Deriving and Validating Kripkean Claims Using the Theory of Abstract Objects

Saul Kripke has advanced interesting metaphysical and semantic claims that have strong appeal and engender conviction. In some cases, Kripke suggests that these claims constitute only a'picture'rather than a the-ory, while in others, it is clear that the claims in question constitute a (formally) precise theory. In the former case, it is important to deter-mine whether one can turn the picture into a precise theory and what the consequences are when this is done. In the latter case, it is important to determine whether Kripke's claims are to be construed as proper (i. e., non-logical) axioms of metaphysics or whether they can be derived as the-orems from a more general theory. Moreover, it would be of interest to learn that claims Kripke has put forward on a variety of di erent topics can be unified within the context of a single, precisely formulated theory. In what follows, I show that a variety of Kripke's most important metaphysical and semantical claims can be derived or validated within the theory of abstract objects (Zalta [1983], [1988]). Hereafter, we refer