{"id":771,"date":"2008-08-29T10:31:00","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T10:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2008\/08\/29\/jesus-historicity-and-theories-of-reference\/"},"modified":"2008-08-29T10:31:00","modified_gmt":"2008-08-29T10:31:00","slug":"jesus-historicity-and-theories-of-reference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2008\/08\/29\/jesus-historicity-and-theories-of-reference\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus – historicity and theories of reference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Incidentally, one issue of importance here is how reference works. For the issue, in effect, is whether in using “Jesus” now, we are referring<\/span> to an historical individual.<\/p>\n

One theory of reference is the “fit” theory. You use “n” to refer to x if and only if there is an individual that uniquely fits (most of) your “n”-related beliefs. I refer a certain individual using the name “Socrates” just in case that individual uniquely fits (most of, many of) the beliefs I associate with “Socrates” (sch as that he was the master of Plato, etc.)<\/p>\n

On this type of theory (Russell, Searle), someone is Jesus just in case they uniquely fit (most of) the beliefs\/descriptions we associate with “Jesus”.<\/p>\n

Another theory is the causal theory (associated with Kripke). Someone is baptized “Jesus”. The name gets passed on from one person to the next, and from one generation to the next, each using it with the intention it should refer to whoever they got the name from used it to refer to. A reference preserving causal chain can then maintain reference to that individual across the millenia, even if the beliefs we end up with about “Jesus” are mostly wrong.<\/p>\n

There are other theories too. Clearly, which theory you go for may impact on the issue of whether there was an historical Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Incidentally, one issue of importance here is how reference works. For the issue, in effect, is whether in using “Jesus” now, we are referring to an historical individual. One theory of reference is the “fit” theory. You use “n” to refer to x if and only if there is an individual that uniquely fits (most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jesus-historical-evidence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}