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Notes
- 1.
See Kripke (1981). In what follows, all references to page numbers, without additional identifying descriptions, will be to this edition of Kripke’s book.
- 2.
Kripke, in introducing his discussion of necessity, says that he is concerned with a notion of metaphysics, not epistemology: see Kripke (1981, pp. 35–36). Others have followed Kripke in referring to metaphysical necessity as standing for the synthetically necessary: see for example Kim (1996, p. 171). For a succinct summary, see Lowe (1995).
- 3.
By the Humean tradition I mean only the view that no necessary proposition is synthetic, or makes a substantial assertion about the world. In all sorts of other respects I dissent from Hume. I have, in particular, argued for the highly anti-Humean thesis that there may exist knowable necessary connections between successive events: see Maxwell (1968a, 1993a, pp. 81–101; and 1998, pp. 141–155). This thesis is compatible with what I am calling here “the Humean tradition”, which stems from a famous passage from Hume which can be interpreted as asserting that all factual assertions are contingent and all necessary assertions are analytic: see Hume (1955, p. 165).
- 4.
That most theories in physics are, strictly speaking, false, is a complication, not relevant to the main argument of this paper: see Maxwell (1998, ch. 6) for a discussion of the issue.
- 5.
- 6.
Here, as elsewhere, all references to page numbers, without additional identifying descriptions, will be to Kripke (1981).
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
See Chalmers (1996, p. 149).
- 10.
Kripke’s argument (if valid) interpreted as establishing the existence of metaphysically necessary identity statements has much more import for how we view the world than the argument interpreted merely as establishing the non-existence of contingent identities with rigid designators. But this second interpretation still has an impact: for example, it may be taken to wipe out the brain process theory, interpreted as asserting the contingent identity of mental and brain processes.
- 11.
It is my view that a persistent sin of modern philosophy in the analytic tradition, from David Hume onwards, is to try to derive substantial conclusions about the world from analysis of meaning and language (including reference). Kripke’s arguments, from reference to necessity is, in my view, just one immensely influential example of this widespread, deplorable pattern of philosophical argument.
- 12.
- 13.
Before Kripke, this account would, I take it, have been regarded as orthodoxy. This now may no longer be the case, amongst philosophers at least, such is Kripke’s impact.
- 14.
For references, see note 4. See also Chap. 1 of the present book.
- 15.
This is an idealization: see text and note 17.
- 16.
I am simplifying, or idealizing, here, for the sake of the discussion. In practice, one may hold that optics cannot be deduced from classical electromagnetism, because the laws of optics, in referring to light, refer to something that is produced and absorbed in certain circumstances, facts about light which one can only hope to derive from a quantum theory of electromagnetism and matter, such as the standard model, and which cannot be derived from classical electrodynamics alone. But this complication does not affect the argument in the text. The true theory of everything will imply all physical facts about light.
- 17.
Kripke (1977); see especially p. 67.
- 18.
I have modified this paragraph slightly, because the 2001 version does not now seem to me to be quite correct.
- 19.
“Kripke is one of the most influential analytic philosophers of the twentieth century; his best-known work (Naming and Necessity) is arguably the single most important contribution to metaphysics and the philosophy of language in the last fifty years” (Hughes 2004, p. vii). “Naming and Necessity instantly established a new orthodoxy in Anglo-American philosophy. It is still recognized as a masterpiece. One often reads of the Kripkean ‘revolution’ in philosophy” Noonan (2013, p. 1).
- 20.
My view, of course, is that Critical Fundamentalism provides philosophy with a profoundly important role and task in the modern world: see my remarks on the subject in connection with my discussion of Mark Wilson in Chap. 4. The whole approach to philosophy of Austin, Ryle, Wittgenstein and Kripke is, in my view, misconceived.
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Maxwell, N. (2018). Appendix: Refutation of Kripke on Rigid Designators and Essentialism. In: The Metaphysics of Science and Aim-Oriented Empiricism. Synthese Library, vol 403. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04143-4_6
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