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Naming and Necessity
Naming and Necessity has had a great and increasing influence. It redirected philosophical attention to neglected questions of natural and metaphysical necessity and to the connections between these and theories of naming, and of identity. This seminal work, to which today's thriving essentialist metaphysics largely owes its impetus, is here reissued in a newly corrected form with a new preface by the author. If there is such a thing as essential reading in metaphysics, or in philosophy of language, this is it.
172 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Saul A. Kripke
12books203followersSaul Aaron Kripke is an American philosopher and logician, now emeritus from Princeton. He teaches as distinguished professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center. Since the 1960s Kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, epistemology, and set theory. Much of his work remains unpublished or exists only as tape-recordings and privately circulated manuscripts.
Kripke was the recipient of the 2001 Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska, Omaha (1977), Johns Hopkins University (1997), University of Haifa, Israel (1998), and the University of Pennsylvania (2005). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society. Kripke is also an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. In a recent poll conducted by philosophers Kripke was among the top ten most important philosophers of the past 200 years.
Kripke was the recipient of the 2001 Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. He has received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska, Omaha (1977), Johns Hopkins University (1997), University of Haifa, Israel (1998), and the University of Pennsylvania (2005). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society. Kripke is also an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. In a recent poll conducted by philosophers Kripke was among the top ten most important philosophers of the past 200 years.
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January 6, 2012
As you can see if you read the other reviews, there are a lot of ways to approach Naming and Necessity, and some of them get into very technical philosophical territory. Those ways of reading it are interesting, but I think that what Kripke is saying is, in the end, quite simple, which is why the book has enjoyed such lasting popularity. He just had to express much of the argument in terms of the language of "possible worlds", which was fashionable at the time.
Kripke's basic point, to me, is rather more general than technicalities about modal logic and possible worlds. He wants to know what "names" are, and how they refer to the world. There was an influential school of thought which held that a name is really a kind of description, and should be thought of in those terms; you know what the name refers to by understanding the description and figuring out who it names. Thus, for example, the expression "Barack Obama" is semantically similar to the expression "the current President of the United States". Kripke disagrees with this. He argues persuasively that names refer to things by virtue of causal processes in the world. There is a causal chain that leads from the object to the name, and which carried reference. Names do not have to be descriptions for this to work.
So, for example, suppose you're having a discussion about Obama with a friend in front of their three year old child, and you've just said you're disappointed that Obama hasn't closed Guantanamo. The child, who's never heard of Obama, can legitimately interrupt and ask if Obama is a nice man, and still be referring to him, which to me is the common-sense view. The causal chain led up to me, and now it's just been extended another step. It doesn't matter that the child only has the haziest notion of who it is I'm talking about.
When Kripke wrote the book, computers were not as important as they are now, and there was no Internet. It occurs to me to wonder if this isn't a case where adopting the perspective of the machine gives you a new way to think about what's going on. The Web is full of names; many of them refer to something in the world. How do they do this? Suppose we're looking at a table on a web page, we see a name, and we wonder what it refers to. Even if the table has been automatically generated, it is often perfectly clear what the name's reference is because of the way the page connects to the world. I click on the name "London", and something happens: maybe I see a map of London, Ontario, or I buy a ticket to London, England, or I get a list of books by Jack London. Reference is derived from a causal relationship mediated through the Web.
Or at least, that was the argument I had in mind when I started writing this review. But now it occurs to me that you can maybe twist it in the opposite direction. We all know the difference between a plain name and a clickable one, and the reason is that the name's much longer than it looks; it's really a camouflaged description.
Damn philosophical questions! You never get a straight answer. For a moment, I thought I had something there.
Kripke's basic point, to me, is rather more general than technicalities about modal logic and possible worlds. He wants to know what "names" are, and how they refer to the world. There was an influential school of thought which held that a name is really a kind of description, and should be thought of in those terms; you know what the name refers to by understanding the description and figuring out who it names. Thus, for example, the expression "Barack Obama" is semantically similar to the expression "the current President of the United States". Kripke disagrees with this. He argues persuasively that names refer to things by virtue of causal processes in the world. There is a causal chain that leads from the object to the name, and which carried reference. Names do not have to be descriptions for this to work.
So, for example, suppose you're having a discussion about Obama with a friend in front of their three year old child, and you've just said you're disappointed that Obama hasn't closed Guantanamo. The child, who's never heard of Obama, can legitimately interrupt and ask if Obama is a nice man, and still be referring to him, which to me is the common-sense view. The causal chain led up to me, and now it's just been extended another step. It doesn't matter that the child only has the haziest notion of who it is I'm talking about.
When Kripke wrote the book, computers were not as important as they are now, and there was no Internet. It occurs to me to wonder if this isn't a case where adopting the perspective of the machine gives you a new way to think about what's going on. The Web is full of names; many of them refer to something in the world. How do they do this? Suppose we're looking at a table on a web page, we see a name, and we wonder what it refers to. Even if the table has been automatically generated, it is often perfectly clear what the name's reference is because of the way the page connects to the world. I click on the name "London", and something happens: maybe I see a map of London, Ontario, or I buy a ticket to London, England, or I get a list of books by Jack London. Reference is derived from a causal relationship mediated through the Web.
Or at least, that was the argument I had in mind when I started writing this review. But now it occurs to me that you can maybe twist it in the opposite direction. We all know the difference between a plain name and a clickable one, and the reason is that the name's much longer than it looks; it's really a camouflaged description.
Damn philosophical questions! You never get a straight answer. For a moment, I thought I had something there.
August 8, 2019
To listen to this review as a podcast, click below:
_________________________
Like many other works of philosophy (and those of other subjects, for that matter), Naming and Necessity will likely be perplexing if you do not know what the author is arguing against. At the time that Kripke gave these lectures, the dominant theory in the philosophy of language was the Frege-Russell theory of reference. It is a rather elegant and simple theory, and you can look up Russell’s famous paper, “On Denoting,� or Quine’s “On What There Is,� online if you would like to know more about it. But I will explain it briefly.
Essentially, the idea is that names are shorthand descriptions. Thus, if you say “there’s a tiger over there!� you’re really saying something like “there is an x over there, such that x is feline, yellow-brown, black striped, quadrupedal, solitary, bigger than a human,� and so on. This way of analyzing names was, I believe, partly adopted because it carried no ontological commitment. It avoids confusing situations, like when you have to say “wizards don’t exist!”—for how could you name the things (wizards) that do not exist? That is paradoxical. On the Frege-Russell view, this awkwardness is avoided, since, when you assert that wizards do not exist, you are really saying “there is no x such that x is humanoid, magical, bearded, robed,� and so on. Thus, by specifying the criteria, lots of annoying existential questions can be side-stepped.
Nevertheless, I think that most people, when they first learn of this theory, feel a bit uncomfortable with it. The theory just is not intuitive. I do not think that anything analogous to Russell’s analyses are going on in my head when I hear “there’s a tiger over there!� In other words, I do not think of tigers as bundles of qualities or clusters of descriptions, but that the relationship of the name “tiger� to the living, breathing animals is much more straightforward. Kripke is essentially arguing that our intuition is correct. In fact, it is Kripke’s express point to uphold our intuitions regarding names:
Seeing as Kripke is not fond of theories (as the opening quote shows) and is quite fond of intuition, this puts him into a bit of a pickle, for how is he supposed to argue against the theory? Thus, most of Kripke’s arguments rely on bizarre counterfactuals, which he expresses using the language of “possible worlds.� (I understood this as merely a way of speaking about hypothetical or counterfactual statements, rather than any metaphysical doctrine about possibility and parallel worlds; and this way of speaking, when understood as a figure of speech, does convey the essential point rather well.)
To explain Kripke’s argument, let me come up with a bizarre counterfactual of my own. Suppose that someone (presumably with far too much time and money on their hands, and with a questionable sensitivity to animal rights) decided to take some lions from Africa and introduce them into Asia. Then, suppose this person decided to shave the lions� manes, to paint them yellow-brown, and then to paint black stripes on them, so as to look just like tigers. Suppose he is even such a genius animal trainer that he trains these lions to behave indistinguishably from tigers.
