more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Context does not determine or constitute reference; rather, it is something for the speaker to exploit to enable the listener to determine the intended reference.
Gist of Idea
Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit
Source
Kent Bach (What Does It Take to Refer? [2006], 22.2 L3)
Book Ref
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language', ed/tr. Lepore,E/Smith,B [OUP 2008], p.544
A Reaction
Bach thinks linguistic reference is a matter of speaker's intentions, and I think he is right. And this idea is right too. The domain of quantification constantly shifts in a conversation, and good speakers and listeners are sensitive to this.
| 4972 | I may regard a thought about Phosphorus as true, and the same thought about Hesperus as false [Frege] |
| 4570 | Russell assumes that expressions refer, but actually speakers refer by using expressions [Cooper,DE on Russell] |
| 8355 | Expressions don't refer; people use expressions to refer [Strawson,P] |
| 8357 | If an utterance fails to refer then it is a pseudo-use, though a speaker may think they assert something [Strawson,P] |
| 5815 | Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan] |
| 10459 | Context does not create reference; it is just something speakers can exploit [Bach] |
| 10460 | 'That duck' may not refer to the most obvious one in the group [Bach] |
| 10461 | What a pronoun like 'he' refers back to is usually a matter of speaker's intentions [Bach] |
| 10462 | Information comes from knowing who is speaking, not just from interpretation of the utterance [Bach] |
| 10434 | Even a quantifier like 'someone' can be used referentially [Sainsbury] |
| 15182 | Because some entities overlap, reference must have analytic individuation principles [Sidelle] |
| 21650 | No language is semantically referential; it all occurs at the level of thought or utterance [Pietroski, by Hofweber] |