We, as Grice and Strawson remarked, very commonly use expressions of certain kinds to
mention or refer to some individual person or single object
or particular event or place or process, in the course of
d'oing what we should normally describe as making a state-
ment about that person, object, place, event, or process. I
shall call this way of using expressions the t uniquely re-
ferring use'. The classes of expressions which are most
commonly used in this way are : singular demonstrative
pronouns ('this' and 'that'); proper names (e.g. 'Venice',
( Napoleon', 'John') ; singular personal and impersonal pro-
nouns ('he', 'she', T, 'you', 'it'); and phrases beginning
with the definite article followed by a noun, qualified or
unqualified, in the singular (e.g. 'the table', 'the old man',
' the king of France J ). Any expression of any of these classes
can occur as the subject of what would traditionally be
regarded as a singular subject-predicate sentence; and
would, so occurring, exemplify the use I wish to- discuss.
I do not want to say that expressions belonging to these
classes never have any other use than the one I want to
discuss. On the contrary, it is obvious that they do. It is
obvious that anyone who uttered the sentence, 'The whale
is a mammal', would be using the expression 'the whale'
in a way quite different from the way it would be used by
anyone who had occasion seriously to utter the sentence,
'The whale struck the ship'. In the first sentence one is
obviously not mentioning, and in the second sentence one
obviously is mentioning, a particular whale. Again if I
21
22 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
said, 'Napoleon was the greatest French soldier', I should
be using the word 'Napoleon' to mention a certain indi-
vidual, but I should not be using the phrase, 'the greatest
French soldier', to mention an individual, but to say some-
thing about an individual I had already mentioned. It
would be natural to say that in using this sentence I was
talking about Napoleon and that what I was saying about
him was that he was the greatest French soldier. But of
course I could use the expression, 'the greatest French
soldier 3 , to mention an individual ; for example, by saying :
'The greatest French soldier died in exile'. So it is obvious
that at least some expressions belonging to the classes I
mentioned can have uses other than the use I am anxious to
discuss. Another thing I do not want to say is that in any
given sentence there is never more than one expression used
in the way I propose to discuss. On the contrary, it is
obvious that there may be more than one. For example, it
would be natural to say that, in seriously using the sentence,
'The whale struck the ship', I was saying something about
both a certain whale and a certain ship, that I was using
each of the expressions 'the whale' and 'the ship' to mention
a particular object ; or, in other words, that I was using each
of these expressions in the uniquely referring way. In
general, however, I shall confine my attention to cases where
an expression used in this way occurs as the grammatical
subject of a sentence.
I think it is true to say that Russell's Theory of Descrip-
tions, which is concerned with the last of the four classes of
expressions I mentioned above (i.e. with expressions of the
form 'the so-and-so'), is still widely accepted among logicians
as giving a correct account of the use of such expressions in
ordinary language. I want to show in the first place, that
this theory, so regarded, embodies some fundamental
mistakes.
What question or questions about phrases of the form
'the so-and-so' was the Theory of Descriptions designed to
answer ? I think that at least one of the questions may be
ON REFERRING 23
illustrated as follows. Suppose someone were now to utter
the sentence, 'The king of France is wise 5 . No one would
say that the sentence which had been uttered was meaning-
less. Everyone would agree that it was significant. But
everyone knows that there is not at present a king of France.
One of the questions the Theory of Descriptions was designed
to answer was the question : How can such a sentence as
'The king of France is wise* be significant even when there
is nothing which answers to the description It contains, i.e.,
in this case, nothing which answers to the description 'The
king of France ' ? And one of the reasons why Russell
thought it important to give a correct answer to this ques-
tion was that he thought it important to show that another
answer which might be given was wrong. The answer that
he thought was wrong, and to which he was anxious to supply
an alternative, might be exhibited as the conclusion of either
of the following two fallacious arguments. Let us call the
sentence 'The king of France is wise' the sentence S. Then
the first argument is as follows :
(i) The phrase, 'the king of France', is the subject of
the sentence S.
Therefore (2) if S is a significant sentence, S is a sentence
about the king of France.
But (3) if there in no sense exists a king of France, the
sentence is not about anything, and hence not about the
king of France.
