Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXVIII (2004)

On Kripke and Statements

G. W. FITCH

S aul A. Kripke is one of the most creative and influential philosophers in the
twentieth century. It is not an exaggeration to say that he helped change the
face of analytic philosophy in the last half of the century. His contributions to logic
and philosophy are broad, deep, and long lasting. Since it is not feasible in an article
like this to mention and discuss all of his contributions, I shall not attempt to do
so.1 Instead I will focus on what seems to be a problem for Kripke’s position with
respect to certain necessary a posteriori truths and true negative existentials. I shall
tentatively suggest that within Kripke’s work a solution to the problem in ques-
tion can be found provided one is willing to distinguish statements from proposi-
tions. First, the problem.

Kripke’s claim that Hesperus is Phosphorus is both necessarily true and known
only a posteriori has produced a wide range of responses. I offered the following
argument against Kripke’s position that there are necessary a posteriori truths of
this sort (Fitch 1976):2

1. For an overview of Kripke’s contributions, see my forthcoming book Saul Kripke soon to
be published jointly by Acumen Publishing Limited (London) and Princeton University Press
(Princeton, NJ).
2. G. W. Fitch, “Are There Necessary A Posteriori Truths?” Philosophical Studies 30 (1976):
243–247. This is actually a slightly revised version of the argument. The revision consists in a mod-
ification of premise (3). In the original argument premise (3) was a substitution principle that gov-
erned the use of rigid designators. The principle is overly broad for what it was designed to do,
namely establish premise (3). Also I shall ignore in this section of the paper delicate issues con-
cerning the possibility of Venus’s failing to exist.

295
296 G. W. Fitch

(I) (1) The terms “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus” are rigid designators.
(2) The objects of knowledge are propositions.
(3) If a and b are co-extensive rigid names then Èa = b˘ expresses the
same proposition as does Èa = a˘.
(4) We know a priori that Hesperus is Hesperus.
Hence,
(5) We know a priori that Hesperus is Phosphorus.

The argument is straightforward. If what we know when we know something is a

proposition or the truth of a proposition, then it does not really matter which sen-
tence we use to express that proposition. If we know it a priori when expressed
by a certain sentence, then we know it a priori when expressed by another sen-
tence since it is the proposition and not the sentence that is known a priori.
This argument is similar in spirit to an argument recently offered by Scott
Soames to the effect that (5) is true (also, Nathan Salmon presents a similar argu-
ment in Salmon [1986], pp. 133–142).3,4 Soames argues that there is an important
distinction between the following two claims (his numbering):

(4a) Hesperus = Phosphorus.

(4b) “Hesperus = Phosphorus” expresses a truth in our language.

Kripke’s argument for the falsity of (5),5 according to Soames, only shows that (4b)
is not known a priori and not that (4a) is not a priori. Soames says:

Proposition (4b) is knowable only a posteriori. But that has no obvious

bearing on the question of whether (4a) is a priori. The agents of Kripke’s

3. Scott Soames, Beyond Rigidity: The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Neces-
sity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
4. Nathan Salmon, Frege’s Puzzle (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).
5. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).
Here is the argument that Soames is referring to: “The evidence I have before I know that Hes-
perus is Phosphorus is that I see a certain star or a certain heavenly body in the evening and call
it ‘Hesperus,’ and in the morning and call it ‘Phosphorus.’ I know these things. There certainly is
a possible world in which a man should have seen a certain star at a certain position in the evening
and called it ‘Hesperus’ and a certain star in the morning and called it ‘Phosphorus’; and should
have concluded—should have found out by empirical investigation—that he names two different
stars, or two different heavenly bodies. . . . So in that sense we can say that it might have turned
out either way. Not that it might have turned out either way as to Hesperus’s being Phosphorus.
Though for all we knew in advance, Hesperus wasn’t Phosphorus, that couldn’t have turned out
any other way, in a sense. But being in a situation where we have exactly the same evidence, qual-
itatively speaking, it could have turned out that Hesperus was not Phosphorus; that is, in a coun-
terfactual world in which ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ were not used in the way that we used
them, as names of this planet, but as names of some other objects, one could have had qualita-
tively identical evidence and concluded that ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ named different objects.
. . . So two things are true: first, that we do not know a priori that Hesperus is Phosphorus, and
are in no position to find out the answer except empirically, Second, this is so because we could
have evidence qualitatively indistinguishable from the evidence we have and determine the ref-
erence of the names by the positions of the two planets in the sky, without the planets being the
same” (pp. 103–104).
 On Kripke and Statements 297

imagined world do not know the proposition they use the sentence Hespe-
rus = Phosphorus to express, for the simple reason that the proposition they
use the sentence to express is false in their world. But this does not show
that the different proposition we use the sentence to express isn’t known by
us; nor does it show that it isn’t known by us independent of empirical inves-
tigation. (Soames 2002, p. 8)

