Twentieth Century Western Philosophy Translation Series -- Naming and Necessity

Author: (USA) Saul Kripke
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: The author, Saul Kripke, is a renowned contemporary American logician and philosopher, one of the founders of modal logic semantics. This book is his seminal work, in which the two new theories he proposed sparked a decade-long debate in Western analytical philosophy. How are things named? It depends on the origin and history of the name, not on the accidental characteristics of the named object. Churchill was named "Churchill" not because of his various personal traits, but because of the naming by his parents and the historical chain of transmission established by how others came to call him. This is the author's historical and causal naming theory. In the history of philosophy, it has always been believed that whatever is a priori is necessary, and whatever is a posteriori is contingent. However, the author points out that a priori is to necessity as epistemology is to metaphysics—there are not only a posteriori necessary knowledge but also a priori contingent knowledge. This is the a priori contingent and a posteriori necessary theory, which the author puts forward to challenge traditional theories.