You are not reading the book, so you have no idea what he is saying - as is clear form your posts. — Banno

As I said before I am not going to read the book again. But since this is an open philosophy forum I consider I have the right to ask questions of those who are purporting to be offering exegesis of the work. No one need respond to my questions if they think they are inappropriate or even if they simply don't want to.

If you are going to respond then it should be done in good faith, without innuendo and insult, but with cogent arguments or quotes from the actual work that address what I am actually saying. You have not been doing that.

I have said from the start that in my view descriptions are more or less definite. — Janus

Which only shows that you have not understood definite descriptions. That is, you are talking about something else.

The question is not really about Nixon at all. — Janus

A question about Nixon is not about Nixon. This is about as demonstrable wrong as one could get.

Of course in a completely empty formal sense a question about Nixon is about Nixon. What I meant is that the substance of the question is not dependent on which human being it is about. And on a different point you as usual evade answering the question as to how you know which Nixon it is about. If you don't know that then it is just empty words. I think you are a dishonest interlocutor, Banno, more concerned with posturing than with sincere discussion. I won't bother you again.

And on a different point you as usual evade answering the question as to how you know which Nixon it is about. — Janus

...becasue we both know which Nixon it is about, but for some odd reason you pretend otherwise.

I won't bother you again. — Janus

Yes you will.

Yes you will. — Banno

OK, if you want to be bothered I will.

...becasue we both know which Nixon it is about, but for some odd reason you pretend otherwise. — Banno

So we know which Nixon it is about because we both know which Nixon it is about! The sky is blue because the sky is blue...great!

I haven't said we don't know; I asked you to explain how we know...

Perhaps a counterfactual about Nixon can be characterised in this way:

We focus on what things we wish to consider being different about Nixon, with everything else remaining the same if it does not create a logical contradiction. It will be relevant to consider whether the things that remain the same are sufficient to pick out Nixon in the alternate world.

Counterfactual 1: Would Nixon have retired from politics if he'd lost the 1968 election?

For that, a bunch of necessary properties could be everything that was true of our Nixon up to one week after he received the Republican nomination. It turns out that those properties are also sufficient in this counterfactual, as the only thing we are interested in varying about Nixon is his winning the 1968 election. So it's easy to make a DD that is necessarily true in all possible worlds of the counterfactual. Note that the only way this Nixon could be called something other than 'Nixon' in the alternate worlds would be if he changed his name between receiving the Rep nomination and the date of the presidential election.

This 'splitting time' approach doesn't work if we want to change something that happened before Nixon was conceived. So let's consider:

Counterfactual 2: 'If Nixon's parents had been living in Nevada when he was conceived, would he still have entered politics?'

The thing we want to change is the parents' residence at a point in time. Implicitly, we want to keep as much as possible up to the moment of conception the same as in this world because otherwise we have no basis for determining who represents our Nixon in the alternate world. So for instance we could require the world to match this up to the date of Nixon's older sibling being born. Then we require that the parents moved to Nevada some time between then and the time their second child was born. If that child was a boy, that is the representative of our Nixon, and he is uniquely identified by being the second son of parents that are uniquely picked out by virtue of sharing the same past as OUR Nixon's parents, up to the birth of their first child.

So even though this second counterfactual involves changes before Nixon began, there are DDs that uniquely identify him, and hence are rigid across all possible worlds under consideration in the counterfactual.

Where it gets trickier still is where we change something that extends indefinitely far into the past, for instance changing one of his parents. We consider:

Counterfactual 3: 'I wonder whether Nixon would have become a Republican if his mother had been the daughter of a freed slave.'
[I'm not suggesting that would be unlikely. After all Lincoln was a Republican]

In this case his entire ancestry on his mother's side is different, so the differences from this world go back indefinitely far. However I think we can still uniquely pick him out. We establish a DD that rigidly designates Nixon's father, and then identify Nixon, in all possible worlds under consideration, as the male second child of that man. Worlds where the father does not have a second child that is a boy are not accessible.

Now I don't think we necessarily need to find a DD in order to refer to Nixon in these alternate worlds. We have specified what properties we want to be different and, as long as it seems likely that that leaves enough scope for properties that are the same to uniquely identify him, we can take the existence of such a set of properties (a DD) as assumed and go on to refer to the person in the alternate world as 'Nixon'. What we mean by that is 'the unique individual in the alternate world that satisfies some DD that also uniquely picks out Nixon in our world'.

