Kripke’s Naming and Necessity is an edited transcription of three lectures. Topically also, it can be divided into three parts: (i) an introductory discussion of a number of concepts, (ii) Kripke’s criticisms of, and his own alternative to, a common theory of proper names, and (iii) the consequences of his view of proper names for a number of issues, most of which are tied in some way to equality or identity. The two divisions into three don’t quite coincide, with each of (ii) and (iii) beginning a few pages before the respective lecture. I’ve followed the division of topics in my assignments, which will form three groups (consisting of 4, 3, and 6 classes, respectively, followed by a final class focusing on the book’s preface).
The first lecture is introductory and addresses a number of topics. Kripke first lays out the basic issue concerning the semantics of proper names that will be at the center of the whole book, and that discussion is your first assignment.
• First note Kripke’s stipulation of the terminology (proper) name, (definite) description, and designator (p. 24). (Even before this, Kripke mentions his views on the term unicorn; he doesn’t return to them in the main text but he does in the first of the Addenda at the end, pp. 156-158.)
• Donnellan’s example (p. 25) and Kripke’s extension of it to names (in note 3) point to an important distinction analogous to the distinction between implication and implicature that some of you have encountered in Phi 270. Kripke developed this distinction elsewhere but it plays little role in these lectures.
• The central topic of Naming and Necessity is the choice between the two views of proper names that Kripke attributes to Mill on the one hand and Frege and Russell on the other. He describes the difference initially on pp. 26-27. Before going on, think about which you favor; Kripke will support Mill.
• Kripke mentions a series of three arguments for the Frege-Russell view (one in each paragraph on pp. 27-29). Each amounts to a puzzle about names for which the Frege-Russell views offers a solution. Once Kripke has argued against the Frege-Russell view, he will take on the task of solving (some of) these puzzles from his point of view.
• The specific form of the Frege-Russell view, Kripke will eventually argue against is the “cluster concept” theory he motivates and introduces on pp. 30-31.
• Kripke finishes framing the issue concerning proper names that he will discuss by making a distinction between giving meaning and determining (or fixing) reference (pp. 32-33).
In the rest of the first lecture, Kripke discusses a number of different ideas he will used in his discussion of the meaning of proper names. In this assignment we will look at way of relating the concepts of the necessary, the a priori, and the analytic. This is one of Kripke’s original contributions and has proved to be very influential.
• He begins with a discussion of the logical complexity of the concept of the a priori (pp. 34-35).
• Next he turns to the most original part of this discussion (pp. 35-38). He distinguishes between the a priori and the necessary in a way that points to the possibility of necessary truths known a posteriori and contingent truths known a priori. Although his discussion of the Goldbach conjecture points to an example of the former, clearer and more important examples will appear later. The idea of the contingent a priori is less central to his later discussion, but he will offer an example in the final part of the first lecture and another sort of example later in the book.
• His short account of reasons we people have linked ‘necessary’ and ‘a priori’ (pp. 38f) anticipates views about the relation of knowledge and necessity that will become more apparent in the following two assignments.
• Finally, he offers an account of the meaning of “analytic” (p. 39).
The discussion of connections among the concepts of necessity, reference, and quantification had been begun by Quine in the 1940s, but it became especially active in the late 1960s, partly as a result of Kripke’s own work in developing the logic of modalities. In Naming and Necessity, Kripke presents the philosophical underpinnings of his logical work and also responds to both Quine and the discussions of these issues in the years just prior to the lectures.
• He begins with the idea of necessity de re—i.e., the idea of properties that hold necessarily but hold independently of the way things are referred to (and so the necessity can be attributed to the things themselves—i.e., it is de re—rather than merely to what is said—i.e., it is not de dicto).
• First Kripke outlines Quine’s concerns about quantification and modality (pp. 39-42).
• Then he restates the issues as a problem of “transworld identification” (pp. 42-43).
• Next he argues that this is a pseudo-problem (pp. 43-47).
• Kripke next develops his own views on modalities de re.
• He introduces the idea of a rigid designator and states his view of proper names in terms of it (pp. 47-49).
