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On Denoting


"On Denoting" is an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was published in the philosophy journal Mind in 1905. In it, Russell introduces definite and indefinite descriptions, formulates descriptivism with regard to proper names, and characterises proper names as "disguised" or "abbreviated" definite descriptions.

In the 1920s, Frank P. Ramsey referred to the essay as "that paradigm of philosophy". In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry Descriptions, Peter Ludlow singled the essay out as "the paradigm of philosophy", and called it a work of "tremendous insight"; provoking discussion and debate among philosophers of language and linguists for over a century.

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 that 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 centre 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 that does denote a specific object or, finally, an indefinite description that denotes "ambiguously". Russell, as will be shown later, believes that definite descriptions are not referring expressions but rather, to borrow a term later coined by Keith Donnellan, they have "attributive" uses only. They are to be interpreted as strictly logical quantificational formulas that are "general" in nature. At least this has been the general interpretation of Russell among philosophical logicians for nearly a century.


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