The Kripkean Objection to Fregean Descriptivism

Andrew Thomas
1 Introduction
When one uses a name in language, he/she uses that name to refer to an object. For
example, my name Andrew is used to refer to me, Andrew the person. However, there
seems to be more to a name than just its referent. Consider the names Muhammad Ali
and Cassius Clay. Both refer to the same individual but how they present the individual
diers, and this is the sense of a name. In the Fregean view, the sense is how reference is
determined. This is an idea formulated by Gottlob Frege in his landmark paper On Sense
and Reference. Furthermore, he establishes in this work that names are synonymous with
denite descriptions: a denite description being a description using the denite article the.
The denite description the author of the Iliad, is one we would associate with the name
Homer. For Frege, this is the sense of the name Homer, which we use to arrive at the
referent (i.e. Homer). This view is known as the descriptivist view of determining name
reference.
Another view is taken by Saul Kripke in (lecture II of) his Naming and Necessity. In this
work he asserts that names are rigid designators, meaning they designate the same thing
in all possible worlds in which the referent of the name exists
1,2
. It designates something
non-existent if the name does not have a referent in that possible world (Kripke, p. 56). Any
speaker A in a language L can therefore refer using a name independent of any disparate
1
properties any A believes of or are satised by the referent. This is also known as the causal
chain theory of determining name reference. Kripke uses his concept of a name being a rigid
designator to argue against the Fregean picture and the nuances of this argument are much
more than the intuitive incompatibility Ive just described.
2 Three Theses
Kripkes conception of names lies mainly in the fact that we use names to refer whether or
not we have a denite description associated with the it, or whether or not what we believe
about the referent of a name is true. In his lecture, Kripke lists six theses important to
Freges view, with his elenchus of Frege being suitably weighted to theses (2), (3) and (6)
which will be discussed shortly
3,4
.
In the Fregean picture, sense is what determines the reference of a name. Sense is
objective, and is grasped by everybody who is suciently familiar with the language or
totality of designations to which it belongs. . . (Frege, p. 36). However, no sense can be
determined from reference. Uniqueness and truth are entailed by these qualications. If you
have a sense rmly grasped you are able to arrive at a denite reference, denite being
tantamount to unique and therefore the only possible conclusion one could draw from the
sense. Since it is the only conclusion to make, it always provides us the true referent.
The rst part of the elenchus is the objection to thesis (6) (the so-called modal ar-
gument) which roughly states that names are synonymous with denite descriptions. He
argues that even though it is true that Homer is the author of the Iliad in the actual world,
it is not a necessary truth of Homer that he wrote the Iliad, only a contingent one. That is,
there are possible worlds in which he became a haberdasher but in describing those we would
still use the name Homer to refer to Homer (if we wanted to talk ancient haberdashery.)
Turning to thesis (2), this is stated as: One of the properties, or some conjointly, are
2
believed by A to pick out some individual uniquely
5
. This condition for naming in the
descriptivist view can be seen in/derived from the descriptions above. Kripke argues that
this is not a necessary condition for determining reference using his so-called semantic
argument (common seen as the Feynman example). At the risk of beating the proverbial
dead horse, Ill give an analogous account. Suppose we have Adrian Peterson, who many
of my contemporaries can refer to. Many of us may be able to refer to him as the NFL
record-holder for rushing yards in a single game or something similarly superlative. Now
perhaps we were to ask some person not acquainted with the talents of said running back,
he or she may utter he is a football player or something, to which Kripke would agree that
the person in question would still use Adrian Peterson to refer to Adrian Peterson. In
the descriptivist view, this is nonsensical. If we have the name Adrian Peterson and the
(indenite) sense a football player of something there is any number of referents that would
satisfy this description
6
.
Turning to thesis (3) we have the so-called epistemic argument, (commonly seen as the
G odel-Schmidt example) which objects to the requirement of truth of sense. It roughly states
that if a most or a weighted most of a set of properties is satised by an object y then
y is the referent of a name N. Turning back to his example, say theres only one thing that
people associate with a referent, say the object is Lee Harvey Oswald. The one thing people
know is that he satises the description the man who killed Kennedy. Kripke would assert
that it is not the case that whoever killed Kennedy is the referent of Lee Harvey Oswald.