It is clear that Soames is assuming that the objects of knowledge are propositions.
Moreover, Soames and I both hold that the propositions semantically expressed
by the sentences “Hesperus is Hesperus” and “Hesperus is Phosphorus” are one
and the same. Additionally, Soames holds that the semantic content of a proper
name is just its referent and thus Soames agrees with (early) Russell that Hespe-
rus with all its clouds is a constituent of the proposition expressed by (4a). So the
problem for Kripke’s position seems relatively clear: How can Kripke distinguish
the claim that Hesperus is Phosphorus from the claim that Hesperus is Hesperus?

In a recent paper, Nathan Salmon argues that Kripke’s account of true singular
negative existentials is flawed.6 One example that Salmon focuses on is the nega-
tive existential (his numbering):

(0) Sherlock Holmes does not exist.

According to Salmon, Kripke offers us a complex theory of how to treat names

from fiction.7 Kripke’s position, as presented by Salmon, is that there are two uses
of fictional names. One use might be described as a fictional use to name an object.
This is the use that Conan Doyle employs when he is writing his detective stories
and our use as well to describe what goes on in those stories by saying such things
as “Sherlock Holmes plays the violin”. On this use there is a kind of pretense to
refer to an object in telling the story and it is equivalent to holding that when we
use the name in this way there is an implicit “according to the fiction” or “in the
stories” operator working. So when we say “Sherlock Holmes plays the violin” we
are understood to be claiming that according to the stories Sherlock Holmes plays
the violin.
The second use is when we use a name from fiction to name a fictional char-
acter. This use occurs when critics and others talk about the fiction as opposed to
describing what occurs within the fiction. For example, one might say that Sher-
lock Holmes is the most famous fictional detective. It is not true that according to
the fiction Sherlock Holmes is a famous fictional detective since according to the
stories he is a real detective. Yet it is true that Sherlock Holmes is a famous

6. Nathan Salmon, “Nonexistence,” Noûs 32 (1998):277–319.

7. Salmon also notes Peter van Inwagen’s (1977) view of fictional names in “Creatures of
Fiction,” American Philosophical Quarterly 14:299–308, as well as a number of other philosophers
whose views are similar to Kripke’s position. I refer the reader to Salmon’s paper for additional
references.
298 G. W. Fitch

fictional detective. According to Kripke, on this use of the name, we refer to an

existing abstract fictional character.
The above is only a very rough account of Kripke’s complex view but pro-
vides enough detail to allow us to understand Salmon’s objections to the view.8
On Kripke’s view, (0) has a number of different readings. On one reading—one
that reads (0) as saying that according to the fiction Sherlock Holmes does not
exist—(0) is clearly false since according to the stories Sherlock Holmes does exist.
On another reading—one that reads (0) as saying the fictional character Sherlock
Holmes does not exist—(0) is also false according to Kripke and Salmon since
there does exist a fictional Sherlock Holmes, albeit an abstract object. But there
is a reading of (0) where (0) is indeed true. This is a reading where the name “Sher-
lock Holmes” is understood according to the use of Doyle when writing the stories.
This is a use where “Sherlock Holmes” is indeed an empty name. In such a case
we should understand (0) in a special way. We should understand (0) as claiming
there is no true proposition that Sherlock Holmes exists. That is, we should under-
stand (0) as claiming there simply is no proposition that Sherlock Holmes exists
and hence this is why (0) is true.
There are at least two problems with this view according to Salmon (in the
following Salmon uses the term “Holmes1” to refer to the “empty” use of the name
Holmes):

. . . the account fails to solve the problem. The “that” clauses “that Holmes1
plays the violin” and “that Holmes1 exists” are no less problematic than
“Holmes1” itself. Kripke concedes, in effect, that if a is a thoroughly nonre-
ferring name, then propositional terms like Èthe proposition that a is bald˘
are also thoroughly nonreferring. The account thus analyzes a negative exis-
tential by means of another negative existential, generating an infinite
regress with the same problem arising at each stage. (Salmon 1998, p. 297)9

There is another related problem according to Salmon:

On Kripke’s account, it is true that according to the stories Holmes1 plays

the violin and that on Le Verrier’s theory Vulcan1 influences Mercury’s orbit.
But how can this be if there is no proposition that Holmes1 plays the violin
and no proposition that Vulcan1 influences Mercury? What is it that is the
case according to the stories or the theory? (Salmon 1998, p. 297)

