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Full Idea
Strawson's early work gave a new direction to the study of reference by stressing that it is a social phenomenon.
Gist of Idea
Reference is mainly a social phenomenon
Source
report of Peter F. Strawson (On Referring [1950]) by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2
Book Ref
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language', ed/tr. Lepore,E/Smith,B [OUP 2008], p.402
A Reaction
The question is whether speakers refer, or sentences, or expressions, or propositions. The modern consensus seems to be that some parts of language are inherently referring, but speakers combine such tools with context. Sounds right.
| 12524 | For the correct reference of complex ideas, we can only refer to experts [Locke] |
| 23645 | A word's meaning is the thing conceived, as fixed by linguistic experts [Reid] |
| 10430 | Reference is mainly a social phenomenon [Strawson,P, by Sainsbury] |
| 9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
| 14201 | Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam] |
| 14202 | Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam] |
| 2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
| 2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
| 4689 | Kripke makes reference a largely social matter, external to the mind of the speaker [Kripke, by McGinn] |
| 17504 | Kripke's theory is important because it gives a collective account of reference [Kripke, by Putnam] |
| 17035 | We refer through the community, going back to the original referent [Kripke] |
| 4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |