I don't understand your criticism. In the quotes you cite, he is setting out the theory he then shows to be mistaken. His point is that there is a difference between the referent and the description, in that one is necessary and the other contingent.

The introduction of "schmidentity" is methodologicaly not dissimilar to "quus" from Wittgenstein on rules and private language.

Singular attributions of existence (p.110)

Throughout this, the existence of individuals is pretty well assumed. But of course this needs some thought, too.

That is, Kripke is rejecting the idea that to be is to be the subject of a predicate. But this is something I've occasionally argued in favour of. The idea is that here are no individuals as the referent of proper names, and that all there is, is sets of properties instantiated together. An individual is no more than a bunch of properties.

Well, perhaps. I don't see how such a view could provide an account of modality any where near as effective as Possible World Semantics - which is reliant on individuals being able to exist in multiple possible worlds; and hence on there being individuals.

She refers to Joe by stating, "You know - the guy who kiled Bob...". She is saying stuff about Joe. She is picking Joe out. — creativesoul

If all she is saying about Joe is that he killed Bob, then she is saying something false about Joe. But this reference depends on her knowing who Joe is independently of her false belief about him. She must know something true about him in order to be able to refer to him at all, even if only that he is called 'Joe' by at least one other person, or most minimally what he looks like. If she had merely seen him from a distance and didn't know his name, she could refer to him as 'Joe' (you know, that Joe [in the generic sense of the term similar to 'John Doe']) and then she would be correctly referring to the person she chooses to call 'Joe'.

I don't understand your criticism. In the quotes you cite, he is setting out the theory he then shows to be mistaken. His point is that there is a difference between the referent and the description, in that one is necessary and the other contingent. — Banno

It can be the case that his critique of certain positions holds good, and that both he and the proponents of those other positions are both wrong about what it takes to successfully refer. As time passes here, I'm leaning more and more to that conclusion.

I'm pointing out that Kripke's framework is inherently inadequate for taking proper account of what Jane does. I'm not passing judgment upon whether or not he points out valid issues with some descriptivist positions by virtue of using the historical conventional notions of necessity and contingency.

I'm looking at what Kripke is claiming...

In the footnotes on page 25...

Call the referent of a name or description in my sense the 'semantic referent'; for a name, this
is the thing named, for a description, the thing uniquely satisfying the description.

There it is.

Accompanied by the text of both pg. 25 and 26...

...Nevertheless, I'm just going to use the term 'referent of the description' to mean the object uniquely satisfying the conditions in the definite description. This is the sense in which it's been used in the logical tradition...

There it is again...

I've shown the consequences. What's not to understand?

If all she is saying about Joe is that he killed Bob, then she is saying something false about Joe. But this reference depends on her knowing who Joe is independently of her false belief about him. — Janus

No. It doesn't. Jane need not know anything at all about Joe. She need only to recognize Joe as the person she believes killed Bob.

She must at least know what he looks like as I said. In order to identify a particular person you must know something about them.

She must at least know what he looks like as I said. In order to identify a particular person you must know something about them. — Janus

He looks like the man who she believes killed Bob. She knows that. Doesn't hardly pass the muster of knowing something about Joe independently of her false belief though... does it?

...

If all she is saying about Joe is that he killed Bob, then she is saying something false about Joe. But this reference depends on her knowing who Joe is independently of her false belief about him. — Janus

emphasis mine

This contradicts everyday events like Jane's. Clearly her reference does not depend upon her knowing who Joe is independently of her false belief about him. Jane's case is one in which the only thing she knows about him is that he looks like the guy she believes killed Bob. That's more than adequate for her successfully referring to him.

Right, so she knows what he looks like, and she refers to him as Joe. So she can successfully refer to that particular man, because she know what he looks like and she knows his name is Joe (even if it is only she who calls him that). The further question is what is required so that anyone else could know just who she is referring to. It seems that, if Joe is not present, then a photograph or a description will be required. Whether or not she holds some false beliefs about the man seems irrelevant.

Read and quote my example...

