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In 1950, Peter F. Strawson published the article "On Referring", where he criticises the applicability of Bertrand Russell's Theory of Descriptions to ordinary language. It is the express purpose of this paper to evaluate Strawson's criticisms and, in turn, to look at some of Russell's responses to them from the 1957 article "Mr. Strawson on Referring".

As far as I can tell, Strawson presents three separate major criticisms of the Theory of Descriptions in his article. I shall deal with each of them in turn, but first I wish to outline the distinction which he makes between a sentence, the use of a sentence and the utterance of a sentence.

The sentence "The King of France is bald" is a string of characters, or, when it is spoken, a series of sounds. As Strawson points out, "it is easy to imagine that this sentence was uttered at various times from, say, the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards, during the reigns of each successive French monarch." Thus this sentence has had a number of different occasions of use. Furthermore, there are different utterances of a sentence which exemplify the same use, e.g. if two men uttered that "the King of France is bald" during the reign of the same French king, they would be expressing the same proposition. It should be clear, based on these distinctions, that a sentence, in itself, cannot hold a truth value. Rather, a truth value can only be assigned to a given use of the sentence.

In the same way as we can make these distinctions concerning sentences, we can distinguish between a uniquely referring expression, its use and its utterance. A uniquely referring expression, by itself, does not refer to anything at all. Let us take, as an example, the expression "the man with the hat." It is quite easy to imagine this expression being used by a great many different people through the ages to refer to an even greater number of other distinct individuals. Yet the expression itself does not refer to any of them.

Having established this groundwork, Strawson maintains that Russell's key mistake is to regard language as some sort of abstract Platonic construct where the sentences themselves express a proposition and the expressions themselves refer to something. A sentence (and, in fact, language in general) is a tool which is used to achieve certain ends. Just as a shovel does not dig a hole -- rather, a shovel is used by someone to dig a hole -- so a sentence does not in and as of itself express a proposition. It is used by the speaker to express a certain proposition. And just as a shovel may be used to dig several different holes, a sentence may be used to express a variety propositions, depending on context variables such as the identity of the speaker, his spatio-temporal location and a number of other relevant factors. According to Strawson, it is the failure to discern between a sentence (or an expression) and its use which leads Russell into a philosophical quagmire.

First, let us begin by looking at Russell's claim that the sentence "the King of France is bald" is false due to the fact that no such king exists. Russell's diagnosis of the sentence "The King of France is bald" (henceforth referred to as 'KFB') identifies three truth conditions which must be met in order for a use of this sentence to be true.

1) There is an x which is the King of France
2) There is no more than one x which is the King of France
3) If x is the King of France, then x is bald

Strawson agrees with Russell that these three sentences do indeed list the conditions that must be true in order for KFB to be true, but here their ways part. Russell seems to think that the meaning of a sentence is its truth conditions, and that KFB asserts 1), 2) and 3) whereas Strawson holds, under obvious influence from the later Wittgenstein, that the meaning of a sentence is the rules and conventions that govern its usage. Therefore, by uttering the sentence KFB, we are not asserting the existence of a French king. The existence of the King of France is presupposed (or "implied", if we adopt Strawson's terminology) but not asserted. His existence is, so to speak, a condition which must be met before that particular use of the sentence can be assigned a truth value. If the condition is not met, the use is nonsensical, absurd or "spurious".

The reason that we rightly discern that the sentence "The King of France is bald" is a significant sentence is not because it asserts the existence of a French king, but rather because there are circumstances (i.e. a context) under which it can be used to express a true or false proposition. This does not mean that a given use of the sentence necessarily holds a truth value, since it is possible that is being used in inappropriate circumstances. The use of KFB today would be such a case, since there is currently no king of France. Russell's mistake, then, is that he fails to see the counterfeit nature of particular uses of sentences such as KFB but still recognises the sentences themselves as significant. As a consequence, he must coerce them into being either true or false by "revealing" their hidden logical structure via his Theory of Descriptions.

Strawson proceeds with his attack on Russell's hidden logical structure by pointing out that it is counter-intuitive. If we were to tell someone that the King of France were bald, his response would hardly be "That's not true!" or "What a blatant falsehood!" Rather, he would say something akin to "What are you talking about? France is no longer a monarchy." or "Don't be silly. How can he be bald if he doesn't exist?" We can continue with this line of thought to attack the postulated assertion of uniqueness. Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that there are two French kings who share the throne. If someone were to say that "the present King of France is bald", we would not call him a liar. Instead we would ask which of the two kings he was referring to, if this was not already clear to us based on the context. While far from conclusive, these common sense argument against the Theory of Descriptions must carry some weight if the theory is to be understood as an analysis of uniquely referring expressions in ordinary language.

