[Revised entry by Eliot Michaelson and Marga Reimer on February 12, 2024.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography, notes.html]
Reference is a relation that obtains between a variety of representational tokens and objects or properties. For instance, when I assert that “Barack Obama is a Democrat,” I use a particular sort of representational token – i.e. the name ‘Barack Obama’ – which refers to a particular individual – i.e. Barack Obama. While names and other referential terms are hardly the only type of representational token capable of referring (consider, for instance, concepts, mental maps, and…

Originally appeared on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Read More