Second Paper Philosophy 516

In Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke criticizes the description theory of names
that is associated with Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell by pointing to many
counterexamples to the theses that Kripke believes this view relies upon. One example
that Kripke uses, involving Cicero, is meant to demonstrate, contra the description theory,
that people often refer to a specific individual, even if they do not know a property or
cluster of properties that are able to uniquely identify that individual.
On page 71, Kripke lists six theses that he believes are contained within a definite
description theory of names, two of which are relevant here. The first of these theses
states that to every name or designating expression X, there corresponds a cluster of
properties, namely the family of those properties such that A believes X and the
second one states that One of the properties, or some conjointly, are believed by A to
pick out some individual uniquely. Now, Russell believed that names are really
disguised definite descriptions and Frege believed that names, in addition to a referent,
also have a sense which is a mode of presentation for the referent of that name and
which can have at most one referent and which is a common property of competent
speakers. Given this, the sense of a referent also seems to act like a definite description.
Hence, for Russell, the name Shakespeare is really a disguised definite description like
the unique individual who wrote Hamlet and for Frege, the author of Hamlet is a sense
for the name Shakespeare that uniquely picks out the referent of that name in a manner
which is widely understood by the speakers of the English language. The basic point
here is that when speakers use a name, they believe that that name corresponds to a


property or set of properties known by the speaker which uniquely pick out the referent
of that name. Otherwise, it would seem to be the case that the speaker is trying to refer
to a single individual using only criteria that are not in fact able to pick out any single
individual, leaving the speaker with no grounds for believing that he is speaking about
one individual rather than a different one, thus frustrating his attempt to uniquely refer
(Kripke, pg. 80). It seems to be the case that a speaker cannot know a person, and hence
cannot refer to that person, unless he knows a property or set of properties that uniquely
pick him out.
Kripke believes that this second thesis is wrong and he uses Cicero as his
counterexample. Cicero is just the kind of historical figure such that many people have
heard of him and have a vague understanding of who he was or what he did but do not
have a clear or definite knowledge of him. An example of a description which picks out
Cicero uniquely would be the first man to denounce Catiline. The problem with the
definite description view is that many people who have heard of Cicero would not in fact
be aware of this description of him, nor of any other description which would uniquely
point him out. Rather, most people, when they think of the name Cicero, think simply
of a famous Roman orator, and are only able to use that as a description for Cicero,
while still being fully aware that there was more than one famous Roman orator (Kripke,
pg. 81). Hence, they know of no property or set of properties, and know that they know
of no property or set of properties, which uniquely identify Cicero and yet they
nevertheless are evidently able to refer to Cicero and intend this specific individual as
opposed to others if they say things like I would like to know more about the famous
Roman orator Cicero. Here, the only properties the speaker knows about Cicero are


that he was a famous Roman orator and that he, the speaker, would like to know more
about him, Cicero, and these could all also be properties of someone else if the speaker
also thinks I would like to know more about the famous Roman orator Cato. Although
the speaker knows of no properties to distinguish these two from one another (other than
the fact that they had different names) he nevertheless is still able to refer to one as
opposed to the other and think he is referring to a specific individual.
This presents a serious problem for the definite description theory. If Russell is
right in saying that a name is really just a disguised definite description, then it should not
be the case that a speaker can use a name to refer to a unique individual if he does not
know any property or set of properties which would uniquely pick out that individual.
As for Frege, if Frege is right that the sense of a word is grasped by everybody who is
sufficiently familiar with the language, then it would seem to be the case that this sense
therefore cannot have a unique referent because for many people, the only sense of the
name Cicero is a famous Roman orator, which picks out no single person. If the
sense of a name can have only one referent at most, then it would have to be detailed
enough beyond the knowledge of most people who therefore would have no sense for
Cicero. But this does not seem plausible because even someone who knows nothing
specific about Cicero still seems capable of referring to him.










Citations


Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980).