Ramachandran vs. Russell

Abstract

Murali Ramachandran [3] has put forward a new objection to Russell's theory of descriptions (RTD). According to RTD, sentences of the form 'the F is G' (let's call them 'description sentences') express quantified propositions expressible as (e.g.) 'there is exactly one F and whatever is F is G' (let's call these 'uniqueness propositions'). If a description sentence expresses a uniqueness proposition rather than a singular, object-dependent proposition, then, as RTD explains, the sentence can be meaningful even if nothing answers to the definite description it contains. Now Ramachandran concedes, without taking up specific Russellian accounts, that RTD can handle Strawson's objection that a description 'the F' can be used to talk about a particular F even when it is mutually known that there is more than one E A 'plausibly-embellished' version of RTD can reckon not only with the fact that definite descriptions are often incomplete, in which case there is no unique F, but with the fact that they can be used to refer to a certain object in particular. Ramachandran grants that the 'context' can complete the description or delimit the domain of quantification, thereby determining the uniqueness proposition being expressed, and also, if the speaker intends to express a singular proposition, aid in the singling-out of the intended object of reference. Ramachandran can concede all this because, he believes, his objection has independent force against RTD. The new objection is based on a difference between description sentences and their Russellian paraphrases. Ramachandran relies on the example of an utterance of (1),