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Rigidification and Attitudes Bryan Pickel Scott Soames has argued that Rigidified Descriptivism is false, because it predicts that one cannot believe, say, that Joe Strummer was born in 1952, without having a belief about the actual world. Soames suggests that agents in other possible worlds may have this belief, but may lack any beliefs about the actual world that they do not occupy and have no contact with. I argue that Soames’ argument extends to other popular actuality-involving analyses. I argue that in order for Soames to hold on to his argument against Rigidified Descriptivism, he must provide alternatives to these analyses. I then argue that there is reason to think that these alternatives are not forthcoming, so Soames should surrender his argument against Rigidified Descriptivism.
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