Now to the extreme:

Counterfactual 4: 'If Nixon had been a golf ball, would he have thought that a rapprochement with China was a good idea?'.
[One of Nixon's great achievements was bringing China back into the community of nations by visiting there]

The alternate world for this is going to have to be very different from ours, because it has to have golf balls that are not only sentient, but sophisticated enough to have opinions on international relations. There is nothing logically impossible about such a thing, however bizarre it might be. The difficulty will be in establishing the connection between the golf ball Nixon and OUR Nixon. What about if pregnant women gave birth either to humans or sentient golf balls? - again bizarre but not logically impossible! Then we can fix Nixon by having him be the second child of the parents of OUR Nixon.

So even in the golf ball example we can, with sufficient imagination, establish an alternate world that is like ours in sufficient respects that a DD exists that picks out a single item in both that world and this. In this world that item is Nixon and, in the alternate worlds under consideration, that second child was a sentient golf ball.

TLDR version: I don't think we need to explicitly identify a DD that is shared by alternate versions of our protagonist. We just need to be reasonably confident that there would be one. I think in most realistic cases it will be very easy to identify one, given the full details of the counterfactual or hypothetical - eg the male second child of the people that are parents of Nixon in our world.

Interesting analysis! However if Nixon's parents had conceived a male child at a different time, or even at the same time but it had been a different sperm that won the race, then the entity would not have been the entity we are referring to as 'Nixon'.

I don't think we need to explicitly identify a DD that is shared by alternate versions of our protagonist. We just need to be reasonably confident that there would be one. I think in most realistic cases it will be very easy to identify one, given the full details of the counterfactual or hypothetical - eg the male second child of the people that are parents of Nixon in our world. — andrewk

So, the "male second child of the people that are parents of Nixon in our world" would not necessarily have been the same person we call 'Nixon' even if he had been named the same.

And this raises the point as to whether it could be coherent at all to say that Nixon could have been any entity other than the entity he was. In a possible world he could have been born at a different time and still been the same entity I suppose (had the same DNA or whatever it is that qualifies biological entities as being uniquely the entities that they are (since twins throw a spanner in the DNA criterion)) but he could not have, counterfactually, been born at a different time in this world and still have been the same entity.

Can a definite description be a rigid designator?

Now a rigid designator refers to the very same individual in all the possible worlds in which it exist.

So your question is the same as "can a definite description refer to the very same thing in every possible world in which that thing exists?"

But remember that if something is true in all possible worlds, it is true necessarily.

So "Can a definite description be a rigid designator?" is the same as asking "Can a definite description be necessarily true of its referent?".

Agreed? — Banno

You might find it a curious case of Jesus exists in all possible worlds, having the definite description of being the Son of God, further being of greater import than the name "Jesus" as a rigid designator in our world. What do you make of an entity that only attains its meaning or import by the definite description that is rigid in all possible worlds?

I think part of the confusion that emanates from N&N is that, so far as I have been able to see, Kripke fails to specify an accessibility relation for the set of possible worlds that are under consideration. Without such a relation, there is no limit to the possible worlds that can be considered, so we end up having to allow silly things like 'if Nixon were a golf ball...' — andrewk

This goes to my topic raised a while about quantification of entities in possible worlds along with how we talk about them as either de re or de dicto. A curious case is "God", who is quantified in all possible worlds, by the very definition of she, he, it's properties or definite description. Further, the Son of God, being Jesus is another case where the accessibility relation is satisfied over all possible worlds by virtue of being modally absolute (or the accessibility relation is transcendent above/over counterfactual's) or necessary de dicto. De re one can always just say that that is nonsense because I don't "believe" in "God".

And so the confusion arises when we talk about names de re in possible worlds, but not de dicto.

I'd like to consider alternative accessibility relations. Perhaps Kripke does choose one somewhere, and I missed it. If so, I'd be grateful if somebody that has spotted it could point it out. Wallows did you spot an accessibility relation in the text? — andrewk

Nope.