So the problem for Kripke’s views is that if there is no proposition that Holmes
plays the violin or that Holmes exists (on the relevant use of ‘Holmes’), then the
claim that there is no true proposition that Holmes exists, as well as the claim that

8. For a more detailed account of Kripke’s view, see Salmon’s paper (1998).
9. Salmon’s objection is similar to David Braun’s objection to what he calls the Metapropo-
sitional View, which is in essence the view that Salmon attributes to Kripke (“Empty Names,”
Noûs 27 (1993): 449–469). Braun also objects, in this paper, to what he calls the No Proposition
View, which is a version of the view I suggested for empty names in “Non Denoting,” Philosoph-
ical Perspectives 7 (1993): 461–486.
 On Kripke and Statements 299

according to the fiction Holmes plays the violin, cannot be true. They both contain
empty expressions: the clause that Holmes exists and the clause that Holmes plays
the violin. Yet this was supposed to be the way we understood the true reading of
(0) as well as the true reading of the claim that Holmes plays the violin.

The connection between the objections to Kripke’s account of true negative exis-
tentials and his claim that Hesperus is Phosphorus is a necessary a posteriori truth
is that both are based on the relationship between the claimed truths and the rel-
evant propositions (or lack thereof). If there is no such proposition expressed by
the sentence “Sherlock Holmes exists”, then there can be no true claim that there
is no true proposition that Sherlock Holmes exists. If the proposition expressed
by “Hesperus is Hesperus” is the same proposition as expressed by “Hesperus is
Phosphorus”, then, given that the proposition is knowable a priori, it is not the
case that one can know that Hesperus is Phosphorus only a posteriori. I shall focus
for the moment on necessary a posteriori truths, returning to true negative exis-
tentials shortly.
A careful reading of Naming and Necessity shows that in those lectures
Kripke only argues that there are statements that are necessary and knowable a
posteriori, not propositions. When Kripke’s lectures were published in book form
some ten years after they were given, Kripke was aware of the problem his account
of necessary a posteriori truths appeared to have and he commented on this
problem in the preface to the book version:

My view that the English sentence “Hesperus is Phosphorus” could some-

times be used to raise an empirical issue while the sentence “Hesperus is
Hesperus” could not shows that I do not treat the sentences as completely
interchangeable. Further, it indicates that the mode of fixing the reference
is relevant to our epistemic attitude toward the sentences expressed. How
this relates to the question of what “propositions” are expressed by these
sentences, whether these “propositions” are objects of knowledge and belief,
and in general, how to treat names in epistemic contexts are vexing ques-
tions. I have no “official doctrine” concerning them, and in fact I am unsure
that the apparatus of “propositions” does not break down in this area.
(Kripke 1980, pp. 20–1)

Clearly, Kripke is expressly refraining from adopting any view concerning propo-
sitions, although he does think that there is an important difference between the
English sentences in question. Soames is, of course, well aware of these comments
by Kripke, but he sees no way that Kripke can avoid commitment to propositions
given his claims that certain statements are knowable only a posteriori or his fre-
quent references to necessary truths. Soames says:

. . . it seems evident that he [Kripke] thinks there are things expressed by

sentences that are capable of being known, either a priori or a posteriori,
300 G. W. Fitch

and which may be true or false, either necessarily or contingently. Since

this is what propositions are standardly intended to be, much of Kripke’s
informal discussion can be understood as implicitly involving proposi-
tions while avoiding, as far as possible, definite theoretical commitments
about what propositions are and precisely how they figure in the
semantics of different linguistic constructions. (Soames 2002, note # 3,
pp. 313–4)

