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Russell's Arguments Against Frege's Sense-Reference Distinction

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Russell's Arguments Against Frege's Sense-Reference Distinction Russell's Argument against Frege's Distinction 53 RUSSELLS ARGUMENT AGAINST aware of it; he simply does not think that it is an important logical FREGE'S SENSE-REFERENCE distinction. Today this view may seem almost incomprehensible, but that only shows the strength of Frege's influence on our ideas. DISTINCTION There are two striking symptoms ofRussell's lack ofconcern for the use-mention distinction: firstly, he does not observe the convention PAWEL TURNAu which says that putting an expression in quotation marks produces a Philosophy I Jagiellonian University name of that expression; secondly, he does not feel any need to Cracow, Poland employ the pair of terms "sentence" and "proposition", but contents himself with the latter only. The claim about Russell's use of inverted commas needs to be proved; I will come to that later. Russell's assertions are often ambiguous between use and mention of expressions. For example, he asserts that "propositions do not con­ n "On Denoting"l Russell argued that Frege's theory of sense and tain words" p. 47). However, a few pages later, he speaks of reference was an "inextricable tangle", but, ironically, many (PaM, propositions that contain the phrase "any number" (p. 53). If this is readers found the argument even more knotry. In an effort to not to be self-contradictory, then either the term "proposition" must Imake sense of it, commentators were often driven to attribute to sometimes signifY a linguistic expression, or the term "phrase" must Russell quite obvious and simple fallacies. A different approach was sometimes be understood without implying that a phrase consists of taken by Peter Geach, who suggested that Russell's argument could be words. This ambiguity is openly admitted in a later article, where he given a consistent reading if it were construed as arguing, not against Frege's theory, but against Russell's own earlier theory, which he put writes: forward in The Principles of Mathematics. It is not an implausible [we shall be concerned with] the distinction between verbs and substantives, hypothesis, considering how prone Russell was to misrepresent' other or, more correctly, between the objects denoted by verbs and the objects philosophers' views and read his own powerful ideas into their writ­ denoted by substantives. Since this more correct expression is long and cum­ ings. In order to justifY Geach's hypothesis properly, one would have brous, I shall generally use the shorter expression to mean the same thing. to show the crucial difference between Russell's and Frege's theories Thus, when I speak of verbs, I mean the object denoted by verbs, and simi- 2 that made only one of them susceptible to the attack in "On Denot­ larly for substantives. ing". Russell explicitly considered the two theories to be "very nearly the same"; this self-interpretation would have to be questioned. Russell's attitude towards the distinction between use and mention Geach's hypothesis would be further strengthened by providing an is not unjustified. It has its reason in his view oflanguage and the sub­ actual exegesis ofthe "On Denoting" argument as directed against The ject-matter of logic. In Russell's view, the subject-matter of logic has Principles ofMathematics theory. In this paper 1 will try to accomplish nothing to do with language. Words, both spoken and written, are entirely outside its realm. Logic, just as other sciences (except linguis­ both of these tasks. Russell is often accused of confusing use and mention. The accu- tics), is concerned with the entities indicated by words, and not with sation is not fair, however. It is true that he does not insist on this words themselves. Even the relation of indicating, which holds distinction; he does not employ it extensively. But he is certainly between words and things in the world, is of no interest to it: "mean- 1 In Lf(, pp. 39-56. 2 B. Russell, "On the Relations of Universals and Particulars", Proceedings ofthe Aristotelian Society, n.s. 12 (r9II-12): 1-24; in Lf(, pp. 103-24 (at 107-8). 