Now we return to the above example. If “there’s a tiger over there!� really meant “there is an x over there, such that x is feline, yellow-brown, black striped, quadrupedal, solitary, bigger than a human,� then the statement would be perfectly true, even if the person were pointing to the painted lions.
But it is not true. Lions and tigers are what could be called ‘natural types�; and natural types are distinguished by some essential quality, not by their total descriptions. Kripke is really reviving the old notion of essentialism: names pick out the object that possesses the essential property associated with that name. In the case of lions and tigers, I suppose the essential quality would be their genotypes. Thus, the essential property of a type of thing need not be the qualities by which we normally identify the thing. We normally identify lions and tigers by the way they look and act, but the above example shows that even those qualities are contingent; it is their respective essences (their genotypes in this case) which are the necessary qualities of tigers and lions.
This leads Kripke to disagree with another engrained philosophical idea (the second N of the title): that 'necessary' and 'a priori' are synonyms. It was thought that only necessary truths could be known a priori, and only a priori truths were necessary. (In other words, you could only be certain about things you knew independently of experience.) Thus, “all bachelors are unmarried� is, in this view, a necessary truth, even if there are no bachelors at all, simply because that is the definition of ‘bachelor�; it is an analytic statement, true by definition, a mere tautology, and thus can be known a priori. This restriction of necessary statements to trivial tautologies was, I think, a way of fighting against obscure metaphysical arguments, such as the ontological argument for the existence of God.
Kripke, as I said, disagrees with this line of thinking. For Kripke, things can be known a priori that are not necessary, and things can be necessary and learned empirically (or a posteriori). The case of the genotypes of lions and tigers is a case in point; it took a long time to discover DNA, and to create the tools needed to investigate it in depth. DNA was, in other words, obviously learned of empirically. Nevertheless, it is a necessary truth that lions have the lion essence (genotype), and tigers have the tiger essence (genotype)—because if they did not they would not be lions and tigers. Necessary truths, then, need not be known a priori. (In other words, you can be certain about some things you learn from experience.)
The reverse distinction can also be made. If I pick up a certain stick, and say “I shall use this as the standard for my new measure, the schmeter,� I can know a priori that whatever length the stick is (in, say, inches or meters), it is exactly one schmeter. However, the exact length of a schmeter is contingent on the stick, and we can imagine situations in which the stick was longer or shorter, so the exact meaning of this a priori knowledge is contingent on some state of affairs. To sum up Kripke’s distinction: 'necessary' is a metaphysical term having to do with the essence of something, while 'a priori' is an epistemological term having to do with how we come to know something.
As I hope you can see from my summary, Kripke’s arguments are meant to be intuitive; he rejects certain philosophical ideas by just pointing to situations in which they fail to properly apply. This, I think, is why Naming and Necessity is so well known: one need not master some technical apparatus, but merely think through the consequences of some hypothetical scenarios. Certainly, this is not a perfect book. Kripke is wordy and repetitive; this already short book could probably have been much shorter and crisper, or could have at least covered more territory. Still, Kripke was arguing against a whole paradigm; and paradigms do not go gentle into that good night.
When I finished this book, I was fairly convinced; but as subsequent conversations (Wastrel's comments, most notably) have shown me, there are some awfully strong counter-arguments. (And Kripke's stance of eschewing argument for intuition does not sit well with me.) Philosophical questions are never so easily resolved. In particular, I am curious to see how Kripke proposes to deal with some of the situations which motivated the creation of the descriptive theory of names in the first place—for example, statements like “wizards aren’t real.� How can there be a causal connection with something that does not exist? And how can the name refer to a natural type of a fictitious object? After all, facts are easy to talk about; fiction is another thing entirely.
_________________________
It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It’s wrong. You may suspect me of proposing another theory in its place; but I hope not, because I’m sure it’s wrong too if it is a theory.
Like many other works of philosophy (and those of other subjects, for that matter), Naming and Necessity will likely be perplexing if you do not know what the author is arguing against. At the time that Kripke gave these lectures, the dominant theory in the philosophy of language was the Frege-Russell theory of reference. It is a rather elegant and simple theory, and you can look up Russell’s famous paper, “On Denoting,� or Quine’s “On What There Is,� online if you would like to know more about it. But I will explain it briefly.
Essentially, the idea is that names are shorthand descriptions. Thus, if you say “there’s a tiger over there!� you’re really saying something like “there is an x over there, such that x is feline, yellow-brown, black striped, quadrupedal, solitary, bigger than a human,� and so on. This way of analyzing names was, I believe, partly adopted because it carried no ontological commitment. It avoids confusing situations, like when you have to say “wizards don’t exist!”—for how could you name the things (wizards) that do not exist? That is paradoxical. On the Frege-Russell view, this awkwardness is avoided, since, when you assert that wizards do not exist, you are really saying “there is no x such that x is humanoid, magical, bearded, robed,� and so on. Thus, by specifying the criteria, lots of annoying existential questions can be side-stepped.
Nevertheless, I think that most people, when they first learn of this theory, feel a bit uncomfortable with it. The theory just is not intuitive. I do not think that anything analogous to Russell’s analyses are going on in my head when I hear “there’s a tiger over there!� In other words, I do not think of tigers as bundles of qualities or clusters of descriptions, but that the relationship of the name “tiger� to the living, breathing animals is much more straightforward. Kripke is essentially arguing that our intuition is correct. In fact, it is Kripke’s express point to uphold our intuitions regarding names:
Of course, some philosophers think that something’s having intuitive content is very inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think it is very heavy evidence in favor of anything, myself. I really don’t know, in a way, what more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately speaking.
Seeing as Kripke is not fond of theories (as the opening quote shows) and is quite fond of intuition, this puts him into a bit of a pickle, for how is he supposed to argue against the theory? Thus, most of Kripke’s arguments rely on bizarre counterfactuals, which he expresses using the language of “possible worlds.� (I understood this as merely a way of speaking about hypothetical or counterfactual statements, rather than any metaphysical doctrine about possibility and parallel worlds; and this way of speaking, when understood as a figure of speech, does convey the essential point rather well.)
To explain Kripke’s argument, let me come up with a bizarre counterfactual of my own. Suppose that someone (presumably with far too much time and money on their hands, and with a questionable sensitivity to animal rights) decided to take some lions from Africa and introduce them into Asia. Then, suppose this person decided to shave the lions� manes, to paint them yellow-brown, and then to paint black stripes on them, so as to look just like tigers. Suppose he is even such a genius animal trainer that he trains these lions to behave indistinguishably from tigers.
Now we return to the above example. If “there’s a tiger over there!� really meant “there is an x over there, such that x is feline, yellow-brown, black striped, quadrupedal, solitary, bigger than a human,� then the statement would be perfectly true, even if the person were pointing to the painted lions.
But it is not true. Lions and tigers are what could be called ‘natural types�; and natural types are distinguished by some essential quality, not by their total descriptions. Kripke is really reviving the old notion of essentialism: names pick out the object that possesses the essential property associated with that name. In the case of lions and tigers, I suppose the essential quality would be their genotypes. Thus, the essential property of a type of thing need not be the qualities by which we normally identify the thing. We normally identify lions and tigers by the way they look and act, but the above example shows that even those qualities are contingent; it is their respective essences (their genotypes in this case) which are the necessary qualities of tigers and lions.
This leads Kripke to disagree with another engrained philosophical idea (the second N of the title): that 'necessary' and 'a priori' are synonyms. It was thought that only necessary truths could be known a priori, and only a priori truths were necessary. (In other words, you could only be certain about things you knew independently of experience.) Thus, “all bachelors are unmarried� is, in this view, a necessary truth, even if there are no bachelors at all, simply because that is the definition of ‘bachelor�; it is an analytic statement, true by definition, a mere tautology, and thus can be known a priori. This restriction of necessary statements to trivial tautologies was, I think, a way of fighting against obscure metaphysical arguments, such as the ontological argument for the existence of God.
Kripke, as I said, disagrees with this line of thinking. For Kripke, things can be known a priori that are not necessary, and things can be necessary and learned empirically (or a posteriori). The case of the genotypes of lions and tigers is a case in point; it took a long time to discover DNA, and to create the tools needed to investigate it in depth. DNA was, in other words, obviously learned of empirically. Nevertheless, it is a necessary truth that lions have the lion essence (genotype), and tigers have the tiger essence (genotype)—because if they did not they would not be lions and tigers. Necessary truths, then, need not be known a priori. (In other words, you can be certain about some things you learn from experience.)