Therefore (4) since S is significant, there must in some
sense (in some world) exist (or subsist) the king of France.
And the second argument is as follows :
(1) If S is significant, it is either true or false.
(2) S is true if the king of France is wise and false if the
king of France is not wise.
(3) But the statement that the king of France is wise and
the statement that the king of France is not wise are alike
true only if there is (in some sense, in some world) something
which is the king of France.
24 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
Hence (4) since S Is significant, there follows the same
conclusion as before.
These are fairly obviously bad arguments, and, as we
should expect, Russell rejects them. The postulation of a
world of strange entities, to which the king of France belongs,
offends, he says, against 'that feeling for reality which ought
to be preserved even in the most abstract studies 1 . The fact
that Russell rejects these arguments is, however, less interest-
ing than the extent to which, in rejecting their conclusion,
he concedes the more important of their principles. Let me
refer to the phrase, 'the king of France', as the phrase D.
Then I think Russell's reasons for rejecting these two argu-
ments can be summarized as follows. The mistake arises,
he says, from thinking that D, which is certainly the gram-
matical subject of S, is also the logical subject of S. But D
is not the logical subject of S. In fact S, although gram-
matically it has a singular subject and a predicate, is not
logically a subject-predicate sentence at all. The proposi-
tion it expresses is a complex kind of existential proposition,
part of which might be described as a ' uniquely existential '
proposition. To exhibit the logical form of the proposition,
we should re-write the sentence in a logically appropriate
grammatical form ; in such a way that the deceptive similar-
ity of S to a sentence expressing a subject-predicate proposi-
tion would disappear, and we should be safeguarded against
arguments such as the bad ones I outlined above. Before
recalling the details of Russell's analysis of S, let us notice
what his answer, as I have so far given it, seems to imply.
His answer seems to imply that in the case of a sentence
which is similar to S in that (i) it is grammatically of the
subject-predicate form and (2) its grammatical subject does
not refer to anything, then the only alternative to its being
meaningless is that It should not really (i.e. logically) be of
the subject-predicate form at all, but of some quite different
form. And this in its turn seems to imply that if there are
any sentences which are genuinely of the subject-predicate
form, then the very fact of their being significant, having a
ON REFERRING 25
meaning, guarantees that there is something referred to by
the logical (and grammatical) subject. Moreover, Russell's
answer seems to imply that there are such sentences. For
if it is true that one may be misled by the grammatical simi-
larity of S to other sentences into thinking that it is logically
of the subject-predicate form, then surely there must be other
sentences grammatically similar to S, which are of the subject-
predicate form. To show not only that Russell's answer seems
to imply these conclusions, but that he accepted at least the
first two of them, it is enough to consider what he says about
a class of expressions which he calls ' logically proper names *
and contrasts with expressions, like D, which he calls 'de-
finite descriptions'. Of logically proper names Russell says
or implies the following things :
(1) That they and they alone can occur as subjects of
sentences which are genuinely of the subject-predicate form.
(2) That an expression intended to be a logically proper
name is meaningless unless there is some single object for
which it stands : for the meaning of such an expression just
is the individual object which the expression designates. To
be a name at all, therefore, it must designate something.
It is easy to see that if anyone believes these two pro-
positions, then the only way for him to save the significance
of the sentence S is to deny that it is a logically subject-
predicate sentence. Generally, we may say that Russell
recognizes only two ways in which sentences which seem,
from their grammatical structure, to be about some particular
person or individual object or event, can be significant :
(1) The first is that their grammatical form should be
misleading as to their logical form, and that they should be
analysable, like S, as a special kind of existential sentence.
(2) The second is that their grammatical subject should
be a logically proper name, of which the meaning is the
individual thing it designates.
I think that Russell is unquestionably wrong in this, and
that sentences which are significant, and which begin with
26 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
an expression used in the uniquely referring way, fall into
neither of these two classes. Expressions used in the un iquely
referring way are never either logically proper names or
descriptions, if what is meant by calling them ' descriptions '
is that they are to be analysed in accordance with the model
provided by Russell's Theory of Descriptions.
There are no logically proper names and there are no
descriptions (in this sense).
Let us now consider the details of Russell's analysis.
According to Russell, anyone who asserted S would be assert-
ing that :
(1) There is a king of France.
