Theory advanced especially by American philosophers Saul Kripke (1940- ) and Hilary Putnam (1926- ) that whether a currently used name names a certain object depends on whether current use of the name causally depends on its use by people who originally dubbed the object with that name.
‘Homer’ names whatever person the Greeks used it (or a Greek variant of it) to address (even if that person was not a poet at all). ‘Homer’ does not mean (as the rival descriptive theory of names holds) ‘who ever wrote the Iliad and Odyssey’.
Kripke and Putnam also extend the theory to cover words for ‘natural kinds’, like ‘tiger’ or ‘water’. ‘Water’ names whatever stuff it was first applied to, and does not mean ‘H2O’ or ‘colorless tasteless liquid’, and so on.
Also see: CAUSAL THEORIES OF REFERENCE
Source:
S P Schwartz, ed., Naming, Necessity and Natural Kinds (1977)
Table of Contents
- 1 Videos
- 2 Related Products
- 2.1 Causal Theories of Reference for Proper Names
- 2.2 Inside the Criminal Mind: Revised and Updated Edition
- 2.3 A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, 2 Volume Set (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)
- 2.4 Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market: The Scholar's Edition (LvMI)
- 2.5 Does God Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas
- 2.6 The Miracle of Analogy: or The History of Photography, Part 1
- 2.7 The Physics Of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind And The Meaning Of Life
- 2.8 Observation and Experiment: An Introduction to Causal Inference
- 2.9 China's New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong
- 2.10 Geometry of Quantum States: An Introduction to Quantum Entanglement
- descriptive theory of names
- causal theories of reference
- causal theory of memory
- causal theory of knowledge
- descriptions theory
Videos
Causal Theories of Reference for Proper Names
- Sfetcu, Nicolae (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 46 Pages - 09/25/2019 (Publication Date) - Independently published (Publisher)
Inside the Criminal Mind: Revised and Updated Edition
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Samenow, Stanton E. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 370 Pages - 11/04/2014 (Publication Date) - Broadway Books (Publisher)
A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, 2 Volume Set (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)
- Hardcover Book
- English (Publication Language)
- 1176 Pages - 04/24/2017 (Publication Date) - Wiley-Blackwell (Publisher)
Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market: The Scholar's Edition (LvMI)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Rothbard, Murray N. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 1506 Pages - 03/30/2009 (Publication Date) - Ludwig von Mises Institute (Publisher)
Does God Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas
- Fradd, Matt (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 162 Pages - 02/09/2018 (Publication Date) - En Route Books & Media (Publisher)
The Miracle of Analogy: or The History of Photography, Part 1
- Stanford University Press
- Silverman, Kaja (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 240 Pages - 03/04/2015 (Publication Date) - Stanford University Press (Publisher)
The Physics Of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind And The Meaning Of Life
- Evan Harris Walker (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 384 Pages - 12/01/2000 (Publication Date) - Basic Books (Publisher)
Observation and Experiment: An Introduction to Causal Inference
- Hardcover Book
- Rosenbaum, Paul (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 400 Pages - 08/14/2017 (Publication Date) - Harvard University Press (Publisher)
China's New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Blanchette, Jude (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 218 Pages - 05/02/2019 (Publication Date) - Oxford University Press (Publisher)
Geometry of Quantum States: An Introduction to Quantum Entanglement
- Hardcover Book
- Bengtsson, Ingemar (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 632 Pages - 08/18/2017 (Publication Date) - Cambridge University Press (Publisher)
Last update 2020-05-25. Price and product availability may change.