Definite Descriptions in Desire Reports: In Defense of a Quantificational Approach

Abstract

Russell's "On Denoting" (1905) and Strawson's "On Referring" (1950) gave rise to a controversy of two views on definite descriptions predominating in contemporary philosophy of language. According to Russellians, a definite description is a device of quantification over objects, while Strawsonians treat definite descriptions as referential expressions. Recently, Ramachandran has offered a Strawsonian theory and adduced some fresh objections to the quantificational view. In this essay, I examine one of his objections and show that it is not valid. Ramachandran claims that some desire reports containing definite
descriptios "de dicto" cannot be plausibly analyzed if we adopt the quantificational theory of definite descriptions. His example is the sentence "Jones wants Smith's murderer caught." The quantificational view commits us to include the proposition that Smith has been murdered in the scope of "wants" and Ramachandran maintains that this yields the absurd reading of the sentence to the effect that Jones wants Smith dead. He concludes that desire reports like the one in question provide a counter-example to the Russellian view. I find this conclusion premature. I argue that the adequate analysis of desire reports like the cited one should take into account complexity of the propositional attitudes under consideration. Distinguishing what I propose to call presupposition of desire and its object enables us to provide an adequate analysis of this sort of sentence that excludes the absurd reading mentioned above and preserves the quantificational approach to definite descriptions.