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1

The Attributive-Referential Distinction and Uses of Definite Descriptions

100%

Rostworowski W.

Filozofia Nauki

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2014

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vol. 22

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issue 3

27-42

PL

The paper discusses various uses of definite descriptions. The aim is to demon-strate that the commonly adopted Donnellan’s dichotomous division into “attributive” and “referential” uses is inadequate. The uses of definite descriptions exhibit a significant variety and do not constitute two homogenous classes. In particular, there are uses which have some features of both referential and attributive uses. These are the cases where the speaker’s use of a description rests on some causal links to a particular object - like in the case of referential uses - but the speaker intends her audience to make an independent identification of that object, which is characteristic of the attributive use. Such uses match Ludlow’s and Neale’s characterization of the specific use of indefinite descriptions. At the end of the article, the author briefly considers the impact of his observations on the widely discussed issue of a proper semantic theory of definite descriptions.

2

Rigid Designation and Definite Descriptions

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Rostworowski W.

Filozofia Nauki

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2011

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vol. 19

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issue 4

103-118

PL

The aim of this paper is to discuss an idea that referentially used definite descriptions are rigid designators or, at least, „weakly” rigid designators in some sense of this term. In the first part, the views of Nathan Salmon, Howard Wettstein and Michael Devitt are presented. The author observes that none of these positions provides a conclusive argument in the discussion on the issue in question. In the second part, it is argued that referentially used descriptions are in some sense rigid. The main argument appeals to some observations concerning the scope ambiguity of modal constructions in which definite descriptions are embedded, and applies in an essential way Kripke’s possible worlds-semantics. In particular, the author attempts to demonstrate that in a „de dicto” modal construction, a referential description is rigid in a sense that it designates the same object in all „accessible” worlds. Moreover, he observes that his conclusion can be accepted by someone who is a proponent of a unified semantic analysis of definite descriptions, since his whole argumentation is based on the unified quantificational treatment of descriptions.

3

The Attributive Use and Russell’s Paradigm

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Rostworowski W.

Filozofia Nauki

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2013

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vol. 21

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issue 2

59-68

PL

According to the prevailing view, Russell’s theory of descriptions provides an adequate semantic account of sentences with definite descriptions in the attributive use. The author challenges this assumption. Firstly, he presents two general ‘Strawsonian’ objections to Russell’s theory, which, as he argues, are valid in the case of attributive assertions. Those are arguments against the so called existential reading and the uniqueness-reading of an attributively used sentence of the form “The F is G”. Finally, the author presents his own objection which appeals to the fact that the Russellian analysis does not account for an intuitive inferential property of attributive assertions.

4

On Methodology of Experimental Philosophy, Testing for Implicatures, and Semantics of “or”

51%

Rostworowski W., Będkowski M., Pietrulewicz N.

Filozofia Nauki

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2016

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vol. 24

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issue 3

135-161

PL

The aim of the paper is to investigate a methodological problem facing the experimental research in philosophy. The difficulty concerns a commonly applied questionnaire method involving truth-value evaluation tasks: the data obtained by using such a method cannot provide conclusive evidence in developing a semantic theory of language due to the risk that the respondents focus on pragmatic properties of the statements under evaluation instead of the semantic ones. In particular, they may confuse truth-conditions of a statement with its implicatures. We propose a model which can help to establish - to a certain degree - whether the content assigned by respondents to a given statement is rather pragmatic or semantic (i.e. if it is an implicature or not). This model appeals to "practical" tests for implicatures, widely recognized in linguistic literature. We illustrate our proposal with some experimental research on the semantics of "or" in the Polish language ("lub") which aims to specify the status of the exclusive sense of this connective.

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The Attributive-Referential Distinction and Uses of Definite Descriptions

Rigid Designation and Definite Descriptions

The Attributive Use and Russell’s Paradigm

On Methodology of Experimental Philosophy, Testing for Implicatures, and Semantics of “or”