What people do is to say that the meaning of a proper name is given, not by a single description, but by a cluster, or a bunch, of descriptions. Soames begins his book by discussing descriptivist responses to kripke s criticisms. An earlier monograph, naming and necessity, argued that this approach was wrong from the fundamentals, replacing it with a picture that emphasizes the causalhistorical link between a name and its bearer. A sense is supposed to be that which is grasped by the mind, a meaning in some nontechnical sense. Kripke s critique of the description theory of names recap from his lecture i. I finally turn to an all too cursory discussion of the application of the foregoing considerations to the identity thesis.
The transcript of another lecture covering some of the same material is published under the title identity and. Leibniz, and much later repopularized by saul kripke in. In naming and necessity saul kripke offers a number of arguments in order to show that no descriptivist theory of proper names is correct. Even if we assume that the referent of a name like aristotle is fixed by means of a definite. Kripke argued that if descriptivist theories were correct, then certain modal sentences would be true, when, in fact, they are not. It is enough to note that the view he criticizes under. Thus the phenomenon of rigidity casts no real doubt on the description theory of names. Philosophy of language handout 12 professor jeeloo liu saul kripke. We present here a certain version of descriptivist theory we will characterize it as an individualuse referencefixing descriptivist theory that appeals to descriptions regarding how a name is used by other speakers. If not, anyway, such connections will be developed in the course of these talks. Like other names, kripke maintains, they are rigid. First, inherent in proper name usage is the expectation that names refer to modally robust individuals. Barcans main reasoning was similar to kripke s in that the necessity of identity between coreferential proper names cannot be guaranteed via any descriptivist theory of names. Kripke s most important philosophical publication, naming and necessity 1980, based on transcripts of three lectures he delivered at princeton in 1970, changed the course of analytic philosophy.
Philosophy of language christopher thomas instructor. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Yet there comesatime when his claims appear a tribe too far fetched. Kripke was philosophizing, as we know, as a teenager, but the glory years began with identity and n ecessity and naming and necessity, both based on lec tures given in 19 70. I had thought here were more i should go back and have another look. Could she, lets say, have been the daughter instead of mr. In a series of lectures, published as the book naming and necessity, kripke makes a corresponding philosophical case for rejecting several. In lecture 3 of nn, kripke offered an ingenious defense of the conceivability argument.
Winesburg ohio sherwood anderson summary kripke lecture 1 summary naming and necessity naming and necessity naming and necessity kripke summary naming and necessity jumpers language, truth and logic life in the iron mills. January 20, 19701 i hope that some people see some connection between the two topics in the title. Naming and necessity lecture 2 i to every name or designating expression there corresponds a cluster of properties. Philosophy 5 lecture 07 kripkes naming and necessity i. If there is such a thing as essential reading in metaphysics or in philosophy of language, this is it. Pdf arguments against descriptivism in naming and necessity. Naming and necessity lecture 1 summary course hero. The lectures have been relatively inaccessible for the last forty years a. Reference and existence, saul kripke s john locke lectures for 1973, can be read as a sequel to his classic naming and necessity.
Considerable time has elapsed, and i have come to realize that any extensive revision or expansion would delay the appearance of a separate, less expensive edition of naming and necessity. Other articles where naming and necessity is discussed. There we saw that we could give the following test for the rigidity of a term. Identity theorists have been concerned with several distinct types of identifications. According to the fregerussell paradigm, the name nixon refers to its bearer in virtue of an associated description, one that picks out nixon by uniquely characterizing him.
He is widely credited with the discovery of possible world semantics for modal logic, a feat he accomplished at a young age. Kripke s view about essential properties has implications for his views about language. Kripke turns to the concept of necessity and notes that, if it is used in an epistemological sense, then it is interchangeable with a prioricity. If e antiintemalist admits this, admits that it is logically. Here, kripke explores and develops themes from naming and necessity nn, applying ideas from that work to discussions of fictional and mythological discourse, the metaphysics of fictional and nonexistent objects, negative existentials, and other related matters. That identity statements between what we call names in actual language are necessary. The ideas in naming and necessity evolved in the early sixties most of the views were formulated in about 196364. Lecture notes introduction to philosophy of language. He acknowledges that some of the views he articulates about. It provided the first cogent account of necessity and possibility as metaphysical concepts, and it. Saul kripke begins the second lecture by reiterating the various theses of the fregerussell perspective and related cluster concept of naming. This has led people, kripke thinks, to abandon the details of the classical picture without abandoning its underlying motivations. Ever since the publication of its original version, naming and necessity has had great and increasing influence.
