Kripke - Naming and Necessity Lecture II [Sean Wammer]

1.
This is a quote from Kripke that I agreed with,

"It just is not, in any intuitive sense of necessity, a necessary truth that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him...It would seem that it's a contingent fact that Aristotle ever did any of the things commonly attributed to him today, any of these great achievements that we so much admire." (Kripke, 1972). 

This is a quote from Kripke that I disagreed with,

"We certainly say, and sincerely, 'Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic'. Does it follow from that that we believe that Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic—that we attribute the incompleteness of arithmetic to this man? No. Not just from that. We have to be referring to Godel when we say 'Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic'. If, in fact, we were always referring to Schmidt, then we would be attributing the incompleteness of arithmetic to Schmidt and not to Godel...But we do in fact refer to Godel." (Kripke, 1972).

2.
In the first quote, Kripke is trying to show that there is no necessary connection between the names we use and the description or bundle of properties we ascribe to that name. We might want to say that Aristotle refers whoever fits all these properties, but any of the properties we assign to Aristotle may be false. Thus, there is no necessary connection between the name we use and the person we are trying to pick out or their "unique" properties.

In the second quote, Kripke is pointing out a problem with the connection between names and their intended referent. If we are loose with the reference and say that 'Godel' refers to whoever proved the incompleteness of arithmetic, then our reference to Godel is circular because it depends on exactly what we are ascribing in 'Godel proved the incompleteness of arithmetic'.

3.
I agree with Kripke here because when we use a name, it really doesn't seem like we are trying to also assert a big bundle of properties that uniquely pick out that person. We just casually refer to some actual object and hope that the listener can pick out the same object as you do from your name, so there really is no necessary connection between names and their properties.

I disagree with Kripke in the second quote and find this passage very puzzling since our beliefs about Godel are contingent on our actual knowledge of Godel. It seems appropriate (or at least permissible) that our reference is contingent on the properties we ascribe; when I refer to Godel, I am just referring to whoever proved the incompleteness of arithmetic because I don't know any better.

--Sean Wammer