The reverse distinction can also be made. If I pick up a certain stick, and say “I shall use this as the standard for my new measure, the schmeter,� I can know a priori that whatever length the stick is (in, say, inches or meters), it is exactly one schmeter. However, the exact length of a schmeter is contingent on the stick, and we can imagine situations in which the stick was longer or shorter, so the exact meaning of this a priori knowledge is contingent on some state of affairs. To sum up Kripke’s distinction: 'necessary' is a metaphysical term having to do with the essence of something, while 'a priori' is an epistemological term having to do with how we come to know something.
As I hope you can see from my summary, Kripke’s arguments are meant to be intuitive; he rejects certain philosophical ideas by just pointing to situations in which they fail to properly apply. This, I think, is why Naming and Necessity is so well known: one need not master some technical apparatus, but merely think through the consequences of some hypothetical scenarios. Certainly, this is not a perfect book. Kripke is wordy and repetitive; this already short book could probably have been much shorter and crisper, or could have at least covered more territory. Still, Kripke was arguing against a whole paradigm; and paradigms do not go gentle into that good night.
When I finished this book, I was fairly convinced; but as subsequent conversations (Wastrel's comments, most notably) have shown me, there are some awfully strong counter-arguments. (And Kripke's stance of eschewing argument for intuition does not sit well with me.) Philosophical questions are never so easily resolved. In particular, I am curious to see how Kripke proposes to deal with some of the situations which motivated the creation of the descriptive theory of names in the first place—for example, statements like “wizards aren’t real.� How can there be a causal connection with something that does not exist? And how can the name refer to a natural type of a fictitious object? After all, facts are easy to talk about; fiction is another thing entirely.
July 28, 2022
Like virtually all analytic philosophy, Kripke's work is basically outsider art ('outsider philosophy') -- that is, naively working with concepts and language without understanding the history of any of the terms involved, treating Plato's dialogues as a journal article written yesterday, and philosophy itself as something that sprung fully-formed from the head of Zeus in the early twentieth century (with the work of Frege and Wittgenstein). It turns out that thousands of philosophers -- including some of the greatest minds in the history of the West, such as Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon -- have written at length about all the issues that Kripke discusses, and that you can't just naively rely on the everyday common-sense late-twentieth-century Anglo-American usage of the concepts/words in question when doing philosophy (who knew!).
With that said, Kripke is brilliant. My favorite anecdote about him is something I heard from a grad school friend (and later co-worker) of mine who knew a guy working on some sort of analytic-philosophy zombist-logic-weenie bullshit thing for his dissertation. This guy runs into Kripke at a conference to ask for advice, as he had been hacking away at a complex chain of modal logic for 2-3 years and was stuck, having trouble seeing where to go next. Kripke asks a couple quick questions, and then proceeds (in about 90 seconds) to work through, off the top of his head, all of the logic-work that this guy had done for the past three years ("oh, but if you held X, then that would lead to Y, so you would need to circumvent that with Z ..."), and then easily directed him on possible directions re: where to go next. In literally two minutes, at a bar. Some people are just smarter than the rest of us.
With that said, Kripke is brilliant. My favorite anecdote about him is something I heard from a grad school friend (and later co-worker) of mine who knew a guy working on some sort of analytic-philosophy zombist-logic-weenie bullshit thing for his dissertation. This guy runs into Kripke at a conference to ask for advice, as he had been hacking away at a complex chain of modal logic for 2-3 years and was stuck, having trouble seeing where to go next. Kripke asks a couple quick questions, and then proceeds (in about 90 seconds) to work through, off the top of his head, all of the logic-work that this guy had done for the past three years ("oh, but if you held X, then that would lead to Y, so you would need to circumvent that with Z ..."), and then easily directed him on possible directions re: where to go next. In literally two minutes, at a bar. Some people are just smarter than the rest of us.
June 8, 2010
I remember in graduate school, when Kripke visited as a young genius, I didn’t know quite what to make of him. I remember A. J. Ayer, the logical positivist and a bastion of British philosophy, expostulating from the podium, “So there, Kripke!� in the middle of a presentation, as though Kripke were the only one in the audience worthy of his vitriol. It wasn’t until now that, under the influence of philosophical friends, I got around to reading Kripke’s best known book.
It’s still hard to grasp the overall significance of Kripke’s work. In graduate school, he was known for the “rigid designator,� not a phallic symbol, but the idea that proper names connect to what they name without the benefit of meaning or logical apparatus. This was in opposition to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, who argued that names were shorthand for descriptions which picked out something in the world in a unique way. In fact, according to their view, we could not talk about the existence of objects, except by saying that some sentence about them was true. For example, to say that God exists, we must be able to make a true statement about something that God is or does: “There exists an X, such that X created the universe.� This led to Quine’s famous statement, “To be is to be the value of a variable.�
Kripke is saying that we are not quite so stuck inside of our own language. We refer to people and things all the time without getting caught up in how to make unique, absolutely true, statements about them. He elaborates a “causal theory of reference� in which we can talk about Napoleon unambiguously, even though we might be ignorant of French history. Napoleon was originally known by his contemporaries, and through a causal chain the connection of the name to the historical personage has been inherited by us without any confusion.
Kripke also talks about “natural kinds,� what we might think of as scientific categories, and says that our names for them are rigid designators, in the same way as proper names are. For example, when we refer to gold (in general, not just a single rock), we refer to something that has been found in the world and has a history of people referring to it. It is not essential to know anything very profound about the chemistry of gold, or how to define it scientifically. In other words, the concept of gold (even though abstract) is as referentially individual as a person we meet on the street. In a much broader sense, this speaks to the issue of whether we invent concepts, and impose order on the universe, or whether we just refer to what is there. Kripke says that with “natural kinds� we are just naming what is there.
I’m still digesting the import of Kripke, but I think he is a kind of corrective to the “linguification� of philosophy, the analytic trend to say that we are trapped inside of language.
It’s still hard to grasp the overall significance of Kripke’s work. In graduate school, he was known for the “rigid designator,� not a phallic symbol, but the idea that proper names connect to what they name without the benefit of meaning or logical apparatus. This was in opposition to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, who argued that names were shorthand for descriptions which picked out something in the world in a unique way. In fact, according to their view, we could not talk about the existence of objects, except by saying that some sentence about them was true. For example, to say that God exists, we must be able to make a true statement about something that God is or does: “There exists an X, such that X created the universe.� This led to Quine’s famous statement, “To be is to be the value of a variable.�
Kripke is saying that we are not quite so stuck inside of our own language. We refer to people and things all the time without getting caught up in how to make unique, absolutely true, statements about them. He elaborates a “causal theory of reference� in which we can talk about Napoleon unambiguously, even though we might be ignorant of French history. Napoleon was originally known by his contemporaries, and through a causal chain the connection of the name to the historical personage has been inherited by us without any confusion.
Kripke also talks about “natural kinds,� what we might think of as scientific categories, and says that our names for them are rigid designators, in the same way as proper names are. For example, when we refer to gold (in general, not just a single rock), we refer to something that has been found in the world and has a history of people referring to it. It is not essential to know anything very profound about the chemistry of gold, or how to define it scientifically. In other words, the concept of gold (even though abstract) is as referentially individual as a person we meet on the street. In a much broader sense, this speaks to the issue of whether we invent concepts, and impose order on the universe, or whether we just refer to what is there. Kripke says that with “natural kinds� we are just naming what is there.
I’m still digesting the import of Kripke, but I think he is a kind of corrective to the “linguification� of philosophy, the analytic trend to say that we are trapped inside of language.
August 13, 2007
It has to be said, although it's too much said, that Naming and Necessity revolutionized philosophy of language and is probably the most influential book in analytic philosophy in the past half-century.
I've read Naming and Necessity four times now and am still surprised by it. Kripke's style is, particularly in relation to his peers, strikingly clear. In fact, if I have one criticism to mention offhand, it's that Kripke's style is too seductive. Often he makes claims that sound eminently reasonable at first glance but become increasingly more difficult to defend when probed. I'm reminded, in particular, of Plato at his more stylistically seductive moments. That having been said, Kripke's claims often seem to work out even under scrutiny. At any rate, I'd recommend to the reader delay being taken in as long as possible for maximum effect.
