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Full Idea
It's in virtue of our connection with other speakers in the community, going back to the referent himself, that we refer to a certain man.
Gist of Idea
We refer through the community, going back to the original referent
Source
Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity lectures [1970], Lecture 2)
Book Ref
Kripke,Saul: 'Naming and Necessity' [Blackwell 1980], p.94
A Reaction
There may be two theories of reference getting tangled up here. Going back to the origin is one thing, and relying on the community is another. Do I always know who I am referring to? 'The funniest man in London'.
| 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] |