Use–mention distinction

In analytic philosophy,^[1] a fundamental distinction is made between the use of a term and the mere mention of it.^[2]^[3] Many philosophical works have been "vitiated by a failure to distinguish use and mention".^[2] The distinction can sometimes be pedantic, especially in simple cases where it is obvious.^[2]^[4]

The distinction between use and mention can be illustrated with the word "cheese":^[2]^[3]

Cheese is derived from milk.
"Cheese" is derived from the Old English word ċēse.

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.

In written language, mentioned words or phrases often appear between single or double quotation marks or in italics. In philosophy, single quotation marks are typically used, while in other fields (such as linguistics) italics are more common.^[5] Some style authorities, such as Strunk and White, emphasize that mentioned words or phrases should be visually distinct. On the other hand, used words or phrases do not carry typographic markings.^[6]

The phenomenon of a term having different references in various contexts was referred to as suppositio (substitution) by medieval logicians.^[7] A substitution describes how a term is substituted in a sentence based on its referent. For nouns, a term can be used in different ways:

With a concrete and real referent:^[a] "That is my pig." (personal supposition)
With a concrete but unreal referent: "Santa Claus's pig is very big." (personal supposition)
With a generic referent: "Any pig breathes air." (simple supposition)
Metaphorically: "Your grandfather is a pig." (improper supposition)
As a pure term: "Pig has only three letters." (material supposition)

The use–mention distinction is particularly significant in analytic philosophy.^[8] Confusing use with mention can lead to misleading or incorrect statements, such as category errors.

Self-referential statements also engage the use–mention distinction and are often central to logical paradoxes, such as Quine's paradox. In mathematics, this concept appears in Gödel's incompleteness theorem, where the diagonal lemma plays a crucial role.

Stanisław Leśniewski extensively employed this distinction, noting the fallacies that can result from confusing it in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica.^[9]

Donald Davidson argued that quotation cannot always be treated as mere mention, giving examples where quotations carry both use and mention functions.^[10]

Douglas Hofstadter explains the distinction between use and mention as follows:^[11]

When a word is used to refer to something, it is being used. When a word is quoted, the focus is on its surface aspects, such as typography or phonetics, and it is being mentioned.

Issues arise when a mention itself is mentioned. Notating this with italics or repeated quotation marks can lead to ambiguity.^[12]

Some analytic philosophers have said the distinction "may seem rather pedantic".^[2]

In a 1977 response to analytic philosopher John Searle, Jacques Derrida mentioned the distinction as "rather laborious and problematical".^[4]

Haddocks' Eyes – Nickname of the name of a song
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher – Grammatically correct sentence demonstrating lexical ambiguity
Map–territory relation – Relationship between an object and a representation of that object
Metalanguage – Language used to describe another language
Pointer (computer programming) – Object which stores memory addresses in a computer program
Quasi-quotation – Linguistic device in formal languages
Scare quotes – Quotation marks used to indicate non-standard usage
Sense and reference – Distinction in the philosophy of language
When a white horse is not a horse – Chinese philosophical dialogue

This use of the word concrete is explained at Abstract and concrete.

[1]
Wheeler (2005) p. 568
[2]
Devitt and Sterelny (1999) pp. 40–1
[3]
W.V. Quine (1940) p. 24
[4]
Derrida, Jacques (1977). Limited Inc. Northwestern University Press. p. 79. ISBN 9780810107885.
[5]
For example, Butcher's Copy-Editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders, 4th edition, by Judith Butcher, Caroline Drake, and Maureen Leach. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Butcher's recommends against the practice, but The Chicago Manual of Style, section 7.58 (15th edition, 2003), indicates that philosophers use single quotes for a similar distinction, though it is not explained in these terms.
[6]
Wilson, Shomir (2011). "A Computational Theory of the Use-Mention Distinction in Natural Language". PhD Dissertation, University of Maryland. Retrieved 16 February 2013.
[7]
See Read, Stephen (2006). Medieval Theories: Properties of Terms. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[8]
"Quotation". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 16 July 2005. Retrieved 5 October 2009.
[9]
Simons, Peter (2006). "Leśniewski, Stanisław". In Borchert, Donald M (ed.). Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition (e-book ed.). Thomson Gale. p. 292. ISBN 0-02-866072-2.
[10]
Davidson, Donald (March 1979). "Quotation". Theory and Decision. 11 (1): 27–40. doi:10.1007/BF00126690. ISSN 0040-5833. S2CID 261211103.
[11]
Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1985). Metamagical Themas. p. 9.
[12]
Boolos, George (1999). Logic, Logic, and Logic. p. 398. In this 1995 paper, Boolos discussed ambiguities in using quotation marks as part of a formal language, and proposed a way of distinguishing levels of mentioning using a finite number of marks.

Derrida, Jacques (1977) Limited Inc abc ... in Limited Inc
Michael Devitt, Kim Sterelny (1999) Language and reality: an introduction to the philosophy of language
W.V. Quine (1940) Mathematical Logic, §4 Use versus mention, pp. 23–5
Wheeler, Samuel (2005) Davidson as Derridean: Analytic Philosophy as Deconstruction in Cardozo Law Review Vol. 27–2 November 2005 Symposium: Derrida/America, The Present State of America's Europe

A. W. Moore (1986) How Significant Is the Use/Mention Distinction? in Analysis Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct. 1986), pp. 173–179

"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 Dennett AAI 2009, 4 October 2009

[8] This use of the word concrete is explained at Abstract and concrete.

[1] [1]
Wheeler (2005) p. 568

[Devitt99-2] [2]
Devitt and Sterelny (1999) pp. 40–1

[Suine40p24-3] [3]
W.V. Quine (1940) p. 24

[Derrida77p79-4] [4]
Derrida, Jacques (1977). Limited Inc. Northwestern University Press. p. 79. ISBN 9780810107885.

[5] [5]
For example, Butcher's Copy-Editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Copy-editors and Proofreaders, 4th edition, by Judith Butcher, Caroline Drake, and Maureen Leach. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Butcher's recommends against the practice, but The Chicago Manual of Style, section 7.58 (15th edition, 2003), indicates that philosophers use single quotes for a similar distinction, though it is not explained in these terms.

[6] [6]
Wilson, Shomir (2011). "A Computational Theory of the Use-Mention Distinction in Natural Language". PhD Dissertation, University of Maryland. Retrieved 16 February 2013.

[7] [7]
See Read, Stephen (2006). Medieval Theories: Properties of Terms. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

[9] [8]
"Quotation". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 16 July 2005. Retrieved 5 October 2009.

[10] [9]
Simons, Peter (2006). "Leśniewski, Stanisław". In Borchert, Donald M (ed.). Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition (e-book ed.). Thomson Gale. p. 292. ISBN 0-02-866072-2.

[11] [10]
Davidson, Donald (March 1979). "Quotation". Theory and Decision. 11 (1): 27–40. doi:10.1007/BF00126690. ISSN 0040-5833. S2CID 261211103.

[12] [11]
Hofstadter, Douglas R. (1985). Metamagical Themas. p. 9.

[13] [12]
Boolos, George (1999). Logic, Logic, and Logic. p. 398. In this 1995 paper, Boolos discussed ambiguities in using quotation marks as part of a formal language, and proposed a way of distinguishing levels of mentioning using a finite number of marks.

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Use–mention distinction

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Use–mention distinction

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