Abstract
For more than 50 years now, Donnellan’s distinction between referential and attributive descriptions has been discussed, criticized, supported and considered from many points of view. The facts have largely been agreed upon but the debate still revolves around how to account for them, especially for referring by a misdescription, i.e., a description that does not fit what it is being used to refer to, for example when I refer to the man near the window as the man drinking a martini, whereas he has a tonic water. Here, I offer a reconstruction of the issue and sketch a meaning as use framework (in fact, Donnellan distinguishes two uses of descriptions), within which I discuss an account for referential descriptions, including apparent ones. Before closing, I put forward a unitary account of the two uses of a description, whereby the descriptive condition is always relevant, while denying that a description in referential use operates in the same way as a proper name.
I dedicate this piece to Joseph Almog, who taught me this topic and much more besides. I have been thinking about the Donnellan case for a long time, presenting on many occasions ancestors of the present paper. I am grateful to Roberta Ballarin, Andrea Bianchi, Claudia Bianchi, Pierdaniele Giaretta, Petr Kot’acko, Diego Marconi, Ernesto Napoli, Carlo Penco, John Perry, Marco Santambrogio, and Tim Williamson for criticisms.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Among the critics to this paper are Castañeda 1977 and Neale 1990 (although Neale partially revised his position in Neale 2004; see also Ludlow and Neale 2006). Among the most favorable is Davidson 1986. See Evans 1982 for a more elusive stance. For a pro-Donnellan set of papers, see Almog and Leonardi 2012 (of particular interest is Kaplan 2012).
- 3.
This quote is part of a passage discussing Donnellan’s use of referential. Contrasting reference and denotation, one could offer a general account of referential descriptions (i.e., descriptions and misdescriptions) as pragmatic. For a semantic contrast between reference and denotation, see Capuano 2012. Later, we shall see that not all apparent misdescriptions are one.
- 4.
See also Reimer 1998.
- 5.
Devitt, as Howie Wettstein, claims that we refer using descriptions, but denies that a misdescription refer – meaning, I take, that referring by a misdescription is not a semantic phenomenon.
- 6.
As Searle, Kiefer, and Bierwisch write: “in a meaning as use framework there is no clear separation between semantics and pragmatics, and generally the term ‘pragmatics’ does not even occur” (1980: x–xi).
- 7.
- 8.
The literature on Donnellan referential/attributive distinction is large, consisting in several hundred essays. Amongst many of whom I shall skip, Almog (2012, 2014), and Capuano 2012 take the most extreme stance, insofar as they deny that definite descriptions ever denote – they only refer. Bezuidenhout 2013, meanwhile, complains about how much the philosophical debate on descriptions is detached from the empirical considerations concerning linguists. She surmised a unitary view of definite descriptions, distinguishing those that are attributive from those that are referential as having different focuses – the first on role properties, the second on role bearers (cf. 358ff). Her solution is suprasegmental. Penco 2017 applies the idea of loose talk (see also Sperber and Wilson 1986). However, this sophisticated solution deprives Donnellan’s distinction of its semantic import.
- 9.
- 10.
Published as Kripke 2013.
- 11.
One page later, he added:
Hence, as a theory of definite descriptions, Russell’s view seems to apply, if at all, to the attributive use only (1966: 293 – my italics).
In the 1977 paper, Kripke quoted this remark. He read it as somehow confirming a semantic ambiguity view by Donnellan, rather than denying Russell’s reading of definite descriptions also in the attributive case.
- 12.
Christian Beyer detected the referential/attributive distinction in Edmund Husserl (Husserl 1987: 170ff, cited in Beyer 2001: 279–80).
Whitehead 1920 discusses what we would today call ‘referential demonstrative descriptions’ and solves the problem via the demonstrative, which would refer even if the following description did not fit the case. But Donnellanian referential description is a much more intriguing and interesting case, concerning basic language dynamics. The idea of “solving” the problem via a demonstrative comes up, almost unnoticed, in many authors: «The man over there drinking champagne is happy tonight» (Kripke 1977: 256, my italics); «That man over there with champagne in his glass is happy» (Searle 1979: 196).
I learned of Whitehead via Orilia 2009, who defends a descriptive solution to reference. If the F is the misdescription the speaker uses, Orilia posits another description, the G, which fits the referent. The speaker, he adds, believes that the F is identical to the G. However, this solution is of no help in the transfer of individuation, because the bridge description is not available to the audience.
- 13.
In no way does Grice subscribe to a Humpty Dumpty theory of meaning.
- 14.
- 15.
See the “Prolegomena” to Grice 1989: 3–4.
- 16.
Wittgenstein would not have held that speaker’s meaning is “generated” by speaker’s intention.
- 17.
Many variants that are not in a speaker’s active repertoire are in her passive repertoire.
- 18.
This is a case in which a demonstrative would be misleading, focusing on a particular vehicle or a particular version of a car, rather than on the model.
- 19.
Linguistic training is mostly field learning.
- 20.
Was it a language mistake or mistaking the case? The two aspects are not mutually independent.
- 21.
Sperber and Wilson say «optimally» (19962: 198), but I prefer Simon’s «satisfactory» (Simon 1996 3: 27–28 and 119–120).
- 22.
«We are dealing here with what are often called ‘cues,’ but ‘cues’ in this sense are quite different from ‘clues.’ […] For a cue, in this sense, may be operative without the individual realizing it or even suspecting it.» (Donnellan 1963: 404)
- 23.
Penco 2017 insists on the reasonableness of most misdrescriptions.
- 24.
Something alike also happens with names. An individual has a legal name that, in some countries, he can change, but others cannot. People can introduce nicknames, and these can become popular, but, even if complimentary, they do not replace legal names. That is what happens in Kripke’s famous example on mistaking Smith raking leaves for Jones. Only Smith seems to have the right to have his name changed.
- 25.
See Trask 2009: 28–9. In Romance languages something similar happened to words originating from the Latin fortuna, from which fortuitous too originates.
- 26.
Here are some other examples, someone with a history of shifts. Egregious, for instance, shifted from meaning “outstandingly good” to “outstandingly bad”. An example of an adverb whose meaning in Italian has been changed by mistake in the last 50 years is affatto, which originally meant by all means, and in the negative context, nient’affatto (by no means). Now affatto only means by no means. Glamour (in the sense of magic and enchanting) supposedly comes from grammar, and passed through attractive as applied to «women in the sense of dangerous temptresses», but vulgar, reaching «fashionable, sexy and utterly desirable» or attractive in a special (positive) way (Trask 2009: 6, my italics).
- 27.
Syntactic changes are slow, and they too depend on use. The subjunctive mood is employed less and less, modal auxiliaries are used less, and where possible substituted by semimodals, for example, must by have to, and verbal inflection (especially for future tense) is substituted by adverbial terms. At the same time, there is evidence of a ‘densification’ of the information transferred by noun phrases increasing s-genitives, noun-noun sequences and acronyms. About all these changes there is a vast literature, one I have found very useful is Leech et al. 2009. Phonetic changes have come along with changes in orthography (as often happens in Italian). It is sufficient to read a text from the sixteenth century in order to get a sense of the phonetic dynamics of a language.
- 28.
A prototypical use fixes a referent; a paradigmatic use offers a common way for referring to an individual or an object.
- 29.
That is, ever since how a word connects with a thing became a philosophical concern. An interesting treatment of this issue and its intricacies can be found in Austin 1953.
- 30.
Donnellan writes that «only» in the referential use can a speaker miss what she describes «by a mile», (1968: 209) but this is not so.
- 31.
This precludes the possibility that descriptions refer and never denote, as suggested by Almog and Capuano.
- 32.
- 33.
Kripke 1977’s view.
- 34.
Bell connects the referential/attributive distinction to transparent/opaque context. The connection does not concern me here. Kripke 1977 quotes Bell 1973 in footnote 35, but he discards the proposal, claiming:
[f]or reasons of space I have not treated these views here. But some of my arguments that Donnellan’s distinction is pragmatic apply against them also.
Bell refers to Bach 1968, who, in arguing that noun phrases derive from relative clauses, extends to any of those the restrictive/non-restrictive (or appositive) proper of relative clauses. For a more up-to-date linguistic account of the restrictive/non-restrictive opposition, see Cinque 2008.
- 35.
Devitt 2013.
- 36.
Notwithstanding his criticism of Donnellan and his Russellianism, Kripke 1977 closes “Speaker’s reference and semantic reference” with:
I think that the distinction between semantic reference and speaker’s reference will be of importance not only (as in the present paper) as a critical tool to block postulation of unwarranted ambiguities, but also will be of considerable constructive importance for a theory of language. In particular, I find it plausible that a diachronic account of the evolution of language is likely to suggest that what was originally a mere speaker’s reference may, if it becomes habitual in a community, evolve into a semantic reference. (1977: 291)
Marco Santambrogio was the first to alert me to this passage.
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Leonardi, P. (2019). Descriptions in Use. In: Capone, A., Carapezza, M., Lo Piparo, F. (eds) Further Advances in Pragmatics and Philosophy: Part 2 Theories and Applications. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00973-1_8
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