the evidence is any good?”

Huh? If the question Kripke is trying to answer is “what do people BELIEVE the name ‘Godel’ refers to?”, then, yes, surveying people to find out what they believe is a good idea. But that is not Kripke’s question. His question is “what DOES the name ‘Godel’ refer to?” How is asking people whether they BELIEVE the term refers to Schmidt (in the case described) relevant to answering that question?

Now, as far as RHETORIC goes, Kripke would do well to find out if people agree that ‘Godel’ does not refer to Schmidt (in the case described). This, I take it, was his aim in “asking a few people about the Godel/Schmidt case.” He simply wanted to know if people agreed with a premise of his argument. If they did not, there would be no use in assuming it. He would either need to not rely on ($) or argue for it first. But if they did agree, he could simply assume it… as he did, because they did.

It’s important to keep in mind that ($) here is Kripke’s premise, and not

($`) People agree that “Godel” does not refer to Schmidt.