Results for 'Rigid Designator'
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- Rigid designation.Hugh S. Chandler -1975 -Journal of Philosophy 72 (13):363-369.I have been told that for some twenty minutes after reading this paper Kripke believed I had shown that proper names could be non-rigid designators. (Then, apparently, he found a crucial error in the set-up.) I take great pride in this (alleged) fact.
- Rigid Designation and Anaphoric Theories of Reference.Michael P. Wolf -2006 -Philosophical Studies 130 (2):351-375.Few philosophers today doubt the importance of some notion ofrigid designation, as suggested by Kripke and Putnam for names and natural kind terms. At the very least, most of us want our theories to be compatible with the most plausible elements of that account. Anaphoric theories of reference have gained some attention lately, but little attention has been given to how they square withrigid designation. Although the differences between anaphoric theories and many interpretations of the New (...) Theory of reference are substantial, I argue thatrigid designation and anaphoric theories can be reconciled with one another and in fact complement one another in important ways. (shrink)
- Rigid designation and theoretical identities.Joseph LaPorte -2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.Rigid designators for concrete objects and for properties -- On the coherence of the distinction -- On whether the distinction assigns to rigidity the right role -- A uniform treatment of property designators as singular terms --Rigid appliers -- Rigidity - associated arguments in support of theoretical identity statements: on their significance and the cost of its philosophical resources -- The skeptical argument impugning psychophysical identity statements: on its significance and the cost of its philosophical resources -- (...) The skeptical argument further examined: on resources, allegedly overlooked, for confirming psychological identities. (shrink)
- Two types ofrigid designation.Iris Einheuser -2005 -Dialectica 59 (3):367–374.The notion of arigiddesignator was originally introduced with respect to a modal semantics in which only one world, the world of evaluation, is shifted. Several philosophical applications employ a modal semantics which shifts not just the world of evaluation, but also the world considered as actual. How should the notion of arigiddesignator be generalized in this setting? In this note, I show that there are two options and argue that, for the currently (...) most popular application of two-dimensional modal semantics, proper names ought to be treated asrigid relative to the world considered as actual. (shrink)
- Rigid Designators and Descriptivism.Yu Zhang -2023 -Open Journal of Social Sciences 11:345-354.Kripke distinguishes necessity and priority as two different categories: priority is a notion of epistemology, while necessity is a notion of metaphysics. Based on this fundamental argument, Kripke objects to Descriptivism, which takes certain properties as the criteria of identity across all possible worlds, and he argues for the legitimacy of a posteriori necessary truths. Kripke also criticizes Russell’s methods for dealing with empty descriptions, and he puts forward a modal world to explain the rigidity of proper names. However, the (...) concept ofrigid designation faces some challenges, including Kripke admitting to weak essentialism when he rejects transworld identification, and the fact that the truth value of a sentence containing arigiddesignator may change. (shrink)
- Rigid Designators for Properties.Joseph LaPorte -2006 -Philosophical Studies 130 (2):321-336.Here I defend the position that some singular terms for properties arerigid designators, responding to Stephen P. Schwartz’s interesting criticisms of that position. First, I argue that my position does not depend on ontological parsimony with respect to properties – e.g., there is no need to claim that there are only natural properties – to get around the problem of “unusual properties.” Second, I argue that my position does not confuse sameness of meaning across possible worlds with sameness (...) of designation, orrigid designation. Third, I argue that my position does not founder by way of failing to assign rigidity the work of grounding a posteriori necessity. (shrink)
- Rigid designation and semantic structure.Arthur Sullivan -2007 -Philosophers' Imprint 7:1-22.There is a considerable sub-literature, stretching back over 35 years, addressed to the question: Precisely which general terms ought to be classified asrigid designators? More fundamentally: What should we take the criterion for rigidity to be, for general terms? The aim of this paper is to give new grounds for the old view that if a general term designates the same kind in all possible worlds, then it should be classified as arigiddesignator. The new (...) grounds in question have to do with excavating the connection betweenrigid designation and semantic structure. Other original contributions of the present work consist in developing responses to some objections to this approach torigid designation. (shrink)
- Kripke,rigid designators, and cartesian dualism.Robert J. Titiev -1974 -Philosophical Studies 26 (5-6):357 - 375.Aspects of kripke's recent work in philosophy are considered in connection with the formal approach he set forth over a decade ago regarding semantics for modal logic. An ambiguity is pointed out concerning kripke's intuitive test forrigid designators and it is argued that, Relative to an appropriate framework for considering actual and possible physical objects, Certain proper names fail to berigid designators.
