The Starting Point: Kripke’s “Magic”

Abstract

In this chapter, I explain and discuss the basis of Kripke’s thesis that there are contingent truths that can be known a priori as a result of stipulation. I outline the fundamental assumptions in terms of rigidity and descriptive reference-fixing. I also discuss Dummett’s (Frege: philosophy of language. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1973) objection to Kripke’s Modal Argument, according to which its conclusion only follows if definite descriptions are taken with narrow scope. I also point out what I take to be two serious limitations of Kripke’s account, one of them related to the lack of specification concerning the truth-makers of contingent a priori truths, and the other concerning the prospects for extending the possibility of knowing such truths to other people besides the stipulator.