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Title: Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Necessity by Scott Soames ISBN: 0-19-514529-1 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Never met a singular proposition I didn't like.
Comment: I would merely say the book is intriguing and beautifully clear, particularly in two respects: (1) Kripke's own seeming ambivalence about propositional attitudes in "Puzzle about Belief" can be interestingly taken in one direction rather than another. Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of Bruce Wayne's claim that "I am Batman" (and felt informed, unlike Alfred the butler) will pay serious attention to Soames' distinctions between assertion and linguistic meaning. (2) The treatment of theoretical identities as necessary if true without reference to rigid designation is quite important. Thus, this book represents a major event.
Rating: 4
Summary: Not up to Kripke's level
Comment: This book is very obviously a follow-on to Saul Kripke's Naming and Neccesity, and should only be read after a careful reading of N&N. In addition, the rather dry academic prose of Soames contrasts with the much more free-flowing work by Kripke, which is a transcription of 3 lectures he delivered (without notes) at Princeton, where he was a professor until he retired (incidentally, Soames is a current professor at that university).
With that out of the way, Beyond Rigidity is nothing short of a repuidiation of Kripke. Soames (and many more modern philosophers) seem to be returning to the same holes Mill dug when he wrote those handful of paragraphs which forever tied his name to a fatally flawed theory of reference. It is impossible, while reading this book, to not notice the way in which the work accomplished by eg., Frege, Russell, and even Kripke, is seemingly ignored in Soame's anti-descriptivist theories. Soames's theories, for example, of extra-semantic content, are certainly not conclusive, nor are they the only possible answers to the questions he poses.
That said, this is certainly a worthwhile book. Although I think that the content is dubious and incorrect philosophically, this is still a valuable work to read, if, at the least, only as a cautionary tale.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Heartbreaking Romance
Comment: Most likely one of the most important texts written in the philosophy of language since Kripke's NN. As with his work on truth, one cannot complain--has no room to complain--that Soames is not precise or thorough here. So my review of the book can only be positive, if it is not an obvious expression of utter admiration. The only criticism one could offer at the outset is that the read is a bit stylistically dry, which is a product of careful logical analysis, precision, and painstaking meditation on the several issues covered in it.
Prior to reading this text, I recommend another whirl in Kripke's NN (and yet another...) as well as the first half of Salmon's Reference and Essence (Frege's Puzzle/[Ridgeview] would also be beneficial).
Soames' subtitle to Beyond Rigidity (a clever title) is: 'The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of NN' so one would expect some beaucoup direct reference theory and a clear analysis of just what kind of 'agenda' kripke left 'unfinished.' Soames is meticulous in satisfying that expectation.
Ch 1 discusses two main points of the unfinished semantic agenda: a positive theory of meaning (semantic content, names), and the significance of natural kind terms. Ch 2 is a discussion of proper names as RD's (as not R. descriptions). Ch 3 discusses the meaning of names as their referents. Ch 4 analyzes ambiguity and proper names (esp. indexicals). Ch 5 evaluates 'partially descriptive names.' Ch 6-8 deals with pro attitudes ascriptions (defending a Millian/neo-Russellian view of names and indexicals in light of Fregean informational content). The last chapters deal with natural kind terms.
At bottom, it seems that Soames is still committed to an anti-descriptivist account of proper names (which is probably the mainline view nowdays--Searle may be one of the few hold outs).
Soames makes K's project more explicit (and maybe more clear), and an interesting thesis he develops is that natural kind terms are not RD's (nor are they incredibly crucial for an understanding of proper names)
This text will be worthy of reading and re-reading again.
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Title: Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century: The Dawn of Analysis by Scott Soames ISBN: 0691115737 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century: The Age of Meaning (Age of Meaning) by Scott Soames ISBN: 0691115745 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Conceivability and Possibility by Tamar Szabo Gendler, John Hawthorne, John O'Leary-Hawthorne ISBN: 0198250908 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Knowledge and Its Limits by Timothy Williamson ISBN: 019925656X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Ways a World Might Be: Metaphysical and Anti-Metaphysical Essays by Robert C. Stalnaker ISBN: 0199251495 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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