He's got almost everything except for a Diamond essay. And really, do we need more talk about reading the Tractatus resolutely? I'm looking forward to looking through this.

And for the fans of philosophy on the continent...

Fark Yaralari's blog of continenal philosophy books

He's also got a good collection of stuff on Wittgenstein (including Kripke!) and some Husserl, as well as a few bits and pieces on Kant (including The Bounds of Sense!). Support this awesome Turk who gives us philosophy.

We can, as Kripke wants us to, take modality to talk about possible worlds. This seems plausible, if we take a Tractarian picture of possibility as states of affairs. So, we can define the actual world as the state of affairs that actually obtain. Then, we can clarify what we mean by defining states of affairs as sets of propositions that quantify over objects. So, finally, we can define possible worlds as states of affairs that share at least one member with the actual world, but do not share all members. Thus, we can speak of simple changes (such as Wittgenstein's builders in the PI, or Kripke's Hitler who lives a quiet life in Linz) without modifying the whole.

This more rigorous model seems to work, up to a point. Change enough and our intuitions fail us. For example, if we assume that Hitler lived a quiet life in Linz, we can thus assume that the state of Israel never came into existence, and...So, modality doesn't reveal a whole lot about those sorts of situations. Kripke, of course, uses them merely as examples, and we needn't extrapolate them out. We can take small subsets of the world and deal with them, like Max Black does in his essay "The Identity of Indiscernibles." He takes the spatial fabric of our universe and repopulates it with 2(?) spheres, and there he's merely confronting one problem, so we can actually work with that possible world.

Given this, it seems pretty unproblematic, but there's the problem of 'transworld identity' that bothers Plantinga and Lewis. Kripke doesn't see it as a problem, but there's a reason we should. One of Quine's objections rests on the possible fat men (or two possible fat men...) in the doorway, and how we can tell them apart. Given that a possible world is merely a stipulated subset of our world with some changed or added propositions, we can easily add the fat men to the doorway, but in this possible world, are they the same fat men in this other possible world? This seems to me to have two responses.

One, we could say that they actually are the same men, and give them names, and so forth. This runs into problems, however, because we could go on doing this forever in all of our possible worlds. Another variant to deal with this is to stipulate that all men in all possible worlds are different, but this leads to some other problems: I'm obviously not identical with my possible self, but there's some reason to state that he is actually me, with one (or two...) properties changed. If all men in all possible worlds are diferent, I'm not myself in any possible world, which is ridiculous. Of course, the opposite runs into the problem of self-identity, which is sticky in and of itself; we don't need modality in the picture to make it more complicated.

This suggests that this picture is relatively confused and we need to stop talking about identity across possible worlds. Rather, what we need to do is talk about them merely as states of affairs. If, in a given state of affairs, I exist except on Twin Earth, that person is obviously not me. He doesn't actually exist. If my philosophical example depends on him being me (such as in teleporter experiments) there is also no problem. We're merely speaking in terms of counterfactuals or possibility, and again, he does not exist. We are asking 'if x were the case, what would happen to me?'

Quantifiers don't make it hairier. We've been using quantifiers throughout this, and when we say that I exist on Twin Earth, we're merely postulating what would be the case if I existed on Twin Earth. We can structure counterfactuals as follows.

• it is [possible/necessary] that [there exists an/for all] x such that (if x is y and..., then...)

In using the material conditional (with quantifiers and modal operators)  we are not positing the truth of the antecedent or consequent, we are merely stating that if the antecedent is the case in the actual world, then the consequent follows in the actual world. This seems wholly unproblematic, and quite useful. We can vindicate Kripke's intuitions that modality is a useful and unproblematic tool for philosophical usage.

If anyone has come up with this before (they must have, since this is from the seat of my pants and I don't know if it's correct, nor am I really good at modal logic yet), I'd like to find out.

The Fregean explanation of proper names is a type of description theory: proper names have descriptive content. In fact, such that a definite description picks out one thing uniquely, it is a proper name, possessing all of the same qualities of a proper name. Kripke in his book Naming and Necessity states, “Really a proper name, properly used, simply was a definite description abbreviated or disguised.” Frege himself explained, “The designation of a single object can also consist of several words or other signs. For brevity’s sake, let every such designation be called a proper name.” Frege describes proper names as being saturated—saturation means that no further supplementation is needed to be able to refer. However, having a unique descriptive content is for Frege the means by which proper names can individuate and determine the referent of the name: this is what is meant by description theory of proper names.

Proper names have a unique descriptive content such that it picks out one referent uniquely, explaining how proper names effectively determine their referent, for only one object uniquely satisfies the definite description of the proper name: “Thus, when a speaker uses the name ‘N’ and in doing so succeeds in referring to a particular object or individual x, he manages to do so because he thinks of N as the (unique) F, and x is in fact the (unique) F [where F is a certain descriptive content of N]” explains Marga Reimer. In other words, when one uses a proper name, one knows that the referent of the name is indeed the referent by the fact that it and it alone is described by the descriptive content of the proper name (in a given context).

The descriptive content of proper names allows a unique referent to be identified with each and every proper name. As such, the descriptive content provides a certain perspective on the referent. This objective perspective of the referent Frege calls ‘sense’. The relationship between the description and the sense of a proper name is quite subtle, but it is such that descriptions express the sense of the term. Kripke explains the Fregean view as “That to each proper name, a speaker of the language associates some property (or conjunction of properties) which determines its referent as the unique thing fulfilling the associated property (or properties). This property(ies) constitutes the ‘sense’ of the name.” The sense, which is unique to the proper name as a sign for something, allows one to both fix and determine the referent and does so by the meaning that the sense gives to the proper name. In fact, as shall be demonstrated further on in the paper, sense is the thread that holds Frege’s theory together and functions as a unifying principle, upon which the Theory falls or stands.

Sense, as Frege describes it, is a mode of presentation of the object—an objective perspective of the referent. In other words, every proper name both refers to the object and has a sense of, a path to, the referent. This path is unique to that proper name. The need that Frege saw for sense is found (there are many more that Frege also notes) in identity statements: consider the identity statement ‘a = a’ as compared to ‘a = b’; though both statements have the same value, there is a clear cognitive distinction between the two statements. The identity statement ‘a = a’ is a mere tautology and analytically true, while ‘a = b’ has cognitive significance, requiring investigation of some type. Fregean sense explains the significance of co-referential terms that both may refer to the same object yet have a difference in descriptive content, thus communicating difference in meaning. Concerning the cognitive significance of ‘a = b’, Frege states,

A difference can arise only if the difference between the signs corresponds to a difference in the mode of presentation of that which is designated. […] these names likewise indicate the mode of presentation; and hence the statement contains actual knowledge. […] It is natural, now, to think of there being connected with a sign (name, combination of words, letter), besides that to which the sign refers, which may be called the reference of the sign, also what I should like to call the sense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained.

The mode of presentation, the path to the referent, allows for two words to have one and the same referent and yet express a difference in meaning. “The reference of ‘evening star’ would be the same as that of ‘morning star,’ but not the sense,” states Frege.

This brings up an important point: Frege has established that the referent and the sense of proper name are what constitute the meaning of a proper name, and this determines the truth conditions of the proposition (as noted, Frege called propositions ‘thought’). In fact, it was the end to which Frege aimed in his analysis of language: the creation of a theoretical system of thought expressed with such precision so as to enable all considered interlocutors the capacity for the productive communication of thought. Sense is thus a far more fundamental principle within the Fregean framework of a logical language than is often presupposed. Attention must be drawn to the fact that Frege’s goal was to produce an account of language that accounted for such things as reference, meaning, and truth conditions; these were accomplished by the notion of sense. Frege called his attempt a “Theoretical structure of demonstrative science, […] a perfect language.” The importance of this observation is that Fregean sense, though has been attacked by many philosophers of language, functioned with a incredible amount of actual language phenomena (which has yet to be matched in sheer scope of practical application).

Frege’s theoretical system was not merely a philosophical inquiry in to proper names, but how in fact proper names function, so as to produce a better way of determining the truth-value of propositions, and our dealing with language as an objective system of communication. Hence, sense was what enabled Frege to give a detailed explanation of truth conditions for propositions. The meaning of a proper name is given by its sense—descriptive content—(as well as the referent), and it is this that determines the truth-value of a proposition. To do justice to Frege’s sense of proper names, one must consider them not independently but how they function as saturated expressions in declarative sentences.

When a saturated term, a descriptive proper name, is put into a concept-function, the sentence is then said to express a thought. What is meant by “thought” according to Frege is “not the subjective performance of thinking but its objective content, which is capable of being the common property of several thinkers.” In modern philosophy of language, Frege’s “thought” is today called the “proposition” of the sentence, such that it is “the content of a declarative sentence, capable of truth [or] falsity. To grasp the proposition is to understand what is said, supposed, suggested, and so on.” It is in light of a concept-function possessing a proper name that the sentence itself becomes saturated because only proper names (as Frege understood and defined proper names) have the capacity to refer (if indeed there is an object of that term which to refer ). Supposing then that the sentence has a referent and is capable of a truth-value, the importance of Fregean sense in the analysis of language, thought, and existence is demonstrated. Frege states,
If we now replace one word of the sentence by another having the same reference, but a different sense, this can have no bearing upon the reference of the sentence. Yet we can see that in such a case the thought changes; since e.g., the thought in the sentence ‘The morning star is a body illuminated by the sun’ differs from that in the sentence ‘The evening star is a body is a body illuminated by the sun.’ Anybody who did not know that the evening star is the morning star might hold the one thought to be true, the other false. The thought, accordingly, cannot be the reference of the sentence, but must rather be considered as the sense.

In other words, by appealing to the notion of sense, a feature of all proper names, one could see quite clearly how co-referring proper names (or even definite descriptions) can both have the same object as the referent yet be different in meaning, such that one might believe one of the sentences to be true and the other false. If sense is a mode of presentation (that is, a mode of presentation of the object of concern), then what is intended to be understood is a certain perspective of the referent. Epistemologically speaking, such a mode of presentation of the proper name will be known a priori, for the meaning of a proper name is just its sense and reference. On the other hand, that two proper names (or definite descriptions) mean the same thing will not be known a priori, and this explains why two names that refer to the same object may still have a difference in meaning because the sense of the names presents the object in a different perspective. Hence, ‘Hesperus = Phosphorous’ is cognitively significant, whereas ‘Hesperus = Hesperus’ is a tautology and has no cognitive significance beyond actually knowing that Hesperus refers to something. Hence, Hesperus and Phosphorus both have their own sense, a mode of presenting Venus, yet they also both have the same referent. In other words, Hesperus is seen in the evening, whereas Phosphorous is seen in the morning—both then are an objective perspective of a single referent, Venus. The cognitive significance is determined by the descriptive content of proper names, the sense of the name, such that it can change the meaning of the name and finally the truth-conditions of propositions.

For a sentence to have a truth-value, it must have a referent, for the thought gives the sense only of a proposition. Frege explains, “It is the reference of the name that the predicate is affirmed or denied. Whoever does not admit the name has reference can neither apply nor withhold the predicate.” It is in this way that both the referent and the sense together are aspects of meaning. Though a sentence without a referent can still have meaning because is still has a sense, it can be neither true nor false because it is without reference and thus is not a thought (a proposition). Thus, Frege continues, explaining “we are therefore driven into accepting the truth value of a sentence as constituting its reference. By the truth value of a sentence I understand the circumstance that it is true or false. There are no further truth values. For brevity I call the one the True, the other the False. Every declarative sentence concerned with the reference of its words is therefore to be regarded as a proper name, and its reference, if it has one, is either the True or the False.”

Frege acquired extensive explanatory power with the notion of a sense; so much so in fact, Frege using this one notion as a part of the constitution of proper names was able to give an account of identity statements, truth conditions, intensional statements, co-referring (co-designating) terms, etc.

Despite the magnitude of the work achieved by Frege in his analysis of proper names and their function in sentences, there has been much debate over his work. One of Frege’s more famous and challenging critics is the logician and philosopher Kripke. In his famous book Naming and Necessity, a transcription of a series of lectures given at Princeton University, Kripke presents a philosophy of language that he calls the Millian theory of language (named after the philosopher John S. Mill whose view of proper names was that they were merely tags). Kripke’s purpose in Naming and Necessity is to present arguments that challenge the description theory of proper names, while also presenting his own view.

Kripke believes that names are tags that merely refer to the object for which they stand, meaning they have no descriptive content. In his essay “A Puzzle about Belief”, Kripke explains, “According to Mill, a proper name is, so to speak, simply a name. It simply refers to its bearer, and has no other linguistic function. In particular, unlike a definite description, a name does not describe its bearer as possessing any special identifying properties.” According to Kripke, names are not abbreviated descriptions of any kind, such that they have no descriptive content as was the case in the Fregean view. Needless to say, with the removal of descriptive content from proper names, which gave the sense of the name, the explanatory power of Fregean sense is render useless, for Kripke does away with the notion completely.

