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?

No, desires are generally physiological needs, accompanied by mental awareness of the need. — Dfpolis

I don't think that's quite right. According to Aristotle, desires are appearances of the good. They thus are directed outwardly to what appears good. If something is good because it fulfills a need, then desiring it betrays awareness that it indeed fulfills that need; if an agent is rational and self-conscious, she can self-ascribe the need that is being fulfilled by the desired object. But the intentional content of the desire is the proposition (true or false) that the desired object is good.

Or kidnapped and held in an ugly part of London. — frank

You're right. I had forgotten about this scary possible world.

Banno suggested waiting till after the third lecture to discuss A Puzzle of Belief. I hope youre still around to help clarify. — frank

Hopefully I will not have been run over by a bus or hit by lightning.

Prima facie, this looks to be plain false, given that 'we' (scare quotes because I was not consulted) have changed the designation. Presumably, the new designation is more rigid than the rigidity of the lump of stuff that was previously designated. We can now measure what was immeasurable. — unenlightened

Just to supplement what @Banno already said, remember that the claim that a name is a rigid designator doesn't mean that there are no possible worlds at which the name has a different use, neither does it mean that the use of the name can't evolve in the actual world (or vary across different linguistic communities). It rather means that this name, as used by us, today, in the actual world, refers to the same object in (our talk of) all possible worlds.

I'm trying to grasp the challenge to Kripke's necessary a posteriori brought by Kripke himself in A Problem of Belief:

If Hesperus=Phosphorus is necessary a posteriori, then these two proper names can't be de jure rigid designators, which one can grasp without any descriptive content.

If they are such rigid designators, then the identity statement can't be necessarily true. — frank

It logically follows from them being rigid designators that the identity statement is necessary. Per definition, a statement is necessary if and only if it's true in all possible worlds. But if the statement is true in the actual world, and a proper name refer to the same object in all possible worlds, then, since both names refer to the same object in the actual world, they also refer to the same object in all possible worlds.

[/quote]This is because in order to be both (rigid designators and a posteriori necessary) the names have to be substitutable in epistemic contexts, and they weren't prior to the discovery that they're co-referential.[/quote]

If they were substituable in epistemic contexts, then, the identity statements would be known a priori, and not a posteriori. If I don't already know that Hesperus is Phosphorus, then, one can't substitute salva veritate Hesperus for Phosphorus in the epistemic context: "I believe that (Phosphorus) is yellow".

None of the above are known as philosophers, except maybe Pirsig? — Pattern-chaser

George Lakoff is a cognitive linguist and philosopher. His co-author, Mark Johnson (Metaphors We Live By) is a philosopher.

Well, again, that's epistemically possible, and still not metaphysically possible. That's the relevant distinction, it seems to me. — Pierre-Normand

Sorry, I take that back. What you said in your last paragraph was correct even as a statement of metaphysical possibility.

strikes me as strictly incorrect, because Hesperus is Phosphorus in all possible words. — Banno

Yes, there is no metaphysically possible world in which Hesperus isn't Phosphorus, provided only that they are numerically identical in the actual world. But there are epistemically possible worlds in which what we believe to be the referents of 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' aren't the same object (provided only we don't already know them to be identical). This merely amounts to saying that such a proposition isn't logically inconsistent with what we already know.

Instead, what might have happened is that we named Hesperus and Phosphorus "Hesperus", while naming something else "Phosphorus".

Well, again, that's epistemically possible, and still not metaphysically possible. That's the relevant distinction, it seems to me.

So Hesperus turns out to be Phosphorus. Yet "Hesperus", being a rigid designator, refers to Hesperus in all possible worlds.

But Hesperus is Phosphorus.

Hence, "Hesperus" refers to Phosphorus in all possible worlds.

Puzzling. — Banno

I think the reason why this might appear puzzling is because when we are thinking about what might possibly, for all we know, be the case, we are thinking about epistemic possibility and we may fail to properly distinguish this from metaphysical possibility. So, before we knew that Hesperus is Phosphorus (i.e. that they are one and the same planet) it was epistemically possible (consistently with all we knew) that they might not have been the same planet (or that they might not have been planets at all, or might not have existed). However, given the fact that they actually exist and are numerically identical, then, it's not metaphysically possible that they might not have been numerically identical.

