De dicto and De re

For anyone interested in the philosophy of language, metaphysics or modal logic, these two concepts are very important to know. De dicto and de re represent two different possible interpretations of various sentences. For example, take the statement; "she wants to go to the tallest building in the world." The de dicto interpretation of this would be that this woman has a general desire to see the tallest building in the world. The de re interpretation is that there is a specific building this woman has in mind. Thus de dicto interpretations revolve around the statement while de re interpretations revolve around the subject specifically.

This can perhaps be more clearly seen when de dicto and de re is employed in modal logic. Take the claim that, "the number of chemical elements is necessarily greater than 100." The de dicto interpretation would be that necessarily connects chemical elements to any number greater than 100, so that there is no possible world in which the number of chemical elements is less than 100. The de re interpretation, however, looks past the statement into the subject chemical elements. On the de re interpretation, the number of chemical elements is equal to 117, and thus, 117 is necessarily greater than 100.