H. Paul Grice and Keith S. Donnellan

Speranza

Grice quotes Donnellan in "Vacuous Names".

And of course Donnellan quotes Grice, especially in the dispute with Kripke and others.

Keith Donnellan taught UCLA and, before that, at Cornell, from where he earned his PhD.

Donnellan has contributed to the philosophy of language, most notably to the analysis of proper names and definite descriptions.

For instance, Donnellan criticized Bertrand Russell's theory of definite descriptions for overlooking the distinction between referential and attributive use of definite descriptions.

Grice thinks HIS (i.e. Grice's) distinction between identificatory and non-identificatory uses is perhaps better. (Grice uses "THE" as identificatory and 'the' as NON-identificatory -- this section is repr. in the MIT compilation on Definite Descriptions -- vide also Evans, "Varieties of Reference", for Grice's idea of a conversational dossier that Grice associates with these identificatory and non-identificatory uses.

Many analytic philosophers have accepted a view regarding the reference-relation that holds of proper names and that which they name which is known as descriptivism and attributed to Bertrand Russell.

Descriptivism holds that ordinary proper names (e.g., 'Socrates', 'Richard Feynman', and 'Madagascar') may be paraphrased by definite descriptions (e.g., 'Plato's favorite philosopher', 'the man who devised the theory of quantum electrodynamics', and 'the largest island off the southeastern coast of Africa').

Saul Kripke gave a series of three lectures at Princeton University in 1970, later published as Naming and Necessity -- and also Ruth Barcan Marcus --. They argued against Descriptivism and sketched the "Causal-Historical View of Reference" according to which each proper name necessarily designates a particular object and that the identity of the object so designated is determined by the history of the name's use.

Kripke's lectures were highly influential and marked the decline of Descriptivism's popularity.

Stampe and Patton -- well-known Griceians -- wrote about this. (Nottably Patton).

Kripke's alternative view was, by his own account, not fully developed in his lectures.

Donnellan's work on proper names is among the earliest and most influential developments of the Causal-Historical View of Reference.


"Reference and Definite Descriptions" has been one of Donnellan's most influential essays.

Written in response to the work of Bertrand Russell and P.F. Strawson (a pupil of H. P. Grice at St. John's) in the area of definite descriptions, the essay develops a distinction between the "referential use" and the "attributive use" of a definite description.

The attributive use most nearly reflects Russell's understanding of descriptions.

D. E. Over and M. Sainsbury developed Grecian extensions of Donnellan's treatment.

When a person uses a description such as "Smith's murderer" attributively, they mean to pick out the individual that fits that description, whoever or whatever it is. The referential use, on the other hand, functions to pick out who or what a speaker is talking about, so that something can be said about that person or thing.

REFERENCES

Donnellan, Keith S. "Reference and Definite Descriptions". The Philosophical Review (The Philosophical Review, Vol. 75, No. 3) 75 (3): 281–304.
Donnellan, K. S. "Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions". In Donald Davidson and Gilbert Harman (ed.). Semantics of Natural Language. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. pp. 356–379.
Donnellan, K. S. "The Contingent A Priori and Rigid Designators". Midwest Studies in Philosophy (2): 12–27.
Donnellan, K. S. "Speaker Reference, Descriptions, and Anaphora". In Peter Cole (ed.). Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. pp. 47–68. (Grice contributed to the volume).

See also:
Philosophy
List of philosophers
References:
Jump up ^ Lycan, William G., Philosophy of Language - a contemporary introduction, pp. 26-30
Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Cumming, Sam. "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy". Names.
Ludlow, Peter. Peter Ludlow, ed. Readings in the Philosophy of Language. The MIT Press.
Martinich, A.P. "Reference and Descriptions". In A.P. Martinich. The Philosophy of Language. New York, New York. pp. 209–216.  |
Donnellan, Keith (1966). "Reference and Definite Descriptions". In A.P. Martinich. The Philosophy of Language. New York, New York. pp. 265–277. 

Categories: philosophers, Philosophers of language, Analytic philosophers, University of California, Los Angeles faculty