Naming and Necessity is sufficiently good that I'm sure I'll be rereading it sometime soon.
I've read Naming and Necessity four times now and am still surprised by it. Kripke's style is, particularly in relation to his peers, strikingly clear. In fact, if I have one criticism to mention offhand, it's that Kripke's style is too seductive. Often he makes claims that sound eminently reasonable at first glance but become increasingly more difficult to defend when probed. I'm reminded, in particular, of Plato at his more stylistically seductive moments. That having been said, Kripke's claims often seem to work out even under scrutiny. At any rate, I'd recommend to the reader delay being taken in as long as possible for maximum effect.
Naming and Necessity is sufficiently good that I'm sure I'll be rereading it sometime soon.
April 15, 2017
An extremely important book for the philosophy of language, and also very relevant in philosophy of mind. The book consists of 3 transcribed+edited lectures which Kripke apparently gave extemporaneously. This lecture format means that the book is rather quick and easy to read, and almost entirely free of (symbolic) logic (!).
But beware: this is probably not a good place to dive into analytic philosophy without any background. Plenty of the existing reviews of this book on ŷ will give you an introduction to the prior art of Frege and Russell, which is really necessary (no pun intended) to understand at a basic level before you can do an effective read of Kripke.
But beware: this is probably not a good place to dive into analytic philosophy without any background. Plenty of the existing reviews of this book on ŷ will give you an introduction to the prior art of Frege and Russell, which is really necessary (no pun intended) to understand at a basic level before you can do an effective read of Kripke.
Read
September 5, 2020nerd with lame attitude: words are descriptions or whatever
Me: Have you ever used names.
nerd: (his glasses fall off)
Me: Catch you later
Me: Have you ever used names.
nerd: (his glasses fall off)
Me: Catch you later
October 13, 2012
For a "revolutionary" or "landmark" book, it contains surprisingly nothing of substance. I suppose it's interesting for people who already accept notions like necessity and the a priori, and for those who think that the notion of "meaning" is clear enough to lean on for any substantive philosophical work. But as far as I can tell, philosophers who accept such notions don't do so on the basis of any argument (for all their arguments depend on such notions). So it's a good book for philosophers who like to let their assumptions do all the philosophical work for them. For in it, Kripke doesn't do much besides construct strawmen out of historical figures and then remark repeatedly about how it "seems" to him that these influential thinkers must all be so wrong that they appear downright stupid. I think it's fair to say that if your view assumes that Russell and Frege were complete idiots who knew nothing about what they were doing, then that's a serious problem with your view.
If I had known that all it took to be successful in philosophy was the hunch that the discipline's most influential figures are idiots, then I would not have ever wasted my time pursuing it.
If I had known that all it took to be successful in philosophy was the hunch that the discipline's most influential figures are idiots, then I would not have ever wasted my time pursuing it.
January 25, 2018
How do words (in language) refer to things (objects) in the world?
What is the meaning?
Is the molecular formula of water essential or possible?
What is identity in objects (or individuals)?
How do we refer to things that are not (non-existent)? For example: Unicorn or Sherlock Holmes.
Kripke's discussions in this book are about two areas of metaphysics and epistemology and three branches in philosophy: philosophy of language and philosophy of science and philosophy of mind.
Kripke in this book (lecture series), powerful arguments against the theory [ which we say was Frege-Russell's theory] that we say: Like any proper noun "Napoleon" or " Richard Nixon "- corresponds to a definite description; For example, "Richard Nixon" corresponds to the "thirty-seventh president of the United States".
This book is full of genius, smart, and clear expression.
What is the meaning?
Is the molecular formula of water essential or possible?
What is identity in objects (or individuals)?
How do we refer to things that are not (non-existent)? For example: Unicorn or Sherlock Holmes.
Kripke's discussions in this book are about two areas of metaphysics and epistemology and three branches in philosophy: philosophy of language and philosophy of science and philosophy of mind.
Kripke in this book (lecture series), powerful arguments against the theory [ which we say was Frege-Russell's theory] that we say: Like any proper noun "Napoleon" or " Richard Nixon "- corresponds to a definite description; For example, "Richard Nixon" corresponds to the "thirty-seventh president of the United States".
This book is full of genius, smart, and clear expression.
March 4, 2009
Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity addresses how words come to point to the things in the world that they refer to. Kripke successfully paints a more accurate picture of how this happens than the accepted view. Further, Kripke shows how we can have empirical knowledge of necessities by showing that certain identity statements are necessarily true if they are true at all. However, Kripke tries but fails to use this corrected view to launch an attack against materialism.
The theory Kripke hopes to replace is the descriptivist theory of names, advocated by Frege and Russell. It states that names are really abbreviations for a specific description, or a set of descriptions, of the thing named. Either one of the properties, or a select group of them are believed by any given speaker to match up exclusively with objects of the type named. IF then, a given object matches at least most (or the most important) properties included in this description, then that object is what that name refers to. If no object matches most (or the most important) properties included in the description then that name fails to refer to anything. Furthermore, the speaker of the name knows a priori (they can know without ever having experienced the object) that if the object named exists then it has most (or the most important) of the properties included in the description of which the name is associated with for the speaker. Thus, for there to be such a thing as the object named, it must necessarily have most (or the most important) of the properties.
Proponents of this theory can point to several puzzles it solves as reasons for believing it to be accurate. First it gives us an idea of how a name picks out one entity in the real world rather than another, even when the entity cannot be pointed to directly. It also makes it clear how two names can refer to the same thing: if the descriptions of two different names are matched by one object then we can say that they are one (for example that Phosphorus is Hesperus). Finally it explains how existence-denials can be meaningful. For example there is an intuitive problem about how the phrase “Santa Clause does not exist� can be meaningful if it is true: what is this phrase about if Santa Clause doesn’t exist? For it to be about Santa Clause doesn’t seem right if Santa Claus doesn’t exist. What a proponent of the Frege-Russell view will say is that such a statement is not about a non-existent entity, but rather it is about all the existing entities and how they all fail to match the description associated with “Santa Claus�.
Kripke points out that people will often use a name of a person whom they would not also have a description capable of uniquely identifying that person. For example, someone may know only of Richard Feynman that he’s a physicist, which is certainly not unique only to him. So a proponent of the Frege-Russell view will have to say that when the person uses the name “Richard Feynman� they are not referring to anyone because they do not possess a description capable of uniquely identifying them. However, it certainly seems intuitively correct that the speaker is in fact referring to a unique person, that person being Rich Feynman.
Another problem with the Frege-Russell theory of names is arises when one examines a case where the description associated with a name fits an entity uniquely, but it is not the entity casually/historically linked to the use of that name. Kripke’s illustration of this problem supposes that a person speaking of “Gödel� knows only of “Gödel� that he is the person that discovered the incompleteness of arithmetic. But if it was actually Schmidt who discovered the incompleteness of arithmetic, then, if the Frege-Russell view is correct, that speaker would be referring to Schmidt when using the name “Gödel�. However, this too seems wrong; intuitively it seems strange that we’d be referring to anyone other than Gödel when using the name “Gödel�.
Furthermore, our descriptions associated with certain names are based on misinformation. Kripke’s example here points out that many people associate the name “Columbus� with a description that includes being the first man to prove the world was round, and the first European to loan dint he Americas. Neither of these things is true of Columbus, but does that mean that a speaker using the name “Columbus� is referring to anyone else?
Kripke insist that it is fundamentally wrong to think that we hold a set of properties associated with names, which we use to determine what entities are uniquely referred to by those names. Instead our references are fixed through the history of the name itself amongst the community of speakers we belong to. Instead an initial baptism takes place when the name is first used. At that moment the name comes to be linked to whatever entity (or type of entity) named. That name is then passed amongst the community of speakers, with each person receiving the name having to use it to refer to the entity it was originally assigned to refer to. In this way it doesn’t matter how the speaker thinks the reference is fixed, but rather it is the actual history of the term’s use in speaking that fixes the reference regardless of what ideas the speaker holds.