(2) There is not more than one king of France.
(3) There is nothing which is king of France and is not
wise.
It is easy to see both how Russell arrived at this analysis,
and how it enables him to answer the question with which
we began, viz, the question : How can the sentence S be
significant when there is no king of France ? The way in
which he arrived at the analysis was clearly by asking him-
self what would be the circumstances in which we would say
that anyone who uttered the sentence S had made a true
assertion. And it does seem pretty clear, and I have no
wish to dispute, that the sentences (l)-(s) above do describe
circumstances which are at least necessary conditions of
anyone making a true assertion by uttering the sentence S.
But, as I hope to show, to say this is not at all the same
thing as to say that Russell has given a correct account of
the use of the sentence S or even that he has given an account
which, though incomplete, is correct as far as it goes ; and
is certainly not at all the same thing as to say that the model
translation provided is a correct model for all (or for any)
singular sentences beginning with a phrase of the form
1 the so-and-so ' .
It is also easy to see how this analysis enables Russell to
answer the question of how the sentence S can be significant,
even when there is no king of France. For, if this analysis
ON REFERRING 27
is correct, anyone who utters the sentence S to-day would
be jointly asserting three propositions, one of which (viz.
that there is a king of France) would be false ; and since the
conjunction of three propositions, of which one is false, is
itself false, the assertion as a whole would be significant, but
false. So neither of the bad arguments for subsistent entities
would apply to such an assertion.
II
As a step towards showing that Russell's solution of his
problem is mistaken, and towards providing the correct
solution, I want now to draw certain distinctions. For this
purpose I shall, for the remainder of this section, refer to an
expression which has a uniquely referring use as ' an expres-
sion ' for short ; and to a sentence beginning with such an
expression as ' a sentence ' for short. The distinctions I shall
draw are rather rough and ready, and, no doubt, difficult
cases could be. produced which would call for their refine-
ment. But I think they will serve my purpose. The dis-
tinctions are between :
(Ai) a sentence,
(A2) a use of a sentence,
(A3) an utterance of a sentence,
and, correspondingly, between :
(Bi) an expression,
(62) a use of an expression,
(63) an utterance of an expression.
Consider again the sentence, * The king of France is wise '
It is easy to imagine that this sentence was uttered at various
times from, say, the beginning of the seventeenth century
onwards, during the reigns of each successive French
monarch ; and easy to imagine that it was also uttered
during the subsequent periods in which France was not a
monarchy. Notice that it was natural for me to speak of
'the sentence' or 'this sentence' being uttered at various
28 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
times during this period ; or, in other words, that it would
be natural and correct to speak of one and the same sentence
being uttered on all these various occasions. It is in the sense
in which it would be correct to speak of one and the same
sentence being uttered on all these various occasions that I
want to use the expression (Ai) 'a sentence'. There are,
however, obvious differences between different occasions of
the use of this sentence. For instance, if one man uttered it
in the reign of Louis XIV and another man uttered it in the
reign of Louis XV, it would be natural to say (to assume)
that they were respectively talking about different people ;
and it might be held that the first man, in using the sentence,
made a true assertion, while the second man, in using the
same sentence, made a false assertion. If on the other hand
two different men simultaneously uttered the sentence (e.g.
if one wrote it and the other spoke it) during the reign of
Louis XIV, it would be natural to say (assume) that they
were both talking about the same person, and, in that case,
in using the sentence, they must either both have made a
true assertion or both have made a false assertion. And
this illustrates what I mean by a use of a sentence. The
two men who uttered the sentence, one in the reign of
Louis XV and one in the reign of Louis XIV, each made
a different use of the same sentence ; whereas the two men
who uttered the sentence simultaneously in the reign of
Louis XIV, made the same use l of the same sentence.
Obviously in the case of this sentence, and equally obviously
in the case of many others, we cannot talk of the sentence
being true or false, but only of its being used to make a true
or false assertion, or (if this is preferred) to express a true
or a false proposition. And equally obviously we cannot
talk of the sentence being about a particular person, for the
same sentence may be used at different times to talk about
1 This usage of 'use' is, of course, different from (a) the current usage in
which 'use 7 (of a particular word, phrase, sentence) = (roughly) * rules for
using ' = (roughly) 'meaning'; and from () my own usage in the phrase
'uniquely referring use of expressions' in which ' use ' = (roughly) 'way of
using'.
