Frege and Russell The Gray’s Elegy Argument Richard L. Mendelsohn Lehman College and the Graduate School, CUNY Contents 1 Inroduction page 2 2 The Transition 4 3 Primary and Secondary Occurrence 6 4 The Text 12 4.1 A 12 4.2 B 13 4.3 C 15 4.4 D 16 4.5 E 20 4.6 F 21 4.7 G 22 4.8 H 22 5 Summary 24 5.1 Finale 27 6 Scanned Old Version 29 6.1 A Little History 30 6.1.1 Introduction 30 6.1.2 The M Theory 32 6.1.3 The F Theory 33 6.1.4 Problems With The F Theory 37 7 The Argument Again in Scanned 42 7.1 My Interpretational Strategy 42 7.2 Russell’s Problem with Frege’s Theory 43 7.2.1 Indirect Reference 44 7.2.2 That 47 7.2.3 Direct Reference? 48 i Contents 1 7.2.4 The Problem Again 50 7.2.5 Complications 52 7.2.6 A Further Problem 54 7.3 Is Russell’s Quarry Frege? 58 7.3.1 Searle’s Interpretation 58 7.3.2 Blackburn and Code’s Interpretation 60 7.4 Is Russell’s Quarry Russell? 60 7.4.1 Hylton’s Interpretation 63 7.4.2 Kremer’s Interpretation 67 7.5 Conclusion 74 8 Reflections on Russell 75 8.1 Introduction 75 8.2 Russell’s Theory of Definite Descriptions 77 8.3 The Referential/Attributive Distinction 82 8.4 Rigidity and Direct Reference 91 8.5 Concluding Remarks 98 9 Russell’s Theory of Descriptions 100 9.1 The Transition 100 9.2 Searle’s Interpretation 101 9.3 Was Russell’s Quarry Russell? 103 9.4 Did Russell Refute Russell? 105 9.5 Hylton’s Interpretation 106 9.6 Russell’s Theory of Denoting Expressions 124 9.7 Existence Claims 124 9.8 Descriptions 130 9.9 Names 134 9.10 Strawson’s Attack on Russell 135 9.11 Introduction 136 9.12 Names 140 9.13 Strawson’s Attack on Russell 141 Bibliography 142 1 Inroduction There are two fundamental assumptions that inform my interpretation of the Gray’s Elegy section of “On Denoting.” ThefirstisthatitdoesconstituteacriticismofFrege’ssense/reference theory. Russell explicitly says so, and other things being equal, I take him at his word. But the literate philosophical public has for the most part thoughtotherwise. As a matter of fact, I am unable to find anyone whothingssootherthanSearle, whoseview, bytheway, isthatRussell has totally misrepresented Frege. This view is unbelievable. But no one elsehasmadethecasethatitisFregewhoRussellisafter. Infact,many hold that Russell was so that he was criticizing his own theory of denotingconcepts. InthestyleofMadLibs,thereaderistofilltheblank with an adjective—stupid, cockeyed, mischievous, deceptive, wrong— and then write a dissertation philosophically defending the canard. Thesecondisthat,unlikehiscriticismofMeinong,whichclearlycon- stitutes a refutation, Russell’s (1905a) conclusion is that to enter the sense/reference theory is to enter a swamp in which one is never able to gain firm footing. The morass he describes, with all its confusions are not—Irepeat,arenot—ofhisownmaking;theyareconfusionsandprob- lemswithFrege’stheory. Russelljustcouldn’tmakesenseofthetheory. Now,readershaveapparentlycometobelievethattheconfusionsRussell found in Frege’s theory meant that he was confused about the theory; but that is a mistake. The confusions he uncovered were confusions in the theory; he thought the theory was fundamentally unsalvageable. It is the failure to observe this second point that has prompted readers to fail on the first point. The point here is important. Russell rejected Frege’s sense/reference theory. What was it that he rejected? What was wrong with it? How did his theory differ from Frege’s in crucial respects? Russell himself, 2 Inroduction 3 I submit, was unable to say with any clarity what the difference was becausehewasgenuinelyunclearaboutthefundamentalerrorinFrege’s theory. He only could identify that it was totally confused. Is it not clear that Frege was totally confused himself? Consider the following list of errors in his theory: • Frege held that in indirect discourse, e.g., in the sentence “Frege be- lieved that Kant had misrepresented arithmetic,” we are speaking aboutthesenseormeaningoftheword“Kant”, notthemanhimself. Thisisnonsense: surelyitisthemanFregethoughttobewrong,Kant himself. Nonetheless, there are careful readers who thing otherwise. Forbes (1987: 4) says: In connection with the simplest kind of belief attribution, there are good reasons to conclude that words used in specifying the belief refer to their customary senses, not their customary references. I believe this is the simplest kind of belief attribution, and it seems to me that there is no