scholarly journals Kripke's Objections to Description Theories of Names

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McKinsey
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Naming And Necessity

In “Naming and Necessity” Saul Kripke describes some cases which, he claims, provide counterexamples both to cluster theories and, more generally, to description theories of proper names. My view of these cases is that while they do not provide counterexamples to cluster theories, they can be used to provide evidence against single-description theories. (I count as single-description theories both “short-for-descriptions” theories of the Frege-Russell sort and what I shall call below “fixed-by-attributes” theories.) In this paper I shall defend both of the claims involved in my view.

Do Proper Names Always Rigidly Designate?

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Nute
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Possible Worlds Semantics ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Naming And Necessity

Many philosophers have claimed possible worlds semantics is incoherent because of insoluble problems involved in the notion of identifying a single individual in different worlds. One frequent approach to trans-world identification has been to assume that all the possible worlds, complete with their populations, are described by means of qualities alone prior to our considering the question of identification of the same individual in each world in which it exists. If we interpret possible worlds semantics in this way, trans-world identification could only be accomplished on the basis of some properties the individual has uniquely in every world in which it exists. This becomes problematic since the individual doesn't have the same properties in every world. In ‘Naming and Necessity’ and ‘Identity and Necessity’ Saul Kripke rejects such an account of both possible worlds and trans-world identification, developing an alternative interpretation of the new semantics. His approach involves a distinction between referring expressions which designate different individuals in different worlds according to the distribution of properties within each world and referring expressions which designate the same individual in every world.

Rigid Designators and Disguised Descriptions

1980 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 111-117
Author(s):  
Monte Cook
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
List Type ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Type Number ◽  
Rigid Designators ◽  
Naming And Necessity

In “Naming and Necessity” Saul Kripke repeatedly uses modal arguments to show that proper names are not abbreviated or disguised descriptions. The arguments take the following form:(a)“The F might not have been the F” is false.(b)If N were used to mean the F, then “N might not have been the F” would be false (because of (a)).(c)But “N might not have been the F” is true.(d)Therefore, N is not used to mean the F.

Proper Names: Ideas and Chains

2004 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 129-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Macià
Keyword(s):  
Proper Names ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Individual Concepts ◽  
Naming And Necessity ◽  
Communicative Role

Chains, well I can't break away from these chains[… ]And they ain't the kind that you can see.(“Chains,” Gerry Goffin and Carole King)The main aim of this paper is to present a certain notion — that of Coordination — and an associated requirement — the Coordination Requirement (CR) —,and to show how they help us to better understand the communicative role of proper names. A second aim of the paper is to use these notions to defend the kind of view I favour regarding the meaning of proper names — a certain kind of descriptivist theory — by showing that this view is not subject to two seemingly powerful considerations against it that have been provided from two different camps: one from the anti-descriptivist camp (by Saul Kripke in Naming and Necessity), another from the neo-Fregean camp (by Richard Heck in The Sense of Communication). In dealing with these matters, I will have to discuss the role that complex individual concepts (or ideas) play in allowing us to understand and use proper names.

Kripke, Cartesian Intuitions, and Materialism

1977 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-238
Author(s):  
George Sher
Keyword(s):  
Identity Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Initial Section ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Naming And Necessity

In his influential “Naming and Necessity,” Saul Kripke has deployed a new sort of analytical apparatus in support of the classical Cartesian argument that minds and bodies must be distinct because they can be imagined separately. In the initial section of this paper, I shall first paraphrase Kripke's version of that argument, and then suggest a way in which even one who accepts all of its philosophical presuppositions may avoid its conclusion. In the second section, I shall defend this suggestion against some of the possible objections to it.Recent materialists have not been overly impressed by the Cartesian claim that minds and bodies (mental states and physical states, etc.) can be imagined or conceived separately from each other. Their usual reply is that this is only to be expected, given the contingent nature of the identify involved. Kripke, however, has argued persuasively that such a reply is unacceptable because it overlooks a crucial fact about the terms in which the identity theory is couched.

De Sousa On Kripke And Theoretical Identities

1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Yoshida
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
The Other ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Rigid Designator ◽  
Rigid Designators ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Identity Statement ◽  
Naming And Necessity

In the by now well known talks he gave at Princeton, Saul Kripke claimed that “[t]heoretical identities … are generally identities involving two rigid designators and therefore are examples of the necessary a posteriori.” (Published as “Naming and Necessity,” in G. Harmon and D. Davidson, eds., Semantics of Natural Language (Dordrecht, 1972) 253-355; (hereafter referred to as “NN”; this quote p. 331.) A rigid designator is an expression that designates the same object in all possible worlds when it is used. So Kripke is claiming that ‘Water is H20’ and ‘Heat is the motion of molecules’ are generally identities involving expressions like ‘water’ and ‘the motion of molecules’ which designate the same objects in all possible worlds. If the identity statement is true, both sides designate the same object rigidly, i.e., in all possible worlds, and therefore the statement is necessarily true. On the other hand, whether it is true is determined ultimately by appeal to experience. It follows that if true, the identity is necessary a posteriori.

