Descriptions

Descriptions are phrases of the form an F, the F, Fs, the Fs, [noun phrase]'s F and [noun phrase]'s Fs (e.g. a woman, the tallest spy, apples, the students, my cat, Peter's cars). They can be indefinite (e.g., an F, Fs, [noun phrase]'s F, NP's Fs), definite (e.g., the F, the Fs), singular (e.g., an F, the F, [noun phrase]'s F) or plural (e.g., the Fs, Fs, [noun phrase]'s Fs). In English plural indefinite descriptions lack an article and are for that reason also known as bare plurals.

The semantics of descriptions has been one of the central topics in philosophy for more than a century. Issues at the center of the debate include the following:

• What do description sentences semantically assert? If Taffy is department chair, does “the department chair is tall” assert that Taffy is tall? Does it assert that whoever happens to be the chair is tall? Does it assert something else altogether?
• How do we best account for definite descriptions that seem to pick out a unique object in a scenario in which no unique object satisfies the descriptive component? For example, if there are 10 tables in the room and I say, “The book is on the table,” might I have succeeded in saying something true?
• Do descriptions have referential uses? An expression is used referentially just in case it picks out an object, and the descriptive material (if any) does not fully determine which object is picked out. For example, “The man drinking a martini” functions referentially if it picks out someone who is actually drinking water.
• Are descriptions best treated as quantifiers or predicates? A quantifier expresses quantity (e.g., “every student,” “three men,” “most dogs”). A predicate is an expression that is true of exactly those things that possess the property the predicate expresses. For example, student is true of exactly those things that have the property of being a student. “The Danish spy” functions as a quantifier if it quantifies over Danish spies. “The Danish spy is tall” asserts that the set of Danish spies is a singleton set that is a subset of the set of tall people. “The Danish spy” functions as a predicate if it is true of exactly those things that possess the property of being the (only) Danish spy. If descriptions function as predicates, they cannot occur in argument position but can only occur in predicate position, as in “Søren is the Danish spy.” Predicative descriptions can occur in the predicate restrictor position of a quantifier, as in “An owner of a Porsche is usually smug.” Usually here functions as a quantifier. So the underlying form is this: [Most x: being an owner of a Porsche x](being smug x).
• How do we account for plural and generic descriptions? Can “the students asked questions” be true if only four out of 20 students asked questions? What do “The dinosaur is extinct” and “The Chrysler is sold on the West Coast” assert?

This entry focuses on the contemporary philosophical debate over these issues.