Objects have meaning? — Banno

Not in isolation. This goes back to the Tractatus; but, objects have meaning in relation to other objects, which are states of affairs, deriving from atomic facts.

A definite description picks out one and only one individual. Agreed? — Banno

Sometimes. Definite descriptions also have covarying readings with no single referent:

"Every author who writes a story shows the story to an editor."

Here "the story" does not refer to a single story.

Some definite descriptions do not even refer to any existing individual:

"If I had written a story, I would have shown the story to an editor."

I'm still playing catch up. But, if you want to hear my dribble then a name attains meaning when it has a rigid designator that instantiates a concepts or a web of beliefs about it or otherwise known as definite descriptions in the world. My only concern is how do definite descriptions obtain wrt. to rigid designators. — Posty McPostface

A terminological thing here: a name doesn't have a rigid designator according to Kripke, it is a rigid designator. A rigid designator is a kind of term or word. A name has a referent.

My bolding.

Consider pp. 31-33, where Kripke points to a difference between a name having a meaning, and a name singling out its referent. "Moses does not exist". If the sentence is true, and Moses does not exist, then "Moses" means, say "the man who led the Israelites out of Egypt"; and refers to nothing, since there is no such man.

So there seems to be a difference between the meaning of a name and what it refers to. — Banno

I don't think there's any reason to think the name refers to nothing if there is no such man. That is, Moses need not exist for us to refer to him – we refer to all sorts of things that don't exist. Prima facie the opposite opinion isn't plausible, so I wouldn't adopt it without some good ulterior reason. And so I think this problem, or distinction, or whatever, doesn't get very far.

A terminological thing here: a name doesn't have a rigid designator according to Kripke, it is a rigid designator. A rigid designator is a kind of term or word. A name has a referent. — Snakes Alive

I will let Banno clarify my confusion. I've always held that objects are rigid designators to the act of baptism of a name.

I digress and hope you guys can flesh this beast out.

I will let Banno clarify my confusion. I've always held that objects are rigid designators to the act of baptism of a name. — Posty McPostface

Nope. "Rigid designator" applies to terms, or words. The definition is on p. 48. You can say that a name rigidly designates an object.

Yep. Names are rigid designators. It makes no sense to say names 'have' rigid designators.

Okay, then I had it backwards then. Thanks.

You can say that a name rigidly designates an object. — Snakes Alive

But not the other way around, yes?

Sure. Do you want me to say proper definite description, just to be clear?

I think I will just continue to take it as read.

Let's clarify the difference between a rigid designator and a definite description.

A definite description is (supposedly) a predication that picks out an individual by what it true of them. "The first man to walk on the moon" picks out Armstrong.

A rigid designator (supposedly) picks out the very same individual regardless of what is true of them. "Neil Armstrong might not have been the first man to walk on the moon."

The taste of N&N so far (we are up to about p30?) is that there are issues here that might be philosophically interesting.

SO if "Neil Armstrong" means "The man who first walked on the moon", and yet it is true that some other person, not Armstrong, might have accomplished that task in his stead, then...

Are we to conclude that the man who was first to walk on the moon, might not have been the first to walk on the moon? Or does this give some undue importance to the actual world? So the statement "Armstrong might not have been the first man to walk on the moon" really means that the man who, in the actual world, was first to walk on the moon, might not, in some other world, have been first to walk on the moon...

a name attains meaning when it has a rigid designator that instantiates a concepts or a web of beliefs about it or otherwise known as definite descriptions in the world. — Posty McPostface

Not a bad first guess.

Perhaps a name attains a meaning when it has associated with it a definite description, such that only the individual concerned instantiates the concepts or web of beliefs set out by that description.

This view could be contrasted with the view that a proper name rigidly designates the same individual regardless of what concepts or web of beliefs are true of it.

I'm not sure in what sense the examples I gave are 'improper.' I'd rather say that a definite description has a certain semantic function, which in some environments yields a single referent, and in others doesn't. A name, perhaps, yields a single referent in a wider variety of contexts, though names also don't always behave this way either.

But not the other way around, yes? — Posty McPostface

Right, an object (that isn't a word) doesn't designate anything, in Kripke's terminology.

SO if "Neil Armstrong" means "The man who first walked on the moon", and yet it is true that some other person, not Armstrong, might have accomplished that task in his stead, then...

Are we to conclude that the man who was first to walk on the moon, might not have been the first to walk on the moon? Or does this give some undue importance to the actual world? So the statement "Armstrong might not have been the first man to walk on the moon" really means that the man who, in the actual world, was first to walk on the moon, might not, in some other world, have been first to walk on the moon... — Banno

The significance of the claim, as I read it, is that the sentence 'Neil Armstrong might not have been the first man to walk on the moon' is true, and has no intuitively false reading. But if Neil Armstrong has the same semantic value as 'the first man to walk on the moon,' then there should be a false reading of that sentence (though there may be a true one as well, which you highlight here). In other words, the definite description account overgenerates readings here, and there is no way to read the sentence as necessarily false. This is evidence that the name refers to that man, and not to whoever was the first to do what he did.

A definite description is (supposedly) a predication that picks out an individual by what it true of them. "The first man to walk on the moon" picks out Armstrong.

A rigid designator (supposedly) picks out the very same individual regardless of what is true of them. "Neil Armstrong might not have been the first man to walk on the moon." — Banno

A couple things here:

-Definite descriptions and rigid designators aren't mutually exclusive. Most definite descriptions aren't rigid designators, but some, perhaps, are (I think Kripke's example is 'the even prime,' which rigidly designates 2).

