When it comes to names in philosophy, there are many different arguments and views for how names should be dealt with and in what situation. Linguistic tokens, such as names and referential terms, have been the center of philosophical questions into the nature of reference. In his book, Naming and Necessity, Saul Kripke outlines his causal theory of reference for names. Gareth Evans, who, along with many others, was not satisfied with Kripke’s causal theory, wrote, The Causal Theory of Names, where he poses problems for Kripke’s view. The main attack was that the theory is not successfully in dealing with issues where the references of names change. Evans argument shows the most presence in his recognized Madagascar example. Though Evan’s communicates problems that are worthy of acknowledging, I believe that by examining the main ideas in Kripke’s causal theory of reference, the problems of reference change are not shattering to the theory. It is just that Kripke’s terms in the theory do not have enough description, not so much the fact that the theory can’t prove explanations for situations of reference change.
Kripke was not fully satisfied with the descriptive theory or the cluster theory, so as a result he proposed the causal theory. The theory begins with a causal chain …show more content…
So it appears the main problem for the causal theory begins at a names initial baptism because once it’s given a reference, in the future, causally disseminated uses of the name will unavoidably be referring back to the reference given at the initial baptism. Regardless if the name in the future is widely accepted as referring to something else. That being said, I think that Evan’s criticism is successful if the causal theory is unamended, because instances of reference change are critical to