Bertrand Russell,

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Bertrand Russell, Existence and Description

• 1 General Propositions and Existence
• Now when you come to ask what really is
  asserted in a general proposition, such as All
  Greeks are men for instance, you find that what
  is asserted is the truth of all values of what I
  call a propositional function. A propositional
  function is simply any expression containing an
  undetermined constituent, or several undetermined
  constituents, and becoming a proposition as soon
  as the undetermined constituents are determined.
  (24a)
• Much false philosophy has arisen out of
  confusing propositional functions and
  propositions. (24b)

2

• A propositional function can be necessary (when
  it is always true), possible (when it is
  sometimes true), and impossible (when it is never
  true).
• Propositions can only be true or false, but
  propositional functions have these three
  possibilities. (24b)
• When you take any propositional function and
  assert of it that it is possible, that it is
  sometimes true, that gives you the fundamental
  meaning existence. Existence is essentially a
  property of a propositional function. It means
  that the propositional function is true in at
  least one instance. (25a)

3

• A propositional function is merely a schema.
• Russells Question What is there really in the
  world that corresponds with propositional
  functions? Russells Answer Facts.
• My question What does it mean to admit facts
  into ones ontology?

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• The beginning of Wittgensteins Tractatus (1918)
• 1 The world is all that is the case.
• 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of
  things.
• 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and
  by their being all the facts.
• 1.12 For the totality of facts determines what
  is the case, and also whatever is not the case.
• 1.13 The facts in logical space are the world.
• 1.2 The world divides into facts.
• 1.21 Each item can be the case or not the case
  while everything else remains the same.
• 2 What is the case--a fact--is the existence of
  states of affairs.
• 2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a
  combination of objects (things).

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• 2 Description and Incomplete Symbols
• Names and definite description.
• Names Definite Descriptions
• Brandon Look The professor of Philosophy 550
• Sir Walter Scott The author of Waverly
• George W. Bush The 43rd President of the USA
• But, for Russell, names are not truncated
  definite descriptions.
• At least, this is not the case for names that
  really refer. Some names, e.g. Romulus, are
  merely truncated descriptions.

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• These things definite descriptions or
  incomplete symbols are things that have
  absolutely no meaning whatsoever in isolation,
  but merely acquire a meaning in a context.
  Scott taken as a name has a meaning all by
  itself. It stands for a certain person, and
  there it is. But the author of Waverly is not
  a name, and does not all by itself mean anything
  at all, because when it is rightly used in
  propositions, those propositions do not contain
  any constituent corresponding to it. (35a-b)
• Logically Proper Name A logically proper name
  is a term the meaning of which is its referent.

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Is a term a proper name? Two questions

• (1) Can you understand the meaning of a is F
  without knowing which thing a refers to? If so,
  then a is not a logically proper name, but must
  be analyzed as a description.
• (2) Would a is F be meaningful even if a had no
  referent? If so, then a is not a logically
  proper name but must be analyzed as a
  description.

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Terence Parsons, Referring to Nonexistent
Objects

• Part 1. Referring to Nonexistent Objects isnt
  Failing to Refer.
• Parsons presents two dialogues that are supposed
  to demonstrate that we have different intuitions
  about terms that fail to refer and those that
  refer to nonexistent objects.
• Russell, the early Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine,
  et alia have argued that we need to paraphrase
  those utterances that seem to refer to
  nonexistent objects. But, Parsons claims, those
  paraphrases have yet to be produced.

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Part Two A Quasi-Meinongian View

• Real Objects Sets of Properties
• O1 p O1 has p
• O2 p O2 has p
• . .
• . .
• Oa p Oa has p
• So, the left-hand list seems to exhaust the
  ontology that we all agree on. But, we can
  continue, by adding properties and sets of
  properties in the right-hand column.
• goldenness, mountainhood,
• According to Parsons, the theory under
  discussion says that for any such set in the
  right-hand list, there is correlated with it
  exactly one object. (38a) Therefore,
• Oa1 goldenness, mountainhood,

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• There are two principles at work in Parsons
  account both of which depend upon the notion of
  nuclear properties.
• (1) No two objects (real or unreal) have exactly
  the same nuclear properties.
• For any set of nuclear properties, some object
  has all of the properties in that set and no
  other nuclear properties.
• But not all predicates can stand for nuclear
  properties (39a)

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• My gloss on this
• Think of the nature of some thing, e.g. a
  unicorn or George W. Bush. What set of properties
  allows you to distinguish a unicorn from a
  non-unicorn? George W. Bush from someone else.
  Those properties belong to its essence.
  Non-nuclear properties are not involved in that
  process of individuation.

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Part 3. Singular Terms

• Parsonss Language
• Nuclear Predicates PN, QN, RN,
• Extranuclear Predicates PE, QE, RE,
• Object names and variables a, b, c,, x, y, z,
• DNs Holmes is a detective (which is true)
• EEs Holmes exists (which is false)
• There are no winged-horses ? (?x)(EEx WNx
  HNx)
• Definite descriptions (ix)q i.e. the thing
  such that
• The man in the doorway is clever ? (ix)(MNx
  INx EEx) CN

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• Parsonss Conclusions
• Names like Pegasus and Sherlock Holmes do refer,
  but to non-existent objects.
• Reference of a name doesnt have to do with
  causal history.
• Names may manifest de re/de dicto ambiguities.
• Names have sense (meaning).

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Quines Ontological Relativity

• One of the main themes/ideas of this piece is
  naturalism.
• What is naturalism? How does Quine understand
  it?
• I hold that knowledge, mind, and meaning are
  part of the same world that they have to do with,
  and that they are to be studied in the same
  empirical spirit that animates natural science.
  (45a)
• When a naturalistic philosopher addresses
  himself to philosophy of mind, he is apt to talk
  of language. Meanings are, first and foremost,
  meanings of language. Language is a social art
  which we all acquire on the evidence solely of
  other peoples over behavior under publicly
  recognizable circumstances. Meanings, therefore,
  those very models of mental entities, end up as
  grist for the behaviorists mill. (45a)

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Myth of the museum

• Uncritical semantics is the myth of the museum
  in which the exhibits are meanings and the words
  are labels. (45b)
• We ought to give up this myth. But, in doing
  so, we give up the assurance of determinacy.
  (46a)
• Why?
• Indeterminacy of translation
• Inscrutability of reference

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Radical Translation
Gavagai!
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• Inscrutability of reference ? there is no fact
  of the matter. (52b-53a)
• Reference is non-sense except relative to a
  co-ordinate system.
• Principle of relativity.
• Ontology is relative to a theory and background
  theory (54-55)
• We cannot know what something is without
  knowing how it is marked off from other things.
  Identity is thus of a piece with ontology. (55b)