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 of things independently of the way they are referred to. First he 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).

In the remainder of this assignment, Kripke returns to the distinction between giving meaning and fixing reference (see pp. 32-33 for the introduction 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. 57-60), in the course of this (pp. 58-59) indicating two ways of understanding the Frege-Russell theory of proper names.