ON REFERRING 29
quite different particular persons, but only of a use of the
sentence to talk about a particular person. Finally it will
make sufficiently clear what I mean by an utterance of a
sentence if I say that the two men who simultaneously uttered
the sentence in the reign of Louis XIV made two different
utterances of the same sentence, though they made the same
use of the sentence.
If we now consider not the whole sentence, f The king
of France is wise ' , but that part of it which is the expression,
'the king of France', it is obvious that we can make ana-
logous, though not identical distinctions between (i) the
expression, (2) a use of the expression, and (3) an utterance
of the expression. The distinctions will not be identical;
we obviously cannot correctly talk of the expression 'the
king of France' being used to express a true or false pro-
position, since in general only sentences can be used truly
or falsely ; and similarly it is only by using a sentence and
not by using an expression alone, that you can talk about a
particular person. Instead, we shall say in this case that
you use the expression to mention or refer to a particular
person in the course of using the sentence to talk about him.
But obviously in this case, and a great many others, the
expression (Bi) cannot be said to mention, or refer to, any-
thing, any more than the sentence can be said to be true or
false. The same expression can have different mentioning-
uses, as the same sentence can be used to make statements
with different truth-values. 'Mentioning', or 'referring', is
not something an expression does ; it is something that
someone can use an expression to do. Mentioning, or
referring to, something is a characteristic of a use of an
expression, just as 'being about' something, and truth-or-
falsity, are characteristics of a use of a sentence.
A very different example may help to make these dis-
tinctions clearer. Consider another case of an expression
which has a uniquely referring use, viz. the expression 1 1 ' ;
and consider the sentence, 'I am hot'. Countless people
may use this same sentence ; but it is logically impossible
30 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
for two different people to make the same use of this sentence :
or, if this is preferred, to use it to express the same proposi-
tion. The expression T inay correctly be used by (and
only by) any one of innumerable people to refer to himself.
To say 'this is to say something about the expression T :
it is, in a sense, to give its meaning. This is the sort of thing
that can be said about expressions. But it makes no sense
to say of the expression 'I' that it refers to a particular
person. This is the sort of thing that can be said only of a
particular use of the expression.
Let me use 'type 1 as an abbreviation for 'sentence or
expression'. Then I am not saying that there are sentences
and expressions (types), and uses of them, and utterances of
them, as there are ships and shoes and sealing-wax. I am
saying that we cannot say the same things about types, uses
of types, and utterances of types. And the fact is that we
do talk about types ; and that confusion is apt to result
from the failure to notice the differences between what we
can say about these and what we can say only about the
uses of types. We are apt to fancy we are talking about
sentences and expressions when we are talking about the
uses of sentences and expressions.
This is what Russell does. Generally, as against Russell,
I shall say this, Meaning (in at least one important sense)
is a function of the sentence or expression ; mentioning and
referring and truth or falsity, are functions of the use of the
sentence or expression. To give the meaning of an ex-
pression (in the sense in which I am using the word) is to
give general directions for its use to refer to or mention
particular objects or persons ; to give the meaning of a
sentence is to give general directions for its use in making
true or false assertions. It is not to talk about any particular
occasion of the use of the sentence or expression. The
meaning of an expression cannot be identified with the
object it is used, on a particular occasion, to refer to. The
meaning of a sentence cannot be identified with the assertion
it is used, on a particular occasion, to make. For to talk
ON REFERRING 31
about the meaning of an expression or sentence is not to
talk about its use on a particular occasion, but about the
rules, habits, conventions governing its correct use 5 on ail
occasions, to refer or to assert. So the question of whether
a sentence or expression is significant or not has nothing
whatever to do with the question of whether the sentence,
uttered on a particular occasion , is, on that occasion, being
used to make a true-or-false assertion or not, or of whether
the expression is, on that occasion, being used to refer to s or
mention, anything at all.
