ATTRIBUTIVE USE AND REFERENTIAL USE OF DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS

1. REFERENCE AND
DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS
KEITH DONNELLAN
DENMARK
HUGO

2. INTRODUCTION
Definite descriptions, I shall argue, have two possible functions. They are
used to refer to what a speaker wishes to talk about, but they are also used
quite differently. Moreover, a definite description occurring in one and the
same sentence may, on different occasions of its use, function in either way.
The failure to deal with this duality of function obscures the genuine
referring use of definite descriptions.
The best- known theories of definite descriptions, those of Russell and
Strawson, I shall suggest are both guilty of this. Before discussing this
distinction in use, I will mention some features of these to which it is
especially relevant.

3. ASSUMPTIONS OF DONNELLAN
Donnellan thinks that both Russell and Strawson make two false
assumptions, and that by rejecting these assumptions we can solve a
number of problems with both theories which emerge in the course of the
paper.
The first assumption is that…
“We can ask how a definite description functions in a sentence
independently of a particular occasion on which it is used.”

4. ASSUMPTIONS OF DONNELLAN
Donnellan thinks that there is a very basic problem with the way that
Russell and Strawson attempt to give an account of the meanings of
descriptions; both of them – and we’ve seen this with Russell - attempt to
show how descriptions contribute to the meanings of sentences. But he
does not focus on how descriptions contribute to the meanings of sentences
on particular occasions of the use of those sentences.

5. ASSUMPTIONS OF DONNELLAN
The second assumption Donnellan wants to call into question is that…
“In many cases a person who uses a definite description can be said
(in some sense) to presuppose or imply that something fits the
description. . . . Both Russell and Strawson assume that where the
presupposition or implication is false, the truth value of what the
speaker said is affected.”

6. ASSUMPTIONS OF DONNELLAN
That is, both Russell and Strawson assume that whenever a speaker utters a
sentence of the form ‘The F is G’, what they say is not true if there is no
thing which is F.
As we’ll see, these two assumptions are related in Donnellan’s mind. For, he
thinks, if Russell and Strawson had paid more attention to the interpretation
of sentences containing definite descriptions on particular occasions of use,
they would have seen that there are two distinct uses of definite
descriptions, and that on one of these uses, there is no such requirement for
the truth of the sentence that anything satisfy the description ‘the F.’

7. TWO USES OF DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS
Donnellan argues that neither Russell nor Strawson I right. Each is partly
right, because each focuses on just of two different uses of definite
descriptions. And spite of their opposition, they share some false
assumptions in common.
ATTRIBUTIVE USE AND REFERENTIAL USE

8. ATTRIBUTIVE USE
A speaker who uses a definite description attributively in an assertion states
something about whoever or whatever is the so- and- so.
An illustration of the difference: “Smith’s murderer is insane.”
Attributive: the speaker says this without having any particular person in
mind, basing his claim solely on the particularly brutal manner in which
Smith has been murdered.

9. REFERENTIAL USE
“A speaker who uses a definite description referentially in an assertion …
uses the description to enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is
talking about and states something about that person or thing”
An illustration of the difference: “Smith’s murderer is insane.”
Referential: Jones has been charged with the murder and has been put on
trial, where his behavior is distinctly odd. The speaker (having Jones in
mind) utters the same sentence.

10. CRITICISM OF RUSSELL AND STRAWSON
Against Russell:
Russell’s theory applies at most to the attributive use of descriptions. He
fails to account for the referential use. So Russell gets one of the two uses
(the attributive), but misses the other.
Against Strawson:
Strawson’s theory accommodates the referential use, but “it goes too far in
this direction”. For it fails to allow for the referential use to occur
successfully even though nothing satisfies the description. So Strawson gets
the referential use only partly right.

11. THEIR COMMON ERROR…
Both Russell and Strawson agree that when nothing fits the description,
truth- value is affected. That is, if there is no ϕ, the truth- value of an
utterance of a sentence of the form ‘the ϕ is ψ’ will be affected. For
Russell, the sentence is false; for Strawson, it is neither true nor false.
Donnellan counters that Russell and Strawson are both wrong about the
referential use. That is, a speaker may use ‘the ϕ is ψ’ to say something
true even though nothing satisfies the description ‘the ϕ’ (i.e., there is no
ϕ).

12. THE KEY IDEA…
The key idea: one may succeed in referring to something by using a
description that does not correctly describe the thing one is referring to.
Example: consider again the referential use of “Smith’s murderer is insane”
considered above. If it turns out that Jones is not guilty — indeed, that
Smith was not actually murdered at all — then the description ‘Smith’s
murderer’ does not apply to anyone. Neither Jones nor anyone else fits the
description. Nevertheless, Donnellan claims, the speaker has used the
sentence to say something true: he has said of Jones, the man he referred
to by means of the (inappropriate, as it turns out) description ‘Smith’s
murderer’, that he is insane. And if Jones is, indeed, insane, the speaker
has said something true.

13. FURTHER ANALYSIS…
Attributive use.
We come across Smith, foully murdered. From the manner of killing and
Smith’s good character, we might claim “The murderer of Smith is insane.”
This might be paraphrased as the claim that whoever killed Smith must have
been insane.
Referential use.
We are at the trial of Jones, who has been accused of murdering Smith. One
the basis of his behavior, we might claim “The murderer of Smith is insane.”
In this case it is the speaker’s intention not to use the description to refer
to whoever satisfies some condition, but to pick out that one individual:
Jones.

14. FURTHER ANALYSIS…
How are these uses supposed to be different? Donnellan isolates a number
of points of difference; here I want to focus on two.
Difference 1.
In attributive uses of ‘The F is G’, if nothing is F, then nothing has been
said to be G: nothing is referred to. But in referential uses of ‘The F is G’,
something will still have been said to be G, even if that thing is not
Difference 2.
In both uses of ‘The F is G’, it is in some sense presupposed or implied that
something is F. But in referential uses, it is implied that some particular
object o is F, whereas in attributive uses it is implied that something or
other is F without this being implied of any particular object.

15. FURTHER ANALYSIS…

16. WHAT MAKES A USE ATTRIBUTIVE OR
REFERENTIAL?
We already know that the referential/attributive distinction cannot be
explained in terms of a distinction between two different kinds of
descriptions: after all, as Donnellan has argued, one and the same
description may be used referentially in one context and attributively in
another.

17. WHAT MAKES A USE ATTRIBUTIVE OR
REFERENTIAL?
A natural suggestion is that what makes the difference is whether the
speaker has any beliefs about whether a particular individual satisfies the
description. This seems to fit the Smith’s murderer cases; in the attributive
use, the speaker does not have any beliefs that a particular individual is
the murderer of Smith, whereas in the attributive use (in the courtroom)
he does. But, as Donnellan points out (in §IV), this is not quite right. The
person standing by Smith’s body could have had beliefs about who the
murderer was, and still used the description attributively; and someone
might even believe that someone other than Jones murdered Smith, while
still using the description referentially to pick Jones out.

18. WHAT MAKES A USE ATTRIBUTIVE OR
REFERENTIAL?
Rather, it seems clear that, as Donnellan suggests, it is the intentions of a
speaker which make the difference between referential and attributive
uses of a definite description. After all, the intuitive way to explain the
distinction in the first place is that referential uses are characterized by
speakers intending to use the description to single out a particular
individual about whom they wish to say something.
“In general, whether or not a definite description is used referentially
or attributively is a function of the speaker’s intentions in a particular
case.”
As Donnellan puts the matter,