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Abstract
Kripke’s causal theory of reference as outlined in Naming and Necessity has both been rejected on the grounds of providing counter-intuitive results, and supplemented in an attempt to salvage what seem to be fundamentally important insights into the theory of reference. An early and prominent attack comes from Gareth Evans, who claimed that, amongst other reasons, the causal theory proves inadequate when dealing with issues where names change their reference, the brunt of his argument contained in the now famous “Madagascar example”. I believe, however, that through examination and exposition of some of Kripke’s key concepts in the causal theory (specifically, the
“baptismal” process) it can be shown that reference change as presented in examples of the type presented by Evans are not devastating to the theory: the issue of greatest importance is not that the causal theory itself is incapable of providing intuitive results in instances of reference change, but rather that Kripke’s terms are under-described.

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Reference Change in the Causal Theory: Examining the Baptismal Process
In “The Causal Theory of Names” Gareth Evans presents what he calls a “hybrid” theory of reference: using elements from both the “causal theory” that he attributes to
Saul Kripke, and the “description theory” that Kripke refutes as inadequate in “Naming and Necessity”. One of Evans’ primary motivations for proposing a theory of his own is that he feels the causal theory is unable to properly interpret situations in which the referent of a name changes. He presents a number of examples attesting to exhibit instances of reference change; these shall be referred to throughout as the “Goldilocks example”, the “Turnip example” and, perhaps most famously, the “Madagascar example”. While Evans views Kripke’s theory as being unable to effectively handle reference change, it is unclear whether Evans’ examples really pose that much of a threat to the causal theory, or if Kripke’s view could simply be amended by claiming that any change in reference results in an instance of a novel baptism. Alan Berger, in his book
“Terms and Truth” recognizes this potential solution, and presents a different, yet familiarly difficult problem, Hilary Putnam’s “H
2
O/xyz” example. I contend that what is really in contention here is not that Kripke’s theory proves inadequate when referents change, but rather that the baptismal process itself is under-described. By examining
Evans’ and Berger’s examples, it will be shown that occurrences where names change their reference can be explained in terms of a “second baptism”, thus keeping Kripke’s original theory in tact, but that reaching this conclusion involves substantial exposition of
Kripke’s concepts of “baptisms” and the nature of the causal chain itself.

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Kripke’s Causal Theory and Evans’ Contention
In “Naming and Necessity” Kripke attempts to provide an alternative to the
“description theory” or “cluster theory” of names by introducing the notion of a “causal chain”. He “roughly” states his theory as follows:
An initial ‘baptism’ takes place. Here the object may be named by ostension, or the reference of a name may be fixed by description. When the name is ‘passed from link to link’, the receiver of the name must, I think, intend when he learns it to use it with the same reference as the man from whom he heard it. If I hear the name ‘Napoleon’ and decide it would be a nice name for my pet aardvark, I do not satisfy this condition.
(Kripke, 1980 96)
This picture allows us to avoid a number of counterintuitive results of the description theory. For instance, using Kripke’s example, if we learn of a man named Gödel, and refer to him as “the man who proved the incompleteness theorem”, later learning that he actually plagiarized said proof from a man named Schmidt, the description theory would state that when we use the name Gödel we are referring to Schmidt, whereas our intuitions would dictate that we are actually referring to Gödel. Kripke concludes that “it does not seem that if most of the
 ’s are satisfied by a unique object 
, then

is the referent of the name. This seems simply to be false” (Kripke, 1980 85).
The causal theory, then, bestows some clear advantages over a descriptive or cluster theory of names. In “The Causal Theory of Names”, Evans, although recognizing the causal theory’s efficacy, feels that it is still inadequate for three significant reasons.
First, that it is not at all clear what mechanisms are at work when denoting something for

4 the first time, i.e. Kripke’s “initial baptism”, something that Evans refers to as a “magic trick” (Evans, 1993 213). Second, that the causal theory does not amply distinguish between denoting and believing, his solution to which Evans subsumes under the category of “surrounding context” (Evans, 1993 213). Pertaining to the second objection,
Evans notes that there are instances such that we are able to use names and say something that is true, or effectively refer, without there being a causal chain from our use of the term to its initial baptism. He gives an example where someone familiar with the method by which many American city streets are named (say, numerically and sequentially) may find herself in an unfamiliar city and still be able, for instance, to refer to 4 th
Street, even though the name “4 th
Street” in that particular town has no causal connection to the speaker (Evans, 1993 215).
The third and most significant of Evans’ objections, however, is that the causal theory is unable to give intuitive results in cases where names change their denotation.
Evans gives three main examples to show why the causal theory is inadequate in this regard; I will précis them and their consequences for Kripke’s and Evans’ theories, and then discuss whether they pose a significant problem for the causal theory:
1) The Madagascar example: The name “Madagascar” originally referred to an area on the African mainland. After a misinterpretation by Marco Polo, however,
“Madagascar” came to have the denotation we use today, namely that of an island off Africa’s east coast. In this situation, says Evans, the causal theory would tell us that when we use the term “Madagascar” we are actually referring to the original area on the mainland, even though we intend to refer to the island (Evans,
1993 216).

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2) The Goldilocks example: A little girl on holiday is dubbed “Goldilocks” by some member(s) a local village. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants, however, there is actually a set of identical twins which are both referred to by the villagers as
Goldilocks as if they were one person. The causal theory would state that the villagers are referring to the little girl who was initially baptized with the name, whereas Evans’ intuition is that when any of the villagers uses the name
“Goldilocks” they are actually failing to refer to anyone (Evans, 1993 223).
3) The Turnip example: A man named “Turnip” leaves his home village and never returns. Fifty years later, however, a man thought to be Turnip enters the village and is referred to, mistakenly, as “Turnip” by the townsfolk. Eventually the older villagers who were acquainted with the original Turnip die off, leaving the younger villagers to call this new man Turnip. In Evans’ view, “Turnip” can come to refer to the new member of the village, whereas on the causal theory the use of the name “Turnip” would refer to the original village member indefinitely
(Evans, 1993 225-226).
A Potential Addendum to the Causal Theory: Second Baptisms
The three examples as stated above are meant to show that Kripke’s theory, by itself, gives counterintuitive results in situations involving denotation change. But how significant are these problems really, and is it necessary to supplement the casual theory by considering contextual and descriptive factors, as is proposed by Evans? The problem for the causal theory, essentially, is that once a name is baptized with a reference, any future, casually propagated uses of that name inevitably and inescapably refer back to that initial referent, even if the name has been widely accepted to refer to something

6 different. A potential solution for the causal theory would be to claim that changes in denotation correspond with novel baptisms, so that a new causal chain can begin, stemming from the new referent. To better exposit what this process entails, I will reconsider Evans’ examples and explain how novel baptisms can relieve the casual theory of its counterintuitive results:
The Madagascar Example : That we use the term “Madagascar” today to refer to the island off of the east coast of Africa, and not some area on the mainland, is because through Marco Polo’s misinterpretation, the island received a new baptism using an old name, and therefore there is, in fact, a causal connection between our use of the word
“Madagascar” and the island. Alan Berger in his book “Terms and Truth” recognizes this solution, and refers to the process as a “second baptism” (Berger, 2002 21). I will refer back to Berger and his project later; for now, I will continue to use his term “second baptism” to refer to the process of reassigning a name that has traditionally had a certain referent to a novel one.
The Goldilocks Example : For clarity, let us say that the twins consist of the members A and B. That some village members refer to A as Goldilocks comes about from an initial baptism, say either by ostension or by fixing the referent via a description. If A then leaves temporarily with B returning, some villagers might tell others that “that little girl over there is called ‘Goldilocks’” at which point B undergoes a second baptism with the same name as A. Thus the villagers comprise a heterogeneous group, some using
“Goldilocks” with causal chains referring to A, others to B, depending upon which member of the set of twins they encountered.