It is certainly true that faced with the considerations mentioned by Soames, Kripke
needs to say something about the nature of these truths that are necessary and
known only a posteriori. It is also true, I think, that when Kripke presented the
lectures (and even ten years later when the preface was written), he was unclear
as to the exact nature of these truths. Whether or not these truths are propositions
in the sense that Soames, Salmon, myself, and others accept was something that
Kripke was uncertain about.
Soames sees only two possibilities for these truths—sentences and proposi-
tions. Sentences don’t work since it is contingent that the sentence “Hesperus is
Phosphorus” expresses a truth as Kripke himself took pains to point out. As
Kripke says, “one could have had qualitatively identical evidence and concluded
that ‘Hesperus’ and ‘Phosphorus’ named different objects” (Kripke 1980, p. 104).
But propositions don’t work either for the reasons given in section 1.
One might question premise (4). Everyone seems to have assumed that
premise (4) is true. I say that the premise is “unexceptional” and Soames says that
the proposition that a = a is “surely knowable a priori.” But just how sure are we
that the proposition that Hesperus is Hesperus is knowable a priori? Most of those
who accept Kripke’s arguments against descriptivism hold that the proposition
that Hesperus is Hesperus is a Russellian proposition or what David Kaplan called
a “singular proposition”. Singular propositions have individuals as constituents
and hence the proposition that Hesperus is Hesperus contains Venus with all its
clouds as a constituent. How could anyone have knowledge of such a proposition
a priori? Knowledge of such a proposition would seem to require knowledge of
the existence of a contingently existing particular, namely Venus.
It is important to see here that this problem about singular propositions is
not the problem that Kripke’s distinction between “weak” and “strong” necessity
was designed to solve. One might reject the claim that the proposition that Hes-
perus is Hesperus is necessary on the grounds that its truth depends on the exis-
tence of Hesperus. However, as Kripke and others have noted, we can avoid this
problem simply by assuming the proposition in question is the conditional that if
Hesperus exists, then Hesperus is Hesperus. Such a proposition is true even when
considered under counterfactual circumstances where Hesperus fails to exist. Still,
this proposition is also a singular proposition involving Venus as a constituent. One
cannot have a priori knowledge of the existence of a particular whose existence is
only contingent.
But do we need to have a priori knowledge of the existence of Venus in order
to have a priori knowledge of the proposition that Hesperus is Hesperus? There
is no simple answer to this question even assuming that the proposition in ques-
 On Kripke and Statements 301

tion is a singular proposition.10 What does seem clear is that what can be known
a priori is that the sentence “If Hesperus exists then Hesperus is Hesperus”
expresses a true proposition in our language. One wonders if the sentence/propo-
sition confusion that Soames points out with respect to (4a) and (4b) is not present
in the uncritical acceptance of (4). That is, one wonders if there is not an implicit
inference being used to justify (4) in the same way that occurs in the argument for
the falsity of (5), according to Soames. In both cases one argues from the fact that
it is known a priori/a posteriori that a certain sentence expresses a truth in our lan-
guage to the claim that the proposition so expressed is known a priori/a posteri-
ori. This is not an acceptable inference, however.11 Yet, it does seem obvious that
we know that Hesperus is Hesperus, if Hesperus exists. Indeed, I would suggest
that to the extent that it is obvious that we know a priori that Hesperus is Hes-
perus it is equally obvious that we know only a posteriori that Hesperus is Phos-
phorus. One can bite the bullet by rejecting one of the “obvious” claims, as Soames
does. Or maybe there is something to the idea that is only hinted at by Kripke that
we may be able to distinguish statements from both sentences and propositions
and thereby find some middle ground. First, we need to clarify our notion of a
sentence.
A sentence, as many philosophers use the phrase, is an uninterpreted string
of symbols. This accounts for the way Soames presents (4b). He remarks that a
certain sentence expresses a truth in our language. So the very same sentence might
express a falsehood in another language and he takes Kripke’s argument5 to be
an argument to that effect. There is a counterfactual situation where the expres-
sions “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus” are introduced that is qualitatively identical
to the actual situation, but the names are introduced to name distinct objects. In
such a situation the sentence “Hesperus is Phosphorus” would not only fail to
express a truth, but also it would not be a sentence of our idiolect either (because
one of the names fails to be a name of Venus). Whether or not it is a sentence of
English in the described counterfactual circumstances depends on the nature of a
natural language.
On one view of a natural language, English might have contained a term
“Phosphorus” for the planet Mars without containing a term “Phosphorus” for the
planet Venus. This view treats languages as analogous to persons and other objects
commonly thought to have both essential and accidental features. So, one could
hold that it is an accidental feature of English that “Phosphorus” designates Venus
and thus the English sentence “Hesperus is Phosphorus” might have expressed a
different proposition from the one it actually expresses as illustrated by Kripke’s
example.

