Causal-Historical Reference

Classification

Position level

specific

Domains

Philosophy of Language

Overview

Kripke's argument is that speakers succeed in referring even when what they believe about the referent is wrong or nearly empty: someone who knows only that Gödel proved something about arithmetic still refers to Gödel, and would still do so if the theorem had been stolen.

Reference is therefore secured by history rather than by the content in a speaker's head: what fixes what a name or natural-kind term picks out is a chain of use passed from speaker to speaker, each borrowing reference from the last. The account says nothing about the meaning of predicates or of sentences in general.

Position on

• The Grounds of Linguistic Meaning

  On what gives words meaning: the account covers names and natural-kind terms and explains how they refer, not meaning in general; it stands here as the causal-historical alternative to description theories of how such terms attach to the world.

Rival positions

• Description Theory of Names

  Question scope: The Grounds of Linguistic Meaning

References

• Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1980), Lecture II
• Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1980), Lecture II, which replaces description-based accounts with an initial baptism and a causal chain of reference-preserving transmission
• Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (1980), Lectures I–II (a proper name's reference is not fixed by the descriptions its speakers associate with it, against the Frege–Russell description theory; the causal chain picture is offered in its place)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Reference, §2.1 'Descriptivist Theories'