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. |
| 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'? |
| 7091 | The argument from analogy is not a strong inference, since the other being might be an actor or a robot [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The argument from analogy is a weak one, because it does not logically guarantee the inference I draw to the other's inner states, for he might be dissimulating or acting, or may even be a cleverly contrived robot which feels nothing. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (Wittgenstein [1988], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This gives the impression that for an argument to be strong it must logically guarantee its inference. It strikes me that analogy is a good reason for believing in other minds, but that is because I am looking for the best explanation, not logical proof. |
| 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. |
| 7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
| Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius. | |
| From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism | |
| A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny. |