10. Here is an argument that you cannot know a priori that x is x: If a is a completely empty
name (i.e., does not designate anything), could one know the proposition that if a exists then a =
a? Would there be any such proposition? It seems reasonable to hold that one needs to know that
there is an a in order to know any proposition that purports to be about a and of course such
knowledge cannot be had a priori if a is a contingently existing object.
11. This is a point emphasized by Keith Donnellan in his paper “The Contingent A Priori
and Rigid Designators” in P. French et al., eds., Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of
Language (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979).
302 G. W. Fitch

An alternative view of a natural language is that languages should be

viewed as analogical with David Lewis’s treatment of individuals. Strictly
speaking, the English sentence “Hesperus is Phosphorus” cannot express a propo-
sition other than the one it actually expresses, although there are counterparts to
English and Kripke’s example involves considering a counterpart of English in
which the sentence expresses a different proposition from the one it expresses in
English.
It is difficult to determine which of the two views is correct and there may
be no clear answer due to the lack of precision of our concept of a language. In
any case, there is a difference between the sentence simpliciter and our interpre-
tation of the sentence. While the sentence itself may be able to express different
propositions, perhaps as a result of being part of different languages, given our
interpretation of the sentence only one proposition can be semantically asserted
with that sentence. A different interpretation is required for the sentence to be
used to assert any proposition other than the proposition that Hesperus is Phos-
phorus. It appears then that there is room for an item that is distinct from a sen-
tence and the proposition we semantically assert using that sentence, the result of
our interpretation of the sentence.
A statement is an interpreted sentence (type). The difference, for example,
between the sentence “You are a philosopher” and the statement that you are a
philosopher is that the former is uninterpreted and could mean (in some language)
any number of things. The statement expressed by our use of the sentence
given our interpretation according to the rules of our language is something like
the indicated person has the property of being a philosopher. The proposition
asserted by the utterance of the sentence in a given context of use is something
else again. If direct reference theorists are correct, the singular proposition
asserted is a complex entity involving a particular person (namely the person
indicated).
So my suggestion is this: when Kripke says it is the statement that
Hesperus is Phosphorus that is both necessary and known only a posteriori we
should understand him to be saying that it is necessary that the statement is true
in its context of use and we can only know a posteriori that it is true. Statements,
on this view, are unlike Russellian propositions in that they cannot be true or false
simpliciter. They have truth value only relative to some set of indices. The propo-
sition that the statement that Hesperus is Phosphorus is true (in a given context)
is not known a priori because, for all we knew, we introduced the names in such
a way that distinct objects were named. The fact that we did introduce two names
for the same object means that we assert a necessary proposition when using that
statement.
One might think that the same argument offered above to show that we
know a priori that Hesperus is Phosphorus can be used to show that we know a
priori that the proposition that the statement that Hesperus is Phosphorus is true.
The needed version of premise (3) for such an argument, however, is false. Since
the proposition that is being claimed to be both necessary and knowable only a
posteriori is not a simple identity statement claim, (3) as it stands will not do the
job. What is needed is something along the following lines:
 On Kripke and Statements 303

(3*) If a and b are co-extensive rigid names then the proposition that the
statement that a = b is true is the same proposition as the proposition
that the statement a = a is true.

But it is not obvious that (3*) is true. On the conception of statements being con-
sidered the statement that Hesperus is Hesperus is not the statement that Hespe-
rus is Phosphorus, and hence the proposition that the statement that Hesperus is
Hesperus is true is not the proposition that the statement that Hesperus is Phos-
phorus is true.
But is it the case that the proposition that the statement that Hesperus is
Phosphorus is true is necessarily true? Could not the statement have been false?
Of course, the sentence “Hesperus is Phosphorus” might have been false, had it
expressed a proposition different from the one it did express. It might have
expressed the proposition that Venus is Mars and hence expressed a false propo-
sition. But the statement that Hesperus is Phosphorus cannot be used to assert the
proposition that Venus is Mars. The names “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus” are fixed
in our use to designate Venus.12 In order for the statement that Hesperus is Phos-
phorus to be false, it must be used in a given context to assert a false proposition.
But the only proposition that can be semantically asserted with its use is the propo-
sition that Venus is Venus. There is considerably more that needs to be said about
the nature of statements if the defense of Kripke’s position is to have any hope of
succeeding. Before we become involved in the details, however, it is helpful to see
how the introduction of statements can avoid the objections to Kripke’s position
with respect to true negative existentials.
Recall that the problem for Kripke’s view with respect to (0) (Sherlock
Holmes does not exist) is that (0) does not express a proposition and hence under-
standing (0) as

(0*) There is no true proposition that Holmes exists.

is unhelpful because (0*) itself does not express a proposition (and hence cannot
be true). Thus, there is no true reading of (0) along the lines suggested by Kripke.
This objection is based on the view that the clause “that Holmes exists” in (0*)
purports to designate (express) a Russellian proposition. (0*), however, can be
read in a different way. We can understand (0*) as asserting that no true proposi-
tion can be asserted by using the statement that Holmes exists. The distinctions
made above with respect to the uses of the name “Sherlock Holmes” need to
honored here as well. There are, if Kripke, etc. are correct, many interpretations
of the sentence (0) even within our conventional language use. So there is no single
statement expressed by (0*) in English but rather a number of different statements
including there is no true proposition asserted by the statement that fictional

