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Single Idea 5821

[filed under theme 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation ]

Full Idea

Kripke's doctrine that natural kind words are rigid designators and our doctrine that they are indexical are two ways of making the same point.

Clarification

'Indexicals' point things out; 'rigid designators' baptise things for all possible worlds

Gist of Idea

Saying that natural kinds are 'rigid designators' is the same as saying they are 'indexical'

Source

report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970]) by Hilary Putnam - Meaning and Reference p.161

Book Ref

'Meaning and Reference', ed/tr. Moore,A.W. [OUP 1993], p.161

A Reaction

I think I prefer Putnam's terminology, because it is more modest in its claims Kripke gets into trouble when a natural kind in some other possible world is only subtly different from the original. How 'rigid'? Putnam sticks to how the word gets started.

The 22 ideas with the same theme [items with fixed identity in all possible worlds]:

13588 A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine]
11187 In possible worlds, names are just neutral unvarying pegs for truths and predicates [Marcus (Barcan)]
9172 A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke]
9173 We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke]
5821 Saying that natural kinds are 'rigid designators' is the same as saying they are 'indexical' [Kripke, by Putnam]
14068 If Kripke names must still denote a thing in a non-actual situation, the statue isn't its clay [Gibbard on Kripke]
10436 A rigid expression may refer at a world to an object not existing in that world [Kripke, by Sainsbury]
7761 Test for rigidity by inserting into the sentence 'N might not have been N' [Kripke, by Lycan]
7693 Kripke avoids difficulties of transworld identity by saying it is a decision, not a discovery [Kripke, by Jacquette]
4953 We do not begin with possible worlds and place objects in them; we begin with objects in the real world [Kripke]
4961 It is a necessary truth that Elizabeth II was the child of two particular parents [Kripke]
17003 Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke]
11891 Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
11881 Rigid designators can be meaningful even if empty [Evans, by Mackie,P]
12138 Identity across possible worlds is prior to rigid designation [Brody]
16408 Rigid designation seems to presuppose that differing worlds contain the same individuals [Stalnaker]
14079 Kripke's semantics needs lots of intuitions about which properties are essential [Gibbard]
11979 It doesn't take the whole of a possible Humphrey to win the election [Lewis]
15530 A logically determinate name names the same thing in every possible world [Lewis]
12237 Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg]
15174 A thing doesn't need transworld identity prior to rigid reference - that could be a convention of the reference [Sidelle]
15183 'Dthat' operates to make a singular term into a rigid term [Sidelle]