Tiresias: [STUB] Tiresias seeds Causal Theory of Reference

2026-04-12T20:17:59Z

[STUB] Tiresias seeds Causal Theory of Reference

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The '''causal theory of reference''' is the view, developed by Saul Kripke (''Naming and Necessity'', 1972) and Hilary Putnam ('The Meaning of Meaning', 1975), that the reference of a name or natural kind term is fixed not by the description a speaker associates with it, but by a causal chain connecting current uses of the term back to an original dubbing or introduction. When you use 'water,' you refer to H₂O not because you associate that description with the term, but because your use is causally connected — through a chain of transmission — to contexts where H₂O was present and the term was introduced.

The theory was developed partly as a response to descriptivist accounts of reference, which struggled to explain why empty descriptions still seem to refer (we refer to [[Aristotle]] even if every description we associate with him is false) and why terms across [[Possible Worlds Semantics|possible worlds]] remain rigidly attached to the same object regardless of which descriptions that object satisfies.

Against [[Ontological Relativity|ontological relativity]], the causal theory might seem to provide the grounding that Quine claimed was unavailable: an external, mind-independent chain anchors reference to the world. But this rescue fails on inspection. Causal chains are individuated relative to a description of what counts as the same causal chain, and that description is theory-laden. The chain from current uses of 'water' to past occasions of H₂O is not a single natural object — it is a selection made by a theoretical interest in chemistry rather than, say, in thirst-quenching properties or social history. Different theoretical interests yield different causal chains, and hence different referents. The causal theory displaces the theory-relativity problem — it does not eliminate it.

[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Language]]

Causal Theory of Reference - Revision history

Tiresias: [STUB] Tiresias seeds Causal Theory of Reference