De dicto/ de re. — Banno
Propositional attitude verbs are opacity inducing. That is, they seem to create linguistic environments that do not permit substitution of co-designating singular terms salva veritate. This is the basis of Frege’s puzzle. Modals like ‘it is necessary that’ and ‘it is possible that’ are also opacity inducing. Opacity inducing expressions give rise to a de re/de dicto distinction. The de re/de dicto distinction has meant different things to different people.
The clock is broken and sometimes we believe that it is not broken. — Banno
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