Saul Kripke

Saul Aaron Kripke (b. 1940, Omaha, Nebraska, Nebraska) is an American philosopher and logician now emeritus from Princeton and professor of philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center. He has been immensely influential in a number of fields related to logic and philosophy of language. Much of his work remains unpublished or exists only as tape-recordings and privately circulated manuscripts. He is nonetheless widely considered one of the most significant philosophers alive, and was the winner of the 2001 Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy.

Naming and necessity

Kripke's three lectures constitute an attack on the descriptivist (Fregean, Russellian) theory of reference with respect to proper names, according to which a name refers to an object by virtue of the name's being associated with a description that the object in turn satisfies. He gave several examples purporting to render descriptivism implausible (e.g., surely Aristotle could have died at age two and so not satisfied any of the descriptions we associate with his name). As an alternative, Kripke adumbrated a causal theory of reference, according to which a name refers to an object by virtue of a causal connection with the object as mediated through communities of speakers. In this way, names are rigid designators: it refers to the named object in every possible world in which the object exists. Causal theories of reference have since been elaborated and developed by Hilary Putnam, Keith Donellan, Gareth Evans, and others, and are perhaps more widely held than descriptivist theories now. Notable holdouts include John Searle.

Related Topics:
Fregean - Russellian - Proper names - Descriptivism - Causal theory of reference - Rigid designators - Possible world - Hilary Putnam - Keith Donellan - Gareth Evans - John Searle

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Kripke also raised the prospect of a posteriori necessities—facts that are necessarily true, though they can be known only through empirical investigation. Examples include “Hesperus is Phosphorus”, “Cicero is Tully”, and other identity claims where two names refer to the same object.

Related Topics:
''a posteriori'' - Necessities

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There is controversy as to whether Kripke was in turn echoing earlier work by Ruth Barcan Marcus in both these ideas.

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Finally, Kripke gave an argument against identity materialism in the philosophy of mind, the view that every mental fact is identical with some physical fact (See talk). Kripke argued that the only way to defend this identity is as an a posteriori necessary identity, but that such an identity—e.g., pain is C-fibers firing—could not be necessary, given the possibility of real honest-to-goodness pain that has nothing to do with C-fibers firing. Similar arguments are defended today by David Chalmers.

Related Topics:
Identity materialism - Philosophy of mind - David Chalmers

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Kripke delivered the John Locke Lectures in philosophy at Oxford in 1973. Titled Reference and Existence, they are in many respects a continuation of Naming and Necessity, and deal with the subjects of fictional names and perceptual error. They have never been published and the transcript is officially available only in a reading copy in the university library, which cannot be copied or cited without Kripke's permission. In fact many copies are informal circulated among philosophers. Its influence, though considerable, is thus difficult to trace. However, it has been extensively referred to by some Oxford philosophers who were able to attend, particularly Gareth Evans.

Related Topics:
John Locke Lectures - Oxford - 1973 - Fictional names - Gareth Evans

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