Attributive Uses, Referential Uses, and Love

Donnellan makes a number of distinctions in his paper “Reference and Definite Descriptions.” All are important, interesting, and related. But the one that jumped out at me was near the end of the paper where Donnellan is discussing Linky’s example of the person who says of a spinster “Her husband is kind to her.” Donnellan notes if the speaker is using the description referentially, then we can agree with the speaker, even if we know that the woman has no husband. Indeed, we can tell others that the speaker said OF Jones that he is kind to the spinster, or OF the president of the university that he is kind to the spinster. It turns out that the speaker may very well have said something true, something that we can tell others using different descriptions.

These points have all sorts of fascinating implications for reading and listening with love. Think about how much of our current pollical situation is filled with vitriol and how much of it is based on tons of misrepresentation and a failure to listen and interpret other with love. Donnellan states that we misrepresent speakers when we give them an attributive interpretation but a referential one is called for (and vice versa). I think we can put the point even more strongly. As people who are called to love their neighbors as themselves, we are to give either an attributive or referential interpretation depending on which makes the speaker’s statement true or closer to the truth. If the attributive use, does that, then we are required, by love, to give it an attributive interpretation. If the referential interpretation makes the speaker’s utterance true or closer to the truth, then we are required, by love, to give it a referential interpretation. 

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