The Presentational Use of Descriptions

Analytic Philosophy 60 (4):361-384 (2019)
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Abstract

Discussing Keith Donnellan's distinction between attributive and referential uses of descriptions, Gareth Evans considered a speaker he found it natural to describe as having “given expression to” a singular thought, though he insisted she was not referring to the person she has in mind. On accounts otherwise similar to Evans's, to express a singular thought just is to refer. Thus, as he does not explain why this speaker might speak this way, it is tempting to ignore this as a slip. On the contrary, I shall argue, Evans has good reason to deny that picture of reference. My interest, though, is in the case itself. It turns out it is a presentational use of descriptions: it provides its audience a cognitive ability they would otherwise lack. This characterization raises deep theoretical questions which I only begin to address here. My goal is to show that we ought to address those questions, for there is no better way of understanding examples like Evans's than to see them as presentational.

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Michael R. Hicks
Miami University, Ohio

Citations of this work

Singular mental abilities.Michael R. Hicks - 2021 - European Journal of Philosophy 30 (2):639-660.

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References found in this work

On Denoting.Bertrand Russell - 1905 - Mind 14 (56):479-493.
Scorekeeping in a language game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1):339--359.
Mental Files.François Récanati - 2012 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Reference and definite descriptions.Keith S. Donnellan - 1966 - Philosophical Review 75 (3):281-304.
The reference book.John Hawthorne & David Manley - 2012 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by David Manley.

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