Name and need
Name and Necessity (in the original: Naming and Necessity ) is one of the main works of the American philosopher Saul Aaron Kripke and at the same time one of the most widely received works of analytic philosophy . The work, published in 1972, is based on a series of lectures that Kripke gave in January 1970 in Princeton . Kripke makes a significant contribution to the philosophical debate about proper names , at the same time he is concerned with distinguishing the concept of necessity from that of the a priori . With his view, Kripke also takes a position on the mind-body problem by putting forward an argument against the so-called identity theory .
Main theses
Kripke's theory of proper names
The labeling theory
Kripke developed his theory of proper names based on a criticism of his predecessors. According to Kripke, Frege and Russell understand a proper name as an " abbreviated or disguised designation " (1st lecture, Suhrkamp edition, p. 36). The proper name "morning star" is for example an abbreviation for the expression "the star that is the last to be seen in the sky in the morning". However, in the case of many proper names, especially in the case of famous people like Aristotle , it is difficult to give such a description. Should "Aristotle " be synonymous with "the teacher of Alexander the great ", "the most famous student of Plato " or "the author of" metaphysics "" ? In view of this problem, according to Kripke , the philosophers Wittgenstein and Searle improved the theory of proper names to the effect that proper names are no longer synonymous with a single label, but with a "bundle" ( cluster ) of labels (p. 39 f.). Not all of these labels, but a sufficient number, need to apply to the person in question. The labeling theory or the improved bundle labeling theory have the following advantages according to Kripke (p. 37 f.):
- A label gives us a criterion on how we can separate the actually intended speaker from the crowd of other potential speakers. Labeling theory can therefore explain how we determine which object the speaker means by the proper name used.
- Labeling theory provides an explanation for the fact that there are so-called "informative identity statements" (these had given Frege a headache in his essay " On Sense and Meaning "). An empirically meaningful statement such as "The morning star is the evening star" would, according to the theory, be analyzed as "the star that is last in the sky in the morning is identical to the star that is first in the sky in the evening". Based on this analysis, it is clear where the empirical content of the statement lies.
- Labeling theory can explain the meaning of negative existence statements. The riddle posed by a statement like " Moses did not exist" is "How can we refer to Moses on the one hand and deny his existence in the same breath. Didn't we already assume his existence by referring to it?" But if "Moses" is synonymous with "the leader of the Israelites from Egypt", the sentence "Moses did not exist" would be easy to analyze on the basis of the characterization theory as "There was no leader of the Israelites from Egypt" and in this analysis it is clear that we are not already assuming the existence of Moses here.
Determine the meaning or determine the reference?
Kripke makes a fine distinction with regard to the labeling theory of proper names: Should the labeling serve to determine the meaning of the proper name or just fix its reference ( fixing the reference )? In order to understand this distinction, one must make use of the modalities "necessary" and " possible " or the tool of the " possible world " often used by Kripke . If the marking really determines the meaning, then the marking and the proper name must necessarily refer to the same thing - that is, in the manner of speaking of the possible worlds: in all possible worlds. However, if it only serves to establish the reference, then it is sufficient that the designation and proper name actually - in this world - refer to the same thing. This distinction will become even clearer in the following, for the moment it should only be said that Kripke rejects both variants of the characterization theory.
Kripke developed his criticism on the basis of some famous examples, including that of the original meter in Paris (p. 67 ff.). The length "one meter" is defined as the length of the original meter, that is, of a certain rod, at a certain point in time t. This defines the length of one meter, but according to Kripke the terms "one meter" and "the length of the rod at t" are not synonymous, because for this the two terms would have to mean the same thing in all possible worlds. But it was possible that the rod at t had a different length, that is, there is a possible world in which it had a different length. According to Kripke, the term "one meter" a "rigid designator" ( rigid designator ) (page 59), ie, he calls in every possible world the same (namely that particular length). The term "the length of the rod at t" is used to establish its reference, but not to determine its meaning. This becomes clear from the fact that in relation to another world, in which the rod had a different length at t, it would apply that the rod was not one meter long, and not that the rod was indeed one meter long there, but a meter there is a different length than in this world.
The example shows that labels are not used to determine the meaning of a proper name. The reason is that proper names (like "a meter") are rigid designative expressions, they mean the same thing in every world. However, labels (such as "the length of the rod to t") typically do not refer to the same thing in every world. However, a condition for synonymy would be that the names are identical in every possible world. At the same time, the original meter is an example of how the reference of the proper name is determined via a label: The fact that the stick is one meter in length in this world determines the reference of this expression in all possible worlds.
As already mentioned, Kripke also criticizes the theory that labels define the reference of proper names. There are such cases, as the original meter shows, but they are not the rule. To show this, Kripke constructed a further example, the "Gödel-Schmidt example" (lecture 2, p. 98 f.). The example assumes that most people associate the proper name " Gödel " with the designation "he who discovered the incompleteness of mathematics ". That this designation does not determine the meaning of "Gödel" is clear after what has been said, because then it should be impossible that Gödel would not have discovered the incompleteness, which is obviously not the case. But does the marking serve at least (as in the case of the original meter) to establish the reference, that is, is the marking used to determine the reference object of "Godel" at least in this world? Kripke constructs the case that Gödel had copied his manuscript from an unknown (and meanwhile deceased) mathematician named "Schmidt". In reality, then, it would not be Gödel but Schmidt who discovered the incompleteness. In this case, however, we, who believe that Godel has proven the incompleteness, would have a wrong opinion about Godel, not a correct one about Schmidt. Under these circumstances, the name "Gödel" would still refer to Gödel and not to Schmidt. This example therefore shows that the marking does not even serve to establish the reference, that the marking and proper name do not even necessarily refer to the same thing in this world.
The causal theory of proper names
Kripke outlines a theory of proper names, which he opposes the labeling theory. This theory was later called the "causal theory of proper names": " Let's say someone is being born, a baby: his parents call him by a certain name. They talk to their friends about it. Other people come together with him. Through different ones Kinds of speech the name is spread from link to link as if through a chain ... A certain chain of communication that ultimately reaches back to the [baby] himself reaches the speaker. He then refers to [the baby] ... "( P. 107). So the one I mean by the name "Godel" is the same as those who I heard the name of meant. These in turn meant whoever meant those from whom they heard the name. At some point this chain leads back to people who had direct acquaintance with Gödel. The reference of the name "Gödel" is ultimately determined by the initial links.
A weakness of the causal theory is that it does not have a good explanation for negative existence statements: How should the expression "Moses" in the statement "Moses did not exist" be analyzed? If Moses did not actually exist, then there can be no causal chain that points back to him.
Essentialism and Natural Types
In his third lecture, Kripke turns to the question of whether there are "essential properties", ie properties that an object must have. Kripke answers this question in the affirmative; for example, it is essential for a certain person that he or she emerged from the egg and sperm cell from which he actually emerged. We cannot imagine a possible world in which humans emerged from other cells, even if we can imagine that this might apply to another human being with perhaps very similar properties (Lecture 3, p. 130). Likewise, if we find that an object is made of a certain material, we cannot imagine that it is made of any other material. According to Kripke, although we can imagine that we find that a certain table that appears to be made of wood is instead made of ice, cleverly shaped and painted. But if the table is actually made of wood, then we can no longer imagine that it was actually made of ice; it would then no longer be the same table (p. 131). The material from which objects are made is also an essential property.
According to Kripke, expressions for natural species, such as "tiger", are close to proper names in that they are also rigid designative expressions. The term "tiger" means the same animal species in every world. Once we have established that tigers are cats, we can no longer imagine a possible world in which tigers have a completely different internal structure, such as robots. These robots might look and behave similarly to tigers, but they would not be tigers because the reference for the term "tiger" was established by our acquaintance with real tigers in this world and is now the same for all worlds. It also follows from this that tigers are necessarily cats. However, the fact that tigers are cats is a scientific discovery. According to Kripke, the natural sciences reveal their essential (necessary) properties by examining the internal structure of species.
Necessary and a priori
At the same time, Kripke's comments on proper names serve to differentiate two traditional concepts of philosophy more precisely: that of necessity (i.e. truth in all possible worlds) and that of a priori. Kripke defines the latter term as follows: " Apriori truths are those truths that can be recognized independently of any experience " (Lecture 1, p. 44). An example is the phrase "bachelors are unmarried". According to Kripke, philosophy has often assumed that all a priori truths are necessary and vice versa. According to Kripke, the supposed reason for this equation is as follows: " If something [...] is true in all possible worlds, then we should of course simply by going through all possible worlds in our head, [...] in to be able to see that [the statement] is necessary, and thus to be able to know it a priori. [...] Second, one thinks [...] that conversely something that is known a priori , must be necessary because it was known without looking at the world. If it depended on some contingent aspect of the real world, how could one know it without looking? Perhaps the real world is one of the possible worlds in who would have been wrong. "
From what has been said so far, however, it already emerges that, according to Kripke, there are both a priori statements that are not necessary and necessary statements that do not apply a priori. An example of the former is the statement "The original meter in Paris is one meter long at time t". This statement is a priori because we according to the reference of "one meter" defined have. However, as already said, it does not necessarily apply; possible worlds are conceivable in which the staff had a different length at the time. Statements "This table is made of wood" or "Tigers are cats" are examples of the opposite case, namely necessary statements that do not apply a priori. In order to determine that this table is made of wood or that tigers are cats, an empirical investigation must be carried out, so the statements are not a priori. As already said above, the statements are still necessary, however, once we have established that the table is made of wood, it is no longer possible to imagine a world in which it is made of other material. Likewise, we cannot imagine a world where tigers are not cats.
literature
- Saul A. Kripke: Name and Necessity (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft. 1056). Translated by Ursula Wolf . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-518-28656-0 .
- Jesús Padilla Gálvez : Reference and Theory of Possible Worlds. Presentation and criticism of the logical-semantic theory in the language-analytical philosophy (= European university publications. Series 20: Philosophy. Vol. 267). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1989, ISBN 3-631-40780-7 (At the same time: Cologne, University, dissertation, 1988).