good reason for thinking that I am speaking about the sense of “Kant” and not Kant. • Frege held that in oratio recta, e.g., “Frege said, ‘I am hungry’,” one designates Frege’s words and says something about them. This too is nonsense. I am not naming Frege’s words in uttering this sentence, but reproducing them. Because of these errors, there has been serious misrepresentation of Frege’s views, and of the difference between Frege and Russell. Once again, Forbes (1987: 5-6) who makes a crucial error in identifying what he takes to be the basic Fregean position: I will take the neo-Fregean position that a (first-level, one-place) predicate’s customaryreferenceisaproperty,whileitscustomarysenseisawayofthink- ing of that property, and an ordinary name’s customary reference is an ordi- naryobject,anditscustomarysenseawayofthinkingof,ormodeofpresen- tation of, that object. This is not Frege’s position. It is critically important to recognize that Frege did not take a predicate’s customary reference to be a property— certainly not in the sense of attribute. That’s Russell’s view. It is one of the critical points of contention between the two. 2 The Transition Theyears1903through1905foundRussell’sthoughtsabouttheseman- tics of singular terms in ferment. In the main body of The Principles of Mathematics, he defended an ill-conceived doctrine of propositions, un- derpinnedbyaMeinongianontology. Singulartermswereregardedallas directly referential. The term denoted in each case was a constituent of theproposition expressed. The meaningfulnessofthe singulartermwas guaranteed by the corresponding term in the proposition. But the sym- pathetic appendix on “The Logical and Arithmetic Doctrines of Frege” belied the new directions of his thinking. No longer would all singular termsberegardedasdirectlyreferential. Forthosethataredirectlyref- erential, there must be a referent, and the item referred to will itself be a constituent of the proposition expressed. But for those terms that are not directly referential, the properties that purport to uniquely identify the object will be constituents of the proposition, but the object the proposition is about, if there is such an object, will not. Russell shuffled the pieces of this story around to preserve the out- lines of an overarching coherent picture. But there was always a loose end somewhere.† This brief chapter in the development of Russell’s se- mantic theory has come to light as the result of some excellent work by Cartwright (1987) and Hylton (1990). Cartwright (1987), in partic- ular, calls our attention to a number of unpublished manuscripts from theRussellArchives‡inwhichRussellstruggleswiththedistinctionbe- † Hisfundamentalproblemwastoidentifytheontologicalstatusofanobjectwith itsepistemologicalstatus. Thatis,apropositionalcontentwas,byitsverynature, somethingthatdrewimmediateacquaintanceandsoitcouldonlybeintroduced thatway. ‡ Russell (1905d), Russell (1905e), Russell (1905f), and Russell (1905c). The last, which is dated June of 1905, abandons the sense/reference distinction midstride andoutlinesthenewtheoryofdenotingexpressions;theothersareallearlier,most 4 The Transition 5 tween meaning and denotation. Eventually Russell came to believe his attemptinthisdirectionfoundered. Andinthecelebratedtheoryofde- noting expressions, which replaced it, he jettisoned completely the idea that indirectly referential terms played the role of logical subjects. Russell’stransitionaltheoryofmeaninganddenotationneversawthe light of publication. In fact, when Russell (1905a) announces the new theory, there is no mention whatsoever of his own distinction of this name. Instead,wefindthenewtheorypittedagainsttwofamousRealist precursors: Meinong and Frege. The criticism of Meinong is clear and cogent. But not that of Frege. In these, perhaps the most puzzling and frustratingpassagesinthecorpusofmodernanalyticphilosophy,Russell becomes difficult and obscure. Church (1943) finds the relevant paragraphs hopelessly confused by careless use/mention errors. Searle (1957) finds Russell to have misin- terpreted or misunderstood Frege. Hylton (1990) finds Russell pinning Frege’s name on his own theory he had been developing.