Post 143

Why I Hate Kripke
by a rather angry butterfly

Saul Kripke, moron that he is—and, yes, that is ad hominid, but it also happens to be my thesis, so suck it!—sought (and, as I will show, failed) to disprove the following theory of naming (which I happen to agree with except for with one minute detail, which I will point out and will not, I don’t think, really interfere with what I’m trying to say):

(1) To every name or designating expression “X,” there corresponds a cluster of properties, namely the family of those properties φ such that A believes “φX.”

(2) One of the properties, or some conjointly, are believed by A to pick out some individual uniquely.

(3) If most, or a weighted most, of the φ’s are satisfied by one unique object y, then y is the referent of “X.”

(4) If the vote yields no unique object, “X” does not refer.

(5) The statement, “If X exists, then X has most of the φ’s” is known a priori by the speaker.

(6) The statement, “If X exists, then X has most of the φ’s” expresses a necessary truth (in the idiolect of the speaker).

(C) For any successful theory, the account must not be circular. The properties which are used in the vote must not themselves involve the notion of reference in such a way that it is ultimately impossible to eliminate.

The only part of this rigmarole (for lack of better title, “gobbledygook” being the only other thing that comes to mind) that I disagree with is the “is known a priori” in (5). I do not think it matters whether the speaker knows empirically or a priori that “if X exists, then X has most of the φ’s”—I don’t think it really matters whether he (the speaker) knows it at all, only that he either assumes or asserts that X has most (or all) of the φ’s. I do not, however, think that this dissention will inhibit my dashing Kipke’s sophistry to ickle bits, so let’s get to it!

Kipke begins on very solid ground—ground so solid, in fact, that I can’t refute it. But he’s a moron, and that will become plenty apparent plenty soon.

He begins by quoting and refuting Searle, who said, in essence, that, when we refer to Aristotle (for one example), we refer to “the logical sum, inclusive disjunction, or properties commonly attributed to him….” Kripke refutes this, saying, “It just is not, in any intuitive sense of necessity, a necessary truth that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him.” Earlier in this same lecture, Kripke used Richard Nixon as an example, saying that “Richard Nixon” does not mean “The President in 1970” because Richard Nixon would have been Richard Nixon even if Humphrey had been elected. This is true and, as I said, I cannot refute it, but little thought is required to realize that Kripke is really missing the point here, and that is what I will show you now.

Let’s go back to Aristotle. I don’t know much about him, but I know that he was a pupil of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great (this I know solely because Aristotle is used as in example in most of the philosophical essays &c. that I’ve read of late). I also know that he was called (or is at least now called by we English speakers) Aristotle. I will assume (though I can’t claim to know it for sure) that he was given the name “Aristotle” before he became well-known (this I will assume because, even if it isn’t actually true, it won’t hurt this example at all because I could do this same thing with any given historical figure; Aristotle himself is not vital to what I am saying). Kripke is saying that saying “Aristotle” is not the same as uttering “the pupil of Plato who taught Alexander the Great” because he would have been Aristotle even if he had never been Plato’s pupil or Alexander’s teacher. This, to me, seems just a little silly on Kipke’s part because, though that is absolutely true, the reason we still talk about Aristotle so long after his death is because of the great things he did (which includes, I suppose, learning from Plato and teaching Alexander). So, while “Aristotle” does not etymologically denote “the pupil of Plato who taught Alexander the Great,” when I say “Aristotle,” I mean “the pupil of Plato who taught Alexander the Great.”

Kripke, you’re a moron. How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:

Evidence #2 that Kripke is barking up the wrong tree: he attacks (2) claiming that it defies (C)’s demand that “the account must not be circular.” He begins by saying, “Usually the properties in question are supposed to be some famous deeds of the person in question.” Really, Kripke? Is that really so? What if I want to talk about Cyrano de Bergerac because of his nose? Or Joseph Merrick (the Elephant Man)on account of his deformity? Certainly these are individuals known for doing things, but their physical appearances play major roles in that fame as well. Or what if I want to talk about Uluru (Ayers Rock)? It has no deeds to its name, though it does have a name and properties, too. The same is true of Rushmore and Everest and the Nile. Nevertheless, I do not see this assertion (that the properties mentioned in (2) are generally deeds) being any sort of breaking point, so I’ll play along.

“Consider Richard Feynman,” Kripke says, “to whom many of us are able to refer. He is a leading contemporary theoretical physicist. Everyone here (I’m sure!) can state the contents of one of Feynman’s theories so as to differentiate him from Gell-Mann. However, the man in the street, not possessing these abilities, may still use the name ‘Feynman.’ When asked he will say: well he’s a physicist or something. He may not think that this picks out anyone uniquely. I still think he uses the name ‘Feynman’ as a name for Feynman.”

Stupid Kripke; he forgot to finish his sentence. Clever of him, I suppose, for the denouement of it is what ruins his argument: “I still think he uses the name ‘Feynman’ as a name for Feynman because he learned it in reference to Feynman, as is evidenced in his at least knowing that Feynman is a physicist.” See, the reason Feynman was known at the time was because he was such a crazy physicist; surely people would have heard of him even without understanding at all what he has done. Perhaps the same is true today of Stephen Hawking: you could probably find someone who would say, “Oh, that name sounds familiar; who is he?” Such an one would not be asserting that “Stephen Hawking” refers to no one but that it rather refers to someone who is, to him or her, unknown. Similarly, someone who would say of Stephen Hawking, “I’ve never heard of him,” would not be asserting that there are no Stephen Hawkings existing anywhere in the universe, merely that he or she has not heard of him. This is something Kripke can’t seem to wrap his head around.

