more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
'Heat' is a rigid designator, which is picked out by the contingent property of being felt in a certain way; pain, on the other hand, is picked out by an essential (indeed necessary and sufficient) property.
Gist of Idea
Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190 n19)
Book Ref
'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.190
A Reaction
Hm. I could pick out your pain by your contingent whimpering behaviour. I can spot my own potential pain by a combination of bodily damage and pain killing tablets. I suspect him of the same blunder as Descartes on this one.
| 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] |