On Denoting
On Denoting, written by Bertrand Russell, is one of the most significant and
influential philosophical essays of the 20th century. It was published in the
philosophy journal Mind in 1905, then reprinted in both a special 2005
anniversary issue of the same journal, and Russell's Logic and Knowledge, 1956.
In it, Russell introduces definite and indefinite descriptions, formulates
descriptivism with regard to proper names, and characterizes proper names as
"disguised" or "abbreviated" definite descriptions.
In the 1930s, Frank P. Ramsey referred to the essay as "that paradigm of
philosophy" and, more recently, a contributor to the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy has singled it out as "the paradigm of philosophy", calling it a
work of "tremendous insight" which has provoked discussion and debate among
philosophers of language and linguists for over a century.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 The "denoting phrase"
1.1 Russell's concept of a denoting phrase
1.2 Reference to something which does not exist
1.3 Epistemology
2 The theory of descriptions
2.1 Mathematical description
2.2 Illustration
3 Meinong
4 Resolving the problem of negative existentials
4.1 Statements about concepts where the object doesn’t exist
4.2 Ambiguity
4.3 Fictional names
5 References
[edit] The "denoting phrase"
[edit] Russell's concept of a denoting phrase
For Russell, a denoting phrase is a singular noun phrase, preceded by a
quantifier, whose predicate term is satisfied by some particular. Such phrases
do not contribute objects as the constituents of the singular propositions in
which they occur. Denotation, in other words, is a semantically inert property,
in this view. Whereas Frege held that there were two distinct parts (or
aspects) of the meaning of every term, phrase or sentence (its Sinn and
Bedeutung), Russell explicitly rejects the notion of sense (Sinn) and replaces
it with the idea of a propositional function (i.e. a function from objects to
abstract propositions which are the contents of sentences). This is so because,
for Russell, propositions must have concrete, really existing entities as their
constituents. Russell provides several clear examples of the sort of thing that
he had in mind: "a man, any man, every man, the present King of France... the
center of mass of the Solar System, ...." So, for Russell, a denoting phrase
can be either a definite description (i.e. a singular noun phrase with the
determinative article "the" at the beginning) which "does not denote anything"
(meaning designate any specific object) or a definite description which does
denote a specific object or, finally, an indefinite description which denotes
"ambiguously". Russell, as will be shown later, believes that definite
descriptions are not referring expressions but rather, to borrow a term which
was later coined by Keith Donnellan, they have "attributive" uses only. They
are to be interpreted as strictly logical quantificational formulas which are
"general" in nature. At least this has been the general interpretation of
Russell among philosophical logicans for nearly a century.
[edit] Reference to something which does not exist
However, it is interesting to note that right at the very beginning of the
article, Russell distinguishes between cases where "a phrase may be denoting
and yet not denote anything (e.g. 'the present King of France)" and cases where
they may denote "one definite object (e.g. "the present King of England)". If
this passage is interpreted as saying that descriptions may "refer" to one
definite object, then it could be that Russell actually recognized the two
distinct uses of definite descriptions (attributive and referential) which
Donnellan later proposed.
[edit] Epistemology
In any case, after clarifying the sense of the term "denoting phrase" and
providing several examples to illustrate the idea, Russell explains the
epistemological motivations for his theory. Russell believes at this point that
there are essentially two modes of knowing: knowledge by description and
knowledge by (direct) acquaintance. Knowledge by acquaintance is limited to the
sense data of the phenomenal world and to one's own private inner experiences,
while knowledge of everything else (other minds, physical objects, and so on)
can only be known by way of general descriptions.
[edit] The theory of descriptions
[edit] Mathematical description
Russell starts out by defining the "fundamental" notion of a propositional
function. This is basically a modified version of Frege's idea of unsaturated
concepts. Hence, "'C(x) stands for a proposition in which x is a constituent
and where x, the variable, is essentially and wholly undetermined." The notions
of everything, nothing and something ("the most primitive of denoting phrases")
can then be defined as follows:
where E stands for everything, N stands for nothing and S stands for something.
