Pragmatics vs Donnellan

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The question Russell’s theory was supposed to answer was,

Which words (and phrases) refer?

Russell: Utterances of phrases of the form ‘the man drinking Martini’ are always quantificational.

Donnellan: Utterances of phrases of the form ‘the man drinking Martini’ are sometimes referential.

Recall Donnellan’s disagreement with Russell ...

What was the argument for Donnellan’s position? It was based on examples like this one ...

‘The man drinking Martini is wearing a hat.’

‘No he isn’t, and he is not drinking Martini.’

Donnellan’s idea was that this. The conversation is successful although, as it turns out, the man is not drinking Martini. Donnellan takes this to show that the utterance of the phrase ‘The man drinking Martini’ is referential rather than quantificational.

An alternative to Donnellan’s view:

The PE is ‘There is one and only one man drinking Martini, and he is wearing a hat’.

The PM is a proposition about that man (who isn’t actually drinking Martini).

An alternative to Donnellan’s view: \begin{enumerate} \item The PE is ‘There is one and only one man drinking Martini, and he is wearing a hat’. \item The PM is a proposition about that man (who isn’t actually drinking Martini). \end{enumerate} Given this alternative, can Donnellan’s objection to Russell on descriptions be rejected on the grounds that his distinction between attributive and referential uses concerns the Proposition Meant (PM) whereas Russell’s theory of descriptions is about the Proposition Expressed (PE)?

That might be too quick---it depends on how anaphoric uses of pronouns work, among other things (see \citet{ludlow:1991_indefinite}).

But that is a topic beyond the scope of these lectures (although those interested can read further, and it would be a fine essay topic).

Neale provides a nice clear statement of the disagreement as it now stands:

“The Russellian and the ambiguity theorist [i.e. Donnellan] agree that when a description is used referentially, (one of) the proposition(s) meant is object-dependent;

they just provide different explanations of this fact.

The referentialist complicates the semantics of ‘the’; [i.e. explains it by appeal to PE]

the Russellian appeals to antecedently motivated principles governing the nature of rational discourse and ordinary inference [i.e. explains it by appeal to PM].”

\citep[p.~90]{Neale:1990hg}

Neale, 1990 p. 90

conclusion

In conclusion, ...

So what have we learned? Three things.

There may a distinction between MS, PE and PM.

In evaulating objections to Russell’s theory of descriptions, we should to take this three-fold distinction into account.

... This is a bit of an understatement. In evaulating almost any theory about what words or phrases mean, we will probably need that distinction. (This is going to be a topic in future lectures.)

To better understand communication with words, we probably need to look more deeply at the distinction between MS, PE and PM.

And that could be the end of this lecture. There’s just one last thing I’d like to squeeze in if there’s time ...

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Pragmatics vs Donnellan

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