In his book "frege: philosophy of language", M a e dummett criticizes kripke's distinction between rigid and accidental designators. According to dummett, The argument for kripke's distinction relies on an examination of the behavior of names and descriptions in modal contexts. Dummett challenges kripke's thesis that descriptions in these contexts differ from names in creating formal ambiguities of scope, By arguing that names for which the reference has been fixed by means of a description exhibit this characteristic also. However I (...) argue that dummett's case fails, Because the ambiguity he isolates for this sort of name is demonstrably an epistemic one, Not a genuine ambiguity of modal placement. (shrink)