All is taken as primitive and indefinable and the others are defined in terms
of it. Russell emphasizes that these notions can have no meaning apart from
that which is assigned to them within the propositions in which they occur, all
of which are meaningful. This is the foundation of Russell's theory of
descriptions as he proceeds to illustrate.
[edit] Illustration
The phrase "the father of Charles II was executed" is interpreted as the
following quantificational assertion:
In other words, there is one and only one thing x such that x is the father of
Charles II and x was executed.
So, if C represents any statement at all about the father of Charles II, the
statement 'C (the father of Charles II)' always implies:
It follows that if there is not one and only one entity that satisfies the
above, then every proposition that contains the descriptions is false. (If the
mother of Charles II was unfaithful the statement may be false.) In this way,
Russell points out, it will turn out that all statements containing
non-referring descriptions (e.g. "The present king of Samothrace is a great
writer") are false. Russell's theory reduces all propositions which contain
definite descriptions into forms in which they do not.
[edit] Meinong
He then criticizes Meinong's theory of objects which, according to Russell, is
ontologically promiscuous and self-contradictory. Both of these accusations,
however, seem to be the fruit of a misunderstanding of Meinong's views. Russell
accuses Meinong, for example, of believing that "the present King of France"
both exists and does not exist. However, Meinong does not attribute existence
(or any other sort of being) to non-existent objects. Russell also accuses
Meinong of violating the law of non-contradiction by asserting that the "round
square" is both round and not round. Meinong, on the other hand, maintains that
the laws of logic do not apply to such phenomena as "impossible" objects which
have no being.[2]
[edit] Resolving the problem of negative existentials
One of the fundamental puzzles that Russell hopes to resolve with the theory of
descriptions is the problem of non-referring expressions or, as they are now
called, negative existentials. He finally explains how his theory resolves this
problem after invoking a distinction between what he calls primary and
secondary occurrences of denoting phrases.
[edit] Statements about concepts where the object doesn’t exist
Since definite descriptions are just quantificational devices on Russell's view
they can enter into scope relations with other logical operators. In the case
of negative existentials, there is an ambiguity between two different (primary
and secondary) readings of the quantificational assertion. For example, Russell
uses the case of "the present King of France is not bald." Here the two
possible readings are:
In the first case, the statement is false because it quantifies over
non-existent entities. In the second case, the statement is true because it is
not the case that there is a present King of France. "Thus all propositions in
which 'the King of France has a primary occurrence are false: the denials of
such propositions are true, but in them 'the King of France has a secondary
occurrence." Contemporarily, it is customary to discuss Russell's
primary/secondary distinction in the more logically exact terms of wide and
narrow scope. The scope distinction regards the operator which on one reading
modifies only the subject, and on the other, modifies the entire sentence.
[edit] Ambiguity
Russell resolves the problem of ambiguity in propositional attitude reports in
a similar manner. He refers to an example similar to Frege's puzzle about
identity: "George IV wondered whether Scott is the author of Waverley." In this
case, it is obvious that King George is not wondering whether Scott is
identical to Scott. Russell rejects Frege's solution of distinguishing between
sense and reference. Quantificational descriptions are sufficient to for him to
handle the de dicto / de re ambiguities. So, for example, in the general case,
the sentence "George IV wondered whether Scott is Sir Walter" can be
interpreted as:
George IV wondered whether the x that... is identical to the y that....
where "..." stands for some definite description such as "the clever fellow who
wrote Ivanhoe" and ....stands for something like "the elegant gentleman seated
next to the Princess". In the de re case, the above sentence can be interpreted
as follows instead:
the x that... is such that King George wondered whether x is identical to the y
that....
[edit] Fictional names
Finally, Russell suggests that fictional names such as "Apollo" can be treated
as abbreviated definite descriptions which refer to nothing. All propositions
which contain names of such fictional entities are to be treated in the same
manner as the negative existentials described above.
[edit] References
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
On Denoting^ Ludlow, Peter, "Descriptions", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
URL=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2005/entries/descriptions/
^ Grossman, Reinhardt. "Alexius Meinong". The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
(ed.) Ted Honderich. 1995
Russell, B. "On Denoting," Mind, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 56. (Oct., 1905), pp.
479-493. online text, JSTOR text.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Denoting";
Categories: Philosophy of language
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