The source of Russell's mistake was that he thought that
referring or mentioning, if it occurred at all, must be mean-
ing. He did not distinguish Bi from 62; he confused
expressions with their use in a particular context ; and so
confused meaning with mentioning, with referring. If I
talk about my handkerchief, I can, perhaps, produce the
object I am referring to out of my pocket. I cannot pro-
duce the meaning of the expression, f my handkerchief ', out
of my pocket. Because Russell confused meaning with
mentioning, he thought that if there were any expressions
having a uniquely referring use, which were what they
seemed (i.e. logical subjects) and not something else in dis-
guise, their meaning must be the particular object which
they were used to refer to. Hence the troublesome mythology
of the logically proper name. But if someone asks me the
meaning of the expression 'this' once Russell's favourite
candidate for this status I do not hand him the object I
have just used the expression to refer to, adding at the same
time that the meaning of the word changes every time it is
used. Nor do I hand him all the objects it ever has been,
or might be, used to refer to. I explain and illustrate the
conventions governing the use of the expression. This is
giving the meaning of the expression. It is quite different
from giving (in any sense of giving) the object to which it
refers ; for the expression itself does not refer to anything ;
though it can be used, on different occasion, to refer to
innumerable things. Now as a matter of fact there is, in
32 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
English, a sense of the word 'mean' in which this word
does approximate to 'Indicate, mention or refer to 5 ; e.g.
when somebody (unpleasantly) says, ' I mean you J ; or when
I point and say, 'That's the one I mean'. But the one I
meant is quite different from the meaning of the expression
I used to talk of it. In this special sense of 'mean', it is
people who mean, not expressions. People use expressions
to refer to particular things. But the meaning of an ex-
pression is not the set of things or the single thing it may
correctly be used to refer to : the meaning is the set of rules,
habits, conventions for its use in referring.
It is the same with sentences : even more obviously so.
Everyone knows that the sentence, 'The table is covered
with books', is significant, and everyone knows what it
means. But if I ask, 'What object is that sentence about ?'
I am asking an absurd question a question which cannot
be asked about the sentence, but only about some use of the
sentence : and in this case the sentence has not been used
to talk about something, it has only been taken as an example.
In knowing what it means, you are knowing how it could
correctly be used to talk about things: so knowing the
meaning has nothing to do with knowing about any par-
ticular use of the sentence to talk about anything. Similarly,
if I ask: 'Is the sentence true or false?' I am asking an
absurd question, which becomes no less absurd if I add,
*It must be one or the other since it is significant'. The
question is absurd, because the sentence is neither true nor
false any more than it is about some object. Of course the
fact that it is significant is the same as the fact that it can
correctly be used to talk about something and that, in so
using it, someone will be making a true or false assertion.
And I will add that it will be used to make a true or false
assertion only if the person using it is talking about some-
thing. If, when he utters it, he is not talking about any-
thing, then his use is not a genuine one, but a spurious or
pseudo-use : he is not making either a true or a false asser-
tion, though he may think he is. And this points the way
ON REFERRING 33
to the correct answer to the puzzle to which the Theory of
Descriptions gives a fatally incorrect answer. The Important
point is that the question of whether the sentence is significant
or not is quite independent of the question that can be raised
about a particular use of it, viz. the question whether it Is a
genuine or a spurious use, whether it is being used to talk
about something, or in make-believe, or as an example In
philosophy. The question whether the sentence is significant
or not is the question whether there exist such language
habits, conventions or rules that the sentence logically could
be used to talk about something ; and is hence quite inde-
pendent of the question whether it is being so used on a
particular occasion.
Ill
Consider again the sentence, ' The king of France is wise',
and the true and false things Russell says about it.
There are at least two true things which Russell would
say about the sentence :
(1) The first is that it is significant ; that if anyone were
now to utter it, he would be uttering a significant sentence.
(2) The second is that anyone now uttering the sentence
would be making a true assertion only if there in fact at
present existed one and only one king of France, and if he
were wise.
