Acquaintance, Denoting Concepts, and Sense

Abstract

In a recent article, Michael Kremer (1994) revisits Russell's argument-the argument in On Denoting in which Russell rejects whole distinction of meaning and denotation (Russell 1905, 485-88). Kremer argues (with others)' that the Gray's Elegy argument is directed not at Frege's distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung but rather at Russell's own theory of in his earlier Principles of Mathematics. Furthermore, and more originally, Kremer argues that Russell's views of acquaintance play a central role in the argument. For Kremer, it is because Frege does not share Russell's views of acquaintance that the Gray's Elegy argument succeeds against Russell's own earlier theory but not against Frege's position. In another recent paper, Harold Noonan (1996) argues similarly that there is an argument available to Russell which shows that the theory of denoting concepts is incompatible with his Principle of Acquaintance and that, because Frege does not share Russell's views of acquaintance, this argument does not threaten Frege's theory of sense. But, unlike Kremer, Noonan denies that this is the Gray's Elegy argument. While I am not concerned here to analyze the Gray's Elegy argument, I agree with both Kremer and Noonan that there is an argument involving acquaintance that undermines Russell's theory but not Frege's.2 But I believe that neither Kremer nor Noonan