more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Although the statement that this table (if it exists at all) was not made of ice, is necessary, it certainly is not something that we know a priori.
Gist of Idea
It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.180)
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.180
A Reaction
One of the key thoughts in modern philosophy. Kit Fine warns against treating it as a new and exciting toy, but it is a new and exciting toy. Scientific essentialism, which I so want to be true, is built on this proposal.
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] |