Moving on, Kripke goes on to use Cicero and Catiline as example, and this is the part where he claims (2) is circular:

Let’s say, for example, that we know that Cicero was the man who first denounced Catiline. Well, that’s good. That really picks someone out uniquely. However, there is a problem, because this description contains another name, namely ‘Catiline.” We must be sure that we satisfy the conditions in such a way as to avoid violating the noncircularity condition here. In particular, we must not say that Catiline was the man denounced by Cicero. If we do this, we will really not be picking out anything uniquely, we will simply be picking out a pair of objects A and B, such that A denounced B. We do not think that this was the only pair where such denunciations ever occurred; so we had better add some other conditions in order to satisfy the uniqueness condition.

Honest to goodness, that’s where the man stops! No joke; I’ll give you his very next sentence—indeed, the entirety of his next paragraph—when next I call him stupid. So this is the entirety of his Cicero-Catiline example. Pretty pathetic, no? Can you imagine the following conversation?

Man 1: Let me tell you about Cicero.

Man 2: Who’s that?

Man 1: Why, he’s the man who denounced Catiline!

Man 2: Who’s Catiline?

Man 1: Oh, merely a man Cicero denounced.

Man 2: Wait, so who’s Cicero again?

Kripke is absolutely right that this conversation isn’t going to go anywhere; Man 1 does not appear to know who either Cicero or Catiline were. But this is an absurd example wherein Kripke seems to assume that we’re all as dumb as he is. If Man 1 were to tell Man 2 the story of how Cicero denounced Catiline, he would probably explain to Man 2 that Cicero was one of Rome’s greatest orators and that Catiline was a 1^st-century Roman politician who attempted to overthrow the aristocratic Senate of the Roman Republic—no circularity there! And is not this an example of the reason that we use names, so our audience can know what we’re talking about and thus understand what we’re saying about it?

Stupid Kripke; he goes on to say:

If we say Einstein was the man who discovered the theory of relativity, that certainly picks out someone uniquely. One can be sure, as I said, that everyone here can make a compact and independent statement of this theory and so pick out Einstein uniquely; but many people actually don’t know enough about this stuff, so when asked what the theory of relativity is, they will say: “Einstein’s theory,” and thus be led into the most straightforward sort of vicious circle.

GAH! NO! Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! Now you’re running in circles, Kripke, and you’ve given us essentially the same example twice—the names have changed, but the intent remains the same. Must you assume that all English speakers—or speakers of any language, for that matter—are as dumb as you?¹ Just because someone only knows of Einstein that he gave us the theory of relativity² doesn’t mean that “Einstein” and “the theory of relativity” have no meaning—to that person or in general!

One last nail in Kripke’s logical coffin and then I’m going to finish reading his essay (he goes on for another six pages or so, so I suppose he may actually redeem himself, in which case I will gladly write a retraction of all this):

I often used to hear that Einstein’s most famous achievement was the invention of the atomic bomb. So when we refer to Einstein, we refer to the inventor of the atomic bomb. But this is not so. Columbus was the first man to realize that the earth was round. He was also the first European to land in the western hemisphere. Probably none of these things are true, and therefore, when people use the term “Columbus” they really refer to some Greek if they use the roundness of the earth, or to some Norseman, perhaps, if they use the “discovery of America.” But they don’t.

No, Kripke, we don’t. When I say “Columbus,” I mean Mr. Nina-Pinta-Santa-Maria, and you would understand me to mean that if I said “Christopher Columbus.” Even you, Kripke, in all of your idiocy, would never ask me whether I meant some Norseman who was never known as Columbus when I said, “Columbus”—wouldn’t even wonder about it, I’d bet. So what is it you’re driving at here?

My defense of Das Gobbledygook above goes something like this:

(1) This is a definition; even Kripke had naught against this.

(2) When I use a name, I use it to refer to a thing and all of its properties known to me. Generally, those properties are too numerous to list, which is why names are so handy. Rather than saying, “That hunk of rock that rotates around the earth, reflecting light upon earth and affecting earth’s tides, and is best known for being noticeable at night but is also occasionally visible during the day and which has been walked upon by a few (8?) men but hasn’t been visited in a while—you know, that big, be-cratered, heavenly body that only ever shows one side to use, goes through phases because of earth’s shadow, is occasionally eclipsed by that same shadow, and sometimes eclipses the sun—the thing allegedly responsible for werewolves, flown across by witches, and worshipped by nocturnal pagans…” I’d much rather say, “The moon.”3 And when I say the moon, the foregoing abbreviated description is exactly what I mean.

And now, I return to reading Kripke. He has 7 pages to redeem himself; I wish him the best of luck and, having vented my disapproval of what he’s already said, I meet him with open arms and an unbiased mind.

Endnotes

1 There’s a pun in there somewhere, calling speakers “dumb,” but I don’t care enough to refine it just now.

2 Can I just mention here that I think it’s really kinda ridiculous when people refer to theories being discovered? I discovered the theory of relativity by reading about it in a book; Einstein created the theory to describe and explain certain phenomena. Just one more reason I don’t like Kripke: he’s one of those.

3 Especially since I’d have to substitute similarly burdensome descriptions in the places of “earth” and “sun” and “shadow” and “tide” and….