Logical form
from 1905 Russell's On Denoting
The grammar of a sentence is not its logic; rewrite it so that what it actually claims is visible, and problems that looked metaphysical dissolve.
- Active
- from 1905
- Where
- Cambridge
- Status
- In use
- Tradition
- Analytic tools
What it is
The method rests on a claim: that the surface form of a sentence can misrepresent its logical structure, and that philosophical problems often arise from taking the surface at face value.
The remedy is paraphrase. Rewrite the sentence into a form where the structure is explicit, and see whether the problem survives. Sometimes it does. Often it turns out to have been an artefact of the grammar.
How it works
Take the sentence generating the problem. Ask what it is actually claiming — what would have to be the case for it to be true. Rewrite it so that the answer is explicit, particularly around what it commits you to the existence of. Check whether the problem is still there.
Russell's paradigm is the sentence about the present King of France, which appears to name someone in order to say he does not exist, and which paraphrases into three ordinary claims naming nobody.
The moves, in order
- Take the sentence generating the difficulty
- Ask what would have to be the case for it to be true
- Rewrite so that structure and existential commitment are explicit
- Check whether the difficulty survives the rewrite
- If it does not, the difficulty was in the grammar
The procedure
Proposition The clause does not require the account to exist.
- The clause reads: the contractor shall pay all sums into the nominated retention account within five days.
- On the surface, the nominated retention account names a thing, and the dispute is about a payment into an account that was never opened.
- Paraphrased, the clause claims three things: that there is a nominated retention account, that there is only one, and that all sums go into it within five days.
- So the existence of the account is not presupposed by the clause; it is asserted by it, as part of what the clause requires.
- The principal's position — that no obligation arose because there was no account — treats the existence as a precondition of the clause rather than as one of its requirements.
Therefore The clause obliges the principal to have nominated an account, and its absence is a breach by the principal rather than an excuse for the contractor.
This is Russell's analysis of definite descriptions applied to a construction contract. What looked like a question about whether a thing existed was a question about whether the sentence asserted its existence or assumed it.
What it is good for
Problems that turn on apparent reference to things that may not exist, on ambiguity of scope, or on grammatical subjects that are not logical subjects. Legal drafting and interpretation are full of all three.
Where it fails
There is no test for the right paraphrase. Two rewrites can both be faithful to the original and disagree about what it commits you to, and the choice between them is usually made by whichever suits the theory being defended. Strawson's reply to Russell is exactly this: that the paraphrase misdescribes how the sentence is actually used.
The deeper worry is that the method can dissolve problems that were real. If any troublesome sentence can be rewritten until the trouble goes away, the disappearance of a problem is not evidence that there was none.
Common misconceptions
That it is about tidying up sloppy expression. Russell's target sentences are perfectly clear English; the claim is that clear English can still misrepresent logical structure.
Where it came from
Russell's On Denoting of 1905, the theory of definite descriptions, which Ramsey called a paradigm of philosophy and which set the pattern for analytic method for fifty years.
What became of it
Attacked by Strawson in 1950 and by the ordinary language philosophers generally, defended and refined ever since, and never abandoned.
Lasting influence
It established the idea that philosophical problems might be problems about language, which is the single most consequential thought in twentieth-century philosophy and led directly to both logical positivism and its opponents.
Why it still matters
Alive in philosophy of language and in every scope dispute in a courtroom.
Put another way
An X-ray. The surface looks fine; the structure underneath is a different matter.
Texts
Bertrand Russell, On Denoting
Fourteen pages that changed the subject. Difficult on first reading and worth the second.
Where to start
Read On Denoting, then Strawson's On Referring, which is the best reply and disagrees with almost all of it.
The surprising bit
A three-page paper about the King of France reorganised philosophy, and its central move is now used daily by lawyers who have never heard of it.
In their own words
A logically perfect language would show at a glance the logical structure of the facts asserted
Who held it
Frank Ramsey
Connections
- Relies on
- Formalisation
- Set against
- Ordinary language
- Influenced
- Conceptual analysis
- Parallel to
- Formalisation
The verdict
A genuinely powerful instrument with no way of telling a solved problem from a hidden one.