scholarly journals Scott Soames, Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Necessity

2004 ◽  
Vol 36 (108) ◽  
pp. 115-130
Author(s):  
Maite Ezcurdia
Keyword(s):  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Scott Soames ◽  
Naming And Necessity

Este libro tiene dos propósitos principales, uno explícito y otro implícito. El propósito explícito es completar la agenda semántica de Saul Kripke en El nombrar y la necesidad (en adelante, NN); en particular, desarrollar temas y responder a preguntas que surgen de las discusiones en NN. Dos grupos de temas le interesan a Soames. El primero concierne a los nombres propios, así como a las oraciones de identidad y a las atribuciones de actitudes proposicionales que los contienen; el segundo a los términos de clase natural y a las oraciones de identidad que los contienen. Las propuestas de Soames sobre estos temas corresponden al propósito implícito del libro: ofrecer una teoría semántica de corte milliano y russelliano sobre los nombres propios, los términos de clase natural, las oraciones de identidad y las atribuciones de actitudes  roposicionales. Dicha teoría semántica es russelliana por cuanto asume que las proposiciones están constituidas por las referencias de las partes significativas de las oraciones estructuradas de cierta forma, y es milliana por cuanto supone que los significados de los nombres propios se agotan con sus referentes.

scholarly journals Naming and necessity in a two-dimensional semantic framework

KÜLÖNBSÉG ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
János Kovács
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Contingent A Priori ◽  
Necessary A Posteriori ◽  
Naming And Necessity

This paper surveys the relevance of Kripke’s semantics of proper names. In his Naming and Necessity Kripke takes issue with Frege’s and Russell’s descriptive semantics of proper names. He proposes a new model called the causal model of proper names. Kripke’s model of the philosophy of language have challenged the relation of the metaphysical concepts necessity/contingency and the epistemological concepts apriority/a posteriority, respectively. Since Kant it has been accepted that all a priori truth is necessary, while all a posteriori truth is contingent. Kripke’s book has changed these tenets and nowadays it is accepted that the four concepts are independent of each other and that the complex concepts generated with them have instance.   This paper investigates Kripke’s arguments on necessity and apriority in a two-dimensional semantic framework. The paper argues that the two-dimensional model is in harmony with Kripke’s model although Soames has been claiming the opposite in several publications. The paper claims that Soames’ theory of direct reference is unable to account for necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori statements.

Cluster Theory: Resurrection

Dialogue ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Alward
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Cluster Theory ◽  
Naming And Necessity

ABSTRACT: The cluster theory of names is generally thought to have been to have been utterly discredited by the objections raised against it by Kripke in Naming and Necessity. In this paper, I develop a new version of the cluster theory in which the role played by clusters of associated descriptions is occupied by teams of cognitive relations. And I argue that these teams of relations find a home in an account of the meanings of expressions in epistemic sentence frames, and in a more general theory of the reference of proper names.

Kripke, Saul Aaron (1940–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Meaningful Use ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Formal Treatment ◽  
Causal Connections ◽  
Essential Properties ◽  
Naming And Necessity

Saul Kripke is one of the most influential philosophers to have written on logic, metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind in the twentieth century. In logic, he made an early and seminal contribution to the formal treatment of modality, that is, thoughts and statements about how things might have been or must have been (§2). In metaphysics, his work on modality has also been important, contributing as it did to the revival of the Aristotelian idea that the ways a thing might have been or must be (its contingent and its essential properties) were features of that very thing itself. This was in opposition to the view, prevalent in various forms throughout the first half of the twentieth century, that necessity was always relative to some classification or description of the object (§3). In the philosophy of language, he attacked– – in Naming and Necessity – the Russellian idea that proper names are simply abbreviated descriptions of the things that they name, arguing that instead they can refer directly to things via causal connections of which the users of language might be unaware (§4). Again, in the philosophy of language, his work on Wittgenstein on rule-following evinced what seemed to be a radical and devastating skepticism about the very possibility of the meaningful use of language (§6). And his proposed solution constituted a novel re-interpretation of Wittgenstein’s "private language argument," one that seemed to reveal the essentially social character of language (§8). In the philosophy of mind, he used the semantic machinery developed in Naming and Necessity to revive the long-discredited Cartesian argument against identifying mental and physical states (§5). Saul Kripke has also written ground-breaking works on the theory of truth (1975), the theory of knowledge (2011), and the semantics of fictional discourse (2013).

On the Non-Necessity of Origin

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.S. Price
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Material Thing ◽  
Living Thing ◽  
Body Tissues ◽  
Naming And Necessity ◽  
Necessity Of Origin

In ‘Naming and Necessity,’ Saul Kripke defends a number of essentialist claims. One of them is that having a certain origin is a necessary property of a material thing. Used in connection with a human being or, presumably, a living thing of another kind whose members sexually reproduce, ‘necessity of origin’ means that the organism must have been born of those individuals who are its parents, i.e., whose body tissues are sources of the sperm and egg from which it issued, in the actual world. To say that the origin of an inanimate material thing is necessary is to say that having its origin in the hunk of matter from which it came is essential to it.

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