- 著者
-
大石 敏広
- 出版者
- 日本哲学会
- 雑誌
- 哲学 (ISSN:03873358)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.2003, no.54, pp.180-191,234, 2003-04-01 (Released:2009-07-23)
What we are concerned with is the question of how we can refer to something with a proper name. Descriptive theorists believe a description to be an essential factor. Causal theorists claim that a community plays a leading role. In this paper I have showed three points. First, against the causal theory, a parasitic description is essentially related to the reference of a name. A parasitic description is a description that includes a reference to another's reference to the particular in question. When we intend to refer to something with a proper name, we must be ready to show a parasitic description as a minimum condition. Secondly, when we use a proper name, we postulate that the proper name has been successfully passed down from link to link in a community, and we are on the far end of this chain of communication. Thirdly, for the time being, the fact that we have a parasitic description shows that we are on this far end of the chain of communication. From these three points we can derive the argument that it is beside the point to ask the question whether the major factor in determining the reference of a proper name is a description or a chain of communication. The conflict between the descriptivist theory and the causal theory is superficial.