Keith Sedgwick Donnellan (; June 25, 1931 – February 20, 2015) was an American

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and Professor of Philosophy (later Professor Emeritus) at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

. Donnellan contributed to the

philosophy of language In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy of language), meanin ...

, notably to the analysis of

proper names A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa'', ''Jupiter'', ''Sarah'', ''Microsoft)'' as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

and

definite descriptions In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or o ...

. He criticized

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

's theory of

definite description In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or o ...

s for overlooking the distinction between referential and attributive use of definite descriptions. Donnellan spent most of his career at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

, having also previously taught at the university where he had earned his PhD,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Philosophical work

Proper names

By 1970, analytic philosophers widely accepted a view regarding the reference-relation that holds of proper names and that which they name, known as '' descriptivism'' and attributed to

. Descriptivism holds that ordinary proper names (e.g., '

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no t ...

', '

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfl ...

', and '

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Afric ...

') 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 Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and e ...

gave a series of three lectures at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1970, later published as ''Naming and Necessity'', in which he argued against descriptivism and sketched the causal-historical theory 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. These lectures were highly influential and marked the decline of descriptivism's popularity. 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 theory of reference.

Descriptions

"Reference and Definite Descriptions" has been one of Donnellan's most influential essays. Written in response to the work of

and P. F. Strawson in the area of

, 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. 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.

Publications

* * * * * *

References

External links

* Perry, John
"Donnellan at Cornell,"
nowiki/> nowiki/>Preprint_of_article">Preprint.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Preprint">nowiki/>Preprint_of_articleIn:_Joseph_Almog_and_Paul_Leonardi.html" ;"title="Preprint_of_article.html" ;"title="Preprint.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Preprint">nowiki/>Preprint of article">Preprint.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Preprint">nowiki/>Preprint of articleIn: Joseph Almog and Paul Leonardi">Paulo Leonardi (eds.), ''Having in Mind: The Philosophy of Keith Donnellan''. (2012) {{DEFAULTSORT:Donnellan, Keith 1931 births 2015 deaths 20th-century American philosophers Analytic philosophers Philosophers of language Cornell University alumni Cornell University faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty