Thoughts on Truth - Philosophy

'name' will mean proper name, and so this will not include definite descriptions. 'designator' will include both. 'referent of the description' will be the object satisfying the conditions of the description. Though he recognizes double references. Some phrases are names though they look like a description, ex. The Holy Roman Empire. In the cases when we discover that two names have the same referent, like in the Morning Star/Evening Star, we have discovered that we are not just saying an object is identical with itself (pg. 33) If a name means the same as its description then

If names don't mean a description, then even if its reference is in some sense determined by a description statements in general cannot be analyzed by replacing the name by a description though they may be materially equivalent to statements containing a description. A priori deals with epistemology and necessity deals with metaphysics. 36. Supposedly Goldbach's conjecture is true or false by necessity.

39 (stipulatively) An analytic statement is true by virtue of its meaning and true in all possible worlds by virtue of its meaning, so it is both necessary and a priori.

“The majority of a cluster of properties then object y is no referent of X”. For Every name there corresponds a cluster of properties. The first sentence is false because let’s say object y uniquely satisfies 95% of the properties, so X refers to Y, then object Z is created that satistfies 96% of those properties, the name X would switch its reference but would have originally referred to Y. Also object Y changes through time so what if through time it drops to 30% and there is some object Z which is at 94%? Also object Y changes through time so it does not always have many of the properties attributable to it.

The cluster of properties is used to pick out the referent but the particular cluster is contingent upon the existing world.

If transworld identification is based on qualitative comparison of the majority of concepts, then in one possible world you may have one person who is the counterpart of multiple people. If Socrates only has one student that student is Plato, Crito, Antithesthnes, Alcibiades, etc.

Kripke admits (129) that we originally identified certain phenomena or objects by different criteria in the past, though it doesn’t sound like a concession but rather that he believed us to be mistaken.

Kripke seems to be defining the essential and necessary properties of objects by how language and community.

In 130 his light thought experiment, what if all along we have been “hearing” light? Then what we have always been calling light is what we have always been referring to. The fact is if we say that light or heat is an external thing, we don’t know what it is or what its necessary properties are. He tries to address this on bottom of 131. In 132 my question is what evidence does anyone have that lightning exists? 134 and 135 are a summary. 143 end of the paragraph is the way all facts he has been stating are.

A meter is not measured by the standard meter in Paris. For it is possible for that particular object to shrink while everything else remains the same, which is saying rather that everything else in the universe has grown, or what if it is destroyed.

Kripke shows on pg. 56 that there are contingent a priori truths

Kripke finds fault with fixing a reference as #2 or 71 because the criteria must be unique but able to be identified as well.

Is Kripke wrong on 83 about non-circularity? It seems like one has a notion, even though unintelligible, and one can use it to identify. He says on 90 any theory of reference cannot be circular

Pg. 95 Kripke lays out his purpose of basing reference on the history of community usage.