Rigidity and Scope

Abstract

The relationship between the Kripkean notion of a rigid designator and the Russellian notion of scope is still widely misunderstood. Such a misunderstanding can manifest itself in many ways, but perhaps most clearly in the claim that definite descriptions that always have wide scope are rigid designators. The misunderstandings have also been recently highlighted by Kripke's insistence, as against many commentators, both sympathetic and unsympathetic to Kripke's general position, that rigidity is a notion that gets purchase even in relation to simple sentences where the notion of scope is inapplicable. In this paper I want initially to determine exactly what Kripke's notion of rigidity is; the chief point to grasp here is that Kripke's conditions for being a rigid designator are stronger than is commonly supposed. However, when we have established exactly what a rigid designator is, it will emerge that Kripke has failed to demonstrate, at least in his essentialist arguments against the Description Theory of names, that proper names are rigid designators. Finally I shall attempt to provide such a demonstration.