Kripke, Saul

"If names are rigid designators, then the task of philosophy is to explain how reference works across possible worlds."

"The externalism about content suggests that what you think depends partly on your environment and history."

"We can distinguish between epistemic possibility - what we can know - and genuine metaphysical possibility."

"Identity and necessity are not simply matters of how we talk, but reflect deep facts about reality."

"The speaker's intention and the semantic content of an utterance are distinct issues that require separate analysis."

"Proper nouns demonstrate that meaning is not purely descriptive - names can have sense without Fregean modes of presentation."

"Counterfactual conditionals show that modality is not merely a feature of our language but reflects features of the world."

"The philosophical method of examining possible cases helps us clarify our concepts and test our theories."

"Objects have their origins essentially - the origin of something determines what it is in fundamental ways."

"The distinction between type and token is crucial for understanding how singular terms and predicates function differently."

"Natural kinds have essences that are discovered, not invented by human classification schemes."

"The fact that we can refer successfully without complete knowledge shows that reference is mediated by practice and causation, not by internal content."

"Modal logic must be grounded in a metaphysics of possible worlds or some alternative account of modality."

"The existence of rigid designators challenges descriptivist theories of meaning comprehensively."

"Our judgments about necessity and possibility, while fallible, are among our most reliable philosophical data."

"The puzzle of transworld identification dissolves once we recognize that objects can exist in multiple possible worlds."

"Conventional meanings are social facts, but the reference of our terms depends on causal relations to external reality."

"To say something is possible is to say that there exists a possible world in which it obtains."

"The philosophy of language cannot be separated from metaphysics - how we talk reflects what there is."

"Understanding a term requires knowing the referent and the standards for applying it correctly."

"The actual world is just one of many possible worlds - it is actual from our perspective within it."

"Necessity emerges from the nature of things, not from limitations of human knowledge or imagination."

"The bearing of philosophy of language on metaphysics is profound - semantics reveals ontology."

"A term can be meaningful without being descriptively analyzable - this is the lesson of Naming and Necessity."

"Objects persist through possible worlds by means of their identity conditions, which are partially essential."

"The externalist view of mental content explains how our thoughts can be about the world independently of our internal states."

"Necessity and possibility are features of reality, not merely projections of our linguistic practices."

"The semantics of natural kind terms reveals that science discovers essences rather than creating them."

"Reference is a relation between language and world that cannot be fully explained in internalist terms."

"Rigidity provides a criterion for distinguishing genuine singular terms from definite descriptions."