Abstract
Well-worn examples have led many philosophers to claim that verbs expressing psychological states or activities force their objects to refer in a non-standard way.1 When Oedipus married Jocasta, he married his mother. Prior to his marriage, Oedipus would have confessed to wanting to marry Jocasta, but he would have denied any desire to marry his mother. The view that psychological verbs place their objects into an intentional context (where we only need worry about how the object of the verb is conceptualized by the subject of the verb) allows Oedipus’ claims concerning these desires to be taken at face value. When he kisses Jocasta, he kisses an actual physical human being who is one and the same person as his mother—he kisses his mother. This cannot be denied. But, when he desires Jocasta, he desires her as he conceptualizes her, or under a certain description.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Baker, L.R. 1982. “De Re Belief in Action.” Philosophical Review XCI(3):363–87.
Davidson, D. 1980. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Donnellan, K. 1966. “Reference and Definite Descriptions.” Philosophical Review 75(3):281–304.
Dretske, F. 1988. Explaining Behavior. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Frege, G. 1892/1952. “On Sense and Reference.” In Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, edited by P. Geach and M. Black, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Huston, M. 2000. “Defending De Dicto.” Ratio XIII(2):186–90.
Kripke, S. 1972. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Penner, T. 2005. “Socratic Ethics: Ultra-Realism, Determinism and Ethical Truth.” In Norms, Virtue, and Objectivity: Issues in Ancient and Modern Ethics, edited by C. Gill, 157–88. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Penner, T., and C.J. Rowe. 1994. “The Desire for the Good: Is the Meno Inconsistent with the Gorgias?” Phronesis 39(1):1–25.
Reshotko, N. 1996. “Do Explanatory Desire Attributions Generate Opaque Contexts?” Ratio, IX(2):153–70.
Reshotko, N. 2006. Socratic Virtue: Making the Best of the Neither-Good-nor-Bad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Santas, G.X. 2003. “Penner, Plato, and Sachs on Justice and Happiness.” In Desire, Identity, and Existence, edited by N. Reshotko, 95–107. Edmonton: Academic Printing and Publishing.
Stampe, D. 1987. “The Authority of Desire.” Philosophical Review 96:335–81.
Stich, S. 1983. From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reshotko, N. (2011). Beyond De Re: Toward a Dominance Theory of Desire Attribution. In: Anagnostopoulos, G. (eds) Socratic, Platonic and Aristotelian Studies: Essays in Honor of Gerasimos Santas. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 117. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1730-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1730-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1729-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1730-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)