Mind Association

Definite Descriptions as Designators

Author(s): Evan Fales
Source: Mind, New Series, Vol. 85, No. 338 (Apr., 1976), pp. 225-238
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2253119
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Definite Descriptions as Designators

EVAN FALES

Referring is a kind of action. The intentional considerations which

bear upon its character have not, I believe, been sufficiently
exploited yet in the area of modal semantics. It has been suggested
that in order to make sense of quantification into modal contexts, it
is necessary to provide a semantics which clarifies the notion of
'transworld identification', and it is argued that any such semantics
will entail a commitment to some form of essentialism.' Saul
Kripke, on the other hand, has maintained that it is not through
some sort of transworld identification that the intelligibility of
modal contexts is to be explicated, but rather by considering the
means by which reference may be fixed upon items in the real
world.2 Thus, Kripke says, to hold that

(i) Richard Nixon might not have won the 1972 Presidential
election.

is not to suppose that there must be some individual in some poss-

ible world who lost an election and is somehow to be identified
with the Richard Nixon of this world, but rather to hold that
something is true of the individual in this world upon whom
reference is fixed by means of the use of the proper name 'Richard
Nixon'.
If reference can thus be fixed in this world, one can avoid the
embarrassment of supposing that the same individual must some-
how be reidentified in some other possible world(s), provided that
one can supply some set of individual constants or similar terms
whose referents do not shift as one 'moves' from one possible
world to the next.3
As, for instance, in Leonard Linsky, 'Reference, Essentialism, and
Modality', reprinted in Leonard Linsky, ed., Reference and Modality
(London, I97I), pp. 88-IOO. I intend to consider onlv alethic modalities
in this paper; the term 'modal context' is to be understood with this
restriction throughout.
2 Saul A. Kripke, 'Naming and Necessity', in Donald Davidson and Gilbert
Harman, eds., Semantics of Natural Language, 2nd ed. (Boston, I972),
pp. 264-273.
3 Cf. Dagfinn F0llesdal, 'Quantification into Causal Contexts', reprinted
in Linsky, Reference and Modality, pp. 57-6I.

8 225

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 226 EVAN FALES:

Kripke holds that our language does contain such a device

for fixing reference-that proper namnes are so used, and hence
count, in his terminology, as rigid designators. If, however, the
relevant feature of proper names is that they are used with the
intention of fixing reference, then it seems plausible to suppose
that any referential device provided by our language e.g.
indexicals and definite descriptions as well as proper names-
should be able to serve as substitution terms for variables appear-
ing in modal contexts. Yet Kripke denies that definite descriptions,
at least, are rigid designators;' it is the relevant uses of such
definite descriptions which I wish to explore here.
Now the naive ordinary man is fortunate: he does not find the
following sorts of statements, made in suitable contexts, un-
intelligible:

(2) The horse that won the Preakness might have lost.
(3) The horse ridden by Belerophon might not have been
ridden by Belerophon.
(4) It is true-if trivial-that the number of planets must be
identical to the number of planets.
(5) The number of planets is nine, and the number of planets
might have been less than seven.

Yet many philosophers have been deeply puzzled by at least some

of the sorts of statements exemplified above. While the ordinary
man's convictions may be founded upon confusion, I take it to
be a desideratum to develop a philosophical theory that accom-
modates the intuitions that he and we (at least initially) share.
I shall attempt a part of this formidable task by considering the
history of an imaginary and somewhat primitive language I shall
call 'L'. In its initial stage, L provides its speakers with a poorer
repertory of linguistic resources than those available to speakers
of Ordinary English. I next consider a way in which L may be
enriched, though the result is still deficient by English-speakers'
standards. Some of the deficiencies will be specified at the end of
my fable.
One restriction which characterizes L initially is

(A) that it contains none of the linguistic devices by means of

Kripke, ibid., p. 346, footnote 25. It is, I think, just because Kripke rejects
the relevance to semantics of an analysis of reference as an action that he
does not consider the distinction I wish to insist upon (cf. ibid., p. 343,
footnote 3). Yet Kripke does admit that reference can be fixed for the
purpose of baptism by giving a definite description (ibid., p. 29I).

