On Denoting

by Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell,18 May 1872-2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic and political activist. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist. In the early 20th century, Russell led the British "revolt against idealism."He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore, and his protege Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians.With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy." His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics."

Genres: Philosophy, Logic, Language, Linguistics, Nonfiction, Read For School

16 pages, ebook

Published March 10, 2016

About the author

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

Reviews

[Ipsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

How does language link up to the world? Peter Ludlow singled the essay out as "the paradigm of philosophy;" he emphasised on “the” because for Russell this is the key to a fundamental philosophical question in the theory of knowledge. He wanted to create a universal formal language...bla bla bla. Anyway, it took me nearly six months to wrap my head around this and I finally understand why it effectively ended Frege's career looooll. Brilliant essay!

[Xander · Rating 3 out of 5]

We gain knowledge through individual experience. This sets limits to what we can know. Also, the things themselves - physical objects, other minds - are by denifition inpenetrable to us. Description allows us to overcome the limits of knowledge through direct experience. In effect, we denotate certain objects and describe them in terms of classes having properties. This side-steps the problem of knowing the objects themselves. For example, we can't know the mind of someone else, yet we can describe it in terms of the person having such and such properties.

Although useful, this knowledge by description - as distinguished from knowledge by acquaintance - leads to problems. Due to the use of our everyday language, denotations lead to difficulties in giving meaning to our propositions. The meaning of a proposition lies - according to Russell - in its truth value, i.e. it is either true or false in that the proposition does or does not describe a state of affairs in reality.

One of Russell's examples is illustrating. We can state 'the present King of France is bald.' The proposition contains the denotation 'the present King of France' and asserts a property of this object - it possesses the quality 'baldness'. Now, what is the meaning, i.e. the truth value, of this proposition?

There were two views on this. Alexis Meinong claimed the denoting phrase ('the present King of France') refers to an existing object. The problem is, we know France had (and still has) no king. Yet somehow someway the object has to exist, in order to rescue the proposition having any meaning. This leads us into a contradiction: the referred object both exists and does not exist.

A solution to this problem, a solution which Russell advocated years prior to On Denoting (1905) was Frege's theory that we have to distinguish meaning from denotation. But this still leaves the above mentioned denoting problem. 'The present King of France is bald' contains the denoting phrase 'The present King of France', which does not exist. In other words: it asserts something about a non-existent object, leading to the conclusion that the proposition is meaningless.

On Russell's theory of denotation, we can circumvent this meaninglessness problem and ascribe a truth value to all propositions containing denoting phrases. According to him, we should analyze the proposition formally, and discover its logical structure - which is hidden beneath garb of our everyday language. The denoting phrase 'the present King of France' means nothing - only the complex proposition 'The present King of France is bald' has a meaning. Now, the complex proposition can mean two things, depending on how the denoting phrase occurs in the proposition.

First, the sentence can mean 'there is an object, and this object is currently King of France, and is bald'. This proposition is false, since the object does not exist. Second, the sentence can mean 'it is false there is an object which is currently the King of France and is bald'. This proposition is true, since - basing ourselves on the exact same empirial fact! - it affirms the non-existence of the object 'the present King of France'.

This all might seem rather trivial and much ado about nothing, but what Russell is trying to do is offer a means to reduce our everday language into logical formalisms to analyze the meaning of the sentences we utter. In short, he not only claims there is a deeper, logical structure lying beneath the grammatical structure of our everyday language - and this deeper structure is universal (as opposied to our grammar)! - but he effectively offers a means to analyze our thoughts - as expressed and communicated - to infer the meaning and the truth-value of these thoughts.

His theory of denotation was part of bigger programme. In doing so, Russell hoped to reduce all of science and mathematics to logic, showing us how most of what we know is one giant hierarchical structure, of sub-structures etc., of logical complexes composed of logical atoms, ultimately mapping exactly onto (i.e. corresponding to) the structures of complexes of facts in reality. In short: our thinking corresponds exactly to reality, our thoughts maps one to one on facts - without having the need of knowledge about (!) the objects and people we think exist. Our sense-data are caused by entities in reality, and correspond to logical atoms which we use to construct logical complexes. Such a worldview allows for the diversity and eclecticism of the sciences, while founding all of our knowledge in logical principles - striking two flies with one sweep of the hand.

