Use-mention distinction
Encyclopedia
The use–mention distinction is a foundational concept of analytic philosophy
, according to which it is necessary to make a distinction
between using a word (or phrase) and mentioning it, and many philosophical works have been "vitiated by a failure to distinguish use and mention". The distinction is disputed by non-analytic philosophers.
The distinction between use and mention can be illustrated for the word cheese:
The first sentence is a statement about the substance called cheese; it uses the word "cheese" to refer to that substance. The second is a statement about the word cheese as a signifier
; it mentions the word without using it to refer to anything other than itself.
s ("Chicago" contains three vowels) or in italics (When I say honey, I mean the sweet stuff that bees make), and style authorities such as Strunk and White insist that mentioned words or phrases must always be made visually distinct in this manner. Used words or phrases (much more common than mentioned ones) do not bear any typographic distinction.
If quotes are used, it is sometimes the practice to distinguish between the quotation marks used for speech and those used for mentioned words, with double quotes in one place and single in the other:
Many authorities recommend against such a distinction, and prefer one style of quotation mark to be used for both purposes, which is a much more common practice.
depending on the context was called suppositio
(substitution) by medieval logicians. It describes how one has to substitute a term in a sentence based on its meaning—that is, based on the term's referent. In general, a term can be used in several ways. For nouns, they are:
The last use is what invokes the use–mention distinction.
The use–mention distinction is especially important in analytic philosophy
. Failure to properly distinguish use from mention can produce false, misleading, or meaningless statements or category errors. For example, the following correctly distinguish between use and mention:
whereas
would each be considered a use–mention mistake or use–mention confusion.
Stanisław Leśniewski was perhaps the first to make widespread use of this distinction or fallacy
, seeing it all around in analytic philosophy of the time, for example in Russell's Principia Mathematica
; at the logical level, a use–mention mistake occurs when two heterogeneous levels of meaning or context are confused inadvertently.
Donald Davidson
told that in his student years, "quotation was usually introduced as a somewhat shady device, and the introduction was accompanied by a stern sermon on the sin of confusing the use and mention of expressions". He presented a class of sentences like
which both use the meaning of the quoted words to complete the sentence, and mention them as they are attributed to W. V. Quine, to argue against his teachers' hard distinction. His claim was that quotations could not be analyzed as simple expressions that mention their content by means of naming
it or describing
its parts, as sentences like the above would lose their exact, twofold meaning.
Self-referential
statements mention themselves or their components, often producing logical paradox
es, such as Quine's paradox
. A mathematical analogy of self-referential statements lies at the core of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. There are many examples of self reference and use–mention distinction in the works of Douglas Hofstadter
, who makes the distinction thus:
Although the standard notation for mentioning a term in philosophy and logic is to put the term in quotation marks, issues arise when the mention is itself of a mention. Notating using italics might require a potentially infinite number of typefaces, while putting quotation marks within quotation marks may lead to ambiguity.
Some analytic philosophers have said the distinction "may seem rather pedantic."
In a 1977 response to analytic philosopher John Searle
, Jacques Derrida
mentioned the distinction as "rather laborious and problematical".
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
, according to which it is necessary to make a distinction
Dichotomy
A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, meaning it is a procedure in which a whole is divided into two parts...
between using a word (or phrase) and mentioning it, and many philosophical works have been "vitiated by a failure to distinguish use and mention". The distinction is disputed by non-analytic philosophers.
The distinction between use and mention can be illustrated for the word cheese:
- Use – Cheese is derived from milk.
- Mention – "Cheese" is derived from the Old EnglishOld English languageOld English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
word "cyse".
The first sentence is a statement about the substance called cheese; it uses the word "cheese" to refer to that substance. The second is a statement about the word cheese as a signifier
Sign (linguistics)
There are many models of the linguistic sign . A classic model is the one by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. According to him, language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides : the signifier , the "shape" of a word, its phonic component, i.e...
; it mentions the word without using it to refer to anything other than itself.
Grammar
In written language, mentioned words or phrases often appear between quotation markQuotation mark
Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
s ("Chicago" contains three vowels) or in italics (When I say honey, I mean the sweet stuff that bees make), and style authorities such as Strunk and White insist that mentioned words or phrases must always be made visually distinct in this manner. Used words or phrases (much more common than mentioned ones) do not bear any typographic distinction.
If quotes are used, it is sometimes the practice to distinguish between the quotation marks used for speech and those used for mentioned words, with double quotes in one place and single in the other:
- When Larry said, "That has three letters," he was referring to the word 'bee'.
- With reference to "bumbershoot", Peter explained that 'The term refers to an umbrella.'
Many authorities recommend against such a distinction, and prefer one style of quotation mark to be used for both purposes, which is a much more common practice.