Kripke’s theory certainly seems to be a more accurate description of the way we use names than the Frege-Russell Theory. An illustration of this can be seen in how the two competing theories would attempt to fix the reference for the name “tiger�. If “tiger� were to have its reference fixed by a description such as one the dictionary would contain (that a tiger is a large, four-legged cat) then we’d likely be accused of not making sense when referring to a three-legged tiger. However, Kripke would insist that when we say “tiger� we don’t mean a large, four-legged cat, but rather we mean the sort of thing we call a “tiger�; that specific sort of thing, with whatever attributes belong to it across all possible scenarios. This is why names are what Kripke calls “rigid designators�; they match with a certain entity (or type of entity) across all possible worlds, and only those specific entities (or kinds).
Rigid designators can be contrasted with descriptions, which are not necessarily true (true in all possible worlds). For example, the phrase “the man who invented bifocals� may be a reference in the actual world to Benjamin Franklin, yet it is also obvious that it is possible that Benjamin Franklin didn’t invent bifocals, and thus the phrase does not necessarily designate him or anyone else; it is contingently true that Benjamin Franklin is the man who invented bifocals. Yet the name “Benjamin Franklin� is a rigid designator as it picks out a specific person throughout all possible worlds regardless of what contingent properties he holds in those worlds.
Kripke successfully argues that once we understand names as rigid designators we’ll see that certain identity statements that we once thought were contingently true (i.e. that they’re true in this world but could have been otherwise) are actually necessarily true. For example, the phrase “Hesperus is Phosphorus� is necessarily true in all possible worlds. If we looked at the situation from the Frege-Russell view we could argue that since “Hesperus� and “Phosphorus� each have their reference fixed by a certain description (each being the celestial body at a specific position in the sky at a specific time), that because it’s possible that those descriptions could fit two different entities (even though in the actual world they both refer to just one, the planet Venus), that statement is only contingently true. However, looking at the situation in terms of rigid designators we see that because both “Hesperus� and “Phosphorus� have their reference fixed to the same specific entity, and that reference holds in all possible worlds, then it is necessarily true that Hesperus is Phosphorus if it is true at all. Certainly we could imagine a world where “Hesperus� and “Phosphorus� do not give reference to the same thing; however we’ve discovered that they do in fact give reference to the same thing (the planet Venus, specifically), and as rigid designators, their reference holds in all possible worlds. It is metaphysically possible that there could have been different entities with the same name, but it is empirically impossible for those entities to have been our Hesperus and Phosphorus. In this way, Kripke has shown that we can in fact have empirical knowledge of necessities.
Kripke wants to extend this sort of necessity in identity statements to identity statements regarding natural phenomena perceptible to the senses. He argues that “light is a stream of photons� and “heat is motion of molecules� are necessarily true identity statements, because the rigid designators of “light� and “heat� have their reference fixed to the same phenomena known as “streams of photons� and “motion of molecules� respectively. Kripke points out that these things, and others, have two aspects: the way the thing feels to us in our sensory encounters with it; and its objective nature. He even points out that we fix the references based on the way the thing feels to us; he says that at the baptismal reference fixing it is declared that “heat� or “light� is that phenomena that causes the sensation of “heat� or “light� in us. Kripke sees this account as explaining why we can imagine something causing the same inner sensation as either light or heat but without it actually being light or heat.
Kripke’s final discussion in Naming and Necessity is an attempt to show that the sort of identity statement that an identity theorist would make (his example is that “pain is c-fiber firing�) is not necessarily true the way the previously discussed identity statements regarding sensible phenomena are. He hopes that such a revelation will hurt the materialist case by showing that mental states necessarily lack a corresponding natural, physical phenomena. Kripke is convinced that there is no phenomenon to which “pain� is fixed to, other than pain itself; he does not believe there to be an objective nature to pain other than the feeling. He believes that even if the sensation of pain was always accompanied with a c-fiber firing in the actual world that “pain� could possibly occur without the c-fiber firing and still accurately be referred to as “pain�.
Certainly it would be possible to refute Kripke’s analysis of “pain� by asserting that he seems to be assuming that its true nature is revealed fully and faithfully by introspection, which seems like quite the stretch. However, I feel it’s more interesting to assert that Kripke’s treatment of “pain� as being fundamentally different from other rigid designators for sensible phenomena is mistaken from the beginning. When we speak of sensible phenomena such as “heat� or “light� we are not talking about one phenomena with two aspects (the way it feels inside of us, and it’s objective nature) but instead we are using one word to represent two distinctly different phenomena that are so often correlated with one another in the actual world that we feel comfortable referring to them with the one word. This can be contrasted with rigid designators that reference natural kinds, which seem (at least have a stronger case for being) representative of a single phenomena; although there seems to be an argument for these too being representative of two different entities. Kripke notes on page 128 that when first fixing the reference of “water� we “identified water originally by its characteristic feel, appearance and perhaps taste�. One could identify this reference fixing baptism as having only referring to the sensations produced by (or correlated with) what we now call “water�.
Kripke himself notes the differences between the natural kinds case and the sensible phenomena case pointing out that natural kinds have their reference fixed upon their being certain properties believed to be characteristic to the kind that are used to place items not in the original sample identified as the kind into that kind. While for most sensible phenomena, Kripke says that the reference is fixed by being that which is sensed by a certain inner feeling. However, in the case of “pain� Kripke says that the reference is fixed solely to that inner feeling. I would have to say that in all cases of sensible phenomena what we fix the reference to first and foremost is the inner sensation, and then only later do we extend this reference to include whatever natural phenomena we find that sensation correlated with. Furthermore it seems that Kripke knows this as well, on page 139 he points out that a “blind man who uses ‘light� even though he uses it as a rigid designator for the same phenomena as we, seems to us to have lost a great deal, perhaps enough for us to declare that he has a different concept�. I would also point out that it seems intuitive that there are times when we use words like “heat� and “light� when we are referring exclusively to the inner sensation and not the natural phenomena, and times when we are referring to the natural phenomena and not the inner sensation (for example when talking about “heat� being measured by a thermometer we seem to be talking about it exclusively as a natural phenomena, the movement of molecules). With this in mind it seems that if “pain� is different from things like “light� and “heat� it’s only because speakers haven’t been convinced that there is a natural phenomena (like c-fiber firings) that it is always accompanied with; but that does not mean that such an accompanying phenomena is not there. In summary, it seems that Kripke fails to strike a blow against materialism even if he is right that a large number of identity statements are necessarily true.
Read
March 5, 2018I can tell you with certainty that this is an important argument. What I cannot tell you with certainty is whether I agree with Kripke's assertion that a name is a "rigid designator." I know that I need more history to fully understand Kripke's argument, and that he's responding to Russell (whom I haven't read enough of) and Frege (whom I haven't read at all), and I'm trying to figure out how Kripke's arguments about philosophy of language relate to Hilary Putnam's especially (they seem like fellow travelers). But I've been spending a lot of my time thinking about names of things at weird and inopportune moments (sweeping the floor, swimming laps), which means I know this is on my mind. Perhaps I'll get back to you in a year.
April 18, 2022
الكتاب مهم، والمسائل التي يعالجها كريبكي ليس من السهل استيعابها من غير المتخصصين، قد يبدو الكتاب مُملًا لو لم تكن مُلِمًّا بالسياق الفلسفي الذي يتحدَّث عنه كريبكي؛ وعلى الرغم من أنني قارئ نهم للفلسفة عمومًا، وللفلسفة التحليلية خصوصًا، إلا أنني اضطررت لقراءة الكتاب مرّتين وعلى مدار ثلاثة أشهر.. وجزء كبير من سبب ذلك هو سوء الترجمة، الترجمة بشعة ومُرهقة وغامضة جدًا ! أتمنى أن يتم ترجمة الكتاب مرة أخرى من أحد المتمرّسين في ترجمة الفلسفة التحليلية.
وعلى أي حال، هذا مقال لي كتبت فيه قراءة موسَّعة للكتاب :
وعلى أي حال، هذا مقال لي كتبت فيه قراءة موسَّعة للكتاب :
May 3, 2021
Kripke is both clear and enjoyable to read, some of it was even pretty funny. I learnt about the causal theory of reference and found his modal argument against type-physicalism to be interesting too, I'll need to look into it more.
July 18, 2015
Hmm- just re-reading this classic and savouring it's utter greatness.
