Rigidity and actuality-dependence

Philosophical Studies 157 (3):399-410 (2012)
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Abstract

It is generally assumed that rigidity plays a key role in explaining the necessary a posteriori status of identity statements, both between proper names and between natural kind terms. However, while the notion of rigid designation is well defined for singular terms, there is no generally accepted definition of what it is for a general term to be rigid. In this paper I argue that the most common view, according to which rigid general terms are the ones which designate the same kind in all possible worlds, fails to deliver a posteriori necessities. I also present an alternative view, on which the work of explaining a posteriori necessities is not done by rigidity, but by a related metasemantic notion, which I call actuality - dependence

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Author's Profile

Jussi Haukioja
Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Citations of this work

Natural Kinds and Natural Kind Terms: Myth and Reality.Sören Häggqvist & Åsa Wikforss - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (4):911-933.
Kripkean Meta-Semantics and Generalized Rigidity.Christian Nimtz - 2019 - Philosophical Quarterly 69 (275):332-353.
On deriving essentialism from the theory of reference.Jussi Haukioja - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (8):2141-2151.
Rigid designators.Joseph LaPorte - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity: Lectures Given to the Princeton University Philosophy Colloquium.Saul A. Kripke - 1980 - Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edited by Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel.
The meaning of 'meaning'.Hilary Putnam - 1975 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193.
Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.

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