Kripke’s attack on the notion of a Fregean sense began with a reanalysis of the notions of necessity, a priori beliefs, and analycity. For Frege, if the name has meaning because it stands for a certain description, then it is analytically true that a certain name means such and such. If one says for example, “Hitler was the head of the Nazi party during World War II,” by which they give the descriptive content of the name, then for the one who said it, ‘Hitler’ just means ‘the head of the Nazi party during World War II.’ Thus, whoever satisfies the description of the name is Hitler. This is the very type of analysis of proper names against which Kripke argues. Kripke does not treat a prioricity and necessity as being or defining the same notion. Dealing with a prioricity, Kripke states that it is “a concept of epistemology.” On the other hand, necessity is a metaphysical notion. If something is true in all possible worlds then it is a necessary truth, whereas if it is not necessary, then it is said to be contingent. This means that there is a fundamental difference between these two notions, argues Kripke. For example, take the identity statement ‘Hesperus is Phosphorous’, where ‘Hesperus’ has one and the same referent as ‘Phosphorous,’ seeing that in the Kripkean framework names are rigid designators, as such they necessarily pick out the same referent in all possible worlds. Thus, ‘Hesperus is Phosphorous’ is a necessary truth. However, this is clearly an empirically discovered truth, and as such it was not known a priori. In fact, that Hesperus was called ‘The Evening Star’ while Phosphorous was called ‘The Morning Star’ demonstrates that this was posteriori knowledge, for neither were stars, and they both referred to the same thing. Yet epistemologically, that ‘Hesperus is Phosphorous,’ before it was empirically proven that they were indeed referring to the same thing, it could have turn out to be otherwise: viz. that it is not the case that Hesperus is Phosphorous. In this sense according to Kripke, ‘Hesperus is Phosphorous’ is necessary and not a priori. This type of example is given by Kripke in many forms to demonstrate that a distinction is necessary when defining a prioricity and necessity.

Kripke also argues that names are necessary but that definite descriptions are contingent. This oppose Frege’s notion that names have both sense and reference. If the descriptive content of a name, according to Kripke, is contingent, then it cannot also be the meaning of the name; for example, if the descriptive content is removed from the names, as is the case with the Millian view of language, then what Kripke sees as being the contingent element (namely definite descriptions) is also removed. For example, if the sentence ‘Hitler was the head of the Nazi party during World War II’ assuming the predicate of the sentence contains the descriptive content, then according to description theory it is a necessary fact that can be known a priori that ‘Hitler’ just means “the head of the Nazi party.” However, this seems very unlikely, for it can be easily imagined that Hitler did not for some reason become the head of the infamous German political party but, for argument’s sake, died as a child while crossing the road. As such, it seems that Hitler’s being the head of the Nazi party was only a contingent matter, and it still seems possible that one is able to refer to him independently of such a description. In removing the descriptive content from proper names, Kripke has attacked the idea that proper names have sense. With the removal of sense from proper names, he also removed the notion that names have descriptive content and determine the referent. Kripke states, “It seems to be wrong to think that we give ourselves some properties which somehow qualitatively uniquely pick out an object and determine our reference in that manner.” This thus demonstrates that the descriptive content that marks the referent uniquely is only a contingent fact, such that it is not necessary, such that it could have turned out to be otherwise, which in turn would make the proposition of the sentence ‘Hitler was the head of the Nazi party’ false in certain possible worlds. Despite the descriptive content of a proper name, the name is necessary such that it refers to the same thing in all possible worlds and does so independently of all descriptions that one might associate with the name—if this were not the case, it would be difficult to make sense of the question “Who is Adolph Hitler” if one needed a description before being able to refer.

Reference in the Fregean view is linked to the meaning of the name as both of these notions are linked to sense. Thus Kripke states,

But some of the attractiveness of the theory is lost if it isn’t supposed to give the meaning of the name; for some of the solutions of the problem that I’ve just mentioned will not be right, or at least won’t clearly be right, if the description doesn’t give the meaning the meaning of the name. For example, if someone said, ‘Aristotle does not exist’ means ‘there is no man doing such and such’, or in the example from Wittgenstein, ‘Moses does not exist’, means ‘no man did such and such’ that might depend (and in fact, I think, does depend) on taking the theory in question as a theory of the meaning of the name ‘Moses’, not just as a theory of its reference. […] if ‘Moses’ means the same as ‘the man who did such and such’ then to say that Moses did not exist is to say that that then man who did such and such did not exist, that is, that no one person did such and such . If on the hand, ‘Moses’ is not synonymous with any description, then even if its reference is in some sense determined by a description, statements containing the name cannot in general be analyzed by replacing the name by a description.

However, it seems to be the case that when one’s says that “Moses did not exist”, it is not understood as there being no one who did such and such, but that the man about which these things have been attributed in fact never existed. In other words, the descriptive content is somewhat irrelevant, as we are able to refer to Moses independently of the content. A clearer way of stating this is that if Moses only means ‘the man who parted the Red Sea’, and if this is all that there is known about him (that he did this one act), then if the predicate of the sentence containing the descriptive content is negated, it still seems as if one has referred independently of the uniquely determining descriptive content of the proper name: “Moses did not part the Red Sea.” In this instance, has not the name still referred independently of the descriptive content? Hence, descriptions can be contingent, but proper names are necessary—they always refer to the object independently of the properties that one ascribes to the object, and they do so in every possible world in which that object exists.

The necessary nature of proper names has led Kripke to classify them as rigid designators: “Let’s call something a rigid designator if in every possible world it designates the same object. […] In these lectures, I will argue, intuitively, that proper names are rigid designators.” Kripke asks his reader to consider the following example: ‘Richard Nixon’ is a proper name, and according to description theory, it means something such as ‘the man who won the election to become the President of the United States of America in 1968.’ Kripke argues that the name ‘Nixon’ is a rigid designator, thus necessarily referring to Nixon, while ‘the man who won the election to become the 37th President of the United States of America in 1968’ is contingent, and it can easily be imagined that there exists a world in which Nixon did not win the election in 1968, but for example Hubert Humphrey did (in fact Nixon defeated Humphrey by less than 1% of the popular vote; thus, it was very close to actually happening). In consideration of these facts, Kripke states,
Although the man (Nixon) might not have been President, it is not the case that he might not have been Nixon (although he might not have been called ‘Nixon’). Those who have argued that to make sense of the notion of rigid designator, we must antecedently make sense of ‘criteria of transworld identity’ have precisely reverse the cart and the horse; it is because we can refer (rigidly) to Nixon, and stipulate that we are speaking of what might have happened to him (under certain circumstances), that ‘transworld identifications’ are unproblematic in such cases.

Thus, the proper name will always pick out the same referent in any possible world in which that object actually exists, but any definite descriptions that we use to refer to the object is only a contingent matter and can always be consider as not obtaining while reference still occurs; hence, reference is not dependent on descriptions.

Having established the basics of the Kripkean critique of the description theory of language, his direct arguments against Fregean proper names may be considered.

