The new theory of reference has won popularity. However, a number of noted philosophers have also attempted to reply to the critical arguments of Kripke and others, and aimed to vindicate the description theory of reference. Such responses are often based on ingenious novel kinds of descriptions, such as rigidified descriptions, causal descriptions, and metalinguistic descriptions. This prolonged debate raises the doubt whether different parties really have any shared understanding of what the central question of the philosophical theory (...) of reference is: what is the main question to which descriptivism and the causal-historical theory have presented competing answers. One aim of the paper is to clarify this issue. The most influential objections to the new theory of reference are critically reviewed. Special attention is also paid to certain important later advances in the new theory of reference, due to Devitt and others. (shrink)

It has sometimes been suggested that the so-called new theory of reference (NTR) would provide an alternative picture of meaning and reference which avoids the unwelcome consequences of the meaning-variance thesis and incommesurability. However, numerous philosophers of science have been quite critical towards the idea and NTR in general. It is argued that many of them have an over-simplified and, in part, mistaken understanding of what NTR amounts to. It is submitted that NTR, when correctly understood, can be (...) an important ingredient in the realist toolkit for defending the rationality of science. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to present a Kripkean (Causal) picture of Reference where the cognitive content in fixing reference plays a vital role. It also points out that Kripke is not a pure causal theorist. By introducing Thomas Kuhn and his theory on vulnerability of the rigid designation, I have shown that there is a danger for causal theory of reference. However Kuhn’s argument fails to have an impact if a Knowledge aspect is augmented to Kripkean (...) theory of reference. This new causal theory of reference preserves the truth of the referential term in spite of the vulnerability of the rigid designation and problem of reference change. It can also adequately answer the question of theoretical terms reference failure. (shrink)

In recent years, experimental philosophers have questioned the reliance of philosophical arguments on intuitions elicited by thought experiments. These challenges seek to undermine the use of this methodology for a particular domain of theorizing, and in some cases to raise doubts about the viability of philosophical work in the domain in question. The topic of semantic reference has been an important area for discussion of these issues, one in which critics of the reliance on intuitions have made particularly strong (...) claims about the prospects for philosophical theories of reference and arguments based on claims about reference. In this article, I review the main lines of argument in this area of experimental philosophy, with particular emphasis on the relevance of empirical data about intuitions to philosophical views. I argue that although traditional philosophical theorizing about reference faces little threat from experimental data about intuitions, there is nevertheless much to be gained from collecting and analyzing such data, which holds the promise of greatly enriching our conception of the mechanisms governing judgments about semantic reference in ways that are highly relevant to philosophers. (shrink)

The entry provides an overview of current (2021) theories of reference as well as bibliographical information about the key books and/or articles that discuss each theory.

In this work we examine critically how two competing approaches to meaning account for disagreements. We will argue that Hart's conventionalist stance does not commit him to descriptivism. That non-descriptivist theories of reference, properly understood, can account for a vast array of cases of interpretive disagreement and that and that an account of different kinds of disagreement can be provided from a conventionalist perspective within the framework of non-descriptivist theories of reference.

E. Machery and some collaborators have used survey data to criticize Kripke’s anti-descriptivism about proper names. I highlight a number of drawbacks in the tests of Machery et al. Some of my objections concern their ambiguity. In particular, the responses that —according to them— reveal descriptivist intuitions can be interpreted as anti-descriptivist responses, for reasons that —as far as I know— have not been pointed out so far. Furthermore, their vignettes are apparently inconsistent. I also discuss other issues related to (...) the role of intuitions in philosophy; Machery et al.’s theses depend on an unjustified assumption: there is not expertise regarding intuitions. (shrink)

Combining new insights from cognitive science and speech act theory, Unnsteinsson develops a compelling theory of singular reference which avoids well-known puzzles. The theory, Edenic intentionalism, is grounded in a mechanistic perspective on explanation in cognitive science and a new Gricean account of speaker meaning and speaker reference.

This collection of essays is the definitive version of a widely discussed debate over the origins of the New Theory of Reference. In new articles, written especially for this volume, Quentin Smith and Scott Soames, the original participants in the debate, elaborate their positions on who was responsible for the ideas that Saul Kripke presented in his Naming and Necessity. They are joined by John Burgess, who weighs in on the side of Soames, while Smith adds a further dimension (...) in discussing the contributions of philosophers such as Follesdal, Geach, Hintikka, and Plantinga. Also included are lengthy excerpts from Follesdal's 1961 Harvard dissertation and a careful examination by Sten Lindstrom of the respective contributions of Kripke and Stig Kanger to the development of modal semantics. The collection will be essential reading for anyone acquainted with these influential ideas. (shrink)

