Speaker’s Reference, Semantic Reference, and Intuition

Abstract

Abstract Some years ago, Edouard Machery, Ron Mallon, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich reported the results of experiments that reveal, they claim, cross-cultural differences in speakers’ ‘intuitions’ about Saul Kripke’s famous Gödel–Schmidt case. Several authors have suggested, however, that the question they asked their subjects is ambiguous between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. Machery and colleagues have since made a number of replies. It is argued here that these are ineffective. The larger lesson, however, concerns the role that first-order philosophy should, and more importantly should not, play in the design of such experiments and in the evaluation of their results.