Abstract
Natural species terms (" Tiger ", " Beech ", " Gold ", etc.) are the subject of debate : are they descriptive terms that express characteristics of the objects falling within their extension, or do they function rather as names that designate their species directly, without the intermediary of a description ? According to the Causal Theory of Reference (TCR), a term such as " Tiger " directly names the tiger species thanks to the ostension of a sample of individual tigers, which constitutes the reference standard for subsequent uses of the term. I propose here to compare the TCR with the practice of taxon naming as regulated by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. I shall endeavor to show that, despite recent counter-examples, the predictions of the TCR are borne out by the scientific names of species and subspecies.
