10 ideas
9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
Full Idea: We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by use of some descriptive phrase, such as 'author of these works'. But once we have this reference fixed, we then use the name 'Cicero' rigidly to designate the man who in fact we have identified by his authorship. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.183) | |
A reaction: Even supposedly rigid names can shift reference, as Evans's example of 'Madagascar' shows (Idea 9041). Reference is a much more social activity than Kripke is willing to admit. There is a 'tradition' of reference (Dummett) for the name 'Cicero'. |
9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
Full Idea: The function of names is simply to refer. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.167) | |
A reaction: This is Kripke reverting to the John Stuart Mill view of names. If I say "you are a right Casanova" I don't simply refer to Casanova. In notorious examples like 'Homer' reference is fine, but the object of reference is a bit elusive. |
17447 | Parsons says counting is tagging as first, second, third..., and converting the last to a cardinal [Parsons,C, by Heck] |
Full Idea: In Parsons's demonstrative model of counting, '1' means the first, and counting says 'the first, the second, the third', where one is supposed to 'tag' each object exactly once, and report how many by converting the last ordinal into a cardinal. | |
From: report of Charles Parsons (Frege's Theory of Numbers [1965]) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3 | |
A reaction: This sounds good. Counting seems to rely on that fact that numbers can be both ordinals and cardinals. You don't 'convert' at the end, though, because all the way you mean 'this cardinality in this order'. |
9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Although the statement that this table (if it exists at all) was not made of ice, is necessary, it certainly is not something that we know a priori. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.180) | |
A reaction: One of the key thoughts in modern philosophy. Kit Fine warns against treating it as a new and exciting toy, but it is a new and exciting toy. Scientific essentialism, which I so want to be true, is built on this proposal. |
9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
Full Idea: By 'rigid designator' I mean a term that designates the same object in all possible worlds. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971]) | |
A reaction: I am persistently troubled by the case of objects which are slightly different in another possible world. Does 'Aristotle' refer to him as young or old? Might the very same man have had a mole on his cheek? |
9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
Full Idea: It seems that we cannot say "Nixon might have been a different man from the man he in fact was", unless we mean it metaphorically. He might have been a different sort of person. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.176) | |
A reaction: The problem is that being a 'different sort of person' could become more and more drastic, till Nixon is unrecognisable. I don't see how I can stipulate that a small and dim mouse is Richard Nixon, even in a possible world with magicians. |
9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
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. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.184 n16) | |
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'? |
9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
Full Idea: The identity theorist has to hold that we are under some illusion in thinking that we can imagine that there could have been pains without brain states. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190) | |
A reaction: The origin of Robert Kirk's idea that there might be zombies. Kripke is wrong. Of course Kripke and his friends can imagine disembodied pains; the question is whether being able to imagine them makes them possible, which it doesn't. |
9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
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. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190 n19) | |
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. |
19384 | Space and time are the order of all possibilities, and don't just relate to what is actual [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Space and time taken together constitute the order of possibilities of the one entire universe, so that these orders relate not only to what actually is, but also to anything that could be put in its place. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Reply to 'Rorarius' 2nd ed [1702], GP iv 568), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Space and Time' | |
A reaction: A very nice idea. Rather like the 'space of reasons', where all rational thought must exist, space and time are the 'space of existence and action'. Their concepts involve more than relations between what actually exists. |