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The Turnip Example : As in the Madagascar example, the younger villager’s misinterpretation that the new village member is named “Turnip” may act as a second baptism, or a new causal chain may begin when someone inadvertently ostensively redefines the name (i.e. “That man over there is called ‘Turnip’”) or re-fixes the referent by description (i.e. “The man that lives over the hill is called ‘Turnip’”).
Berger’s Response
As mentioned earlier, Berger does not feel that Evans’ Madagascar example provides sufficient grounds for refuting Kripke’s theory. It should be noted that in cases given by Kripke, baptisms are usually explained in terms of ostension or fixing by description, whereas in the examples above a baptism is taking as potentially arising from misinterpretations or mistranslations. This, however, does not seem to be in opposition to
Kripke’s theory, as he notes that “Perhaps there are other possibilities for initial baptisms” (Kripke, 1980 97) but does not elucidate what these could be. Berger himself interprets “mistranslation” as a potentially baptizing force, if only an accidental one, and thus the term “Madagascar” is able to gain a new reference without the counterintuitive results that Evans feels necessarily arise. Berger does feel, however, that reference change is still a problem for the causal theory, and thus presents his own counterexample:
[L]et us imagine that at the initial baptism of the word ‘water’, all the lakes, rivers, oceans, and so on were filled with the substance xyz, the clear liquid that people drank and bathed in was xyz, and so on. Here
‘xyz’ is the name for a substance the molecular structure of which is not identical with H
2
O, but which has all the phenomenal qualities of H
2
O…In the course of natural change, xyz was replaced everywhere on earth by

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H
2
O. But the community continued to use the term ‘water’ to refer to the liquid in the lakes and the present clear liquid that we drank and so on.
Thus what we currently take to be the referent of the term ‘water’ came to override the referent of the term at the initial baptism (Berger, 2002 20-
21).
The problem for Kripke, then, is as follows: the term “water” underwent an initial baptism, say in this scenario by fixing the reference by the description “the stuff that is in all the rivers, oceans, etc., that we drink, bathe in, etc.” and happened to have the molecular structure xyz. Whenever we use the word “water”, then, we are referring back through a causal chain to that initial baptism, back to xyz. As a result of some naturally occurring phenomenon, xyz is replaced by H
2
O, but since it has the same phenomenological properties, either (1) no one notices the change in chemical structure and continues to use the word “water” to refer to that same colorless liquid that occupies lakes, rivers, etc., or (2) the change in chemical structure was, in fact, discovered, but the term “water” was kept to refer to the new, although phenomenologically identical, substance. Under Kripke’s theory, however, when we use the term “water” after xyz becomes H
2
O, we are still referring to xyz, whereas it seems intuitive to claim that we should be able to refer to H
2
O.
It seems that in case (2), if it was discovered that xyz had been transformed into
H
2
O and this fact was made widely known, then this would be a good candidate for an instance of a second baptism: if it was announced that “all xyz has transformed into H
2
O, but for convenience’s sake the term ‘water’ was still used”, then the name “water” would come to have associated with it another causal chain, this one back to H
2
O, and the

9 counterintuitive result disappears. In this and the Madagascar examples, what has been originally formulated as a change in denotation, has been interpreted as an addition of a denotation to a name, having undergone its own baptism, with its own unique causal chain: just as the name “John” can uniquely refer to many different people, each reference having its own causal chain, and that it can gain additional references every time a new child is baptized, so too can names like “water” or “Madagascar” be instantiated multiple times with distinct causal chains attaching to different referents.
What about case (1), where the change occurs but no one notices, or even if the discovery is made, that someone simply does not hear the announcement? It seems to me that this case is akin to Evans’ “Turnip” example: where the name “Turnip” changes its reference from the original village member to the (we can assume, for comparison’s sake) phenomenologically identical stranger, the causal theory forces us to refer to the original villager using the name; so too, it seems, with the case of xyz and H
2
O. In the proposed solution to the Turnip example presented above, it was taken that the misunderstanding of the villagers could be considered a second baptism, and thus their causal chains of reference do indeed connect to the “stranger living over the hill”, and thus by using the name “Turnip” can refer to the new village member and not to the original village member. Is this solution a feasible interpretation of Berger’s example? Berger’s example as it stands now is under-described; in the next section, I provide a more concretized version, one that maintains the force of the original but can allow a more complete examination of the issue.

