. Theory devised by Russell to analyse sentences containing ‘denoting phrases’. Russell originally recognized two ways of picking something out in discourse. One could name it. Or one could denote it, pick it out by using terms with a general meaning. ‘Socrates’ names Socrates. ‘That man’ does not name Socrates, or anyone, but might serve to pick Socrates out because of general rules for the use of ‘that’ and ‘man’. Russell therefore recognized what he called denoting phrases. These were of two kinds. Definite descriptions begin with the definite article or its equivalent (‘That man’ equals ‘The man over there’). Indefinite descriptions begin with the indefinite article. But because definite and indefinite descriptions can occur in meaningful sentences where there is nothing for them to denote, as in ‘The present king of France is bald’, he concluded that they cannot really function by denoting after all, and that the grammatical form of sentences containing them is misleading as to their logical form. In fact he abandoned denoting, though he temporarily kept the term ‘denoting phrase’. The theory of descriptions says that the logical form of the above example is: ‘There is exactly one present king of France, and there is no present king of France who is not bald.’ Variant alternative formulations exist. Since what a sentence means should not depend on what happens to exist, Russell applied this analysis to all denoting phrases, including ‘the present queen of England’ as well as ‘the present king of France’. These phrases are then called incomplete symbols (see LOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS).
Contrasted with denoting phrases are logically proper names, whose meaning is what they name. Ordinary proper names which do not name anything (and ultimately, for various reasons, all ordinary proper names) he regarded as disguised descriptions, and so as incomplete symbols, e.g. ‘Apollo’ stands for ‘The Greek sun-god’. Cf. MEANING.
K.Donnellan, ‘Reference and definite descriptions’, Philosophical Review, 1966. (Often reprinted. Distinguishes attributive and referential ways of interpreting definite descriptions.)
L.Linsky, Referring, RKP, 1967. (Mediates between Russell and Strawson.)
S.Neale, Descriptions, MIT Press, 1990. (Develops and defends Russell’s theory, in particular treating pronouns at length.)
B.Russell, ‘On denoting’, Mind, 1905, reprinted in his Logic and Knowledge, Allen and Unwin, 1956, and elsewhere. (Original version of theory of descriptions.)
R.M.Sainsbury, Russell, RKP, 1979. (Chapter 4 discusses the theory.)
P.F.Strawson, ‘On referring’, Mind, 1950, often reprinted. (Attacks the theory. Cf. also Strawson’s ‘Identifying reference and truth-values’, Theoria, 1964, reprinted (with ‘On referring’) in his Logico-Linguistic Papers, Methuen, 1971. Russell replies in ‘Mr Strawson on referring’, Mind, 1957, reprinted in his My Philosophical Development, Allen and Unwin, 1959.)
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