Kripke Lecture 1 [Danielle Trzil]

Agree

"... designation rigidly designates a certain object if it designates that object wherever the object exists; ... the objects is a necessary existent, the designation can be called strongly rigid."

Here Kripke uses the example of Nixon and Humphrey to convey his point. The President of the US in 1970 was, definitely, Nixon. This statement is strongly rigid because it is a fact. However, in the election Humphrey might have been president in 1970, and that is a designation that is not rigid. I agree with this because there are some statements that are up to interpretation or variable to change, whereas some facts, especially in history, are non-negotiable. Nixon was the president and so if you say "the president from 1970" that would, indefinitely, mean Nixon. If you said "the president in 2018", because it hasn't happened yet we can not rigidly say it will be Bernie, Hilary, or...Trump...

Disagree

"...nine could also be equally well picked out as the number of planets. It is not necessary, not true in all possible worlds, that the number of planets is odd."

This quote is what we mentioned in class the other day. It basically means even though if we say in THIS world is the number of planets in our solar system is odd, the statement would be true, but in another thought-up possible universe the answer could be false (there is no way for us to know). Meanwhile, if we say there are nine x's in this world or another thought up world, the statement remains true because nine planets does not equal the concept of nine in general. I think this is a very controversial statement, because even though it makes sense and I see the argument Kripke is making, I do not think it is a valid one. Even if there are other possible universes, we have no way to access them or provide any significant knowledge other than "there might be more or less than 9 planets", unless we talk about like the Star Trek or Doctor Who universe, which is subject to change through human thought and creation. While Kripke has a valid point about other worlds, that's not what they other philosophers were talking about in the first place anyway, because Mill, Russell, and Frege were only talking about the real world in the first place...