One view (from Russell) suggests that any
name is associated with a description which is true of a unique individual and
it is via this description that the name refers to that person. Another view
(Kripke) sees reference as involving an initial act of naming to which later
uses of a name are connected by a causal chain linking one user or use to
another. Each user succeeds in referring to the same thing because their use of
the word is appropriately causally connected to the first use. So for example
if I use the name ‘JRR Tolkein’ I succeed in referring to the author of LotR
not because that name is attached to a description that uniquely fits him, but
because I learned the name from someone who learned the name from someone…who
was present at the christening of JRRT.
The Madagascar example was proposed by
Gareth Edwards as a problem for this causal account, because it is a real-world
case of reference shift via error (as opposed to reference shift via deliberate
reapplication of a name such as calling a cat ‘Lenin’). The story goes that
Marco Polo was the first European to learn and use the name ‘Madagascar’, but
he applied it to the large island off the east coast of Africa while in fact
the users of the term from whom he acquired it used it to
refer to part of the mainland. It is assumed that Marco Polo intended to use
the name as they did, but he made a mistake about what they intended. His mistake then led to the modern use of the word
to refer to the island, not the mainland. The question for the causal theory of
reference is: how can the name ‘Madagascar’ as used today refer to the island
(as it clearly does) when its causal history leads back ultimately to the
naming of a different place altogether?
