Yes, I understand. But it is still a strain to say that 'all possible worlds' of yesterday excludes the actual world of today. — unenlightened

I don't know what you mean by that. Who is saying or implying that? Can you make the thesis that you believe to be strained a little more explicit?

Yes. I could definitely agree with the idea that there are often times that we point to and/or otherwise fix a reference with ostension, initial baptism(first naming), and/or learning the name of what we talking about prior to being able to talk about it. Here, it is certainly clear that fixing the reference is prior to talking about the referent. So, I would readily agree that fixing the reference by ostension and/or naming must be done prior to being able to say anything more about the thing. But ought we limit this to the timeframe when one is first learning how to use language to talk about some thing? I think that with regard to language acquisition, fixing the reference must be prior to further describing the referent.

However...

There may be a bit of nuance here. More specifically, the means he's using to make his point do not warrant concluding that it is always the case that fixing a reference is done exclusively with proper names. I think that there are times between language acquisition and the ability to posit hypotheticals that we can and do fix the reference by virtue of description alone.

I see no reason to deny that we also can describe something that we do not know the name of. I would think that doing that is both - iafter learning how to fix a referent(by pointing, learning the name, and/or naming), and prior to being able to posit hypothetical scenarios.

Strictly speaking - on my own view - that would certainly amount to all description(even with regard to this in-between cases) being existentially dependent upon naming. However, I clearly work from a different framework than Kripke, so that much is irrelevant to the lectures.

So, the question then becomes is that description both necessary and sufficient for picking out the individual thing and only the individual thing. I do not think that this serves as ground to for wholesale denial of N&N. So, my intent here is not to discredit Kripke. Rather, I'm having trouble seeing any flaw in his work, aside from the fact that he's retaining the notions of necessity/contingency from possible world semantics(to put modal logic to good/better use I'm guessing?). Thus, he's also working from a notion of truth that I abhor. To his credit, he must grant these notions in order to most effectively discredit the versions of possible world semantics and/or theories of reference he's targeting.

I think the example of false belief is very very interesting. It shows that one need not say something true in order to successfully refer to something. It also shows the primacy that the proper name has with regard to referencing in such cases.

However, unless a proponent of descriptivism holds that descriptions must be true, I think that some of his remarks about that are off target. On second thought, I suppose that one would have to hold that descriptions be true... wouldn't they? If they were not, they most certainly could not pick out the individual unless they were accompanied by a name.

However, unless a proponent of descriptivism holds that descriptions must be true, I think that some of his remarks about that are off target. On second thought, I suppose that one would have to hold that descriptions be true... wouldn't they? If they were not, they most certainly could not pick out the individual unless they were accompanied by a name. — creativesoul

I think all that is required is that the speaker believes the DD to be true. The speaker uses a proper name P that she associates with an object that she believes to be part of the world and to satisfy the description D and to be the only object in the world that satisfies that description. If that is the case then the speaker has 'successfully referred to' the object. That is so even if P=Godel and D includes that Godel developed the Incompleteness Theorems and in fact those theorems were developed by Schmidt and only copied by Godel.

The listener will hear the name P and may or may not have heard it before and associated a DD with it. We may then wish to develop counterpart ideas about 'successfully interpreting a reference'. Only that gets more complicated because of possibilities such as mishearing.

I think all that is required is that the speaker believes the DD to be true. The speaker uses a proper name P that she associates with an object that she believes to be part of the world and to satisfy the description D and to be the only object in the world that satisfies that description. If that is the case then the speaker has 'successfully referred to' the object. That is so even if P=Godel and D includes that Godel developed the Incompleteness Theorems and in fact those theorems were developed by Schmidt and only copied by Godel. — andrewk

I can't make sense of this. You are saying that in order that a speaker be able to refer to an individual when she uses this individual's proper name, she must believe this individual to satisfy some definite description regardless of this description being true or false. Why is there any need for the definite description, then? How does believing falsely that Gödel proved some theorem (supposing that this belief is in fact false) helps a speaker refer to Gödel when she uses the proper name "Gödel"? If the truth of the description is irrelevant, why it is needed at all?

