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Is Kripke really at The Helm?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David A. White
David A. White
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233
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Extract

There is a very interesting phenomenon which takes place in philosophy. Theories which appeared ten or fifteen years ago in the literature of, say, the philosophy of language or the philosophy of mind, often make a reappearance in current discussions of problems in the philosophy of religion. As Yogi Berra once remarked, ‘It's déjà vu all over again’. However, there is always a possibility that the transition from the earlier context to the later one will be less than smooth. For sometimes the theory reappears in a slightly distorted form, and, as a result, its bearing on the current discussion is somewhat misconceived. In this paper, an example of this phenomenon, and its potential problems, will be considered. Our purpose is not, of course, to discourage such intra-disciplinary dialogue in philosophy of religion, but rather to recommend that it be undertaken with a considerable measure of care.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 45 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Helm, Paul, Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 195–217.Google Scholar

2 Flew, Anthony, God & Philosophy (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1966), p. 33.Google Scholar

3 Kripke, Saul, ‘Naming and Necessity’, in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. Donald, Davidson & Gilbert, Harman (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1972), pp. 253–355CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter, Semantics of Natural Language). Following Helm's practice, page references will be to this edition.

4 Helm seems to want to have it both ways in his account of God's ‘individual essence’. Does the set of properties which comprises the ‘individual essence’ of God contain ‘shareable’ properties or not?

5 Semantics of Natural Language, pp. 269–70.

6 Ibid. p. 322.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid. p. 327. See also p. 322. There has been some debate concerning Mill's position. See Lockwood, Michael ‘On Predicating Proper Names’, Philosophical Review LXXXIV (October, 1975), 471–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Ibid. p. 322.

10 Ibid. p. 327.

11 Ibid. p. 322. However, Kripke does not, in ‘Naming and Necessity’, deny the general thesis that ‘proper names have a “sense”’. For ‘sense’ can be defined in several different ways. See Salmon, Nathan, Reference and Essence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 11–14Google Scholar. Note that I am not maintaining that Helm's thesis that ‘proper names express properties’ is itself inconsistent with Kripke's views on proper names. What I am maintaining is that Helm is incorrect to think that Kripke affirms that ‘proper names express properties’ in the three lectures contained in ‘Naming and Necessity’.

12 Helm, Eternal God, p. 208. It is odd, then, that Helm does not credit Plantinga with the prior formulation and defence of the general thesis that ‘proper names express essences’. Helm's innovation, and central contribution, involves, not his formulation of this general thesis, but rather his application of this thesis to the case of the specific proper name, ‘God’.

13 Plantinga, Alvin, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1974), pp. 70–81Google Scholar. See also his ‘The Boethian Compromise’, American Philosophical Quarterly XV (April, 1978), 129–38Google Scholar, and his discussion of Kripke in Profiles: Alvin Plantinga, ed. James E. Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen (Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 76–87Google Scholar. It might be added that Plantinga is himself somewhat puzzled as to what Kripke's views are on these matters.

14 Semantics of Natural Language, pp. 284–308.

15 Ibid. pp. 290–1.

16 Ibid. pp. 291–8.

17 Ibid. pp. 292, 298–9.

18 Kripke declines to provide a ‘theory’ or a ‘set of necessary and sufficient conditions’ in his lectures. Rather, he simply sketches an alternative ‘picture’ which includes some of the necessary conditions for successful reference. See Semantics of Natural Language, pp. 300–1, 303.

19 Ibid. pp. 298–9.

20 Wettstein, Howard, Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake? And Other Essays (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 223.Google Scholar

21 Semantics of Natural Language, p. 302. See also p. 349 n. 42.

22 Ibid.

23 Kripke notes some possible complications in a later edition of ‘Naming and Necessity’. See his Naming and Necessity (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 163.Google Scholar

24 I would like to thank Michael J. Wreen, of Marquette University, and William J. Wainwright, of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, for some penetrating and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.