Contents
Do rigid designators exist?
A rigid designator designates the same object in all possible worlds in which that object exists and never designates anything else. This technical concept in the philosophy of language has critical consequences felt throughout philosophy.
Is pain a rigid designator?
Kripke vigorously intuits that some names for mental states, in particular ‘pain’, are rigid designators: that is, it’s not contingent what their referents are.
Metaphysics | Semantics | |
---|---|---|
Kripke’s position | Being felt as pain is both necessary and sufficient for that which instantiates this property. | ‘Pain’ is nondescriptive. |
What is a rigid designator Kripke?
Kripke says that a rigid designator is a word that picks out the same thing in all possible worlds in which it designates at all. Examples of rigid designators include proper names and names of proper types.
Why are proper names rigid designators?
Proper names rigidly designate for reasons that differ from natural kinds terms. The reason ‘Johnny Depp’ refers to one particular person in all possible worlds is because some person initially gave the name to him by saying something like “Let’s call our baby ‘Johnny Depp'”.
Are there necessary a posteriori truths?
ARE THERE NECESSARY A POSTERIORI TRUTHS? that if one accepts Kripke’s views on rigid designators together with two other rather plausible assumptions, then one cannot accept the example that Kripke presents as a case of a necessary a posteriori truth.
Who came up with identity theory?
Social identity theory developed from a series of studies, frequently called minimal-group studies, conducted by the British social psychologist Henri Tajfel and his colleagues in the early 1970s.
What is Kripke’s modal argument?
Princeton University. The Modal Argument. In Naming and Necessity,’ Saul Kripke gives three types of argument against. semantic theories that analyze the meaning, or reference, of proper names in terms of the meaning, or denotation, of descriptions associated with those names by speakers.
What kind of knowledge did Kripke think we could have?
In his book, Naming and Necessity, the American philosopher Saul Kripke argues, among other things, that the traditional belief that a priori knowledge must be knowledge of necessary truths and a posteriori knowledge must be knowledge of contingent truths is false.
What is the difference between priori and posteriori?
“A priori” and “a posteriori” refer primarily to how, or on what basis, a proposition might be known. In general terms, a proposition is knowable a priori if it is knowable independently of experience, while a proposition knowable a posteriori is knowable on the basis of experience.
What is synthetic priori?
synthetic a priori proposition, in logic, a proposition the predicate of which is not logically or analytically contained in the subject—i.e., synthetic—and the truth of which is verifiable independently of experience—i.e., a priori.
Was Kant a rationalist?
Kant’s philosophy has been called a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism. From rationalism he takes the idea that we can have a priori knowledge of significant truths, but rejects the idea that we can have a priori metaphysical knowledge about the nature of things in themselves, God, or the soul.
Why does Kant think that metaphysical knowledge is impossible?
The reason that knowledge has these constraints, Kant argues, is that the mind plays an active role in constituting the features of experience and limiting the mind’s access only to the empirical realm of space and time.
What is contingent truth?
A contingent truth is one that is true, but could have been false. A necessary truth is one that must be true; a contingent truth is one that is true as it happens, or as things are, but that did not have to be true.
What is a priori truth?
Definitions. As we have seen in our initial meeting with examples, an a priori truth is something that can be known independently of any particular evidence or experience. This rough and ready idea has been the basis of the claim to a priority for each of our examples.
What is synthetic truth?
Synthetic truths are true both because of what they mean and because of the way the world is, whereas analytic truths are true in virtue of meaning alone. “Snow is white,” for example, is synthetic, because it is true partly because of what it means and partly because snow has a certain color.