That sounds interesting! Unfortunately i know little about Frege, so I am not clear as to how he might have thought that information (in the human social and semantic context) could differ from story telling or description. — Janus

The Fregean account is externalist rather than internalist. Oftentimes, when the cases of Hesperus and Phosphorus are being discussed, the (quasi-)descriptive phrases 'the Evening Star' and 'the Morning Star' are being used to express the senses of the proper names 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus'. This is misleading. The case of Afla and Ateb is more revealing of Frege's 'pragmatic-informational externalism' (as I might call it to distinguish it from Kripke's 'causal-chain externalism'). What distinguishes the users of both names isn't how they might describe the mountain that it refers to but how they practically are able to handle the referent -- how they are able to get to the mountain. But those abilities are enabled by the mountain actually existing, and the information required to get there is embodied in the naming-practice as a form of 'knowledge-how' (or acquaintance with the referent) rather than a descriptive 'knowledge-that'.

Yes, I would agree that that is certainly possible, and again, in this discussion I have allowed that definite descriptions may not be accurate. I have only been arguing that it is on account of them that we have any idea about who we are referring to (unless we have met the person, of course). — Janus

Kripke purports to distinguish his account from descriptivist theories of proper names and also from Frege's account of the sense ('Sinn') of a proper name. He therefore sets up the contrast between his account and the accounts that he criticizes in terms of a distinction between causal and informational links. The trouble with this is that he is running onto the problem of deviant causal chains. His account of the complementary functions of (informational and normative) reference fixing and (causal and non-normative) reference determination seeks to deal with the problem of deviant causal chains.

Kripke fails to see that Frege's account, although informational and normative, isn't descriptive. It doesn't run into the problem of deviant causal chains, neither does it constitute a decriptivist theory of proper names. It doesn't, therefore, is a target for Kripke's arguments against descriptivism. I think Frege's account is the account Kripke would have needed to develop. Gareth Evans and Hillary Putnam have developed such a pragmatized neo-Fregean account, taking Kripke's main insights about externalism, rigidity, and the social character of meaning, into account.

Actually I would kind of agree with this. Say there have been causal chains of events that have determined reference in relation to historical figures; the question then would seem to be as to what those causal chains of events have consisted in. I would say they would have consisted in people telling stories to others about those historical figures (oral and written histories). But what are stories if they are not descriptions, both definite and otherwise? — Janus

Yes, they are. But even in the case where an individual who gets initiated into the practice of naming a historical figure NN only is being told false stories about NN, she can still successfully refer to NN and have entirely false beliefs about NN when she thinks about her as NN.

When we refer to historical figures we don't do so in a vacuum do we? — Janus

Indeed. Kripke would agree since it's a core feature of his externalist account of proper names that many (and oftentimes most) individuals who participate in a specific naming practice only are able to do so because the social practice is already up and running thanks to some of the earlier participants being acquainted with the named individual.

Sure we can just talk about the person 'What if Joan (of Arc) had not been burned alive'? How do know i am referring to Joan of Arc, if I don't say the 'of Arc'? The 'of Arc' is a definite description. You might guess without the 'of Arc', because of the question about not being burned alive; but the implication is that she was burend alive. Now this may not be a strictly definite description (other Joans may have been burned alive) but it is certainly a definite description if you add the date 14th May 1431 (since that is the 'official' date even if that date is not correct).

Kripke doesn't discount the function of definite descriptions for fixing the reference of a proper name, either initially while instituting the naming practice, or subsequently for the purpose of initiating new member into the already instituted naming practice. He insists on distinguishing reference fixing from reference determination. The latter is that in virtue of which the proper name has (or comes to acquire) its actual referent, while the former only is a means by which participants are enabled to hook up into the practice.

All this is not theory but phenomenological description of how we know, and come to know things about people and events; if you can't provide any alternative account, why should I take you seriously? — Janus

Kripke does provide an alternative account of the referential function of proper names. Their being rigid designators isn't a theory but rather a feature (a phenomenological datum, if you will) of the way we ordinarily use them. Kripke's "causal theory of reference", together with his remarks about the famous people convention, and the social character of meaning, accounts (purportedly, at least) for the way in which we can use the proper name "Hitler" to refer to Hitler in a information insensitive way (and thus without relying on a definite descriptions to fix the reference of the name), and therefore accounts for the empirical fact of "Hitler" and other proper names being rigid designators.

No satisfactory definite description can be devised because there is no Lady Mondegreen. The mistaken belief that there is such a name and a person bearing that name stems from the eavesdropper misunderstanding what she has heard. — andrewk

Sorry, I hadn't read your post carefully enough. I agree. I am unsure how this case bears on the issue of descriptivism about proper names that refer to real individuals.

