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Ideas of Saul A. Kripke, by Text

[American, b.1940, Born at Bayshore. Formerly professor at Princeton University.]

1959 A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic
p.9 The variable domain approach to quantified modal logic invalidates the Barcan Formula [Simchen]
p.256 The Barcan formulas fail in models with varying domains [Williamson]
p.286 Propositional modal logic has been proved to be complete [Feferman/Feferman]
p.315 With possible worlds, S4 and S5 are sound and complete, but S1-S3 are not even sound [Rossberg]
1970 Naming and Necessity lectures
p.-10 Kripke assumes that mind-brain identity designates rigidly, which it doesn't [Armstrong]
p.1 Kripke has breathed new life into the a priori/a posteriori distinction [Lowe]
p.4 Kripke's modal semantics presupposes certain facts about possible worlds [Zalta]
p.9 Kripke's metaphysics (essences, kinds, rigidity) blocks the slide into sociology [Ladyman/Ross]
p.30 Some references, such as 'Neptune', have to be fixed by description rather than baptism [Szabó]
p.54 Test for rigidity by inserting into the sentence 'N might not have been N' [Lycan]
p.71 Kripke makes reference a largely social matter, external to the mind of the speaker [McGinn]
p.77 Kripke avoids difficulties of transworld identity by saying it is a decision, not a discovery [Jacquette]
p.79 If consciousness could separate from brain, then it cannot be identical with brain [Papineau]
p.101 Nominal essence may well be neither necessary nor sufficient for a natural kind [Bird]
p.119 Kripke separates necessary and a priori, proposing necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori examples [O'Grady]
p.131 Kripke has demonstrated that some necessary truths are only knowable a posteriori [Chalmers]
p.132 If we lose track of origin, how do we show we are maintaining a reference? [Wiggins]
p.133 Kripke argues, of the Queen, that parents of an organism are essentially so [Forbes,G]
p.161 Instead of being regularities, maybe natural laws are the weak a posteriori necessities of Kripke [Psillos]
p.161 Saying that natural kinds are 'rigid designators' is the same as saying they are 'indexical' [Putnam]
p.165 Kripke derives accounts of reference and proper names from assumptions about worlds and essences [Stalnaker]
p.167 Kripke separated semantics from metaphysics, rather than linking them, making the latter independent [Stalnaker]
p.167 Kripke's essentialist necessary a posteriori opened the gap between conceivable and really possible [Soames]
p.168 Kripke gets to the necessary a posteriori by only allowing conceivability when combined with actuality [Soames]
p.179 For Kripke, essence is origin; for Putnam, essence is properties; for Wiggins, essence is membership of a kind [Mautner]
p.180 Kripke claims that some properties, only knowable posteriori, are known a priori to be essential [Soames]
p.181 An essence is the necessary properties, derived from an intuitive identity, in origin, type and material [Witt]
p.187 Kripke was more successful in illuminating necessity than a priority (and their relations to analyticity) [Soames]
p.193 If Kripke names must still denote a thing in a non-actual situation, the statue isn't its clay [Gibbard]
p.203 Kripke's theory is important because it gives a collective account of reference [Putnam]
p.204 The important cause is not between dubbing and current use, but between the item and the speaker's information [Evans]
p.220 Kripke individuates objects by essential modal properties (and presupposes essentialism) [Putnam]
p.308 Kripke says pain is necessarily pain, but a brain state isn't necessarily painful [Rey]
p.332 Kripke says internal structure fixes species; I say it is genetic affinity and a common descent [Dummett]
p.374 Kripke has a definitional account of kinds, but not of naming [Almog]
p.399 Proper names must have referents, because they are not descriptive [Sainsbury]
p.416 A rigid expression may refer at a world to an object not existing in that world [Sainsbury]
p.418 Names are rigid, making them unlike definite descriptions [Sainsbury]
159 p.9 Kripke says his necessary a posteriori examples are known a priori to be necessary [Mackie,P]
Lecture 1 p.24 That there might have been unicorns is false; we don't know the circumstances for unicorns
Lecture 1 p.28 Descriptive reference shows how to refer, how to identify two things, and how to challenge existence [PG]
Lecture 1 p.34 Rather than 'a priori truth', it is best to stick to whether some person knows it on a priori evidence
Lecture 1 p.34 A priori truths can be known independently of experience - but they don't have to be
Lecture 1 p.38 A priori = Necessary because we imagine all worlds, and we know without looking at actuality?
Lecture 1 p.42 Intuition is the strongest possible evidence one can have about anything
Lecture 1 p.43 No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time
Lecture 1 p.44 Possible worlds aren't puzzling places to learn about, but places we ourselves describe
Lecture 1 p.44 If we discuss what might have happened to Nixon, we stipulate that it is about Nixon
Lecture 1 p.47 Given that Nixon is indeed a human being, that he might not have been does not concern knowledge
Lecture 1 p.47 Given that a table is made of molecules, could it not be molecular and still be this table?