So, the "male second child of the people that are parents of Nixon in our world" would not necessarily have been the same person we call 'Nixon' even if he had been named the same.

And this raises the point as to whether it could be coherent at all to say that Nixon could have been any entity other than the entity he was. — Janus

For me this is a key difficulty with Kripke - possibly the main one.

I am dubious about whether it makes sense to say that somebody that differs from Nixon in even the slightest way 'is' Nixon in another world. The Nixon of 1971 to whom Kripke referred would have been shaped by his victory in 1968 and the events that followed from that. So to imagine 'him' as not having won in '68 seems questionable. For me it makes more sense to say we are imagining an alternate version of Nixon.

I can live with the discomfort there as long as there is a shared past that is identical up to some point, probably because that is essentially the same framework as the Everett many-worlds hypothesis, with which I have been familiar for much longer than I have with Kripke.

But when we get to differences that do not allow any period of shared past - such as Nixon having a different mother - I think it becomes ridiculous to refer to the alternate as 'the same person'. Rather, I think of it as 'the person in the alternate world that shares a specified set S of uniquely identifying properties with OUR Nixon'.

Kripke appears to me to want to say that the versions in the alternate worlds are 'the same person', and to reject as unintuitive the notion that it is a similar person. He does this by using phrases like 'what if this man had lost the election', always with the 'this' italicised as if those italics somehow cut through the fog of uncertainty surrounding the reference in the possible worlds context (it doesn't, for me at least).

For me the 'similar person' approach is far more intuitive and the statement that it is 'the same person' seems at best meaningless and at worst repellent.

It seems to be a matter of feel rather than of proof. That is certainly the yardstick Kripke takes, as he repeatedly refers to what he finds 'intuitive'. All I can say is that in key cases my intuitions seem to be opposite to his - and he notes that his intuitions are different to those of philosophers that went before him.

We focus on what things we wish to consider being different about Nixon, with everything else remaining the same if it does not create a logical contradiction. It will be relevant to consider whether the things that remain the same are sufficient to pick out Nixon in the alternate world. — andrewk

That determination of sufficiency for picking out Nixon in an alternate world scenario is always and only established by whether or not the actual language expression being used to refer to Nixon successfully picks Nixon out of this world to the exclusion of all others. If it successfully picks out Nixon to the exclusion of all others in this world, then it most certainly is sufficient for picking Nixon out in a possible world scenario.

There is no need to consider the group of things that remain the same.

am dubious about whether it makes sense to say that somebody that differs from Nixon in even the slightest way 'is' Nixon in another world. The Nixon of 1971 to whom Kripke referred would have been shaped by his victory in 1968 and the events that followed from that. So to imagine 'him' as not having won in '68 seems questionable. For me it makes more sense to say we are imagining an alternate version of Nixon. — andrewk

We do not openly espouse and/or express all of the things that we think and/or believe about Nixon, and yet we still successfully refer to Nixon. It only follows that successfully referring to Nixon need not include everything we believe about Nixon. Since successfully referring to Nixon in this world need not include everything that we think and/or believe about Nixon, and this world is a possible world, it only follows that successfully referring to Nixon in a possible world scenario need not include everything we think and/or believe about Nixon.

I asked you to explain how we know — Janus

Not by definite descriptions.

I think you are off track.

How so? Isn't the designator for "Jesus", the definite description that he is/was the "Son of God"? And this designates rigidly...

I'm just pointing out again how you jump around. We were half way through a discussion of if a definite description can be a rigid designator, and now you want to talk about Jesus.

There's more than enough talk of Jesus hereabouts without adding to it. It shits me, so I think I will let it be.

So, back on topic, is "Can a definite description be a rigid designator?" the same as asking "Can a definite description be necessarily true of its referent?" as I argued?

It will be relevant to consider whether the things that remain the same are sufficient to pick out Nixon in the alternate world. — andrewk

And this is exactly what Kripke shows is bunk. Read the bloody book.

It seems to be a matter of feel rather than of proof. That is certainly the yardstick Kripke takes, as he repeatedly refers to what he finds 'intuitive'. All I can say is that in key cases my intuitions seem to be opposite to his - and he notes that his intuitions are different to those of philosophers that went before him. — andrewk

I think this is right, that it is mostly a matter of personal intuition and/or stipulation when we talk about arcane matters such as what it could mean for a name to rigidly designate the very same entity across possible worlds, and it remains for me a somewhat vacuous domain of enquiry, reliant on mere tautologies, especially when the dominant modus operandi seems to be negating the role of description.

