Saul Kripke

1940-2022 · American · Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind

Let's call something a rigid designator if in every possible world it designates the same object, a nonrigid or accidental designator if that is not the case.

In January 1970, a young Princeton lecturer stood up and gave three talks, without notes, that quietly overturned the reigning view of how language hooks onto the world. Transcribed and published as Naming and Necessity, they made Saul Kripke famous — though he had been a prodigy long before, publishing a completeness theorem for modal logic in a leading journal while still a Harvard undergraduate. He wrote slowly and published rarely, yet that slim body of work reorganized analytic philosophy.

Topics Saul Kripke addresses

• rigid designation
• the causal-historical theory of reference
• a posteriori necessity
• the contingent a priori
• possible worlds semantics
• the modal argument against descriptivism
• natural kind terms
• the Gödel/Schmidt example
• Hesperus is Phosphorus
• semantic externalism
• the Kripkenstein rule-following paradox
• essentialism
• the necessity of identity
• the necessity of origin
• theoretical identifications
• fixing the reference vs. giving the meaning
• the qua problem
• the puzzle about belief
• vacuous names
• the epistemic argument against descriptivism
• cluster theories of reference
• reference borrowing
• baptism and dubbing
• transworld identity

Questions to put to Saul Kripke

Rigid Designation and the Causal Theory

• What do you mean by calling a name a rigid designator?
• How does the causal-historical chain fix reference without descriptions?
• What's wrong with the Frege-Russell view that names are disguised descriptions?
• Can you walk me through the Gödel/Schmidt example?
• If I associate the wrong descriptions with a name, how does it still refer correctly?

Necessity and A Posteriori Knowledge

• How can something be necessary but only knowable through experience?
• Why is 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' a necessary truth?
• What makes the meter-stick case an example of contingent a priori knowledge?
• How do you distinguish metaphysical necessity from epistemic apriority?
• Why did philosophers before you think necessity and apriority always went together?

Natural Kinds and Theoretical Identities

• Are natural kind terms like 'water' and 'gold' rigid designators?
• Why is 'water is H2O' necessary rather than just a scientific discovery?
• What's the difference between something resembling water and actually being water?
• How do we fix the reference of a natural kind term through samples?
• Do theoretical identities like 'heat is molecular motion' work the same way as 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'?

The Rule-Following Paradox

• What's the skeptical paradox about meaning and rule-following?
• Can you explain the quaddition example?
• What's the difference between a straight solution and a skeptical solution?
• How does community agreement constitute meaning if no individual facts do?
• How much of this argument is really Wittgenstein's and how much is yours?

Reference Puzzles: Fiction, Vacuity, and Belief

• Does 'Sherlock Holmes' refer to anything at all?
• What's the difference between a fictional name and a vacuous name like 'Vulcan'?
• Does Pierre believe that London is pretty?
• What does the Pierre puzzle show about translation and belief attribution?
• Why do you present puzzles without always offering your own solutions?

Possible Worlds and Modal Logic

• What are possible worlds and how do they help us understand necessity?
• How did your early work on modal logic shape the arguments in Naming and Necessity?
• What does completeness for a modal system mean?
• How do we talk about the same individual across different possible worlds?
• Why do we need formal semantics to make philosophical arguments about modality rigorous?

Converse with Saul Kripke on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Saul Kripke's own writing, cited to the page.