Causal theory of reference: Difference between revisions

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== Variations<!--'Causal-historical theory of reference', 'Causal-descriptive theory of reference', and 'Descriptive-causal theory of reference' redirect here--> ==

Variations of the causal theory include:

* The '''causal-historical theory of reference'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> is the original version of the causal theory. It was put forward by [[Keith Donnellan]] in 1972<ref>Donnellan, Keith. (1972). "Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions."</ref> and [[Saul Kripke]] in 1980.<ref>Kripke, S. "A Puzzle about Belief", 1979, in MartinichA. Margalit (ed.), ''Meaning and 1996Use'', Reidel, pp. 382–409239–83 (1979).</ref><ref name=SEP>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/names/ Names (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]</ref> This view introduces the idea of reference-passing links in a causal-historical chain.<ref name=SEP/>

* The '''descriptive-causal theory of reference'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (also '''causal-descriptive theory of reference'''),<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--><ref name=Psillos279>[[Stathis Psillos]], ''Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth'', Routledge, 1999, p. 279.</ref> a view put forward by [[David Lewis (philosopher)|David Lewis]]<ref name=Psillos279/><ref name=Gattei>Stefano Gattei, ''Thomas Kuhn's 'Linguistic Turn' and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism: Incommensurability, Rationality and the Search for Truth'', Ashgate Publishing, 2012, p. 122.</ref> in 1984,<ref>D. K. Lewis (1984), "Putnam's Paradox." ''Australasian Journal of Philosophy'', '''62'''(3), 221–36; reprinted in D. Lewis (1999), ''Papers on metaphysics and epistemology'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 56–77.</ref> introduces the idea that a minimal descriptive apparatus needs to be added to the causal relations between speaker and object.<ref name=Gattei/> (See also [[Structuralism (philosophy of science)#Further criticism|Criticism of structuralism]].)

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The links between different users of the name are particularly obscure. Each user must somehow pass the name on to the next, and must somehow "mean" the right individual as they do so (suppose "Socrates" is the name of a pet [[aardvark]]). Kripke himself notes the difficulty, [[John Searle]] makes much of it.{{Citation needed|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=September 2015}}

[[Mark Sainsbury (philosopher)|Mark Sainsbury]] argued<ref>[http://ndprSainsbury, R.ndM.edu/news/23599/?id=1343, ''Departing fromFrom Frege: Essays in the Philosophy of Language''], Routledge, 2002, Essay XII'</ref> for a causal theory similar to Kripke's, except that the baptised object is eliminated. A "baptism" may be a baptism of nothing, he argues: a name can be intelligibly introduced even if it names nothing.<ref>{{

harvnb|Sainsbury|2001|p=212}}</ref> The causal chain we associate with the use of proper names may begin merely with a "journalistic" source.<ref>{{

harvnb|Sainsbury|2001|p=165}}</ref>

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== References ==

* [[Gareth Evans (philosopher)|Evans, G.]] (1985). "The Causal Theory of Names". inIn [[Aloysius Martinich|Martinich, A. P.]], ed. ''The Philosophy of Language''. Oxford University Press, 2012.

* Evans, G. ''The Varieties of Reference'', Oxford 1982.

* [[Saul Kripke|Kripke, Saul.]] 1980. ''Naming and Necessity''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

* [[John McDowell|McDowell, John.]] (1977) "On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name."