It seems to me to be more like a discussion of what he sees as flaws in some historical 'schools of thought'. — creativesoul

Forty or fifty years ago, that historical school of thought was The One.

But not any more.

And that's because, in a large part, of N&N.

So, yes.

So back to understanding Kripke. pp.93-95 or thereabouts. He doesn't want to present a better theory, just to point out how the existing theory is wrong. But he does present something - will we call it a description? The description is at odds with the theory that reference is determined by definite descriptions. Kripke asks us to reject the picture that led to this theory, and to think again about the relation between names and things.

it is in virtue of our connection with other speakers in the community,
going back to the referent himself, that we refer to a
certain man.

And it's not that one cannot, in the privacy of one's lounge, assign a name to such-and-such. This does happen; but it is the exception. In the vast majority of instances, this is not so.

And in all instances the community is involved.

In
general our reference depends not just on what we think ourselves,
but on other people in the community, the history of
how the name reached one, and things like that. It is by following
such a history that one gets to the reference.

The word "history" here took root, so that some talked of Kripke having an historical theory of reference. I think that overplayed, but we may see.

I tried to read N&N several times, but I always came to a stop, because of lack of meaning. I mean, what is the whole point of the book? Why is it important? Will I better myself reading and understanding it, or is it just a complete waste of time? I was unable to answer these questions, but then again people say it is important, yet I fail to see it. So, would anyone here care to explain its importance?

It's not important. If you have a choice, avoid it.

For sure? You are not just saying that to get me off your back, right?

Never. N&N is obscure discussions about esoteric ideas about a small part of language.

Just the sort of thing I like.

Welcome to the forums.

And it's not that one cannot, in the privacy of one's lounge, assign a name to such-and-such. This does happen; but it is the exception. In the vast majority of instances, this is not so. — Banno

I occasionally mention on these boards, a person I call "Mrs un". If you want a definite description, "Mrs un is the woman I live with." Or an alternative, and equally definite description, "Mrs un is the mother of my daughter".

So if I am to be believed, then you know that I live with a woman and we have a daughter. It is a non-counterfactual possibility that Mrs un and I split up, and then she would no longer be the woman I live with, but the woman I used to live with. But there is no non-counterfactual possibility that would make her no longer the mother of my daughter. Yet it is counterfactually possible, that we might have had a son, or two daughters, or none. And all of this is perfectly comprehensible.

Yet though Mrs un is a real person, "Mrs un" is not her real name. You, most of you, do not know her real name, or anything about her that would allow you to pick her out in a line-up of women, even if you could question them - many women have daughters and live with philosophers. You know exactly who I'm talking about, yet you have no idea who I'm talking about.

What has to happen for a reference to be successful? When has one used a proper name properly? — Banno

The answer to the first question is that the audience has to understand what you're saying. The answer to the second? I think that's a matter of rule following.

Yep.

But that picture of naming was held by most analytic philosophers for at least a century.

N&N killed it.

odd, that such similar question have different answers.

N&N killed it. — Banno

Where did I go wrong?

You went wrong?

I dunno. Perhaps I should ask what is

that picture of naming — Banno

?

perhaps.

You and I seem to agree that descriptions, definite or not, are not compulsory for names to do their thing.

Please forgive me if this has already been covered, but isn't insensitivity to change or counterfactual supposition precisely the behaviour we'd want out of our practices of referring?

An apple sits alone in my fruit bowl. Through its process of ageing, its skin turns from green to red in patches, maturing into a uniform red , eventually it begins decaying; the red turns to brown, mould starts to appear and it loses its shape, becoming more black mulch than apple. Its smell changes from barely detectable from range apple scent to the sweetness of rot and alcohol. The process of decay causes it to collapse in on itself. Now it's a pile of smelly mouldy black crap the flies are feasting on.

Throughout that description, the apple loses the colour of its skin; the definite description 'the green apple in my fruit bowl' stops picking out the entity I'm referring to - the same for all the properties it has which change over the course of decay. Regardless of the point in the description however, the 'it' refers to the apple. IE, regardless of the changes in the apple's properties, it is still that which is being referred to, and 'it' still picks out the unique entity in the description.

Imagine instead that referring really only works in the presence of a definite description, the 'it' at the beginning is 'the lone apple in my fruit bowl', at some point that 'it' must stop referring to the apple iff a unique reference must be accompanied by a definite description. This, however, is not what we observe when reading the paragraph; it tracks a process of change of a unique entity; facilitated by the rigidness of 'it' there;, rather than a series of transformations between distinct ones; the distinctions each furnished with their necessary definite description which at some point fails to obtain.

You need to clean your kitchen a little more frequently.

You need to embrace spontaneous composting.

Ok. Throw some egg shells in with it.

