Abstract
Kripke’s most important arguments in Naming and Necessity against the description theory of reference of proper names are the arguments from ignorance and error concerning names of historical figures. The aim of this paper is to put forward a reply to these arguments. The answer to them is grounded on the development of one component of the version of the description theory proposed by the authors that are regarded as the classical contemporary advocates of this theory, namely Searle and Strawson; one of the targets of Kripke’s arguments is precisely the version of the description theory of reference submitted by these authors. The development of that component results in a sort of description theory of reference not affected by Kripke’s arguments from ignorance and error concerning the names of historical figures, deferential descriptivism.
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Notes
Concerning the distinction between obstinately rigid designators, or simply obstinate designators, and persistently rigid designators, or simply persistent designators, see Salmon (1981: 33 f.). See also note 11 infra.
We will only be concerned, as Kripke in (1980), with the semantic reference of proper names, according to which ‘ “[t]he referent of ‘X’ is X”, where “X” is replaceable by any name [...]’ (1980: 25, n. 3). Kripke discusses reference as a property of linguistic expressions, and in particular of proper names, while other authors, such as Searle and Strawson, claim that proper names do not refer to, but speakers do by using them. We will remain neutral concerning the question of whether reference is a property of proper names or of speakers, but our considerations about the reference of proper names can be paraphrased easily in terms of the use of proper names by speakers.
Kripke adds to these theses a condition concerning their satisfaction, the condition of non-circularity, to which we will turn later.
Although in the mentioned characterization of descriptivism Kripke employs the term ‘property,’ in many other passages he uses instead the term ‘description’ (e.g., 1980: 33 and 57); thus Kripke’s characterization of descriptivism can be stated in terms of properties or of descriptions.
The qualification indicated by the expression ‘(or) a weighted most’ grounds on the plausible claim that there are some descriptions or properties that are more important than others for the determination of the reference. In the following we will take for granted that descriptivism assumes such qualification.
Strawson concedes that ‘[i]t is not required that people should be very ready articulators of what they know’ (1959: 182, n.1).
Jackson, in (1998: 208 f.), resorts to the notion of expert in his reply to the arguments from ignorance and error against descriptivism concerning natural kind terms, though some of the considerations that he makes are also relevant to this sort of arguments regarding proper names.
A different option to account for the relations of dependence among groups of speakers with respect to the use of names would consist in employing the distinction put forward by G. Evans between producers and consumers of names in (1982).
Remember the first remark of the foregoing section concerning the association by speakers of properties or descriptions with names.
Kripke claims that there is a unique actual world–‘the real world’ (1980:132)–the other possible worlds being merely stipulated.
The rigid descriptions obtained by means of the actuality operator are persistent designators and not obstinate designators, i.e., they do not designate the same object with respect to all possible worlds, but only with respect to every possible world in which the object exists. Nevertheless, there are ways to turn persistently rigid descriptions into obstinate designators, for example, by allowing that the domain over which individual variables range with respect to a world w should consist not only of the objects existing in that world, but also of other objects that are merely possible relative to it (see Soames 2002: 325 f., n. 31). In (2002) Soames puts forward some objections against a description theory of meaning that asserts that names are synonymous with rigidified descriptions, but most of those objections are not relevant for this paper, since that is not the sort of description theory that we advocate.
Rigidified descriptions are present in some of Kripke’s claims concerning the determination of the reference of proper names by means of descriptions. Thus he says: ‘I imagined a hypothetical formal language in which a rigid designator “a” is introduced with the ceremony, “Let ‘a’ (rigidly) denote the unique object that actually has property F, when talking about any situation, actual or counterfactual” ’ (Kripke 1980:14).
It could be alleged that we might also be involved in a vicious circle if the descriptions associated with a name by experts include other names and the descriptions associated with these names include the first name. But in this regard it could be claimed that the determination of the reference of proper names by descriptions can take place not individually–viz. one proper name each time–but in families (Lewis 1984: 223). This descriptivist proposal avoids that objection and commits us to a moderately holistic conception concerning the determination of the reference of proper names.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee of Acta Analytica for comments on a previous version of this paper. I would also like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science for financial support through the project HUM2005-03439 as well as to the Madrid Community Educational Council and to the Complutense University of Madrid for the financial support given to the Research Group 930174 (‘Philosophy of Language, of Nature and of Science’).
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Moreno, L.F. The Names of Historical Figures: A Descriptivist Reply. Acta Anal 22, 155–168 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-007-0006-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-007-0006-9