This is because he feels that even if Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill Kennedy, and some other
assassin did the deed, we would still use Lee Harvey Oswald to refer to Lee Harvey Oswald
(again, because the reference of Lee Harvey Oswald being the man who killed Kennedy is
not a necessary property of him, he could also have taken up haberdashery). With the three
theses most important to descriptivism deemed unt for a theory of names, we turn to how
Kripkes theory works in practice.
3
3 Rigid Designation
The following conditions below are my attempt to reproduce the so-called causal chain
theory previously mentioned, or Kripkes theory of how the usage of a name spreads, using
symbols.
(1) A
i
is a speaker of language L who uses name N to refer to object y.
Ex: Norman is a speaker of English who uses Stavros to refer to Stavros
(2) The name N was spread from A
i1
to A
i
(such that i = 1, 2, . . . , n)
Note: The speaker A
i
need not know who A
i1
is.
Ex: The name Stavros was spread from Grace (A
0
) to Dimitri (A
1
), Dimitri to Glen,. . . ,
Charlotte to Horace (A
n1
), Horace to Norman (A
n
).
(3) A
i
intends to refer to the same object y in using N as the person from whom he heard
it (i.e. A
i1
), independent of properties that A
j
believes of y, or the set of properties
that are satised by y (such that j < i).
Ex: Norman intends to refer to Stavros in using Stavros just as Horace used Stavros
to refer to Stavros. Norman does not intend to use Stavros to refer to his pet armadillo
or anything else.
(4) A
0
bestowed the name N upon object y by means of a set of descriptions (likely a
singleton) or ostension (i.e. pointing at N and uttering That is N and it being so).
Ex: Grace points at Stavros and calls him Stavros at the baptism event.
(5) C is a chain of communication C = {A
0
, A
1
, . . . , A
n1
, A
n
} such that (1)-(4) hold.
For all of this, the speaker need not be aware of what properties A
0
associated with the name
or any other speakers in the chain for that matter. Nor does the speaker even need to know
what the source is, they merely must receive the usage of the name from someone in their
4
speaker community. Rigid designation is established in (3), as the y is preserved as referent
for name N at each level of transmission {(i 1) i}, independent of . The process is
illustrated below.
(1) Grace points at Stavros and calls him Stavros at the baptism event.
(2) Charlotte believes (truly) Stavros refers to the object who satises the description the
rst janitor in space.
(3) Horace believes Stavros refers to the object who satises the description the rst janitor
that went on the moon.
(4) Stavros does not satisfy the description the rst janitor that went to the moon.
(5) When using the name Stavros, Norman believes of Stavros that he is a guy who went
to the moon.
(6) More than one object satises the description a guy who went to the moon.
(7) Norman has no knowledge of the Graces ostension upon Stavros. Nor does Norman
refer uniquely to Stavros. Nor does he know that he never went to the moon.
(8) It is not necessarily true of Stavros that he satises the description the rst janitor in
space
7
.
(9) Nonetheless, Norman uses Stavros to refer to Stavros
8
.
(10) The referent of Stavros, viz. Stavros, is independent of any belief held of Stavros of
any speaker in C, or of any properties satised by Stavros.
Rigid designation is incompatible with a name having a sense (or any set of properties)
because diering sets of properties would change the referent of a name, and therefore change
who the name refers to in all possible worlds. Sense is seen to be very much subjective in this
5
view, discordant with Freges. Verily demonstrated above, rigid designation is incompatible
with the descriptivist view. Rigid designation has the advantage that it is solely dependent
that C remain unbroken since the naming event. Any problems of circularity/falsity in
speaker beliefs (cf. footnote 6) or there not being a denite sense associated with a name
is avoided because all these conditions are irrelevant when the conditions formulated above
hold. Reference is determined by the causal chain, which preserves original reference and
disregards sense. The theory even preserves the notion that there is no road back from
reference to sense, but is more exible in that the cornucopia of possible properties we can
associate with an object is no longer a burden but a boon of the theory. As congenial as
Kripke shows this approach to be, there are some omissions and potential problems. What
of sense without reference? What of the intuition there is more to a name than to what it
refers? These are some things with which Frege would nd contention.
