Answer

  Explanation of Russell’s Objection

Reading through Russell’s piece, his commitment to the acquaintance principle becomes clear even as he explains various concepts related to the theory of denoting. He explores the possibility of conceptualizing things and forming propositions about them, regardless of whether one is acquainted with such things or not. Areas of agreement between the acquaintance principle and the theory of denoting concepts notwithstanding, Russell expresses his objection to the latter and formulates a new viewpoint that is importantly in agreement with the principles of acquaintance. This paper explains Russell’s objection even as can be comprehended in the context of Frege’s theory.

In his new viewpoint, Russell suggests that what people have in mind and what constitutes propositions that can be understood are things with which they are acquainted, which imperatively help in conceptualizing things with which they are not acquainted.  In his explanation on denoting phrases he includes different types of quantified subject phrases but finds merit in focusing more on definite descriptions containing the article the, for instance “the present King of England” (481). According to him, definite descriptions work similarly as proper names, or denoting phrases that seek to uniquely identify objects, that is their denotations. However, a sentence’s logical form that contains a definite description turns out to be quite different from the grammatical (or superficial form).

The author proceeds to explore the concept of knowledge by both description and acquaintance. The latter is possible in the context of direct representation of objects, a fact that limits what a person knows to one’s own sense-data. As regards the former, the knowledge reached through denoting phrases depends on knowledge (of the objects under focus) by acquaintance.

Overall, in “On Denoting” Russell attempts to translate what in his view is problematic sentences using a form of First Order Language, and he does so using first order logic. His analysis is characterized by examples of what one can rightly term as existential generalizations that contain three conjuncts. For example, if “the A is G” is to be considered based on Russell’s existential generalization, it would basically mean that there exists something, say y, that satisfies all three conjuncts within the generalization, that is: existence, predication, and uniqueness.  

In advancing his theory of descriptions, Russell seeks plausibility by critiquing two competing theses by Frege and Meinong. He objects their presentations claiming “neither of them satisfies” him (480).  In his examination of Frege’s theory, the author realizes that he (Frege) makes a distinction between denotation and meaning, so that a description such as “the present King of France” can be allowed to make sense even when it lacks denotation. In fact, it is in this vein that Russell does acknowledge he approves of the implied distinction. Notably, he does not stop there; rather he continues to explain why his viewpoint should be preferable to that of Frege. Frege’s theory is rooted in (or informed by) the view that an improper description like “the present King of France” is assigned a denotation that is purely conventional, and this is mostly the case for descriptions that would usually have no denotation. Thus, the description “the King of France”, in Frege’s view, “is to denotes the null-class” (484). Russell agrees this approach works better and as such gets rid of possible logical difficulties.  Going by Frege’s theory therefore, a sentence like “the King of England is G” would be considered typically false. In fact, to state “The King of England is a king” would also be considered because in Frege’s view the null-class is not a king. This follows that negation of these statements would be true as it were. An implication here is that one would not encounter a contradiction such as that encountered upon subscribing to Meinong’s theory.

While admitting that Frege’s theory offers a path largely free of logical difficulties, Russell objects to it, claiming that “though it may not lead to actual logical error”, it is “plainly artificial, and does not give an exact analysis of the matter” (484). Here, it cannot escape one’s attention that Russell dismisses Freges’s theory with no consideration of his (Frege’s) proposed solution of truth-value gaps where sentences with improper descriptions may still work to the effect of expressing propositions but still lack truth-values. In this regard, Frege is of the view that in every assertion a presupposition made is that proper names used therein, be they compound or simple, usually have denotations.

Taking Frege’s theory into context, one easily comprehends Russell’s objection to it. By and large, his objection seems rooted in the notion that every statement made can only be either true or false, and nothing in between. Thus, Russell is plainly rejecting Frege’s notion that a meaningful statement can have half-truths. The artificial nature of Frege’s theory and its concept of truth-value gaps, according to Russell, are unnecessary and unacceptable, at least according to him. To denote an improper description does not necessitate a conventional object.