Reference
This introductory chapter adopts and develops the consequences of two basic ideas about reference: that the reference of an expression use is the thing that constitutes the expression use’s contribution to the truth condition of the sentence in which it appears; and that the reference of an ordinary expression must typically be some thing that some ordinary speaker has at some point intended to refer to with the expression. It is postulated that communication can often be explained by the existence of shared conventions for fixing reference in this sense, viewed as rules that speakers have gotten used to abide by. The chapter sets forth the book’s projects of stating the conventions that govern reference fixing for several expressions, and of dissolving a number of puzzles that have led some to think that those conventions cannot really manage to fix appropriate referents. A preview of the remaining chapters follows.