Communication and Reference

One of the chronic challenges to Philosophy of Language is explaining Reference, i. e. the relation between linguistic and non-linguistic items. Primitive language has little problem accomplishing it, insofar as it takes words to incarnate the objects that they signify. But, upon de-mythologization, the link between word and object is broken, and re-connecting such heterogeneous entities becomes difficult. The standard theory of Reference is the Associationist one: 'Word W refers to object O' = 'W and O are constantly conjoined', i. e. the perception of W is an occasion to expect to perceive O as well. Critics of this theory charge that it is question-begging, since it fails to explain the initial conjunction. For example, slapping the label 'ball' on some object does not specify whether it signifies the object, its color, its shape, what it is made of, etc. Hence, many theories simply jettison Reference entirely, and invest the meaningfulness of Language in the interrelation of its components. An alternative to both approaches is to retain Reference, but to deny that it is Language that refers. For, a more accurate, and less tenuous, account of Communicative Reference entails someone attentively perceiving some object, and presuming upon a shared experiential and linguistic background with someone else, attempting to communicate that perception to the latter. That is, 'W refers to O' = 'Person A utters W to communicate to B their perception of O'. Such a theory of Reference is not without its potential complications, but at least it avoids attributing to Language a power that is every bit as magical as that primitively attributed to it.