In this paper, we will examine the role that intuitions and responses to thought experiments play in confirming or disconfirming theories of reference, using insights from both debates as our starting point. Our view is that experimental evidence of the type elicited by MMNS does play a central role in the construction of theories of reference. This, however, is not because such theory construction is accurately characterized by "the method of cases." First, experimental philosophy does not (...) directly collect data about intuitions, but rather about peoples responses to thought experiments, which may reflect their intuitions but may well not. Second, unusually in the case of the theory of reference, experimental prompts involve elicitation of the phenomenon under investigation—that is, referring—and it is the reference facts rather than the intuitions that a theory of reference should capture. Finally, "best fit" models like the method of cases are inconsistent with the actual practice of semantic theorists, who appeal to general principles of theory construction as well as considerations native to the theory of reference, often in the service of rejecting intuitions. Indeed, Kripke himself viewed several claims of his theory as unintuitive, but felt no pressure to alter them on that account. These facts, we'll argue, suggest that the relevance of experimental methods in the theory of reference cannot be straightforwardly extended to other fields: an experimental prompt containing Newtons two rocks tied together in empty space may elicit referring, and may also elicit intuitions, but it doesn't also elicit the phenomenon under investigation. Furthermore, the considerations native to the theory of reference are not part of physics, which has its own distinct set of principles and considerations. This suggests that an evaluation of the centrality of intuitions/ responses to thought experiments in philosophical methodology must proceed in a piecemeal fashion. We conclude that the potential contributions of experimental philosophy will take different forms in different sub-fields of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

This dissertation sets out to answer the question ''What fixes the semantic values of context-sensitive referential terms—like names, demonstratives, and pronouns—in context?'' I argue that it is the speaker's intentions that play this role, as constrained by the conventions governing the use of particular sorts of referential terms. These conventions serve to filter the speaker's intentions for just those which meet these constraints on use, leaving only these filtered-for intentions as semantically relevant. By considering a wide range of cases, including (...) many involving confused and deceptive speakers, I argue that this 'constraint theory' provides a better account of linguistic reference than does any extant alternative, whether intentionalist or non-intentionalist. Along the way, I argue that semantics cannot depend on the reactions of idealized listeners, that speaker meaning is far less clear, and helpful, a notion than it is standardly taken to be, and that speakers needn't aim to be cooperative in order to fix the meaning of their terms in context. (shrink)

This paper is an extended response to Machery, Olivola and De Blanc (2009). I argue that the concerns I raised about Machery, Mallon, Nichols and Stich (2004) in Marti (2009) still stand.

Roger Vergauwen seeks to provide an answer to the question, "How does language connect to the world?" He begins with the recent developments in formal semantics and from them constructs his own 'theory of reference' with which he considers the nature of the correspondence of the world. The author locates his metalogics between the philosophy of language and epistemology while he covers a range of models from Plato to Wittgenstein. Vergauwen assumes no previous technical or logical study. Contents: Introduction: (...) The Temperature of a Hot Topic; The Tarski Program: Hijacking the Truth about Reference; Reference and Theory of Reference; Inside Out: Reference and Metalogic; Outline of a Logic with Non-Standard Meanings. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Original and Derived Meaning The Causal‐Historical Theory The Crude Causal Theory The Asymmetric Dependency Theory Teleosemantics Informational semantics.

The article first rehearses three deflationary theories of reference, (1) disquotationalism, (2) propositionalism (Horwich), and (3) the anaphoric theory (Brandom), and raises a number of objections against them. It turns out that each corresponds to a closely related theory of truth, and that these are subject to analogous criticisms to a surprisingly high extent. I then present a theory of my own, according to which the schema “That S(t) is about t” and the biconditional “S refers to x (...) iff S says something about x” are exhaustive of the notions of aboutness and reference. An account of the usefulness of “about” is then given, which, I argue, is superior to that of Horwich. I close with a few considerations about how the advertised theory relates to well-known issues of reference, the conclusions of which is (1) that the issues concern reference and aboutness only insofar as the words “about” and “refer” serve to generalise over the claims that are really at issue, (2) that the theory of reference will not settle the issues, and (3) that it follows from (2) that the issues do not concern the nature of aboutness or reference. (shrink)

It is argued on a variety of grounds that recent results in 'experimental philosophy of language', which appear to show that there are significant cross-cultural differences in intuitions about the reference of proper names, do not pose a threat to a more traditional mode of philosophizing about reference. Some of these same grounds justify a complaint about experimental philosophy as a whole.