The definite description of the particular apple you are referring is the one you have given of the whole process of the change from apply freshness to mouldy noxiousness that occurred to a particular apple. Of course, the process might not actually have occurred in your kitchen and you could be referring to a hypothetical apple. You might not even have a kitchen for all I know; in which case you won't have to worry about cleaning it.

N&N killed it. — Banno

And, if that is indeed so, you think it has been a good thing?

You know exactly who I'm talking about, yet you have no idea who I'm talking about. — unenlightened

I'll stick with 'I have no idea who you're talking about'. at least beyond the descriptions (definite or otherwise) you have offered, and whatever can be inferred from those.

The definite description of the particular apple you are referring is the one you have given of the whole process of the apple's change from apply freshness to mouldy noxiousness that occurred to that particular apple. Of course, the process might not actually have occurred in your kitchen and you could be referring to a hypothetical apple. You might not even have a kitchen for all I know; in which case you won't have to worry about cleaning it. — Janus

An apple sits alone in my fruit bowl. Through its process of ageing, its skin turns from green to red in patches, maturing into a uniform red , eventually it begins decaying; the red turns to brown, mould starts to appear and it loses its shape, becoming more black mulch than apple. Its smell changes from barely detectable from range apple scent to the sweetness of rot and alcohol. The process of decay causes it to collapse in on itself. Now it's a pile of smelly mouldy black crap the flies are feasting on. — me

(this will hence be called the paragraph)

I'm unconvinced. The paragraph regarding the apple contains various phrases that reference the apple, whose ability to refer doesn't depend on the entire paragraph being a definite description. For example, the 'its' in the first line refers to an apple which is not showing signs of decay, whereas 'eventually it' refers to an apple which is showing signs of decay. In order for the first 'it's reference to require the construction of the entire paragraph it seems to me that if the words after an it were removed, all previous its would stop referring as there would no longer be the same definite description underlying them all. IE:

An apple sits alone in my fruit bowl. Through its process of ageing, its skin turns from green to red in patches, maturing into a uniform red — fdrake

(this will hence be called part 1)

apparently requires:

eventually it begins decaying; the red turns to brown, mould starts to appear and it loses its shape, becoming more black mulch than apple. Its smell changes from barely detectable from range apple scent to the sweetness of rot and alcohol. The process of decay causes it to collapse in on itself. Now it's a pile of smelly mouldy black crap the flies are feasting on.

(this will hence be called the part 2)

for the various 'its' and 'it's used in the passage to refer to the apple in the bowl in the first place.

Moreover, if what you say is true truncating the paragraph at some point must also produce definite descriptions of the same entity. I believe it should be the case that if two definite descriptions apply to something those definite descriptions should not be contrary; eg, 'My father' should not share a referent with 'my mother'. This is problematic, as truncating the paragraph at:

An apple sits alone in my fruit bowl. Through its process of ageing, its skin turns from green to red in patches, maturing into a uniform red — fdrake

gives a definite description which requires the apple to have turned from green to red; any other changes are counterfactual suppositions. Then when we include the next part of the paragraph:

eventually it begins decaying; the red turns to brown, mould starts to appear and it loses its shape, becoming more black mulch than apple. Its smell changes from barely detectable from range apple scent to the sweetness of rot and alcohol. The process of decay causes it to collapse in on itself. Now it's a pile of smelly mouldy black crap the flies are feasting on.

The apple is now required to be brown, mouldy, and descending into mulch. The two definite descriptions are contrary, thus they must refer to distinct entities. However, there is a single entity whose properties and transformations the descriptions track.

Furthermore, even if we grant that the entity associated with the description in part 1 and the entity associated with the description in part 2 are the same, this makes the additional information in part 2 entirely superfluous for the purposes of securing reference to the entity. IE, the entity in part 1's reference is not sensitive to counterfactual supposition or change; as part 2 destroys those properties of the apple which facilitate its definite description in part 1.

I don't have time for detailed response just now, so I'll keep it short.

The "it" referring to the fresh apple and the "it" referring to the mouldy apple both refer to the same apple, it seems. The descriptions "fresh' and "mouldy" are not mutually exclusive but part of a greater description that helps to defines that particular apple (time, dates and location are also required). Its whole history is its completed identity. Of course logically. it's history could have been different; in which case its identity would have both been different, and yet the same. It seems there are different senses of 'identity'. The old 'Star Trek transporter accident scenario' where there ends up being two versions of you illustrates this paradox. Which one is you?