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DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS AS DESIGNATORS 227

which the alethic modalities may be conveyed: there is no sub-

junctive mood for its verbs, nor any translation of our expressions,
'It is possible that . . .' and 'It is necessary that . . .'

Secondly, the conventions governing the use of L are such that

(B) whenever an L-speaker utters a sentence of the form, 'The

X is P', he will be considered to have succeeded in referring to
one and only one of the things which (if anything) does in fact
satisfy the definite description. (Liberalization of this restriction
will be considered after the end of the fable.)

L does however contain tensed verbs and other devices for speak-
ing about past and future states of affairs; hence the second
restriction should be understood to include reference to entities
which have existed or w ill exist. Moreover, the conventions
governing the use of L are such that the circumstances sur-
rounding the utterance of an L-sentence are relevant to the
determination of reference: for instance, an L-speaker who utters
'The king of France is bald' during the reign of Louis XIV will
be understood to have referred to Louis XIV, whereas the same
sentence uttered during the reign of Louis XV will involve
reference to Louis XV. Such additional conventions are required
for L in order to determine the intended reference in cases where
more than one item satisfies a used definite description. I shall
refer to them as confinement-conventions, or simply as (C),
though I lhave some misgivings in speaking of such considerations
as conventional. (In Ordinary English, at any rate, they are not
exclusively so, and I doubt whether any general formulation of
the considerations which might be relevant is possible.)
Now one day there is born among L-speakers a linguist of
genius, K, who devotes himself to thinking about the nature of L
and to ways in which it might be improved. It is K, of course,
who has the inspiration to introduce alethic modality into L,
thereby removing poverty-condition (A). It is not particularly
relevant to the point of my fable to consider just how K should
have come to have such an idea. What will be of interest, rather,
is to consider the moves K mnakes in carrying out his programme,
with respect to the introduction of definite descriptions into
modal discourse, in the light of conventions (B) and (C).
Thus, we find K reflecting as follows: 'I surely wish to retain
conventions (B) and (C) of 1, in my enriched language L'. Accord-
ing to them, the referent of a definite description is determined

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 228 EVAN FALES:

upon the occasion of utterance of a sentence containing it, by

what satisfies the description at the time-and in the context-of
the act of utterance. If I now (April, 1975) say, "The President
of the United States is partly bald," I shall be referring to Gerald
Ford; had Nixon however not resigned, I should thereby have
referred to Richard Nixon. The problem is: wihat rule am I to
institute concerning the interpretation of utterances such as

(6) It is possible that the President of the United States is

partly bald.

For we may reason that if (6) is uttered on some particular occasion

-let us say now-then one natural way to incorporate conventions
(B) and (C) would be to stipulate that the referent of the definite
description in (6) be whatever satisfies the description upon that
occasion of utterance in this case, Gerald Ford. Thus, (6) could
be construed as saying of Gerald Ford that he is possibly partly
bald. But on the other hand, the modal operator in (6) suggests
that we might have in mind, in uttering it, some range of possible
occasions or circumstances in which the sentence which is that
operator's argument might be uttered, and that in asserting (6),
we are asserting that the statement made by uttering this containcd
nonmodal sentence would, in at least one such possible circuni-
stance, be true. That is, it is also natural to interpret (6) as true
if and only if there could be some circumstance in which the
utterance of the sentence

(7) The President of the United States is partly bald.

would result in the making of a true statement. But here, con-
ventions (B) and (C) are construed as applying within that
imagined circumstance of utterance: i.e., as depending upon the
circumstances surrounding some utterance of (7), not (6). This
application leads naturally to the interpretation of "the President
of the United States" as being whatever man, in each of the
circumstances considered-that is, upon each possible occasion
of the utterance of (7) would in that circumstance satisfy it. On
this interpretation, the referent of the definite description in (6)
must be construed as shifting as ranging sequentially over each
of the things which might, in some conceivable state of affairs,
satisfy it. Therefore, it appears that statements made by the use
of sentence (6), as it stands, will be ambiguous'.
Now K, being not insensitive to the dangers this result held

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DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS AS DESIGNATORS 229

for the prospective users of L', was wise enough to realize the
confusion which might result from the indiscriminate use of
sentences like (6). K foresaw the possibility of a future state of
affairs in which a hypothetical philosopher Q could challenge the
intelligibility of his invention by trading on this ambiguity in
arguments such as the following one:
(8) 9 is necessarily greater than 7.
(g) The number of planets -9.
(iO) Therefore the number of planets is necessarily greater
than 7.

