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Work #1562 · Late period

Philosophical Troubles

Kripke's 2011 essay collection — Volume One of his Collected Papers

Saul Kripke · 2011 (essays 1962-2008) · English · Philosophical essay collection

Tradition: Analytic philosophy / philosophy of language / metaphysics / philosophy of logic

Kripke's 2011 'Philosophical Troubles' — Vol. 1 of Collected Papers, including 'A Puzzle about Belief' and 'Outline of a Theory of Truth'

Published by Oxford University Press in 2011 as the first volume of Kripke's Collected Papers (with the second volume on naming and necessity awaiting publication), 'Philosophical Troubles' contains thirteen of his most important essays composed across nearly fifty years (1962-2008), including several that had been widely circulated but never properly published. Key entries: 'A Puzzle about Belief' (1979, the Paderewski case — Pierre believes Londres est jolie / London is not pretty, both about the same city); 'Outline of a Theory of Truth' (1975, the fixed-point construction that addresses the Liar paradox through partial truth-value assignments — Kripke's principal contribution to the logic of truth); 'Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference' (1977, against Donnellan's distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions); 'Nozick on Knowledge' (1989, on Nozick's tracking-theory of knowledge); 'Identity Through Time' (1979, on personal identity); 'The First Person' (2011, the contemporary essay on the self-referential character of 'I'); and Kripke's discussions of the substitutivity of identicals in modal contexts (continuing the foundational Naming and Necessity programme). The volume is the principal late reference for Kripke's mature views outside the canonical Naming and Necessity (1972/1980); it shows the same rigor and originality across logic, philosophy of language, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.

Author

Editions cited

  • Philosophical Troubles: Collected Papers, Volume One (Oxford University Press, 2011)
  • Individual papers all originally published or widely circulated in earlier forms
  • Companion: Collected Papers Vol. II (forthcoming) — on Naming and Necessity and related papers
  • Critical commentary: Scott Soames, Philosophical Essays on Kripke (Princeton, 2014); Alvin Plantinga and James Tomberlin (eds.), Critical Essays on the Philosophy of Saul Kripke (forthcoming)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Philosophy of Language · 26%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 22%
Logicism · 18%
Realism · 12%
Naturalism · 10%
Structuralism · 12%
Analytic Philosophy · 8%
Philosophy of Language 26%

Major collection on philosophy of language and reference.

"A Puzzle about Belief." (Philosophical Troubles, included)
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 22%

Mature Kripkean analytic-metaphysical essays.

"Identity, necessity, and Aposteriori knowledge — Kripke's mature view." (Philosophical Troubles)
Logicism 18%

Major work on the logic of truth — the fixed-point construction.

"Outline of a Theory of Truth." (Philosophical Troubles, included)
Realism 12%

Realism about reference, truth, and modality.

"Semantic reference is an objective relation." (Philosophical Troubles)
Naturalism 10%

Naturalistic-analytic framework.

"Analytic philosophy as natural-philosophical inquiry." (Philosophical Troubles)
Structuralism 12%

Structural account of reference and truth.

"Reference is structurally fixed by causal-historical chains." (Philosophical Troubles)
Analytic Philosophy 8%

Analytic-philosophical tradition.

Internal Tensions

The principal late reference volume for Kripke's mature philosophy. The Liar paradox treatment in 'Outline of a Theory of Truth' is one of the major twentieth-century contributions to the logic of truth (alongside Tarski 1933 and the contemporaneous work of Herzberger, Gupta, and Belnap); the Paderewski case in 'A Puzzle about Belief' has been continuously discussed in philosophy of language.

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I. Time

2011 publication; papers composed 1962-2008.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Non-Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
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II. Space

Princeton (Kripke's institutional base 1967-1998) and CUNY Graduate Center (Kripke's institutional base 2003-present).

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Flat Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
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III. Matter

Career-spanning essay collection (~430 pages). The thirteen essays cover an enormous range — modal logic, theory of truth, philosophy of language, theory of reference, epistemology, personal identity.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Late Kripke. The observer-philosopher is positioned at the close of a long career — the first volume of Collected Papers appearing fifty years after the 1959 'Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic'.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Mediated Knowledge Retainment: Partial Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
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V. Energy

Late-synthesising energies. The volume gathers papers Kripke had been working on for decades, some never properly published.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
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VI. Information

Single volume of 13 papers. 'A Puzzle about Belief' and 'Outline of a Theory of Truth' are the most-cited individual entries.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Saul Kripke Robert Stalnaker

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

97%
Derek Parfit
33/34
97%
Hilary Putnam
33/34
97%
Iris Murdoch
33/34
97%
Jürgen Habermas
33/34
97%
Martha Nussbaum
33/34
97%
Saul Kripke
33/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

79%
Effective Altruism
24/26
77%
Modal Realism
23/26
76%
Virtual Realism
23/26
75%
Empiricism
24/26
75%
Humanism
24/26
75%
Liberalism
24/26
75%
Utilitarianism
24/26
75%
Classical Liberalism
24/26

How Philosophical Troubles resolves each dilemma

34 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 3 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 23 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.

Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) · Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) · The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) · The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) · Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
If we owe future people a habitable planet and the material means to flourish, and the cosmos is bounded in ways that make those obligations impossible at some scale, the obligation and the possibility come apart. Where they come apart turns on what kind of finitude we live in.
Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible.
On this view, the cosmos has the resources to support whatever flourishing future generations are capable of, given sufficient time and intelligence. The impossibility concern is misplaced; the real questions are about trajectories and choices, not about resource ceilings.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. (47%) · The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on. (26%) · The cosmos is bounded; our obligations to future generations are bounded with it. (12%)
6 mainstream positions
Do you really choose? The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. 69% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. 69% Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. 69% How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47%
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% What is our place in nature? Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. 48% Should we colonize space? Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. 48% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. 48% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? — — Are the dead morally present to the living? — — Are there indivisible units of experience? — — Can prayer for someone far away affect them? — — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? — — Could an AI have a mind that matters? — — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? — — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? — — Does history have a direction or meaning? — — Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? — — Does prayer change God's mind? — — How is knowledge of reality produced? — — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? — — Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? — — Is memory stored or reconstructed? — — Is reality fundamentally digital? — — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? — — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? — — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? — — What happens to "you" when you die? — — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? — — What makes someone the same person over time? — — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? — —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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