D'Agruma, Nicolò (2025) Social facts, circularity and causal-historical connections in experimental semantics. THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, 39 (3). pp. 269-288. ISSN 0495-4548
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Abstract
This paper offers a critical analysis of Ding and Liu’s (2022) contribution to the ongoing debate stemming from Machery et al.’s (2004) experimental investigation of Kripke’s Gödel Case. Machery et al. test referential intuitions on proper names among laypeople from American and Chinese backgrounds and contend that their results challenge Kripke’s refutation of descriptivism. Ding and Liu argue that descriptions in Gödel-style scenarios are ambiguous between a brute-fact and a social-fact interpretation, and Machery et al. overlook the latter. Building upon this ambiguity, Ding and Liu conduct several studies, maintaining that the results reveal that Machery et al. misclassify some descriptivist answers as causal-historical. If that is the case, the challenge that experimental philosophy poses to Kripke’s refutation of descriptivism is even more substantial than Machery et al. claim. In this paper, I argue that, even granting some specific points that Ding and Liu endorse, their main experiment (Study 3) fails to provide the intended evidence. Despite the authors’ attempted rejoinders, the social-fact interpretation of the description in the Gödel Case is either circular or implicitly presupposes a referential role for the name’s causal-historical chain. Hence, in contrast to Ding and Liu’s interpretation, from their premises, they can only conclude that their main experiment’s results do not bolster Machery et al.’s (2004) challenge against Kripke’s refutation of descriptivism, but rather diminish it.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | ISSN: 0495-4548 (print) | ||||||
| Keywords: | Cross-cultural variation, Experimental semantics, Proper names, Theory of reference | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Causation General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email theoria@ehu.es | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 06 Jun 2025 12:34 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 06 Jun 2025 12:34 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 25581 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | THEORIA. An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science | ||||||
| Publisher: | Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea / Universidad del País Vasco | ||||||
| Official URL: | https://ojs.ehu.eus/index.php/THEORIA/article/view... | ||||||
| DOI or Unique Handle: | 10.1387/theoria.24987 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Causation General Issues > Experimentation General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 269-288 | ||||||
| Volume: | 39 | ||||||
| Number: | 3 | ||||||
| ISSN: | 0495-4548 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25581 |
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