Abstract
Causal theories of reference in the philosophy of language and philosophy of science have suggested that it could resolve lingering worries about incommensurability between theoretical claims in different paradigms, to borrow Kuhn’s terms. If we co-refer throughout different paradigms, then the problems of incommensurability are greatly diminished, according to causal theorists. I argue that assuring ourselves of that sort of constancy of reference will require comparable sorts of cross-paradigm affinities, and thus provides us with no special relief on this problem. Suggestions on how to think about rigid designation across paradigms are included.
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Notes
One can glean much of what I am saying here from a dictionary entry, but a more thorough treatment of the subject is offered in Sachs (2002). It is also worth remembering that coroners remain political officials, not medical doctors; medical examiners perform autopsies, not coroners, despite common confusion.
My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for reminding me of this point.
Such incommensurabilities could be synchronic as well as diachronic during transition periods, e.g., the sorts of discrepancies between Stahlian and early post-Stahlian chemists described later in this paper.
My work on this section in particular was helped by conversations with Mary Domski and Terry Winant. Any deficiencies are of course my problem, not theirs.
Churchland (1981) suggests this emphasis on functional properties as the definitive feature of alchemical approaches to chemistry, though he does so in the course of deriding any model that would do so as unscientific for failing to reduce to more purely physical theories. This serves as an analogy in deriding functionalism in the philosophy of mind, a cornerstone of his early work on eliminativism.
My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the second example here.
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Wolf, M.P. Reference and Incommensurability: What Rigid Designation Won’t Get You. Acta Anal 22, 207–222 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-007-0009-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-007-0009-6