12. There are some complications here. The uninterpreted “Hesperus” may very well have
many designations even in our language (as does the term “John Smith”). I believe this is a result
of ambiguity (as opposed to indexicality), but I realize that not everyone holds this view. I shall
simply ignore this complication and assume that the terms in question have single designations
in my language.
304 G. W. Fitch

character Sherlock Holmes exists, there is no true proposition asserted by the

statement that according to the story Sherlock Holmes exists and there is no true
proposition asserted by the statement that Sherlock Homes exists. The intro-
duction of statements does not eliminate the need for the various distinctions
made before. Where the introduction of statements does help is in providing a
proposition for (0*) as well as for all the “according to the story” assertations. On
the suggested reading of (0*) the clause “that Sherlock Holmes exists” expresses
a statement even though that statement cannot be used to assert a proposition.
Still, (0*) expresses a statement that can be used to assert a proposition—indeed,
it can be used to assert a true proposition and thus, we have a true reading of (0).
The situation is similar for such claims as

(5) Sherlock Holmes plays the violin.

(5), it is held, means

(5*) According to the story, Sherlock Holmes plays the violin.

Again Salmon’s objection is that if there is no Russellian proposition expressed by

the sentence “Sherlock Holmes plays the violin”, then there can be no proposition
expressed by (5*) and hence it cannot be the correct account of (5). But if the sen-
tence expresses the statement that Sherlock Holmes plays the violin, then (5*) can
be understood to mean that the statement that Sherlock Holmes plays the violin is,
in the story, taken to assert a proposition. In writing fiction one often pretends to
assert propositions with statements that, in fact, cannot be used to assert proposi-
tions. This is the pretense involved in producing fiction. One does not pretend to
express statements by sentences—indeed, the fiction cannot work if there is no
intended interpretation for the sentences that comprise the story, nor does one
assert a lot of false propositions pretending that they are true. This is true even if
the sentences in question are part of an invented language by the author or part of
an extension of a known language such as when one introduces places, events, and
persons as part of the story and at the same time introduces terms for these items.
All parties to the pretense understand that most of the statements made in telling
the story are not to be taken as asserting propositions (although some can in par-
ticular cases), yet we pretend that they do for the purposes of doing fiction.
So, if there is a notion of statement, within Kripke’s general account of how
names function, that can satisfy the functional role of distinguishing the truth that
Hesperus is Phosphorus from the truth that Hesperus is Hesperus and provide
statements for the claims that Sherlock Holmes does not exist and according to
the story Sherlock Holmes plays the violin, then there is a way to avoid the objec-
tions of Soames, Salmon, and others to Kripke’s position.

The notion of a statement as an interpreted sentence is certainly not Kripke’s

expressed view. Moreover, the evidence suggests that Kripke would not be sym-
 On Kripke and Statements 305

pathetic to a notion of a statement if the nature of a statement turns out to be

metalinguistic. Kripke does say, as quoted above, that the English sentence “Hes-
perus is Phosphorus” is distinct from the English sentence “Hesperus is Hespe-
rus” and that “the mode of fixing the reference is relevant to our epistemic attitude
toward the sentences expressed.” Kripke’s comment that we have epistemic atti-
tudes towards sentences that are expressed together with his apparent distinction
between the English sentence “Hesperus is Hesperus” and the sentence simpliciter
does lead one to think that, here at least, Kripke has something like a statement
in mind. Also, elsewhere Kripke remarks that when we say such things as “Accord-
ing to the story, Sherlock Holmes is a great detective”, we should speak of a certain
kind of proposition associated with the sentence “Sherlock Holmes is a great
detective”, even though our use of the name is non-referring. This suggests that
Kripke thinks that there are different kinds of propositions which might be
expressed as a difference between statements and propositions.
On the other hand, in many places Kripke explicitly rejects any sort of meta-
linguistic account to solve the problem of true negative existentials. In particu-
lar, when talking about different kinds of propositions, Kripke makes it clear that
he does not have a metalinguistic analysis in mind. As Salmon reports, moreover,
Kripke claims that in the sense in which (0) is true (i.e., (0*)) the name “Sherlock
Holmes” has a quasi-intentional use as opposed to a metalinguistic one. Of course,
it remains open as to what exactly Kripke has in mind by a quasi-intentional use
of a name or sentence. Salmon understands Kripke’s notion of a quasi-intentional
use of a name to mean that on those uses where the name is empty (fails to des-
ignate anything), the name expresses a concept (perhaps an individual concept)
and it is the concept that is the constituent of the proposition in place a person or
object. Salmon objects that such a view leads to a rejection of the very sort of
Millian view that Kripke argues for in Naming and Necessity (Salmon 1998,
pp. 296–98).
Whatever, if anything precise, Kripke meant by different kinds of proposi-
tions and quasi-intentional uses of names, there remains the issue of whether or
not a coherent notion of statement can be offered that will avoid the objections.
As indicated, the notion of a statement is the notion of an interpreted sentence.
But what exactly is meant by the phrase interpreted sentence? Our example was
that the statement expressed by the English sentence “You are a philosopher” is
something like the indicated person has the property of being a philosopher. Viewed
this way statements bear a strong similarity to David Kaplan’s notion of linguis-
tic meaning or character.13 Presumably, the statement that I am a philosopher is
something like the speaker/agent of the context has the property of being a philoso-
pher. If statements are the linguistic meanings of sentences—the result of our
interpretations of the sentences—then statements are not the sort of things that
can be true or false simpliciter. They are not, moreover, what someone asserts
when the person produces an utterance with the intention of asserting something.
They are not what is asserted.