But, as Q might well reason, (io) is obviously false, although

(8) and (9) are true; thus in modal contexts substitution of co-
designating definite descriptions fails, and some definite descrip-
tions are favoured over others for the purpose of reference. Q may
conclude that the intelligibility of K's invention requires a
commitment to essentialism.
In order to forestall such confusions, K decided to ensconce
the relevant distinction in the syntactic rules of L'. For any
utterance of a sentence conforming to the modal schema, 'It is
possible (necessary) that the P is P',
I. 'The i' is used as an anchored designator when its referent is to
be determined by the application of conventions (B) and (C) to
the context of its utterance, hence, as the thing which in fact is
the P, whereas
II. 'The P' is used as a floating designator when its referent is
to be construed as shifting sequentially over that range of items
determined by the application of conventions (B) and (C) to
the hypothetical occasions of utterance of 'The P is P', hence, as
whatever would be the P in each case.
The intended use of any definite description in modal contexts
was then to be indicated by subscripting its occurrence with either
an 'a' or an 'f', respectively. (I shall argue shortly that this distinc-
tion applies in Ordinary English to occurrences of definite
descriptions in nonmodal contexts as well.)'
Thus we may uinderstand (2) as trtue in L' if we take the occur-
rence of 'the horse that won the Preakness' as an anchored
Notice that Russell's analysis of sentences containing definite descriptions
does not apply to L; hence Arthur Smullyan's analvsis of scope distinctions
applying to definite descriptions ('Modality and Description', reprinted
in Linsky, Referenice and Mlodality, pp. 35-43), paraphrased Li la Russell,
does not apply to L. As we shall see, it is even less plausible that it applies
to Ordinary English.

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 230 EVAN FALES:

designator, but as analytically false if it is taken to be a floating

one. For it cannot be the case, in any possible state of affairs, that
whatever horse wins the Preakness under those circumstances
also loses the race. Moreover, (4) will be true only if a uniform
construal is placed upon both occurrences of 'the number of
planets'; and (5) is true provided that in its second occurrence
'the number of planets' is a floating designator. This latter case
suggests in fact that the distinction K has in mind extends to
nonmodal contexts as well, although the difficulties which arise
from ignoring it do not appear when nonmodal sentences are
considered. Thus, a man who asserts that the number of planets
is greater than seven would generally be taken to be referring
to the number nine, but only contingently so that is, only by
virtue of the contingent fact that nine happened, at the time of
utterance, to be the number of planets; both he and his listeners
would ordinarily intend that, had the number of planets been
different at the time of utterance, the proper application of con-
ventions (B) and (C) would have picked out that different number.'
But alternatively, the man might have the intention of referring
to the number nine, regardless of what the circumstance of utterance
inight be-that is, as intending to use whatever definite description
would, conformably with (B) and (C), pick out that number. Here,
it is the choice of the description which would be understood to
be contingent, rather than the intended referent. In the second
case then, it is the choice of a description which is adjusted to
the circumstance of utterance; in the first it is our decision about
what item is referred to which is so adjusted. Thus it appears
that the distinction applies to nonmodal contexts as well; the
difficulties alluded to in modal contexts are simply avoided by
Thus just as, on Kripkc's view

The Evening Star is the Morning Star

is a necessary truth, although it is a contingent fact that one and the same
entity has come to be called by each of these names, so too I should hold that
The horse that won the Preakness is the only horse owned by Mrs. Brown
states (if true) a necessary truth, so long as both definite descriptions are
construted as anchored designators, in spite of the fact that it is only by
virtue of the truth of certain contingent propositions about that horse,
that this type of reference is made to it through the use of each of these
designators. A striking non-modal use of a definite description as a floating
designator is

The price of wheat fluctuates wildly

cited by Iai I lacking, 'All Kinds of Possibility', Philosophical Reviezv, lxxxix,
July 1975, pp. 321-327.)

