Russell on Language

Abstract

September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 86 Reviews RUSSELL ON LANGUAGE Graham Stevens Philosophy / U. of Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester m13 9pl, uk graham.p.stevens@manchester.ac.uk Keith Green. Bertrand Russell, Language and Linguistic Theory. London and New York: Continuum, 2007. Pp. ix, 174. isbn 978-08264-9736-9. £65; us$144. It is often claimed that there is more than a hint of irony about Russell’s contribution to the philosophy of language. The contribution, if assessed in terms of Russell’s inXuence on philosophy of language, is massivez—zit sometimes seems that the entire subject subsequent to “On Denoting” is a vast collection of footnotes to Russell and Fregez—zyet, it is said, Russell himself was not interested in linguistic issues. The three items of evidence most commonly cited in support of this latter claim are (1) the non-linguistic nature of Russellian propositions and their constituents in Russell’s early philosophical work, (2) his vehement attacks on Wittgensteinian and ordinary language philosophy in his later publications, and (3) his alleged lack of interest in natural language beyond a general desire to replace it with an “ideal” alternative. In fact, there is no real irony here. Many philosophers of language and linguists would agree with Russell on both (1) and (2). Furthermore, as Keith Green shows in detail in this interesting book, (3) simply does not have ample support in Russell’s writings. Green’s study of Russell spans the entire period of his philosophical activity. September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd Reviews 87 1 David Kaplan, “Demonstratives”, in J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein, eds., Themes from Kaplan (Oxford: Oxford U. P. 1989), 481–563. Throughout this period, especially after the discovery of the theory of descriptions in 1905, Russell was acutely aware of the shortcomings of natural language as a tool in technical philosophical inquiry, and regularly drew attention to them: the grammar of natural language is misleading with respect to the logical form of the propositions it is used to express in various ways, such as: its classiWcation of some non-referring expressions as noun phrases, the fact that natural language contains vague and ambiguous expressions, that its syntax generates sentential ambiguity as in the case of scope phenomena, that it disguises descriptive elements as apparent proper names (which are not “logically proper”), and so forth. Green demonstrates convincingly, however, that such views are not symptomatic of a dismissive attitude towards language as an object of philosophical theory. On the contrary, they are the results of lengthy reXection on natural language and its semantics. While it is true that Russell thought natural language inadequate for many tasks in philosophy, especially mathematical philosophy, he also made a detailed study of some aspects of natural language that had no place in his formal languages and which were, at the time, neglected by other philosophers. An example of this is his discussions of indexical expressions (“egocentric particulars” as he called them), the most detailed being found in An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. Green’s study of this often neglected part of Russell’s philosophy is original and insightful. Green’s exegesis makes it clearer than previous discussions just why the term “egocentric” is so appropriate for Russell: his deWnition of egocentric particulars is driven to a substantial degree by his epistemology insofar as he takes it for granted that their referents must be things that the speaker has direct acquaintance with. Thus, unlike later theorists (e.g. Kaplan) who argue that the literal meaning of an indexical can be interpreted as a function from contexts to contents, often regardless of speakers’ psychological states, Russell takes the mental state of the speaker to make an essential contribution to the meaning of an indexical expression. Green contextualizes this diTerence within linguistic theory, drawing parallels between the egocentric approach of Russell and Karl Bühler, and contrasting it with recent “sociocentric ” objections (p. 46). Furthermore, despite his emphasis on the egocentric quality of indexicals, Russell is not blind to the fact that indexicals have an objective literal meaning that remains constant...