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eMu: the relation making Oedipus the murderer, and the unknown wayfarer the victim; |
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mMl: the relation making a given person the murderer, and Laius the victim. |
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But the final state of the fabula is less complicated. There are only two individuals, Oedipus and Laius, since the murderer and the unknown wayfarer were none other than Oedipus and Laius. Only one property is taken into account by this world structure: |
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eMl: the relation making Oedipus the murderer and Laius the victim. |
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To make the individuals distinguishable, let us add an essential property L = to be living. In Oedipus' world the murderer is supposed to live since he is the culprit to be discovered. At this point the two world structures take the format shown in Figure 8.17. |
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It is easy to understand that (according to 8.8.1) these two worlds are inaccessible to each other, since their world structures are not isomorphic. It is not that one world has more individuals than the other; it is the fact that these individuals are identified by different S-necessary properties. |
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In his doxastic world Oedipus believes he has been the murderer of an unknown wayfarer. In the world of the fabula, he is identified as the murderer of Laius. Obviously, these world structures could have been complicated by also introducing the property of being the son of Laius (holding only in WN) and the one of having married the former wife of Laius (holding in both). Since these S-necessary relations are semantically bound (see 8.7.3), in WN it is entailed that Oedipus has married his mother and killed his father. The incompatibility of the identifying relation grows. Therefore not only does the final state of the fabula disprove the beliefs of Oedipus, but it sets up a world structure from which it is impossible to produce the world structure of Oedipus' beliefs. In the same way it is impossible to transform the world of Oedipus' beliefs into the world of the fabula. Simply, Oedipus believed p and then knows that q and that it is not possible that p and q hold together. |
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Oedipus cannot reformulate his world. He has to throw it away. A |
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Figure 8.17
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