Kripke’s Reference Theory And Its Critical Research

In the philosophy of language and analytic philosophy,the importance of the question of referral is self-evident.In the protracted and controversial discussion of the theory of denotations,the theory of denotation proposed by Kripke is of great significance,and has brought about a considerable impact on the traditional theory of name description.His early work focused on modal logic until the late 1960s-early 1980 s,when his research gradually shifted to philosophy.The ideas he put forward concerning denotational theory were also influenced by the study of his early ideas.Kripke’s views are diametrically opposed to those of traditional philosophers.The traditional philosophers believed that names have meanings,that names are connected to their referent objects by means of meanings,and that meanings can determine the referent objects.From Frege onwards,the principle of meaning-determining reference has occupied an important place,supplemented to some extent by Russell,Searle and others in later developments,such as Searle’s theory of the cluster of facsimiles,which holds that the condition for a correspondence between the object referred to and the name is that the object satisfies most of the content of a certain group of facsimiles.However,they always maintain that it is the meaning that dominates between the name and the referred object.But Kripke’s theory of reference breaks with this principle by arguing that names do not have meanings,that the connection between name and referent object is established according to a causal chain,and that names are initially given by means of a kind of naming baptism.He borrowed Leibniz’s concept of the "possible world" and made a new interpretation of the term,arguing that the "possible world" is a possible state,and the actual world is one of many possible worlds,and deliberately emphasizes that the "possible world" does not coexist with the real world,and that the "possible world" is based on the real world.And on the basis of classical essentialism,he elaborates new insights that reveal the nature of individuals and natural kinds.On this basis,he argues that proprietary names and natural kinds of words are lexical items with strictness that do not have meaning,and thus meaning does not determine the object referred to.For how names are named,he paints a picture of a naming ritual from which there is an initial naming ritual,and through the same causal chain one can learn the object to which the name refers.And his understanding of the concepts of ’necessity’ and ’innateness’ is diametrically opposed to that of previous philosophers.He points out that these two concepts are subordinate to each other,’necessity’ being metaphysical and ’innateness’ being epistemological.Kripke’s ’necessity’ needs to be understood from an ontological perspective,which is also influenced by the semantics of the possible world.Kripke’s innovative development of the theory of referents provided a new perspective for subsequent research and greatly advanced the development of the theory of referents.However,theoretical research is constantly evolving,and discussions of the theory are ongoing,with divergent views being formed.The final two chapters of this article focus on the critiques and defences of Kripke’s views developed by subsequent philosophers in an attempt to analyse his theory in more depth.