Peter Geach on ascriptivism

This article is concerned with critical arguments of Peter Geach against some theories of nondescriptive performances as they stated in his article “Ascriptivism”. Geach’s article launch a wholesale attack on these theories advanced by “some Oxford philosophers” whom he accuses of ignoring “the distinction between calling a thing ‘P’ and predicating ‘P’ of the thing”. In it, Geach provides a fairly detailed description of Frege’s arguments in relation to prescriptivism (replacing it with the term “ascriptivism”), set forth, in his opinion, in an article by Herbert Hart, “The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights”. Geach specifically targets Hart’s claim that sentences of the form “He did it” are not primarily descriptive but ascriptive of responsibility for actions. The translation into Russian P. Geach “Ascriptivism” is presented in appendix.

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