Donnellan calls the view of Strawson and Frege the referential view of descriptions, because they take the position that descriptions are referen-tial, namelike devices. Since Russell’s stance is that a definite description is a quantifier, we could label Russell’s theory the quantifier view of descrip-tions. But Donnellan chooses to call it the attributive view. The following passage outlines his understanding of these terms:
I will call the two uses of definite descriptions I have in mind the attributive use and the referential use. A speaker who uses a definite description attributively in an as-sertion states something about whoever or whatever is the so-and-so. A speaker who uses a definite description referentially in an assertion, on the other hand, uses the description to enable his audience to pick out whom or what he is talking about and states something about that person or thing. In the first case the definite description might be said to occur essentially, for the speaker wishes to assert something about whatever or whoever fits that description; but in the referential use the definite de-scription is merely one tool for doing a certain job—calling attention to a person or thing—and in general any other device for doing the same job, another description or a name, would do as well. In the attributive use, the attribute of being the so-and-so is all-important, while it is not in the referential use.1
The attributive use is shown in sentences where the predicate “F” in the description is used to apply to whatever satisfies it, not to a particular thing. The fact that a thing in the world actually satisfies the predicate is essential and all-important. With Donnellan’s notion of attributive use, we could paraphrase the sentence “The king of France is bald” as “Who-ever is uniquely king of France is bald”—perhaps asserted in the belief that being king of France induces baldness in whoever occupies that position.
To determine if this sentence is true, we would have to find whoever in the world satisfies the description “the king of France” and then determine whether that person is bald. This is clearly along the lines of Russell’s analy-sis of the semantics of descriptions.
The referential use occurs when the description picks out a particular object in order to identify something for an audience, where the descrip-tion is just a tool for directing the audience’s attendescrip-tion in the right way. In the simplest case, the object of interest is right in front of the speaker and in plain sight of the audience. The description is used to show the audi-ence the particular object the speaker has in mind. The description here is not essential and all-important, because many other modes of identifica-tion would work as well. Imagine a classroom full of students in which one of the male students is wearing a green shirt. A female student could make a statement about him in the following ways: “The guy in the green shirt has a pensive look,” “He [pointing] has a pensive look,” “Billy has a pensive look.” The speaker then chooses one but could have used the others, depending on what she thinks will direct the audience’s attention to the right person most effectively. Her purpose was to identify a certain individual and make a remark about him—she couldn’t care less about the
description itself. She wanted to point out the guy’s pensive look and any mode of designation would do.
Donnellan’s point is that these are very different speech situations in which the speaker has very different communicative intentions. According to him, the description functions differently depending on the intention behind the speech act. He uses a thought experiment to illustrate this point more clearly. Imagine that a detective on a crime scene has encountered the body of a dead man, Smith. The condition of the body is so mutilated that the detective says, “Smith’s murderer is insane!” When he said that, he did not know the identity of the murderer. That statement could be rephrased as “Whoever Smith’s murderer is, he is assuredly insane.” This is an excel-lent example of the attributive use. For that statement to be established as true, the detective would have to find the person who murdered Smith and determine whether or not he is insane. He certainly had no specific individual in mind; hence the use of the quantifier phrase “whoever is the murderer of Smith.”
The same description could also have a referential use. Suppose Jones is being tried for the murder of Smith and one of the jurors notices that Jones is behaving erratically the whole time. The juror then points at Jones and says, “Smith’s murderer is insane.” The juror has thus succeeded in identify-ing Jones. He wanted to sidentify-ingle that man out and make a remark about him;
here the quantifier phrase would be quite inappropriate.
Now consider a case where Jones is not in fact Smith’s murderer though he is on trial and behaving erratically. Donnellan thinks the juror has still iden-tified that individual even though he is not Smith’s murderer, because the audience understands that he intends to refer to Jones and to say he is insane.
It could be the case that Jones is insane but not Smith’s murderer. In that case, the juror has still said something true about Jones because he is insane and the speaker has singled him out. Regardless of the situation and the truth or fal-sity of the juror’s description, the juror has succeeded in identifying the indi-vidual in question by using that definite description. The description itself is not all-important in the reference that the juror has achieved and it is not essential that the referent actually satisfy it. Although the description may be defective if it does not apply to Jones (depending on the situation), the juror has still managed to identify a particular individual using that description.
It is as though the description can function either as a quantifier phrase or as a demonstrative that points out someone. The juror has succeeded in his
referential intention by identifying an individual and making a statement about him. The detective, on the other hand, is best interpreted as saying something analyzable along the lines of Russell’s theory.
There is another thought experiment Donnellan uses that illustrates the same point. Imagine that you are at a party and there is a man apparently drinking a martini who is a famous philosopher. Seeing this man, you say,
“The man drinking a martini is a famous philosopher.” However, suppose that although the man is a famous philosopher, he is drinking water from a martini glass, not a martini. You have said something true about him, but your identifying description does not apply to him. Nevertheless, it can still perform its function of indicating to whom you meant to refer.
Now we can consider a similar case that illustrates the attributive use.