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 DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS AS DESIGNATORS 231

virtue of the fact that in nonmodal contexts the distinction

collapses referentially: what is then picked out by the definite
description, as determined by (B) and (C), is the same, regardless
of whether the designator is floating or anchored-it is the item
which actually does satisfy the definite description.
Sentence (3) however calls for an extension of L', which English
speakers are fortunate enough to possess. In storytelling contexts,
for instance, the modal force of the discourse is understood. Imag-
ine, then, being told a story in which the mythical Belerophon enters
a stable filled with winged horses, and randomnly chooses one as
his mount. The fact that (3) makes sense against this background
shows that we may extend the notion of a designator's being
anchored to allow that designators may be anchored, so to speak,
not just in the actual world, but also in a possible one.
In a footnote to an earlier paper,' Kripke notes that certain
philosophers have held that definite descriptions are ambiguous,
and have identified what I here call their use as floating designators
with Donnellan's attributive use. This, as I shall argue below, is
a mistake. But Kripke, in any case, offers as an objection to this
view the claim that it cannot handle-as Russell's scope distinc-
tions can-cases where nested modal operators occur, and the
'scope' of the definite description is intermediate between the
widest and the narrowest reading, as in 'The number of planets
might have been necessarily even.' If my analysis is correct,
however, one can make sense of the notion of a designator
anchored in a possible world other than the actual one. Just as
we do use definite descriptions as anchored designators when
uttering modal sentences, so it would be possible for someone to
utter such a modal sentence with the intention that the definite
description be anchored in a contrary-to-fact circumstance: e.g.,
one in which the number of planets was even. Thus there is a
possible world whose number of planets however referred to-is
necessarily even. And this is just what is asserted by the statement
Kripke considers. In general, then, the interpretation of statements
containing the occurrence of two or more nested modal operators
will require the iterative application of the criteria for our dis-
tinction to any definite descriptions with respect to each nested
operator successively.
So much for K's language L'. What may be learned regarding

I Saul Kripke, 'Identity and Necessity', footnote io, in Milton Munitz, ed.,
Identity and Individuation (New York, I97I), p. I49.

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 232 EVAN FALES:

our own language from L'? The fact that there exists in English
no grammatical device for expressing a formal distinction between
floating and anchored designators does not show that this same
distinction does not apply, for our linguistic conventions include
something like (B) and (C). Instead the fact that we do make sense
of statements such as (2)-(5) argues for the existence of such a
distinction while suggesting a general feature of referring with
respect to which English differs from L': namely, that more
reliance may (and often must) be placed upon contextual clues
in determining a speaker's referential intentions. Such clues are
usually not internal to the sentence itself, though they may be so.
If a speaker makes the statement (2), then the general canon of
interpretation that the speaker's utterances be construed in a way
as consistent as possible with the presumption that he is minimally
rational mandates the reading of 'the horse that won the Preakness'
as an anchored designator; to read it as a floating designator would
be to perversely construe the statement as self-contradictory. It
would be similarly perverse-if we may assume the speaker's
familiarity with elementary mathematics and physics-to interpret
the definite descriptions in (5) as anchored designators.
That an increased reliance upon contextual factors in deter-
mining reference may be a reasonable linguistic strategy becomes
apparent when one considers the advantages of adopting an
informal relaxation of convention (B): as Keith Donnellan has
pointed out in 'Reference and Definite Descriptions',' a speaker
may succeed in referring to something which does not fit the
definite description he uses. For we must allow, for one thing,
that speakers are not omniscient, and hence that a man may
wrongly describe the thing he intends to refer to. In allowing
ourselves to take into account other contextual clues relevant to
the determination of the speaker's referential intentions, we are
able to accommodate this epistemological fact in a way in which
L' speakers are not. But this immediately suggests that it is the
communication of the speaker's referential intentions which is
our primary concern, and that the denotation (if any) of the
employed definite description is secondary.2
I Keith S. Donnellan, 'Reference and Definite Descriptions', Philosophical
Review, lxxv, No. 3 (I966), pp. 28I-304.
2 Thus Russell's analysis of definite descriptions used referringly-and
hence Smullyan's analysis of scope distinctions-is even less plausible in
its application to English than as an analysis of L. The reason we generally
attempt to conform to convention (B) is that it is such a good way, in most
situations, of achieving our referential aims.

