Lemons

I’m teaching Kripke’s “Naming and Necessity” as part of my Mind and Language class this semester. In reviewing it, I was struck by footnote 2, in which Kripke acknowledges some of his influences. He writes: “[Rogers] Albritton called the problems of necessity and a prioricity in natural kinds to my attention, by raising the question whether we could discover that lemons were not fruits. I also recall the influence of early conversations with Albritton and with Peter Geach on the essentiality of origins.” This is quite a strong acknowledgment to Albritton, especially given the centrality of these ideas to some characteristically “Kripkean” doctrines; indeed, the question about lemons contains the key idea of the Kripkean view of natural kinds. I mention this not to take anything away from Kripke but only to note the important role of Albritton, which I haven’t seen duly noted. Since Albritton published so little in his life, despite his philosophical fertility, I thought this footnote to him worth mentioning. And he was a friend of mine when I was visiting at UCLA. I wonder how much of this stuff he had figured out without ever publishing on it…