The dissertation studies a question of longstanding interest in the philosophy of language, which I call the "Reference Determination Question." The question is: what determines that a linguistic expression (such as a name, indexical, demonstrative, or description) refers to a particular thing? In one way or another, the question seeks a reduction of reference in terms of other features of speakers, words, and the things to which they refer. Until the work of Saul Kripke and Keith Donnellan in the 1960s and 1970s, such a reduction seemed available. According to what I call the "Condition View," the reference of a linguistic expression is whatever, if anything, uniquely satisfies the conditions that the user of the expression associates with it. I show how this view fits within a broader picture of language, which I call the "Capture Picture." The Capture Picture envisions linguistic reference as a speaker's reaching out from her interior experience to capture a particular thing in the world outside that experience. Kripke's and Donnellan's criticisms of the Condition View led to its widespread rejection, but not, I argue, to radical revision of the Capture Picture. I press the same form of argument that they employed against the Condition View against replacements for it that remain within the Capture Picture. I suggest that this expansion of the Kripke-Donnellan critique has not been pursued because of Kripke's influential distinction between "speaker's reference" and "semantic reference" and I explain why this distinction does not in fact track a substantive difference, and does not block my arguments. My criticism of alternative views within the Capture Picture reveals a parallel between linguistic reference and sensory perception: both are ways of experiencing things that are present in one's sensory or cognitive environment. I defend this parallel, and show how it makes available a replacement for the Capture Picture that I call "Referential Direct Realism." Referential Direct Realism is the counterpart, for referential experience, of the position usually called "Direct Realism" or "Naïve Realism" about perceptual experience. It holds that linguistic referring experience is direct cognitive contact with the objects to which one refers. On this view of linguistic referring experience, the Reference Determination Question does not arise. For there is no gulf to be bridged between what is inside the speaker's experience (the linguistic expression) and what is outside (the object). I argue for Referential Direct Realism and show how it points the philosophical study of linguistic reference, and language in general, in a different direction from those that traditionally have been followed.

In my dissertation I develop a uniform, purely-referential account of all singular definite

noun phrases. The first chapter argues that names, pronouns and definite description are

used to accomplish a single communicative function: namely, to convey the identity of the

entity to which they refer. The differences between these three types of singular definite

noun phrase is attributed to the different communicative contexts in which they are used.

The second chapter extends the account of the first chapter to generic, predicational, and

so-called narrow-scope definite descriptions. The view defended is that generic, narrow-

scope and predicational uses of definite descriptions refer to kinds, which have as members

the individuals referred to by specific uses. The third chapter applies the theory of definite

noun phrases developed in the first two chapters to the semantics of indirect discourse. Once

the semantics of definite noun phrases in simple sentences is properly understood, indirect

discourse poses no new obstacles to a purely referential semantics.

Philosophical naturalism is grounded in a commitment to natural integration - to understanding the nature of anything in Nature against the background of natural unity: i.e., in terms of our overall picture of Nature and how it hangs together. But what's required for natural integration - specifically, of human mind and agency?

In Chapter 1, I consider one common kind of answer to this question - physicalism. Physicalists think the cost of natural integration is impoverishing the language of nature - the terms and concepts used for natural integration. This is the entry point for human exceptionalism: the worry that the repertoire of physical terms and concepts is simply too impoverished to account for human mind and/or agency. I argue physicalism is mistaken by sketching and defending a view I call Spinozism. For the Spinozist, any truth concerning natural beings (a) pertains to their nature, and (b) concerns Nature as such. Thus, the language of nature is ordinary language, and the expressive resources available for naturally integrating human life include any we need to express any truth about it. Nevertheless, Spinozism embraces natural unity and natural integration - albeit in different forms than those embraced by physicalists.

Chapter 2 is devoted to articulating what I take to be the most serious objection to Spinozism - the objection from explanation. According to this objection, the Spinozist neglects the role of explanation in natural integration. That is, we can only understand natural unity by formulating a systematic physics - i.e., a unified explanatory framework capable of accounting for anything in Nature. And since the repertoire of terms or concepts used to formulate a systematic physics is likely to be relatively impoverished, the language of nature is as well. I go on to sketch the fundamental metaphysical commitments of this view - what I call explanatorism.

In Chapter 3, I respond to the objection from explanation by arguing that it involves an illegitimate projection of epistemic features of explanation onto our metaphysics, and close by contrasting the Spinozist's view concerning the unity of Nature and explanation with the explanatorist's.