The Analysis Of Kripke's Theory Of "Rigid Designation"

As a famous philosopher, Kripke's theory of "Rigid Designation", which is the core of his theory of proper names, exerts a great influence on the language of philosophy. To make a comprehensive and complete analysis on this theory, this thesis begins by introducing the traditional Description Theory of Names (DTN) that is represented together by Frege, Russell, Wittgenstain and Searle. With three arguments of the modal argument, epistemic argument and semantic argument, Kripke strongly opposes DTN and claims that DTN is false both in its explanation of meaning and references of proper names. Further, he presents his own theory of "Rigid Designation", which is based on his two critical concepts:"possible world" and "essentialism". In his "Rigid Designation", Kripke asserts that both proper names and natural kind terms are rigid designators which refer to the same objects in every possible world where they exist. The rigidity is assured by the internal essence:origin or internal structure. As to speakers, the references of names are fixed and determined by a causal and historical chain between their use of the names and the objects. Although it is not a perfect one, Kripke's theory of "Rigid Designation" did put forward some new ideas and thoughts and impact philosophy mainly in two ways as concluded in this thesis:(1) Semantics without cognitive content; (2) Distinction between Epistemic necessity and metaphysical necessity.