66 n.s. 11 (summer 1991): 51- russ.lI: the Journal ofthe Bertrand Russell Archives ISSN 0036-o16~ McMaster Univecsity Library Press Russell's Argument against Frege's Distinction 55 54 PAWEL TURNAU Mont Blanc or Ema, could be a constituent of a thought which one ing, in the sense in which words have meaning, is irrelevant to logic" can assert, seemed to him absurd: otherwise, "each individual piece of (PoM, p. 47). It will shortly become clear what is the other sense in frozen, solidified lava which is part of Mount Etna would also be part which meaning is relevant to logic. Words are mere symbols-their of the thought that Etna is higher than Vesuvius. But it seems to me special property consists in the fact that they standfor other objects. A absurd that pieces of lava, even pieces of which I had no knowledge, word is a proxy for something else. It can be compared to a catalogue should be parts of my thought."4 Needless to say, Russell was card which, for certain purposes, represents a book. When we hear or unmoved by such arguments. see a word we do not focus our attention on the word, but on that The position taken by Russell in the letter to Frege quoted above which it symbolizes, or represents. does not seem, however, to be quite the same as that of The Principles It is because words have this symbolic character that we can form ofMathematics, page 47, which he published shortly before. He must propositions, which we then may assert, know to be true, etc. Proposi­ have been already well advanced on his way towards the view tions are wholly objective; they consist of real things and real concepts. expressed in "On Denoting". In the letter, Russell argued against We do not assert subjective thoughts, but objective facts. That is a Frege that if a real object like Mont Blanc could never occur in a point over which Russell and Frege could not agree with each other, proposition, then we would "know nothing at all about Mont Blanc". despite a lengthy correspondence on the subject. According to Frege, a But this argument is actually incorrect from the standpoint of the proposition (Gedanke) correlated to a sentence consists of the senses of Principles. And indeed, whereas in the book, in the Appendix devoted the expressions occurring in the sentence. Thus, in the case of a name, to Frege, Russell wrote that he did recognize a distinction roughly like "Mont Blanc", the sense of this name is a constituent ofthe prop­ similar to Frege's sense-reference distinction, in the letter he already osition that Mont Blanc is over 4,000 m. high. The reference, i.e. the denied it: "I- do not admit the sense at all." real mountain, is not to be found in the proposition. This is What was the theory put forward in the Principles, page 47, then? straightforwardly denied by Russell, eventually on the ground that the In addition to things and ordinary concepts, Russell also recognized proposition, that which we assert to be true, or know to be true, must the existence of a third type of objects, the so-called denoting con­ be objective. If our assertions and knowledge are to be relevant to the cepts. Of a thing or of an ordinary concept it is always true that if it real world, and are to be objective, real objects must occur in the occurs in a proposition, then the proposition is about that object. propositions which we assert, know, etc. If Mont Blanc could never be Thus, the proposition John is taller than Jane consists of John, Jane a part of a proposition, then I would never be able to assert anything and the relation is taller than, and in consequence it is about John, about the real thing Mont Blanc, but at best about my subjective idea Jane and the relation is taller than. But if we take a proposition like I of this mountain: "we do not assert the thought, for this is a private met a man, then it is not about the concept a man, even though that psychological matter: we assert the object of the thought, and that is, concept is a constituent of the proposition. The proposition is "about to my mind, a certain complex (an objective proposition, one might something quite different, some actual biped denoted by the concept" say) in which Mont Blanc is itself a component part."3 (PoM, p. 47). Denoting concepts, when inserted into propositions, Frege disagreed. On the one hand, a thought was for him sufficient­ cause what might be called a "shift of subject-matter". This phenom­ ly objective by being intersl,lbjective, i.e. by being the common prop­ enon is indeed their defining characteristic. Thus, they are an excep­ erty of many speakers. He found Russell's charge of subjectivism sim­ tional case in Russell's semantics, and do not cohere with it very well. ply unconvincing. On the other hand, the idea that a real object, like 3 Letterto Frege, dated 12 December 19°4, published in: Gottlob Frege, Philosophi· 4 Letter to Jourdain, n.d., in Frege, Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence, cal and Mathematical Correspondence, ed. G. Gabriel et al, abridged for the English 6 P·79· ed. by B. McGuinness, trans. H. Kaal (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), p. 1 9. 56 PAWEL TURNAU Russell's Argument against Frege's Distinction 57 Not surprisingly, Russell was only too glad to dispose of them as soon This case is therefore the opposite ofthe case ofidentity propositions.
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