Definite descriptions are ambiguous

Abstract

Keith Donnellan (1966) contrasted two uses of definite descriptions, the referential and the attributive. In using a definite description referentially the speaker communicates content about a particular object in mind,1 whereas in using the same description attributively the speaker communicates content about whatever object uniquely satisfies the description. Assuming that definite descriptions have a quantificational attributive meaning, the main problem raised by Donnellan's contrast between uses is whether descriptions also have a referential meaning.2 If they do, it is plausible to think that the definite article is ambiguous between a referential and an attributive meaning. In what follows, I will call this thesis ‘Ambiguity’. For ease of exposition, I will take it as a thesis about English. The most influential arguments against Ambiguity invoke the independently motivated Gricean distinction between what a speaker means and what he or she says (Grice 1989). According to these arguments, we do not need to postulate a referential meaning for definite descriptions to account for referential uses. We can account for such uses in terms of what a speaker means but does not literally say. Thus, in using a definite description referentially the speaker means or communicates content about a particular object in mind, but what the speaker literally says is determined by the description's quantificational attributive meaning. We are then told that on the grounds of parsimony this account of referential uses is superior to Ambiguity (see Grice 1969; Kripke 1977; Bach 1981; Neale 1990).