1001Philosophers

Bertrand Russell vs Saul Kripke

Russell and Kripke are the two most influential figures in the analytic philosophy of language and logic in the twentieth century. Kripke's Naming and Necessity, based on lectures given at Princeton in 1970, was a sustained critical engagement with the Russellian-Fregean tradition that had dominated analytic philosophy of language.

At a glance

Bertrand RussellSaul Kripke
Dates1872 – 19701940 – 2022
NationalityBritishAmerican
EraContemporaryContemporary
Movements Analytic Philosophy Analytic Philosophy
Profile Bertrand Russell → Saul Kripke →

Where they agree

Both held that the analysis of names, descriptions, and reference is a central problem of philosophy, both took modal logic seriously as a philosophical tool, and both treated rigorous formal analysis as the proper method of philosophical inquiry. Both wrote with notable mathematical clarity.

Where they disagree

Russell held in On Denoting that ordinary proper names are abbreviated definite descriptions: to use the name Aristotle is to refer to the unique entity satisfying some description like the teacher of Alexander. Kripke rejected this: proper names are rigid designators that refer to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists, and they pick out their bearers through a causal-historical chain rather than through any associated description. Kripke's view has reshaped analytic philosophy of language, and the Russell-Kripke contrast is one of the central episodes of late twentieth-century philosophy.

Representative quotes

Bertrand Russell

  • “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”

    The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

  • “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”

    What I Believe, 1925

  • “To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

    Marriage and Morals, 1929

Saul Kripke

  • “It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It's wrong.”

    Naming and Necessity (1980, p. 64)

  • “Naming and Necessity (1980, p. 64)”

    It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It's wrong.

  • “If I use the name 'Hesperus' to refer to a certain planetary body when seen in a certain celestial position in the evening, it will not therefore be a necessary truth that Hesperus is ever seen in the evening. That depends on various contingent facts about people being there to see and things like that. So even if I should say to myself that I will use 'Hesperus' to name the heavenly body I see in the evening in yonder position of the sky, it will not be necessary that Hesperus was ever seen in the evening. But it may be a priori in that this is how I have determined the referent.”

    Naming and Necessity (1980, p. 291)

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