Kripke

If 'Moses' means 'the man who did such and such', then, if no one did such and such, Moses didn't exist; and maybe 'no one did such and such' is even an analysis of 'Moses didn't exist'. But if the description is used to fix a reference rigidly, then it's clear that that is not what is meant by 'Moses didn't exist', because we can ask, if we speak of a counterfactual case where no one did indeed do such and such, say, lead the Israelites out of Egypt, does it follow that, in such a situation, Moses wouldn't have existed? It would seem not. For surely Moses might have just decided to spend his days more pleasantly in the Egyptian courts. He might never have gone into either politics or religion at all;(66) If we used a description to associate a person, for example ‘Moses’ with ‘the man who did such and such’, then it would be a possible conclusion that if the man did not do such and such, ‘Moses’ would not exist. However, in this situation it is entirely possible that someone named ‘Moses’ did exist, but did not do those specific actions. This would mean that even if b did not exist, that would not conclude ‘a’ does not exist, rather a did not do those specific actions. I agree with this description and found it very interesting because at first glance it seems to be a case of if a = b, and if b does not exist, that would mean a does not exist as well. However, it is clearly not the case that a = b in this situation. While it may be true that statements in b (the man did such and such) are true for the given person a (“Moses”), that doesn’t mean that a = b, rather it means b posses s traits or aspects that may be true about If one says 'Moses did not exist', this may mean various things. It may mean: The Israelites did not have a single leader when they withdrew from Egypt-or: their leader was not called Moses-or: there cannot have been anyone who accomplished all that the Bible relates of Moses- I shall perhaps say: by 'Moses' I understand the man who did what the Bible relates of Moses, or at any rate, a good deal of it. But how much? Have I decided how much must be proved false for me to give up my proposition as false? Has the name 'Moses' got a fixed and unequivocal use for me in all possible cases?? (31) There are many ways that people can interpret the phrase, “Moses did not exist”. Kripke is providing a few different examples, like if it means the Israelites didn’t have a single leader who withdrew from Egypt (which is what Moses did in the Bible). Even if we assume the most generalized case, of saying Moses is the man who has done the deeds that the person in the Bible who is referred to as Moses has done, how much can you actually attribute to Moses? To me this dilemma just seems like an issue of context. The name ‘Moses’ in the phrase “Moses did not exist” will be referring to every case of the actions done by the person, ‘Moses’ in the Bible because for anyone who has read the Bible, or has heard enough has enough awareness to know that ‘Moses’ will refer to that person.