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Single Idea 17045

[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties ]

Full Idea

De re modality is an object having essential properties.

Gist of Idea

De re modality is an object having essential properties

Source

Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 3)

Book Ref

Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.110


A Reaction

[Plucked out of context] It is because Kripke says there are necessities about things, and not just about statements about things, that he has caused a revival of essentialism. Fine has famously said modality depends on essence.


The 90 ideas from 'Naming and Necessity lectures'

Kripke's modal semantics presupposes certain facts about possible worlds [Kripke, by Zalta]
Names are rigid, making them unlike definite descriptions [Kripke, by Sainsbury]
Kripke separated semantics from metaphysics, rather than linking them, making the latter independent [Kripke, by Stalnaker]
Some references, such as 'Neptune', have to be fixed by description rather than baptism [Kripke, by Szabó]
Proper names must have referents, because they are not descriptive [Kripke, by Sainsbury]
Kripke has demonstrated that some necessary truths are only knowable a posteriori [Kripke, by Chalmers]
Kripke's metaphysics (essences, kinds, rigidity) blocks the slide into sociology [Kripke, by Ladyman/Ross]
Kripke individuates objects by essential modal properties (and presupposes essentialism) [Kripke, by Putnam]
For Kripke, essence is origin; for Putnam, essence is properties; for Wiggins, essence is membership of a kind [Kripke, by Mautner]
Kripke says internal structure fixes species; I say it is genetic affinity and a common descent [Kripke, by Dummett]
Kripke claims that some properties, only knowable posteriori, are known a priori to be essential [Kripke, by Soames]
An essence is the necessary properties, derived from an intuitive identity, in origin, type and material [Kripke, by Witt]
If we lose track of origin, how do we show we are maintaining a reference? [Kripke, by Wiggins]
Kripke argues, of the Queen, that parents of an organism are essentially so [Kripke, by Forbes,G]
Instead of being regularities, maybe natural laws are the weak a posteriori necessities of Kripke [Kripke, by Psillos]
Kripke separates necessary and a priori, proposing necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori examples [Kripke, by O'Grady]
Kripke's essentialist necessary a posteriori opened the gap between conceivable and really possible [Soames on Kripke]
Kripke gets to the necessary a posteriori by only allowing conceivability when combined with actuality [Kripke, by Soames]
Test for rigidity by inserting into the sentence 'N might not have been N' [Kripke, by Lycan]
Kripke avoids difficulties of transworld identity by saying it is a decision, not a discovery [Kripke, by Jacquette]
Saying that natural kinds are 'rigid designators' is the same as saying they are 'indexical' [Kripke, by Putnam]
If Kripke names must still denote a thing in a non-actual situation, the statue isn't its clay [Gibbard on Kripke]
A rigid expression may refer at a world to an object not existing in that world [Kripke, by Sainsbury]
Kripke has breathed new life into the a priori/a posteriori distinction [Kripke, by Lowe]
Kripke was more successful in illuminating necessity than a priority (and their relations to analyticity) [Kripke, by Soames]
Kripke assumes that mind-brain identity designates rigidly, which it doesn't [Armstrong on Kripke]
If consciousness could separate from brain, then it cannot be identical with brain [Kripke, by Papineau]
Kripke says pain is necessarily pain, but a brain state isn't necessarily painful [Kripke, by Rey]
Kripke has a definitional account of kinds, but not of naming [Almog on Kripke]
Kripke derives accounts of reference and proper names from assumptions about worlds and essences [Stalnaker on Kripke]
The important cause is not between dubbing and current use, but between the item and the speaker's information [Evans on Kripke]
Kripke makes reference a largely social matter, external to the mind of the speaker [Kripke, by McGinn]
Kripke's theory is important because it gives a collective account of reference [Kripke, by Putnam]
Nominal essence may well be neither necessary nor sufficient for a natural kind [Kripke, by Bird]
Kripke says his necessary a posteriori examples are known a priori to be necessary [Kripke, by Mackie,P]
Possible worlds aren't puzzling places to learn about, but places we ourselves describe [Kripke]
No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time [Kripke]
Given that Nixon is indeed a human being, that he might not have been does not concern knowledge [Kripke]