-"The first man to walk on the moon" picks out not Armstrong, but whoever happens to have been the first man to walk on the moon. In actuality that happens to be Armstrong, so in the modal logic, relative to the actual world, it picks out Armstrong. "Armstrong," we might say, then just picks out Armstrong simpliciter, and its semantics has nothing to do with walking on the moon.

I really don't think these things can be elucidated without understanding the modal logic, so maybe we differ here. I'm almost inclined to think that reading NN is pointless without a first course in modal logic.

There's a need for something like a suspension of critique t to get at what is being said in a philosophical work.

And the next step - or few steps - in N&N is to seperate the a priori from the necessary.

Kripke points out that the traditional view, that a priori stuff is what is known without experience, is at the least debatable. His examples (p. 35) is a computer calculating that a certain number is a prime. We know this, not because of our own a priori calculations or what have you, but because we know and trust the computer, a result of our empirical understanding of how it works.

Goldbach's conjecture is that every integer greater than 2 is the sum of two prime numbers. It is (presumably) either true, and necessarily true, or it is false, and necessarily false.

But we don't know which.

We know, a posteriori, that it is true up to 400,000,000,000,000,000 or thereabouts, as a result of some clever computing.

Kripke pushes the wedge between being necessary and being a priori ever deeper.

Kripke is setting up the pieces for the forthcoming game. He intends to use the terms sorted here in particular ways. He is taking the formality of his previous work and setting out its implications. Doing so involves setting out ways of using these words.

Now if you want to object to this configuration, that’s fine. Me, I’m happy to go along with him just to see how it works out. And I think that the result is a reasonably coherent, consistent way of talking about names and nesecity.

Looks like this is turning out to be a dialogue between us two @Banno. Hundrum, meh.

Perhaps it is a bit tedious, but to steal from Wittgenstein, all we have done so far is to put the pieces on the board; the game hasn't quite started yet.

Perhaps it is a bit tedious, but to steal from Wittgenstein, all we have done so far is to put the pieces on the board; the game hasn't quite started yet. — Banno

Then please continue. I'm on page 34, reading about the a priori and necessary.

SO the point here is that what is a priori are things we know; it's an epistemological notion.

But that necessity is a metaphysical notion - it's necessary if and only if it is true in all possible worlds.

SO there is no simple relation between the two.

SO the point here is that what is a priori are things we know; it's an epistemological notion.

But that necessity is a metaphysical notion - it's necessary if and only if it is true in all possible worlds.

SO there is no simple relation between the two. — Banno

Understood. So, how does baptism occur? What are causal links? Ontologically speaking.

@Banno.

Kripke talks about "criteria of identity". Can you elaborate on this?

The question of essential properties so-called is supposed to be equivalent (and it is equivalent) to the question of 'identity across possible worlds'. Suppose we have someone, Nixon, and there's another possible world where there is no one with all the properties Nixon has ill the actual world. Which one of these other people, if any, is Nixon? Surely you must give some criterion of identity here! If you have a criterion of identity, then you just look in the other possible worlds at the man who is Nixon; and the question whether, in that other possible world, Nixon has certain properties, is well defined. It is also supposed to be well defined, in terms of such notions, whether it's true in all possible worlds, or there are some possible worlds in which Nixon didn't win the election. But, it's said, the problems of giving such criteria of identity are very difficult. — Kripke pg. 42

Well, what sort of thing is an essential property?

If one supposes that there are essential properties, and that these are what distinguish one individual from another, then to identify Posty McPostface in some other possible world, all one has to do is to find the individual with the essential properties of Posty McPostface in that world. Or something like that.

So these properties would be the criteria by which we recognise their Posty as the very same as our Posty.

But this is a wrong way to think about possible worlds.

I think of possible worlds as being stipulated: that is, we set them up as we want them to be. hence,

A possible world is given by the descriptive conditions we associate with it.

I think of possible worlds as being stipulated: that is, we set them up as we want them to be. hence,

A possible world is given by the descriptive conditions we associate with it. — Banno

Can you clarify your terms by which you mean "stipulative"?

Just that the possible world is built by our stipulation. Suppose that Moses did not lead the Israelites out of Egypt... The very act of making the supposition brings that possibility into the discussion.

...as opposed to the idea that we see possible worlds at a distance - through a lens, darkly. See p.44

This is perhaps best seen as a grammatical point. It is a rejection of an argument that might go as follows:

We cannot suppose that Moses could not have led the Israelites out of Egypt. For "Moses" refers to the man who led the Israelites out of Egypt. And if in some possible world the Israelites were not led out of Egypt by some man, then in that world there is no Moses. Further, it is not possible that someone else, who was not Moses, led the Israelites out of Egypt. In whatever possible world you pick, whomever leads the Exodus is Moses.

Again, I see Kripke here as setting up a decent modal grammar for English, by interpreting his more formal modal logic in English.

Again, I see Kripke here as setting up a decent modal grammar for English, by interpreting his more formal modal logic in English. — Banno

Please elaborate on that. I'm stumped by "trans-world identification" as I'm on page 44.

I'm stumped by "trans-world identification" — Posty McPostface

That's what Kripke avoids; one is not obliged to observe some possible world and identify an individual (a "counterpart") with some arbitrary degree of similarity to Moses and then posit that the person so identified is the very same as the actual Moses. One just stipulates the identity: suppose Moses only had one hand. Suppose Moses had an innate fear of water. Suppose Moses could not speak Egyptian.

Keep it simple.

Go on...