13. David Kaplan, “Demonstratives,” in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein, eds., Themes
from Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 481–563.
306 G. W. Fitch

Soames, in his discussion of indexicality, recognizes that there is a “kind” of

meaning that indexicals have that is not part of what is asserted when one uses an
indexical. He considers the sentence form I am F and comments:

One might be tempted to suppose that there is some more general thing that
the sentence “says” in every context—namely, the proposition expressed by
the speaker is F (or some such thing). But this will not do. Our notion of
“what a sentence says” is tied to what speakers who assertively utter the sen-
tence say. (Soames 2002, p. 104)

While I am not as convinced as Soames that the notion of “what a sentence says”
is as precise as he seems to think,14 I agree with him that in uttering the sentence
“I am a philosopher” one does not thereby assert the proposition that the speaker
or agent of the context is a philosopher. If what a sentence says is what one asserts
using that sentence (with a given interpretation in a given context), then what a
sentences says is not the statement expressed by that sentence. But statements are
not intended to replace propositions as what we assert when we assertively utter
a sentence. Statements are intended to fill a “meaning” gap between sentences
viewed as complex syntactical items and what we assert when we utter such items.
There is a meaning that remains constant across contexts when English speakers
(speaking in English) utter “I am a philosopher” that is not captured by the propo-
sition asserted by the speakers in the various contexts.
Even if one agrees that certain sentences have a kind of meaning that is not
captured by the propositions asserted using those sentences, questions remain
about the semantic significance of this kind of meaning and whether sentences
containing proper names have a linguistic meaning distinct from the content of a
name. Because a full discussion of the role of the linguistic meaning in semantic
theory will take us far afield, I shall leave that issue for another time and focus
instead on the question of whether proper names have a linguistic meaning dis-
tinct from their referent (if there is one).
Unlike indexicals, it is often thought that the only kind of meaning that a
proper name has is the semantic content of the name and that, for Millians, is
simply the referent of the name. This is a cornerstone of the objections offered by
Soames and Salmon to Kripke’s position. So, even if one can distinguish the state-
ments that [pointing to an object in the sky] is Hesperus and Hesperus is Hesperus
on the grounds that they differ in linguistic meaning (character), a similar claim
cannot be made with respect to the statements Hesperus is Hesperus and Hespe-
rus is Phosphorus. The latter two statements have the same linguistic meaning
(character) and hence statements conceived of as the meanings of sentences
cannot solve our problems. On Kaplan’s formal definitions of character and
content, presented in his paper “Demonstratives,” the two sentences (“Hesperus
is Hesperus” and “Hesperus is Phosphorus”) do have the same character and the

14. See David Lewis’s discussion of what a sentence says in his paper “Index, Context and
Content” in Papers in Philosophical Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998),
pp. 21–44.
 On Kripke and Statements 307

