Transcript causal_reference

The Causal Theory of Reference
Explaining Reference
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Kripke: a name refers to a thing if there is the
right sort of causal link between the thing and
the use of the name
This causal link is equivalent to Frege’s sense
 It is explicable in purely physicalist terms
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Baptism
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The event that fixes the reference of a term is a
baptism or dubbing
Point at dog and say ‘this is Fido’
 Establishes a causal link between term and thing
 Causal link exists for all witnesses of this act
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Borrowing
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Those who don’t witness baptism have to
‘borrow’ reference
They are causally linked to other users who have the
referencing ability
 Ultimately all referencing depends on causal
connections to witnesses of the baptism
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We can talk about Napoleon because we are causally
connected in the right way to someone who saw
Napoleon, and to the one who named him.
Advantages
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It explains Frege’s notion of ‘sense’
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The sense of ‘Venus’ is different from the sense of
‘Phosphorus’ because the causal chain that links
Venus to ‘Venus’ is different from that which links
Venus to ‘Phosphorus’
Advantages
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It explains Frege’s notion of ‘sense’
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Sense determines reference, and the causal chain
determines reference by being linked to the relevant
thing
Advantages
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It explains Frege’s notion of ‘sense’
To understand the meaning of a word is to grasp the
sense
 The causal chain from use of a term to the thing
itself must pass through the brain
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It depends on some causal features in the brain
 Which is why not all brains can have the right causal links
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Animals, for example
Those causal features are the grasping of the sense
Advantages
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Solves the ‘puzzles’ of reference
How do
Venus is the evening star
Venus is Venus
have different meanings though their referents are
identical?
 Because the meanings are constructed out of senses
and the senses/causal links are different for ‘Venus’
and the ‘evening star’
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Advantages
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Solves the ‘puzzles’ of reference
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How can we talk about things that don’t exist?
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There can’t be causal links to non-existent things
Consider how the name ‘Pegasus’ is introduced
Described as a horse with wings
 The terms ‘horse’ and ‘wing’ both refer
 Those terms have causal chains
 Therefore ‘Pegasus’ has a causal chain
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Advantages
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Solves the ‘puzzles’ of reference
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How can we say that things don’t exist?
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There can’t be causal links to non-existent things
The ‘Pegasus’ solution works here too
Problems
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Change of reference
Two babies are born, and their mothers bestow names upon
them. A nurse inadvertently switches them and the error is
never discovered. It will henceforth undeniably be the case
that the man universally known as ‘Jack’ is so called because
a woman dubbed some other baby with the name.
Problems
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Change of reference
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There are multiple chains between terms and
referents
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Every introduction forms another chain from Bob to
‘Bob’
Some may link the referent and different terms,
Others may link the same term to different referents
 If too many link a referent and a different term then
that term becomes the name of the object
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Problems
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Quâ-problem
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I point at a dog and say ‘Fido’
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Why have I named the particular dog and not the species,
or the dog’s nose, or an air molecule at the end of my
finger, or the idea of the dog, or …
It’s the intention of the grounder to name the dog
The intention must be a describable one
 So descriptions are again required
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Problems
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Natural kind terms
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The solution to the quâ-problem requires
descriptions of natural kind terms
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They have all the same problems as in pure description
theories
Modal Problem
“Tigers are wild striped felines”
 There’s a possible world where they don’t have stripes
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Because there are no Freemasons
They are still tigers
Problems
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Natural kind terms
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The solution to the quâ-problem requires
descriptions of natural kind terms
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They have all the same problems as in pure description
theories
Necessity Problem
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You don’t need to be able to describe an elm in order to
be able to refer to it
Problems
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Natural kind terms
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The solution to the quâ-problem requires
descriptions of natural kind terms
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They have all the same problems as in pure description
theories
Sufficiency Problem
Pegasus is the winged horse
 But if we find a winged horse created by Freemasons in
Tibet by gene-splicing, that wouldn’t be Pegasus
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Problems
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Twin-Earth is a planet just like Earth except
water there is not H2O, but XYZ
‘Water’ as said by a twin-Earthling does not
mean the same as ‘water’ said by an Earthling
Yet everything is the same.
Descriptions can’t give the meanings of terms
 Meanings just ‘ain’t in the head’
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