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Full Idea
Statements about the modal properties of this table never refer to counterparts. However, if someone confuses the epistemological problems and the metaphysical problems he will be well on the way to the counterpart theory of Lewis.
Gist of Idea
Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.184 n16)
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.184
A Reaction
I can't make out what we should say about a possible object which is very nearly this table. Kripke needs the table to have a clear and unwavering essence, but tables are not that sort of thing. How would Kripke define 'physical object'?
| 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] |