Kripke’s theory of naming—though he refuses to call it that—is a reaction against the views of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. They had thought that the reference of a name is determined by a description which is associated with it in the mind of a speaker. Thus the reference of a name such as 'Aristotle' may be determined by a description such as “the most famous student of Plato.” Kripke makes several criticisms of this kind of account of names, which I cannot go into here. The important thing is the positive view that Kripke develops in response to it.
If the Frege-Russell view is wrong, how does it come about that people are able to use names to refer to objects? On Kripke’s theory, names are simply labels that we tag objects with. They can pick out their referents directly, without a need for any mediating description. In place of a description, Kripke envisions a causal chain stretching from current utterances of a given name all the way back to an initial “baptism” of its bearer. (Naming and Necessity, pp. 96-97) During a typical baptism a person will attend or point to an object which causally affects them in some way—perhaps by the light it reflects—and pronounce a word which, in the right circumstances[1], becomes the object’s name. Others hear the baptizer utter this name and come to use it themselves. Still others hear it from them and come to use it as well, etc. In this way the name can be passed on to an ever increasing number of speakers. So long as they intend to use the name to refer to the same thing the original baptizer used it to refer to, they too can use it to refer to that thing, even if they have never encountered it and know next to nothing about it. Indeed, they can successfully use the name to refer to it when most of their beliefs about it are false. These results are a great strength of Kripke’s theory, and one would do well to remember them, for they are crucial to understanding how the Private Language Argument goes wrong.
If Kripke’s account of naming is correct, we may say either that names refer but have no meaning, or that the meaning of a name just is its bearer. Either way, Wittgenstein’s view is in trouble, for the Private Language Argument rests on the assumption that names do have a kind of meaning, in the form of a rule which governs their correct application. Consider this excerpt from section 258 of PI : “A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign.—Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the connexion between the sign and the sensation.—But “I impress it on myself” can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness.” (PI p. 92) But it is doubtful that such a conception of meaning applies to the sort of expressions being considered here. What, for instance, would the rule for the correct use of the name ‘Aristotle’ be? Would it be “Apply the name ‘Aristotle’ to Aristotle and nothing else”? If one does not already “understand” the name ‘Aristotle’ this rule is useless, and if one does understand it the rule is entirely superfluous. Note also how Wittgenstein quickly passes from saying that a definition[2] establishes the meaning of a sign to saying that one impresses a connection on oneself through an act of attention. The connection between a sign and a sensation is a relation of reference, and if one thinks of reference as Kripke does it will sound very odd to talk of “impressing” such a relation on oneself or of “remembering” it. What could it mean, on a view like Kripke’s, to impress on oneself the connection between the name ‘Aristotle’ and the man to whom it refers? For Kripke this connection is constituted by a certain series of causal relations, and it exists whether I remember it or not.
The truth is that, to use the name ‘Aristotle’ meaningfully—or “referentially,” if we hold names to be meaningless—one need only stand in certain causal relations to Aristotle and intend to use the name to refer to the same thing as those from whom one got it. Whether one also has certain beliefs about Aristotle, undertakes to “use” the name ‘Aristotle’ in a certain way, or is able to “remember” the referential link between the name and its bearer will not affect the meaning or reference of the name. Apart from this there is no criterion for its correct use. Names can be used significantly because they stand in certain relations to something in the world, not because of any rules we supply to govern their application. The same, I contend, goes for the terms of a private language.
In opposition to Wittgenstein, I propose the following Kripke-inspired picture of the meaningfulness of sensation words. Suppose I am a private linguist who wants to record occurrences of a private sensation—a toothache, for instance—in a calendar of the sort Wittgenstein mentions in section 258 of PI. On having the toothache I go over to the calendar and inscribe the sign ‘T’. Since I am trying to keep track of the recurrence of this sensation, I am evidently using ‘T’ a general term, not as a name for that particular toothache. The term ‘T’ is, when used in this way, a natural kind term. To establish its reference I simply attend to my toothache and think something like “Let this kind of pain be called ‘T’,” just as I can attend to a particular kind of substance and say “Let this kind of metal be called ‘gold’.” In order to establish a relation between my sign ‘T’ and this kind of pain I need not impress on myself any connection or give myself any rule for its use, for terms which are introduced in this way either have their referent as their meaning or have no meaning at all. The baptism itself is all that is needed for me to use the sign significantly. Once the reference of ‘T’ has been established, I can use the sign in the future to refer to the same class of pains simply by intending to use it in the same way I originally did, even if the initial baptism has long since been forgotten and I now apply the term ‘T’ (incorrectly) to pains which are not toothaches. The reference is passed on to my future selves much as the reference of proper names such as ‘Aristotle’ is passed on to subsequent speakers. Moreover, if others should stumble across my calendar they can also use the sign ‘T’ to refer to my toothaches, even if they have no means of discovering what ‘T’ stands for.
We have seen that if the Private Language Argument is sound, sensation words must have publicly accessible criteria for their correct application in order to be meaningful. If there is no such thing as a criterion for the correct use of words of this kind, Wittgenstein’s argument falls apart. The upshot of the foregoing considerations is that if Kripke’s theory of naming is right the notion of a private language may be intelligible after all, in which case it is Wittgenstein himself who has fallen victim to a conceptual confusion.
Bibliography
Kripke, Saul A. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations, 3rd Edition. Trans. G.E.M.
Anscombe. Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958.
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