Then address it's flaws if you see any.

How could she know that he "looks like the person she believes killed Bob" if she didn't know what he looks like? To know what he looks like just is to know "who Joe is independently of her false belief about him".

I already have.

What does your reply have to do with whether or not Jane can successfully refer to Joe by virtue of false description? — creativesoul

It shows that Jane cannot refer to Joe on the basis of a false description alone; she needs to know something true about him; at the very least what he looks like, for example.

The corollary of this is that someone else cannot know who is being referred to by Jane without Jane pointing them out, or showing a photograph of them, or giving at least one true description.

I've shown the consequences. — creativesoul

Where?

How could she know that he "looks like the person she believes killed Bob" if she didn't know what he looks like? — Janus

To her there is no difference. That is precisely the point.

What does your reply have to do with whether or not Jane can successfully refer to Joe by virtue of false description?
— creativesoul

It points out that Jane cannot refer to Joe merely on the basis of a false description alone; she needs to know something true about him; at the very least what he looks like, for example. — Janus

Jane shows otherwise.

Jane believes Joe killed Bob. She refers to Joe by stating, "You know - the guy who kiled Bob...". She is saying stuff about Joe. She is picking Joe out. The referent of the description is the specific individual that is being picked out of this world by Jane. That is clearly Joe.

Following Kripke's framework demands concluding otherwise when Jane's belief is false.

Let me repeat...

Kripke's framework would be forced to report Jane's belief in a remarkably different way if it were false.

In such a case, according to Kripke's notion of 'referent of the description', the referent of Jane's description could not be Joe. Rather, the referent of Jane's description would have to be someone that she may not even know exists. She believes Joe killed Bob. Allen did. Jane doesn't know of Allen. Yet, according to Kripke's notion of the 'referent of the description', the referent of Jane's description is Allen.

This framework leads one to say that Jane is referring to someone she does not even know about, and that the person she is saying stuff about is not the referent of her description. Are we to conclude that it makes any sense at all to say that Jane can describe and talk about Joe while the referent of Jane's description about Joe is not Joe, but rather it is Allen.

That looks like a fundamental error in taxonomy. If you get thought and belief wrong, you'll have something or other wrong about everything ever thought, believed, stated, written, and/or otherwise uttered.

Kripke's notion of "proper referent" cannot properly account for Jane's referring to Joe by virtue of saying stuff about him that's false. Ask Jane who she is referring to. Tell her that Joe is innocent. Prove it to her.

Ask here again who she was referring to... She will say "Joe". Put Joe in a lineup. She will pick out Joe.

Kripke's got a bit of bullshit mixed in there.

Kripke would tell Jane that the referent of her descriptions about Joe was Allen. Jane would tell Saul that she knows who she was talking about even if she said some stuff about him that was wrong, mistaken, false, and/or otherwise not true. I would agree with Jane. — creativesoul

There and elsewhere...

Something else of equal importance. There are cases where there is no need for use of definitive description being accompanied by proper name in order to successfully refer to a particular individual...

Let's say that Jane does not know Joe's name, but rather can recognize him as the person she believes killed Bob. Her definite description, "the guy who killed Bob" refers to Joe, even when Jane does not know Joe's name. According to Kripke, the referent of Jane's definite description is Allen. Yet if we place Allen and Joe in a line up and ask Jane to whom she was referring, she would pick out Joe.

Kripke's account is contrary to everyday fact(that which actually happens on a daily basis). — creativesoul

And there...

Jane shows otherwise. — creativesoul

So, now you claim that Jane doesn't know what he looks like after all?

The point is that Jane doesn't "successfully refer to Joe by virtue of false description" she does so by virtue of knowing something true about him, even if that is merely having seen him.

You have already admitted as much:

Ask here again who she was referring to... She will say "Joe". Put Joe in a lineup. She will pick out Joe. — creativesoul

So, now you claim that Jane doesn't know what he looks like after all? — Janus

Did I? Where?

IF what you say is true, then Jane could not successfully pick Joe out by virtue of false description alone.

