to put it another way, i think it would be hard to take many other philosophers as deeply entrenched in a particular set of concerns and assumptions (take, like, derrida or godel) and as effectively press the points of their major work against the work of kant or aristotle or some other towering "we all claim her/him!" figure. "naming and necessity" speaks to kant in terms that need to be answered, which is way more than most publish or perish philosophy professors ever achieve in their lifetime (much less right away, in a lecture presenting a semantics based on modal logic!).
but yeah, the point is well taken. kripke is worth reading once / reading about. putnam is worth reading a lot.