Use–mention in philosophy
The general property of terms changing their referenceReference
Reference is derived from Middle English referren, from Middle French rèférer, from Latin referre, "to carry back", formed from the prefix re- and ferre, "to bear"...
depending on the context was called suppositio
Supposition theory
Supposition theory was a branch of medieval logic that was probably aimed at giving accounts of issues similar to modern accounts of reference, plurality, tense, and modality, from within an Aristotelian context. Philosophers such as John Buridan, William of Ockham, William of Sherwood, Walter...
(substitution) by medieval logicians. It describes how one has to substitute a term in a sentence based on its meaning—that is, based on the term's referent. In general, a term can be used in several ways. For nouns, they are:
- Properly with a real referent: "That is my cow" (assuming it exists). (personal supposition)
- Properly with a generic referent: "Any cow gives milk." (simple supposition)
- Properly but with a non-real referent: "Santa Claus's cow is very big."
- Improperly by way of metaphor: "Your sister is a cow". (improper supposition)
- As a pure term: "Cow has only three letters". (material supposition)
The last use is what invokes the use–mention distinction.
The use–mention distinction is especially important in analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
. Failure to properly distinguish use from mention can produce false, misleading, or meaningless statements or category errors. For example, the following correctly distinguish between use and mention:
- Copper contains six letters, and is not a metal.
- Copper is a metal, and contains no letters.
whereas
- Copper is a metal, and contains no letters.
- Copper contains six letters, and is not a metal.
would each be considered a use–mention mistake or use–mention confusion.
Stanisław Leśniewski was perhaps the first to make widespread use of this distinction or fallacy
Fallacy
In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually an incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor , or take advantage of social relationships between people...
, seeing it all around in analytic philosophy of the time, for example in Russell's Principia Mathematica
Principia Mathematica
The Principia Mathematica is a three-volume work on the foundations of mathematics, written by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell and published in 1910, 1912, and 1913...
; at the logical level, a use–mention mistake occurs when two heterogeneous levels of meaning or context are confused inadvertently.
Donald Davidson
Donald Davidson (philosopher)
Donald Herbert Davidson was an American philosopher born in Springfield, Massachusetts, who served as Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley from 1981 to 2003 after having also held teaching appointments at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, Princeton...
told that in his student years, "quotation was usually introduced as a somewhat shady device, and the introduction was accompanied by a stern sermon on the sin of confusing the use and mention of expressions". He presented a class of sentences like
- Quine said that "quotation has a certain anomalous feature."
which both use the meaning of the quoted words to complete the sentence, and mention them as they are attributed to W. V. Quine, to argue against his teachers' hard distinction. His claim was that quotations could not be analyzed as simple expressions that mention their content by means of naming
Proper name
"A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic , "but not of telling anything about it"...
it or describing
Definite description
A definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is proper if X applies to a unique individual or object. For example: "the first person in space" and "the 42nd President of the United States of...
its parts, as sentences like the above would lose their exact, twofold meaning.
Self-referential
Self-reference
Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding...
statements mention themselves or their components, often producing logical paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
es, such as Quine's paradox
Quine's Paradox
Quine's paradox is a paradox concerning truth values, attributed to Willard Van Orman Quine. It is related to the liar paradox as a problem, and it purports to show that a sentence can be paradoxical even if it is not self-referring and does not use demonstratives or indexicals...
. A mathematical analogy of self-referential statements lies at the core of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. There are many examples of self reference and use–mention distinction in the works of Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
, who makes the distinction thus:
- When a word is used to refer to something, it is said to be being used. When a word is quoted, though, so that someone is examining it for its surface aspects (typographical, phonetic, etc.), it is said to be being mentioned.
Although the standard notation for mentioning a term in philosophy and logic is to put the term in quotation marks, issues arise when the mention is itself of a mention. Notating using italics might require a potentially infinite number of typefaces, while putting quotation marks within quotation marks may lead to ambiguity.
Some analytic philosophers have said the distinction "may seem rather pedantic."
In a 1977 response to analytic philosopher John Searle
John Searle
John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
, Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
mentioned the distinction as "rather laborious and problematical".
Further reading
- A. W. Moore (1986) How Significant Is the Use/Mention Distinction? in Analysis Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 1986), pp. 173-179
External links
- "Robert And The Use-Mention Distinction", by William A. Wisdom, c. 2002
- "On the use of Quotation Marks", by Ralph E. Kenyon, Jr. PhD, 29 December 1992, Revised 21 October 1993, Published in Etc: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. 51 No 1, Spring 1994. (accessed: 26 August 2006).
- " The evolution of Confusion", talk by Daniel Dennet AAI 2009, 4 October 209