MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences - Cryptome

714 Reference, Theories of
McCauley, R. N. (1996). Explanatory pluralism and the coevolution
of theories in science. In R. N. McCauley, Ed., The
Churchlands and Their Critics. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Hackett.
Richardson, R. (1979). Functionalism and reductionism. Philosophy
of Science 46: 533–558.
Wimsatt, W. (1976). Reductionism, levels of organization, and the
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Further Readings
Bechtel, W. (1988). Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Cognitive
Science. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Beckermann, A., H. Flohr, and J. Kim, Eds. (1992). Emergence or
Reduction? Essays on the Prospects of Nonreductive Physicalism.
New York: de Gruyter.
Bickle, J. (1995). Connectionism, reduction, and multiple realizability.
Behavior and Philosophy 23: 29–39.
Bickle, J. (1998). Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Burton, R. G. (1993). Reduction, elimination, and strategic interdependence.
In R. G. Burton, Ed., Natural and Artificial Minds.
Albany: SUNY Press.
Clark, A. (1980). Psychological Models and Neural Mechanisms:
An Examination of Reductionism in Psychology. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Churchland, P. M., and P. S. Churchland. (1990). Intertheoretic
reduction: A neuroscientist's field guide. Seminars in the Neurosciences
2: 249–256.
Hardcastle, V. G. (1992). Reduction, explanatory extension, and
the mind/brain sciences. Philosophy of Science 59: 408–428.
Hardcastle, V. G. (1996). Discovering the moment of consciousness?
1: Bridging techniques at work. Philosophical Psychology
9: 149–166.
Hooker, C. (1981). Towards a general theory of reduction. Dialogue
20: 38–59, 201–236, 496–529.
McCauley, R. N. (1993). Cross-scientific study and the complexity
of psychology. In H. V. Rappard and L. P. Mos, Eds., Annals of
Theoretical Psychology, vol. 9. New York: Plenum Press.
Putnam, H. (1973). Reductionism and the nature of psychology.
Cognition 2: 131–46.
Richardson, R. C. (1980). Reductionist research programmes in
psychology. PSA 1980 1: 171–183.
Schaffner, K. F. (1993). Discovery and Explanation in Biology and
Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schwartz, J. (1991). Reduction, elimination, and the mental. Philosophy
of Science 58: 203–220.
Reference, Theories of
Referential relations hold between representations and the
world; in particular, they hold between parts of sentences
and the world and between parts of thoughts and the world
(see LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT). The most striking example
of such a relation is the naming relation, the sort that holds
between “Babe Ruth” and the famous baseballer. However,
it is usual to think of reference as covering a range of semantically
significant relations; for example, between the word
“dead” and deadness, and between the concept
and all bachelors. Other expressions used for one or another
of these relations include: “designate,” “denote,” “signify,”
“apply,” “satisfy,” “instantiate,” “fall under,” and “about.”
Reference is important because it is thought to be the
core of meaning and content. Thus, the fact that “Babe
Ruth” refers to that famous baseballer is the core of its
meaning and hence of its contribution to the meaning of any
sentence—for example, “Babe Ruth is dead”—that contains
it. And the fact that refers to all bachelors is the
core of its content and hence of its contribution to the content
of any thought—for example, —that contains it.
The central question about reference is: In virtue of what
does a representation have its reference? Answering this
requires a theory that explains the representation’s relation
to its referent. There has been a great surge of interest in
theories of reference in the twentieth century.
Description theories are one sort. According to these theories,
the reference of a representation is determined by certain
descriptions associated with it by competent speakers;
these descriptions identify the referent. The simplest form of
description theory specifies a set of descriptions each of
which is necessary and all of which are sufficient for reference
determination (FREGE 1893; Russell 1912); for example,
the reference of “adult,” “unmarried,” and “male”
might be jointly sufficient and severally necessary for the
reference of “bachelor.” This theory calls to mind what is
known in psychology as the “classical” theory of concepts.
According to another form of description theory, the reference
is whatever is picked out by (a weighted) most of certain
descriptions associated with the representation. On this
“cluster” theory, no one description is necessary for reference
fixing (Searle 1958). Cluster theories call to mind theories
of CONCEPTS known in psychology as “family
resemblance,” “prototype,” and “exemplar.”
Around 1970, several criticisms were made of description
theories of proper names—for example, “Babe Ruth”
(Kripke 1980; Donnellan 1972)—and natural-kind words—
for example, “gold” and “tiger” (Kripke 1980; Putnam
1975). Perhaps the most important are the arguments from
ignorance and error. Speakers who seem perfectly able to
use a word to refer are too ignorant to provide descriptions
adequate to identify the referent; worse, speakers are often
so wrong about the referent that the descriptions they provide
apply not to the referent but to other entities or to nothing
at all. Sometimes the whole speech community is
ignorant or wrong about the referent. In brief, description
theories of these words seem to require too much knowledge,
to place too great an epistemic burden on speakers.
This is not to say that description theories fail for all representations:
they still seem plausible for “bachelor,” for
example. But even where they work, description theories
have a problem: they are essentially incomplete. Thus, suppose
that a theory claims that the reference of “bachelor” is
determined by the reference of “adult,” “unmarried,” and
“male.” We then need to explain the reference of those
words to complete the explanation of the reference of
“bachelor.” Description theories might be offered again. But
then the explanation will still be incomplete. At some point
we must offer a theory of reference that does not make the
reference of one word parasitic on that of others. We need