Abstract
In his recently published John Locke Lectures, Saul Kripke attempts to capture Keith Donnellan’s referential/attributive distinction for definite descriptions using a distinction between general and specific intentions. I argue that although Kripke’s own way of capturing the referential/attributive distinction is inadequate, we can use general and specific intentions to successfully capture the distinction if we also distinguish between primary and secondary intentions. An attributive use is characterized by the fact that the general intention is either the primary or only designative intention, whereas a referential use occurs when a specific intention is either the primary or only designative intention. Along the way, accounts of the referential/attributive distinction offered by John Searle and by Kepa Korta and John Perry come in for criticism as well, and we’ll also discuss Michael O’Rourke’s dual-aspect uses of definite descriptions.
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Notes
I use ‘designative intention’ to mean any kind of intention to pick out an individual with an utterance. Designative intention is the genus of which intentions to refer, denote, and demonstrate are species. I should also note that the issues under discussion here are closely related to the question of whether the R/A distinction is semantically significant. I will not explicitly enter into that debate, but I want to acknowledge that Kripke (1977, p. 255; 2013, pp. 122–123) takes his way of accounting for the R/A distinction to show that Donnellan does not give us a reason to think the distinction is semantically significant. My way of accounting for the distinction is compatible with that aim, but this paper should also be of interest to those who find arguments for the distinction’s semantic significance convincing. For examples of such arguments, see Wettstein (1981), Reimer (1992), Amaral (2008), and Devitt (2004). Sennet (2002), on the other hand, presents considerations that point back toward seeing the R/A distinction as pragmatic, despite the sort of argument Reimer makes. Bach (2004), Salmon (2004), and Nunberg (2004) also provide developments of Kripke’s idea that the distinction is a pragmatic phenomenon.
These definitions differ slightly from Kripke’s own. For Kripke (1977, pp. 263–264), the general intention involves “conventions of [the speaker’s] idiolect.” I think that insofar as an idiolect has conventions, they will be the conventions of the larger linguistic group, so I leave idiolects aside. Also, my claim that a specific intention involves having an object in mind is just one legitimate interpretation of Kripke’s remarks about specific intentions.
My notion of a procedure bears significant similarities to Bratman’s (1987, pp. 56–57) notion of a general policy. I should also note that Ray (1980, p. 445, n. 7) alludes to the ambiguity problem we have been discussing. Cashing out general intentions in terms of procedures avoids another issue that Ray mentions in the same footnote: “general intentions are of the wrong kind for initiating an action.” If general intentions are really procedures that generate ordinary intentions when they are followed, then there is no problem about the connection to initiating action.
A speaker’s procedure for using a definite description is derived from her procedures with each of the words included in the description. We will not say more about that complication here.
Or, as Kripke (1977, p. 264) puts it, the specific intention here just is the general intention. As Kanterian (2011, p. 369) notes, this claim is a little mysterious if specific and general intentions are supposed to be two fundamentally different kinds of intentions. However, our replacement of general intentions with general procedures that generate ordinary intentions on particular occasions removes the air of mystery.
I am indebted to Wettstein (1984, p. 69, 81 n. 23) for the idea of distinguishing between primary and secondary designative intentions. The role of that distinction in Wettstein’s paper suggests that some of the discussion here might have interesting implications for indexicals.
This causal characterization of the distinction between primary and secondary intentions comes from McKinsey (1978, pp. 176–177), whom Wettstein (1984) cites. McKinsey himself cites Castañeda (1971). I say “caused the second intention to exist” rather than just saying “caused the formation of the second intention” to allow for cases in which the relative priority of two intentions changes over time. For instance, imagine someone intends to drive through her grandmother’s childhood hometown because she believes it is the quickest way to her destination. That intention causes her to form an intention to please her grandmother, because she foresees the consequence and finds it desirable. Then she finds out that there is a faster route that avoids her grandmother’s hometown, but her formerly secondary intention to please her grandmother is strong enough to keep the intention to drive through her hometown in existence. The intention to please her grandmother then becomes primary.
Interestingly, Kripke (2013, p. 119) does say that in a referential use, the speaker’s “primary intention” may be to talk about the individual she has in mind. He doesn’t develop the idea of primary intentions beyond this mention in connection with referential cases, and it doesn’t appear in his main statement of how he handles the R/A distinction (Kripke 2013, pp. 122–123). Furthermore, the way in which he mentions it doesn’t allow him to capture the Teacher or King cases. However, it is interesting to see that idea make an appearance.
Ray (1980, p. 445, n. 7) also gives what he takes to be an attributive use that contains both a general and specific intention as a counterexample to Kripke’s account of the R/A distinction, although without more development it is hard to see exactly how his case is supposed to work.
We might also use the name ‘Einstein’ for someone who is very smart (or sarcastically for someone who isn’t), ‘Sherlock’ for someone who is being unusually inquisitive, or ‘Cinderella’ for someone who is complaining about chores.
On this point, cf. Wettstein (2004, p. 72). I should also note that Searle (1979, p. 196) allows that a “collection of aspects” (rather than just a single aspect) could be primary, but in order to remain consistent with his other claims he would have to require that any such collection of aspects be completely determinate as well. See, for instance, Searle’s (1979, pp. 197–198) claim that the primary aspect must be determinate in order for there to be a determinate statement that is made in a referential use.
Searle (1979, pp. 202–203) acknowledges that his picture of the aspects under which we think of an individual when we refer is somewhat oversimplified. However, he still holds onto the idea that a speaker can specify the primary aspect under which she was thinking of her referent if the need arises.
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Acknowledgments
For helpful feedback on drafts of this paper, I am grateful to Peter Graham, Meredith McFadden, Eliot Michaelson, Luis Montes, Courtney Morris, John Perry, Howard Wettstein, Monique Wonderly, and several anonymous referees.
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Stotts, M.H. Understanding the Intentions Behind the Referential/Attributive Distinction. Erkenn 82, 351–362 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9821-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-016-9821-y