Pragmatics and Singular Reference

Mind and Language 11 (2):133-159 (1996)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

:I present arguments in favour of the view that the propositions expressed by utterances containing singularly referring terms have modes of presentation of the objects referred to by those terms as constituents. I rely on recent work by Sperber and Wilson, Recanati and other pragmatists, and claim that a Fregean account of singular reference is supported by this work. This is in opposition to Recanati himself, who in his book Direct Reference has argued for a view which is closer to that of some neo‐Russellians. In particular, I argue contra Recanati for the truth‐conditional relevance of the modes of presentation associated with demonstratives and other referential terms. That is, 1 argue that these modes of presentation must be seen as part of the truth‐conditional content of utterance‐tokens containing such terms.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 104,706

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-24

Downloads
77 (#292,314)

6 months
4 (#1,015,396)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Anne Louise Bezuidenhout
University of South Carolina

References found in this work

The Varieties of Reference.Gareth Evans - 1982 - Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edited by John Henry McDowell.
Thought and reference.Kent Bach - 1987 - New York: Clarendon Press.
Direct Reference: From Language to Thought.François Récanati - 1993 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.
Relevance.D. Sperber & Deirdre Wilson - 1986 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 2.

View all 16 references / Add more references