Attention and Proper Names

Abstract

Hector is at a party, drinking a martini, conversing with some colleagues. From across the room, Elaine says, “Hector!” and Hector turns around to see what Elaine wants. Psychological and neuroscientific evidence suggests that Elaine succeeds in getting Hector to pay attention because of processingvery different from the processing that would occur if Hector is already paying attention, and hears “Hector” in a sentence like “Hector is happy”. Making sense of this everyday use of proper names arguably providesgood reason to reject causal theories of reference, and supports,to some degree, a surprising sufficient condition for reference: if a hearer H is disposed to pay attention when a name n is uttered, then n refers to H.