[lit-ideas] Geary on the Name/Noun Distinction
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 13:47:41 EDT
In a message dated 4/30/2004 12:57:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,
torgfje2@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
> Still, the Europeans who slaughtered each other in the name of
> religion during the Thirty-Years War and, again, in the name of
> nationalist ideologies during WWI and WWII have become a good deal
> less obsessive in these regards. Ditto for most Japanese.
"in the name of"?
--- Right. Odd that he would write that, when 'religion' is not even a
_name_, but a _noun_. ("in the noun of" is the correct latinism, as employed by
Geary, "Name-Calling and Name-Dropping: The Necessity -- a reply to Kripke."
Cheers,
JL
---
From amazon.com for Kripke, Naming and Necessity
In 1970, Saul Kripke gave a series of three lectures at Princeton University.
These lectures, subsequently published under the title _Naming and
Necessity_, were quickly recognized as one of those rare events that turns the
world of
philosophy on its ear. Amazingly, Kripke was a mere 29 years old at the time
and he delivered the lectures without any notes. This book reflects both the
advantages and shortcomings of the spoken form: it is clear, engaging, and
often
witty, but it is also repetitive at times and frustratingly incomplete at
others.
It is perhaps fitting that Kripke delivered these lectures the same year that
Bertrand Russell passed away, since their main target is the descriptivist
theory of names associated with Russell. According to Russell - and to the
reigning philosophical orthodoxy until 1970 - names are best analyzed as
abbreviated definite descriptions, i.e. as unique sets of properties possessed
by their
bearers. However, Kripke argues that on this analysis, all such properties
belong to their possessors necessarily - which is obviously false. For
instance,
if the name "Billy Strayhorn" just means "The composer of 'Take the "A"
Train,'" then there is no possible world in which Billy Strayhorn did not
compose
the song. But this is false: Even if Billy Strayhorn had never written any
songs, he would obviously still be Billy Strayhorn. What a puzzle!
In place of descriptivism, Kripke proposes the theory of direct reference,
according to which a name "rigidly designates" its referent in every possible
world in which it exists. That is, a name is just a "tag" attached to its
referent, with no descriptive content whatsoever. Kripke also proposes an
alternative theory for how names are transmitted, the causal theory of names.
For
Kripke, the name I use for Strayhorn is "his" name in virtue of the fact that
it is
related, by means of some appropriate causal chain, to Strayhorn himself.
Much of this was anticipated by other philosophers, though this often goes
unnoticed. But Kripke developed his theory in a highly interesting way and put
it to all sorts of surprising uses. His discussion of necessity and possibility
almost single-handedly resurrected essentialism and gave a major impetus to
contemporary modal metaphysics. He claims that names for natural kinds, such as
"gold" and "tiger," rigidly designate their referents and argues that this
establishes the existence of necessary a posteriori truths. He closes the book
by offering an essentialist argument against the mind-body identity thesis.
In short, Kripke has given philosophers much to talk about. Indeed, _Naming
and Necessity_ has spawned a whole cottage industry of commentary. In my view,
Kripke's project is flawed in many (though not all) respects. For instance,
his causal theory is too vague to be of much use, and his argument that natural
kind terms directly refer seems question-begging. Nonetheless, Kripke's book
is extremely provocative, interesting, important, and even fun.
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