Firstly, if one considers the sentence ‘Antonín Dvorák is the composer who wrote the famous string quartet The American’, then it will be the case that according to Fregean description theory ‘Antonín Dvorák’ means ‘The composer who wrote the famous string quartet The American’. However, this seems to go beyond something that is trivially true (dare I say tautologically true) but rather is informative in that it is an empirical matter and is not necessarily true. Hence, description theory seems to give such proper names unwanted necessity in that for Dvorák to be ‘Dvorák’ he necessarily would have had to written “The American”, but one can easily imagine a world that this is not the case.

Secondly, one seems to be able to refer to Dvorák independently of the description that he is ‘the composer who wrote The American’. The significance of this is that the descriptive content seems not to be a priori. In other words, knowing the name of something or someone does not require that a description about that thing can be derived from the proper name. As such, it seems to be very improbable that the associated description of a proper name is a priori. However, as according to the description theory, proper names are merely disguised descriptions, and thus the meaning of a name is given by its description; yet if this is the case, then to know a proper name is by definition to know a description—this simply requires unnecessary a prioricity. There is an exception to this; for example, when someone says, “by ‘x’ I shall mean ‘y’”, though this really is quite an insignificant point.

Thirdly, considering the same sentence, if ‘Dvorák’ means ‘The Composer that wrote The American’, if for some reason Dvorák did not actually write The American, but Johannes Brahms did, then every time one used the name Dvorák they actually mean Brahms because Dvorák just means ‘The composer who wrote the famous string quartet The American.’ Again, this seems intuitively wrong. Reimer in her essay “Reference”, arguing Kripke’s point, states, “All this suggests that names are rigid: such that they refer to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists. But definite descriptions, in contrast, do not appear to be rigid.” This is exactly Kripke’s point: if names are abbreviated descriptions, then one finds oneself referring to the object of the descriptive content rather than that to which the name refers. In other words, when one says “Dvorák”, one means Dvorák and not Brahms.

Of course, this is much like Kripke’s Gödel’s example. Despite the fact that one might be wrong, confused, misinformed, when one uses a name, one refers to that object. An individual who is sufficiently lacking in a certain area of study might not have a description that individuates a certain object, yet he or she still seems to be able to refer uniquely to that individual; again, if this where not possible, the question ‘who is Aristotle?’ would not make sense, for there is not enough descriptive content (according to description theory) for the individual asking the question to actually be able to refer to Aristotle at all. Such problems are indeed problematic for description theorists.

By treating names as tags that are able to refer independently of descriptive content, Kripke presents some very challenging results for description theory. Though Kripke sees definite descriptions as being used to initially fix the referent of proper names (though he does not think this is generally true), he does not see them as necessary parts of proper names. Names, for Kripke, do not have description (sense), their meaning is solely determine by that to which they refer, and they are necessary not contingent. By holding to such a position, Kripke is able to avoid all of the above predicaments. This has caused many people to take hold of a Kripkean position of some sort, albeit sometimes modified versions as well as traditional ones.

Despite the popularity the Kripkean position, there remain a couple of points that seem to hold negatively against it. Frege’s use of sense as an element built into the constitution of proper names provided an incredible, if not unmatched, explanatory power of language: the notion that proper names possessed sense, enabled Frege to account for reference, meaning, co-referring terms, identity statements, intensional statements, cognitive significance (as Frege’s system relates to proper names), and even truth-conditions for sentential propositions.

The irony of the above analysis of Kripke’s attempt to dismantle the Fregean view that proper names possess descriptive content is that Kripke has failed to give an account of cognitive significance between co-referring names. Frege begins his paper “Sense and Reference” with an analysis of the distinction that is to be found between ‘a = a’ as compared to ‘a = b’. That is, why is there cognitive significance between two different names that have the same reference? Kripke in his critique removed the notion of sense, making words nothing more than tags, which refer to the same object. In doing so, he also removed the capacity to give an explanation for the cognitive significance of ‘a = b’ as compared to ‘a = a’. Frege’s sense, however, was introduced to resolve this problem, and the irony of the situation is that in the removal of sense, one also loses the capacity to account for the very thing its introduction was intended to correct, undermining the entire purpose of Frege’s work in “Sense and Reference.” Consider the identity statement Hesperus is Phosphorus: if one takes Kripke’s position that these names are merely tags in the Millian sense, then the notion of cognitive significance is very problematic. For if a name has nothing beyond the fact that it refers to something as the totality of its intrinsic meaning, then what makes these two tags significant. Frege’s answer is that they have sense, such that they present the referent in different perspectives, offering an account of the significance of such names.

From the description theorist’s perspective a beautiful and instrumentally superb unity has been lost in Kripke’s critique of Fregean sense, for it was the thread that held Frege’s analysis of proper names and language together. That is, a single notion of sense did more explanatory work in the philosophy of language than any other single unified theory has ever achieved. The complexity of filling in the gap that Kripke created in arguing against a Fregean analysis is not merely in formulating a new concept of sense, but formulating a concept of sense that can fill Frege’s shoes, so to speak—a notion that can as a unified whole account for cognitive significance, reference, co-referring terms, saturation in concept-functions, truth-conditions, intensional statements, referent determination, meaning and individuation.

The philosophy of language has a long way to go, and that cannot be denied. However, what can be observed while reading both Frege and Kripke and seeing the incredible achievements procured in the progression of the philosophy of language is the greater need yet to reconsider the fundamentals from where it all began: That is, some notion of sense (or something that can account for the complexities the absence of sense has left) must be introduced in a way that is cohesive with the observations of Kripke on the limitations of descriptive content, or otherwise one most capitulate to the idea that Frege was wrong and then confess to philosophy’s complete and utter lack to give an account of cognitive significance thus far, given the Kripkean Framework. Such a position though would not seem conducive to progression, for simply put, Frege got something right about sense and its explanation of cognitive significance. Needless to say, the mystery of the philosophy of language has been shown to be far greater than originally thought—the hope of which will be that the applied diligence of great minds will result in a unity and explanatory comprehensibility first exhibited in the work of Gottlob Frege’s “Sense and Reference,” and one that can live peacefully in a Kripkean world.

El problema es la inconsistencia de la conjunción de las siguientes tesis:

(DR) Un término t es un designador rígido de un objeto x si y sólo si (a) t designa x en todos los mundos posibles en los que x existe y (b) t nunca designa otro objeto en ningún mundo posible.

(M) El significado y el referente de un nombre propio son idénticos.

(T1) El contenido semántico de una oración S es la proposición que S expresa.

(T2) Lo que uno cree cuando cree lo que una oración S dice es que la proposición que S expresa es verdadera.