- WhyRigid Designation Cannot Stand on Scientific Ground.Erik Curiel -unknownI do not think the notion of rigidity in designation can be correct, at least not in any way that can serve to ground a semantics purports both to be fundamental in a semiotical sense and to the best science of the day. A careful examination of both content and the character of our best scientific knowledge not cannot support anything like what the notion of rigidity requires, but actually shows the notion to be, at bottom, incoherent. In particular, the (...) scientific meaning of natural kind terms can be determined only within the context of a fixed scientific framework and not sub specie aeternitatis. Along the way, I provide grounds for the rejection of essentialist views of the ontology of natural kinds. (shrink)
- Rigid Designation and Definite Descriptions.Wojciech Rostworowski -2011 -Filozofia Nauki 19 (4).The aim of this paper is to discuss an idea that referentially used definite descriptions arerigid designators or, at least, „weakly”rigid designators in some sense of this term. In the first part, the views of Nathan Salmon, Howard Wettstein and Michael Devitt are presented. The author observes that none of these positions provides a conclusive argument in the discussion on the issue in question. In the second part, it is argued that referentially used descriptions are in (...) some senserigid. The main argument appeals to some observations concerning the scope ambiguity of modal constructions in which definite descriptions are embedded, and applies in an essential way Kripke’s possible worlds-semantics. In particular, the author attempts to demonstrate that in a „de dicto” modal construction, a referential description isrigid in a sense that it designates the same object in all „accessible” worlds. Moreover, he observes that his conclusion can be accepted by someone who is a proponent of a unified semantic analysis of definite descriptions, since his whole argumentation is based on the unified quantificational treatment of descriptions. (shrink)Export citation
Bookmark - Hylemorphism,Rigid Designators, and the Disembodied "Jesus": A Call for Clarification.James T. Turner -2019 -Religious Studies:1-16.Many in the Christian tradition affirm two things: (1) that Jesus Christ descended to Hades/Limbus Patrum on Holy Saturday and (2) that the human nature of Jesus is a hylemorphic compound, the unity of a human soul and prime matter. I argue that (1) and (2) are incompatible; for the name ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, and ‘Jesus Christ’ rigidly designates a human being. But, given a certain view of hylemorphism, the human being, Jesus, ceased to exist in the time between his death (...) and resurrection. So, Jesus did not descend to Hades/Limbus Patrum, even if God the Son did. (shrink)
- Rigid designators.Joseph LaPorte -2008 -Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Rigid Designation and Natural Kind Terms, Pittsburgh Style.Michael P. Wolf -2012 -Normative Functionalism and the Pittsburgh School.This paper addresses recent literature onrigid designation and natural kind terms that draws on the inferentialist approaches of Sellars and Brandom, among others. Much of the orthodox literature on rigidity may be seen as appealing, more or less explicitly, to a semantic form of “the given” in Sellars’s terms. However, the important insights of that literature may be reconstructed and articulated in terms more congenial to the Pittsburgh school of normative functionalism.Export citation Bookmark
- Rigid designation, direct reference, and modal metaphysics.Arthur Sullivan -2005 -Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (4):577–599.In this paper I argue that questions about the semantics ofrigid designation are commonly and illicitly run together with distinct issues, such as questions about the metaphysics of essence and questions about the theoretical legitimacy of the possible-worlds framework. I discuss in depth two case studies of this phenomenon – the first concerns the relation betweenrigid designation and reference, the second concerns the application of the notion of rigidity to general terms. I end by drawing out (...) some conclusions about the relations betweenrigid designation, semantic frameworks, reference, and essence. (shrink)
- “Please explain what arigiddesignator is”.Bryan Frances -manuscriptThis is an essay written for undergraduates who are confused about what arigiddesignator is.
- Rigid designation and the contingency of identity.André Gallois -1986 -Mind 95 (377):57-76.
