Gareth Evans (12 May 1946 – 10 August 1980) was a British philosopher at Oxford University during the 1970s. May 12 is the 132nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (133rd in leap years). ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

Life

Gareth Evans studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at University College, Oxford (1964–67). His philosophy tutor was Peter Strawson. He then became a senior scholar at Christ Church, Oxford (1967–68) and a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley (1968–69). He died in 1980 of cancer at the age of 34, "a serious loss for British philosophy" according to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy. His collected papers and a book, The Varieties of Reference, were published posthumously. Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) is a popular interdisciplinary degree which combines study from the three eponymous disciplines. ... University College (in full, the College of the Great Hall of the University, commonly known as University College in the University of Oxford, usually known by its derivative, Univ), is a contender for the claim to be the oldest of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Peter Frederick Strawson (born November 23, 1919 in London) is a philosopher associated with the ordinary language philosophy movement within analytical philosophy. ... College name Christ Church Named after Jesus Christ Established 1546 Sister College Trinity College Dean The Very Revd Christopher Andrew Lewis JCR President William Dorsey Undergraduates 426 MCR or GCR President {{{MCR President}}} Graduates 154 Home page Boat Club Christ Church (Latin: Ædes Christi, the temple or house of Christ... The Kennedy Memorial Trust was founded in 1964 to commemorate the US President John F. Kennedy who had been assassinated in 1963. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names, see below) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. ...

Work

In his brief career Evans made substantial contributions to logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. Aside from Strawson, Michael Dummett and John McDowell were important influences on his work. Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of criteria for the evaluation of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. ... Plato and Aristotle, by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ... Philosophy of language is the branch of philosophy that studies language. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett F.B.A., D. Litt, (born 1925) is a leading British philosopher. ... John Henry McDowell (born 1942) is a contemporary philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford and now University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. ...

Evans was one of many in the UK who took up the project of developing formal semantics for natural languages, instigated by Donald Davidson in the 1960s and 1970s. He co-edited Truth and Meaning with John McDowell on this subject. He also wrote a paper, The Causal Theory of Names which heavily criticized certain lines of the theory of reference that derived from Kripke's Naming and Necessity and work by Keith Donnellan. In the main, semantics (from the Greek and in greek letters σημαντικός or in latin letters semantikós, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... The term natural language is used to distinguish languages spoken and signed (by hand signals and facial expressions) by humans for general-purpose communication from constructs such as writing, computer-programming languages or the languages used in the study of formal logic, especially mathematical logic. ... Donald Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... John Henry McDowell (born 1942) is a contemporary philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford and now University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. ... In general, a reference is something that refers or points to something else, or acts as a connection or a link between two things. ... Saul Kripke in 1983 Saul Aaron Kripke (b. ... Keith Donnellan (born 1931) is a contemporary philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. ...

A one-page paper in Analysis, "Can There Be Vague Objects?", drew dozens of papers in response and is now considered a key work in metaphysics.

Varieties of Reference

Evans's book The Varieties of Reference, was unfinished at the time of his death. It was edited for publication, and supplemented with appendices drawn from his notes, by McDowell, and has subsequently been influential in both philosophy of mind and philosophy of language.

Background

The theory of reference prior to the 1970s was dominated by the view that the meaning of an ordinary name is a description of its object: so, for example, Aristotle means the author of de Caelo. This was Russell's view, and was and is taken by many to be equivalent to Frege's view (where the description is what Frege calls a term's "sense"). Following Kripke's Naming and Necessity lectures, the view came to prevail that names had no descriptive content, or sense: that the referent of a name was not what "fit" its meaning, but whichever object had been the initial cause of the name's being used. A name is a label for a person, thing, place, product (as in a brand name) and even an idea or concept, normally used to distinguish one from another. ... Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Saul Kripke in 1983 Saul Aaron Kripke (b. ...

Evans's project

Evans conceded that names did not in general have descriptive meanings (although he contended that they could, in some cases), but argued that the proponents of the new theory had much too simplistic a view. He argued for what he called Russell's principle, that a person cannot be thinking about an object unless he knows, in some non-trivial way, which object he is thinking about. He then claimed that a certain version of the new theory, which he called the Photograph Theory of meaning, violated this, since a person could obviously be confused as to which object had caused their beliefs.

From Russell's work Evans also drew the point that some of the thoughts one has (thoughts about objects one is perceiving, for example) are such that if their object did not exist it would not be possible to think that thought at all. These he called Russellian thoughts. He also defended a reading of Frege, derived in part from Dummett's work, according to which Frege's notion of sense was not equivalent to a description, and indeed remained essential to a theory of reference that abandoned descriptivism.

Evans argued that any "causal theory" had to be restricted in certain ways: it would be necessary to consider, one by one, the various kinds of Russellian thoughts people could have about objects, and to specify in each case what conditions must be met for them to meet Russell's principle--only under those conditions could they have a thought about a specific object or objects (a singular thought).

Kinds of reference

The bulk of the text considers three kinds of reference to objects, and argues for a number of conditions that must obtain for reference to occur.

He considers first demonstrative reference, where one speaks or thinks about an object visible in one's vicinity. He argues that these presuppose, among other things: having a correct conception of the kind of object that it is; the ability to conceive of it and oneself as located in an objective space, and to orient oneself within that space; that one must move smoothly through time and space and be able to track the object's movements continuously in perception. == WHAT ABOUT THE MATH ONE??? HUH? == // Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference) that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others. ...

He next considers reference to oneself and then reference by way of a capacity for recognition: one's ability to (re-)identify an object when presented with it, even if it is not available at present.

Language issues

In the last third of the book Evans turns to problems with reference to objects that actively depend on the use of language. Here he treats the use of proper names, which do not seem to presuppose as much knowledge on the part of the speaker as demonstrative or recognition-based identification. One can refer to an object one has never encountered using a name if the name was received in the right sort of linguistic (social) practice--even, apparently, if one has no true beliefs about the object. He also considers problems of reference to objects in fictions and hallucinations, and to the meaning of saying that something exists which doesn't. (Here he draws explicitly on Kripke's never-published Locke Lectures, Reference and Existence.) Saul Kripke in 1983 Saul Aaron Kripke (b. ...

Reference

• Davies, Martin, Gareth Evans (12 May 1946 – 10 August 1980). In Donald M. Borchert (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition. Macmillan Reference, USA.