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Donnellan’s distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions has two explanations — the semantic and the pragmatic one. A version of semantic explanations was outlined by Kaplan and elaborated in detail by Marti. They construe a referentially used definite description as a proper name in the Millian sense. In a recent paper, I showed that the evidence Kaplan–Marti theory relies on is inappropriate with respect to the standard case of referential use, which makes the pragmatic theory preferable. This paper is a continuation of the cited one. Here I examine a number of non-standard cases of referential use and demonstrate that, with respect to them, Kaplan–Marti theory has no advantage over the pragmatic account either.

Donnellan’s distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions gave rise to controversy between semantic and pragmatic accounts of referentially used descriptions. Kaplan adumbrated and Marti elaborated in detail a semantic account that assimilates referentially used definite descriptions with proper names in the sense of the theory of direct reference. I argue that the evidence Kaplan-Marti theory relies on is inappropriate, and conclude that KaplanMarti theory has no advantage over the pragmatic account of referential use in Donnellan’s sense.

Utterances in which a referentially used definite description occurs as subject term may sometimes receive an argumentative interpretation, according to which the subject serves to introduce and justify the predicate. This paper aims to give an account of this “argumentative” use of definite descriptions within the framework of an argumentation-based semantics, Marion Carel’s “theory of semantic blocks”. Especially, it will be argued that a definite description can be used argumentatively in an utterance when its function is to provide a schema on the basis of which the argumentative interpretation of the utterance is constructed.

In the article some problems concerned an application of standard conception of reference to the word “God” are considered in tradition of analytic philosophy. The author engages in a discussion with R. Swinburne and W. Alston. According to conception mentioned above proper names denote particular things. But an interpretation of such expressions in accord with the standard view presupposes that proper referents should be assigned to them, and those to be found in a world the utterance of the name is about. But in order to do this an interpreter has to be able to identify the referent. Meanwhile even those things which we can immediately interact with, are structurally complex and susceptible to changes, including differences in presentations to subjects. This makes their givennes and identification quite a problem. Yet more problematic looks an assignment of a standard reference to a name which is supposed to designate something unable to be immediately given to any competent language speaker, like historic object, event or person, or God. This paper analyses different accounts of interpretation of proper names. It proposes a model of interpretation according to which proper names may be assigned standard references without the referents to be somehow given an agent of an utterance, based on a Kripkean historical account coupled with an understanding of proper names as anaphors. Its application to conventional uses of the name «God» in monotheistic discourses is critically analyzed.

This paper reexamines some examples, discussed by Mates and others, of sentences containing both definite descriptions and quantifiers. It has frequently been claimed that these sentences provide evidence for the view that definite descriptions themselves are quantifiers. The main goal of this paper is to argue this is not so. Though the examples are compatible with quantificational approaches to definite descriptions, they are also compatible with views that treat definite descriptions as basically scopeless. They thus provide no reason to see definite descriptions as quantifiers. Even so, this paper shows that the examples do raise a surprising range of complex issues about how quantifier scope works, and where it occurs. Thus, a clear picture of how these examples work will help us to understand better where definite descriptions fit into the larger picture of quantifiers and related phenomena.

In the present study, I present an analysis of proper names and definite descriptions based on Machery et al. (2004), in the treatment of Petho (2005a), which I revisit by pointing at several theoretical aspects not detailed or not mentioned by Petho. After presenting the experiment and its pitfalls I discuss the function and behaviour of definite descriptions, providing arguments that a cognitive approach would be more suitable to treat these linguistic phenomena.