† To be sure, there are important differences to be found in these different readers, and it is hardly likely they would all conceive of themselves in the same camp. But there is this common thread: all deny that Russell is doing there what he says he is doing, viz. presenting a clear, coherent and telling criticism of Frege’s sense/reference distinction. We call this The Orthodox View. WebelievethisOrthodoxviewtobewhollyincorrect. Buildingonout analysis in Mendelsohn (2005) of Frege’s account of indirect reference, we will propose an interpretation of that notoriously difficulty passage inRussell(1905a)onwhich(i)itisclearlyacriticismofFrege’sdistinc- tion, (ii) it is a coherent criticism of Frege’s distinction made with full understanding of that theory, and (iii) it is a very telling criticism of Frege’s distinction. In addition, on this interpretation, we will be able to identify the new theory presented in Russell (1905a) as a direct reac- tion to the problems identified with the sense/reference theory. In the next chapter, we will give a short illustration of the virulence of this in- terpretation by demonstrating that recent efforts to construct Russell’s scope distinction within the Fregean apparatus by Forbes (1990), are ill-conceived. likely from the beginning of that same year. Subsequent to Cartwright’s (1987) essay,thesemanuscriptshavebeenpublishedinUrquhart(1994). † SimilarviewshavebeenarguedrecentlybyKremer(1994)andNoonan(1996). 3 Primary and Secondary Occurrence What is of interest to me is Forbes’s (1987) attempt to forge a de re/de dicto distinctioninthisneo-Fregeansemanticstructure. Wewillsuggest here that he is wrong. Forbes (1987) asks us to consider the sentences† Ralph believes Marilyn Monroe was murdered. (3.1) Ralph believes the shortest spy is a spy. (3.2) “If we use corner quotes around an English word or phrase to form a name of its sense,” says Forbes (1987: 7), (3.1) is represented logically as B(Ralph, (cid:112)Marilyn Monroe was murdered(cid:113)) (3.3) We have been using our Θ operator as doing this work, so we will rep- resent (3.1) as B(Ralph, Θ(Marilyn Monroe was murdered)) (3.4) Similarly, B(Ralph, (cid:112)the shortest spy is a spy(cid:113)) (3.5) or B(Ralph, Θ(the shortest spy is a spy)) (3.6) represents the claim (3.2). Now, (3.4) and (3.6) are, Forbes (1987: 7) says, † In what follows, we will insert our numbering of the relevant sentences when quotingForbes. 6 Primary and Secondary Occurrence 7 whollyspecificaboutthecontentofthepropositionsthatRalphisbeingsaidto believe. Butoftenwewanttoattributebeliefsaboutanobjectxtoasubject although we do not know what expressions that subject has in his repertoire for referring to x, and which particular ways of thinking of x the subject has employed in his thoughts. In such a case we have to hedge about the exact contentofthepropositionthesubjectbelieves. Ifwewanttoattributebeliefs about Marilyn Monroe or about the shortest spy to Ralph, but do not know howRalphwouldexpresswaysofthinkingofthesepeopleorwhichwaysthese would be, ...it is not (3.4) or (3.6) that we mean to express. Forbes (1987) suggests Marilyn Monroe is someone whome Ralph believes to have (3.7) been murdered and The shortest spy is someone whom Ralph believes to be a spy. (3.8) as the appropriate locutions. Forbes (1987: 7-8) continues: Intuitively, both (3.7) and (3.8) attribute beliefs about an object x to Ralph, but they do not specify the whole content of the beliefs. The gist of (3.7) and (3.8)is merely that Ralph believes a proposition aboutso-and-so to the effect that he/she is such-and-such. In Fregean terminology as I employ it, a proposition is about an object x only if it has some wayof thinking (mode of presentation)ofxasaconstituent;so(3.7),forinstance,hastheimportthat Ralph believes a proposition with a mode of presentation of Marilyn Monroe as a constituent, to the effect that she was murdered. Thus we arrive at the following Fregean analyses of (3.7) and (3.8), in which “Pxy” means “x is a mode of presentation of y” and “ˆ’’ stands for the manner of combination of senses in which they form a complex sense (∃α)(P(α,MM) & B(Ralph, α ˆ (cid:112) was murdered (cid:113)) (3.9) (∃α)(P(α,(ιx)Sx) & B(Ralph, α ˆ (cid:112) is a spy (cid:113)) (3.10) Although it is a bit different, we will translate this into our Θ notation (∃α)(P(α,MM) & B(Ralph, Θ(α was murdered) (3.11) (∃α)(P(α,(ιx)Sx) & B(Ralph, Θ(α is a spy) (3.12) Now, for some claims about these regimentation: The regimentations reveal that the difference between the members of the pairs(3.1)and(3.7),and(3.2)and(3.8),isnomerescopedistinction. Forbes (1987: 9)