Philosophical Troubles, Saul Kripke

Philosophical Troubles is the first volume of Saul Kripke’s collected papers. It was originally to be called Bandersnatches in Dubuque, and other Philosophical Troubles, after the observation, of which more later, that “whatever bandersnatches may be, certainly there are none in Dubuque. ” The contents are non-technical, with the partial exception of “Outline of a Theory of Truth ” (1975).1 There are four canonical papers that most of us will have read; three lesser-known recent publications, on Russell, Frege, and presupposition; and six papers, almost half the volume, that appear only here. Kripke was philosophizing, as we know, as a teenager, but the glory years began with “Identity and Necessity ” and Naming and Necessity, both based on lectures given in 1970. A number of papers pick up themes from these two works. But although the necessities (as I call them) are full of metaphysical fireworks, it is the semantical themes that Kripke mainly returns to—starting with the worry that, if a name means its referent, there are not enough meanings to go around. The one-referent, two-meaning, case is discussed in “A Puzzle about Belief ” (1977), through the example of Londres-loving Pierre with his reservations about London. Insofa