Semantics, Cross-Cultural Style

Abstract

Theories of meaning and reference have been at the heart of analytic philosophy since the beginning of the twentieth century. Two views have dominated the field: the descriptivist view of reference and the causal-historical view of reference. The common wisdom in philosophy is that Kripke has refuted the traditional descriptivist theories of reference by producing some famous stories which elicit intuitions that are inconsistent with these theories. Recent work in cultural psychology has indicated the possibility that the intuitions that guide theorizing in this domain might differ between members of East Asian and Western cultures. This chapter presents evidence that intuition probes, closely modeled on Kripke's stories, elicit significantly different responses from East Asians (Hong Kong undergraduates) and Westerners (American undergraduates). It discusses the significance of this finding for the philosophical pursuit of a theory of reference.