Having in Mind: The Philosophy of Keith Donnelan, edited by Joseph Almog and Paolo Leonardi

This is a fascinating book in which eight well-qualified scholars focus, explore, explain, and discuss Keith Donnellan’s main influential ideas. To people familiar with Donnellan’s work, it should not come as a surprise that the notion of having in mind (with Russell’s theory of acquaintance)—so central to Donnellan’s (1966) famous distinction between the referential and attributive use of descriptions (‘Reference and Definite Descriptions’, Philosophical Review, 75 (1966), pp. 281–304)—plays central role. Yet, other important ideas of Donnellan are discussed and explored: for example, his view on empty terms and negative existentials (‘Speaking of Nothing’, Philosophical Review, 83 (1974), pp. 3–31) and the necessary a posteriori (‘Kripke and Putnam on Natural Kind Terms’, in Knowledge and Mind, ed. Carl Ginet and Sydney Shoemaker, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, pp. 84–104). One of the recurring themes of this collection is Donnellan’s contribution to what John Perry (Ch. 1) characterizes as American referential realism , that is, the so-called direct reference move that, in the seventies, so forcefully introduced doubts about the Fregean (descriptivist) semantics framework. Donnellan was, no doubt, one of the main protagonists of this move and most of the chapters highlight the importance of Donnellan’s views in the shaping of philosophy of language in general, and the theory of reference, in particular. It is, therefore, not astonishing to see most contributions (Joseph Almog Ch. 9, Andrea Bianchi Ch. 5, Antonio Capuano Ch. 2, David Kaplan Ch. 8, and Howard Wettstein Ch. 6) focusing on what ‘direct’ in ‘direct reference’ means and, finally, on what is the starting building block for a theory (or picture, as some would say) of reference and semantics in general. Two main (competing) views come to the forum: the one defended by those who, following Donnellan’s seminal work, consider as the starting point the cognitive notion of having someone/thing in mind ; and the one offered by those more inspired by Saul Kripke ( Naming and Necessity, Cambridge Mass: Harvard Univeristy Press, 1980) and the Kaplan of ‘Demonstratives’ (in Themes from Kaplan, ed. Joseph Almog, John Perry, and Howard Wettstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, pp. 481–63) and ‘Afterthoughts’ (in Themes from Kaplan, ed. Joseph Almog, John Perry, and Howard Wettstein, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, 565–614), who favour an instrumentalist, social model. In what follows I will try my best to summarize the main points the authors make in their contributions. I will then end with the main view that emerges from the book and my general impression of it.

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