Russell's theory is probably not right. It makes a number of wrong predictions as to the behavior of definite descriptions in embedded environments. — Snakes Alive

OK, I see. Thanks for the reference. It looks very interesting.

I say that question is the wrong question, and writing dissertations about it misses the point. The right question is 'what does the eavesdropper want?' The answer is that she wants to understand the story that was being told. — andrewk

That may be the case, but then the eavesdropper could understand the story (well enough) without knowing who the person talked about is. So, the fact that supplying her with a definite description of the peson holding the name is sufficient for that purpose (i.e. understanding the story well enough) isn't sufficient for showing that the description determines the meaning of the proper name.

Furthermore, Kripke would readily grant that providing a definite description often is sufficient for fixing the reference of the name (as used thereafter by the eavesdropper), even though the description doesn't determine this reference all by itself (and hence isn't semantically equivalent to it). That's possible because of the social character of meaning. Supplying a definite description can be a means of co-opting a new user into an already existing name-using practice. This new user, when she has had the meaning of the proper name conveyed to her by means of a definite description, is thereafter enabled to think (and talk) about this named individual thanks to there already being other participants in this practice who are directly acquainted (or 'causally linked', Kripke would say) with the named individual.

Isn't that the principle or knowledge by/of acquaintance stated another way? — Wallows

Quite right. As I said, Russell thought we could only be acquainted with sense data and with our own thinking 'selves'. Everything else, including the referents of most ordinary language proper names (of cities, human beings, etc.) only are knows by description. Evans agrees with Russell that descriptive content isn't a form of singular reference (but rather must be analysed into existentially quantified statements), but he argued that proper names and demonstratives can refer to much more than just sense data.

BTW you asked above if I was seeking to defend descriptivism. I think I probably am, but that doesn't mean I think it's the best theory. I see Wittgenstein's language game approach as the best explanation of language, including proper names. But despite its faults (which I think are different from those that Kripke claims) I think there's a lot of valuable insight in Russell's theory of descriptions, and I am unable to find any such value in Kripke's theory. — andrewk

Myself, I think Russell's theory of definite descriptions is basically right. But the correctness of this analysis doesn't entail descriptivism, unless one also holds that proper names can be analysed as definite descriptions. That's not something Russell himself believed, regarding "logical proper manes", which he took to only refer to direct object of acquaintance such as sense data and the referent of "I". Gareth Evans developed an account of proper names that is quite indebted to Kripke, to Wittgenstein, to Putnam, and to Russell, although he ditched Russell's antiquated Cartesian epistemological restrictions on direct objects of acquaintance. But he maintained a relaxed version of what he called Russell's Principle: that a person cannot be thinking about an object unless he knows, in some non-trivial way, which object he is thinking about.

My view on these issues is set out in somewhat more detail in an essay I wrote a couple of years ago: Hypotheticals, Counterfactuals and Probability. Those are still my views. — andrewk

Thanks, I'll put this as high up in my reading list as feasible.

I'm interested in what you said in the first para that 'this is the sort of counterfactual consideration that we rely on when planning future actions or when we are gathering evidence for the existence of causal relations'. I would exclude considering future actions from that because that is usually a case not of imagining the past being different, but rather imagining more than one different possible future, neither of which contradicts current knowledge. — andrewk

It's true that in the course of practical reasoning one usually restricts the consideration of options to those that one has the power and opportunity to realize. However, the subjunctive conditional "If I will do X then Y will occur" could be true even if, unbeknownst to me, I lack the power or opportunity to do X. In that case, the antecedent is necessarily false conditionally on the actual present state of the world being what it is. But so long as we don't equate the actual with the necessary, the subjunctive conditional proposition might be still be true.

Those are not counterfactuals but rather considerations of future possibilities - I call them 'Hypotheticals'. By 'gathering evidence of causal relations' I assume you are referring to the attempt to develop scientific theories. I agree that counterfactuals can play a key role in that but it seems to me that they work perfectly well with my interpretation of counterfactual, and don't require a Kripkean interpretation.

Kripke's conception of counterfactual conditionals and of possible worlds is very deflationary, in Naming and Necessity. If I remember, he proposes to construe phrases such as "there is a possible world at which P" to be meaning no more and no less than we would ordinarily mean when we say "It is possible that P might have happened".

This misses the point. Indeed, all of those particular items cannot exist without their elemental constituents. — creativesoul

I am usure what it is that you mean with the phrase "elemental constituent". Also, could you explain in which way knowledge of the elemental constituents of an individual can be made use of in order to refer uniquely to this individual?

