Talk:De dicto and de re

Older comments
Suppose someone asks, "What's the Dow Jones Industrial Average?" I could answer this in two ways: Is this an example of a de dicto/de re distinction? Seahen 01:50, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) "It's one of several stock market indices created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company founder Charles Dow."
 * 2) "It's 11,079.46."

Matt Pearce: Anyone care to comment on the fact that 'the number of planets' is now 'eight'. There I was thinking that 'nine' was the necessary truth. I bet there a more than a few essentialists writing redrafts of their tracts at the moment.
 * Matt: The statement asserting that there are a certain number planets is a de dicto statement. At a time, "Pluto is a planet" was true by definition. So, when Plato was defined as a planet by cosmological experts, Pluto added to the total count. Now, the name Plato cannot be described as a planet. The substitution failure should be an indication of de dicto knowledge. If we were shooting for de re knowledge, we would look in a telescope, find Pluto, call it Pluto (designate it rigidly), and say that Pluto exists. Kanodin 02:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

In Matt Pearce's comment above, is Plato a typo for Pluto? Or is Plato what he wants to write, making some logical point? Seadowns (talk) 10:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:De_dicto_and_de_re&action=edit&section=1#

Poor example in Context of Thought
Using an example about "everyone" instead of "someone" really works against providing a clear distinction. I'm going to change this if I don't hear any objections over the next few days. 12.4.221.203 16:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)MattGif

I've rewritten the the Context of Thought section. I think it's a bit clearer what the distinction is, and why is it important specifically to thought. MattGif 19:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)MattGif

This is a very helpful article. Thanks for posting. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.180.8.107 (talk) 16:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Lois Lane, Superman and Clark Kent Example - Is it the wrong way round?
I'm trying to get my head round this example, which says that de dicto, holding different beliefs about Clark Kent and Superman is untenable, but de re, holding different beliefs about them is possible due to incomplete knowledge about the real world.

I would have thought it was the other way round - isn't is true that, de dicto, Clark Kent and Superman can be discussed separately because they are spoken about differently, but de re, they can't be discussed separately because they are in reality identical?

If the example is the wrong way round then I understand what's going on and lets fix the article. If the article as it stands is correct, then I'm confused and need to think about this more carefully. Either way, please can someone clarify?

Dominic Widdows (talk) 14:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree--it's the wrong way around. I'm fixing this. K0hlrabi (talk) 23:19, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually...
Actually, the President of the USA in 2000 was Bill Clinton. --70.152.67.184 (talk) 17:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Monsters versus Aliens
Susan becomes the tallest woman in California, during her wedding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.87.135.149 (talk) 13:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Willard van Orman Quine
Willard_Van_Orman_Quine refers to D. Kaplan, who in turn credits Montgomery Furth for the term vivid designator in his paper 'Reference Modality'. He examines the separation between de re and de dicto statements and does away with de re statements, because de re statements can only work for names that are used referential. In fact, both Rigid designators and vivid designators are similarly dependent on context and empty otherwise. The same is true of the whole quantified modal logic of necessity; for it collapses if essence is withdrawn.


 * Any thoughts on the matter?
 * --Fan Singh Long (talk) 12:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Ok, since no one has seen fit to leave any comments at all, I will edit the article now.
 * --Fan Singh Long (talk) 06:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Bad writing
The opening paragraph(s) of the article should have a clear statement in ordinary language of what the distinction is. This is not, intrinsically, a difficult concept, but the opening paragraph is written at a high level of abstraction without actually making the distinction clear, and the rest of the article requires the reader to read through some lengthy examples to get the point. If Stephen Houlgate can write, in a review of a book about Hegel, a clear summary in a few sentences, then surely this article can be more concise.

Suggested text from Houlgate: "When a text is given a de dicto interpretation, the context is supplied by the author’s own commitments. The aim is thus to determine what the author himself [or herself] would have said in response to questions of clarification, given those commitments (TMD 99). The aim of a de re interpretation of a text is different. It is to determine not what the author himself would have said about this or that, but what really follows from the claims he makes, what follows from them in truth (TMD 100).2 In this case, the context of interpretation is supplied by other claims that the interpreter (rather than the author) holds to be true". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zusammenbruch (talk • contribs) 04:48, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

"Clark Kent is Superman" isn't an equivalence
The difficulty in the "Lois Lane loves Superman" example hinges less on the de re / de dicto distinction than on the complexity of the English word "is". "Clark Kent" and "Superman" don't refer to the same thing. "Clark Kent" and "Superman" are different persona of the same physical body, but look and act differently. The term "Superman" doesn't pick out the soul of Superman, which theologians would all agree is the same as the soul of Clark Kent; it picks out the thing that is present when Superman is in the room, which is a particular body, operated by a mind with a particular mindset and behavioral options, and its typical appearance. Lois Lane doesn't love Clark Kent, whose appearance and submissive behavior don't turn her on. Philgoetz (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2023 (UTC)