Putting Frege’s Puzzle to Kripke’s Test

Jonathan Berg (University of Haifa)

Jonathan Berg (Haifa) will present "Putting Frege’s Puzzle to Kripke’s Test" at 11 on 9 March in Old Arts 156. 

ABSTRACT:

Saul Kripke proposes the following test:

If someone alleges that a certain phenomenon in English is a counterexample to a given analysis, consider a hypothetical language which (as much as possible) is like English except that the analysis is stipulated to be correct.  Imagine such a hypothetical language introduced into a community and spoken by it.  If the phenomenon in question would still arise in a community that spoke such a hypothetical language (which may not be English), then the fact that it arises in English cannot disprove the hypothesis that the analysis is correct for English." ("Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference,"  Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 2 (1977), 255-76.)

Frege—or at least, some Fregeans—argue that substitution failure of coreferential names in belief contexts disproves the theory of direct reference. How well does the Fregean objection hold up to Kripke’s test? And how much does it matter?