The causal theory of names - Kripke's picture

The question of having no identifying information equally undermines the descriptivist's theory of names because, as Kripke and causal theorists argue, the descriptivist premise affords you successful reference even if you have "no uniquely identifying descriptions."

So I can successfully refer to Aristotle as "one of the students of the Academy," based on the descriptivist account. But this doesn't pick out Aristotle uniquely.

The causal theory forces us to look for the empirical grounding as a connection between the user of the name and the object of reference. (It's hard to see how Kripke can accept any other theory of reference when he holds that a name's meaning is merely the thing named, or a name's meaning is exhausted by its referent; i.e. Millianism.) In principle, based on the causal theory, we could "trace" a name back to its original use by becoming acquainted with the history of that name's use. We can, in principle, simply ask all the people who use, or who have used, that name, "Where did you get it?" or we could inspect the history of each user of that name. Based on the causal theory, reference is established by that historical connection. I prefer to call it the historic theory of naming.

This way descriptions don't determine reference at all. Kripke doesn't argue that descriptions are useless. He's only arguing that they are not reliable as a basis for successful (or successfully determination of) reference. Kripke's saying that your beliefs about the name and what you understand to be within field of descriptions of the name have nothing to do with its reference, or you successfully referring to it. They're nice to have, but not essential for reference.

If your community acquired the name "Cicero" in the appropriate and causal way, then you refer successfully as well. You look down the line of antecedent users of the name, which is entirely an empirical matter, a scientific investigation, say. Kripke's a scientific guy, so it makes sense for him to approach reference in a scientific way. What your community thinks or qualifies "Cicero" with has nothing to do with them successfully referring to it. Those descriptions just get in the way or lead to possible mistakes (and are unreliable, according to causal theorists).

Hi,
there are some problems I can't understand about Kripke's causal theory of names and hope you may help me in understanding them,namely, according to Kripke, causal chain is the source for finding the reference to a name, but as he maintains, on the first stage an initial baptism takes place and descriptions play important role in determining the reference of a name. So here are the questions which I can't answer in the range of Kripke's theory, what does it mean that descriptions play important role?what role is this?Again,what kind of chain is this?What determines the connection between the links in a chain? :listening:

Hi Tana, I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1. A babtism has two forms:
a) while the object is present babtims consist of a pointing [widely understood] gesture, and certaint words "From now on your name is NN" (or the like)
b) while the object is absent one can use definite description to fix the reference on the name NN. "I shall call the haviest fish in the ocean 'Oscar'". Now 'Oscar' is a rigid designator, it means in every possible sceario it desigantes the object which is the heaviest fish in the ocean in the actual world

2. A causal chain is also called historical-causal chain. The idea is that one can pass the reference of a name Oscar via commication act, e.g talking about Oscar
a) one can introduce Oscar to some other people: "This is Oscar" [pointing at the animal]
b) uttering predicative sentences about Oscar "Oscar is bigger then Moby Dick"

3. A hearer should have reference-preserving intetion. When I hear some one talking about Oscar (using a name 'Oscar') I have an intetion to use this name to refer to the object to which person whom I've heard refered by "Oscar"

4. Communication situation + reference-preserving intetion can constitute a chain

Remember that talking about chains is just a metaphore

Best regards