21 ideas
| 5831 | The new view is that "water" is a name, and has no definition [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the modern view is best expressed as saying that "water" has no definition at all, at least in the traditional sense, and is a proper name of a specific substance. | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: This assumes that proper names have no definitions, though I am not clear how we can grasp the name 'Aristotle' without some association of properties (human, for example) to go with it. We need a definition of 'definition'. |
| 5829 | We refer to Thales successfully by name, even if all descriptions of him are false [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: We can refer to Thales by using the name "Thales" even though perhaps the only description we can supply is false of him. | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: It is not clear what we would be referring to if all of our descriptions (even 'Greek philosopher') were false. If an archaeologist finds just a scrap of stone with a name written on it, that is hardly a sufficient basis for successful reference. |
| 5830 | The traditional theory of names says some of the descriptions must be correct [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: The traditional theory of proper names entails that at least some combination of the things ordinarily believed of Aristotle are necessarily true of him. | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: Searle endorses this traditional theory. Kripke and co. tried to dismiss it, but you can't. If all descriptions of Aristotle turned out to be false (it was actually the name of a Persian statue), our modern references would have been unsuccessful. |
| 17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Maybe strict identity only applies to the particulars (the molecules) in a case of vague identity. …It seems, however, utopian to suppose that we will ever reach a level of ultimate, basic particulars for which identity relations are never vague. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this. Ladyman and Ross laugh at the unscientific picture found in dreams of 'simples'. |
| 11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Could the artificer not, when he made the table, have taken other pieces? Surely he could. [n37: I venture to think that Kripke's argument in note 56 for the necessity of constitution depends on treating constitution as if it were identity]. | |
| From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 56) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.11 | |
| A reaction: Suppose the craftsman completed the table, then changed a piece of wood in it for some reason. Has he now made a second table and destroyed the first one? Wiggins seems to be right. |
| 17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that a relation, being essentially two-termed, cannot hold between a thing and itself. This position is plainly absurd ('he is his own worst enemy'). Identity is nothing but the smallest reflexive relation. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 50) | |
| A reaction: I have no idea what 'smallest' means here. I can't be 'to the left of myself', so not all of my relations can be reflexive. I just don't understand what it means to say something is 'identical with itself'. You've got the thing - what have you added? |
| 16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: When the identity relation is vague, it may seem intransitive; a claim of apparent identity may yield an apparent non-identity. Some sort of 'counterpart' notion may have some utility here. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18) | |
| A reaction: He firmly rejects the full Lewis apparatus of counterparts. The idea would be that a river at different times had counterpart relations, not strict identity. I like the word 'same' for this situation. Most worldly 'identity' is intransitive. |
| 17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary tout court. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g)) | |
| A reaction: He avoids the term 'metaphysically necessary', which most people would not use for this point. |
| 4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary 'tout court'. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g)) | |
| A reaction: This huge claim rides in on the back of Kripke's very useful clarifications. It is the 'new essentialism', and seems to me untenable in this form. There is no answer to Hume's request for evidence of necessity. Why can't essences (and laws) change? |
| 17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: If the unicorn myth is supposed to be a particular species, with insufficient internal structure to determine it uniquely, then there is no actual or possible species of which we can say that it would have been the species of unicorns. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (a)) | |
| A reaction: Dummett and Rumfitt discuss this proposal elsewhere. |
| 4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: The apparatus of possible worlds has (I hope) been very useful as far as the set-theoretic model-theory of quantified modal logic is concerned, but has encouraged philosophical pseudo-problems and misleading pictures. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 15) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably a swipe at David Lewis, who claims possible worlds are real. The fact that the originator of possible worlds sees them as unproblematic doesn't mean they are. Fine if they are a game, but if they assert truth, they need a metaphysics. |
| 17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: It is useful to have an operator which transforms each description into a term which rigidly designates the object actually satisfying the description. David Kaplan has proposed such an operator and calls it 'Dthat'. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 22) |
| 9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: The most famous objection to counterparts is Kripke's objection that Hubert Humphrey wouldn't care if he thought that his counterpart might have won the 1972 election. He wishes that he had won it. | |
| From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 12) by Theodore Sider - Reductive Theories of Modality 3.10 | |
| A reaction: Like Sider, I find this unconvincing. If there is a world in which I don't exist, but my very close counterpart does (say exactly me, but with a finger missing), I am likely to care more about such a person than about complete strangers. |
| 17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: If statements whose a priori truth is known via the fixing of a reference are counted as analytic, then some analytic truths are contingent. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 63) |
| 6455 | Maybe 'sense-data' just help us to talk about unusual perceptual situations [Lacey] |
| Full Idea: One possibility is that talk of sense-data is a mere linguistic convenience, providing a noun for talking about appearances, as when seeing a red object in sodium light (when it looks grey). | |
| From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196) | |
| A reaction: The term seems to have been coined to deal with situations where there is a gap between appearance and presumed reality, as in illusions. Maybe illusions prove the existence of sense-data, rather than it being a 'convenient' term. |
| 6453 | Some claim sense-data are public, and are parts of objects [Lacey] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes it is said that sense-data are public, and parts either of objects or of the surfaces of objects. | |
| From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196) | |
| A reaction: This suggests two drastically different theories, one making sense-data into mental events, the other placing them in the 'external' world. The latter theory can dovetail them with the physics, but then why would we need them? |
| 6454 | Where do sense-data begin or end? Can they change? What sort of thing are they? [Lacey] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to individuate sense-data, saying where one ends and the next begins, and hard to say whether they can change; are they substances, qualities, events, or what? | |
| From: A.R. Lacey (A Dictionary of Philosophy [1976], p.196) | |
| A reaction: The problem is not that these questions are unanswerable. The answer seems to be either that they are physical and external, or that they are mental and internal, and that there is no ontological space for them between the two. |
| 4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 77) | |
| A reaction: Kripke opposes reductive physicalism, but is NOT committed to dualism. He seems to be drawn to Davidson or Nagel (see his note 73). I think his discussion of contingent mind-brain identity is confused. |
| 5826 | The intension of "lemon" is the conjunction of properties associated with it [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: The conjunction of properties associated with a term such as "lemon" is often called the intension of the term "lemon". | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §II) | |
| A reaction: The extension of "lemon" is the set of all lemons. At last, a clear explanation of the word 'intension'! The debate becomes clear - over whether the terms of a language are used in reference to ideas of properties (and substances?), or to external items. |
| 4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: In some cases an object may be identified, and the reference of a name fixed, using a description which may turn out to be false of its object. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 34) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly possible. Someone could be identified as 'the criminal' when they were actually innocent. Nevertheless, how do you remember which person was baptised 'Aristotle' if you don't hang on to a description, even a false one? |
| 17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: If a Gödelian fraud were exposed, Gödel would no longer be called 'the author of the incompleteness theorem', but he would still be called 'Gödel'. The description, therefore, does not abbreviate the name. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 37) | |
| A reaction: Clearly we can't make the description a necessary fact about Gödel, but that doesn't invalidate the idea that successful reference needs some description. E.g. Gödel is a person. |