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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] |