The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Reference

Description

This Handbook offers students and more advanced readers a valuable resource for understanding linguistic reference; the relation between an expression (word, phrase, sentence) and what that expression is about. The volume’s forty-one original chapters, written by many of today’s leading philosophers of language, are organized into ten parts: I Early Descriptive Theories; II Causal Theories of Reference; III Causal Theories and Cognitive Significance; IV Alternate Theories; V Two-Dimensional Semantics; VI Natural Kind Terms and Rigidity; VII The Empty Case; VIII Singular (De Re) Thoughts; IX Indexicals; X Epistemology of Reference. Contributions consider what kinds of expressions actually refer (names, general terms, indexicals, empty terms, sentences), what referring expressions refer to, what makes an expression refer to whatever it does, connections between meaning and reference, and how we know facts about reference. Many contributions also develop connections between linguistic reference and issues in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. Contents Notes on Contributors Introduction • Stephen Biggs and Heimir Geirsson Part I: Early Descriptive Theories 1 The Concept of Linguistic Reference before Frege • Michael Losonsky 2 Frege on Reference • Rachel Boddy and Robert May 3 Fregean Descriptivism • Ian H. Dunbar and Stephen K. McLeod 4 The Referential-Attributive Distinction • Anne Bezuidenhout Part II: Causal Theories of Reference 5 The Case(s) against Descriptivism • Michael Nelson 6 Fruits of the Causal Theory of Reference • Scott Soames 7 The Problem of Reference Change • Harold Noonan Part III: Causal Theories and Cognitive Significance 8 Cognitive Significance • Aidan Gray 9 Conversational Implicature in Belief Reports • Jonathan Berg 10 Context Sensitivity and ‘Believes’ • Mark Richard 11 A Return to Simple Sentences • David Pitt 12 Eliciting and Conveying Information • Heimir Geirsson Part IV: Alternate Theories 13 Causal Descriptivism • Olga Poller 14 Reference-Fixing and Presuppositions • Manuel García- Carpintero 15 Names as Predicates • Sarah Sawyer 16 Variabilism • Anders J. Schoubye Part V: Two-Dimensional Semantics 17 Two-Dimensional Semantics • Frank Jackson 18 Two-Dimensional Semantics and Identity Statements • Kai-Yee Wong 19 Two-Dimensionalism and the Foundation of Linguistic Analysis • Andrew Melnyk 20 A Puzzle about Assertion • Gregory Bochner Part VI: Natural Kind Terms and Rigidity 21 Rigidity of General Terms • Genoveva Martí and José Martínez-Fernández 22 The Psychology of Natural Kind Terms • Emily Foster-Hanson and Marjorie Rhodes 23 Pervasive Externalism • Stephen Biggs and Ranpal Dosanjh 24 Theoretical Identities as Necessary and a priori • Joseph LaPorte 25 The Need for Descriptivism • Sören Häggqvist and Åsa Wikforss 26 The Accommodation Theory of Reference • Richard Boyd 27 Science, the Vernacular and the ‘Qua’ Problem • Robin Findlay Hendry Part VII: The Empty Case 28 Mill and the Missing Referents • David Braun 29 Fregean Theories of Names from Fiction • Ben Caplan Part VIII: Singular (De Re) Thoughts 30 Reference and Singular Thought • François Recanati 31 Singular Thoughts, Sentences and Propositions of That Which Does Not Exist • Jody Azzouni 32 Names and Singular Thought • Rachel Goodman Part IX: Indexicals 33 How Demonstratives and Indexicals Really Work • Stephen Neale and Stephen Schiffer 34 Demonstrative Reference to the Unreal: The Case of Hallucinations • Marga Reimer 35 What is Special about De Se Attitudes? • Stephan Torre and Clas Weber 36 De Se Attitudes and Action • Dilip Ninan 37 Acting without Me: Corporate Agency and the First Person Perspective • Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever 38 Semantic Monsters • Brian Rabern Part X: Epistemology of Reference 39 Cross-Cultural Semantics at 15 • Edouard Machery 40 Reference and Intuitions • Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja 41 The Myth of Quick and Easy Intuitions • John Bengson Index