This paper discusses the proper taxonomy of the semantics-pragmatics divide.
Debates about taxonomy are not always pointless. In interesting cases taxonomic
proposals involve theoretical assumptions about the studied field, which might be judged
correct or incorrect. Here I want to contrast an approach to the semantics-pragmatics dichotomy,
motivated by a broadly Gricean perspective I take to be correct, with a contemporary
version of an opposing “Wittgensteinian” view. I will focus mostly on a well-known example:
the treatment of referential uses of descriptions and descriptive uses of indexicals.
The paper is structured as follows. I will start by characterizing in the first section the version
of the Gricean approach I favor; in the second section, I will illustrate the differences
between the two views by focussing on the example, and in the third section I will object
to what I take to be the main Wittgensteinian consideration