What are the false things which Russell would say about
the sentence ? They are :
(1) That anyone now uttering it would be making a true
assertion or a false assertion ;
(2) That part of what he would be asserting would be
that there at present existed one and only one king of France,
I have already given some reasons for thinking that these
two statements are incorrect. Now suppose someone were
in fact to say to you with a perfectly serious air : 'The king
of France is wise*. Would you say, 'That's untrue'? I
34 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
think it is quite certain that you would not. But suppose he
went on to ask you whether you thought that what he had
just said was true, or was false ; whether you agreed or dis-
agreed with what he had just said. I think you would be
inclined, with some hesitation, to say that you did not do
either ; that the question of whether his statement was true
or false simply did not arise, because there was no such
person as the king of France. You might, if he were
obviously serious (had a dazed astray-in-the-centuries look),
say something like : 'I'm afraid you must be under a mis-
apprehension. France is not a monarchy. There is no king
of France.' And this brings out the point that if a rr an
seriously uttered the sentence, his uttering it would in some
sense be evidence that he believed that there was a king of
France. It would not be evidence for his believing this
simply in the way in which a man's reaching for his raincoat
is evidence for his believing that it is raining. But nor
would it be evidence for his believing this in the way in
which a man's saying, 'It's raining', is evidence for his be-
lieving that it is raining. We might put it as follows. To
say 'The king of France is wise' is, in some sense of 'imply',
to imply that there is a king of France. But this is a very
special and odd sense of 'imply'. 'Implies' in this sense is
certainly not equivalent to 'entails' (or 'logically implies').
And this comes out from the fact that when, in response to
his statement, we say (as we should) 'There is no king of
France 1 , we should certainly not say we were contradicting
the statement that the king of France is wise. We are cer-
tainly not saying that it is false. We are, rather, giving a
reason for saying that the question of whether it is true or
false simply does not arise.
And this is where the distinction I drew earlier can help
us. The sentence, 'The king of France is wise', is certainly
significant ; but this does not mean that any particular use
of it is true or false. We use it truly or falsely when we use
it to talk about someone; when, in using the expression,
'The king of France 1 , we are in fact mentioning someone.
ON REFERRING 35
The fact that the sentence and the expression, respectively,
are significant just is the fact that the sentence could be
used, in certain circumstances, to say something true or
false, that the expression could be used, in certain circum-
stances, to mention a particular person ; and to know their
meaning is to know what sort of circumstances these are.
So when we utter the sentence without in fact mentioning
anybody by the use of the phrase, 'The king of France 5 , the
sentence does not cease to be significant : we simply fail to
say anything true or false because we simply fail to mention
anybody by this particular use of that perfectly significant
phrase. It is, if you like, a spurious use of the sentence, and
a spurious use of the expression ; though we may (or may
not) mistakenly think it a genuine use.
And such spurious uses x are very familiar. Sophisticated
romancing, sophisticated fiction, 2 depend upon them. If I
began, 'The king of France is wise', and went on, 'and he
lives in a golden castle and has a hundred wives', and so on,
a hearer would understand me perfectly well, without sup-
posing either that I was talking about a particular person,
or that I was making a false statement to the effect that
there existed such a person as my words described. (It is
worth adding that where the use of sentences and expressions
is overtly fictional, the sense of the word 'about' may change.
As Moore said, it is perfectly natural and correct to say
that some of the statements in Pickwick Papers are about
Mr. Pickwick. But where the use of sentences and expres-
sions is not overtly fictional, this use of 'about' seems less
correct ; i.e. it would not in general be correct to say that a
statement was about Mr. X or the so-and-so, unless there
were such a person or thing. So it is where the romancing
is in danger of being taken seriously that we might answer
the question, 'Who is he talking about?' with 'He's not
talking about anybody' ; but, in saying this, we are not
1 The choice of the word 'spurious' now seems to me unfortunate, at least
for some non-standard uses, I should now prefer to call some of these * second-
ary' uses.
2 The unsophisticated kind begins : * Once upon time there was . . .*
3 6 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
saying that what he is saying is either false or nonsense.)
Overtly fictional uses apart, however, I said just now that
to use such an expression as 'The king of France' at the
beginning of a sentence was, in some sense of 'imply', to
imply that there was a king of France. When a man uses
such an expression, he does not assert, nor does what he says
entail \ a uniquely existential proposition. But one of the
conventional functions of the definite article is to act as a
signal that a unique reference is being made a signal,
not a disguised assertion. When we begin a sentence with
'the such-and-such' the use of 'the' shows, but does not
state, that we are, or intend to be, referring to one particular
individual of the species 'such-and-such'. Which particular
individual is a matter to be determined from context, time,
place, and any other features of the situation of utterance.
