THE AMBIGUITY THESIS VERSUS KRIPKES DEFENSE OF RUSSELL

In his influential paper 'Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference', Kripke defends Russell's theory of descriptions against the charge th at the existence of referential and attributive uses of descriptions r eflects a semantic ambiguity. He presents a purely defensive argument to show that Russell's theory is not refuted by the referential usage and a number of methodological considerations which apparently tell in favour of Russell's unitary theory over an ambiguity theory. In this paper, I put forward a case for the ambiguity theory that thwarts Krip ke's defensive strategy and argue that it is not undermined by any of his methodological points.