When it comes to rigid designation of names per se, I can't see how there could be any fact of the matter, although @Banno seems determined to think there is, even though he is apparently unable to support that claim. I prefer to put my trust in what can be supported by observation and cogent argument. To each their own, I suppose.

Examination of the ways in which descriptions enable us to specify and determine which entities we are referring to seems to be a much richer, more empirical/phenomenological area of investigation.

Anyway, it seems that this thread has now more or less died. It's been fun, more or less...

You might find it a curious case of Jesus exists in all possible worlds, having the definite description of being the Son of God, further being of greater import than the name "Jesus" as a rigid designator in our world. What do you make of an entity that only attains its meaning or import by the definite description that is rigid in all possible worlds?

The name 'Jesus' is not generally regarded as meaning the Son of God. Christians use the name 'Christ' to refer to the (believed to be) Son of God. 'Jesus' is the name of a man that is said to have existed in Palestine during the reign of Augustus. The statement 'Jesus is Christ' could be said to be the core belief of Christianity.

So using the name 'Jesus', even if used in a way that is intended to make it rigidly designate, does not carry with it implicit propositions about the existence and nature of God. It just refers to a historical figure that some people believe was God/Christ.

Some ancient historians suggest that there may have been no single historical Jesus of Nazareth, and that the stories of him may be an amalgam of stories about a number of different holy men of that era. It is a minority view, but even its possibility raises the question of possible worlds in which Jesus of Nazareth did not exist. Kripke touches on this type of possibility on p29 in relation to Aristotle:

Also we may raise the question whether a name has any reference at all when we ask, e.g., whether Aristotle ever existed. It seems natural here to think that what is questioned is not whether this thing (man) existed. Once we've got the thing, we know that it existed. What really is queried is whether anything answers to the properties we associate with the name-in the case of Aristotle, whether any one Greek philosopher produced certain works, or at least a suitable number of them. — N&N p29

That determination of sufficiency for picking out Nixon in an alternate world scenario is always and only established by whether or not the actual language expression being used to refer to Nixon successfully picks Nixon out of this world to the exclusion of all others. If it successfully picks out Nixon to the exclusion of all others in this world, then it most certainly is sufficient for picking Nixon out in a possible world scenario. — creativesoul

Could you elaborate on why you think that?

Consider the following: let us suppose that in this world Nixon was the only Republican politician that was born in California in 1913, was a male second child, and was on the House Un-American Activities Committee. That is a DD that uniquely picks out Nixon in this world.

What is to stop us from considering an alternate world in which two different people satisfy that DD, and we stipulate that one of them is our Nixon?

You could even say that there is just one entity in this world that satisfies the criteria you described without even naming the entity or by simply calling the entity X. And then go on to imagine alternative worlds in which X was not the only entity to satisfy the description, or in which X did not satisfy that description. In either case the determination of X seems to be relative to the description as it is valid in this world.

That determination of sufficiency for picking out Nixon in an alternate world scenario is always and only established by whether or not the actual language expression being used to refer to Nixon successfully picks Nixon out of this world to the exclusion of all others. If it successfully picks out Nixon to the exclusion of all others in this world, then it most certainly is sufficient for picking Nixon out in a possible world scenario.
— creativesoul

Could you elaborate on why you think that? — andrewk

How else would you suggest that we answer the question:Is 'X' capable of picking an individual out to the exclusion of all others? Let 'X' be the language expression being considered.

We look at this world and see whether X identifies a unique individual in it. But that tells us nothing to do with whether X would pick out a unique individual, no individuals, or multiple individuals, in an alternate world.

What would Kripke's say about empty names?

Anyone?

We look at this world and see whether X identifies a unique individual in it. But that tells us nothing to do with whether X would pick out a unique individual, no individuals, or multiple individuals, in an alternate world. — andrewk

What do you mean? What else could we possible use as a standard, as ground, upon which to build our position, if not for how we do it in this world?

