Naming and Necessity

Based on lectures Saul Kripke gave at Princeton in 1970, this book changed how philosophers think about names, reference and necessity. Kripke argues against the view that a name is shorthand for a description. Instead, names are rigid designators that refer to the same thing in every possible world, fixed by a causal chain back to an original naming. He uses this to show that some truths are necessary yet discovered by experience, reshaping philosophy of language and metaphysics.

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Chris Dixon: “Kripke — Naming and Necessity is his legendary book on reference and language.”