Saul Kripke : puzzles and mysteries / John Burgess.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burgess, John P., 1948-

Series:

Key contemporary thinkers

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kripke, Saul A., 1940-2022.

Kripke, Saul A.

Physical Description:

xi, 219 pages ; 20 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity, 2013.

Summary:

Saul Kripke has been a major influence on analytic philosophy and allied fields for a half-century and more. His early masterpiece, Naming and Necessity, reversed the pattern of two centuries of philosophizing about the necessary and the contingent. Although much of his work remains unpublished, several major essays have now appeared in print, most recently in his long-awaited collection Philosophical Troubles. In this book Kripke's long-time colleague, the logician and philosopher John P. Burgess, offers a thorough and self-contained guide to all of Kripke's published books and his most important philosophical papers, old and new. It also provides an authoritative but non-technical account of Kripke's influential contributions to the study of modal logic and logical paradoxes. Although Kripke has been anything but a system-builder, Burgess expertly uncovers the connections between different parts of his oeuvre. Kripke is shown grappling, often in opposition to existing traditions, with mysteries surrounding the nature of necessity, rule-following, and the conscious mind, as well as with intricate and intriguing puzzles about identity, belief, and self-reference. Clearly contextualizing the full range of Kripke's work, Burgess outlines, summaries, and surveys the issues raised by each of the philosopher's major publications. Kripke will be essential reading for anyone interested in the work of one of analytic philosophy's living thinkers. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Naming 11

Mill vs Frege 11

Error and Ignorance 19

Metalinguistic Theories 24

The Historical Chain Picture 28

Reference vs Attribution 33

2 Identity 37

Modal Logic and its Archenemy 37

Rigidity 45

The Necessity of Identity 50

Resistance 53

The Contingent a Priori 56

3 Necessity 59

Imagination and the Necessary a Posteriori 59

Natural Substances 64

Natural Kinds 69

Natural Phenomena and Natural Law 71

The Mystery of Modality 74

4 Belief 78

Direct Reference 78

Puzzling Pierre 83

Poles Apart 88

Counterfactual Attitudes 91

Empty Names 98

5 Rules 104

Conventionalism 105

Kripkenstein 108

The Analogy with Hume 110

The Skeptical Paradox 116

The Skeptical Solution 120

6 Mind 128

Physicalism 128

Functionalism 131

Against Functionalism 134

Against Physicalism 136

The Mystery of Mentality 140.

ISBN:

9780745652849

0745652840

9780745652856

0745652859

OCLC:

795181815