Names and Rigid Designation

This topic examines how proper names and natural-kind terms refer, contrasting descriptivism with the causal theory and the notion of rigid designation.

Definition

A rigid designator is an expression that designates the same object in every possible world in which that object exists; the causal theory holds that names refer via a historical chain originating in an initial baptism.

Scope

The topic covers theories of how proper names secure their reference: the descriptivist view that a name abbreviates or is associated with descriptions, and Kripke's rival causal-historical picture on which reference is fixed at a baptism and passed along a communicative chain. It introduces rigid designation (designating the same object in every possible world), the distinction between fixing reference and giving meaning, and Putnam's externalist account of natural-kind terms summarized in the slogan that meanings are not in the head.

Core questions

• Do proper names refer via associated descriptions or directly?
• What does it mean for a term to be a rigid designator?
• How is reference fixed and transmitted through a community?
• Are natural-kind terms like 'water' or 'gold' descriptive or externally individuated?

Key concepts

• descriptivism
• causal-historical chain
• rigid designator
• fixing reference vs. giving meaning
• necessary a posteriori
• natural-kind term
• semantic externalism

Key theories

Causal-historical theory of names (Kripke)

Names refer not via descriptions but through a causal chain beginning with an initial naming and transmitted by speakers' intentions to refer to whatever earlier users referred to.

Rigid designation

Proper names (and natural-kind terms) are rigid designators that pick out the same individual or kind across all possible worlds, which yields necessary a posteriori identities such as 'Hesperus is Phosphorus'.

Semantic externalism (Putnam)

The reference of natural-kind terms is determined partly by the external world and division of linguistic labour rather than by speakers' internal descriptions, as illustrated by the Twin Earth thought experiment.

History

The descriptivist tradition, associated with Frege, Russell, and Searle's cluster theory, dominated until the early 1970s. Kripke's 1970 Princeton lectures, published as Naming and Necessity, attacked descriptivism and introduced rigid designation and the causal picture of reference. Putnam's contemporaneous work on natural-kind terms developed semantic externalism, together reshaping theories of reference across philosophy and linguistics.

Debates

Descriptivism vs. the causal theory

Whether the reference of a proper name is determined by descriptions the speaker associates with it, or by a causal-historical chain independent of any such descriptions.

Key figures

• Saul Kripke
• Hilary Putnam
• Keith Donnellan
• John Searle

Seminal works

• kripke1980
• putnam1975

Frequently asked questions

What is a rigid designator?

It is an expression that designates the same object in every possible world where that object exists; according to Kripke, proper names are rigid, which is why 'Hesperus is Phosphorus', though knowable only empirically, is necessarily true.