review of ostertag ostertag , gary ( ed ) ( 1998 ) definite descriptions : a reader , cambridge , ma : mit press , xii + 411pp , $ 30 . 00 . the collection begins with a substantive introductory essay by the editor . this is followed by fifteen papers , the majority of which were originally published in journals or in other anthologies , although some were originally chapters or parts of chapters of books . the collection ends with a useful bibliography , with readings arranged by topic . the first of the fifteen papers in ostertag 's anthology is russell 's 1905 paper ' on denoting ' , and the remaining papers are arranged in more or less chronological order , ending with a 1995 paper of stephen schiffer 's titled ' descriptions , indexicals , and belief reports : some dilemmas ( but not the ones you expect ) ' . the one deviation from the chronological sequence is stephen neale 's 1993 paper ' grammatical form , logical form , and incomplete symbols ' , which is placed in the sequence just after several papers authored or co-authored by russell . presumably the reason for placing neale 's paper out of chronological order is that it illuminates some of the more technical background notions whose grasp is essential to an understanding of the debate represented in the ensuing papers . neale discusses the distinction between grammatical and logical form , raises questions about the appropriate way to represent ordinary language quantifiers in semantic theory , discusses russell 's claim that definite descriptions are incomplete symbols , and discusses the implications of this for an attempt to give a compositional semantics for sentences containing descriptions . the other papers in the collection are the classic ones by strawson , donnellan and kripke , as well as more recently influential papers by such authors as peacocke , wettstein , soames and neale . ostertag regrets that he could n't have included more papers in his volume . he regrets for instance not including some of the work by marga reimer or by nathan salmon . ostertag compensates for this gap in a small way by spending some time in his introductory essay on reimer 's arguments against treating ' the f ' as a quantifier , and on salmon 's arguments against wettstein 's anti - russellian views . ostertag 's introductory chapter breaks the mold for this sort of essay , in the sense that it does n't contain a summary of the central arguments of the collected papers . possibly ostertag felt that since the majority of the papers in his collection are classics in the field , or at least frequently referred to by others in the field , it was unnecessary to encapsulate their central arguments in this way . presumably most instructors using this as a textbook in a philosophy of language course will be very familiar with the arguments contained in these papers . instead , ostertag 's essay presents a ( by his own admission partial ) view of some of the twists and turns the debate has taken . ostertag begins with a brief historical account of russell 's reasons for moving away from the extreme realist view which , under the influence of meinong , he had earlier accepted , to the position defended in ' on denoting ' . ostertag then lays out the treatment that russell gave to definite descriptions in principia mathematica , noting some of the contortions that russell had to go through to represent scope differences in his notation . ostertag ends this section by explaining the method of representing natural language quantifiers ( the method of restricted quantification ) that is favored by contemporary russellians , such as neale . this is followed by an interesting section in which ostertag argues that the contemporary significance of russell 's work is rather different from the significance it had when russell first published ' on denoting ' , partly due to the fact that russell 's treatment of descriptions as devices of quantification has been so readily incorporated into contemporary grammatical theory . ostertag turns next to a discussion of the referential / attributive distinction . ostertag 's conclusion is that referential uses of descriptions are adequately accounted for by a gricean strategy . that is , in cases in which a description is used referentially , we must distinguish what is meant from what is said . the referential understanding is retrieved via gricean mechanisms as an implicature from what is said . ostertag does n't explicitly discuss some of the neo - gricean and relevance theoretical alternatives that have appeared recently in the literature that challenge this gricean solution . however , ostertag 's footnotes do point readers to some of these alternative accounts . ostertag concludes with a discussion of the problem of incomplete descriptions ( e . g . descriptions such as ' the table is covered with books ' , which strawson first drew attention to ) , and with a discussion of various challenges by marga reimer and others to russell 's assimilation of descriptions to quantifiers . ostertag seems more pessimistic that russellians can deal adequately with these problems , and concludes his discussion with the claim that once we accept the context-sensitivity of descriptions , which it seems we must , then " we are no longer in possession of an account of how the meaning of the quantifier phrase " the f " is determined by the meanings of its constituents . " ( p . 28 ) . overall , ostertag 's essay is very interesting . however , there is one very small printing error , which leads to some difficulties in following the thread of ostertag 's argument . on p . 