Kripke on Identity and Necessity

Kripke on Identity and Necessity

The purpose of the present paper is to discuss some of the issues that contemporary philosopher Saul Kripke analyzed regarding the theme of identity and necessity. The main argument under discussion is "How come that contingent identity statements are possible."

When analyzing this theme we should begin by stating that everything which exists must be self-identical in a necessary manner. But is it really so? Am I identical to myself in all the existing and possible hypostases? The answer is "yes" regardless of the names that I might have in these different hypostases. One of the arguments that Kripke brings is that a thing or a being is defined by its own matter and substance and not by its name. According to him the name, although it might include some description of the thing, is nothing more but a conventional representation which has been passed from generation to generation ever since it was established. But still, why is it possible to wonder about contingency issues regarding identity?

Kripke states that a statement is only contingently true if there are two conditions fulfilled: the proposition is true in a certain case (the real one or the one that we are taking into consideration), the proposition is false in some other possible situation. In other words if there is a possibility for a thing to be something different than what it is now just because it lacks the circumstances, then it is safe to say that its current state has a contingent nature. However there is a distinction to be made between things the essence of which can be established a priori and the essence of which can be established a posteriori. Kripke managed to demonstrate the fact that there are some a posteriori propositions which are nevertheless necessary. For example I may not know the chemical formula of water, but I definitely know what water is. On the other hand me knowing or not knowing the formula will not change what water is. Furthermore, the fact that I may have acquired awareness regarding the chemical formula through an empirical process still does not change the nature of the substance.

Let us analyze the following example: "Charles Schumer is the senior senator from New York." In the actual world we are dealing with a fact. We have a person called Charles Schumer and he is defined by three things. The first one is his name, the second one his position, the third his location in New York. There are two ways in which we could look at the situation. First we could consider that the man who is defined by the characteristics of being a senator from New York can be called in no other way than Charles Schumer. This is not true because we know there is more than one senator coming from New York and it is impossible for all of them to have the same name. therefore there is something more which defies this entity, besides his name and his position. Secondly we could look at the name as a defining characteristic and consequently deduce that if a man is called Charles Schumer he can only be a senator from New York. We don't even have to expand the situation to another world in order to be able to accept the possibility for another man who goes by the same name and who has another job can exist. The conclusion is that the factual state has a contingent nature if we are to judge it solely in the analyzed terms.

As far as names are concerned, Kripke was the one to introduce the concept of rigid designator. A rigid designator is a name which describes, refers to a thing in all the possible existing worlds. In addition it is important to underline that the designator does not refer to any other thing which exists in those other possible worlds where we know for sure that the thing under discussion does not exist. The regular proper names are a relevant examples to illustrate the concept of rigid designators.

The debate which takes place between Russell and Kripke has to do with the power of description that the names of the objects have as far as the objects they are associated to are concerned. As far as Russell is concerned, the names are nothing but disguised descriptions of the things. According to Kripke this is far from being true. A chair might be a called something else and still be a chair. The name in itself does not provide any indication about the object, it is a mare tag or convention which has been established in order for us to have references. Discussing the argument regarding the process through which these references are fixed it is safe to say that it is rather random. In other words I for example could decide to give a certain name to a certain object even I have no idea about how that thing looks like. If I manage to get the name accepted by the community then the object and the name of the object will pass as being one and the same thing despite the fact that their bringing together was only a formality and not a decision based on the characteristics of the object I was meaning to speak about.

Once a name is associated with an object in a very powerful manner then we have another issue rising, namely the one of perception. There is a famous quote that we could analyze under these circumstances, Hesperus is Phosporus.

The names are symbols for two realities, namely the heat and the motion of the molecules. In saying that one is the other one then we say that the heat is the motion of the molecules. Naturally we need to test this statement in order to verify its value of truth. The experiments will lead to an a posteriori type of knowledge since we will discover that heat indeed causes the motion of the molecules. Viceversa the movement of the molecules implies heat. So far it is clear that the proposition is a posteriori and also necessary.