Ideas from 'Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori' by Scott Soames [2006], by Theme Structure

[found in 'Philosophical Essays 2:Significance of Language' by Soames,Scott [Princeton 2009,978-0-691-13683-7]].

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1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 5. Modern Philosophy / c. Modern philosophy mid-period
Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour
                        Full Idea: The golden age of analytic philosophy (mid 20th c) was when necessary, a priori and analytic were one, all possibility was linguistic possibility, and the linguistic turn gave philosophy a respectable subject matter (language), and precision and rigour.
                        From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.166)
                        A reaction: Gently sarcastic, because Soames is part of the team who have put a bomb under this view, and quite right too. Personally I think the biggest enemy in all of this lot is not 'language' but 'rigour'. A will-o-the-wisp philosophers dream of.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers?
                        Full Idea: If all of philosophy is the analysis of meaning, and meaning is fundamentally transparent to competent speakers, there is little room for philosophically significant explanations and theories, since they will be necessary or a priori, or both.
                        From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
                        A reaction: He cites the later Wittgenstein as having fallen into this trap. I suppose any area of life can have its specialists, but I take Shakespeare to be a greater master of English than any philosopher I have ever read.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds
                        Full Idea: By (Kripkean) 'essential' properties and relations I mean simply properties and relations that hold necessarily of objects (in all genuinely possible world-states in which the objects exist).
                        From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.168 n5)
                        A reaction: This is the standard modern view of essences which I find so unsatisfactory. Kit Fine has helped to take us back to the proper Aristotelian view, where 'necessary' and 'essential' actually have different meanings. Note the inclusion of relations.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source
                        Full Idea: None of Kripke's many achievements is more important than his breaking the spell of the linguistic as the source of philosophically important modalities.
                        From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.186)
                        A reaction: Put like that, Kripke may have had the single most important thought of modern times. I take good philosophy to be exactly the same as good scientific theorising, in that it all arises out of the nature of reality (and I include logic in that).
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been
                        Full Idea: For the Kripkean possible states of the world are not alternate concrete universes, but abstract objects. Metaphysically possible world-states are maximally complete ways the real concrete universe could have been.
                        From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.167)
                        A reaction: This is probably clearer about the Kripkean view than Kripke ever is, but then that is part of Soames's mission. It sounds like the right way to conceive possible worlds. At least there is some commitment there, rather than instrumentalism about them.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 10. Two-Dimensional Semantics
Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity
                        Full Idea: Two-dimensionalism is a fundamentally anti-Kripkean attempt to reinstate descriptivism about names and natural kind terms, to reconnect necessity and apriority to analyticity, and return philosophy to analytic paradigms of its golden age.
                        From: Scott Soames (Significance of the Kripkean Nec A Posteriori [2006], p.183)
                        A reaction: I presume this is right, and it is so frustrating that you need Soames to spell it out, when Chalmers is much more low-key. Philosophers hate telling you what their real game is. Why is that?