Naming and Necessity Lecture 1 [André Robert]

In his discussion about names as a cluster of descriptions, Kripke says, "Not only is it true of the man Aristotle that he might not have gone into pedagogy; it is also true that we use the term 'Aristotle' in such a way that, in thinking of a counterfactual situation in which Aristotle didn't go into any of the fields and do any of the achievements we commonly attribute to him, still we would say that was a situation in which Aristotle did not do these thongs" (Kripke 1970, 62).

What this doing is refuting that names could just be a cluster of descriptions. Since we can and do talk about people in counterfactual ways, as Kripke does here, and still be talking about the same person and intelligently use their name, there has to be something about the name other than a description. Otherwise, changing things about that person would mean that they would no longer satisfy the conditions of their name, but this is clearly not what happens when we talk about counterfactual things.

I agree with this idea because many people talk about "what if..." scenarios and all parties involved in said conversations can understand what is going on. I also think they  are all still talking about the same person in a different scenario rather than a different person entirely who happens to share traits with the original (as might be suggested by the cluster theory).


When talking about the meter and the one meter stick, Kripke says, "On the other hand, even if S is used as the standard of a meter, the metaphysical status of 'S is one meter long' will be that of a contingent statement, provided that 'one meter' is regarded as a rigid designator: under appropriate stresses and strains, heatings and coolings, S  would have had a length other than one meter even at t0" (Kripke 1970, 56).

Here, Kripke is contrating the differenc between epistemologial status and metaphysical status in that the latter has a fixed meaning. One meter is one meter, according to Kripke, so whatever reference is being used to determine that could be wrong in a metaphysical sense if that reference is not in fact one meter.

I found this part confusing because I wasn't sure how the stick could be different from a meter at time 0: if the stick is what determines what a meter is in the first place, how could it not be a meter? This may just be a poor example of a rigid designator as units of measurement are arbitrary,, but it seemed like a crucial part of Kripke's argument and I wanted to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.