ABSTRACT
When we think about language, and, in particular, about how we use it to speak of things, there is an intuition that permeates virtually all of our thinking and analysis. The intuition is that there is in language an inherent cleavage in the class of terms we use to carry out this task, between those used to speak about specific particulars, and those used to speak in general about those particulars. From the semantic point of view, this is the distinction between reference and quantification; it is what is paradigmatically expressed in natural languages by the distinction within the noun phrases between proper names like “Max” or “Maria” and quantifiers, determiner-noun complexes like “everybody” or “three women.” It is not hard to read much, perhaps even most, of the ongoing discussion in the philosophy of language as trying to give content to this intuition; indeed, the field itself dates its birth in part to Russell’s reflections on just this point in “On Denoting,” when he considers whether definite descriptions are to be analyzed as akin to names or quantifiers, opting for the latter. Russell’s arguments, assuming as they do the underlying intuitive validity of the distinction between reference and quantification, however, raise a meta-question: What is one opting for when adopting a quantificational analysis? Or to put it a little differently: What does it mean to say that a term is a quantifier, as opposed to a name? What constitutes being a quantifier? Giving answers to questions of this sort of course was not Russell’s primary concern,1 but it is ours, and so our goal in this chapter is to acquaint the reader with the answers that have emerged, as well as present some novel reflections on these matters.
