Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I SCEPTICISM AND LANGUAGE
- PART II NAMES AND THEIR BEARERS
- 4 Russell's Principle and Wittgenstein's Slogan
- 5 The Name-Tracking Network
- 6 Rigidity
- 7 Descriptions and Causes
- 8 Knowledge of Rules
- PART III PROPOSITIONS
- PART IV PARADOXES OF INTERPRETATION
- EPILOGUE
- Notes
- Index
7 - Descriptions and Causes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- PART I SCEPTICISM AND LANGUAGE
- PART II NAMES AND THEIR BEARERS
- 4 Russell's Principle and Wittgenstein's Slogan
- 5 The Name-Tracking Network
- 6 Rigidity
- 7 Descriptions and Causes
- 8 Knowledge of Rules
- PART III PROPOSITIONS
- PART IV PARADOXES OF INTERPRETATION
- EPILOGUE
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The causal theory
Whether or not one is persuaded by the account of rigidity offered in the preceding chapter, some answer is clearly needed to the question how it can be possible for a speaker to refer rigidly by means of a name; that is, to refer to the same individual “across possible worlds.”
The answer that has received most attention so far is the one tentatively advanced by Kripke in Naming and Necessity in terms of what he there calls “chains of communication,” but now generally known as the Causal Theory of Names. Here is Kripke's account of the theory:
Someone, let's say, a baby, is born; his parents call him by a certain name. They talk about him to their friends. Other people meet him. Through various sorts of talk the name is spread from link to link as if by a chain. A speaker who is at the far end of the chain, who has heard about, say, Richard Feynman, in the market place or elsewhere, may be referring to Richard Feynman even though he can't remember from whom he first heard of Feynman or from whom he ever heard of Feynman. He knows that Feynman was a famous physicist. A certain passage of communication reaching ultimately to the man himself does reach the speaker. He then is referring to Feynman even though he can't identify him uniquely. He doesn't know what a Feynman diagram is, he doesn't know what the Feynman theory of pair production and annihilation is. […]
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- Information
- Word and WorldPractice and the Foundations of Language, pp. 133 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003