Ideas generated from the story of Aladdin.
http://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/277
I'm not familiar with the Disney movie in question, or the stage musical based on it, so I'll focus on the philosophy. What does it mean to say that someone is a Prince? Not as a metaphorical turn of phrase/praise ("oh, you're such a prince.") But in earnest. "The Queen's son Charles is a Prince."
What does THAT mean?
The comic to which I linked you above offers three answers:
1. From Aristotle, there is essentialism. There is some essence of princehood which princes possess, and a non-prince could be made a prince, by a hypothetical lamp-captive genie, if that essence could be infused into him.
2. From Kripke, there is a causal theory of reference. There must have been some event by virtue of which a Prince became a Prince, ie a coronation, or birth to a Queen, or some such, just as he becomes a husband by virtue of a wedding, etc. All essentialist theories are failures. The world might be full of men who meet any "essence" of Princeness yet who we would deem, if we knew the pertinent history, not to be a Prince in fact. Unless we take the word "essence" to mean the relevant history, in which case of course we've acknowledged Kripke's point. This makes the genie's job trickier. He'd have to make Aladdin a Prince by arranging for a coronation, or (if we allow wishes that fiddle with time) by arranging that there had at some point been a coronation, or some causal equivalent.
3. From Searle, there is the theory of collective intentionality. Charles is a Prince if and to the extent that there are a lot of people who see him as THEIR Prince, and he knows this and acts accordingly. One can get recursive here. The subjects know that he knows they see themselves as such, and he knows that they know that he sees himself as their prince and that they know that he knows. And so forth.
The comic at the URL above cleverly juxtaposes these three views by asking what exactly the genie DID for Aladdin. If Aladdin wished "to be a Prince" and the genie complied, what is implied: that the genie conjured up a principality full of people who recognize Aladdin as their Prince? that he changed time so as to put a coronation in Aladdin's past? or that Aladdin now has some essence he did not before?
As a pragmatist, I confess, I am torn on this between Kripke and Searle, though I am as always happy to reject essentialism.
"Common sense" might suggest that (3) is derived from (2). The Brits know Charles as their Prince because of their personal or institutional memory of the prince-status-conveying events. But would that make (3) primary and (2) a corollary? Or vice versa.
I'm not familiar with the Disney movie in question, or the stage musical based on it, so I'll focus on the philosophy. What does it mean to say that someone is a Prince? Not as a metaphorical turn of phrase/praise ("oh, you're such a prince.") But in earnest. "The Queen's son Charles is a Prince."
What does THAT mean?
The comic to which I linked you above offers three answers:
1. From Aristotle, there is essentialism. There is some essence of princehood which princes possess, and a non-prince could be made a prince, by a hypothetical lamp-captive genie, if that essence could be infused into him.
2. From Kripke, there is a causal theory of reference. There must have been some event by virtue of which a Prince became a Prince, ie a coronation, or birth to a Queen, or some such, just as he becomes a husband by virtue of a wedding, etc. All essentialist theories are failures. The world might be full of men who meet any "essence" of Princeness yet who we would deem, if we knew the pertinent history, not to be a Prince in fact. Unless we take the word "essence" to mean the relevant history, in which case of course we've acknowledged Kripke's point. This makes the genie's job trickier. He'd have to make Aladdin a Prince by arranging for a coronation, or (if we allow wishes that fiddle with time) by arranging that there had at some point been a coronation, or some causal equivalent.
3. From Searle, there is the theory of collective intentionality. Charles is a Prince if and to the extent that there are a lot of people who see him as THEIR Prince, and he knows this and acts accordingly. One can get recursive here. The subjects know that he knows they see themselves as such, and he knows that they know that he sees himself as their prince and that they know that he knows. And so forth.
The comic at the URL above cleverly juxtaposes these three views by asking what exactly the genie DID for Aladdin. If Aladdin wished "to be a Prince" and the genie complied, what is implied: that the genie conjured up a principality full of people who recognize Aladdin as their Prince? that he changed time so as to put a coronation in Aladdin's past? or that Aladdin now has some essence he did not before?
As a pragmatist, I confess, I am torn on this between Kripke and Searle, though I am as always happy to reject essentialism.
"Common sense" might suggest that (3) is derived from (2). The Brits know Charles as their Prince because of their personal or institutional memory of the prince-status-conveying events. But would that make (3) primary and (2) a corollary? Or vice versa.
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