[Wittrs] Re: Proper Names --Wittgenstein, Russell, Kripke

  • From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 02 Feb 2010 23:04:08 -0000

I have a note written in the margin of my PI next to §79: "I use the name 'N' 
without a fixed meaning.".  What I wrote was: "anti-Kripke".

I think you have the rest substantially correct.

Kripke's theory is supposedly "causal", but I think it's a slander on the term 
"causal" to use it in the neo-essentialist manner he does.  For the most part, 
I hold Kripke as gibberish.

Wittgenstein's approach is supposed to be linguistic, not causal.  Compared to 
Kripke, I'll take Wittgenstein every time and twice on Sunday.  However, 
Wittgenstein famously rejects causal explanations entirely, and I think he goes 
too far with that.  So I hold that *some* causal theory is needed to explain 
why even linguistic theories work, but Kripke advances in a totally different 
direction under a false (for him) banner, in my ever so humble (not) opinion.

Of course Wittgenstein never read Kripke, which is probably just as well for 
them both, but was responding to Russell's idea that only true statements 
represented, or only representing statements were true, or whatever it is that 
Russell said about things.  Certainly Wittgenstein's more linguistic approach 
turned that around.

To complete the triangle - what Russell meant to Kripke or vice-versa, I leave 
to someone else.

Josh



=========================================
Need Something? Check here: http://ludwig.squarespace.com/wittrslinks/

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. wittrsamr
  3. Archive
  4. 02-2010