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Single Idea 13973
[filed under theme 10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
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Full Idea
None of Kripke's many achievements is more important than his breaking the spell of the linguistic as the source of philosophically important modalities.
Gist of Idea
A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source
Source
Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
Book Ref
Soames,Scott: 'Philosophical Essays 2:Significance of Language' [Princeton 2009], p.186
A Reaction
Put like that, Kripke may have had the single most important thought of modern times. I take good philosophy to be exactly the same as good scientific theorising, in that it all arises out of the nature of reality (and I include logic in that).
The
17 ideas
from Scott Soames
13966
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Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour
[Soames]
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13968
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Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been
[Soames]
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13969
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Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds
[Soames]
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13972
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Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity
[Soames]
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13973
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A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source
[Soames]
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13974
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If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers?
[Soames]
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15154
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We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa
[Soames]
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15152
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To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts
[Soames]
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15153
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Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings
[Soames]
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15156
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The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics
[Soames]
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15157
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Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight
[Soames]
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15158
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Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position
[Soames]
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15162
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We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life
[Soames]
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15161
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There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths
[Soames]
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15163
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The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism
[Soames]
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13964
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Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances)
[Soames]
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13965
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Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different
[Soames]
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