The Nature of the Baptism: Berger’s Example Re-Examined
Consider a slight modification in Berger’s example, as represented in the following (admittedly crude) diagram:
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In the situation marked “1”, “water” receives its initial baptism, through ostension, fixing by description, or some other method. The name is passed on, say, over the course of several subsequent generations, with children learning the name from their parents, using it, according to the causal theory, to refer to the substance xyz. At some point, represented in the diagram by the situation marked “2”, xyz has completed its transformation into H
2
O
1
. The father then teaches his son, pointing to the same body of colorless liquid with certain additional phenomenological properties as was pointed at in the initial baptism, that “that is called water”. Now, the casual theory would claim that the father, by using the term “water”, is referring to xyz, and not H
2
O. What happens, however, when the son refers to water? It seems that in this instance the causal theory can be interpreted in one of two ways: either the term “water” as referencing xyz is
1 For simplicity’s sake, let us assume that the transformation of xyz into H
2
O is either instantaneous, or that no references to water are made during the time of the metamorphosis.

11 passed on to the son, and he, too, refers to xyz when using the name “water”, or that the transference in this particular case counts as a second baptism, the son then using “water” to refer to H
2
O. The former interpretation provides the counterintuitive results challenged by Evans and Berger: we should want our theory of reference to say that the son is referring to H
2
O when using the name “water” (as in his world, H
2
O is all that exists). The latter interpretation avoids this, but a much larger problem arises: if the father teaching his son the word “water” counts in this instance as a second baptism, what is to prevent any step in the causal chain from being interpretable as an additional baptism?
To better formulate the problem, let us briefly consider how a name is usually
“passed on”. When the father teaches his son “that is water” as represented above, he is ostensively defining the term; let us call this a “passing on by ostension”. We could also think of a situation where the father passes the name on by description, telling his son where no water is immediately available that “that colorless liquid that we drink, bathe in, etc. is called ‘water’”; let us call this a “passing on by description fixing”. It also seems reasonable enough to claim that while there while there may be “other possibilities” for modes of baptism, there are analogous possibilities for modes of “passing on” 2 . The crucial point is that causal chains of reference must consist of an initial, baptizing link, and be followed by links of “passing on”; all of the links in the chain cannot be solely instances of a baptism or a passing on, and the processes are distinguished by either the intention to baptize or the intention to use a name as it was conveyed from one party to
2 This is not to say that the “passing on” must occur in the same mode as the initial baptism, although it certainly may; for example, I can baptize the name “water” by description, but then pass it on by ostension
(or possibly some other way).

12 another. This picture, however, may be too simple if the causal theory is to remain robust: to better understand this, we need to examine the baptismal process more closely.
Other Possibilities for Initial Baptisms: Reinterpretation and Misinterpretation
Kripke says very little about the actual process of baptism or the nature of the causal chain. His most explicit mention of the causal chain states that “when the name is
‘passed from link to link’, the receiver of the name must, I think, intend when he learns to use it with the same reference as the man from whom he heard it” and if this intention is not present, as in Kripke’s example of naming his pet aardvark “Napoleon”, then there will not be a connection “of the required type” (Kripke, 1980 96). It might be assumed, then, that when a “passing on” of a name is attempted, but the receiver intends to use the name differently, then the original causal chain ceases, and a new causal chain, baptized by the use of the word with a different referent, begins. This picture alone, however, prevents us from saying that in the Madagascar example Marco Polo’s misinterpretation can be interpreted as a second baptism: since Marco Polo intended to use the name
“Madagascar” in the same way as the natives from whom he learned it, this transference must count as a “passing on” in the casual chain, and we once again are presented with the counterintuitive result that “Madagascar” has, does, and always will refer to an area on the African mainland, not the island.
I believe that we can, however, say that Marco Polo re-baptizes “Madagascar”, because the intention that Kripke mentions is actually twofold: in order for a reference to be passed on in a causal chain, (1) the receiver of the name has to intend to use it in the same way as the bestower, and (2) the receiver of the name has to actually intentionally use the name to refer to its reference . Note that this second aspect is not strictly a

