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A Summary of „Causal Descriptivism‟
Mo Se Jun

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The paper „Causal Descriptivism‟ was
written by Frederick W
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Classical
descriptivism says that what names refer to is determined by descriptions that express properties
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Causal descriptivism says that what names refer to is
determined by descriptions couched in causal terms
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Some causal descriptions have the form „the individual referred to by uses of the name N from which I
acquired the use of N‟
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Kroon says that the term „causal descriptivism‟ seems to be David Lewis‟s
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Causal descriptivists think that the best explanation for the evidence is a kind of descriptivism, and not
causalism
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Causalists think that no descriptivist account can capture the mechanism
of name-reference
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Kroon claims that causality plays too large a
role in semantics for causalism to capture
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A Scenario That Is Related to Causal Descriptivism
Suppose that A tells B as follows:
(1) Dumas was the best friend I ever had
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Suppose that hearing A utter (1) is the first time B hears the name „Dumas‟
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Some causalists will claim that B‟s use of the name
„Dumas‟ will refer to A‟s poodle by such and such causal chains
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Suppose that B knows that A often uses names of the famous as names for animals
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Frederick W
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Direct reference borrowing is such that a speaker‟s use of a name
with a certain reference is explained by his ordinary perceptual access to certain tokens of that name with that
reference
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According to this strategy, B has indirect access to certain past uses of the name „Dumas‟ which had
Alexandre Dumas as referent and whose occurrence resulted in A‟s choosing the name „Dumas‟ for his poodle
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According to the
scenario, C calls his child „Engelbert Humperdinck‟ after the English pop-singer Engelbert Humperdinck
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However, Kroon says that it rules out the response that „Engelbert Humperdinck‟ as used in D‟s utterance of (3)
refers to C‟s child
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So, Kroon
thinks that causalist strategies are problematic
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The Argument from Reference Borrowing
Kroon thinks that causalist and causal neutralist approaches are not satisfactory
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The essential structure of the
argument is as follows:
Premise 1: The referential mechanism of the use of names on the basis of indirect reference borrowing is
correctly described by causal descriptivism
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Conclusion: The referential mechanism of the use of names on the basis of reference borrowing, whether direct
or indirect, is correctly described by causal descriptivism
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Kroon claims that it is entirely consistent with this kind of causal
descriptivism to suppose that names have no conventional meaning at all
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The first objection is about
Premise 1
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However, Kroon says that the difference between direct and indirect reference borrowing is best
viewed as epistemic rather than semantic
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The second objection is about conclusion
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Kroon says that what is wrong with the second
objection is its view that descriptivism must be formulated in terms of the psychological idea of association
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Causalists might argue that nothing said so far disproves
causalism
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For example, there is a causal connection between Engelbert
Humperdinck and D‟s belief
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This problem can be solved by causal descriptivism
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Conclusion
There are at least three approaches to causal theory of reference: causal descriptivism, causal neutralism,
and causalism
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Reference
Frederick W
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