Mediated reference theory: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 17:17, 25 September 2022

Latest revision as of 17:17, 25 September 2022

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A '''mediated reference theory'''<ref>Siobhan Chapman (ed.), ''Key Ideas in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language'', Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p. 202.</ref> (also '''indirect reference theory''')<ref name=Berezowski>Leszek Berezowski, ''Articles and Proper Names'', University of Wrocław, 2001, p. 67.</ref> is any [[semantic]] theory that posits that words refer to something in the external world, but insists that there is more to the meaning of a name than simply the object to which it refers. It thus stands opposed to the theory of [[direct reference theory]]. [[Gottlob Frege]] is a well-known advocate of mediated reference theories.<ref name=Berezowski/><ref>G. W. Fitch, ''Naming and Believing'', Springer, 2012, p. 1.</ref> Similar theories were widely held in the middle of the twentieth century by philosophers such as [[Peter Strawson]] and [[John Searle]].

[[Saul Kripke]], a proponent of direct reference theory, in his ''[[Naming and Necessity]]'' dubbed mediated reference theory the '''Frege–Russell view'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> and criticized it.<ref>[[Saul Kripke]], ''[[Naming and Necessity]]''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. p. 27.</ref> Subsequent scholarship refuted the claim that [[Bertrand Russell]]'s views on reference theory were the same as Frege's, since Russell was also a proponent of direct reference theory.<ref>Howard Wettstein, "Frege-Russell Semantics?", ''Dialectica'' '''44'''(1/2), 1990, pp. 113–135, esp. 115: "Russell maintains that when one is acquainted with something, say, a present sense datum or oneself, one can refer to it without the mediation of anything like a Fregean sense. One can refer to it, as we might say, ''directly''."</ref>