(F) Un hablante competente puede creer coherentemente que a = a y, al mismo tiempo, no creer que a = b (donde ‘a’ y ‘b’ son nombres propios, y por ende, designadores rígidos, que refieren al mismo objeto).

La tesis que muchos se inclinan a rechazar es (M). Sin embargo, creo que (M) es, si no verdadera, por lo menos plausible. Un argumento muy simple en favor de (M) es el siguiente (a fin de evitar mayores complicaciones excluyo de mi discusión expresiones que contengan indexicales y expresiones ambiguas):

(P1) El significado de una expresión E de un lenguaje L es aquello que permanece constante a través de los diversos usos que los hablantes de L puedan hacer de E en diferentes contextos.

(P2) Lo único que permanece constante a través de los diversos usos que los hablantes de L hacen de un nombre propio n en diferentes contextos es el referente de n.

(C1) El significado de n es su referente.

El contenido de (P1) me parece importante desde un punto de vista semántico. Es precisamente por el hecho de que los significados de las expresiones lingüísticas permanecen constantes que podemos entender y explicar oraciones de nuestro lenguaje que jamás hemos visto u oído antes. (P2) es una consecuencia plausible de los argumentos de Kripke en contra del descriptivismo. Digo plausible porque éstos no establecen contundentemente la verdad de (P2). Sin embargo, no conozco otra alternativa lo suficientemente sólida y convincente al respecto. En todo caso, mi intención no es la de defender (M) sino la de mostrar que uno no tiene que rechazar (M) para intentar darle una solución razonable al problema planteado.

Otra de las tesis que suele ser rechazada es (F). La razón es la siguiente: si aceptamos (M) y tanto ‘a’ como ‘b’ son nombres propios de un mismo objeto, entonces se sigue que ‘a’ y ‘b’ significan lo mismo. Si, además, (T1) y (T2) son verdaderas, entonces creer que a = a es lo mismo que creer que a = b. Por lo tanto, (F) es falsa. Éste es, muy brevemente, el razonamiento de muchos de los llamados Millianos (aquellos que defienden la verdad de (M)). El problema con este resultado es que es poco intuitivo. Para usar el ejemplo dado en el post anterior, el Milliano sostiene que (3) y (4) significan lo mismo:

(3) Eudoxo cree que Héspero es Héspero.

(4) Eudoxo cree que Héspero es Fósforo.

Sin embargo, intuitivamente, el contenido de la creencia de Eudoxo en (3) es a priori y trivial, mientras que en (4) no pareciera trivial. Así que no estoy convencido de que uno deba rechazar (F).

La tesis que creo que uno puede rechazar es (T2). Para mostrar esto quiero usar la distinción que introduce Scott Soames en Beyond Rigidity entre el contenido semántico de una oración S y lo que S asevera. Muy brevemente, la idea es la siguiente: locuciones de oraciones (no ambiguas y sin indexicales) frecuentemente resultan en aseveraciones de múltiples proposiciones. Qué proposiciones serán aseveradas por una locución de S dependerá de (i) el significado (contenido semántico) de S y (ii) los elementos relevantes del contexto en el que dicha locución ocurra.

Por ejemplo, supongamos que en una conferencia Claudia me pregunta “¿Quién es el que está hablando?” Yo respondo “El que está hablando es Saul Kripke”. Luego, Ricardo le pregunta a Claudia si sabe cómo se llama el que está hablando. Claudia responde “Eduardo me dijo que el nombre del que está hablando es ‘Saul Kripke’.” Intuitivamente lo que dijo Claudia es verdadero. Sin embargo yo nunca dije, sensu stricto, que el nombre del que estaba hablando era ‘Saul Kripke’. Soames explica este fenómeno así: el contenido semántico de ‘el que está hablando es Saul Kripke’ no es ‘el nombre del que está hablando es ‘Saul Kripke’’. Sin embargo, mi locución de la oración en cuestión en el contexto descrito asevera que el nombre del que está hablando es ‘Saul Kripke’.

Si la explicación dada es correcta, entonces podemos construir el siguiente argumento:

(P3) Lo que uno cree cuando acepta sincera y reflexivamente una oración S es lo que S dice.

(P4) Lo que una oración S dice en un contexto C no sólo es el contenido semántico de S, sino también lo que S asevera.

(C2) Lo que uno cree cuando acepta sincera y reflexivamente una oración S no sólo es el contenido semántico de S, sino también lo que S asevera.

Si (C2) es verdadera, entonces la proposición que S expresa (su contenido semántico) no es el único (y, en algunos casos, no es el) objeto de lo que uno cree cuando cree lo que una oración S dice. Por lo tanto, (T2) es falsa.

http://socialistica.lenin.ru/analytic/txt/k/kripke_1.htm

nu am voie sa spun de la cine. so... daca vreti sa multumiti, o descriere de genul "persoanei care i-a trimis linkul catre (...) lui alex" cred ca ar fi ok.

Nu stii despre ce e vorba ? Vezi ce zice wikipedia, aici. Poza ? De aici.

Either way, words are a superposition of other things. We can almost take quantum mechanics now as a special case of Wittgenstein and Kripke. They say that everything is language. Without language nothing would exist, including consciousness. It is how we think. So maybe the uncertainty in a wavefunction of a particle is really due to the fact that their is uncertainty in the superposition of terms describing it. When we pinpoint the terms and collapse the wavefuntion, it is no longer uncertain. This is the case for every physical object. They exist and are concrete precisely because we have named them and collapsed the wavefunction.

Probably lots of holes with this since I haven't thought about it much, but I think there might be something there.

(DR) Un término t es un designador rígido de un objeto x si y sólo si (a) t designa x en todos los mundos posibles en los que x existe y (b) t nunca designa otro objeto en ningún mundo posible.

Kripke usa la noción de designador rígido para refutar las teorías descriptivistas del significado de los nombres propios. Estas teorías sostienen (D1) o (D2):

(D1) El significado (contenido semántico) de un nombre propio es (o es determinado por) una descripción o un conjunto de descripciones que hablantes en distintos mundos posibles asocian con el referente del mismo.

(D2) El significado (contenido semántico) de un nombre propio es (o es determinado por) la descripción o conjunto de descripciones que los hablantes del mundo actual asocian con el referente del mismo.

Por lo tanto, es razonable inferir que Kripke aceptaría (M):

(M) El significado y el referente de un nombre propio son idénticos.

Agreguemos a esto las siguientes tesis semánticas generalmente aceptadas:

(T1) El contenido semántico de una oración S es la proposición que S expresa.

(T2) Lo que uno cree cuando cree lo que una oración S dice es que la proposición que S expresa es verdadera.

Teniendo esto en cuenta, considera las siguientes oraciones:

(1) Héspero es Héspero.

(2) Héspero es Fósforo.