Notice that Kripke does allow that the definite description can play a role in reference fixing for the benefit of new initiates in the (already up and running) name using practice. But this works because some participants in the practice are acquainted with the named individual (and thus don't need to know about the definite description) and the definite description only serves to to hook up the new participants to the naming practice associated with the right individual when belief in the truth of the definite description is widespread in the community. The definite description thereby allows for disambiguation when other people have the same name (and/or the famous people convention isn't in play).

I was responding to creativesoul, who was talking about 'successfully referring to someone'. Now 'successfully referring' has not been defined, but I imagine the intention is for it to mean that the person speaking not only knows the name but also knows to whom the name attaches. That 'to whom' bit is the DD. If the DD is 'that person I was introduced to in the corridor yesterday at 12:09pm' or 'my boss' or 'the person who sings pop songs on telly and people call Justin Bieber' then it's straightforward.

It gets murkier when the DD is "the person you appear to be talking about, who is called 'Nixon' and who I've never heard of before this conversation". We could even discuss whether that is a DD, but I am inclined to say it is. The person that has never heard of Nixon before could still refer to him by asking

"This Nixon of whom you've been speaking sounds dishonest. I suppose we're lucky he was caught and had to resign his job."

It would be trickier still if the listener had been unable to make out any details of the conversation other than the occasional use of the word 'Nixon', which seemed to be being used as a name. eg if the speakers were teenagers talking very fast, idiomatic French, I would not be able to follow but I know that Nixon is not a French word and so could safely assume it is a proper name.

I could then ask "Pardonnez moi, s'il vous plaît, Qui est-ce, cette Nixon de qui vous parlez?"

I have no opinion about whether I have 'successfully' referred to Nixon or not in that sentence. But I do know that I have asked a clear question, which is all that matters.

I have no opinion about whether I have 'successfully' referred to Nixon or not in that sentence. But I do know that I have asked a clear question, which is all that matters. — andrewk

Aren't all the earlier examples that you gave examples where the speaker not only believes the definite description that she is making use of but the definite description also happens to be true of the individual that she is thinking about? In the post I had responded to, you had said, puzzlingly, that the speaker only needs to believe in the truth of the DD in order to refer.

In the last (quoted) example, you have indeed asked a clear question. You are requesting some help because talk of "Nixon" doesn't enable you to know who is being talked about until you will have been initiated into the relevant "Nixon"-naming practice (that refers to the former U.S. President, say). A definite description might fulfill that job, provided it is either true or expresses a widespread belief about Nixon.

Aren't all the earlier examples that you gave examples where the speaker not only believes the definite description that she is making use of but the definite description also happens to be true of the individual that she is thinking about?

Yes, but only because that's commonly the case and the question of false beliefs had not yet (to my notice) been raised. I don't think I said that the DD has to be true and if I implied that anywhere it was a mistake. My approach is that, in order not to be an insane rambling, a DD only has to be believed by the speaker, because the speech act only needs to make sense to the speaker in the first instance. Whether the speech act is intelligible to anybody else and the proper name used causes the listener to pick out the same individual as the speaker intended depends on a whole raft of other factors including context, language, elocution, volume, idiom and commonality of experience and knowledge.

Yes, but only because that's commonly the case and the question of false beliefs had not yet (to my notice) been raised. I don't think I said that the DD has to be true and if I implied that anywhere it was a mistake. — andrewk

On the contrary, I was puzzled by your suggestion that the DD associated with a proper name does not need to be true, so long as the speaker believes it to be true. So, I'm asking, if it's false, how do you account for the speaker being able to pick up the correct referent when she uses the name? If the definite description does not describe the named-individual, what good is it for? It would seem like the proper name makes all the necessary job of picking up its reference irrespective of the content of the associated definite description.