- Rigid designation, existence and semantics for quantified modal logic.Kai Yee Wong -unknownIn an English article (‘On Expressions’) Professor Shen Youding writes, ‘the meaning of a name is not the object which is mentioned by means of it’ (Shen 1992: 11). This remark touches on a big issue that has divided contemporary philosophers of language. On the one side is the Millian (after J.S. Mill), who maintains that the semantic value of a name is the object which it designates, denotes, or refers to (as I use them here, these three terms are (...) interchangeable). [1] On the other side is the Fregean (after Gottlob Frege), who thinks that a name has a sense in addition to a reference. [2] Though Professor Sheng’s remark is too brief for us to claim that he would have been prepared to endorse the Fregean idea, it is clear that he was not a Millian. (shrink)Export citation Bookmark
- Are proper namesrigid designators?Pierre Baumann -2010 -Axiomathes 20 (2-3):333-346.A widely accepted thesis in the philosophy of language is that natural language proper names arerigid designators, and that they are so de jure, or as a matter of the “semantic rules of the language.” This paper questions this claim, arguing that rigidity cannot be plausibly construed as a property of name types and that the alternative, rigidity construed as a property of tokens, means that they cannot be consideredrigid de jure; rigidity in this case must (...) be viewed as a pragmatic and not a semantic property. (shrink)
- Names andRigid Designation.Jason Stanley -1997 - In Bob Hale, Crispin Wright & Alexander Miller,A Companion to the Philosophy of Language. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 920–947.This chapter discusses a version of the descriptive account of content which is compatible with rigidity thesis (RT) and critiques of RT. The rigidity of proper names demonstrates that utterances of sentences containing proper names, and utterances of sentences differing from those sentences only in containing non‐rigid descriptions in place of the proper names, differ in content. The fact that natural‐language proper names arerigid designators is an empirical discovery about natural language. The chapter intends to be a (...) survey of both the background and contemporary discussion of this discovery. However, the survey takes place in the context of an evaluation of the extent to which the discovery that English proper names arerigid itself threatens the descriptive picture of the content of names. The goal is to show that the exact philosophical significance of the discovery that natural‐language proper names arerigid designators is still, and should still be, a matter of controversy. (shrink)No categories
- Necessity and rigidly designating kind terms.Ben S. Cordry -2004 -Philosophical Studies 119 (3):243-264.Kripke claims that certainkind terms, particularly natural kind terms,are, like names,rigid designators. However,kind terms are more complicated than names aseach is connected both to a principle ofinclusion and an extension. So, there is aquestion regarding what it is that rigidlydesignating kind terms rigidly designate. Inthis paper, I assume that there are rigidlydesignating kind terms and attempt to answerthe question as to what it is that they rigidlydesignate. I then use this analysis of rigidlydesignating kind terms to show how (...) Kripke''sreasoning regarding the necessity of `Hesperusis Phosphorus'' can be extended to statementsinvolving kind terms like `Water is H2O''and `Tigers are mammals''. (shrink)
- (1 other version)Rigid Designators and Disguised Descriptions.Monte Cook -1980 -Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (sup1):111-117.In "naming and necessity" saul kripke repeatedly uses modal arguments to show that proper names are not abbreviated or disguised descriptions. I defend these modal arguments against the frequent criticism that they rest on an ambiguous premise.
- Rigid designators: Two applications.Michael Levin -1987 -Philosophy of Science 54 (2):283-294.I argue that kripke's reviews about scientific reduction and identity merely restate familiar empiricist theses in somewhat paradoxical language. I reconstruct a kripkean argument for natural necessity and conclude that it too restates empiricist orthodoxy in paradoxical language. I suggest that this difficulty is endemic to modern essentialism.
- Rigid designators and mind-brain identity.Grover Maxwell -1979 -Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 9:9.
