Marcus, Kripke, and the Origin of the New Theory of Reference

Abstract

The New Theory of Reference in the philosophy of language became widespread in the 1970s and is still flourishing today. The New Theory implies that many locutions (e.g., proper names) refer directly to items, which contrasts with the traditional or old theory of reference, which implies that names and relevantly similar locutions express descriptive senses or are disguised descriptions. The New Theory encompasses such notions as direct reference, rigid designation, identity across possible worlds, the necessity of identity, a posteriori necessities, singular propositions, essentialism about natural kinds, the argument from the failure of substitutivity in modal contexts that proper names are not equivalent to contingent definite descriptions, and related ideas and arguments. Some of the contributors to the development of this theory include Kripke, Kaplan, Donnellan, Putnam, Perry, Salmon, Soames, Almog, Wettstein and a number of other contemporary philosophers.