My approach is that, in order not to be an insane rambling, a DD only has to be believed by the speaker, because the speech act only needs to make sense to the speaker in the first instance. Whether the speech act is intelligible to anybody else and the proper name used causes the listener to pick out the same individual as the speaker intended depends on a whole raft of other factors including context, language, elocution, volume, idiom and commonality of experience and knowledge.

We were talking about a definite description associated with a proper name. If the proper name is "Gödel", and the associated description is "the author of the incompleteness theorems", and this description is false of Gödel because it's in fact some guy named Schmidt who authored the two theorems, Kripke has a good account for the fact that one can believe falsely that Gödel is the author of the incompleteness theorems and express this false belief about Gödel (as opposed to a true belief about Schmidt) when she says: "Gödel is the author of the incompleteness theorems". And that's because the use of the proper name "Gödel" to refer to Gödel, unlike the use of a definite description to refer to him, is information insensitive.

We were talking about a definite description associated with a proper name. — Pierre-Normand

Yes, where I differ from Kripke is that I require identification of the individual that does the associating. For a DD to be associated with a proper name, somebody has to associate it. In my view, the associater is the one speaking. When they use the proper name, they are referring to the object that is picked out for them, in their system of beliefs and experience, by the DD they associate with that proper name.

In a sense the belief that Gödel developed the incompleteness theorems is 'true for the speaker' if that's what they believe. In that sense, yes, the DD has to be true. But it may subsequently become untrue for the speaker if she later learns about the plagiarism of Schmidt's work. After that discovery, she would associate a different DD with the name Gödel, and would take care as to whether they used Gödel or Schmidt, according to whether she wanted to refer to Frau and Herr Gödel's son, or to the inventor of the Incompleteness Theorems.

Many people don't like the phrase 'true for person Y' but I find it very useful and almost impossible to do helpful philosophy without it.

I don't see what progress Kripke's account of the sentence "Gödel is the author of the incompleteness theorems" achieves. It concludes the sentence is false, but it was already false under a descriptivist account, when measured by the truth standards of somebody that knows about the plagiarism. It's not false according to the speaker, but that's to be expected, as she wouldn't say it if she knew it to be false.

As far as I can see, the sentence is true when analysed by the speaker and false when analysed by someone who knows of Schmidt, regardless of whether one takes a Kripkean or descriptivist approach.

Yes, I understand. But it is still a strain to say that 'all possible worlds' of yesterday excludes the actual world of today.
— unenlightened

I don't know what you mean by that. Who is saying or implying that? Can you make the thesis that you believe to be strained a little more explicit? — Pierre-Normand

Yes, I'll try and nail it down, and hopefully that will kill it.

"One Metre" once referred, in every possible world, to the length of the stick.

We now use "One Metre" to refer, in every possible world, to a different length determined by vibrations and stuff.

Two different uses of "One Metre", talking about different lengths. But one Metre is the same in all possible worlds. You might sometimes have to specify which one you are using. — Banno

I remember when the UK changed to decimal currency. The pound (£) didn't change, but the number of pennies in a pound changed from 240 old pence (d) to 100 new pence (p) and the poor old shilling and half-crown ceased to exist. So for a time there were old pence and new pence in common parlance. I still have a set of grocer's scales for weighing produce that has prices in old money - quite useless now.

But the change from old metres to new metres has not been so radical, and I can still use the old measuring tape for all purposes except the most esoteric physics experiments, so as far as I am concerned, a metre is still a metre. It is the fact that the old metre is to nearly all intents and purposes the same as the new metre, which deceives me into thinking they are the same thing.

So in all possible worlds, there are 240 old pennies in a pound, and the old metre standard is an old metre long, though it was always possible that we used an entirely different standard. The standard applies to all possible worlds to which the standard applies, and even to those it doesn't apply in, because when I talk about a penny these days, I don't mean the penny I used to talk about. There are still 240 of the pennies I used to talk about and keep in my pocket to a pound.

