A Study in Philosophy

1. Continuing on p. 136, where Kripke is in the middle of discussing his distinction between a priori and necessary knowledge, he portrays the “simple" way we referentially fix the natural phenomena we directly observe with our senses by presenting it as an equation:   “Heat = that which is sensed by sensation S .” But isn’t heat the sensation itself? Other natural phenomena he says are “identified as the causes of certain concrete experimental effects.” Okay - but then, such phenomena are "baptised" via description. It would seem that the only objects that can be baptised without description are the immediate contents of perception, and here Kripke seems blocked by a failure to distinguish between the sensation and what it is a sensation of . This issue will come up at the end of the lecture, when he attempts to argue against identity theory. Now we reach the third main point of Kripke’s argument : Once we have identified a natural kind (by virtue of paradigmatic ca...

  1. Quick catch-up Kripke begins the second lecture by summarising his main points from the first, claiming that the intuitions supporting the theories of transworld identification and counterpart theory are bizarre.   To every name or designating expression ' X ', there corresponds a cluster of properties, namely the family of properties 𝞅 such that A believes ' 𝞅 X '.  One of the properties, or some conjointly, are believed by A to pick out some individual uniquely. If most, or a weighted most, of the 𝞅 's are satisfied by one unique object y , then  y is the referent of 'X'.  If the vote yields no unique object, 'x' does not refer.  The statement, "If X exists, then X has most of the 𝞅 's" is known a priori by the speaker. The statement, "If X exists, then X has most of the 𝞅 's" expresses a necessary truth (in the idiolect of the speaker). He says that, for him, Aristotle’s most importa...