Si la noción Kripkeana de designador rígido es correcta, entonces tanto (1) como (2) expresan verdades necesarias (en otras palabras, (1) y (2) son verdaderas en todos los mundos posibles en los que Venus existe). Sin embargo, Kripke asume que (1) y (2) son normalmente usadas para expresar diferentes cosas. Por ejemplo, si a un griego de la antigüedad (llamémoslo ‘Eudoxo’) le dices (1), él consideraría que no le has dicho nada nuevo. No obstante, si a Eudoxo le dices (2), él consideraría que lo que dices es falso o, si te cree, que estás diciendo algo sorprendentemente verdadero. Por lo tanto, Kripke parece asumir que las oraciones (3) y (4) pueden tener diferentes valores de verdad:

(3) Eudoxo cree que Héspero es Héspero.

(4) Eudoxo cree que Héspero es Fósforo.

En otras palabras, la intuición de fondo parece ser la siguiente:

(F) Un hablante competente puede creer coherentemente que a = a y, al mismo tiempo, no creer que a = b (donde ‘a’ y ‘b’ son nombres propios, y por ende, designadores rígidos, que refieren al mismo objeto).

Pero es claro que (F) contradice (DR), (M), (T1) y (T2). ¿Cómo resolver el conflicto? ¿Cuál de estas tesis [(F), (DR), (M), (T1) o (T2)] rechazarías? ¿Por qué?

0.1    INTRODUCTION

The three lectures that Saul Kripke gave at Princeton University in the January of 1970 were intended primarily to distinguish between conceptions of the a priori, the necessary, and the analytical. Whereas before, the logical tradition had conceived of these concepts as being at least intertwined, if not wholly inexorable, Kripke set out to show that our knowledge of a state of affairs can be either contingent and a priori, or necessary and a posteriori. He attempted this task with significant success using what is essentially intuitive logic based on a number of hallowed examples.

The following presentation is intended to explore some of the more interesting and controversial aspects of Kripke’s philosophy. To begin with I would like to briefly examine both how and why Kripke came to (over)emphasise the role of communicative links in determining the referent of a designation. Having thereby made a few general points of criticism, the second part of the presentation shall examine the essentialist aspect of Kripke’s philosophy of modality as it emerges from both his requirement for temporal continuity in making identity statements and his overconfidence in the claims of Science.

1. From OSTENSIVE SENSE to MEANINGFUL REFERENCE

1.1 According to Bertrand Russell, ‘This’ and ‘that’ are the only ostensively referential proper names.

1.11 But as Kripke aptly notes: “… of course ordinary names refer to all sorts of people … to whom we can’t possibly point.”

1.12 In addition to this, I would like to suggest that although these designators ostensively determine their unique object of reference, they in no way provide any further indication concerning the modal nature of the referent. Eg. Is ‘this’ to be understood as this very object as it is determined presently? [Move the object] Is it still this object? Does its designation have a past or a future? ‘This’ or ‘that’ provides no indication whatsoever.

[1.13 Cf. Wittgenstein’s example of the multiple meanings/uses for the word/name/command ‘Slab!’ in Philosophical Investigations, #6-23.

1.14 N.B. It is a commonly made grammatical error to use ‘this’ in the conversational introduction of an object; eg. ‘I was talking to this guy the other day…’ In cases such as these, the ostensive nature of the proper name seems to have moved from signifying an external referent to referencing the use of the object descriptor itself.]

1.2 Kripke criticises W. Kneale’s assertion that:
Ordinary proper names are not, as John Stuart Mill supposed, signs without sense. While it may be informative to tell a man that the most famous Greek philosopher was called Socrates, it is obviously trifling to tell him that Socrates was called Socrates; and the reason is simply that he cannot understand your use of the word ‘Socrates’ at the beginning of your statement unless he already knows that ‘Socrates’ means ‘The individual called “Socrates”.

1.21 Kripke is overly pedantic in his criticism of Kneale’s unfortunate use of the word ‘was’.

1.22 (While) Kripke is justified in arguing that ‘Socrates’ might refer to many individuals or something else entirely.

1.23 I concur with Kneale that long before we are provided with any further descriptive information, the grammatical sense/use of a proper name ostensively indicates its nature as a rigid designator. It is “your use of the word” that gives it away.

1.231 In an episode of the American sitcom ‘Friends’, Rachael’s sister repeatedly calls Phoebe by incorrect names. Eventually Phoebe can’t stand it anymore and blurts out ‘Phoebe!’ Rachael’s sister is momentarily taken aback before she comically responds, ‘That was a funny noise.’

1.3 The following is Kripke’s account of how a chain of reference is established:
Someone, let’s say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a name. They talk about him to their friends. Other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain. A speaker who is on the far end of this chain, who has heard about, say Richard Feynman, in the market place or elsewhere, may be referring to Richard Feynman even though he can’t remember from whom he first heard of Feynman or from whom he ever heard of Feynman. He knows that Feynman is a famous physicist. A certain passage of communication reaching ultimately to the man himself does reach the speaker. He then is referring to Feynman even though he can’t identify him uniquely.

1.301 Such thinking then leads Kripke to the following conclusion:
Usually, when a proper name is passed from link to link, the way the reference of the name is fixed is of little importance to us. It matters not at all that different speakers may fix the reference of the name in different ways, provided that they give it the same referent.

[1.31 Kripke’s assessment of Keith Donnellan’s mistaken champagne example might be used to bolster his argument. ]

1.32 Consider the following real-life conversation:
ROSS: Those pants of yours hang pretty high.
ELISA: I look like Paula.
ROSS: Who’s that?
ELISA: All of Paula’s pants are too short on her.
ROSS: Who is this Paula person?
ELISA: Some girl who used to work with Claire.
ROSS: Ah.

1.321 Elisa’s first descriptive response (in addition to the imparted knowledge that she looked like Paula) was unsatisfactory to me as fixing a unique referent. Elisa’s second attempt satisfied my need because I know Claire personally.

1.322 Consider the following alternative responses and their adequacy in fixing a reference in Ross’ mind :

1.3221    ‘Claire’s friend’ is satisfactory if I know who Claire is.

1.3222    ‘A girl from work’ is satisfactory in so far as it suggests the path of referential ‘chain.’ If, however, I was mistakenly convinced that I was familiar with all of Elisa’s workmates, I might require further descriptions to amend this anomaly.

1.3223    ‘No one you know’ would be satisfactory if I am willing to accept Elisa’s implicit reasons for giving such an overly limited designation. If, however, I suspected her, say, of having an affair with Paula, I might not be satisfied with this response at all.

1.3224 ‘That girl I introduced you to at the party last weekend’ might be satisfactory if I could remember the instance and thereby make the referential connection. If my memory failed me, however, I would probably use this further information as impetus to ask for a description of Paula’s physical attributes.

