Full Idea
One might concede that the reference of a person's term isn't fixed by his individual mental state, but insist that the total mental state of all the members of the language community fixes the reference of the term.
Gist of Idea
Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term
Source
Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2)
Book Reference
Putnam,Hilary: 'Reason, Truth and History' [CUP 1998], p.24
A Reaction
I like this reading of the problem, though Putnam himself prefers to say that things fix the reference. I take reference to be a human action, not a natural causal relation. Animals connecting thought to object may not count as reference at all.
Related Idea
Idea 14202 Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam]