Causal theory of reference

It is not an objective of this book to study the question of whether objective classification is possible.Rather, the question we are interested in is whether the philosophy of natural kinds matches the history of chemists actual practice of classification. Does the history of chemistry confirm the view that chemists have aimed at a unique classification based on knowledge of the real essences of substances, that is, their molecular composition And does the key idea of the causal theory of reference—that the referents of water and other natural kind terms do not change in history—apply to the laboratory sciences ... 

The present article will appeal to two interrelated metaphysical views concerning the chemical elements. The first such view is what may be called metaphysical in the naive, or literal, sense of the elements as being beyond observation. The second metaphysical view considers the elements as the fundamental entities or natural kinds of chemistry. More work has been carried out regarding the latter, including the question of whether the elements actually represent natural kinds. For example, the Kripke-Putnam causal theory of reference has led to a good deal of discussion of precisely how elements should be referred to and the question of their essential properties. There are some interesting connections between these two metaphysical aspects of the elements, that will be Indicated as the article proceeds. 

The motivation for the causal theory of reference and its criteria for referring to natural kinds has been a central question of how language relates to the world. Traditionally, expressions such as proper names refer to or designate an object because the name was associated with some descriptive content about the object in question. Analogously, general terms or nouns such as tiger , acorn , or element were considered to refer to objects by virtue of their sense where the sense provides the description of the object (Frege 1892). 

Intuitions of this kind led some philosophers to require that facts about the world should be regarded as matters of objective causal relations in the world and not ideas that people have in their heads. In this context, the Kripke-Putnam causal theory of reference was born. It was now claimed that nouns that are meant to designate natural kind terms do not have their extension determined by descriptive concepts but by a causal chain beginning with the original baptism or naming of a sample object. In addition, the reference of the term is provided by whatever is dictated by the latest scientific research, hence the use of atomic number in the case of any particular element. This last feature led Kripke and Putnam to adopt Paneth s definition of elements in terms of atomic number, since this remains as the most up-to-date scientific definition of an element. 

Stanford, P.K. Kitcher, P. 2000, Refining the Causal Theory of Reference for Natural Kind Terms , Philosophical Studies, 97, 99-129. 

In spite of all these apparent shortcomings with the Kripke-Putnam causal theory as they apply to the term element , it is not my present task to analyze these problems. The purpose of this article has been to draw parallels between two senses in which the elements may be regarded metaphysically. The purpose has been to also draw parallels between the Mendeleev-Paneth definition of an element as a basic substance on the one hand, and the Kripke-Putnam account of elements as natural kinds on the other hand, both of which approaches deny observable properties to the elements. Finally, the purpose has been to apply the concept of elements as basic substances, which is explicit in the chemical definition and perhaps implicit in the Kripke-Putnam theory of reference, to contemporary issues concerning the placement of certain elements in the periodic system. Of course the overall purpose has been to stimulate further discussion on these issues which lie at the foundations of chemistry. 

From that time on, many causal theories were developed. In this work, we shall only refer to the causal theory proposed by de Broglie [2] and known as the double-solution theory. This theory, as well as Bohm s theory, are the most developed of all causal theories they are both able to explain and predict, practically all quantum phenomena. 

Figure 27. Expected results for the velocity distribution of the electrons. The dashed line refers to the usual theory the solid line, to causal theory.

So in order for Kim s theory of functional reduction to work, Kim will have to show that we can successfully derive hmctional definitions of higher- level properties in terms of their causal roles, within the constraints of (R). The fimctional definition will have to make reference only to properties at the lower level. 

In general there was little focus on systemic accident models. However complexity has been mentioned, but no references to theory. The theory of Normal Accidents could have been explored and discussed, and may have given broader insight in causal factors behind the accidents. 

Humans possess a comprehensive pool of culmrally passed-on convictions. Haidt refers to a priori causal theories (Haidt, 2001, p. 822) on which humans automatically draw when asked to justify their intuitions. The social dimension of Haidt s model posits that judging a situation or topic must also be understood as a socially influenced process. Humans live in social contexts, oriented at socially shared and internalized values and norms. Haidt characterized this phenomenon as... 

Relations of the form (1.5.17, 18) are often referred to as dispersion relations since they were first derived in the theory of optical dispersion by Kronig (1926) and Kramers (1927). Similar relations have been derived in other contexts, notably the Theory of Dielectrics as remarked by Gross (1953) [see for example Scaife (1971)] and the Quantum Theory of Scattering [Goldberger and Watson (1964)]. The main physical input to these relations is Causality. Gross (1953) first gave a relation of this kind for viscoelasticity, not in fact the same as either (1.5.17, 18), but of the form... 

If we now consider how an element is specified in chemistry and in the theory of causal reference, we reach an interesting situation. In chemistry, as... 

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