An essential property is true of an object in any case where it would have existed [Kripke]
Some definitions aim to fix a reference rather than give a meaning [Kripke]
Given that a table is made of molecules, could it not be molecular and still be this table? [Kripke]
Names are rigid designators, which designate the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke]
A bundle of qualities is a collection of abstractions, so it can't be a particular [Kripke]
Intuition is the strongest possible evidence one can have about anything [Kripke]
Rather than 'a priori truth', it is best to stick to whether some person knows it on a priori evidence [Kripke]
A priori truths can be known independently of experience - but they don't have to be [Kripke]
We do not begin with possible worlds and place objects in them; we begin with objects in the real world [Kripke]
If we discuss what might have happened to Nixon, we stipulate that it is about Nixon [Kripke]
Transworld identification is unproblematic, because we stipulate that we rigidly refer to something [Kripke]
A table in some possible world should not even be identified by its essential properties [Kripke]
Identification across possible worlds does not need properties, even essential ones [Kripke]
A priori = Necessary because we imagine all worlds, and we know without looking at actuality? [Kripke]
The meter is defined necessarily, but the stick being one meter long is contingent a priori [Kripke]
Descriptive reference shows how to refer, how to identify two things, and how to challenge existence [Kripke, by PG]
That there might have been unicorns is false; we don't know the circumstances for unicorns [Kripke]
It can't be necessary that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him [Kripke]
Identities like 'heat is molecule motion' are necessary (in the highest degree), not contingent [Kripke]
We refer through the community, going back to the original referent [Kripke]
We may refer through a causal chain, but still change what is referred to [Kripke]
A name can still refer even if it satisfies none of its well-known descriptions [Kripke]
Analyses of concepts using entirely different terms are very inclined to fail [Kripke]
If Hesperus and Phosophorus are the same, they can't possibly be different [Kripke]
Physical necessity may be necessity in the highest degree [Kripke]
Important properties of an object need not be essential to it [Kripke]
Identity statements can be contingent if they rely on descriptions [Kripke]
Could the actual Queen have been born of different parents? [Kripke]
De re modality is an object having essential properties [Kripke]
Atomic number 79 is part of the nature of the gold we know [Kripke]
If we imagine this table made of ice or different wood, we are imagining a different table [Kripke]
A name's reference is not fixed by any marks or properties of the referent [Kripke]
Identity must be necessary, but pain isn't necessarily a brain state, so they aren't identical [Kripke, by Schwartz,SP]
Identity theorists seem committed to no-brain-event-no-pain, and vice versa, which seems wrong [Kripke]
It seems logically possible to have the pain brain state without the actual pain [Kripke]
Terms for natural kinds are very close to proper names [Kripke]
The properties that fix reference are contingent, the properties involving meaning are necessary [Kripke]
Gold's atomic number might not be 79, but if it is, could non-79 stuff be gold? [Kripke]
'Cats are animals' has turned out to be a necessary truth [Kripke]
"'Hesperus' is 'Phosphorus'" is necessarily true, if it is true, but not known a priori [Kripke]
Theoretical identities are between rigid designators, and so are necessary a posteriori [Kripke]
It is a necessary truth that Elizabeth II was the child of two particular parents [Kripke]
Analytic judgements are a priori, even when their content is empirical [Kripke]
The scientific discovery (if correct) that gold has atomic number 79 is a necessary truth [Kripke]
Scientific discoveries about gold are necessary truths [Kripke]
Once we've found that heat is molecular motion, then that's what it is, in all possible worlds [Kripke]
Science searches basic structures in search of essences [Kripke]
Tigers may lack all the properties we originally used to identify them [Kripke]
The original concept of 'cat' comes from paradigmatic instances [Kripke]
'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough [Kripke]
Socrates can't have a necessary origin, because he might have had no 'origin' [Lowe on Kripke]
Rigid designation creates a puzzle - why do some necessary truths appear to be contingent? [Kripke, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro]