Source: http://theotodman.com/Abstracts/Abstract_07/Abstract_7546.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 08:17:45+00:00

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Course Aims: To introduce students to a cluster of interrelated theories and arguments surrounding Saul Kripke’s seminal work.
Overview: One of the principal achievements of Kripke’s book was its success in overthrowing a theory in the philosophy of language which approached orthodoxy at the time, partially by means of a consolidation and development of work in modal logic2 that Kripke himself had done some years earlier. In the first lecture, we will set the scene for a close study of Naming and Necessity itself, by looking back at the state of the twin debates which provided a backdrop for Kripke’s innovations, concerning naming on the one hand and necessity on the other. We will also make some remarks on the metaphysics of possible worlds, trans-world identity versus counterpart theory, etc.
Gottlob Frege: "Frege (Gottlob) - On Sense and Reference" / "Frege (Gottlob) - On Sense and Nominatum". See readings for seminar topic 1 below.
Bertrand Russell. Various sources: see readings for seminar topic 1.
W.V. Quine: See readings for seminar topic 2.
See other readings for seminar topic 1.
The fundamental texts are Kripke’s own, as detailed in the bibliography of his works provided below, but these are pretty technical, so are merely offered here as suggestions for secondary reading.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Necessity", §1. A fairly good summary of what’s going on in Kripke’s possible worlds semantics for modal logic3.
"Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke", ch. 1. By trying to simplify things, this ends up making them more confusing than they really need to be — but it might nevertheless prove useful.
See readings for seminars 3 and 4.
Overview: We will look at Kripke’s epistemological, modal4 and semantic arguments against descriptivism, and at his alternative ‘causal theory’ of reference. We will examine the necessity of identity, and, arising out of this, the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori.
Naming and Necessity, Preface and Lectures I and II. The Preface elucidates certain points which do not get properly introduced until one gets into the body of the lectures themselves, so there is no harm in skipping it to begin with and coming back to it at the end — but it should be read at some point.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity".
"Donnellan (Keith) - Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions".
"Hughes (Christopher) - Names", §§1-3; "Hughes (Christopher) - Necessity", §2; "Hughes (Christopher) - Identity, Worlds, and Times", §1-2.
"Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke", 30-55.
See also readings for seminar topics 1, 5-8 below.
Naming and Necessity III, and related issues.
Overview: We will consider Kripke’s essentialist claims, both for individuals and for natural kinds5, and his argument against psycho-physical identity. We will also take notice of his ‘puzzle about belief’ and his work on Wittgenstein.
Naming and Necessity, Lecture III, together with the Addenda and, if not already read, the Preface.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Names", §4; "Hughes (Christopher) - Necessity", §3; "Hughes (Christopher) - Identity, Worlds, and Times".
"Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke", pp. 52-61.
"Kripke (Saul) - A Puzzle About Belief".
"Kripke (Saul) - Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language", together with "Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke", ch. 3. Reading this material is wholly optional, but you might find it interesting. Certainly if you have already read it independently, you ought to think about how it might connect with the Naming & Necessity material.
See also readings for seminar topics 9-13 below.
Imagine yourself in the period prior to the appearance of Kripke’s work, and assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of Mill, Frege and Russell’s theories on their own terms, independently of Kripke’s objections.
"Mill (John Stuart) - A System of Logic" (1843), bk. 1, ch. 2, §5.
Frege, Gottlob. ‘Uber Sinn und Bedeutung’ (1892). Rather confusingly, you will find this title alternatively translated as ‘On Sense and Reference’ ("Frege (Gottlob) - On Sense and Reference"), as ‘On Sense and Meaning’, or even as ‘On Sense and Nominatum’ ("Frege (Gottlob) - On Sense and Nominatum").
"Russell (Bertrand) - Descriptions" (Ch. 16 of "Russell (Bertrand) - Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy", 1919).
These pieces … all cover similar ground, and there is certainly no need to read all of them, but each does have something to offer.
"Sainsbury (Mark) - Philosophical Logic: Introduction, Further Topics & Bibliography" (etc), pp. 65-76.
"Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke", pp. 30-36 (Wadsworth, 2003).
"McDowell (John) - On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name".
"Salmon (Nathan) - The Theory of Singular Direct Reference", §1.
"Salmon (Nathan) - Frege's Puzzle" (MIT, 1986).
A.W. Moore, ed., Meaning and Reference (Oxford, 1993). Perhaps the best of the anthologies out there, covering both this historical background material and also "Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity" together with other material related to the New Theory of Reference.
"Martinich (A.P.) - The Philosophy of Language" (Oxford, 1985). Another extremely useful anthology.
"Harnish (Robert M.) - Basic Topics in the Philosophy of Language" (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994). Includes, among other pieces, "Kripke (Saul) - A Puzzle About Belief".
What exactly is the basis of the puzzle, and how might it be solved (whether using the apparatus provided in Naming and Necessity, or independently)?
"Quine (W.V.) - Word & Object", §41 (MIT, 1960).
"Quine (W.V.) - Three Grades of Modal Involvement".
"Smullyan (Arthur Francis) - Modality and Description".
The metaphysics of possible worlds.