• He then distinguishes the issue of transworld identification from a question concerning the identification of objects in terms of their parts (pp. 49-53).
For the last of his introductory discussions, Kripke returns to the distinction between giving meaning and fixing reference (see pp. 32-33 for his first discussion of these ideas).
• Kripke first offers an illustration of the distinction that also provides an example of a contingent truth known a priori (pp. 53-57).
• He then extends these ideas to the case of proper names (pp. 57-58).
• And he uses this distinction to indicate two ways of understanding the Frege-Russell theory of proper names (pp. 58-59).
In these two assignments Kripke presents the description theory of names in the form he intends to criticize and then offers a detailed criticism of it. Although the presentation and criticism are mixed to some degree, the first assignment will mostly focus on presentation and the second on criticism.
The theory is presented at the end of Lecture I (pp. 64f, 68) and summarized again at the beginning of Lecture II (p. 71); Kripke explains the final point (C) further in his Addenda (pp. 160-162). The following is a slight restatement of the theory (in the dark type) with an indication (in lighter type) of the role of its various components. The components of the theory are numbered as they are on pp. 64f and 71; and, at the right, I’ve noted locations where Kripke criticizes various aspects of the theory.
| The description theory | Criticisms |
| I. As a definition, let us say for speaker A and designating expression X: | |
| (1) the cluster that A associates with X is the collection φ1, φ2, ... of properties φ such that A believes ‘φX’—i.e., such that A believes ‘X has the property φ’. | |
| II. Then the following hold: | |
| A. (2) there are properties in the cluster that A associates with X which are believed by A to pick out an individual uniquely; | (2) pp. 80-82 |
| B. The reference of the name X in the language as A speaks it is determined by the cluster that A associates with X in the sense that | |
| (3) any object with a (weighted) majority of the properties in the cluster is the referent of the name, and | (3) pp. 82-85 |
| (4) if no unique object has a (weighted) majority, then the name does not refer | (4) pp. 86-87 |
| C. The property of having most of the properties φ1, φ2, ... in the cluster that A associates with the name X is part of the content of the name for A in the sense that we can say of the sentence ‘If X exists, then X has most of the properties φ1, φ2, ...’ that it | |
| (5) is known a priori by A | (5) pp. 66-67, 87 |
| (6) is a necessary truth in the language as A speaks it | (6) pp. 61-62, 74-78 |
| III. Moreover, this account of reference is non-circular in the sense that | |
| (C) any involvement of the concept of reference in the properties of the cluster is ultimately eliminable |
In this relatively short section of Lecture II, Kripke presents his own theory (or, as he says, “picture”) of how proper names refer.
• Kripke’s picture is most directly an answer to the first of the three problems that the description theory seemed well suited to deal with (see pp. 27-29). He presents the picture with this in mind on p. 91 and summarizes it again on p. 96. The picture soon came to be referred to as a “causal (or causal-historical) theory of reference.” Setting aside the question of whether Kripke has provided a theory, do you think that label is appropriate? And, of course, ask yourself whether Kripke’s picture really solves the first of the three problems.
• Kripke also says in passing here as much as he does anywhere in these lectures about the third of the problems from pp. 27-29 (see the discussions of “Santa Claus” and “Napoleon” on pp. 93, 96f and the further comments in the Addenda on p. 163).
• Kripke avoids committing himself to many details of his picture, but he does address some subtleties in his discussions of the quotation from Strawson (which appears on p. 90 just before this assignment begins) and of the contrasting examples of “Newton” and “George Smith” (pp. 95f).
The main topic of in this part of the lectures is an account of identities between proper names—the second problem for a theory of proper names that Kripke had stated in lecture I (pp. 28f).
• Kripke will latter consider a similar question about general terms for “natural kinds.” He introduces this question (along with a third issue he will discuss later) at the beginning of this assignment on pp. 97-100.
• Kripke’s discussion of identity between names (pp. 100-110) introduces his central examples of necessary truths that are not known a priori, and it leads him to offer his main defense of the claim that such things are possible. The basic idea in this defense appears first at the top of p. 102 and is restated in important ways also on p. 104 (notice the idea of qualitatively indistinguishable evidence) and on p. 108 (notice the conditional that Kripke says is known a priori).
