“Reassessing the Semantic Significance of the Referential/Attributive Distinction”

Genoveva Martí

Dept. of Philosophy

London School of Economics

ABSTRACT

According to Donnellan a characteristic mark of a referential use of a definite description is that the description can be used to pick out an individual that does not satisfy the attributes in the description. Friends and foes of the referential/attributive distinction have equally dismissed that point as obviously wrong. The very fact that Donnellan makes it a mark of referential uses contributes essentially to Kripke’s argument in “Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference” showing that the distinction between referential and attributive uses is purely pragmatic. On the other camp, Kaplan (“Dthat”) views the distinction as semantically relevant, for on his view the description can function in a way similar to a demonstration. Referential uses generate singular propositions and contribute as a constituent the individual that uniquely satisfies the attributes in the description.

I will argue that Donnellan's remark is on the right track. This does not mean that I espouse his claim that the object a referential use of the F refers to is the object the speaker has in mind. What, on my view, Donnellan is right about, is previous to the question of how the referent of a referential use is determined.

Kaplan and others have argued that genuinely referential devices contribute objects to propositions. The crucial idea behind this characterization is that the object, and not a semantic mechanism nor a descriptive profile, is what determines truth conditions. From that point of view, if descriptions can be used as referential devices Kaplan’s interpretation of the semantic import of the referential/attributive distinction follows naturally. However, I will claim that there is a different characterization of what it is for an expression to be a pure device of reference, one that stresses that the connection between the expression and the referent is direct and unmediated, and in particular that it is not mediated with any attributive conditions associated with the expression in question. Taking this characterization of genuine reference as basic, I will argue that if a definite description can be used as a genuine device of reference, it must refer, in the particular referential use, independently of the referent's satisfaction of any properties associated with the description, in particular of those properties conventionally associated with the description as its meaning.

I will conclude with a discussion of the question how a description referentially used acquires a referent. I have mentioned before that I do not endorse Donnellan’s claim that the referent is the object the speaker has in mind, so I will defend a position that makes a referential use of a definite description closer to a (short-lived) name. I’ll argue that what determines successful reference in the case of a description used referentially has more to do with the creation of a temporary convention, a symbol or a stand-in for a thing, in a way similar to the way in which a symbol such as “Dartmouth” is created as a stand in for a city.