causal theory of proper names the view that proper names designate what they name by virtue of a kind of causal connection to it. This view is a special case, and in some instances an unwarranted interpretation, of a direct reference view of names. On this approach, proper names, e.g., ‘Machiavelli’, are, as J. S. Mill wrote, ‘purely denotative. . . . they denote the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belonging to those individuals’ (A System of Logic, 1879). Proper names may suggest certain properties to many competent speakers, but any such associated information is no part of the definition of the name. Names, on this view, have no definitions. What connects a name to what it names is not the latter’s satisfying some condition specified in the name’s definition. Names, instead, are simply attached to things, applied as labels, as it were. A proper name, once attached, becomes a socially available device for making the relevant name bearer a subject of discourse. On the other leading view, the descriptivist view, a proper name is associated with something like a definition. ‘Aristotle’, on this view, applies by definition to whoever satisfies the relevant properties – e.g., is ‘the teacher of Alexander the Great, who wrote the Nicomachean Ethics’. Russell, e.g., maintained that ordinary proper names (which he contrasted with logically proper or genuine names) have definitions, that they are abbreviated definite descriptions. Frege held that names have sense, a view whose proper interpretation remains in dispute, but is often supposed to be closely related to Russell’s approach. Others, most notably Searle, have defended descendants of the descriptivist view. An important variant, sometimes attributed to Frege, denies that names have articulable definitions, but nevertheless associates them with senses. And the bearer will still be, by definition (as it were), the unique thing to satisfy the relevant mode of presentation.
The direct reference approach is sometimes misleadingly called the causal theory of names. But the key idea need have nothing to do with causation: a proper name functions as a tag or label for its bearer, not as a surrogate for a descriptive expression. Whence the (allegedly) misleading term ‘causal theory of names’? Contemporary defenders of Mill’s conception like Keith Donnellan and Kripke felt the need to expand upon Mill’s brief remarks. What connects a present use of a name with a referent? Here Donnellan and Kripke introduce the notion of a ‘historical chains of communication.’ As Kripke tells the story, a baby is baptized with a proper name. The name is used, first by those present at the baptism, subsequently by those who pick up the name in conversation, reading, and so on. The name is thus propagated, spread by usage ‘from link to link as if by a chain’ (Naming and Necessity, 1980). There emerges a historical chain of uses of the name that, according to Donnellan and Kripke, bridges the gap between a present use of the name and the individual so named.
This ‘historical chain of communication’ is occasionally referred to as a ‘casual chain of communication.’ The idea is that one’s use of the name can be thought of as a causal factor in one’s listener’s ability to use the name to refer to the same individual. However, although Kripke in Naming and Necessity does occasionally refer to the chain of communication as causal, he more often simply speaks of the chain of communication, or of the fact that the name has been passed ‘by tradition from link to link’ (p. 106). The causal aspect is not one that Kripke underscores. In more recent writings on the topic, as well as in lectures, Kripke never mentions causation in this connection, and Donnellan questions whether the chain of communication should be thought of as a causal chain.
This is not to suggest that there is no view properly called a ‘causal theory of names.’ There is such a view, but it is not the view of Kripke and Donnellan. The causal theory of names is a view propounded by physicalistically minded philosophers who desire to ‘reduce’ the notion of ‘reference’ to something more physicalistically acceptable, such as the notion of a causal chain running from ‘baptism’ to later use. This is a view whose motivation is explicitly rejected by Kripke, and should be sharply distinguished from the more popular anti-Fregean approach sketched above.
See also MEANING, THEORY OF DESCRIP – TION. H.W.