Reference and Existence

<p><em>Reference and Existence</em> Saul Kripke's John Locke Lectures for 1973 can be read as a sequel to his classic <em>Naming and Necessity</em>. It confronts important issues left open in that work -- among them the semantics of proper names and natural kind terms as they occur in fiction and in myth; negative existential statements; the ontology of fiction and myth (whether it is true that fictional characters like Hamlet or mythical kinds like bandersnatches might have existed). In treating these questions he makes a number of methodological observations that go beyond the framework of his earlier book -- including the striking claim that fiction cannot provide a test for theories of reference and naming. In addition these lectures provide a glimpse into the transition to the pragmatics of singular reference that dominated his influential paper "Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference" -- a paper that helped reorient linguistic and philosophical semantics. Some of the themes have been worked out in later writings by other philosophers -- many influenced by typescripts of the lectures in circulation -- but none have approached the careful systematic treatment provided here. The virtuosity of <em>Naming and Necessity</em> -- the colloquial ease of the tone the dazzling on-the-spot formulations the logical structure of the overall view gradually emerging over the course of the lectures -- is on display here as well.</p>