In this and the next several assignments, Kripke extends the ideas developed in his account of identities between proper names to terms for properties and kinds. He first focuses on the essential properties of an individual.
There are immediate connections between this discussion and things you’ve already seen. First, an ascription of an essential property is a claim of necessity de re. In each case, it claimed about a thing that something is necessarily true of it. Second, one example of an essential property is the property of being Aristotle, or being Phosphorus—i.e., the property expressed by ‘is N’, where N is a proper name. Kripke’s main point in these pages then generalizes his claim about identities between proper names: other ascriptions of essential properties also might be known only a posteriori even though they are necessary.
He makes this point with regard to two examples, first Queen Elizabeth (pp. 110-113) and then a wooden table (pp. 113-115), with his main discussion of the latter appearing in several long footnotes. In each case, he will point to an idea that appeared several times in his discussion of identities between names (see especially p. 104): something that seems consistent with what we know may really be impossible and, when we seem to conceive its possibility, we are imagining a situation that is “qualitatively identical” to the actual one but in fact involves different objects.
This is the first of two assignments in which Kripke turns from proper names to terms for substances or “natural kinds.” As his opening comments suggest, he will eventually focus on a sort of identity statements involving such terms, but he first addresses their meaning.
• Kripke introduces the issue briefly in the first pargraph of this assignment (pp. 115f).
• Next (pp. 116-123) he discusses the meaning of natural kind terms in a way that is analogous to his discussion of the meaning of proper names. He states the analogy explicitly in a later paragraph (pp. 127f).
• In between (pp. 123-127) is a discussion analogous to his discussion of the essential properties of particular objects. Indeed, the statements he considers in here will often amount to generalizations whose instances ascribe essential properties to individuals.
• In the final part of this assigment (pp. 128-134) Kripke finally addresses identities between natural kind terms. Pay particular attention to his discussion of heat since that example will play a role also in the final part of lecture III.
The remainder of Kripke’s discussion of theoretical identities has two parts.
• The first (pp. 134-140) is a helpful summary (in five points) of his account of natural kind terms.
• He then goes on to state his views on theoretical identities (pp. 140-144), pointing to their analogies with identities between proper names.
The last part of Kripke’s lectures turns to a quite different topic, the mind-body problem. This topic is addressed at all only because Kripke wishes to argue that a point he made concerning theoretical identifications does not apply to identifications of pains, for example, with neuro-physiological states or processes.
• Kripke first introduces the issue and notes its historical connection to Descartes (pp. 144f).
• He then notes the problem his account of theoretical identifications poses for proponents of the identity of pains and brain states, speaking initially of particular pains and particular brain states (pp. 146-148).
• Next he formulates the issue as it applies to the identification of types of mental states with types of brain states and suggests a reply that might be attempted (pp. 148-150). (In the rest of the lecture, to be discussed next time, he will respond to this line of argument.)
This part of Kripke’s final lecture turns to a quite different topic, the mind-body problem. This topic is addressed at all only because Kripke wishes to argue that a point he made concerning theoretical identifications does not apply to identifications of pains, for example, with neuro-physiological states or processes.
• Kripke first introduces the issue and notes its historical connection to Descartes (pp. 144f).
• He then notes the problem his account of theoretical identifications poses for proponents of the identity of pains and brain states, speaking initially of particular pains and particular brain states (pp. 146-148).
• Next he formulates the issue as it applies to the identification of types of mental states with types of brain states and suggests a reply that might be attempted (pp. 148-150).
• The final and most important part of this discussion is his consideration of this reply (pp. 150-155). Since the reply follows the lines of things he has said about theoretical identifications in other cases, he must say what is special about this case. He finds the special features in the relation of pain (and other mental states) to the idea of qualitatively identical epistemic situations. (See, for example, Kripke’s talk of “immediate phenomenological quality,” p. 152; but also see footnote 77, p. 155, to get a balanced sense of his views on the mind-body problem.)