Fragmentation and Singular Propositions

Two puzzles are described: a problem about necessary a posteriori truths and a problem about propositional attitudes with singular propositions as their contents. Two strategies for solving them are compared. The first is the diagonalization strategy, which distinguishes possible worlds that are compatible with what is actually expressed by a given sentential clause from possible worlds that are compatible with what would be expressed by the clause if that possible world were actual. The second strategy is the fragmentation strategy, which represents the intentional states described by sentential clauses as separate nonintegrated representational states. It is argued that these are complementary, not competing, strategies. Both play a role in the solutions to the problems. In conclusion, it is suggested that these strategies can also help to clarify a number of further problems—about self-locating attitudes, about the nature of computation, and about knowledge of phenomenal experience.

Kripke’s sole route to the necessary a posteriori

In ‘Kripke on epistemic and metaphysical possibility: two routes to the necessary a posteriori’, Scott Soames identifies two arguments for the existence of necessary a posteriori truths in Naming and Necessity (NN). He argues that Kripke’s second argument relies on either of two principles, each of which leads to contradiction. He also claims that it has led to ‘two-dimensionalist’ approaches to the necessary a posteriori which are fundamentally at odds with the insights about meaning and modality expressed in NN. I argue that the alleged second argument is not in NN. I identify the mistakes that lead to Soames’ misinterpretation.

Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility

This chapter discusses Saul Kripke’s treatment of the necessary a posteriori and concomitant distinction between epistemic and metaphysical possibility. It extracts the enduring lessons of his treatment of these matters and disentangles them from errors and confusions that mar some of his most important discussions. It argues that there are two Kripkean routes to the necessary a posteriori—one correct and philosophically far-reaching; the other incorrect, philosophically misleading, and the source of damaging errors that persist to this day. It connects two false principles involved in the second, unsuccessful, route to the necessary a posteriori with the plausible and potentially correct idea that believing a singular proposition that o is F always involves also believing a richer more descriptively informative proposition in which some further property plays a role in the agent’s thoughts about o. It explains why this idea will not save the failed second route to the necessary a posteriori and suggests that it may help reconcile Kripke’s insights with the lessons of Frege’s puzzle.