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The Wettstein/Salmon Debate: Critique and Resolution
Author(s) -
Reimer Marga
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0114.00054
Subject(s) - unitary state , ambiguity , attributive , epistemology , philosophy , function (biology) , resolution (logic) , linguistics , computer science , biology , evolutionary biology , artificial intelligence , political science , law
Does Keith Donnellan's referential/attributive distinction have ‘semantic significance’? Howard Wettstein has claimed (in several papers) that it does; Nathan Salmon has responded (in several papers) that it does not. Specifically, while Wettstein has claimed that definite descriptions, used referentially, function semantically as demonstratives, Salmon has responded to Wettstein's claims by defending a unitary Russellian account of such expressions, according to which they invariably function as quantifiers. This paper involves a critique of the debate between Wettstein and Salmon, and offers a tentative resolution of that debate: one that favors Wettstein's ‘ambiguity’ account over the unitary Russellian account defended by Salmon.