Lecture 1 p.48 An essential property is true of an object in any case where it would have existed
Lecture 1 p.48 Names are rigid designators, which designate the same object in all possible worlds
Lecture 1 p.49 Transworld identification is unproblematic, because we stipulate that we rigidly refer to something
Lecture 1 p.52 A table in some possible world should not even be identified by its essential properties
Lecture 1 p.52 A bundle of qualities is a collection of abstractions, so it can't be a particular
Lecture 1 p.53 Identification across possible worlds does not need properties, even essential ones
Lecture 1 p.53 We do not begin with possible worlds and place objects in them; we begin with objects in the real world
Lecture 1 p.56 The meter is defined necessarily, but the stick being one meter long is contingent a priori
Lecture 1 p.60 Some definitions aim to fix a reference rather than give a meaning
Lecture 2 p.74 It can't be necessary that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him
Lecture 2 p.77 Important properties of an object need not be essential to it
Lecture 2 p.86 A name can still refer even if it satisfies none of its well-known descriptions
Lecture 2 p.93 We may refer through a causal chain, but still change what is referred to
Lecture 2 p.94 We refer through the community, going back to the original referent
Lecture 2 p.94 Analyses of concepts using entirely different terms are very inclined to fail
Lecture 2 p.98 Identity statements can be contingent if they rely on descriptions
Lecture 2 p.99 Physical necessity may be necessity in the highest degree
Lecture 2 p.99 Identities like 'heat is molecule motion' are necessary (in the highest degree), not contingent
Lecture 2 p.104 If Hesperus and Phosophorus are the same, they can't possibly be different
Lecture 3 p.35 Identity must be necessary, but pain isn't necessarily a brain state, so they aren't identical [Schwartz,SP]
Lecture 3 p.106 A name's reference is not fixed by any marks or properties of the referent
Lecture 3 p.108 "'Hesperus' is 'Phosphorus'" is necessarily true, if it is true, but not known a priori
Lecture 3 p.110 De re modality is an object having essential properties
Lecture 3 p.112 Could the actual Queen have been born of different parents?
Lecture 3 p.113 It is a necessary truth that Elizabeth II was the child of two particular parents
Lecture 3 p.114 If we imagine this table made of ice or different wood, we are imagining a different table
Lecture 3 p.117 Analytic judgements are a priori, even when their content is empirical
Lecture 3 p.121 Tigers may lack all the properties we originally used to identify them
Lecture 3 p.121 'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough
Lecture 3 p.122 The original concept of 'cat' comes from paradigmatic instances
Lecture 3 p.123 Gold's atomic number might not be 79, but if it is, could non-79 stuff be gold?
Lecture 3 p.125 The scientific discovery (if correct) that gold has atomic number 79 is a necessary truth
Lecture 3 p.125 Scientific discoveries about gold are necessary truths
Lecture 3 p.125 Atomic number 79 is part of the nature of the gold we know
Lecture 3 p.127 Terms for natural kinds are very close to proper names
Lecture 3 p.133 Once we've found that heat is molecular motion, then that's what it is, in all possible worlds
Lecture 3 p.135 The properties that fix reference are contingent, the properties involving meaning are necessary
Lecture 3 p.138 'Cats are animals' has turned out to be a necessary truth
Lecture 3 p.138 Science searches basic structures in search of essences
Lecture 3 p.140 Theoretical identities are between rigid designators, and so are necessary a posteriori
Lecture 3 p.146 It seems logically possible to have the pain brain state without the actual pain
Lecture 3 p.149 Identity theorists seem committed to no-brain-event-no-pain, and vice versa, which seems wrong
p.110- p.152 Socrates can't have a necessary origin, because he might have had no 'origin' [Lowe]
p.143-4 p.1 Rigid designation creates a puzzle - why do some necessary truths appear to be contingent? [Maciŕ/Garcia-Carpentiro]
1971 Identity and Necessity
p.172 A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds
p.167 p.167 The function of names is simply to refer
p.176 p.176 We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was
p.180 p.180 It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori
p.183 p.183 We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid
p.184 n16 p.184 Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics
p.190 p.190 Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states
p.190 n19 p.190 Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property
1972 Naming and Necessity notes and addenda
Add (a) p.157 Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn
Add (g) p.164 What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity
Add (g) p.164 What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary
note 12 p.198 The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Sider]
note 15 p.48 Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere
note 18 p.51 A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts'
note 18 p.51 We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things
note 22 p.60 Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation
note 34 p.80 A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object
note 37 p.87 Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel'
note 50 p.109 A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation
note 56 p.134 A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins]
note 63 p.122 The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent
note 77 p.155 I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing
1975 Outline of a Theory of Truth
p.6 Kripke's semantic theory has actually inspired promising axiomatic theories [Horsten]
p.20 Kripke offers a semantic theory of truth (involving models) [Horsten]
p.94 Certain three-valued languages can contain their own truth predicates [Gupta]
p.210 Kripke classified fixed points, and illuminated their use for clarifications [Halbach]
5.1 p.93 The Tarskian move to a metalanguage may not be essential for truth theories [Gupta]
1976 A Problem about Substitutional Quantification?
p.165 The substitutional quantifier is not in competition with the standard interpretation [Marcus (Barcan)]
1979 A Puzzle about Belief
p.221 Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati]
1980 Naming and Necessity preface
p.03 p.3 The indiscernibility of identicals is as self-evident as the law of contradiction
p.03 p.3 With the necessity of self-identity plus Leibniz's Law, identity has to be an 'internal' relation
p.08 n9 p.8 A man has two names if the historical chains are different - even if they are the same!
p.14 p.14 The very act of designating of an object with properties gives knowledge of a contingent truth
p.15 p.15 Instead of talking about possible worlds, we can always say "It is possible that.."
p.16 p.16 Probability with dice uses possible worlds, abstractions which fictionally simplify things
p.19 n18 p.19 I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc.
p.19 n18 p.19 Possible worlds allowed the application of set-theoretic models to modal logic
1982 Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language
p.-6 Kripke's Wittgenstein says meaning 'vanishes into thin air' [Miller,A]
p.160 The sceptical rule-following paradox is the basis of the private language argument [Hanna]
p.163 Community implies assertability-conditions rather than truth-conditions semantics [Hanna]
2 p.9 'Quus' means the same as 'plus' if the ingredients are less than 57; otherwise it just produces 5
2 p.22 If you ask what is in your mind for following the addition rule, meaning just seems to vanish
3 p.82 No rule can be fully explained