Why do I (and so many others) like it so much? Well, the style is informal for starters- the guy was young and giving a talk (this 'book' is a transcript) NOTE- this has it's own set of drawbacks- some of the points are not clearly made- most are though; also some digressions are unnecessary and some phrasing unfelicitous or downright irritating.
Mainly though because it instills a sense of wonder into previously dry fields of logical meaning. If you are labouring under the understandable notion that there cannot be contingent a priori or necessary a posteriori then think again. The arguments are simple and convincing in themselves. (This is as far as I got in philosophical logic so cannot really comment on critiques of Kripke- but for me it could all end here in this elegance).
You have to wonder at the man's command of his subject: this lecture was given without notes and although the language is simple enough and the initial arguments beguile you into thinking that you can easily understand the thrust. The depth is quite amazing and though I have read it many times I cannot claim to have a clear grasp of the whole. He covers a lot of philosophical ground in this, deftly linking seemingly distant strands (mind/brain identity comes into it).
This book is the single bit of philosophy (other than Hume) that has stayed with me since undergraduation.
Why do I (and so many others) like it so much? Well, the style is informal for starters- the guy was young and giving a talk (this 'book' is a transcript) NOTE- this has it's own set of drawbacks- some of the points are not clearly made- most are though; also some digressions are unnecessary and some phrasing unfelicitous or downright irritating.
Mainly though because it instills a sense of wonder into previously dry fields of logical meaning. If you are labouring under the understandable notion that there cannot be contingent a priori or necessary a posteriori then think again. The arguments are simple and convincing in themselves. (This is as far as I got in philosophical logic so cannot really comment on critiques of Kripke- but for me it could all end here in this elegance).
You have to wonder at the man's command of his subject: this lecture was given without notes and although the language is simple enough and the initial arguments beguile you into thinking that you can easily understand the thrust. The depth is quite amazing and though I have read it many times I cannot claim to have a clear grasp of the whole. He covers a lot of philosophical ground in this, deftly linking seemingly distant strands (mind/brain identity comes into it).
This book is the single bit of philosophy (other than Hume) that has stayed with me since undergraduation.
January 4, 2024
9/10 - it would be a ten if only it had a little more scope, I suspect reading his later work will fill in the gaps. I entirely get the veneration of Kripke. The clarity in his explanation of such nuanced points is unparalleled.
July 5, 2023
Not totally on board with the essentialism from lecture 3, but this is one of the most insightful and well-done books in the analytic tradition of the 20th century. A must-read.
February 9, 2022
“Someone, let’s say, a baby, is born…�
April 11, 2021
- Tu înțelegi ce zice Kripke?
- Haha nu prea că e peltic tre să citesc subtitrarea.
- Cum?!
- Mă rog, se numește rotacism.
- Ce e aia??
- Defectul de vorbire al lui Kripke. Așa se numește.
- Dar unde l-ai auzit tu pe Kripke?
- Pe Youtube.
- Dă-mi și mie linkul.
-
- Aaahahah ce ciudat vorbește. Dar nu ăsta, frate. Filosoful!
- Hah?
- Filosoful ăla cu lumile posibile.
- Leibnitz?
- Nu domne, Kripke! Ăla care zice că numele se leagă direct de obiect și că n-are sens. Am uitat care e numele lui mic..
- Nu știu frate, dă-mi un link.
- Uite ăsta e Kripke
- Pfff nu înțeleg ce zice nici ăsta...
- Mda e complicat.
- Aaah uite! Pe Kripke al meu l-au botezat după Kripke al tău
- Hahaha ce tare, deci Kripke înseamnă deștepți d-ăștia pe care nu-i înțelegem.
- Ei hai că mai sunt și alți d-ăștia care nu se numesc Kripke..
- Mda.
- Auzi, nu bem și noi o bere?
- Ba da, cu necesitate.
- Haha nu prea că e peltic tre să citesc subtitrarea.
- Cum?!
- Mă rog, se numește rotacism.
- Ce e aia??
- Defectul de vorbire al lui Kripke. Așa se numește.
- Dar unde l-ai auzit tu pe Kripke?
- Pe Youtube.
- Dă-mi și mie linkul.
-
- Aaahahah ce ciudat vorbește. Dar nu ăsta, frate. Filosoful!
- Hah?
- Filosoful ăla cu lumile posibile.
- Leibnitz?
- Nu domne, Kripke! Ăla care zice că numele se leagă direct de obiect și că n-are sens. Am uitat care e numele lui mic..
- Nu știu frate, dă-mi un link.
- Uite ăsta e Kripke
- Pfff nu înțeleg ce zice nici ăsta...
- Mda e complicat.
- Aaah uite! Pe Kripke al meu l-au botezat după Kripke al tău
- Hahaha ce tare, deci Kripke înseamnă deștepți d-ăștia pe care nu-i înțelegem.
- Ei hai că mai sunt și alți d-ăștia care nu se numesc Kripke..
- Mda.
- Auzi, nu bem și noi o bere?
- Ba da, cu necesitate.
December 25, 2022
Naja. Unbedingt lesen! Es gibt viel zu diskutieren. Wie bei kaum einem anderen Buch. Andere Bücher enthalten viel, das in einer Diskussion zu klären wären (und diese Diskussion wäre wichtig). Dieser Kripke hat den Vorteil (gegenüber einem Wittgenstein zum Beispiel), dass er immerhin klar sagt, was er meint. Das heißt, es lässt sich sich tatsächlich auch gut diskutieren. (Vorwort nachher lesen!) Fraglich vor allem: Ist es nicht am Ende Saul Kripkes persönliche Intuition, die über alles entscheidet?
June 8, 2021
Not quite as fun as Reference and Existence. But in this chaotic, "post-truth" world of ours, there's something curiously soothing about an author discussing, meticulously and at length, such (apparently) trivial topics as, well, naming and necessity. Plus there's the realization that, if goddamn proper names can generate this much confusion, then how can we discuss politics or economics or public policy with any sort of confidence?
Another thought while reading this book: Kripke is like the Steve Reich to Heidegger's Wagner.
Another thought while reading this book: Kripke is like the Steve Reich to Heidegger's Wagner.
November 18, 2019
This isn't an area of philosophy I'm particularly familiar with, but I found Kripke's argument quite convincing. He also touched on various topics I have some interest in (e.g. the ontology of possible worlds), which was nice. The book was also very digestible in terms of its writing.
June 27, 2024
I have a love - hate with Kripke's examples, there are some very interesting ones like Hitler or the robot queen, but the excessive amount of them tired me too much.
Anyway, I'm definitely going to delve deeper into this; I need to know more about possible worlds.
Anyway, I'm definitely going to delve deeper into this; I need to know more about possible worlds.
September 17, 2020
Relatively easy to read for such a groundbreaking work. Kripke refutes the Frege-Russell view (or at least gives very intuitive and powerful arguments against descriptivism), whilst simultaneously showing how the necessary and a priori, and contingent and a posteriori, can come apart.
January 17, 2021
Just great.
March 21, 2020
A necessary read (hehe)
Currently reading
September 17, 202417 September, 2024
Lecture I
So finished the first lecture today. Not easy reading, I have to say. Even though, Kripke is a clear, effective speaker. Maybe because I'm so new to metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logic, has something to do with it.
Now, Kripke wants it to be absolutely clear that it was a spoken affair, and without notes too (this is a remarkable achievement, to be this precise, without notes, but not an important or significant one, if that makes sense). Okay. And yes, there's something in reproducing the spoken thing faithfullly. But why doesn't he write an essay immediately afterwords, maybe as an addendum, in which the whole idea is as clear as can be in a written form? Maybe he did do it, maybe something of it is in the preface..but I just found this somewhat obsessive behavior about the manner these ideas got communicated a bit strange. On the interesting side, it is indeed unlike most other books or essays.