4 A Rebuttal
Frege would likely begin by inveighing against Kripke on a point not addressed: that of sense
without reference. In On Sense and Reference, Frege cites the least rapidly converging series
as an example of something which has no reference but has sense (Frege, p. 36). Kripke
seems to address this, citing Santa Claus, but only addresses how the reference would have
changed due to children not using the name to refer to the saint. There is likely a translation
issue here, and Kripke acknowledges that in describing our world we must stay within the
language we are communicating in, so it seems patently false that Santa Claus rigidly
designates. Frege would note this error of form and omission of theory.
He would also note that he speaks in terms of a perfect language (Frege, p. 46). Almost
a presciptivist, he admits that ...variations of sense may be tolerated, although they are to
be avoided... and ought not to occur in a perfect language. A perfect language is a concept
6
that frolics and ourishes in the Fregean atmosphere of logic. The wilting, woebegone
Millianist view advocated (seemingly, not explicitly) would die in such an atmosphere as
well, due to diering cognitive value of such statements as Muhammad Ali is Muhammad
Ali and Muhammad Ali is Cassius Clay
9
.
He might also nd issue with the transfer of reference. To Frege, this might interface
with a persons idea or internal image. There would be no sense to grasp in the ether.
There would be no way to ensure that we all refer to the same thing if there is this putative
absence in objectivity. There are undoubtedly many more points with which Frege would
nd contention, but these capture what I feel would be the crux of his argument.
5 Final Points
Kripkes theory is intuitive
10
. It has its aws, namely name change or the problems raised
by Fake Frege in section 4 of this paper
11
. Even with its problems it eectively refutes
Freges account by demonstrating that rigid designation is a concept with modal ecacy and
exibility and the causal chain theory of names in which it lies is parsimonious and demands
less of a name than the alternative. Kripke successfully appeals to our abstract reasoning
with his modal argument involving possible worlds. He shows that all we need to refer to
someone is a name. A name passed from person to person like an heirloom from generation
to generation, with people assigning their own diverging signicance to it, but the object
remaining the same. That is how he does it.
7
Notes
1
Kripke explicitly rejects the Lewisian notion of possible worlds, in that it asserts that your counterparts
are to be identied in other possible worlds (people who most closely resemble you in your most important
aspects) in order to assess modality. Whereas Kripke would consider the same thing in multiple worlds,
Lewis would consider a class of mutual counterparts.
2
Lewis, David K. Counterpart Theory and Quantied Modal Logic. The Journal of Philosophy, 65(5),
113-126.
3
It is important to note that Kripke primarily refutes Searle and his cluster-of-descriptions view of how
reference is determined, however Freges descriptivist view utilizing only a single description is a special case
of the cluster-of-descriptions approach.
4
Thesis (4) and (5) are consequences of (2) and (3) respectively and are therefore indirectly related to
Kripkes use of rigid designation to disprove descriptivism.
5
This requires a denition of thesis (1): For every name N, there is corresponding cluster of properties
such that A believes N.
6
Kripke also postulates a circularity condition. In his example he states that although many can state
that Einstein was The man who discovered the theory of relativity, many would not be able to describe
the theory and thus utter it is Einsteins theory, which is circular reasoning. If not everybody can dene
the referent of a name, without referring to the name, then it shouldnt be part of a theory of names. He
assumes this holds for thesis (3).
7
Suppose Stavros was a last second substitute for another intrepid celestial janitor by the name of George.
8
Kripke states that in absence of all the three qualities of interest, that he feels we still refer using a
name. This is intuitive, but its hard to say why. The inadequacy of language I feel is to blame. I believe it
is also no certainty that we refer to Stavros by means of Stavros. Stavros is Stavros seems to me to only
be contingently true even if we do not step outside the bounds of a language.
9
Millianism was propounded by philosopher John Stuart Mill in the 19
th
century, wherein the meaning
of name is wholly determined by its referent. This contrasts with Freges view where meaning is composed
of sense and reference.
10
I use the word theory because it is denitely a theory even though he goes out of his way to deny this:
To repeat, I may not have presented a theory. . . (Kripke, p. 63).
11
I would personally argue for an account closer to that of Gareth Evans, wherein the speaker refers to
the object that is the dominant source of information for a name.
8