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Full Idea
Kripke's argument against mind-brain identity is that a pain is necessarily pain (just as a stone is necessarily matter), but a brain state is not necessarily painful (just as a stone is not necessarily a doorstep).
Gist of Idea
Kripke says pain is necessarily pain, but a brain state isn't necessarily painful
Source
report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 11.6.2
Book Ref
Rey,Georges: 'Contemporary Philosophy of Mind' [Blackwell 1997], p.308
A Reaction
As with Descartes' argument from necessity for dualism, this seems to me to beg the question. It seems to me fairly self-evident that certain brain states have to be painful, just as stones always have to be hard or massive.
| 9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
| 7867 | If consciousness could separate from brain, then it cannot be identical with brain [Kripke, by Papineau] |
| 3228 | Kripke says pain is necessarily pain, but a brain state isn't necessarily painful [Kripke, by Rey] |
| 5832 | Identity must be necessary, but pain isn't necessarily a brain state, so they aren't identical [Kripke, by Schwartz,SP] |
| 4968 | Identity theorists seem committed to no-brain-event-no-pain, and vice versa, which seems wrong [Kripke] |