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DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS AS DESIGNATORS 233

Thus when a definite description is used as an anchored

designator, we see that the description used is itself of incidental
importance relative to the intended purpose of fixing reference;
any description-even a misdescription-will do, provided that,
in the context of utterance, it does the referential job. Hence in a
formal treatment of anchored designators, it seems more appro-
priate to treat them on a par with Kripke's rigid designators than
in terms of Russell's theory. Since reference is the primary aim,
any other definite description, name, etc., which can be used to
achieve reference to the same item will serve as well. It follows
that coreferential definite descriptions, taken as anchored desig-
nators, will be intersubstitutable in modal contexts, salve veritate;
and that they may also be substituted for names of the referent.
But this shows that substitution cannot be regarded as a legitimate
formal manoeuvre independent of referential intent.
However, while it is plausible to hold that primarily referential
intentions are at stake when an anchored designator is used, this
is not nearly so clear in the use of a floating designator. For in
the latter case, we are to allow that the referent may 'shift' from
one 'possible world' to the next; moreover, it is apparent that the
user of a floating designator need not know which actual or possible
individual would, in every possible world, satisfy the description
used. Yet he will in general intend that it is whatever individual
does satisfy the description, that is to be picked out in each possible
world. Thus, when a speaker asserts that it is possible that the
number of planets be less than seven, this does not imply that he
knows what, in every possible circumstance independently speci-
fied, that number would be. Rather, he depends in this context
upon a strict application of convention (B) to the range of
hypothetical speech-acts under consideration.' Whereas in the
use of an anchored designator it is achievement of reference to
an intended object which is primary, we have here a sense in
which the definite description used is primary in the use of a
floating designator.
Yet even here, cases describable as involving misdescription
can be accommodated. Consider, for example, the situation of a

I In virtue of the fact that the contexts of hypothetical utterance are not
otherwise specified, preventing mobilization of conventions (C), he must
actually rely upon a stricter convention than (B): the argument of the
modal operator will be considered true in a possible circumstance of
utterance if and only if the definite description is uniquely satisfied in that
circumstane.

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 234 EVAN FALES:

man using a definite description as a floating designator, where

circumstances enable us to attribute his choice of description to
a false belief. Suppose, e.g., it is true that

(iI) It is (physically) necessary that the largest star have a

core temperature higher than 5ooo?C,
where 'the largest star' is intended to pick out whatever star, in
any physically possible world, is the largest star. Imagine our
friend to be someone who, among the scattered pieces of in-
formation he has, knows this fact; but suppose we also know him
to be possessed of the wild idea that all and only stars are solid
balls of the compound He3. Now it is physically impossible for
there to be any such object. If our friend makes the statement,

(I 2) It is (physically) necessary that the largest ball of solid

He3 have a core temperature higher than 5000sC,
where 'the largest ball of solid He3' is intended as a floating
designator, then it still seems to me that, in virtue of our know-
ledge of his wild belief about the stars, we can report him as
having made a true statement about the largest one in every
possible world, in a sense similar to the one in which, according
to Donnellan, I can be said to have made a true statement about
something, when I use a misdescription referentially. (Yet on
Russell's analysis of (I 2), with the appropriate accounting of
scope, it seems that it would have to be treated as false, since it
is false-and indeed impossible-that there exist anything such
that it is the one and only largest ball of solid He3.) Such cases
do not undermine-but indeed serve to emphasize-the dis-
tinction between anchored and floating designators. The primacy
of the description in the latter case, and of the referential intention
in the former, may be seen by considering the different treatment
which is accorded misdescriptions in each case. If a definite
description is used as an anchored designator to refer to some
object whicli does not in fact satisfy the description, referential
success is achieved when our attention is nevertheless directed
toward the appropriate item, and we will, in reporting the error,
use whatever linguistic device will serve to pick out the particular
object intended. If, on the other hand, the same definite descrip-
tion is used as a floating designator, it is not the intended object,
but rather the correct description which we must attempt to discover
from the context of utterance. For now it will not do to supply

