This study examines and critically evaluates John McDowell’s philosophy of mind and semantics. The most important theme is reference, i.e. the ways in which mind and language refer to their worldly targets. From a broader perspective, the topics of this study concern the relationships between mind, language and the world. The two most central questions concerning reference are: What assumptions must we make about mind, language and world and their relations to one another in order to render the general topic of reference understandable? How exactly do linguistic expressions relate to their counterparts in the world? Causally, physically or in both ways?McDowell claims to be able to prove that there is nothing inherently problematic in either the concept of reference or the relationship between mind and world in general. The research question of this study is whether or not McDowell indeed succeeds in his attempt to portray reference as unproblematic. The answer is that he fails to provide profound and detailed answers to the central problems of reference because of his choice of methodology, which rather obscurely and ambiguously combines such components as Wittgensteinian quietism and therapeutic philosophy, appeals to common sense, and an anti-constructivist attitude to philosophical theorization.Nonetheless, McDowell does manage to present several promising ideas that can be used as building blocks in the creation of a workable theory of reference. In the constructive part of this study, McDowell’s ideas, which often re-main on the metaphorical level, are opened up and further developed with the help of the ontological theory of the organizational levels of nature. As a result, the study introduces a proposal regarding rational causation and a proposal regarding empirical concepts describing how they maintain their references via rational-causal links to worldly targets.