- (1 other version)The semantics ofrigid designation.John Justice -2003 -Ratio 16 (1):33–48.Frege's thesis that each singular term has a sense that determines its reference and serves as its cognitive value has come to be widely doubted. Saul Kripke argued that since names arerigid designators, their referents are not determined by senses. David Kaplan has argued that therigid designation of indexical terms entails that they also lack referent–determining senses. Kripke's argument about names and Kaplan's argument about indexical terms differ, but each contains a false premise. The referents of (...) both names and indexical terms are determined by reflexive senses. It is reflexive sense that makes these termsrigid designators. (shrink)
- Semantic realism,rigid designation, and dynamic semantics.Alice G. B. ter Meulen -1998 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (1):85-86.Semantic realism fits Millikan's account of kind terms in its focus on information-theoretic abilities and strategic ways of gathering information in human communication. Instead of the traditional logical necessity, we should interpretrigid designation in a dynamic semantics as a legislative act to constrain possible ways in which our belief may change.
- Rigid Designation and Theoretical Identities.Eileen Walker -2015 -Philosophical Quarterly 65 (260):593-595.
- Stalking theRigidDesignator.Frank B. Ebersole -1982 -Philosophical Investigations 5 (4):247-266.Takes up Kripke's theory of reference for proper names and natural kind words. Advocates investigation by means of ordinary language examples. Finds the problem for which Kripke's theory is offered as an answer seems to rest on an implausible picture of language.
- Rigid Designation and Informative Identity Sentences.Richard L. Mendelsohn -1979 -Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4 (1):307-320.
- Direct,Rigid Designation and A Posteriori Necessity: A History and Critique.Quentin Smith -1998 - In J. H. Fetzer & P. Humphreys,The New Theory of Reference: Kripke, Marcus, and its origins. Dordrecht, Netherland: Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 137--178.
- Reference and Incommensurability: WhatRigid Designation Won’t Get You. [REVIEW]Michael P. Wolf -2007 -Acta Analytica 22 (3):207-222.Causal theories of reference in the philosophy of language and philosophy of science have suggested that it could resolve lingering worries about incommensurability between theoretical claims in different paradigms, to borrow Kuhn’s terms. If we co-refer throughout different paradigms, then the problems of incommensurability are greatly diminished, according to causal theorists. I argue that assuring ourselves of that sort of constancy of reference will require comparable sorts of cross-paradigm affinities, and thus provides us with no special relief on this problem. (...) Suggestions on how to think aboutrigid designation across paradigms are included. (shrink)
- Rigid designation in defining art.Thomas Leddy -1987 -Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 45 (3):263-272.
- General Terms asRigid Designators.Bernard Linsky -2006 -Philosophical Studies 128 (3):655-667.According to Scott Soames’ Beyond Rigidity, there are two important pieces of unfinished business left over from Saul Kripke’s influential Naming and Necessity. Soames reads Kripke’s arguments about names as primarily negative, that is, as proving that names don’t have a meaning expressible by definite descriptions or clusters of them. The famous Kripkean doctrine that names arerigid designators is really only part of the negative case. The thesis that names refer to the same object with respect to every (...) possible world is a byproduct of their meaning, not a positive account of what they mean. As well, the hints about causal chains and dubbings are no more than a picture, as Kripke says, and not a positive theory of meaning. Thus one piece of unfinished business, to which Soames devotes the most attention, is to give a positive account of the meanings of names. To do this Soames proposes that the meaning of a singular term is the contribution it makes to the semantic content of the sentences in which it occurs. The semantic content of a sentence is ordinarily a proposition, that proposition expressed by the most commonly intended assertion using the sentence. Soames’ proposal for a positive account is that the meaning of a proper name is its contribution to those propositions, simply the object to which it refers. Arguing for this positive account occupies the bulk of the book but I will not discuss it in my contribution to this symposium. (shrink)
- Dummett andrigid designators.William C. Smith -1980 -Philosophical Studies 37 (1):93 - 103.In his book "frege: philosophy of language", M a e dummett criticizes kripke's distinction betweenrigid and accidental designators. According to dummett, The argument for kripke's distinction relies on an examination of the behavior of names and descriptions in modal contexts. Dummett challenges kripke's thesis that descriptions in these contexts differ from names in creating formal ambiguities of scope, By arguing that names for which the reference has been fixed by means of a description exhibit this characteristic also. However (...) I argue that dummett's case fails, Because the ambiguity he isolates for this sort of name is demonstrably an epistemic one, Not a genuine ambiguity of modal placement. (shrink)
- Rigid designation and semantic value.Colin Mcginn -1982 -Philosophical Quarterly 32 (127):97-115.