The main ideas seem to be these: Methodologically, it is important to keep ideas or concepts relating to necessity, a prioricity and certainty separate. These are not identical concepts that can be used interchangeably. Second, this seems to be an attack on Frege-Russell's view, regarding the status or nature of proper names, in (the philosophy of) language. The Frege-Russell view seems to be that proper names are identifiable (or interchangeable) with a description (or a family of descriptions) of the thing being named. This means, if the description is substantially false, the name does not refer to, or pick out the thing that it named. If Aristotle is defined as the man who taught alexander, and no men (or that man who actually taught alexander was not Aristotle) taught Alexander, then the name Alexander does not refer to that man. No, this gets tricky, this was maybe not the best way to express it. But the thing is, if a man we believe to be Aristotle in fact existed, then if all the (non-essential, e.g. molecular, genetic) description ascribed to him, turned out to be false (a contingent detail about that man), the man would still (necessarily) have existed.
When it comes to possible worlds (which should not be viewed as foreign places, but conditional statements, that points to counterfactual possibilities), Frege-Russell view on naming also runs into problems. If it was possible for Nixon to have lost -- if Nixon, in a possible world, actually lost, then the name Nixon, in that possible world, still should pick out Nixon the loser. But maybe, the Frege-Russell view, if it requires that a definition of Nixon the name is that Nixon is a man won the election in 1970, this defintion would be false in that other possible world, and if Nixon exists in that other world, it's a different Nixon than the one in this world. But possible worlds are not a far away place, it's a counterfactual possibility, something that could have been different, in our own world, if things were different. So the name Nixon should pick out the same Nixon in our world who won the election in 1970, but also could have lost that election. Yeah, it's not very clear to me, yet..
But in any case, Kripke's view seems to be that proper names don't have meanings, but that they only fix references for actual (or imaginary) things. And does that necessarily? Or maybe does that a priorily, but not necessarily. He calls this (names) 'rigid designators'. If a designator is rigid, in all worlds, the designated things would be the same (like natural kinds of 'tigers', 'gold' and proper names like Aristotle and Nixon). If a designator is not rigid, if the things designated need to be the same in all possible worlds (e.g. president in 1970). When we use the names Aristotle and Nixon, we use it to refer to the actual persons. Contingent details about them can vary (it could be proven that Aristotle did not tutor Alexander, and Nixon may have lost the election in a possible world), but the names would continue to refer to the actual Aristotle and Nixon. And as names are not equivalent to a collection of all descriptions about the referent (e.g. Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander, Nixon won the election in 1970), it is not a problem.
But any arguments for the specific claim that names have no meaning? Intuitions are good/ultimate arguments for Kripke, and maybe it is intuitive that names do not have, and are not meant or supposed to have meanings (in the way common nouns or verbs may have meanings, meanings that can be demonstrated by way of descriptions), as these are used in language, and their only use is to use these as referrents. )
Notes from PS, with AM, - same day (Tuesday, 3.33 pm)
I updated/edited above (the lines concerning rigid designators). In worlds where no humans evolved, proper names like Nixon and Aristotle, would not designate anything. So these are not necessary. But they are still rigid designators. Same with Uranium 236, or any elements (if the universe unfolded differently the world may have been made with different elements), these are not necessary in the sense that they would exist in all possible worlds, but the words for Uranium 236, and other elements, would refer to the same things in all possible worlds (that use, our way of using language). Hence, these are 'rigid designators'. Contrast these with 'the winning lottery ticket, 'the US president in 1970', these terms may designate different things (different particular tickets or different persons may have won in 1970) in different possible worlds. Hence, these terms are not 'rigid' designators, but (non-rigid designators).
David Chalmers' possible world semantics.
'My phone' would not be a rigid designator in Kripke's sense because it's not a name, a definite description (in the way 'the phone that belongs to me'). 'This phone' would be a rigid designatory because it's demonstrative.
Apart from the phil of language argument relating to naming, the methodology is an important contribution. Because prior to these lectures, a prioricity, necessity, analyticity, were taken to contain the same subsets of (extensions?). Kripke shows, argues, by using the stick and the meter example from Wittgenstein, that contingent knowledge can be a priori:
P1 - Smith knows a priori that he has fixed the reference of "one meter" to the actual length of stick S at t.
P2 - Smith knows a priori that, if he has fixed the reference of "one meter" to the actual length of stick S at t, then "one meter" refers to the length of S at t.
p3 - If one knows a priori that p, and knows a priori that if p then q, then one knows a priori that q.
Therefore, C1 - Smith knows a priori that " one meter" refers to the length of stick S at t.
[from P1, P2, and P3]
P4 - Smith knows a priori that, if "one meter" refers to the length of S at t, then one meter is the length of S at t.
Therefore, C2 - Smith knows a priori that one meter is the length of stick S at t.
[From P2 (used again!), C1, and P4]
P5 - It's contingent that one meter is the length of stick S at t.
[We could construct a sub-argument for this.]
P6. If (1) one knows a priori that p and {ii0 it's contingent that p, then one has a priori knowledge of a contingent truth.
Therefore, C3 - Smith has a priori knowledge of a contingent truth.
[From C2, P5, and P6]
Now, look at P2 - can you really know a priori that YOU, HAVE, Fixed the Reference, of 'one meter' to the actual length of stick S at t? Fixing-reference may be empirical stuff, and empirical knowledge...
Kripke's positive theory on proper names, work, if it is not meant for public languages, according to Andrew.
Lecture I
So finished the first lecture today. Not easy reading, I have to say. Even though, Kripke is a clear, effective speaker. Maybe because I'm so new to metaphysics, philosophy of language, and logic, has something to do with it.
Now, Kripke wants it to be absolutely clear that it was a spoken affair, and without notes too (this is a remarkable achievement, to be this precise, without notes, but not an important or significant one, if that makes sense). Okay. And yes, there's something in reproducing the spoken thing faithfullly. But why doesn't he write an essay immediately afterwords, maybe as an addendum, in which the whole idea is as clear as can be in a written form? Maybe he did do it, maybe something of it is in the preface..but I just found this somewhat obsessive behavior about the manner these ideas got communicated a bit strange. On the interesting side, it is indeed unlike most other books or essays.
The main ideas seem to be these: Methodologically, it is important to keep ideas or concepts relating to necessity, a prioricity and certainty separate. These are not identical concepts that can be used interchangeably. Second, this seems to be an attack on Frege-Russell's view, regarding the status or nature of proper names, in (the philosophy of) language. The Frege-Russell view seems to be that proper names are identifiable (or interchangeable) with a description (or a family of descriptions) of the thing being named. This means, if the description is substantially false, the name does not refer to, or pick out the thing that it named. If Aristotle is defined as the man who taught alexander, and no men (or that man who actually taught alexander was not Aristotle) taught Alexander, then the name Alexander does not refer to that man. No, this gets tricky, this was maybe not the best way to express it. But the thing is, if a man we believe to be Aristotle in fact existed, then if all the (non-essential, e.g. molecular, genetic) description ascribed to him, turned out to be false (a contingent detail about that man), the man would still (necessarily) have existed.
When it comes to possible worlds (which should not be viewed as foreign places, but conditional statements, that points to counterfactual possibilities), Frege-Russell view on naming also runs into problems. If it was possible for Nixon to have lost -- if Nixon, in a possible world, actually lost, then the name Nixon, in that possible world, still should pick out Nixon the loser. But maybe, the Frege-Russell view, if it requires that a definition of Nixon the name is that Nixon is a man won the election in 1970, this defintion would be false in that other possible world, and if Nixon exists in that other world, it's a different Nixon than the one in this world. But possible worlds are not a far away place, it's a counterfactual possibility, something that could have been different, in our own world, if things were different. So the name Nixon should pick out the same Nixon in our world who won the election in 1970, but also could have lost that election. Yeah, it's not very clear to me, yet..
But in any case, Kripke's view seems to be that proper names don't have meanings, but that they only fix references for actual (or imaginary) things. And does that necessarily? Or maybe does that a priorily, but not necessarily. He calls this (names) 'rigid designators'. If a designator is rigid, in all worlds, the designated things would be the same (like natural kinds of 'tigers', 'gold' and proper names like Aristotle and Nixon). If a designator is not rigid, if the things designated need to be the same in all possible worlds (e.g. president in 1970). When we use the names Aristotle and Nixon, we use it to refer to the actual persons. Contingent details about them can vary (it could be proven that Aristotle did not tutor Alexander, and Nixon may have lost the election in a possible world), but the names would continue to refer to the actual Aristotle and Nixon. And as names are not equivalent to a collection of all descriptions about the referent (e.g. Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander, Nixon won the election in 1970), it is not a problem.
