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Full Idea
By 'rigid designator' I mean a term that designates the same object in all possible worlds.
Gist of Idea
A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971])
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.172
A Reaction
I am persistently troubled by the case of objects which are slightly different in another possible world. Does 'Aristotle' refer to him as young or old? Might the very same man have had a mole on his cheek?
| 9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| 9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
| 9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
| 9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
| 9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
| 9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
| 9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
| 9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |