Definite descriptions are ambiguous

Abstract

1. The problem 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, 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. 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). I think all such arguments against Ambiguity have been seriously weakened in the face of the following points: (a) definite descriptions are regularly used referentially, and this shows that there is no prima facie reason to deny that referential uses are literal; actually, this usage regularity strongly suggests that referential uses are literal, just as literal as attributive uses (Devitt 1997; Reimer 1998; compare Neale 2004); (b) complex demonstratives and referentially used definite descriptions are used similarly in a wide variety of situations, and this strongly suggests that both expressions have a similar referential meaning (Devitt 2004) (e.g. `That/the concert last night was great, wasn’t it?’); (c) referentially used `incomplete’ descriptions may be used to express truths even when speakers cannot provide completions for them, and this also strongly suggests that descriptions have a referential meaning (e.g. `the tall kid who used to sit in the front row in first grade was born in Rio de Janeiro’) (Wilson 1991; Devitt 2004; compare Wettstein 1981; Schiffer 2005). Thus, not only do I think that the Gricean arguments above do not succeed in undermining Ambiguity. I also think there is a strong case for Ambiguity.