Is it enough simply to use possible worlds as a theoretical apparatus, without making any suppositions as to their ontological status? If we decide that it is necessary to take a stand on the question of what possible worlds are... then what are they?
Naming and Necessity, pp. 15-20, 43-4, 48 n. 15, etc.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity", pp. 146-8 (in the page numbering of the Munitz edition specified below).
Loux, M., ed. The Possible and the Actual: Readings in the Metaphysics of Modality6 (Cornell, 1979).
"Lewis (David) - On the Plurality of Worlds" (Blackwell, 1986). Be warned that Lewis is no impartial commentator. He takes an idiosyncratic and highly controversial stand on the topic — but he does also provide fair and accurate presentations of all the major rivals to his own view. Other works in which Lewis addresses closely related issues include "Lewis (David) - Counterfactuals" (1973), and a number of articles in his Philosophical Papers (especially volume 1). The bibliography to On the Plurality of Worlds offers pointers to further reading by other authors.
Partially arising out of topic 3, should we say that one and the same thing can exist in several different possible worlds, or should we instead analyse the modal7 properties of a certain thing in terms of the properties of other similar things in other possible worlds? Kripke: “Probably, however, Humphrey could not care less whether someone else, no matter how much resembling him, would have been victorious in another possible world.” (N&N, p. 45 n. 13). Do you agree?
Naming & Necessity, pp. 40-47.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity", pp. 146-8.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Identity, Worlds, and Times", §§1-2.
"Lewis (David) - On the Plurality of Worlds", ch. 4.
"Lewis (David) - Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic" and postscripts.
Loux. The Possible and the Actual.
Expound and critically assess Kripke’s modal8 and/or epistemological and/or semantic arguments against the descriptivist theory of reference.
Naming & Necessity, lectures 1 and (especially) 2.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Names", §1.
"Salmon (Nathan) - Reference and Essence", especially pt. 1, ch. 1, §2.
Expound and critically assess the new (causal) theory of reference. What are its strengths and weaknesses? Even if we allow that, post-Kripke, classical descriptivism is dead and buried, might a theory of ‘causal descriptivism’ nevertheless fare better than the straightforward causal theory?
Naming and Necessity, pp. 91-96; p. 88 n. 38; and passim.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Names", §3.
"Lewis (David) - Putnam's Paradox" (1999), especially pp. 58-60, 64.
"Lewis (David) - Naming the Colours", especially p. 353, n. 22.
"Unger (Peter) - The Causal Theory of Reference".
Fred Kroon: ‘Causal Descriptivism’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 65 (1987) 1-17.
Are proper names, in ordinary language, always used rigidly? Are definite descriptions always used non-rigidly? What difference would it make to Kripke’s results, if we were to disagree with his own answers to these questions?
Naming and Necessity, passim. (See especially p. 6, n. 8; and p. 59, n. 22).
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity", pp. 144-9.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Names", §2.
"Salmon (Nathan) - The Theory of Singular Direct Reference", §3.
"Donnellan (Keith) - Reference and Definite Descriptions".
Is Kripke right that a sentence like “Hesperus is Phosphorus” expresses an a posteriori necessity? Is he right that a sentence like “Stick S is a metre long” expresses an a priori contingency? What objections might be raised against either or both of these examples, and are there any satisfactory responses available to such objections?
Naming and Necessity, pp. 34-37, 54-7, 97-110, etc.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Necessity", §2.
"Salmon (Nathan) - Reference and the Necessary A Posteriori".
Could this very table have been made out of ice? Could the Queen — that very woman — have been born of different parents? Even if we allow some degree of this kind of essentialism, how far can it be pushed?
Naming and Necessity, pp. 110-5.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity", 151-3.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Necessity", §3.
"Salmon (Nathan) - Arguments for the Essentiality of Origin".
Are the extensions of our natural kind10 terms determined through the manifest, macroscopic qualities of things, or through their (quite possibly unknown) microstructural properties? For that matter, is it possible that something other than a stream of photons could be light? And is it possible that there should be such things as unicorns?
Naming and Necessity, pp. 115-144, 156-7.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity", 158-161.
Locke, John. An Essay concerning Human Understanding, bk. 3, ch. 3. Important background material.
"Putnam (Hilary) - Meaning and Reference".
"Putnam (Hilary) - The Meaning of 'Meaning'".
Putnam’s work in this area is at least as important as Kripke’s own.
"Salmon (Nathan) - Reference and Essence".
"Dupre (John) - Natural Kinds and Biological Taxa" (1981) 66-90. Criticism of the Kripke-Putnam position, focusing on biological kinds.
"Mellor (D.H.) - Natural Kinds", 66-90.
Mental states and physical states, if identical, must be necessarily identical; but they cannot be necessarily identical; therefore, they are not identical at all. Is this a good argument? “Consider a particular pain, or other sensation, that you once had. Do you find it at all plausible that that very sensation could have existed without being a sensation, the way a certain inventor (Franklin) could have existed without being an inventor?” Well? Do you?
Naming and Necessity, pp. 144-155.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity", 161-4.
"Hughes (Christopher) - The Mental and the Physical".
"Lewis (David) - Mad Pain and Martian Pain", especially §3.
Lewis’ other papers in the philosophy of mind provide important background material, to clarify his (anti-Kripkean) functionalist position.
"Block (Ned), Ed. - Readings in Philosophy of Psychology - Vol 1" & "Block (Ned), Ed. - Readings in Philosophy of Psychology - Vol 2" (Harvard University Press, 1980).
What is the puzzle; what precisely is supposed to be so puzzling about it; and how might it be solved (whether within a Kripkean framework, or from some other standpoint)?
Donnellan, Keith. ‘Belief and the identify of reference’, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Propositional Attitudes (1990) 201-214.
Barcan Marcus, Ruth. ‘A Proposed Solution to the Puzzle about Belief’, in Midwest studies in Philosophy, 6 (1981) 501-510.
"Sosa (David) - The Import of the Puzzle About Belief", 1996.
Kripke’s book on Wittgenstein has had a huge impact of its own, quite independently of the Naming and Necessity material (and has created a vast secondary literature). But what links and affinities can you discern between the two books? Does either shed any important light on the ideas presented in the other?
"Kripke (Saul) - Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language" (Blackwell, 1982).
"Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke", ch. 3.
The following website is devoted to this material, and should prove extremely useful: Link. In general, when dealing with any of these topics, you should always see what you can discover on the internet because, although some of what’s out there is blatantly misguided and worthless, there is also a vast amount of highly valuable material out there, just a click away. Do remember, though, that any internet material used in essays does need to be fully cited in the footnotes/bibliography.
"Kripke (Saul) - Naming and Necessity" (Blackwell, 1980). The central text of the course — you should certainly have (and read!12) your own copy of it. This 1980 edition is a slightly augmented version of what had previously appeared in D. Davidson and G. Harman, eds., Semantics of Natural Language (D. Reidel, 1972), which also contains several important papers on similar issues by other authors.
Other works on the philosophy of language.
"Kripke (Saul) - Identity and Necessity". A shorter piece covering much of the same ground as Naming and Necessity itself.
"Kripke (Saul) - Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference".
"Kripke (Saul) - A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic".
‘The Undecidability of Monadic Modal14 Quantification Theory’, Zeitschrift fur Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, 8 (1962).
‘Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic15 (I)’, Zeitschrift fur Mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik, (1963) 67-93.
‘Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic16 (II)’, in J. Addison, L. Hankin and A. Tarski, eds., Theory of Models (Amsterdam, 1965), 206-220.
‘Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic’17, Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16 (1963) 83-94.
"Kripke (Saul) - Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language" (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).
‘Semantical Analysis of Intuitionistic Logic I’, in J.N. Crossley and M. Dummett, eds., Formal Systems and Recursive Functions (Oxford, 1963).
"Kripke (Saul) - Outline of a Theory of Truth" (1975).
‘Is there a Problem about Substitutional Quantification?’, in John McDowell and Gareth Evans, eds., Truth and Meaning (Oxford, 1976).
Review of three papers by Kit Fine, Journal of Symbolic Logic 50 (1985) 1083-93.
‘From the Church-Turing Thesis to the First-Order Algorithm Theorem’, in Proceedings of the 15th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science (LICS, 2000). This was Kripke’s first publication in fifteen years... but, unfortunately, it turned out only to be a two-paragraph abstract of a conference talk. It is available ‘in full’ at: Link.
"Hughes (Christopher) - Kripke: Names, Necessity, and Identity" (OUP, 2004). An excellent book, providing both a clear exposition of Kripke’s ideas and some critical assessment thereof. Highly recommended. For any given topic which might happen to interest you in Naming and Necessity, you should probably make the relevant section of this book your next port of call.
"Preti (Consuelo) - On Kripke" (Toronto et al.: Wadsworth, 2003). A short general introduction to Kripke’s ideas, which (a) doesn’t get into any great depth, and (b) leaves something to be desired in its treatment even of the material it does cover. But you might still find it useful.
S. Soames. Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Worthy stuff, if a little dry.
P.W. Humphreys and J.H. Fetzer, eds. The New Theory of Reference: Kripke, Marcus, and its Origins (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998). One for fans of controversy, but it does not have a lot to contribute to the philosophical interpretation of Kripke’s ideas (except, just possibly, for John Burgess’ paper, ‘Marcus, Kripke and Names,’ which is reprinted here from Philosophical Studies 84 (1996) 1-47).
G.W. Fitch. Saul Kripke, Philosophy Now series (Acumen Publishing, 2003). At the time of writing, I have not had the opportunity to examine this work, but it sounds like it might be useful.
"Schwartz (Stephen P.), Ed. - Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds" (Cornell, 1977). A useful anthology.
The bibliographies of these works should help to point you in the direction of further relevant material.
See Link (Defunct) (sadly broken).
Dr. Jasper Reid appears to have left Aberdeen University, so his Handout for the Lecture / Seminar Series on Kripke (PH4013) has disappeared.
I took a copy of the web-page at the time, and am in process of re-formatting it. It’s here for what it’s worth.
Footnote 1: I’ve removed administrative details, and re-numbered / re-bulleted passim.

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