I agree with Kripke that we do not need to know from who a
person is referenced in a “reference chain” to be able to reference them. I can
reference several entities by which I do not know where I got the information from
such as global warming or Saint Nicholas. I could of learned these marks from school,
parents, news, books, or even the internet, but I have no idea which one I have
a reference from.
I disagree with Kripke that (in the example of Venus) if Phosphorus
equals Hesperus it must be the case that they are the same object in every
world. It can be the case that we observe some object in a certain way and give
it some name to refer to it in each of its environments. This is to say that
even though we know a crescent and full moon are both moons and the same moon, I
wouldn’t say crescent moon = full moon since they refer to different
descriptions (if a crescent moon is out I wouldn’t call it a full moon).
For Kripke, how does he consider the reference chain of a
non-existence? If the legend of king Arthur was not known to be written in a
book, would we (by Kripke’s theory) be able to put qualities onto this made up
object?
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