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Full Idea
My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary 'tout court'.
Clarification
'Tout court' (Fr) means 'simply'
Gist of Idea
What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g))
Book Ref
Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.164
A Reaction
This huge claim rides in on the back of Kripke's very useful clarifications. It is the 'new essentialism', and seems to me untenable in this form. There is no answer to Hume's request for evidence of necessity. Why can't essences (and laws) change?
| 17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
| 17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
| 4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
| 9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
| 4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
| 17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
| 16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
| 17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
| 4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
| 17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
| 17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
| 11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
| 17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
| 4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |