One task facing Metaphysics is to offer an account of modality.

Modal claims

are statements about what could or must be the case. Part of what constitutes

these claims are statements of contingency and necessity. Using the notion of

possible worlds as a model or heuristic we can roughly outline these two concepts

of modality: something is necessary just in case it could not have been otherwise.

We may say that if it is true, it is true in all possible worlds. By contingent, we may

say that it is true in some possible worlds but not in all. For example, it appears to

be true that in all possible worlds Aristotle is a human being. We may say, given

that it is true, he is necessarily a human being. On the other hand, it could have

been otherwise that Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great. It is only a contingent

matter of history that he was hired by Philip the 2 nd of Macedon. A puzzle seems to

arise in the modal ascription of identity claims. There definitely appears to be

contingent identity claims. However Saul Kripke makes the claim that identity

statements when true, are necessarily true.

Kripke sites the following argument against the possibility of contingent identity

statements:

1. For any x and y, if x=y then any property x has, y has as well.
2. It is trivially true that for any x, necessarily x=x.

Given Leibniz Law (that if x=y then x any have exactly the same properties), it

follows from the previous two claims that:

3. If x=y then, if necessarily x=x then necessarily x=y.

Given the validity of the argument, we seem to deduce that identity statements

must be necessary, making the idea of contingent identity statements paradoxical.

How are we to make sense of allegedly contingent identity statements like Barack

Obama is the 44th President of the United States, or Hesperus is Phosphorus?

Let us take for example the claim, Barack Obama is the 44 th president of the

United States. The claim is prima facie contingent. After all, John McCain might

have been the 44th president. Kripke claims that, while this is true, it is not an

identity claim. A seemingly contingent identity claim such as this involves one or

more definite descriptions. It is a complex claim which involves predicating the

property of being the 44th president of the United States to Barack Obama. In such

an instance, Kripke assumes Russels theory of descriptions to avoid the paradox:

There is a unique x such that x is the president of the United States

and x=Barack Obama.

If the x that is picked out is Barack Obama, then x=Barack Obama is necessarily

true. However, it must be taken into account that that claim is nested within the

larger claim which in itself is a description and not a statement of identity. According

to Kripke a true identity claim involves only proper names.

Under Russels view, proper names are definite descriptions. A proper name

is a type of abbreviation which stands in for a list of descriptions of a particular

thing. When we say, Barack Obama it is to say:

There is a unique x such that, x is African American, is male, was born

in Hawaii, x is the 44th president of the United States

This description picks out the man Barack Obama in the actual world. However,

there are possible worlds where this simply fails to describe anything. For example,

there may be a possible world in where the United States doesnt exist.

Kripke denies Russells claim that proper names are definite descriptions.

Proper names only refer to, designate or tag a particular thing or object x. It picks
out this particular x and does not describe it as the possessor of certain properties.

Once it is fixed, the term always picks out the object and has no other function.

When we say Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States, we use the

term Barack Obama to tag that very man, in order to ascribe to him the property

of being the 44th president of the United States. The name Barack Obama can be

used in counterfactual scenarios, such as there being no United States for him to be

president of, while still assuming it refers to the very same man.

According to Kripke, since proper names simply pick out a particular thing,

they function as rigid designators. A rigid designator is a term that picks out the

same thing in all possible worlds where it exists. A non-rigid designator does not

pick out the same particular thing in all possible worlds. A designation such as the

44th president of the United States is a non-rigid designator. In the actual world

the statement does pick out Barack Obama, but, under other circumstances another

individual could fit the designation. It is easily conceivable that, given another

possible world, it could refer to John McCain. A rigid designator, on the other hand,

is a term of our language in the actual world that functions across possible worlds.

Barack Obama is a term of our language in the actual world. As a rigid designator,

the proper name refers or points to the same man in every possible world where he

exists whether he is president or not. Suppose we say Barack Obama might have

been a kindergarten teacher. We understand the statement as stipulating that

very man because of the nature of proper names as rigid designators. The man

exists in that world and so is picked out by the name Barack Obama. In our

language, the name Barack Obama picks him out even in possible worlds where he

is referred to as Steve. This possible world is not one in which Barack Obama is

not Barack Obama. It is simply a world in which the man that is picked out in our
language by the proper name Barack Obama is referred to as Steve in the

language of that world.