The underlying point, on my view, is that that is what Kripke seems to be attempting to do. He lays out all sorts of different historical issues and/or accounts, and then shows how a case of successful reference places those under suspicion.

He doesn't assume. He doesn't presuppose. He doesn't conclude.

He shows the actual cases of successful reference, and then applies them to the specific historical position and/or issue he deems fit.

Whatever he thinks about them, he didn't say in N&N. See footnote on first page of lecture 1 where he specifically says he won't cover them, and also the following:

I expect to elaborate on [the content of these lectures] elsewhere, in a forthcoming work discussing the problems of existential statements, empty names, and fictional entities. — N&N p158

It seems to me that the closest he comes is on p31, where he contemplates what to make of references to Moses, if there never had been a Moses.

What do you mean? What else could we possible use as a standard, as ground, upon which to build our position, if not for how we do it in this world? — creativesoul

My understanding of Kripke's position is that he believes we use stipulation. We mentally point at an individual in the alternate world and stipulate 'this one is Nixon'. See page 44.

That is not my position. But as far as I can tell it appears to be Kripke's.

I think that I've 'discovered' an approach that may prove useful. I'm still working out the details. It seems to me that there are six different ways to successfully refer. All cases are one of the six. It amounts to the number of possible ways to use naming practices and descriptive practices.

It seems to me that that's relatively important.

My understanding of Kripke's position is that he believes we use stipulation. We mentally point at an individual in the alternate world and stipulate 'this one is Nixon'. See page 44.

That is not my position. But as far as I can tell it appears to be Kripke's. — andrewk

That's not my understanding at all actually.

Stipulation is key to Kripke.

Kripke says that when we are talking about possible world and/or counterfactual scenarios, we begin by picking an individual out of this world and stipulating alternative circumstances for that individual. The possible world then consists entirely of such stipulation.

I think he does both. Consider the following:

There is no reason why we cannot stipulate that, in talking about what would have happened to Nixon in a certain counterfactual situation, we are talking about what would have happened to him. — N&N p44

The italics on 'him' show that the additional stipulation to which Kripke is referring is that the protagonist in this alternate world, who loses the election, is Nixon. The stipulation is neither by name nor by DD, as both of those may be different in the alternate world. It is by mental pointing.

I don't find it surprising that we reach different conclusions about passages like this though. I find Kripke's writing alarmingly rambling and unclear, for somebody that is thought of as an analytic philosopher.

The italics on 'him' show that the additional stipulation to which Kripke is referring is that the protagonist in this alternate world, who loses the election, is Nixon. The stipulation is neither by name nor by DD, as both of those may be different in the alternate world. It is by mental pointing. — andrewk

You misunderstand. Kripke is clear at the very beginning of the lectures. If you do not work from what he actually claims, then you're not talking about what he actually claims. What he actually claims will not be captured by a quote taken out of context to such a degree that the truth conditions of the claims are questionable.

That's what you've done here. Looks a bit like confirmation bias?

He is referring to the individual picked out of this world. He continues - as do we all - referring to that same unique individual that we've already picked out. We're not - according to Kripke - picking Nixon out of alternative circumstances. In fact, he readily appeases anyone who wishes to say that that individual could have a different name. Different name, same referent. His point is that the proper name alone is both adequate and sufficient for picking out the unique individual from this world.

The evidence is brutally strong. Actual examples do not include anything else in order to do so. There is no stronger justificatory ground for either holding that claim to be true or assenting to his point.

The referent is Nixon. The name of the referent is "Nixon". We pick Nixon out of this world. That man, that individual is picked out in this world to the exclusion of all others. We then stipulate the alternate circumstances.

I think that a proper understanding of Kripke can be of two varieties. The first requires having a good grasp upon several different philosophical positions, which further require a good grasp upon formal modal logic, Possible World Semantics, and a host of other highly nuanced philosophical notions.

The second requires understanding the methodology he's proposed be used as both a method of implementation and a method by which to sensibly interpret what's being said during possible world discourse.

He is not claiming that his method is the only one. He is not claiming that he has offered a replacement theory of reference/identity/meaning. He admits an overwhelming amount of times that he's not answered all possible questions.

He's pointing out that proper names are always used as rigid designators. He's pointing out that there are other things we can glean from holding that fact in proper consideration.