Talk:On Denoting

Philosophy: Literature / Language / Analytic / Contemporary Mid‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles

Mid

This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Philosophical literature
	Philosophy of language
	Analytic philosophy
	Contemporary philosophy

Linguistics: Philosophy of language Low‑importance

	Linguistics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Linguistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of linguistics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LinguisticsWikipedia:WikiProject LinguisticsTemplate:WikiProject LinguisticsLinguistics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by Philosophy of language task force.

flow[edit]

Ok. I don't think this flows as well as it could. Also, I thought the prose was, sometimes, overly pretentious. I'll try and work on the written quality over the next couple of nights.

Ekiglass 21:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gee thanks and good luck to you. I wasn't exactly paid for it, you know. I might have done better if I had some actual MOTIVE to do so. I give up. But it's not me, it's humanity that's hopeless..... Never mind.---Francesco Franco 07:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How is this of only mid-importance? The opening of the entry itself makes it clear that this entry ought to at least be considered of high importance. Right? - Atfyfe (talk) 20:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the 1930s, Frank P. Ramsey referred to the essay as "that paradigm of philosophy."

Ramsey died in January 1930. Andres (talk) 16:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A denoting phrase need not be singular, e.g. no men, all men. Andres (talk) 16:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ad: However, it is interesting to note that at the very beginning of the article, Russell distinguishes between cases where "a phrase may be denoting and yet not denote anything (e.g. 'the present King of France')" and cases where they may denote "one definite object (such as, 'the present King of England')". If this passage is interpreted as saying that descriptions may "refer" to one definite object, then it could be that Russell actually recognized the two distinct uses of definite descriptions (attributive and referential), which Donnellan later proposed.

I don't understand why the suggested interpretation would make you think Russell already distinguished an attributive and a referential use of definite descriptions. Donnellans idea is that one and the same expression may be used in two different ways: e.g. "the man who is drinking champagne". In the quoted passage Russell tells us that two (slightly) different expressions exemplify two radically different cases: one is denoting but doesn't denote, the other is denoting and denotes. (Also, a problem of said interpretation seems to be that Russell classifies "every man" - which I doubt anyone would classify as a referring expression - etc. as denoting expression.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.152.208.69 (talk) 00:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]