G. Evans paper ‘The causal theory of names’ (in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 47, 1973) offers a very interesting constructive critique of Kripke’s causal theory of reference. The arguments are based on a high variety of examples (some based on Gedankenexperimente, others are real cases) which usually contain some switch of reference for various names. Most of these example seem at first glance to be very similar to Kripke’s ‘Gödel-example’, but differ in small, but important details. This allows Evans to criticize Kripke for not taking into account the context of available information of speakers, which plays a big role in our judgements and the way we assert truth predicates.
Evans offers a hybrid approach, paying tribute to both, the causal theorists and the descriptionalists.
What impresses me most by the paper is the variety of examples, which serve as paradigmatic touchstones of any future (semi-)theory of proper names. The paper can be seen as a good example of what I like to call ‘experimantal philosophy’.
(I made some concept maps of Evans argumentation in german which are available here.)
