Abstract

This work describes and defends a "reporter-oriented" semantics for indirect discourse reports such as "Pierre believes that London is pretty." It rejects the "thinker-orientation" of traditional accounts of indirect discourse reports, by rejecting the following principles: de dicto content principle: In sentences of the form C believes that alpha is F, the material after C believes that introduces the content of C's belief. de re acquaintance principle: Any cognitive report purporting to relate a thinker directly to a thought-about individual is true only if the thinker meets a criterion of acquaintance with that individual. I argue that the primary truth conditions for indirect discourse reports are: An utterance of a report of the form C believes that alpha is F with alpha a singular referring expression, is true iff, C, thinking about the individual which is designated in the report context by alpha, attributes to it the property F. ;In contrast with the thinker-oriented tradition, the notion of "thinking about" occurs unanalyzed in these truth conditions, and is wholly unconstrained by a criterion of acquaintance. Two characteristics of this reporter-oriented account are: universal substitutivity of co-designative singular referring expressions in indirect discourse reports; no acquaintance conditions on "quantifying into" indirect discourse reports. ;The ambiguity in reports such as "Ralph believes that the US president has an enviable position," has been explained by appeal to a de re/de dicto ambiguity in indirect discourse reports. I explain it by appeal to a semantic ambiguity in definite descriptions independent of their occurrence in indirect discourse reports. This semantic ambiguity is itself given a wholly non-acquaintance involving characterization. A familiar puzzle in the philosophical literature on indirect discourse reports---the "Pierre puzzle" of Saul Kripke's "A Puzzle About Belief"---provides the framework for the discussion. I explain how rejection of the de dicto content principle can provide for the dissolution of Kripke's puzzle