- Rigid Designation.H. W. Noonan -1979 -Analysis 39 (4):174-182.
- Rigid Designation and the Contingent A Priori: The Meter Stick Revisited.Saul A. Kripke -manuscript
- If 'cat' is arigiddesignator, what does it designate?Monte Cook -1980 -Philosophical Studies 37 (1):61-4.
- (1 other version)On the impossibility ofrigid designators.Jerald Lee Mosley -1983 -Southern Journal of Philosophy 21 (3):421-433.Kripke's paradigmrigiddesignator directly refers without describing, Yet carries some type of content or import over and above its reference to a particular referent. Pursuant to my discussion of linguistic convention, I argue that all referring expressions must be either descriptions or what I call "labels," and that under neither rubric can a referring expression fill both the above roles.
- Semantical considerations onrigid designation.A. D. Smith -1987 -Mind 96 (381):83-92.
- Do Proper Names Always Rigidly Designate?Donald Nute -1978 -Canadian Journal of Philosophy 8 (3):475 - 484.Many philosophers have claimed possible worlds semantics is incoherent because of insoluble problems involved in the notion of identifying a single individual in different worlds. One frequent approach to trans-world identification has been to assume that all the possible worlds, complete with their populations, are described by means of qualities alone prior to our considering the question of identification of the same individual in each world in which it exists. If we interpret possible worlds semantics in this way, trans-world identification (...) could only be accomplished on the basis of some properties the individual has uniquely in every world in which it exists. This becomes problematic since the individual doesn't have the same properties in every world. In ‘Naming and Necessity’ and ‘Identity and Necessity’ Saul Kripke rejects such an account of both possible worlds and trans-world identification, developing an alternative interpretation of the new semantics. His approach involves a distinction between referring expressions which designate different individuals in different worlds according to the distribution of properties within each world and referring expressions which designate the same individual in every world. (shrink)
- Singular Terms andRigid Designators.Monte Cook -1979 -Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 10 (1):157-162.
- Why Proper Names areRigid Designators.Michael Pendlebury -1990 -Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (3):519-536.
- Radical defeasability andrigid designation.Avron Polakow -1982 -Theoria 48 (2):78-89.
- Scientific Realism withoutRigid Designation in Kant's Analogies.David Landy -2016 -Kant E-Prints 11 (2):70-89.In Kant, Science, and Human Nature, Robert Hanna argues against a version of scientific realism founded on the Kripke/Putnam theory of reference, and defends a Kant-inspired manifest realism in its place. I reject Kriple/Putnam for different reasons than Hanna does, and argue that what should replace it is not manifest realism, but Kant‘s own scientific realism, which rests on a radically different theory of reference. Kant holds that we picture manifest objects by uniting manifolds of sensation using concepts-qua-inferential-rules. When these (...) rules are demonstrated to be invalid, we replace the picture of the macroscopic world with a picture of the microscopic entities of theoretical science that unites the very same manifolds using different rules of inference. Thus, we refer to "unobservable" theoretical entities in the same way that we do manifest ones: by specifying both their determinate location in space and time and the concepts by which they are understood. (shrink)
- VIII*—Natural Kind Words and “Rigid Designators”.Mark Platts -1982 -Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 82 (1):103-114.Mark Platts; VIII*—Natural Kind Words and “Rigid Designators”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 June 1982, Pages 103–114, https://.
- Chapter four:Rigid designation, direct reference, and indexicality.Scott Soames -2010 - InPhilosophy of Language. Princeton University Press. pp. 77-106.
- Linsky onrigid designation and sense.Gerald Vision -1980 -Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (3):291 – 297.
- Contingent identity andrigid designation.William R. Carter -1987 -Mind 96 (382):250-255.
- There is no reallyrigid designation.Charles F. Kielkopf -1977 -Noûs 11 (4):409-416.
- What is the point? Concepts, description, andrigid designation.Bradley Franks &Nick Braisby -1998 -Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (1):70-70.Millikan's nondescriptionist approach applies an account of meaning to concepts in terms of designation. The essentialism that provides the principal grounds forrigid designation, however, receives no empirical support from concepts. Whatever the grounding, this view not only faces the problems ofrigid designation in theories of meaning, it also calls for a role for pragmatics more consonant with descriptionist theories of concepts.
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