24 the references should be not to the sentences numbered ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) , but to the sentences numbered ( 5 ) and ( 6 ) . in his preface , ostertag remarks that it is somewhat surprising that no free standing collection of essays on descriptions has yet appeared . issues having to do with definite descriptions form one of the core topics in the philosophy of language and all the major textbooks in the philosophy of language contain a section devoted to these issues . free standing collections of essays on other topics central to the philosophy of language have appeared over the years . for instance , yourgrau ( 1990 ) and salmon & soames ( 1988 ) . so there does seem to be a need for a collection such as the present one , which could be useful for an upper level undergraduate or graduate seminar devoted to the topic of descriptions . the only philosophy of language textbook which comes close to having as much coverage of this topic is ludlow ( 1997 ) , which contains seven essays under the heading of definite and indefinite descriptions . the topic of indefinite descriptions is not addressed in ostertag 's collection , which is one of the disappointments about this volume , and is related to one of the major shortcomings of this volume . all the papers in ostertag 's collection are by philosophers . the classic philosophical debate has tended to focus on a narrow range of issues , with the alleged distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions being the dominant one . linguists who have worked on the topic of descriptions generally are interested in a much broader set of issues . some of the best current work by philosophers on descriptions ( such as that by stephen neale ) is cross-fertilized by the work of linguists . hence it would have been good to include work by linguists , not only to open up the philosophical discussion to a wider range of issues , but also to guard against the chance that students will come away with the impression that work on the topic by other professionals is of only marginal relevance to the philosophical debate . there is important recent work by linguists on the topic of the referential / attributive distinction ; on the comparison between definite and indefinite descriptions ; on the so-called generic , specific and predicative uses of descriptions ; on the claim ( found in work as early as strawson 's classic response to russell ) that the definite / indefinite distinction is related to the given / new distinction for information in a conversational context ; and on the semantics / pragmatics distinction as it applies to descriptions . some representative authors are : irene heim ( 1989 ) , ruth kempson , ( 1986 ) and villy rouchota , ( 1992 ) and ( 1994 ) . in addition , there is more technical work in linguistics which explores the extent to which definiteness is a semantic property of expressions , and hence the extent to which it is possible to offer a linguistically universal characterization of ( in ) definiteness . such work is represented in a recent collection of papers edited by eric reuland and alice ter meulen . see reuland & ter meulen ( 1987 ) . peter ludlow , in his preface to the philosophy of language textbook mentioned above , remarks that " the philosophy of language , or at least a core part of it , has matured to the point where it is now being spun off into linguistic theory . " ludlow , ( 1997 ) p . xiii . ludlow takes this to mean that certain core problems in philosophy of language are being " naturalized " via their incorporation into linguistics , and he uses this claim to justify the inclusion of the work of linguists in his collection , alongside the classics of the philosophy of language . i am not sure that i would go as far as ludlow in claiming that core parts of the philosophy of language are now a part of linguistics . but given that natural languages , as well as the speakers of such languages , are objects of study for the cognitive sciences , it makes sense for philosophers of language to pay attention to what other cognitive scientists are saying about such things . this means paying attention to linguistic research , but it also means paying attention to work on language by psychologists , anthropologists , computer scientists and others . to give just one example of where such cross-fertilization might occur : developmental psychologists have long been interested in how it is that children master the distinction between definite and indefinite referring expressions . see for instance karmiloff - smith ( 1979 ) and emslie & stevenson ( 1981 ) . charting the development of children 's semantic and pragmatic skills could potentially help clarify issues having to do with the correct semantic representation of ( in ) definites , as well as help in the resolution of questions concerning the boundary between the semantic and the pragmatic . this said , it should be stressed that as a text for use in a mainstream philosophy of language class , whose principle aim is to introduce students to the debate about definite descriptions as it has unfolded over the last 90 years , this volume is unsurpassed . the editor has clearly given a lot of thought to picking papers which are representative of this mainstream debate . it would be unreasonable to demand that all the tributaries , as well as the new offshoots , to this debate be represented in a single , manageably compact volume . perhaps the editor and / or his publishers will consider in the future bringing out a companion volume in which papers representing this wider debate are brought together ? bibliography : emslie , h . & stevenson , r . ( 1981 ) ' pre - school children 's use of the articles in definite and indefinite referring expressions ' , journal of child language , 8 : 313-328 . heim , i . ( 1989 ) the semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases , new york , garland press . karmiloff - smith , a . ( 1979 ) a functional approach to child language , cambridge : cambridge university press . kempson , r . ( 1986 ) ' definite nps and context - dependence : a unified theory of anaphora ' , in travis ( ed ) meaning and interpretation , oxford : blackwell , 209-239 . ludlow , p . ( ed ) ( 1997 ) readings in the philosophy of language , cambridge , ma : mit press . reuland , e . & ter meulen , a . ( 1987 ) the representation of ( in ) definiteness , cambridge , ma : mit press . rouchota , v . ( 1992 ) ' on the referential / attributive distinction ' , lingua , 87 : 137-167 . rouchota , v . ( 1994 ) ' on indefinite descriptions ' journal of linguistics , 30 : 441-475 . salmon , n . & soames , s . ( eds ) ( 1988 ) propositions and attitudes , oxford : oxford university press . yourgrau , p . ( ed ) ( 1990 ) demonstratives , oxford : oxford university press . anne bezuidenhout is an associate professor of philosophy and a core member of linguistics at the university of south carolina , columbia , sc . she is interested in the pragmatic aspects of language and communication , and has attempted to apply the insights of relevance theory to traditional debates in the philosophy of language , such as the debate about referential and attributive uses of descriptions , and the debate about the correct semantics for propositional attitude ascriptions . she is also currently working with cooper cutting , department of psychology , illinois state university on an experimental investigation of the pragmatic processes involved in utterance interpretation .