BUT SHE DOES...

It's up to you what to do with this...

While I offered a case where Jane knows Joe by name, it is not necessary for her to successfully refer to Joe, even in cases where she does not know his name. I've offered that as well...

You're contradicting yourself: if she knows what Joe looks like then she would not be "picking out Joe by virtue of a false description alone", but by virtue of knowing what he looks like.

The point is that Jane doesn't "successfully refer to Joe by virtue of false description" she does so by virtue of knowing something true about him, even if that is merely having seen him. — Janus

I don't think it makes much of a difference to the validity of Kripke's argument against descriptivism about de re senses (by means of either proper names or demonstratives) whether a putative reference determining description is allegedly constituted by explicit beliefs or by a mere practical ability to recognize the referent. If all Jane believes about Joe is that he's the man she saw yesterday and who seemed to her to be tall and white, but she actually misperceived a man who is short and black, and forgot that she actually saw him two days ago rather than yesterday, she still is thinking about that man (i.e. Joe, who is actually short and black) under all of those false descriptions. Likewise, in the case where she would not have retained any explicit beliefs about the man, but only think of him as someone she once saw and could recognize on sight, but she can't really do that because she developed a propensity to misidentify a short black man as the tall white man who she actually saw, intuitively, it's still the man who she saw that she's thinking of, just like Kripke's "causal theory of reference" predicts.

To say that she is referring to a man she saw yesterday, even allowing that she totally mis-remembers his appearance (which is itself highly implausible I would say) is to say that she has seen the man, and that she refers to him by virtue of having seen him. Usually one would take having seen someone as entailing knowing what they look like, or at least being able to recognize them if one sees them again. So, I can't see how this challenges what I have been saying.

The point is that Jane doesn't "successfully refer to Joe by virtue of false description" she does so by virtue of knowing something true about him, even if that is merely having seen him. — Janus

To say that she is referring to a man she saw yesterday, even allowing that she totally mis-remembers his appearance (which is itself highly implausible I would say) is to say that she has seen the man, and that she refers to him by virtue of having seen him. Usually one would take having seen someone as entailing knowing what they look like, or at least being able to recognize them if one sees them again. So, I can't see how this challenges what I have been saying. — Janus

The issue isn't whether or not it's frequent or plausible that one might encounter something and totally mis-remember its appearance. That's not a philosophical question; that's an empirical question. Both can intelligibly occur, with whatever frequencies. The issue rather is whether or not it's in virtue of the predicative content of such an ability to recognize an individual's appearance, as a result of an initial perceptual encounter with it, than one is thereafter able to refer to this individual by means of a memory-invoking demonstrative. When you are saying that she is referring to the man by virtue of having seen him, what do you mean exactly? Can you specify some more what this "... by virtue of ..." relation consists in? If it's merely an ability to recognize the man she once saw, who (i.e. under what mode of presentation) does she recognize him to be? Recognitional abilities are abilities to re-cognize; that is: to think of an individual under two distinct modes of presentation and to judge the two references to be numerically identical. I would argue that, in the case under discussion, both of those modes are de re senses: one of them is a memory-invoking demonstrative and the second one is a (present) perceptual demonstrative.

When you are saying that she is referring to the man by virtue of having seen him, what do you mean exactly? When you are saying that she is referring to the man by virtue of having seen him, what do you mean exactly? — Pierre-Normand

I would say she must at least remember having seen him, even if not what he looks like, in order to refer to him. This memory must be under some form of description, or at least be capable of being rendered as such. For example, if I say to you: "Remember that woman we saw yesterday who was nearly hit by a car" neither of us may remember what she looks like, we might not even be able to pick her out in a line-up, so we can only refer to her by virtue of that true description: that we saw her being almost run over.

We touched earlier on a distinction between fixing and determining reference. You acknowledged that fixing reference relies on description, but you did not acknowledge this for determining reference. I imagined that you were alluding to Kripke's "causal chain" of rigid designation. As I understand it this chain involves an initial event (or events in the case of multiple names designating the same person or entity) of baptism, followed by the historical series of instances of use of the name to refer to the individual; the designating references that cement the rigid designation.

So, those who are present at the baptismal event(s) know who the baptizing name refers to by virtue of having been there and seeing the baptized person with their own eyes. how does anyone who was not present, who has never seen the person or any representation (painting, photograph or whatever) of the person come to know who is being referred to at subsequent times? I would say it is obviously by virtue of descriptions of what the person looks like, where she lives, what she has done and so on.

So Kripke's "causal series" would itself seem to consist predominately in representations and descriptions. That begins to make it look like the only distinction between fixing and determining reference may be that the latter is thought to consist in a whole chain of isolated 'fixing reference' events, and that description plays a large part in the "causal' process of rigid designation.

I would say she must at least remember having seen him, even if not what he looks like, in order to refer to him. This memory must be under some form of description, or at least be capable of being rendered as such. For example, if I say to you: "Remember that woman we saw yesterday who was nearly hit by a car" neither of us may remember what she looks like, we might not even be able to pick her out in a line-up, so we can only refer to her by virtue of that true description: that we saw her being almost run over. — Janus

The issue was: must this (minimal) description be true in order that the referent of the thought be determined by that thought? What if both you and I saw a woman whom we believed was almost hit by a car, but the car only appeared to us to drive close to her owing to a misleading perspective? In that case, wouldn't you agree that we are still referring to that woman (or to that man whom we falsely thought was a woman!) in spite of the fact that she (or he!) wasn't nearly hit by a car?

We touched earlier on a distinction between fixing and determining reference. You acknowledged that fixing reference relies on description, but you did not acknowledge this for determining reference. I imagined that you were alluding to Kripke's "causal chain" of rigid designation. As I understand it this involves an event (or events in the case of multiple names designating the same person or entity) of baptism, followed by the historical series of uses of the name to refer to the individual; the designating references that cement the rigid designation.

Right. That's how Kripke suggests his causal account might elucidate how proper names determine their referents.

So, those who are present at the baptismal event(s) know who the baptizing name refers to by virtue of having been there and seeing the baptized person with their own eyes. how does anyone who was not present, who has never seen the person or any representation (painting, photograph or whatever) of the person come to know who is being referred to at subsequent times? I would say it is obviously by virtue of descriptions of what the person looks like, where she lives, what she has done and so on.

Yes, new people can be initiated into the already existing naming practice by means of reference fixing descriptions. The important points to remember, though, is that, firstly, a necessary requirement for their successful initiation into the practice is that the practice already exists and is founded on direct "causal" acquaintance by some of the earlier participants into (or founders of) the practice. And secondly, the content of the reference fixing description by means of which new participants are initiated can be entirely false without this impeding the initiate's ability to refer to the named individual.

So Kripke's "causal series" would itself seem to consist predominately in representations and descriptions. That begins to make it look like the only distinction between fixing and determining reference may be that the latter is thought to consist in a whole chain of isolated 'fixing reference' events, and that description plays a large part in the "causal' process of rigid designation.

Again, it doesn't matter at all if the sorts of contents that are made use of in the deployment, use and transmission or proper name using practices are predominantly consisting of (1) descriptions or (2) de re senses (information insensitive "causal links"). That's an empirical question which Kripke doesn't take any stand on. What he's arguing is that (2) is indispensable and that (2) can't be reduced entirely to (1). (And hence, proper names can't be translated into definite descriptions). Also, it's the essential involvement of (2) in the constitution of naming practices that accounts for proper names behaving as (information insensitive) rigid designators.

It seems you're talking about something that I am not.

What's at issue is whether or not false description can be used to successfully refer. Kripke's account does not seem to be able to provide an acceptable explanation of these cases when they happen. That is the point I'm currently arguing...

You're wanting to argue about whether or not Jane needs to know something else about Joe in order for her to be able to use false description to successfully refer to Joe(to pick Joe out by saying false stuff about Joe).