The Question of Referentiality

Abstract

Most theorists have offered different accounts of reference fixing for names, demonstratives, and indexicals. Indeed, this variety can seem an inevitable response to a certain class of hard cases. Here, I will offer a unified account of reference fixing equally capable of handling these cases. Then, I will show how to extend the account to help Predicativists about names and Quantificationalists about demonstratives accommodate these cases as well. One interesting upshot of this strategy is that it offers a way of explaining what makes a term referential that doesn't appeal to logical form.