Rearming the Slingshot?

Slingshot arguments aim to show that an allegedly non-extensional sentential connective—such as “necessarily (_)” or “the statement that Φ corresponds to the fact that (_)”—is, to the contrary, an extensional sentential connective. Stephen Neale (Mind 104 (416): 761-825, 1995, 2001) argues that a reformulation of Gödel’s slingshot puts pressure on us to adopt a particular view of definite descriptions. I formulate a revised version of the slingshot argument—one that relies on Kaplan’s notion of “dthat.” I aim to show that if Neale’s version of the slingshot argument is successful, then there is another slingshot available, parallel in structure to Neale’s, but independent of definite descriptions. So either (i) there is a version of the slingshot that succeeds independent of any particular theory of descriptions or else (ii) Neale’s slingshot was never threatening to begin with.