If asked to tell somebody what the book is about I think I would say 'It imagines a world in which the Axis powers won WW2'. Based on recent posts above, it appears that Kripke might say 'It supposes that the Axis powers rather than the Allies won WW2'. — andrewk

If one imagines a possible world at which the Axis powers won WW2, then one can imagine it such that Hitler lived to be 72. But when one evaluates the counterfactual conditional statement "If the Axis powers had won WW2, then, Hitler would have lived to be 72", the truth value of this counterfactual conditional proposition doesn't appear to be tied to what it is that we can imagine. It rather depends on what we are entitled to believe would necessarily have happened if the counterfactual antecedent had been true. There are difficult issues regarding what it is, besides what is stated in the conditional antecedent, that is taken to remain the same, or vary, with respect to the actual course of history, while evaluating the necessity of the consequent. (Can we allow for backtracking?) In my view, those issues are settled by pragmatic considerations. In any case, the truth conditions of a counterfactual conditional proposition aren't dependent on what one might imagine, but rather on what one is entitled to expect would necessarily have occurred or would necessarily have been the case if the antecedent had been true.

This is not to object to what you have said, but to widen its breadth. — Banno

Yes. That was a follow up on a tangential line of inquiry that had been initiated by @fdrake. Of course, I agree that what is actually true at all times of Gödel (and hence might figure in a definite description of him) isn't necessarily true of him.

That works for me. It avoids using ill-specified notions like 'referent' or asking (IMHO) meaningless questions such as 'was Aristotle-2 Aristotle?' — andrewk

But I didn't ask any meaningless question, neither did I postulate any imaginary worlds. Counterfactual conditionals are judgement forms that we routinely make use of when we reason practically. If I let the cat outdoors and it gets run over by a car, then it isn't nonsensical to judge that it (the very same cat) would not have been run over if (counterfactually) I hadn't let it out. And this is the sort of counterfactual consideration that we rely on when planning future actions or when we are gathering evidence for the existence of causal relations.

Kripke is very insistent in Naming and Necessity, while arguing against the 'telescope conception' of possible world identifications of particulars (ascribed to Lewis), that he isn't talking about counterpart 'worlds' populated with doppelgangers who only share our past histories (or our histories prior to a specified moment in time). When he's talking about 'possible worlds', he's only talking about the our world (i.e. the real world) as it could possibly have been if something or other had been different; just like I was talking about the cat (likely) not having died if, counterfactually, it had not been let outdoors.

Back to Aristotle, the question simply is: what is it that would entitles you to speculate about what would follow from Aristotle counterfactually having had a different career (while referring to him by his name) if his having had his actual carrer (i.e. a philosopher) makes up part of the definite description by means of which the name "Aristotle" refers to him? Surely, you're not saying that it is impossible or nonsensical to suppose that he might have had a different career. But if "Aristotle", by definition, refers to someone who has been a philosopher, then, by definition, Aristotle (where I am using this name descriptively) couldn't possibly not have been a philosopher. This seems not to match how we use proper names in the context of making ordinary and meaningful counterfactual conditional statements.

Then it would only follow that the retention of that particular property is not necessary for us to pick it out at other times. Those particular properties are not elemental constituents. — creativesoul

Are what you call "elemental constituents" something akin to essential properties? In that case, the item being descriptively referred to could not persist through the loss of those properties, but they may still not guarantee that the item is uniquely being described by them since other items of the same essential kind also would have those properties. The purpose of a definite description is to uniquely pick up an individual, not just to pick it up under a description that it will never (and could never) cease to satisfy.

Examples:

1. Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great.

The DD implied by the Proper Name Aristotle must relate to properties that held around the time of Alexander the Great, whenever that was. — andrewk

Are you purporting to defend a form of descriptivism, then? What if the individual who we name "Aristotle" had not become a philosopher, and had become a carpenter instead (and he hadn't been Alexander's teacher, etc.) Are we talking about someone who isn't Aristotle, in that counterfactual scenario? And if we're still talking about Aristotle having had a different career, how it is that "Aristotle" picks up its referent in the couterfactual scenario?

After thinking it through a bit, while it's true that if a definite description applies to something at one point it will apply forever, — fdrake

Yes, this really was my only point.

this does nothing to vouchsafe whether the definite description can actually be used to disambiguate a reference when required.