1.3225 ‘She only has one eye’ may not be satisfactory if I know of no one with only one eye. If, on the other hand, I do, this very unique description of Paula’s physical characteristics, may serve to bypass #1.3224

1.3226 ‘Paula Abdul’ might be satisfactory if I know of the famous singer, Paula Abdul.

1.3227 ‘She wrote the book, Short Pants’ might be acceptable if I know of the book.  If I can’t recall an acquaintance with it, then some further description of the book might suffice, regardless of whether I know it or not. (Cf. #2.24 and Kripke’s example of circularity on p. 81)

1.33 Perhaps, owing to the large variety of ‘ways’ that reference of a name can be fixed, Kripke was right to imply that it is of little importance which way in particular is deemed satisfactory.  However, I want to emphasise here that, although the methods do vary, the ‘way’ that a name is (psychologically) fixed is of the utmost importance in accepting the communicative link from one person to another.

1.331 Such thinking stands in stark contrast with Kripke’s view that a reference is fixed “not by a ceremony that he makes in private in his study [(or in this case, his own mind)]”

[1.332 Although in cases, such as exemplified by #1.3223 and the later part of #1.3227, the speaker fixes no particular referent, the designation may nevertheless be deemed satisfactory by the recipient of the name; merely as something they don’t know.

1.3321 Consider an instance where one is introduced to a name that belongs to an unfamiliar field of knowledge. Often one accepts the name as a rigid designator of something unknown to them. Eg. ‘Khamat is a name belonging to the Jewish tradition; something, of which, I know very little.’]

1.4 Far from being of little significance, the way (that is to say, how) the reference of a name is fixed is the primary task of many typically commended cultural endeavours; Philosophy included.

1.41 Although the same referent may be given, a significant proportion of our use of language is devoted to the (existentially) important task of establishing (psychological and/or institutional) connotations and descriptions of referents, be they scientific, historical, sociological, or even personal.

1.42 Furthermore, in the majority of cases, although paradigmatic crisis may be remote, the very existence of the referent (as we know it) remains potentially at risk.

[1.421 Consider Kripke’s own assertion that “if … the supposition that there is one uniform substance or kind … proves more radically in error, reactions can vary: sometimes we may declare that there are two kinds of [the substance]; sometimes we may drop the term [that referred].” ]

2. PLAUSIBLE POSSIBILITIES born of TEMPORAL CONSISTENCY

2.1 Kripke quotes Timothy Sprigge as saying:
The internalist [which means the believer that there are some essential properties] says that the Queen must have been born of royal blood. [He means that this person must have been born of royal blood.] The anti-essentialist says there would be no contradiction in a news bulletin asserting that it had been established that the Queen was not in fact the child of her supposed parents, but had been secretly adopted by them, and therefore the proposition that she is of royal blood is synthetic …

2.11 The internalist is correct in so far as such a revelation would be likely to create a furore of royalists who would claim that the woman hitherto referred to as the Queen is, in fact, an impostor and not the Queen at all.

2.12 The rigid designator of ‘the Queen’ would adequately refer to the woman in question, at least, colloquially. Whether or not such a discovery as Timothy Sprigge suggests would concurrently render the throne empty is, I think, a matter more of a legal nature.

2.13 Kripke sympathises with the internalist/essentialist by saying:
How could a person originating from different parents, from a totally different sperm and egg, be this very woman? One can imagine, given the woman, that various things in her life could have changed … but what is harder to imagine is her being born of different parents. It seems to me that anything coming from a different origin would not be this object.”

2.14 Kripke’s conception of what is counterfactually possible requires that the divergence between the actual referent (this very object) and its imagined counterpart must share a point of temporal congruence that can be, in a sense, traced back to a point in (what is assumed to be) their actual existence.

2.141 For example, consider the difference between asking: “Can we imagine a situation in which this very woman [(i.e. the one born of royalty)] came out of Mr. and Mrs. Truman?” ; with ‘Can we imagine a situation in which this very woman (i.e. she that was crowned Queen) instead became a pauper?’

[2.142 However, if she had become a pauper and you asked this very woman (i.e. the Queen) about it, she’d have no recollection of her counterfactual experiences.]

2.143 Kripke also gives the example of a table made of different materials and, therefore, having different origins. Of the counterpart, Kripke says: “it is to imagine another table.”

2.1431 If the Queen had have been abducted at some stage in her life and been removed far from her factual surroundings, then, owing to the human body’s natural process of rejuvenation, in time the actual Queen and the possible Queen would be - like Kripke’s table example - composed of entirely different materials.

2.15 If, as Kripke allows, a person can be temporally traced back to the individual sperm and ovum that spawned them, then could this very woman (the Queen) have been born as the two bastard children of Mr. and Mrs. Truman in conjunction with the Queen’s factual parents, given certain infidelities?

2.16 Given that the passage of time is linear and something at sometime does something to momentarily fracture the continuity of the time-space continuum, how could we know that the Queen or indeed any of us hadn’t been ‘switched’ surreptitiously during the time-quake? (Cf. Phillip K. Dick’s Impostor)

2.2 Science, Kripke tells us, makes use of “theoretical identities [that] are generally identities involving two rigid designators and therefore are examples of the necessary a posteriori”

2.201 Kripke interprets Putnam as saying: “The original concept of [general designator] is: that kind of thing, where the kind can be identified by paradigmatic instances.”

2.21 The key here seems to be that “the way we identified [the general phenomenon] fixed a reference.”

2.22 A particular phenomenon (eg. Queen Elizabeth II) could be fixed just as specifically as any “statements representing scientific discoveries …”

2.221 And yet, colloquially, we don’t restrict our use of names as rigorously as is done in the sciences.

[2.2211 ‘Water = H2O’ as much as ‘Air = O2’

2.2212 Pure water (as opposed to tap water, ball water, rain water, dyed water, spring water, etc) is composed only of H2O molecules.

2.2213 H2O can also be Ice or Steam.

2.222 Any number of similar vernacular examples can be produced for Kripke’s other scientific examples: eg. Bengal tiger, Royal tiger, Tasmanian tiger, Sabre-toothed tiger, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Cougar, Tamil tiger, a stuffed/toy tiger, tiger-snake; AND/OR forked-lightning, chain-lightning, ball-lightning, field-lightning, fool’s-lightning (?), thunder, etc.]

2.23 Our everyday vernacular use of words (such as water) is not as essentially paradigmatically rigid as it is in the Sciences.

