Saul Kripke
Rigid designators and the necessity of identity — modal metaphysics reconstructed against the descriptivist tradition
Kripke published his first major paper in semantics for modal logic at age nineteen (1959), providing the possible-worlds semantics that became the standard model-theoretic framework for modal logic. "Naming and Necessity" (three Princeton lectures, 1970; published 1980) overturned the Frege-Russell descriptivist tradition: proper names are rigid designators that refer to the same object in every possible world; identity statements involving rigid designators are necessarily true if true at all. The same lectures revived essentialism, the necessity of origin, and a posteriori necessities (e.g., "water is H₂O"). "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language" (1982, "Kripkenstein") opened a major new direction in the philosophy of language. Kripke held the Saul Kripke chair at CUNY; his philosophical influence on analytic philosophy of the late twentieth century is enormous and continuing.
Key works
- A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic (1959)
- Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic (1963)
- Naming and Necessity (1980, lectures 1970)
- Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982)
- Philosophical Troubles (Collected Papers I, 2011)
Declared Influences
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 35%
Platonism (Classical) 20%
Rationalism 15%
Critical Realism 15%
Multiverse Theory 10%
Kripke is one of the principal twentieth-century analytic metaphysicians; the revival of essentialism, the analysis of necessity, and the rigid-designator semantics he provided are foundational across the field.
"Necessity may be a feature of the world in itself, not just of how we think or speak about the world." (Naming and Necessity)
Kripke's realism about modal facts, possible worlds, and essential properties is structurally Platonist about modality in a way his colleagues like David Lewis (modal realist) took further but Kripke himself articulated.
"Possible worlds are stipulated, not discovered through telescopes." (Naming and Necessity, on the methodological status)
Kripke's rehabilitation of a priori knowledge of necessities, alongside his discovery of a posteriori necessities, is a sophisticated post-empiricist rationalism.
"The a priori is not the necessary, nor the necessary the a priori." (Naming and Necessity, distinguishing the categories)
Kripke's commitment to real, mind-independent facts about reference, identity, and natural kinds places him within a broadly realist analytic tradition.
"'Heat is the motion of molecules' is necessarily true, because heat just is the motion of molecules — even though we discovered this empirically." (Naming and Necessity)
Kripke's possible-worlds semantics, while methodologically committed to a fiction of possible worlds, has been one of the principal philosophical resources for contemporary multiverse and modal-realist thinking (David Lewis being the most extreme heir).
"Possible worlds are total ways the world could have been." (Naming and Necessity)
Internal Tensions
Kripke's necessity-of-origin and natural-kind essentialism have been attacked from anti-essentialist quarters (Mellor, Bird) and defended by mainstream analytic metaphysicians. The Kripkenstein reading of Wittgenstein has been disputed (Baker and Hacker, McDowell) as more about Kripke than about Wittgenstein. Kripke published little for the four decades after Naming and Necessity, leaving major work in private circulation; the Kripke Center is gradually releasing it.
I. Time
Standard physical time within each world; possible-worlds framework treats time-as-it-could-have-been alongside time-as-it-is.
Attributes
II. Space
Standard substantival space.
Attributes
III. Matter
Standard substantival matter with essential properties.
Attributes
IV. Observer
Plural finite reasoners with mediated access to modal and natural-kind truths. No metaphysical agency.
Attributes
V. Energy
Standard physics.
Attributes
VI. Information
Information conserved at the world-scale; personal soul not part of the framework.
Attributes
Classified works
Works in the atlas that Saul Kripke authored or that draw on this persona's writings, with full attribute fingerprints of their own.
Computed school proximity
The persona's attribute fingerprint scored against all 202 schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated influences above.
Philosophical neighbors
Other personas whose attribute fingerprint sits closest to Saul Kripke's — intellectual neighbors across traditions and eras.
How Saul Kripke resolves each dilemma
56 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 3 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 1 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.
6 mainstream positions
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Films Referencing This Persona (8)
Either directly referenced in the film, or reading the film through one of this persona's top schools.
Experiments Engaging This Persona's Schools
Surface via influence-schools that respond to the experiment. Each entry shows the school through which the connection runs.