Kripke would have us say... — Banno
You haven't even tried, Banno. — Janus
Of course common naming of kinds and attributes is necessary for description, but proper naming is not.
And as for proper names being rigid designators 'The man who was president of the US at such and such a time and date' is as much a rigid designator as 'Donald Trump' because the latter must be shorthand for ' The man who was named 'Donald Trump' at such and such a time and date.'
There could be many other individuals named 'Donald Trump', so the name alone would not seem to be a rigid designator. — Janus
The man who was president of the US at such and such a time and date' is not a rigid designator because it might have been that someone else was president on that day. — Banno
Second, there could indeed have been a conspiracy such that Donald Trump is not current president, but there could also be a conspiracy such that Donald trump does not exist, and that the figure we know is a CGI. — Janus
I get the actual part. But I don't see that you have given any reason that someone else might not have actually been president... — Banno
There is only one actual world. Every true sentence about the stuff in it is necessarily true. — frank
Necessity is not truth with respect to the actual world. It is truth with respect to all possible worlds (within some restricted domain). — Snakes Alive
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