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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 April 2022
1. Introduction. In (Kripke 1970), Saul Kripke distinguished rigid from accidental designators to refute the Frege-Russell theory of names, to rehabilitate natural necessity, and to subvert mind-body dualism. Discussions of Kripke's work have tended to follow this agenda. Here I examine a possible extension of Kripke's apparatus to scientific reduction and physical necessity. My overall conclusions are negative: while Kripkean arguments appear to yield surprising conclusions that cut against empiricism, these conclusions merely restate empiricist tenets in mildly paradoxical terms. The larger moral is that contemporary essentialism is less philosophically significant that has perhaps been supposed.
I wish to thank Arthur Collins, Christopher Hill and my wife Margarita for their discussions with me, oral and written, on the following material. I also wish to thank the Philosophy Departments of the University of Wollongong and Monash University for comments on an earlier draft.
