more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
It seems that we cannot say "Nixon might have been a different man from the man he in fact was", unless we mean it metaphorically. He might have been a different sort of person.
Gist of Idea
We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.176)
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.176
A Reaction
The problem is that being a 'different sort of person' could become more and more drastic, till Nixon is unrecognisable. I don't see how I can stipulate that a small and dim mouse is Richard Nixon, even in a possible world with magicians.
| 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] |