And i really liked it, at least the first two lectures as well as parts of the addenda and the intro. Modal logic in the modal sense of modality princeton. Saul kripke is yet another top logician of his time. Kripke lecture 3 if w is a world where aristotle never went into philosophy, d is true, e is false and f is true. Naming and necessity is a 1980 book with the transcript of three lectures, given by the philosopher saul kripke, at princeton university in 1970, in which he dealt with the debates of proper names in the philosophy of language. Kripke delivered his princeton lectures on naming and necessity. The intemalist qggeststhat we cannot imagine that particular we callthe queen ving theproperty ofatnostageinher existencebeinghuman. Kripke does a brief summation again, claiming to have made two hits on the descriptivist account. At the very end of naming and necessity, a landmark lecture on the theory of proper names. Naming and necessity, lecture ii professor jeeloo liu kripke s critique of the description and kripke s own theory of names general theses of the description theory.
The book has four chapters, covering the main topics of kripke s epic naming and necessity nn. He is a distinguished professor of philosophy at the graduate center of the city university of new york and emeritus professor at princeton university. In this collection of essays leading specialists explore issues arising from this and other works of kripke. Fe 3 kripke, naming and necessity, lecture i ii lycan,3842, 4561. Rigid designators stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Naming and necessity lecture 2 summary course hero. In lecture iii, kripke s main aim is to develop his account of the necessity of identity relations, and to discuss many of the implications of his account to issues like the identity of natural kinds, the distinction between epistemic and metaphysical necessity, the notion of metaphysical essences, and the mindbody problem in philosophy of mind. David lewis, counterparts of persons and their bodies, p. The unfinished semantic agenda of naming and necessity. A second look by joseph agassi telaviv university and york university, toronto abstract saul kripke s study of the truth conditions for modal and for subjunctive conditional statements is meant to validate essentialism. Iyyun, the jerusalem philosophical quarterly, 44, 1995, 24372. The transcript was brought out originally in 1972 in semantics of natural language, edited by donald davidson and gilbert harman. We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. But i like these two accounts because they make clear the shift from an armchair theory of how reference ought to work, to taking a good look at how we use them.
Naming and necessity, lecture i professor jeeloo liu saul kripke. Naming and necessity was mentioned as one of the eminent texts for this practice. Since the 1960s, kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical logic, modal logic. Saul kripke s naming and necessity was one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth century. The preface is not written in such a way as to be completely selfcontained. Furthermore, because of the use of tools involving reference and necessity in analytic philosophy today, our views on these. A term t is a rigid designator just in case in every possible world it designates the same object quoting from kripke, naming and necessity. A rigid designator t rigidly designates an object o just in case in every possible world it. The series of lectures published as naming and necessity have been very in. A basic characterization of rigid designation, its interest, and the breadth.
Kripke claims that i and ii are selfevident theses of philosophical logic independent of natural language. First, for a given speaker gottlob frege and bertrand russell associate a name with a cluster of qualities that they believe apply to the referent of a name. The third lecture is sadly poorly written and argued someone else already commented on it in this stream below, i agree with that reader. Summary kripke criticized descriptivist theories of proper names in the first lecture of his naming and necessity. M nov 30 kripke, naming and necessity, end of lecture i pp.
As its title no doubt suggests, hughess is a book about kripke. In this collection of essays leading specialists explore issues arising from this and other works of kripke s. Lecture notes introduction to philosophy of language linguistics. Naming and necessity, lecture ii kripkes critique of the.
One reason is explained why the pursuit of modal logics. However, he states that he will talk about necessity as a concept of metaphysics i. Naming and necessity 3 the preface first, but that they return to it for clarification if necessary after they have read the main text. Saul kripke excerpt from naming and necessity, lecture 3, pages 144155. Kripke, naming and necessity in harman and davidson, eds. Saul kripke notes the importance of the concept of necessity in contemporary analytic philosophy. In naming with necessity, it is argued that kripke s thesis that proper names are rigid designators is best seen as being motivated by an individualdriven picture of modality, which has two parts. A critique of descriptivism recall that descriptivism about proper names is the view that there is a descriptive component to the meaning of proper names, which determines denotationreference. The modal argument 4849, 7177 in lecture i, kripke introduced the notion of rigid designation. Introduction consider a physicalist about the human mind who defends a.
Why there are no necessary a posteriori propositions. It redirected philosophical attention to neglected questions of natural and metaphysical necessity and to the connections between these and theories of reference, in particular of naming, and of identity. Furthermore, because of the use of tools involving reference and. In a part of lecture i not reprinted in martinich, he says. Fe 10 kripke, naming and necessity, lecture iii putnam, meaning and reference lycan, 6166 fe 12 milestone 2 24fe kripke, a puzzle about belief indexials. Naming and necessity iii for atime theantiessentialistiswinning. References in brackets in the text are to page numbers of that book. On the other hand it does seem to support surprising conclusions about the modal status of identity statements. Giving the semantic content this is one facet of a fregean sense. Philosophy 5 lecture 07 kripkes naming and necessity.
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