[Cooper Ackerly · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig."

[jo · Rating 1 out of 5]

had to read it for uni
made me cry, i do not recommend

[Fabian Standaert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik hoop dat hij zelf denkt dat hij een punt heeft, want ik heb het niet gevonden...

[Liv Y · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Like it get it but I don’t understand why it’s so important. Really nice essay. Good argument against Frege and honesty really funny (which I thought analytical philosophy could never be). Russel is kind of in the same boat as Rawls in my mind. I don’t think he’s right but he’s so charmingly and cleverly wrong. I still don’t understand why how our language relates to the world is such a pressing issue. Maybe I should’ve been spending my time studying the hard sciences instead :|

[subkiyy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A monumental work within analytical philosophy, this and Quine’s Two Dogmas has to be the cornerstone of the tradition.

A rather straight forward paper, takes into account Frege’s Sense and Reference paper wherein he indirectly argues that invoking a linguistic entity (sinn) is superfluous.

Basically the beginning of the logical analysis of language.

[ricmarrod · Rating 3 out of 5]

No entendí la verdad que casi nada, ya no sé que es un sintagma nominal. Tampoco sé que le pasó al padre de Carlos II, pero espero que se recupere.
Una frase que me hizo gracia fue: "Esta interpretación puede parecer un tanto increíble, pero por el momento no estoy dando razones, sino solo enunciando la teoría". Me parece muy representativa. Simpático.

[Vincent · Rating 2 out of 5]

Föredrar Strawsons teori!

[Tim Verbergt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did my thesis on the problem of denotation and while Russell may not be entirely correct in this work. It is amazingly well written, especially for a matter this difficult and complicated. It is entertaining in some points so you can keep your attention.

That being said: it is still a book of analytic philosophy. It is dry and though to read at times. Still it does what it needs to. It explains a matter in a clear way without being open to multiple interpretations.

And it has a funny quote about Hegel in it:

"If we enumerated the things that are bald, and then the things that are not bald, we should not find the present King of France in either list. Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig.”
— Bertrand Russell

[João · Rating 5 out of 5]

"By the law of the excluded middle, either `A is B' or `A is not B' must be true. Hence either `the present King of France is bald' or `the present King of France is not bald' must be true. Yet if we enumerated the things that are bald, and then the things that are not bald, we should not find the present King of France in either list. Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig."

[Max Chapin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wrong. But beautifully wrong - i.e. the best kind of philosophy.

[nyaru · Rating 3 out of 5]

wittgenstein wannabe

"By the law of excluded middle, either "A is B" or "A is not B" must be true. Hence either "the present King of France is bald" or "the present King of France is not bald" must be true. Yet if we enumerated the things that are bald, and then the things that are not bald, we should not find the present King of France in either list. Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig."

[Nivaryn Dane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely easy to read paper about definite descriptions, love how Russell discuss the true meaning of ‘the’. This paper is the definition of breathtaking. Will read this to my future children as a bedtime story.

[Christian Degnboel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blanding af lingvistik og filosofi, der viser problemerne ved udsagn. Jeg forstod ikke helt hans teori, men hans måde at vise problemer ved udsagn på var interessant

[axegrinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's short, hard and challenging but rewarding in terms of linguistics.

[Temuulen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good intro paper, or a premise to Analytical Philosophy.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

rly influential and sooo true

[Nic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Russells writing is clever, but his ideas are not presented as clearly as I would like.

[Paula]

I like On Denoting better than Descriptions. Also, when comparing to Frege’s On Sense and Reference, there are many arguments that are helpful to support Russell’s claims.

[David Nathans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hegelians and Meinongians still haven’t recovered from this.

[Esteban Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty smart dude, kind of arrogant though

[i hate books · Rating 2 out of 5]

nominalistu' dracului

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

he just kind of ruined my life

[ione]

"we are vever acquainted with other's people's minds, seeing that these are not directly perceived; hence what we know about them is obtained through denoting".