same content. In more recent work, however, Kaplan has come to doubt that they
even share a content let alone that they have the same linguistic meaning.15
Because I shall claim that names do have linguistic meaning, I want to separate
linguistic meaning from Kaplan’s formal notion of character (while retaining, I
hope, the intuitive idea behind Kaplan’s notion of character).
If the linguistic meaning of an indexical like “I” is related to the rule asso-
ciated with its use, then perhaps the linguistic meaning of a name is related to the
rule associated with its use. The meaning of an indexical is given by the rule that
determines the referent of an indexical in a given use. So the natural place to look
for the meaning of a name is at the rule that determines the referent of the name
in a given use.16 If Kripke and others are correct, the referent of a given use of
a name is determined via a chain of reference-dependent uses that leads to a
baptismal ceremony at which the name is introduced. It is a chain of reference-
dependent uses because a given use of a name is based on one’s learning the name
and when one learns a name one intends to use it to refer to what the person
from whom one learned the name intended to refer. All who use an established
name assume that at some time and in some way there was a baptismal ceremony
where the name being used was introduced even if the details of that ceremony
are not (usually) known. This suggests that the meaning of a given name is given
by the rule that fixes the referent of a given use of the name via the chain of ref-
erence-dependent uses to the name’s introduction or the baptismal ceremony.
Because the rule that fixes the reference of uses of distinct names leads to distinct
introductions or baptisms, part of the meaning of a name is fixed by the details of
its introduction even though one need not know the details in order to be a com-
petent user of the name. This is similar to the fact that one need not be an expert
on trees to use the terms “beech” and “elm” nor does one need to know the details
of the rule governing the use of “you” in order to be competent user of that expres-
sion. One can be competent in using expressions without knowing in detail the
rules that give the linguistic meaning of those expressions. One need only have a
general sense of the rules in the sense that one can distinguish appropriate from
inappropriate use.
Kripke himself suggests that the sentences “Hesperus is Hesperus” and
“Hesperus is Phosphorus” differ in meaning in some way since he holds them not
to be interchangeable. In fact, he suggests that the “mode of fixing the reference”

15. In his paper “Words” (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society [Supp.] 64:93–117) Kaplan
says the following in a footnote (# 6, p. 95):
I have come to think that two sentences whose syntax—perhaps I should say, whose
logical syntax—differs as much as “a = a” differs from “a = b” should never be regarded as
having the same semantic value (expressing the same proposition), regardless of the seman-
tic values of the individual lexical items “a” and “b.”
In this quote Kaplan uses the phrase “semantic value” to mean semantic content in the sense used
in the text. What I am suggesting is that such sentences do differ in semantic value (linguistic
meaning), even though they are used to assert the same proposition (content).
16. The names I am discussing are all simple proper names. The situation is somewhat more
complex if we include descriptional names such as “the Willis Avenue Bridge”. I ignore this com-
plexity in what follows.
308 G. W. Fitch

accounts for the difference in our “epistemic attitude toward the sentences
expressed.” I suggest that the rule that fixes the reference of a given use of a name
can provide us with the linguistic meaning of the name and the rule involves the
baptismal ceremony. Hence names like “Hesperus” and “Phosphorus” do differ in
linguistic meaning as a result of distinct introductions. The same can be said of
“Sherlock Holmes” and other fictional names. They also have linguistic meaning
and that meaning is determined by how they are introduced. In the case of fic-
tional names there is no referent, but there remains the baptismal ceremony. Sen-
tences containing the nonreferring use of these names still have a meaning and
hence they can express statements even though they cannot be used to assert
propositions. So on one reading of Kripke’s claim that there is no true proposition
that Sherlock Holmes exists, Kripke is asserting a proposition about a statement.
What he is asserting is that the statement that Sherlock Holmes exists cannot be
used to assert a true proposition.
If, as I have suggested, proper names do differ in linguistic meaning, then the
objections that Salmon, Soames, and others have raised against Kripke’s examples
of necessary a posteriori truths and his account of true negative existentials can
be avoided. They can be avoided but not without some cost. The cost is that what
seemed to be a sentence about an object turns out to be a sentence about a state-
ment. In the case of negative existentials, the price does not seem (to me) too high
to pay. If we want to truly say that Sherlock Holmes does not exist, there can be
no object that our statement is about. That is part of the point of making the state-
ment in the first place.
The interpretation of the sentence “Hesperus is Hesperus is an a priori truth”
might seem to some a bit more expensive. The view I suggest holds that this sen-
tence be understood to express the proposition that the statement that Hesperus
is Hesperus always expresses a true proposition (in its contexts of use) is know-
able a priori. Thus, the proposition that is claimed to be known a priori is one
about a statement about Venus and not simply the proposition about Venus itself.
Yet even here one should be uneasy with the alternative view that a Russellian
singular proposition involving a contingent object is something that is knowable
a priori. Such knowledge appears to involve a priori knowledge of the existence
of a contingent object. How could that be? So even in these cases I do not find
the cost too high.17

17. I would like to thank Ted Guleserian, Tom Blackson, Peter French, and Stew Cohen for
helpful discussion and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.