Arif Ahmed

Saul Kripke.

New York: Continuum 2007.

Pp. 190.

US$110.00 (cloth ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9261-6); US$29.95 (paper ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9262-3).

This book is an insightful and thorough analysis of Kripke's major contributions to philosophy. Ahmed examines Kripke's views on description theory, essence and materialism, skeptical paradox, and private language as they are presented in Naming and Necessity and Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Guided by the notion that deeper understanding is achieved through critical analysis, Ahmed subjects Kripke's arguments to a systematic, premise-by-premise assessment.

In Naming and Necessity, Ahmed identifies three arguments--modal, semantic, and epistemological--in rejection of the Frege-Russell Thesis (FRT). The modal argument concludes that the FRT is false because it implies that it is necessary that the referent of a name satisfies the associated definite description, which runs counter to our intuitions. Ahmed denies that the FRT has this implication by questioning the assumption that synonymous expressions can be substituted within sentences without changing their meanings. Drawing on Dummett, Ahmed argues that expressions mean the same subject to the convention that definite descriptions take wide scope in modal contexts; and this blocks the counterintuitive conclusion. Finally, Ahmed argues, the modal argument fails because it misconstrues FRT as implying that e.g. 'Aristotle' means the same as 'the teacher of Alexander', rather than 'the actual teacher of Alexander'.

The semantic argument maintains that if FRT is true, then whether or not a name refers to a thing depends on whether it satisfies the associated description, e.g. 'Columbus' refers to 'the first man to realize that the earth was round'. However, since...