Saul

Abstract

Th is paper aims to introduce the translation of Saul Kripke’s infl uential text to Russian-speaking readers. It shows that the work of American philosopher should be of interest and be useful among the phenomenologists especially. Kripke criticizes the reference theory of Russell and Frege and Hintikka’s logical analysis of the “cogito ergo sum” statement. In both cases he defends his own views on the predicate of existence and shows the change of its status depending on the kind of entity in every particular proposition. Th e mode of quantifi er depends on a given situation which is described in the statement and in some cases the quantifi er determines the conditions of the statement’s truth-value. Kripke shows that classical reference theories have no universal meaning; without a set of special stipulations they can only be applicable under limited conditions. He appeals to fi ction and myth and writes about fi ctional characters as a special kind of abstract entities which exist in virtue of the activities of human beings and their interrelations. Kripke scrutinizes the possible relations between a fi ctional character and his historical prototype. Th e battery of his examples, his own reference theory including an entity as its core, his ontology of fi ctional reality and sophisticated philosophical technics are extremely useful materials to explain basic problems of classical phenomenology such as reduction, modifi cation of a phenomenon in imagination, and regional ontologies. All of this provides tools helpful for the practical work of a phenomenologist. In particular, Kripke’s investigations and especially his examples about higher level fi ctions (fi ctions within fi ctions) could be used in the framework of the phenomenology of language when one needs to describe the interlocations of an author, a reader, and a fi ctional reality before undertaking noetic and noematic analysis.