Is that about right?

In many cases where we make measurements, we don't care how closely our tape measure relates to the official metre, as long as we use the same tape measure for everything.

For example, we measure a piano to see if it will fit through a door. As long as we use the same measure on the piano and the door, it doesn't matter what units it uses.

Similarly when we are building something from wood and cutting the pieces to size ourself. If we use the same measure for everything, the pieces will all fit.

Ditto hanging a picture.

When I think about it, there have been very few tasks where the relation of the measure I was using to the 'official metre', whatever that was at the time, mattered.

In DIY as with language, context is (usually) everything.

When I think about it, there have been very few tasks where the relation of the measure I was using to the 'official metre', whatever that was at the time, mattered. — andrewk

It matters when you go shopping.

However, unless a proponent of descriptivism holds that descriptions must be true, I think that some of his remarks about that are off target. On second thought, I suppose that one would have to hold that descriptions be true... wouldn't they? If they were not, they most certainly could not pick out the individual unless they were accompanied by a name.
— creativesoul
I think all that is required is that the speaker believes the DD to be true. — andrewk

False description unaccompanied by proper name will not pick out the individual, will it - regardless of the speaker's belief?

Should we turn back and compare Kripke to Quine on essentialism? Or keep going?

I’m seeing some confusion in here. There is no such thing as a contingent necessity. ‘Contingency’ and ‘necessity’ are metaphysical terms that are mutually exclusive. The terms ‘a priori’ and ‘a posteriori’ are epistemic terms. “A meter is one hundred centimeters” is a contingent truth knowable a priori. It is contingent because the standard meter stick can vary in length due to the temperature of the physical stick. It is knowable a priori because of the meaning of the terms used. ‘Meter’ means ‘one hundred centimeters’. Hope this clears up some confusion.

It matters when you go shopping. — unenlightened

Not if you take your tape measure with you :joke:

There is no such thing as a contingent necessity. — Noah Te Stroete

That's the point at issue. Kripke says there is.

(ignore this... I misread the post.)

Could you show me the quote?

False description unaccompanied by proper name will not pick out the individual, will it - regardless of the speaker's belief? — creativesoul

Beth works in an office and occasionally sees a person that works on a different floor of the same company, That person has a disability that causes him to slur his words and need a walking stick to get about. Beth doesn't know about the speech disability and thinks the person is always drunk.

One day she sees him trip over in the lobby and goes to help him up. Later, talking to a workmate she says "You know that guy that walks with a stick and is always drunk? He fell over in the lobby today".

She has picked him out, despite the belief about him being drunk being false.

In practice, we have false items in our DDs of just about everybody. Usually they don't matter, because the item is redundant.

The whole book.

Good example.

Give me one example with context in which he says “contingent necessity”.

AJ Ayer called the necessary truths knowable a priori ‘analytic truths’. He called the contingent truths knowable a posteriori ‘synthetic truths’. Kripke is arguing that there are also two more categories of truths. The contingent a priori and the necessary a posteriori.

I do not think it would be worth looking at one example out of context. He is presenting a way of viewing philosophical topics, as implied by possible world semantics. Ignoring the background would be a sure path up the garden.

That’s why I said “with context”. Point me to a page where he says “contingent necessity”. I’m trying to help you.

Epistemically, we cannot know of any contingent necessary conditions of any other possible world apart from framing the issue wrt. to the actual world.

Yet, metaphysically you could do so.

Why the discrepancy?

I think that @Banno's point is that there's no smoking gun here. According to my handy PDF, neither the phrase "contingent necessity" nor some cognate pops up in the text. Yet that doesn't strike me as diminishing Banno's point at all, though I will let him speak for himself.

Where are we confused? What was his point? I studied this book in college. Perhaps I can help (or perhaps not) if you will let me.

I studied this book in college. — Noah Te Stroete

Me too.

My error; I misunderstood your post. Not enough sleep.