2.231 However, it is possible to imagine a scenario where, say, a historian discovered that the character and/or actions of Moses was in fact a complete and utter fabrication. Might they not, then, conclude that the actual (literal) referent did not exist? (See #1.411)

[2.2311 Consider a comparison with Simone Weil’s defence of the factuality of The Holy Resurrection: “Surely those who are called blessed are they who have no need of the resurrection in order to believe, and for whom Christ’s perfection and the Cross are in themselves proof”

2.2312 Then surely the so-called contingent descriptions of the actions and words of even a merely figurative Jesus’ should be sufficient to inspire religious faith. For “what gives the proof its force is beauty” ]

2.24 I suspect that statements of scientific discovery appear somewhat incontrovertible (i.e. necessary a posteriori) because science’s creation of general names not only involves baptizing ‘things’ in a fashion similar to Wittgenstein/Kripke’s example of ‘the meter’ (which moves from the particular to the general), but furthermore does so by taking what is universal (i.e. the natural phenomenon) and creates/conjures ‘universal’ (i.e. general) concepts to explain/define/designate it.

[2.241 For example consider the following:
Q: ‘Why is one body of matter attracted to another (i.e. why do things fall to the ground)?’
A: Gravity.
Q: What is Gravity?
A (scientific): ‘a more precise description of the phenomenon using mathematical formulae (eg. F=ma).’
A (lay): Gravity is the attractive force between one body of matter and another (i.e. Gravity is things falling to the ground)

2.242 Cf. Goethe’s assertion: “The magnet is a primeval phenomenon where mere naming already serves as an explanation”

2.243 Cf. Arthur Schopenhauer’s assertion: “… it is silly to seek the cause of gravity or of electricity, for they are original forces” ]

2.25 Scientific realism is not uncontroversial.

3. CONCLUSION

3.1 In accordance with his primary agenda, Kripke was bound to emphasise the ‘naming’ component of a rigid designator.

3.11 Naming and Necessity unduly under-emphasizes the descriptive component of a rigid designator.

3.12 For the purposes of a formal modal logic, philosophical positions that dictate to what extent singular and/or general names are/aren’t connotative may be indispensable.

3.13 For The Philosophy of Language the positions suggested by #3.12 are all too restrictive and do not authentically reflect the extremely flexible nature of language as it is used universally.

3.2 Both the naming component (even if absent ) and the descriptive component (even if only implicitly connotative ) play an inexorably interdependent role in determining the referent of a rigid designation.

3.21 To what extent either component features is contextually dependent.

I've started reading an essay by Crispin Wright entitled "Does Philosophical Investigations §258-60 Suggest a Cogent Argument against Private Language?", and though I don't think he writes poorly, I'm still a fan of Kripke's. Perhaps, he could offer a class on writing in philosophy? I would be the first on the list.

I just came across a complete lecture by Kripke on googlevideo. It's quite long and Kripke is quite strange, but for a fan like myself it is interesting to see the man talk.

Something else: although Kripke is an orthodox Jew and probably doesn't celebrate Christmas, this made me laugh.

La idea central de Kripke es que si el significado de un nombre n fuese dado por alguna descripción D (o un conjunto de ellas), el reemplazo de D por n no afectaría el significado de la oración del que n es parte. Sin embargo, Kripke sostiene que dicho reemplazo modifica el perfil modal de la proposición expresada por la oración en cuestión y, por ende, el significado de la misma. Por ejemplo, supongamos que el descriptivista sostiene que el significado de ‘Aristóteles’ es ‘el alumno más brillante de La Academia’. Si el descriptivista estuviese en lo correcto, (1) y (2) expresarían la misma proposición verdadera:

(1) Necesariamente, si Aristóteles existió, Aristóteles fue Aristóteles.

(2) Necesariamente, si Aristóteles existió, Aristóteles fue el alumno más brillante de La Academia.

Sin embargo –Kripke sostiene– es obvio que no es así: mientras que la proposición expresada por (1) es trivialmente verdadera, la proposición expresada por (2) es claramente falsa. La proposición expresada por (2) es falsa, ya que, por ejemplo, es posible que Aristóteles nunca hubiese escuchado de La Academia o que se hubiese dedicado a cualquier otra cosa menos a la filosofía. En otras palabras, hay mundos posibles en los que Aristóteles fue un campesino de Estagira; hay otros en los que fue a La Academia pero no fue el alumno más brillante de su clase; hay otros en los que fue un alfarero mediocre; etc. No obstante, no existe un mundo posible en el que Aristóteles no fue Aristóteles. Por lo tanto, Kripke concluye que las teorías descriptivistas de los nombres propios son falsas y propone en su lugar que los nombres propios son designadores rígidos.

A pesar de estar de acuerdo con Kripke, creo que hay una preocupación metodológica de fondo que es legítima y que el Argumento Modal nos ilustra. Por un lado, es innegable que no basta con ser un hablante competente de un lenguaje L para entender, corroborar o rechazar explicaciones o tesis semánticas sobre L: la semántica es una empresa altamente teórica y las intuiciones lingüísticas de los hablantes de L no son confiables desde un punto de vista semántico. De otro lado, lo que uno normalmente somete a prueba cuando uno quiere ver si una hipótesis semántica H es verdadera son, entre otras cosas, las predicciones que dicha tesis genera. Si las predicciones en cuestión no concuerdan con las intuiciones lingüísticas de la mayoría de hablantes competentes de L, entonces –a falta de una explicación sólida de por qué sucede esto– uno debería rechazar o por lo menos dudar de la verdad de H.

En el Argumento Modal, Kripke apela a nuestras intuiciones sobre el perfil modal de la proposición expresada por (2) a fin de rechazar una tesis semántica. Pero, ¿por qué deberíamos darle más crédito a nuestras intuiciones que a la tesis descriptivista? Este caso es particularmente difícil ya que Kripke apela a intuiciones sobre las nociones técnicas de necesidad y posibilidad. El hablante competente promedio del Castellano (y, me atrevería a apostar, de la mayoría de lenguajes naturales) usa estas nociones de manera sustancialmente diferente al uso reglamentado del filósofo y el lógico. Éste sería un problema grave si el único argumento en contra del descriptivismo fuese el Argumento Modal. Felizmente hay muchos otros. Sin embargo, esta tensión entre lo que se suele llamar el sentido común (o en este caso 'intuiciones') y la filosofía reaparece con frecuencia en distintas áreas de la investigación filosófica y uno se ve muchas veces en el problema de decidir cuánto peso se le debería asignar al mismo. Éste es, sin duda, un problema difícil.

]]> http://manwithoutqualities.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/kripke-on-churchs-thesis/ Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:09:16 +0000 manwithoutqualities http://manwithoutqualities.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/kripke-on-churchs-thesis/ A surprisingly aged Kripke lecturing (84 minutes)

and on the occasion of his 65th birthday: The First Person (83 minutes) with Q & A (13 minutes)