But any arguments for the specific claim that names have no meaning? Intuitions are good/ultimate arguments for Kripke, and maybe it is intuitive that names do not have, and are not meant or supposed to have meanings (in the way common nouns or verbs may have meanings, meanings that can be demonstrated by way of descriptions), as these are used in language, and their only use is to use these as referrents. )
Notes from PS, with AM, - same day (Tuesday, 3.33 pm)
I updated/edited above (the lines concerning rigid designators). In worlds where no humans evolved, proper names like Nixon and Aristotle, would not designate anything. So these are not necessary. But they are still rigid designators. Same with Uranium 236, or any elements (if the universe unfolded differently the world may have been made with different elements), these are not necessary in the sense that they would exist in all possible worlds, but the words for Uranium 236, and other elements, would refer to the same things in all possible worlds (that use, our way of using language). Hence, these are 'rigid designators'. Contrast these with 'the winning lottery ticket, 'the US president in 1970', these terms may designate different things (different particular tickets or different persons may have won in 1970) in different possible worlds. Hence, these terms are not 'rigid' designators, but (non-rigid designators).
David Chalmers' possible world semantics.
'My phone' would not be a rigid designator in Kripke's sense because it's not a name, a definite description (in the way 'the phone that belongs to me'). 'This phone' would be a rigid designatory because it's demonstrative.
Apart from the phil of language argument relating to naming, the methodology is an important contribution. Because prior to these lectures, a prioricity, necessity, analyticity, were taken to contain the same subsets of (extensions?). Kripke shows, argues, by using the stick and the meter example from Wittgenstein, that contingent knowledge can be a priori:
P1 - Smith knows a priori that he has fixed the reference of "one meter" to the actual length of stick S at t.
P2 - Smith knows a priori that, if he has fixed the reference of "one meter" to the actual length of stick S at t, then "one meter" refers to the length of S at t.
p3 - If one knows a priori that p, and knows a priori that if p then q, then one knows a priori that q.
Therefore, C1 - Smith knows a priori that " one meter" refers to the length of stick S at t.
[from P1, P2, and P3]
P4 - Smith knows a priori that, if "one meter" refers to the length of S at t, then one meter is the length of S at t.
Therefore, C2 - Smith knows a priori that one meter is the length of stick S at t.
[From P2 (used again!), C1, and P4]
P5 - It's contingent that one meter is the length of stick S at t.
[We could construct a sub-argument for this.]
P6. If (1) one knows a priori that p and {ii0 it's contingent that p, then one has a priori knowledge of a contingent truth.
Therefore, C3 - Smith has a priori knowledge of a contingent truth.
[From C2, P5, and P6]
Now, look at P2 - can you really know a priori that YOU, HAVE, Fixed the Reference, of 'one meter' to the actual length of stick S at t? Fixing-reference may be empirical stuff, and empirical knowledge...
Kripke's positive theory on proper names, work, if it is not meant for public languages, according to Andrew.
February 5, 2016
Kripke’s thesis is that rigid designators are true, we have an intuition of them, and that they are the same in every possible world (Kripke 48). A designator is a common term that covers names and definitions (24). Specifically, names are rigid designators (48). Kripke also has a lucid discussion on what a “possible world� is (and isn’t). We imagine a situation that could have been otherwise. What properties of x would remain in that world and which would be different?
Example: “The man who invented bifocals is Benjamin Franklin.�
“Benjamin Franklin� is a rigid designator. Benjamin Franklin is Benjamin Franklin in every possible world. But the phrase “the man who invented bifocals� is a nonrigid designator. One can imagine a world where someone other than Franklin invented bifocals.
His most notorious and ground-breaking argument is that there can be both contingent a priori truths and necessary a posteriori truths. How? Take Goldbach’s conjecture: every even number greater than two is the sum of its primes. This appears to be necessary, per mathematics, but is only known a posteriori.
Conclusions
*Kripke agrees with Mill that singular names are non-connotative (127).
*General terms, those of natural kinds, have a greater kinship with proper names that normally realized (134).
*a priori truths can be contingent, meaning the fixed reference for a term isn’t always synonymous with a term (135).
*the relationship between a brain state and a mental state is a contingent one, and relations of identity cannot be contingent (154).
Criticisms
Kripke sometimes spends several pages analyzing a minor point with little payout.
Evaluation
One can see why this book broke new ground. I read it after I read Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity, so I didn’t see what was objectionable about possible worlds semantics. Much of the book, however, was beyond my pay grade.
Example: “The man who invented bifocals is Benjamin Franklin.�
“Benjamin Franklin� is a rigid designator. Benjamin Franklin is Benjamin Franklin in every possible world. But the phrase “the man who invented bifocals� is a nonrigid designator. One can imagine a world where someone other than Franklin invented bifocals.
His most notorious and ground-breaking argument is that there can be both contingent a priori truths and necessary a posteriori truths. How? Take Goldbach’s conjecture: every even number greater than two is the sum of its primes. This appears to be necessary, per mathematics, but is only known a posteriori.
Conclusions
*Kripke agrees with Mill that singular names are non-connotative (127).
*General terms, those of natural kinds, have a greater kinship with proper names that normally realized (134).
*a priori truths can be contingent, meaning the fixed reference for a term isn’t always synonymous with a term (135).
*the relationship between a brain state and a mental state is a contingent one, and relations of identity cannot be contingent (154).
Criticisms
Kripke sometimes spends several pages analyzing a minor point with little payout.
Evaluation
One can see why this book broke new ground. I read it after I read Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity, so I didn’t see what was objectionable about possible worlds semantics. Much of the book, however, was beyond my pay grade.
Read
April 20, 2009one of the things i love about philosophy is that, just like in real life, you can't have everything you want. we have enough beliefs that are in contradiction with one another, that holding on to any one usually entails giving up some others. this is even true of our most cherished beliefs-- or, at least, it's been this way for me. another thing i love about philosophy is the way it exercised my imagination. when you have to give up some of the very beliefs that allowed you to make sense your other beliefs, you'd better be able to manage some new ways of conceiving of the things you need to conceive of. so the philosophers i admire most are the philosophers that confront the conflicts head on, make their commitments, and see what sorts of unexpected things follow.
kripke doesn't seem to be that kind of philosopher. he seems to be up to something else. i'm not quite sure what yet. getting at the truth in some way. but the whole thing makes me a little suspicious. i'm going to give it a little more time. so i'm not going to rate this book. i don't yet fully understand what impact it will come to have on my thinking. it obviously and importantly orients many different conversations in contemporary analytic metaphysics. i'm technically done reading this, but i feel like i'm at the very beginning of understanding what's going on.
kripke doesn't seem to be that kind of philosopher. he seems to be up to something else. i'm not quite sure what yet. getting at the truth in some way. but the whole thing makes me a little suspicious. i'm going to give it a little more time. so i'm not going to rate this book. i don't yet fully understand what impact it will come to have on my thinking. it obviously and importantly orients many different conversations in contemporary analytic metaphysics. i'm technically done reading this, but i feel like i'm at the very beginning of understanding what's going on.
December 6, 2011
This book, one of the most important in philosophy in the last century, consists of a series of 3 lectures, and as a result is very accessible. Kripke's main argument is that there are some matters which are a posteriori and necessary when we fix a reference. For example, once we identify something as water, and then discover that it consists of H20, then it is necessarily composed of H20, that is, must be H20 in every possible world. That is because the reference has been fixed to an actual object that we discover has such and such essential property. This account is in contradistinction to Frege and Russell who argued for a descriptive account of naming, that names are equated to a cluster of properties so that if some object has the requisite cluster of properties it can be named such and such. Kripke argues that naming involves fixing references to actual objects, and then we can discover a posteriori things about it so that if the object exists in some other possible world it necessarily will have that feature, or simply not be that thing.
April 1, 2018
Naming and Necessity is an unusual thought experiment in relation to metaphysical reasoning and a priori thought of the things around us. It explores the connections between our deduction and reasoning processes as to why we name objects, qualities, and even people. Kripke argues the origins of words and references that have become so ingrained into society that we only see or perceive these things in a sort of collective memory and to think of them in other ways would become an unnatural process. Our thoughts concerning these things are always abstract, a priori, instead of logical and well reasoned.
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