title: Testing the causal theory of reference.
abstract: Theories of reference are a crucial research topic in analytic philosophy. Since the publication of Kripke's Naming and Necessity, most philosophers have endorsed the causal/historical theory of reference. The goal of this paper is twofold: (i) to discuss a method for testing experimentally the causal theory of reference for proper names by investigating linguistic usage and (ii) to present the results from two experiments conducted with that method. Data collected in our experiments confirm the causal theory of reference for people proper names and for geographical proper names. A secondary but interesting result is that the semantic domain affects reference assignment: while with people proper names speakers tend to assign the semantic reference, with geographical proper names they are prompted to assign the speaker's reference.
authors.affiliation: University of Genoa, DISFOR - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology Unit, Corso Podestà, 2, Room 3C3, 16128 Genova, Italy. Electronic address: filippo.domaneschi@unige.it.
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Domaneschi
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, University of Genoa, Via Balbi 4, 16126 Genova, Italy. Electronic address: maxi@nous.unige.it.
authors.forename: Massimiliano
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vignolo
authors.affiliation: University of Genoa, DISFOR - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology Unit, Corso Podestà, 2, Room 3C3, 16128 Genova, Italy. Electronic address: simona.dip@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Simona
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Di Paola
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009275:Names; D010684:Philosophy; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Causal theory of reference; Experimental semantics; Semantic reference; Speaker's reference; Theories of reference