Abstract

For the purposes of this paper I shall assume that some definite singular terms for individual particulars are sometimes used purely referentially or, as I shall say, with the function of direct reference; and that they sometimes occur, so used, in the belief-specifying clauses of belief-attributing sentences. Direct reference can be characterised semantically, or in terms of truth-conditions, as follows: When a direct reference is made, by some term, to a particular individual, in an utterance in which that term is coupled with a predicate, then there is uttered a proposition which is true if that individual satisfies that predicate, false if it does not. A full account of the pragmatics of direct reference would be a much more complicated matter; I shall refer briefly to just one aspect of the matter towards the end of the paper.