13 success condition: if I learn the name “elephant”, for example, but accidentally use the name to refer to a large, grey horse (say it is a foggy day, the identification is made at a significant distance, my eyesight is poor, etc.) we would want to say that I had used the term incorrectly, not that I had invoked a second baptism, such that now “elephant” can refer to large, grey horses
3
. Rather, a certain kind of epistemic access is required, such that the mistake comes not from my improper use of the name, per se, but from my initial misunderstanding of how the name is used: obviously, if, when you attempt to teach me the name “elephant”, I understand you to be referring to a certain variety of large, gray horse, then any of my subsequent uses of the name will be mistakes. These mistakes, however, would be made regardless of conditions of distance, poor eyesight or weather conditions: my initial misunderstanding, then, would create (at least for me) a second baptism for the name “elephant”.
If either or both of these conditions (1 and 2) are not met, then, the name should be considered not appropriately passed on, and a new baptism takes place. Thus it seems that there are two further possible types of baptism, in addition to Kripke’s examples of ostension and fixing by description: i) Meeting neither condition: I learn the name “Napoleon” and decide it sounds like a suitable moniker for my pet aardvark. Here I have neither intended to use the word as it has been conveyed to me, nor in reference to a famous French Emperor; this I will call a second baptism by reinterpretation . ii) Meeting the first condition but not the second: Out at sea you gesture vaguely to the port side of the boat, and say “that is Madagascar”. I interpret you to be referring to the
3 Otherwise, this would lead to the strange conclusion that any time a term is misused, a second baptism necessarily takes place.

14 island, and thus I subsequently call the island Madagascar, because that is the message I believed you were trying to convey. Here I meet condition (1), intending to use the name to refer in the manner in which it was taught to me, but I fail to meet condition (2), as I actually use the name to refer to something else. Here I have created a second baptism by misinterpretation .
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Note that reinterpretation and misinterpretation are modes of second baptisms, as the name to which they assign a reference are already used to refer to something else, and that these methods could be used in any subsequent iteration of baptisms (i.e. third baptisms, fourth baptisms, etc.). Considering now the exposition that has occurred in the previous sections, is Berger’s examples still problematic for the casual theory?
Conclusion: Berger’s Example, Revisited
Returning once more to the modified example of Berger’s, the question now becomes, does the father’s passing on of the name “water” to his son constitute a second baptism? If the father passes on the name by ostension (as represented in the diagram), then the son presumably interprets the name to refer not solely to the specific body of
“water” used in the father’s illustration, but that kind of substance in general; the same argument applies to a passing on by fixing by description. But if in the son’s world all that exists is H
2
O, and the father is passing on the term intending it to refer to xyz, then it seems plausible to treat this as a situation where the son misinterprets the name. This situation, however, is a little tricky: if the son was fully aware that he was using the name differently from his father (say, by having read the morning’s newspaper declaring “All
4 The next logical addition to this list would be “meeting the second condition but not the first”. I find it difficult to conceive of a plausible example in which this would occur. Even if it did occur, one would have to use a name with the intention to refer to that which it traditionally refers, but not in the way in which it was conveyed. If this were to be considered a second baptism, it would simply re-baptize the name with its traditionally held reference, and thus would seem to be redundant as opposed to novel.

15 water has transformed from xyz into H
2
O”), then this would constitute (given the exposition thus far) an obvious break in the old casual chain and the establishment of a new one. But if no such announcement is made, it still seems that while the son intends to use the name as passed on to him by his father, he nevertheless uses it to refer to something different: thus, a baptism by misinterpretation occurs.
What has been accomplished? At this point, neither Evans’ nor Berger’s examples seem to be devastating for the causal theory, if we are to accept the exposition surrounding Kripke’s concepts of baptisms and “passing’s-on” that has been performed thus far. The baptismal process has also been shown to include instances not only of intentional occurrences such as fixing by description or ostension, but also those of an
“accidental” nature, where misinterpretations or changes in external conditions can prove to be baptizing forces. Note that I have not attempted to supplement Kripke’s theory with any external influences; rather, Kripke’s casual theory, when its defining terms are expounded to their logical implications, is able by itself to effectively handle situations involving reference change.

Works Cited
Berger, Alan. (2002) Terms and Truth, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Evans, Gareth. (1993) “The Causal Theory of Names” in Meaning and Reference, Ed,
Moore, A.W., Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 208-227.
Kripke, Saul. (1980) Naming and Necessity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
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