Strawson on Referring
Russell’s
Theory of Descriptions: an exposition
Strawson
recounts the arguments for the existence or (if you will) subsistences of the
Present King of France and other residents of the Meinongian ontological slum.
He notes that Russell’s solution to the prob_lem invokes the distinction
between what we shall call the surface grammar and logical form of sentences like “The present king
of France is wise.” While the surface grammar of such sentences suggest
that they are of the subject-predicate form, their logical form, the structure
which figures for inferential purposes, is existential and general.
Sentences
don’t mean: people do.
On
Strawson’s account, sentences are, in effect, instruments that people use
to make statements therefore we need to distinguish between between sentences,
uses of sentences and utterances of sentences. To understand what is going on
here let us introduce the following terminology:
Sentence (sentence type) this is an abstract object[1] that has specific inscriptions and
utterances as its in_stances
thus the following two inscriptions are two instances of the same sentence type
The
cat is on the mat.
The
cat is on the mat.
Utterance
of a sentence (sentence token) a particular instance of a sentence.
Each of the inscriptions in the box is a different sentence token.
Use
of a sentence what a sentence does, e.g. being used to
assert something true or false. Note: assertion presupposes reference so if
reference fails nothing true or false is asserted.
Different
tokens of the same sentence may be used to make different assertions.
Expressions
don’t refer: people do
By
the same token, some expressions that occur within sentences are devices that
people use to do the job of referring or picking out. Once again, what (of who)
an expression refers to may be different de_pending on features of its context
of utterance, including where, when, and by whom it is uttered. Within some
contexts expressions which otherwise pick out objects may fail to refer
altogether, that is, there may by some circumstances in which a person fails to
refer by means of certain expressions.
Attribution
presupposes reference
Attributing
a property to an object presupposes that one has already succeed in referring to that ob_ject. It is only if I have
succeeded in referring to an object that I can say anything about it--whether
truly or falsely. If I fail to refer, the question of truth or falsity cannot
even arise. Since there is no king
of France now, when I use that expression now I fail to refer, thus when it
comes to the sentence, “The present king of France is wise” the
question cannot arise: any utterence of this sentence at a time when there is
no king of France lacks truth value.
[1]This is just a convenient
way of speaking--it's disputed whether there really are any abstract objects
rather than different ways of counting ordinary spatio-temporal objects so
that, e.g. when we count the inscriptions in the box by sentence type we get 1
but when we count by sentence token we get 2.