The "it" referring to the fresh apple and the "it" referring to the mouldy apple both refer to the same apple, it seems. The descriptions "fresh' and "mouldy" are not mutually exclusive but part of a greater description that helps to defines that particular apple (time, dates and location are also required). Its whole history is its completed identity. Of course logically. it's history could have been different; in which case its identity would have both been different, and yet the same. It seems there are different senses of 'identity'. The old 'Star Trek transporter accident scenario' where there ends up being two versions of you illustrates this paradox. Which one is you? — Janus

It seems to me that the issue concerning the reidentification of a material particular (or substance) as being numerically the same at two moments in time, in spite of qualitative change, is orthogonal to the issue of the rigidity (or lack thereof) of the referring expressions that are being used to denote it in particular instances. In @fdrake's example, the first part stipulates the existence of an individual (i.e. the apple) and assigns some properties to it. Thereafter, it seems to be assumed that this individual has conditions of persistence and individuation such that it can survive some qualitative changes while remaining numerically the same individual. The several occurrences of "it" all pick up the same individual just in virtue of them being used to refer anaphorically to whatever the first singular expression (i.e. the anaphoric antecedent "an apple...") was referring to. That would be true, it seems to me, regardless of the individuation conditions for apples, and regardless of the rigidity of the anaphoric antecedent.

The issue wouldn't arise if time was instantiated linguistically into the sentence. Would it?

The issue wouldn't arise if time was instantiated linguistically into the sentence. Would it? — Wallows

What issue? You may be thinking that definite descriptions of particular material substances at least implicitly assign times (or time periods) to the properties that are being ascribed to them within the description. I would agree. Within a Fregean logical framework, predicating a property of an individual without assigning a time constitutes an unsaturated thought (and an incomplete predication). A time must also be supplied in order that the 'thought' (Fregean proposition) be complete and truth evaluable. And likewise, in the case of definite description, a time must be supplied (either implicitly or explicitly) in order that the definite description could saturate the sentence it is a part of.

Why do they use the word "saturate"? Is it borrowed from oil painting?

Yeah, you pretty much nailed it (figuratively and literally). Every document has a timestamp on it, thus why not assume the same when you invoke "duration" or "period" into a sentence?

"Sameness" might be the issue here.

Wht do they yse the word "saturate"? Is it borrowed from oil painting? — frank

In Frege's philosophy of language, predicates are unsaturated expressions since they have empty slots that require filling with singular terms in order to constitute propositions and express thoughts.

Hence, for instance, "... is red" is a predicate and an unsaturated expression.
"The apple is red" is saturated. But it is saturated in part because it is tensed. It expresses that the apple is red currently. On the other hand, the non-tensed expression "The apple being red" is unsaturated, because it fails to specify at what time the apple is claimed to be red.

I think the entire debate here is missing something very important. fdrake just offered a perfectly understandable scenario in which the same name is successfully used to identify an object with changing properties. I'm reminded of Heraclitus' river. If it is the case that a description of properties is both necessary and sufficient for identification of fdrake's apple, then only the descriptions which denote and/or describe the changes would be necessary to pick out that particular object.

That's just not the case.

Those descriptions apply to more than just that apple. However, the name alone cannot do the job all by itself either. It is also not necessary and sufficient. The name "apple" applies to more than just that one in particular.

Identity requires both, a name and a set of definite descriptions. Neither is sufficient all by itself. Both are necessary. Successfully identifying a particular object in this world requires both. Before we can talk about this apple in another world, we must identify it in this one. That requires distinguishing it from all the other apples. That distinction requires descriptions of particular circumstances regarding this particular apple and not that one.

After the object is identified with both name and descriptions, and only after that has happened, can we talk about and successfully disregard the descriptions and retain identity.

There's something odd about Kripke's remarks about Peano's axioms.

If we believe that person A did such and such, but that belief is false, then when we talk about who did such and such, we're talking about what we believe to be the case. We're talking about person A. If we learn that person B did such and such, we learn that it was not person A. At that time, and never before, we would be referring to person B when we talked about the person who did such and such.

Let "such and such" equal invent/discover Peano's axioms. Let person A equal Peano. Let person B equal Dedekind.

Kripke's argument here presupposes that false statements about someone in particular cannot refer to that someone in particular.

That's absurd.

Surely I've misunderstood Kripke? And there's this bit below...

pg. 89

It is true that most of us think that Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic. Why is this so? We certainly say, and sincerely, 'Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic'. Does it follow from that that we believe that Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic - that we attribute the in­completeness of arithmetic to this man? No.

No?????

Arrrgggh! For fuck's sake...

If we sincerely say "Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic" then that is a statement of belief. We believe that that statement is true. When one speaks sincerely, s/he believes what they say.

When we deliberately say something that we do not believe to be true, we are speaking insincerely.

Statements of belief are ones that the speaker believes. When a speaker is making statements that they do not believe, they are making statements that misrepresent their own thought/belief. One cannot do this accidentally. As soon as one says something, they know - beyond all doubt - whether or not they believe the words that came out of their own mouth. A sincere speaker automatically corrects the slip up.

One cannot sincerely state 'X' if one does not believe 'X'.

Sincere speech acts consist of statements that represent the speaker's belief. Insincere speech acts consist of statements that misrepresent the speaker's belief. Saying 'X' and not believing that 'X' is true is not sincerely stating 'X'.