With the notion of proper names as rigid designators, we can see how identity

claims, when true, are necessarily true. Consider the claim Hesperus is

Phosphorus. This is an identity claim by virtue of it involving only proper names. It

is necessarily true if true at all because Hesperus and Phosphorus are proper

names for the same object: they both pick out the planet Venus. Given that it is true

that Hesperus is Venus and Phosphorus is Venus, as rigid designators, they will

both necessarily pick out Venus in every possible world where that planet exists.

Since Hesperus and Phosphorus both necessarily point to Venus in all possible

worlds, and since Venus is necessarily identical to itself in all possible worlds, then

Hesperus is Phosphorus is true in all possible worlds. As per the definition of

necessity given above, given that it is true, Hesperus is Phosphorus necessarily.

Objections to Kripkes view have been raised on the grounds that some

identity claims are known only empirically. A proposition is known a priori if it is

known independent of experience. A proposition is known a posteriori if it is known

on the basis of experience. It has been argued that if a claim is known a posteriori,

then it must be contingent. Return to the example Hesperus is Phosphorus. At a

certain time, it was believed that Hesperus, as it rose in the morning, was a

different celestial body from that one which rose in the evening and was called

Phosphorus. It could only be discovered through empirical investigation that

Hesperus and Phosphorus are the same celestial body now called Venus. Any such

discovery seems to make Hesperus is Phosphorus a contingent claim, as it may

have been discovered otherwise.

 Kripke rejects the view that since Hesperus is Phosphorus was an empirical

discovery it must be a contingent statement of identity. Such determinations arise

from a technical confusion regarding terms like a priori/a posteriori and

necessary/contingent. He points to a tendency to see a posteriori knowledge as co-

extensive with contingency. However, Kripke points out that if we are to assign the

a-priori/a-posteriori distinction to a branch of philosophy it must be to that of

epistemology and the nature of knowledge. Similarly, if we are to assign the

necessary/contingent distinction to a branch of philosophy it is that of metaphysics

and the nature of reality. This being said then we can see quite plainly that

contingency and a-posteriori knowledge are by no means the same or necessarily

co-extensive, simply owing to the fact that they belong to two different domains of

philosophical practice. Epistemic possibility does not entail metaphysical possibility

and must be disentangled.

Returning to the previous example, we do only know a-posteriori that

Hesperus is Phosphorus. No amount of introspection would have revealed their

actually being the same planet Venus. However, even if we are to acknowledge that

there was a time when it may have been discovered that Hesperus is not

Phosphorus, this is an epistemic distinction. It concerns what, given a certain

epistemological standpoint (before telescopes etc.), we would know or not know,

and what we would or would not be justified in believing. This epistemic possibility

does not determine the metaphysical distinction. Metaphysically speaking, given

that it is true that Hesperus is in actual fact Phosphorus, could it be false in

another possible world? According to Kripke, given that it is true it is necessarily

true.
 It may seem that we can conceive of a possible world where Hesperus is not

Phosphorus. Suppose our solar system had only a slight modification. In this

system Venus is the companion of some planet X. Venus and X very closely revolve

around each other as they in turn revolve around the Sun. From the distant observer

on the Earth, the celestial bodies appear as one unified body. In the morning, what

is called Hesperus is Venus, obstructing the light of X. In the evening sky, what is

called Phosphorus is the planet X obstructing the light of the Venus. This seems to

be a world where it is not the case that Hesperus is Phosphorus.

In this situation Hesperus is still Phosphorus. We must keep in mind that

the term Phosphorus, as we use it in the actual world, is a term of our language

that designates the planet Venus. Its meaning is simply that very object, and as a

rigid designator points to it in every possible world where it exists. Given that it is

true that Phosphorus is Venus in our world, it is necessarily true. When using the

language of our world, saying that Venus is not Phosphorus is like saying that

Venus is not Venus. In this possible world we have a situation in which the

underlying facts are simply different than those of the actual world. The facts of this

possible world create a situation in which Venus is not called Phosphorus in the

language of that world. Being called Phosphorus is contingent. Venus could be

called anything in other possible worlds. However, being Phosphorus, being the

thing that Phosphorus points to when using the language of the actual world, is

necessary. In our language, we have conceived of a world in which Phosphorus is

simply in a different position then it occupies in the actual world, not a world in

which Hesperus is not Phosphorus.