Russell could evade this criticism by maintaining that uniqueness and existence are logically implied by KFB, but not asserted. The two are very different -- if I say "I weigh 75 kilograms", I logically imply that I am heavier than someone who weighs 50 kilograms, but I do not assert this. It is neither presupposed nor asserted, but never the less follows what I am saying. Similarly, KFB could be taken as logically implying the existence of one and only one King of France.

Strawson's third criticism of Russell's theory consists of pointing out that a great many commonplace descriptions are context-bound, such as:

"The table is covered with books."

The subject of this sentence is presumably a rather commonplace definite description. However, a straight-forward translation via the Theory of Descriptions gives us a preposterous result, namely:

"There is at least one thing which is a table, and one thing at the most which is a table, and if anything is a table, it is covered with books."

Obviously, there is more than one thing which is a table, and obviously there are tables that are not covered by books. Russell can, of course, maintain that in this sentence, the expression "the table" is an abbreviation of a more unique description which is satisfied, such as "the table in front of me", "the only table in this room" etc., and thus circumvent the criticism, but there is something suspicious and uncomfortable about this. How are we to know when a given definite description is an abbreviation? This seems to be a rather shifty way of evading the underlying problem.

What are we to make of these criticisms? While Russell may very well be "totally unable to see any validity whatever in any of Mr. Strawson's arguments", the fact of the matter remains that Strawson's critique of the Theory of Descriptions is quite strong. There is something implausible about the baggage of assertions which Russell wishes to attach to every sentence of the subject-predicate form, and although Strawson does not flesh out his ideas on the concept of presupposition, it seems to be a more reasonable alternative to Russell's baggage, for it is more in line with common sense and ordinary usage. But are we then to accept the position that no expression stands on its own, with a reference independent of speaker and circumstances?

In his reply to Strawson's article, Russell makes the incredible claim that Strawson's critique would fall apart if he were to replace the expression "the present King of France" with the expression "the King of France in 1905". It is as if Russell fails to grasp the essence of the critique; namely that the meaning of a particular proposition depends on the context in which the sentence used to express it is used, as opposed to being an intrinsic part of the sentence itself. This applies just as much to "the King of France in 1905" as it does to "the present King of France", for it is quite possible that the former sentence could be used to express a different proposition than the one which we take for granted, e.g. when uttered by a person who is accustomed to a different calendar, or in a different time belt where it is still 1904.

In fact, no matter how much we elaborate, we always end up with a context-dependent expression, even when we speak of "the King of France at 12:00 post meridiem in the year 1905 of the Gregorian calendar." This is because what Russell calls the problem of "egocentricity" (namely, context) is not, as he maintains, separate from that of descriptions. The sentences he lists expressing mathematical truths (e.g. "the square-root of minus one is half the square-root of minus four"), which are supposedly wholly free from context, are poor examples, because it is still hotly disputed whether mathematical entities can be said to exist in the fullest sense of the word. In light of this, Russell's Theory of Descriptions does not deal with them in a less controversial fashion than Mr. Strawson's theory could be made to do. It is also, in my opinion, rather questionable to compare a definite description such as "the present King of France" to a mathematical definite description, when the jury is still out on the issue of mathematical objects. It clouds the issue and opens up a whole can of worms (e.g. does the definite description "the highest whole number" actually refer to anything?) And, concerning the subject at hand, I am not so sure that Russell would find it as easy to come up with any context-free definite descriptions of non-mathematical objects.

In his 1957 reply, Russell expresses some reservations exactly concerning the applicability of his theory to ordinary language, and maintains that he "was concerned to find a more accurate and analysed thought to replace the somewhat confused thoughts which most people at most times [...] have". Obviously Russell overlooked the fact that Mr. Strawson explicitly states early in his article that he wanted to show that, regarded as a theory about ordinary language, the Theory of Descriptions "embodies some fundamental mistakes."

In conclusion, I believe that Russell's Theory of Descriptions may be convenient for a certain kind of analysis, but, as Mr. Strawson's critique points out painstaking detail, it seems to fall far short of giving a satisfactory account of empty definite descriptions in ordinary language.

Reykjavík, October 31st 2005


Sveinbjorn Thordarson

Strawson, P.F. "On Referring" p. 20 in "The Philosophy of Language", 4th edition, Ed. A. P. Martinich, Oxford University Press 2001

Russell, Bertrand "Mr. Strawson on Referring", p. 27 in "The Philosophy of Language", 4th edition, Ed. A. P. Martinich, Oxford University Press 2001

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