Imagine that the woman running the party does not want people drink-ing alcohol and says, “Who’s the man drinkdrink-ing the martini?” She is not intending to identify a particular individual as you were in the previous example—indeed she is trying to discover who the martini drinker is. If it turns out that the man apparently drinking a martini is not drinking a martini, she will not be concerned. Her speech act requires that there be somebody who satisfies that description. If there is somebody at the party who fits that description, she would have accomplished her aim by using that description. She is using the description to mean “whoever is drinking a martini”—she has no particular individual in mind.
It is also possible that there is in fact another man at the party who is drinking a martini, is in another room, but is not a famous philosopher.
The statement “The man drinking a martini is a famous philosopher”
would then be false if the description is interpreted attributively. Although the man drinking the martini was not your intended reference, he hap-pened to fit your description. Your reference was to the person you incor-rectly described as a martini drinker, though you also said something true about him.
The best way to understand both of these examples is to determine the intention of the speaker. Ask yourself—does the speaker intend to iden-tify a particular individual or just to speak of whoever satisfies a particular description? Sometimes the use of the definite description will have a gen-eral (attributive) intention behind it, and sometimes it will have a singular (referential) intention behind it. It all depends on what the speaker intends to communicate.
Donnellan continues the article by reiterating the main line of argument.
Each of his subsequent examples illustrates the difference in intention in the attributive and referential uses. That is Donnellan’s fundamental way to understand any of these cases. If it does not matter that the description fits the object, it is a referential use. If it does matter, then it is an attribu-tive use. Therefore, we can actually refer to something using a description without truly describing what we are referring to. Referential success does not depend on accurate description.
To sum up: The core of Donnellan’s argument is the distinction between referential and attributive uses. He illustrates the distinction by means of the thought experiments we have just described. A speaker uses the description attributively when she says “Smith’s murderer” with a general intention. The speaker has no particular person in mind when using this description. She could have equally said, “The murderer, whoever he may be, must be insane.” The referential use occurs when the speaker has a par-ticular individual in mind and uses her description to pick out the indi-vidual she has in mind. Donnellan’s main argument deals with these two uses of descriptions—the generality of the attributive use and the particu-larity of the referential use. A consequence of the distinction, according to Donnellan, is that in the referential use the speech act can be successful regardless of the truth or falsity of the description. Referring back to the Smith’s murderer case, Jones might not be the murderer but a juror can still identify Jones by saying, “Smith’s murderer is insane.” Unlike the attribu-tive use, the descripattribu-tive content is not all-important in the referential use.
The description in the referential use is incidental, a mere instrument to identify an individual. Donnellan thinks that the theories of Russell and Frege/Strawson are incorrect because they do not acknowledge the duality of uses of descriptions.
In the rest of his paper, he brings up various consequences of this basic point. By understanding the distinction between these two uses, we can understand his main line of argument. One obvious point is that the refer-ential use occurs when a particular thing is pointed out, and in the attribu-tive use a remark is made involving some general notion. It is the difference between a quantified proposition (as in “whoever”) and a particular proposi-tion (as in “this individual”). The distincproposi-tion is analogous to the distincproposi-tion Russell discusses when he talks about the difference between a name and a description. Using our understanding of Russell is another way to explain
Donnellan’s distinction. He thinks that some uses of definite descriptions are namelike in the Russellian sense, but others are propositional-function-like. Yet the expressions themselves look uniform from use to use.
One of the consequences of this distinction is that even though in both uses the speaker presupposes the individual she is referring to (or trying to refer to) satisfies the description, there are different outcomes of the indi-vidual not satisfying the description. If the description is attributive and no one satisfies it, then the statement cannot be true. According to Russell, the statement would be simply false. For example, according to the theory of descriptions, “The king of France is bald” is false because there exists no such thing as a king of France. If we use this description attributively, and the implication of there being something that fits the description turns out to be false, then the statement cannot be true and must be false. On the other hand, according to Donnellan, in the case of referential use the statement can still say something true regardless of whether the intended referent satisfies the description. It might be that Jones really is insane even though Jones is not in fact Smith’s murderer.
There may also be instances where the speaker does not even believe the description she uses to refer to the individual is true of that individual.
In most instances, the speaker will think that the description applies (e.g., that Jones in the dock is a murderer or that the man over there is drink-ing a martini). However, Donnellan suggests that there can be instances where the speaker knows the description is not true but uses it to identify the individual anyway. Consider the example he gives of a spurious king.
The speaker may believe that this alleged king is a usurper and so not really king, but because everyone else in the country thinks that the man is the rightful king, the speaker still refers to him as such (e.g., “Is the king in the counting house?”). The speaker does not believe that the individual she wishes to speak of is the king but uses the royal description anyway. She makes a successful referential use out of a piece of false description.
The hearer of the sentence may or may not believe the description as well. For example, instead of all of the people around the alleged king thinking that he is the king, they could all think he is a usurper. They may still refer to him as “the king” to avoid any trouble. Everyone in the court will refer to the usurper with the description “the king” and know he is not the king but still use that description anyway. In this case, if our original speaker asks, “Is the king in the counting house?” everyone in the court will
understand to whom the speaker refers, even though they do not believe that impostor to be the king. The description can still refer even if it is false— even if the speaker and hearer know it to be false.