“La théorie, c'est bon, mais ça n'empêche pas d'exister”J. M. CharcotRoughly speaking, references relate what is said to just those things about which it is said. A theory of reference is commonly taken to be a statement or characterization of that relation which references effect — that relation, that is, which holds between something that is said and some object just in case in that which is said reference is made to that object. Such a theory is often (...) further conceived as answering one or both of the questions: For any given object X, what is it for a reference to be made to X, and For any given reference, R, what is it for an object X to be the referent of R. Let us call a theory which correctly answers at least some of these questions a classical theory of reference. (shrink)

In this paper, I present main ideas of the Hybrid Theory of Reference for Proper Names. First, I try to define the ​position of the Hybrid Theory within the discussion about reference. Then I briefly explain most significant aspects of the theory as they were defined by Gareth Evans. Apart from that, I also offer some additions to the theory. The addition, I spend most space on concerns phrases that I call “mock names” which are expressions that look (...) like proper names but in fact are nothing more than abbreviations for descriptions used attributively. (shrink)

This paper argues that several important tenets of the so-called "new theory of reference"--also known as the "historical-explanation theory" and as the "causal theory" of reference--were developed by william james as early as 1885 and that by 1895 they were elaborated by him in no less detail than contemporary theorists have so far done. these tenets include the central doctrine that reference is dependent on a causal or historical-explanatory chain connecting the act of referring with the entity (...) referred to. james' theory of reference is argued to be an aspect of his theory of truth. reference in james is argued to be an aspect of his pragmatic conception of the "workings" of true ideas. (shrink)

“La théorie, c'est bon, mais ça n'empêche pas d'exister”J. M. CharcotRoughly speaking, references relate what is said to just those things about which it is said. A theory of reference is commonly taken to be a statement or characterization of that relation which references effect — that relation, that is, which holds between something that is said and some object just in case in that which is said reference is made to that object. Such a theory is often (...) further conceived as answering one or both of the questions: For any given object X, what is it for a reference to be made to X, and For any given reference, R, what is it for an object X to be the referent of R. Let us call a theory which correctly answers at least some of these questions a classical theory of reference. (shrink)

I argue for a theory of the optimal function of the speech act of referring, called the edenic theory. First, the act of singular reference is defined directly in terms of Gricean communicative intentions. Second, I propose a doxastic constraint on the optimal performance of such acts, stating, roughly, that the speaker must not have any relevant false beliefs about the identity or distinctness of the intended object. In uttering a singular term on an occasion, on this theory, one (...) represents oneself as not having any confused beliefs about the object to which one intends to refer. This paves the way for an intentionalist theory of reference that circumvents well-known problems, which have not been adequately addressed before in the literature. (shrink)

We argue that many recent philosophical discussions about the reference of everyday concepts of intentional states have implicitly been predicated on descriptive theories of reference. To rectify this, we attempt to demonstrate how a causal theory can be applied to intentional concepts. Specifically, we argue that some phenomena in early social de- velopment ðe.g., mimicry, gaze following, and emotional contagionÞ can serve as refer- ence fixers that enable children to track others’ intentional states and, thus, to refer (...) to those states. This allows intentional concepts to be anchored to their referents, even if folk psy- chological descriptions turn out to be false. (shrink)

THIS ARTICLE PRESENTS A THEORY OF REFERENCE AS AN INTENTIONAL ACT, INDEPENDENT OF THE METAPHYSICAL ASSUMPTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF A REAL (AND COMMON) WORLD. ACCORDING TO THE THEORY, SPEAKERS REFER TO ENTITIES IN THEIR COGNITIVE SPACES. DIFFERENT SPEAKERS HAVE DIFFERENT SPACES, WHICH AT ANY GIVEN TIME MIRROR THEIR BELIEF-SYSTEMS AT THAT TIME. OBJECTS IN COGNITIVE SPACES ARE DISTINGUISHED FROM IDEAS, "SINNE", AND MEINONGIAN NON-EXISTENTS, AND SEVERAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE THEORY ARE DISCUSSED: AMONG THEM, HOW TO HANDLE COMMUNICATION AND (...) TRUTH. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: How Eliminativism Became Embroiled in the Theory of Reference Stich on the Meta‐theory of Reference, and Eliminativism Stich's Way Out The Easy Way Out The Theory of Reference and How Sentences Code for Content Coda Notes and References.

The text is translated from W.V.O.Quine: From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press. Second Edition, 1980. pp. 130-139.

This chapter contains sections titled: Where we will make our start The supervenience of reference on nature The availability issue What is required of a user of a name? The issue about personal level knowledge The demand for precise and explicit specifications What is a theory of reference a theory of? In the mouths of the very young The description theory and interchangeability What is to come and a final objection noted.

This paper explores some problems with Gareth Evans’s theory of the fundamental and non-fundamental levels of thought [1]. I suggest a way to reconceive the levels of thought that overcomes these problems. But, first, why might anyone who was not already struck by Evans’s remarkable theory care about these issues? What’s at stake here?

Few philosophers today doubt the importance of some notion of rigid designation, as suggested by Kripke and Putnam for names and natural kind terms. At the very least, most of us want our theories to be compatible with the most plausible elements of that account. Anaphoric theories of reference have gained some attention lately, but little attention has been given to how they square with rigid designation. Although the differences between anaphoric theories and many interpretations of (...) the New Theory of reference are substantial, I argue that rigid designation and anaphoric theories can be reconciled with one another and in fact complement one another in important ways. (shrink)