I agree with this, and with the rest of your post. Of course, one of Kripke's main objections to descriptivism is that it fails account for our evaluation of counterfactual conditional statements where the individual talked about fails to fall (or non uniquely falls) under its description in the counterfactual antecedent. And that's because, unlike proper names, definite descriptions aren't rigid designators. (They still can be used for purpose of initial "reference fixing", as Kripke would say, but then the issue of what it is that contextually, or informationally, is being relied on for purpose of disambiguation only is partially addressed by Kripke's "causal theory of reference").

Does our doing so successfully refer to to the thing? Surely. Can any of it be true? Surely not. Is that mode of reference somehow not existentially dependent upon any description whatsoever? As if we could do any of that without already having picked that thing out of this world by virtue of both description(s) and names?

I think not. — creativesoul

There is much for me to agree with in your long post, and a few issues that I could quibble with, but I am unsure how it connects with the previous line of inquiry. The issue of time came about when @fdrake suggested that a definite description could apply to an individual at a time and cease to apply to it later on. And therefore, as he had seemed to imply, for a definite description to single out a persisting individual it would need to apply to an unchanging individual. I pointed out that definite descriptions typically single out an individual through ascribing some property (or set of properties) that uniquely apply to it at a specified time. When the time is thus specified (either explicitly or implicitly) in the definite description, then, it becomes irrelevant that the item doesn't have the property ascribed to it at other times.

If my definite description of an apple is something like "The green apple that sits on my kitchen counter on December 14, 2018..." then, this description still will pick up the same apple in the future when it has turned red. Hence, if the sentence "The green apple that sits on my kitchen counter on December 14, 2018 has a stem on December 14, 2018" is true on December 14, 2018, it will remain true, about the very same apple, after the apple has turned red, has had its stem removed, or even has ceased to exist.

Well, I differ here wrt predictions being true at the time of utterance. Bt my lights, they are not able to be.

"Godel was born on April 28, 1906" is not a definite description though, is it? "Born on April 28, 1906..." is, right? If so, then this doesn't clear up what was in question to begin with. — creativesoul

"Born on April 28, 1906..." is a predicate. According to descriptivism, proper names have the same sense (meaning) as definite descriptions written as "The ...". Russell proposed to analyse them as incomplete symbols that introduce quantificational structure into sentences in which they occur (as Wikipedia puts it). For instance, the sentence "The King of France is bald" can be analysed as the conjunction of three quantified statements that assert (1) the existence of an x who is a King of France, that (2) any y who is a King of France is x, and that (3) x is bald.

Every true description of an entity at any time in the form at 'At that time the entity was X' is true at all times. — Janus

Yes, that's basically what I am saying.

I still haven't read more than the introduction to that book... — fdrake

Kripke or Evans?

I still haven't read more than the introduction to that book. I'll take this as a gentle reminder to read more of it. — fdrake

You might also want to check sections 10.5 (The Causal Theory of Reference) and 10.6 (The Social Character of Sense) in Luntley's Comtemporary Philosophy of Thought (which you had already begun).

Perhaps this is unsatisfying, but it looks to me that the necessary and sufficient condition for my use of Bob to refer successfully is that 'Bob' is used to refer to the entity. The sense of use I have in mind for 'use' in the previous sentence is that reference to that entity by 'Bob' is ensured by the use of the reference in an appropriate linguistic community. If my description failed to be definite and all the entities which satisfy the description happened to be called Bob, that would be quite unfortunate for telling which is which based on my description alone, but the person the sentences in my description refer to is the unique one I was referring to rather than all the ones which also satisfy the description. — fdrake

Yes, I agree with your general account. It's the main aim of Kripke's "causal theory of reference" to explain how language users institute and hook up to linguistic practices -- naming practices, specifically -- without any need, generally, for descriptions of any kind. Gareth Evans also offers an account, more fleshed out than Kripke's simple causal/baptism theory, but broadly consistent with it, in chapter 11 of The Varieties of Reference.

It looks to me like definite descriptions require a search of the properties of an object in order to give a singular extension, but such a search has a target. If we can target the search to the entity in order to find a definite description for it, we must not require a definite description beforehand to do the search.

Yes, indeed, and hence modes of reference other than definite descriptions (such as naming practices and demonstrative reference) ought to be more fundamental.

This still seems quite strange to me. Whether the description is definite or not isn't produced solely by my use of words, it's a feature of whether there's only one thing which satisfies my description or not. — fdrake

Singular reference is a function of the conjunction of both, actually. In order to secure reference, generally, you must think of the object properly (and/or with the use of a proper form of words) and you also may need the world to do you a favor.

