Abstract

Metaphysical realism, the doctrine that we can have knowledge of a subject-independent reality, made a comeback in the latter part of the twentieth century. Central to this comeback is the new theory of reference as developed by Kripke and Putnam. The new theory allegedly gives an account of how it is a subject can refer to subject-independent objects in the sense that the beliefs a subject associates with a referential term need not fully determine the reference of the term---reference is often underdetermined by belief states. To the extent that anti-realist positions appeal to a different and less plausible account of reference , this goes some way towards vindicating metaphysical realism. Moreover, Kripke and Putnam put their account of reference to work to explain and defend a version of essentialism: the position that objects have intrinsic, necessary properties. Examples are that water is necessarily H2O, that gold is necessarily the element with atomic number 79, and that Queen Elizabeth necessarily is the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York. Each of these claims is supposed to be necessary, a posteriori, and non-analytic. ;I examine first the arguments new theorists present in favor of their theory of reference. Overall I find the arguments to be good. I then turn to the issue of the metaphysical significance of the theory: does the theory presuppose or entail taxonomic realism and does it presuppose or entail essentialism. I argue that it does neither and that the new theory of reference can be incorporated into a metaphysical theory that denies both of these things. Idealists, conventionalists, pragmatists, and conceptual relativists can all endorse the semantic insights of the new theorists. Finally, by carefully examining the arguments new theorists present for the existence of a posteriors metaphysical necessities I show that there is a non-empty class of a posteriors, analytic, de re necessities