John doesn't know that the mayor is Jane Smith. The sentence 'John believes the mayor is corrupt' is interpreted de re. Which of the following must be true on this reading?
AJohn's belief is about Jane Smith specifically, regardless of whether he knows she is mayor
BJohn's belief is about whoever happens to hold the office of mayor, not any particular individual
CThe sentence is false because John lacks the relevant identifying knowledge
DJohn must have a justified true belief about the mayor's identity
On the de re reading, the definite description 'the mayor' takes wide scope over the belief operator and picks out an actual individual — Jane Smith — in the real world. John's belief is attributed to that specific person regardless of what John knows or doesn't know about her role. It is precisely the de dicto reading that concerns whoever holds the office; de re is about the real individual. Ignorance of the role is irrelevant to de re attribution.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
In formal semantics, the de re reading of 'Sarah wants to marry the richest man in town' is best represented as:
AThere is a specific individual x who is actually the richest man in town, and Sarah wants to marry x
BSarah wants it to be the case that she marries whoever is the richest man in town
CSarah's desire is evaluated inside a possible world where she does not know who the richest man is
DThe richest man in town takes narrow scope inside the want operator
The de re reading arises when the description takes wide scope over the intensional operator: ∃x [richest-man(x) ∧ Sarah-wants(marry(Sarah, x))]. The quantifier ranges over actual individuals before entering the intensional context. Option B is the de dicto reading (the description falls inside the want operator, evaluated at desire worlds). Options C and D both describe narrow-scope / de dicto structure.
Question 3 True / False
If 'John believes the mayor is corrupt' is true on a de re reading because John has a belief about Jane Smith, and Jane then resigns from office, the de re belief attribution remains true.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
True. De re belief tracks the individual, not the description. The belief was attributed to Jane Smith as a specific person in the world. Her no longer being mayor changes the extension of 'the mayor' but does not affect the referent of the de re attribution — John's belief is still about Jane. By contrast, the de dicto attribution tracks the role: whether it remains true depends on whether John still believes whoever is currently mayor is corrupt.
Question 4 True / False
A de dicto attitude is only possible when the subject of the attitude verb does not know who or what the description actually refers to.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
False. The de re / de dicto distinction is about the logical form of the attribution — specifically, the scope of the description relative to the intensional operator — not about the subject's epistemic state. One can have de dicto attitudes about descriptions even while knowing their referents. For example, 'Jane believes the mayor is corrupt' can be de dicto (about whoever is mayor) even if Jane knows she herself is the mayor. De dicto concerns how the belief is described, not what the believer knows.
Question 5 Short Answer
In formal semantics, how does the scope of a definite description relative to an intensional operator (like 'believes') determine whether a sentence receives a de re or de dicto reading?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Wide scope (de re): the description is evaluated outside the intensional operator, ranging over actual-world individuals. The logical form is roughly: ∃x [description(x) ∧ Agent-believes(P(x))]. Narrow scope (de dicto): the description falls inside the operator and is evaluated at the belief worlds, not the actual world. The logical form is: Agent-believes[∃x description(x) ∧ P(x)]. These yield different truth conditions because the description's extension may differ across possible worlds.
The scope distinction is the formal mechanism behind the distinction. De re: quantify over real individuals first, then enter the intensional context. De dicto: enter the intensional context first, then evaluate the description at the belief/desire/modal world. Since descriptions can have different extensions in different worlds, which world you evaluate them at matters — and that is determined by whether the description is inside or outside the intensional operator.