So, granted, if I ask you to give me back the apple that I gave you, then I have failed to refer to a singular apple in the case where I would have given you more than one (and forgotten that). But also, if I ask you to give me an apple, and you have many, then I didn't thereby refer to the apple that you will choose to give me even though it will thereby fall under the indefinite description: "an apple". What is more, I will not have referred to it specifically even in the case where you only had one.

No matter the number of things which satisfy my description, it will still be about Bob and not about some Bob'. It would just be based on the information I have provided and only upon it, which candidate for the referent of 'Bob' is the subject of the sentence can't be decided... Despite that I'm referring to a specific Bob from the beginning. It's already decided which Bob I mean.

Possibly. But, in case where there are more than one individual satisfying the general description, what is it, in your view, that determines which one of them it is that you are referring to? Are you making use of the fact that this individual is is the only one among them who is named "Bob"? In that case, the description seems idle except as a way to help me anchor the reference of "Bob" for purpose of future use of this name by me.

So whether my description is definite or not looks entirely incidental to how I used the words. Why would something incidental to my use of 'Bob' be required to provide a semantics of how I used 'Bob'?

Refer back to my comment above regarding an apple (versus the apple), which I gave you.

"Falls under it"...

Does that mean that the description always applies to it, even when it is no longer true of the object? Time stamps take care of that.

Definite descriptions would have to be true of the object during it's entire existence(at all times)?

Time stamps cannot take care of that. — creativesoul

Yes, it is true at all times that Gödel was born on April 28, 1906, for instance. Of course, the sentence now being used to express this truth uses the past tense whereas a sentence used to express it prior to April 28, 1906 would use the future tense. But both sentences express the very same truth and there is no time when what it is that they express isn't true. (Put more simply: it doesn't make sense to ponder over when it will be that it might cease to be true that Gödel was born on April 28, 1906.)

Can you offer a definite description of Bob from that paragraph I wrote about him? — fdrake

In that paragraph, you offered a general description of Bob. To turn in into a definite description, you would have to rephrase it as: "The especially large baby, weighing 9 pounds the day he came out of his mother, etc. etc." This definite description then would successfully function as a singular referring expression just in case there would be one and only one individual who falls under it. (See Russell's analysis of "the ...")

I have to say though, it is surprising to me that one would be required seeing as it's extremely easy to recognise that all the sentences are about Bob, despite that such a description isn't being used to vouchsafe that reference. As a condition for the possibility of reference, maybe, partake in the act of designation? Doubt it.

Yes, I think it's common ground (between you, Kripke and I, at least) that neither explicit nor implicit definite descriptions are required to secure singular reference. The challenge is to provide an alternative theory of singular Fregean senses of proper names. Kripke was claiming not to be offering a theory, himself. But he did gesture towards an account with his so-called "causal theory of reference" (thus named by others, I think).

suppose what I'm trying to highlight is that designating an object doesn't seem to care about transformations in the designated object. And that the space of appropriate/possible definite descriptions changing with time is definitely a sensitivity to change rather than an insensitivity to it. — fdrake

Agreed about your first sentence. Regarding the second sentence: I don't think is makes sense to say that a definite description changes with time. Substances have (temporally) evolving states. But when a substance falls under a definite description at a time, then it falls under it at all times (including the times when it doesn't exist yet or anymore!) That's what makes it a definite description, rather than a general description. Hence the requirement that predication of states (such as being red) also be tensed in the case where there are two of more substances that would otherwise be in those states at different times.

Given the difficulty we have coming up with definite descriptions of objects with radical property transformations, it seems unlikely to me that the task of coming up with them formulaically and automatically is as easy as required to make them nascent. — fdrake

It seems to me like you are attempting to raise for descriptivist theories of proper names (or of their Fregean senses) an objection that isn't traditionally raised for them and that they can easily accommodate (unlike Kripke's own main objection). I alluded to this in an earlier post. Definite descriptions meant to pick up an individual for purpose of reference usually are tensed. They don't merely consist in predication of properties but rather in predication of properties at a time. Hence, "Bob", construed a shorthand of a definite description picking up a unique apple would specify just a couple properties Bob had, at a time, such as its general location and color, merely sufficient to distinguish it from other apples in the vicinity. It's then irrelevant to the reference of "Bob" that Bob moves and ripens (up to a point). That's because, "Bob" picks up whatever apple was green and on your kitchen counter on December 13, 2018, say.