Page 254 - Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Reference
and pure denotation views. What determines the ref- erence of a name is not an implied descriptive content but an appropriate relation between users of the name and some individual to whom the name was originally given. So the account essentially has two components: the first postulating an initial 'baptism' of an indi- vidual with a name, the second explaining how the name gets transmitted through a community and across time. On the first, Kripke holds that an object may be named ('baptized') either by ostension or by the use of a description (e.g., the first puppy to be born will be called X); but 'fixing the reference' by means of a description is not equivalent to 'giving the mean- ing' of the name (one thinks here of Mill's example of Dartmouth). As for transmitting the name from per- son to person, all that is required, at least on Kripke's account, is an intention on the part of users to refer to the same object as the person they learnt the name from. Thus a 'chain' is set up that links users of the name with the object originally named. That chain determines what is referred to.
Of course, as described, the chain is by no means merely a sequence of external causal relations, inde- pendent of human thought processes. Among those who have developed causal theories there are those, like Kripke and Evans (1973), who acknowledge a role at least for 'intention' in the transmission of names, and those, like Devitt (1981), Devitt and Sterelny (1987), and in a qualified manner Donnellan (1966), who seek a 'purer' or more external form of causal linkage. J. R. Searle (1983) has objected that causal theories, especially those of Kripke and Don- nellan, turn out to be just variants of descriptivist theories in that they presuppose an essential role for intentional contents both in reference fixing and in transmission. Searle, in defending descriptivism, argues that in practice names become associated with richer kinds of intentional content than merely 'para- sitic' kinds like 'the same object as so-and-so referred to.'
Although strict causal theorists like Devitt and Sterelny see themselves following in the footsteps of Mill, they acknowledge that there is more to the mean- ing of a name than just its denotative role. By a curious replay of history, they reintroduce the idea of 'sense' as well as reference, albeit not quite as Frege described it. Sense now becomes a 'designating chain' making up a 'network' connected with each name. The informativeness of identity statements like Dr Jekyll is Mr Hyde is explained in terms of the distinct causal networks underlying the two names. Significantly, sev- eral other philosophers (McDowell 1984; Forbes 1990) have sought to defend neo-Fregean accounts of sense, as applied to proper names, within a broadly causal framework.
10. Conclusion
The debate between descriptivist and causal theories of names has not been finally resolved, though there
might be some convergence as implied by the revised versions of sense theories. Certainly the issues are clearer now than in the work of Mill and even Russell. Furthermore, Kripke's work, and also Putnam's (1975), has shown how questions about proper names can be extended to other terms in language, par- ticularly natural-kind terms, where causal theories have led to a radical reappraisal of ancient debates about essentialism.
See also: Indexicals; Reference: Philosophical Issues; Russell, Bertrand.
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