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DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS AS DESIGNATORS 235

any other definite description or name which denotes the individual

picked out-as it happens-in the real world by the correct
definite description. I shall return in my concluding remarks
to the relationship between floating designators and reference. But
first, a possible confusion must be forestalled.
This characterization of the anchored/floating distinction will
perhaps remind the reader of another, similarly characterized
distinction between the referential and attributive uses of definite
descriptions, introduced by Donnellan in the article mentioned
above.' It is important to see that the distinction we are attempting
to discern is not the same as Donnellan's. One way to show this
is to notice that an anchored designator may be used either
referentially or attributively. The two cases can be illustrated
by considering the following sentence:

(I3) It is possible that Smith's murderer is insane.

Suppose that a speaker X utters (I 3) by way of referring to his
friend Jones, the man he believes actually murdered Smith. Then
'Smith's murderer' is used referentially and as an anchored
designator. But suppose X, not knowing who murdered Smith,
intends to ascribe the possibility of insanity to whoever (if anyone)
actually committed the crime. This use is attributive, but the
designator is still anchored, for X is not concerned about the
mental state of any individual who might in other circumstances
have committed such a crime, but about the individual who did.
It would be possible, had the designator been a floating one, for X
to come to know that the actual murderer could not have been
insane, but to continue to affirm (I3).
The temptation to conflate the two distinctions is aggravated
by the fact that both a definite description used attributively and a
floating designator are most naturally paraphrased by means of
the same English expression, namely, 'whatever is the so-and-so'.
But in the former case, this paraphrase is used to indicate the
speaker's ignorance or lack of commitment concerning which
individual is the (actual) so-and-so, whereas in the latter it is
used to indicate the sense in which the definite description may
serve to pick out different individuals in different possible worlds.

I believe there are reasons for holding that in the attributive use of definite
descriptions, reference is also made (cf. Joseph Margolis and Evan Fales,
'Donnellan and Definite Descriptions', forthcoming in Philosophia).
Although my view differs from Donnellan's in this respect, I shall neverthe-
less adopt his terminology in this paper.

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 236 EVAN FALES:

We may articulate an attributive use by saying that, for all X

knows, the so-and-so (i.e., Smith's murderer) might have been
Jones, or Roberts, or any other (actual) individual of some set;
this suggests that the attributive use reflects what Kripke has
called epistemic possibility.' So, whereas it would be by virtue
of a man's having attributively used the definite description in

(I4) The number of planets is greater than seven.

that he could deny that he knew the number to be nine, it would

be his intention to have used it as a floating designator which
would motivate him to deny, if then asked, that

(I5) It is necessary that the number of planets is greater than

seven.

Yet in the latter case, he could both know that the number is
nine, and have intended to refer to nine.
There is, then, a clear sense in which the use of a definite
description as an anchored designator involves a referential
occurrence (in Quine's sense2) of the description. In this use it
does not matter what description is used to fix the referent, so
long as that description, in the context of use, does the job. I have
implied however that where the intention is to use the definite
description as a floating designator, there appears to be some
plausibility to Quine's claim that the use of definite descriptions
in modal contexts is not genuinely referential. Should we say that
the expression 'whatever is the so-and-so' is used to refer to
something-or perhaps to some set of individuals-those which
could satisfy the description? If there is a difficulty here, however,
it is not, if I am right, confined to modal contexts; for recall once
more the sentence,

(14) The number of planets is greater than seven.

