Questions: Proper Names: Their Meaning and Reference

Question 1

Suppose Aristotle had died in infancy and never studied philosophy or written anything. A descriptivist says 'Aristotle' would then refer to whoever did teach Alexander the Great. Kripke argues instead that...

• A. The descriptivist is correct — names are defined by whichever descriptions happen to be true of their bearer
• B. 'Aristotle' would still refer to the same individual who died in infancy — names track individuals across possible worlds, not which descriptions they satisfy
• C. 'Aristotle' would become an empty name with no referent in that counterfactual scenario
• D. Both theories agree on this case — names always refer to actual individuals regardless of their properties

Answer: (B)

Kripke's core argument is that proper names are rigid designators: they pick out the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists. 'Aristotle might have died in infancy' is a coherent claim — and it presupposes that 'Aristotle' refers to the same person in that scenario, not to whoever happened to teach Alexander. Descriptivism makes reference contingent on which descriptions are true, which means the name would 'drift' to a different person as descriptions change. Rigidity means it doesn't drift.

Question 2

What is the key difference between a rigid designator and a definite description?

• A. Rigid designators are shorter and more convenient; descriptions are longer but more informative
• B. Rigid designators pick out the same individual in every possible world; descriptions pick out whoever satisfies the relevant property in each world
• C. Rigid designators only work for living individuals; descriptions can refer to abstract objects
• D. Rigid designators require physical ostension at baptism; descriptions require a mental concept

Answer: (B)

This is the modal distinction at the heart of Kripke's argument. 'The teacher of Alexander' is non-rigid: in a counterfactual world where Alexander had a different tutor, the description would refer to that other person. 'Aristotle' is rigid: it refers to Aristotle — the specific individual — in every possible world where he exists, regardless of what he did or didn't do. Descriptions pick out whoever plays the role; names track the individual through different roles.

Question 3

On Kripke's causal-historical account, successfully referring to Aristotle by name requires knowing at least one true description of him.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

The causal-historical account explicitly replaces descriptive knowledge with causal chain membership. You refer to Aristotle because you stand in the right causal chain of name transmission — you learned the name from teachers and books, who got it from others, reaching back to an original naming event. You do not need to know any true descriptions of Aristotle. In fact, you might hold entirely false beliefs about him and still successfully refer to him, as long as your use of the name is connected to that causal chain.

Question 4

The descriptivist account explains why we can say 'Aristotle might seldom have studied philosophy' without changing who the name refers to in that sentence.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is precisely where descriptivism fails. If 'Aristotle' is a disguised description like 'the student of Plato who taught Alexander,' then in a world where Aristotle never studied philosophy, the description picks out someone else — not the same individual. But our intuition is that the sentence is coherently about the very person who actually existed, describing a path his life didn't take. Kripke's rigidity thesis explains this intuition: the name refers to the same individual in all possible worlds, regardless of which descriptions he satisfies.

Question 5

What does it mean to say that proper names are 'rigid designators,' and why does this pose a problem for descriptivist theories of reference?

Model answer: A rigid designator refers to the same individual in every possible world — even counterfactual scenarios where that individual has different properties. 'Aristotle' refers to Aristotle in all possible worlds, including ones where he never studied philosophy. Descriptivism makes reference depend on which descriptions are true: if Aristotle had different properties, the name would pick out whoever satisfied the description instead. This predicts that 'Aristotle might never have studied philosophy' is incoherent or changes its subject — but that seems wrong. Rigidity is what allows us to use names to describe what might have been true of the same individual.

The modal argument is Kripke's sharpest tool against descriptivism. Consider: we can coherently evaluate counterfactuals like 'Einstein might have become a musician instead.' For this to make sense, 'Einstein' must refer to the same person in that counterfactual — not to whoever became the greatest physicist. Descriptions are non-rigid: 'the greatest physicist of the 20th century' picks out a different person in a world where Einstein pursued music. Names, Kripke argues, don't work this way — they rigidly track individuals through the space of possibilities.