The normal intention of a speaker uttering (14) would be to use
'the number of planets' as a floating designator-that is, with the
intention that it should be construed as being false if uttered
after the possible event that the planetary system should lose
two or more of its present members. Yet, surely, in spite of this
intention, 'the number of planets' is typically used here, by some-
one who knows it to be nine, to refer to that number. The puzzle
I Kripke, ibid., pp. 260-263, 269 and 307.
2 W. V. 0. Quine, 'Reference and Modality', reprinted in Linsky, Reference
and Modality, pp. 17-34.

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DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS AS DESIGNATORS 237

about the referential function of floating designators is overcome

once it is recognized that they function so as to convey the
intention that the reference be understood as depending iteratively
upon which item, under each of the possible circumstances,
satisfies the appropriate description under that circumstance. In
nonmodal contexts, the relevant circumstance will typically be
whichever one happens to obtain at the time of utterance. In
modal contexts, of course, the intention will be to consider a
number of possible circumstances and referents sequentially,
so to speak. This gives the sense in which (recalling Quine), in
the floating use of a definite description, the object picked out is
referred to by virtue of its satisfying some appropriate description
normally, the description actually used. Although therefore
one may wish to deny that the use of a floating designator is in any
straightforward sense referential, its use is nevertheless parasitic
upon conventions governing reference, and moreover parasitic
upon the intentional activity of making reference.
What may be said then of the referential function of floating
designators? Unlike Quine, I do not believe that occurrences of
definite descriptions in modal contexts are nonreferential.1 Each
of the two types of designators which these occurrences exemplify
is tailored however to do a different kind of referential job. The
difference between the two jobs may be seen by means of an
analogy. Imagine a hunter with a magically 'trained' bullet which
can be fired an indefinite number of times. There are two cases.
In one case, the bullet is aimed at a certain target which bears
some particular relation to that bullet (say that they are both
cylindrical in shape), and upon refiring continues to hit that same
target, regardless of any changes in the target's shape. Alterna-
tively, the bullet might be trained to seek out whatever target
has the same shape it has (hence hitting, upon its first journey,
the same target as it would have struck in the previous case). In
the former case, the target which is hit upon successive firings
In the light of the foregoing analysis, which views the use of a floating
designator as based upon the implied contemplation of possible acts of
reference governed by some normal convention (unique satisfaction of the
description), perhaps it is more accurate to consider the referential
intention here as involving, at least in modal contexts, a kind of proto-
reference. For the user of the floating designator need not be committed
to having any means independent of the description used for specifying
the actual or possible individual that would be referred to under each
possible circumstance: in affirming that it is necessary that the number
of planets be greater than - i, the speaker need not be capable of otherwise
identifying -.g., by name-what that number is in each possible universe.

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238 EVAN FALES: DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS

is the same one, though its properties may change. In the latter
case, the property of the hit target is always the same, though the
target hit may change. In both cases, however, it is a matter of
using a bullet to perform the job of target-hitting. Seen in this
way, definite descriptions, used either as anchored or as floating
designators, are used to perform the job of referring.'
It appears therefore that the fact Quine has noticed, regarding
the special status of certain descriptions under which an object
may be specified in modal contexts, may be explained in terms
of the distinction between these two modes of referring by means
of a definite description. In one mode the actual referent itself
is primary and in the other some description is primary: substitu-
tivity can be guaranteed in the latter case in modal contexts only
where the definite descriptions considered happen to denote the
same individual in all possible circumstances. But this distinction
must be located in terms of speakers' referential intentions rather
than, as Quine supposes, in terms of a commitment to some
doctrine of essentialism. It is usually only by attending to the
context of utterance and the clues it may provide concerning the
speakers' intentions that we can ascertain whether we are con-
fronted with an anchored or a floating designator. It is because
Quine ignores such considerations in the analysis of reference
that the apparent paradoxes of modal logic arise.

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

On my view, therefore, it is wrong to suppose that floating designators

are used to refer to a single intensional object, as Carnap (in Meaning and
Necessity (Chicago, 1956)) and Church (in 'A Formulation of the Logic
of Sense and Denotation', Structure, Method, and Meaning, P. Henle,
H. Kallen, and S. Langer, eds. (New York, 1951)) have suggested, and
also misleading to say that one singles out no object at all or that it singles
out some 'multiple object'.

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