Now, whenever a man uses any expression, the presumption
is that he thinks he is using it correctly : so when he uses
the expression, 'the such-and-such ', in a uniquely referring
way, the presumption is that he thinks both that there is
some individual of that species, and that the context of use
will sufficiently determine which one he has in mind. To
use the word 'the' in this way is then to imply (in the relevant
sense of ' imply ') that the existential conditions described by
Russell are fulfilled. But to use 'the' in this way is not to
state that those conditions are fulfilled. If I begin a sentence
with an expression of the form, 'the so-and-so', and then
am prevented from saying more, I have made no statement
of any kind ; but I may have succeeded in mentioning some-
one or something.
The uniquely existential assertion supposed by Russell
to be part of any assertion in which a uniquely referring use
is made of an expression of the form ' the so-and-so ' is, he
observes, a compound of two assertions. To say that there
is a
<^s ; to say there is not more than one
compatible with there being none. To say there is one
and one only is to compound these two assertions, I have
ON REFERRING 37
so far been concerned mostly with the alleged assertion of
existence and less with the alleged assertion of uniqueness.
An example which throws the emphasis on to the latter will
serve to bring out more clearly the sense of 'Implied' in
which a uniquely existential assertion is implied, but not
entailed, by the use of expressions in the uniquely referring
way. Consider the sentence, 'The table is covered with
books'. It is quite certain that in any normal use of this
sentence, the expression 'the table 1 would be used to make a
unique reference, i.e. to refer to some one table. It is a
quite strict use of the definite article, in the sense In which
Russell talks on p. 30 of Principia Mathematics^ of using
the article 'strictly, so as to imply uniqueness'. On the
same page Russell says that a phrase of the form * the so-
and-so ', used strictly, 'will only have an application in the
event of there being one so-and-so and no more'. Now it is
obviously quite false that the phrase 'the table' In the sen-
tence 'the table is covered with books', used normally, will
'only have an application in the event of there being one
table and no more'. It is indeed tautologically true that, In
such a use, the phrase will have an application only in the
event of there being one table and no more which is being
referred to, and that it will be understood to have an appli-
cation only in the event of there being one table and no
more which it is understood as being used to refer to. To
use the sentence is not to assert, but it is (in the special sense
discussed) to imply, that there is only one thing which is
both of the kind specified (i.e. a table) and is being referred
to by the speaker. It is obviously not to assert this. To
refer is not to say you are referring. To say there is some
table or other to which you are referring is not the same as
referring to a particular table. We should have no use for
such phrases as 'the individual I referred to' unless there
were something which counted as referring. (It would make
no sense to say you had pointed if there were nothing which
counted as pointing.) So once more I draw the conclusion
that referring to or mentioning a particular thing cannot be
38 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
dissolved into any kind of assertion. To refer is not to assert,
though you refer in order to go on to assert.
Let me now take an example of the uniquely referring
use of an expression not of the form, 'the so-and-so*. Sup-
pose I advance my hands, cautiously cupped, towards some-
one, saying, as I do so, 'This is a fine red one'. He, looking
into my hands and seeing nothing there, may say: 'What
is ? What are you talking about ? ' Or perhaps, ' But there's
nothing in your hands'. Of course it would be absurd to
say that, in saying 'But you've got nothing in your hands',
he was denying or contradicting what I said. So 'this' is
not a disguised description in Russell's sense. Nor is it a
logically proper name, For one must know what the sen-
tence means in order to react in that way to the utterance
of it. It is precisely because the significance of the word
'this 1 is independent of any particular reference it may be
used to make, though not independent of the way it may be
used to refer, that I can, as in this example, use it to pretend
to be referring to something.
The general moral of all this is that communication is
much less a matter of explicit or disguised assertion than
logicians used to suppose. The particular application of this
general moral in which I am interested is its application to
the case of making a unique reference. It is a part of the
significance of expressions of the kind I am discussing that
they can be used, in an immense variety of contexts, to make
unique references. It is no part of their significance to assert
that they are being so used or that the conditions of their
being so used are fulfilled. So the wholly important dis-
tinction we are required to draw is between
(1) using an expression to make a unique reference ; and
(2) asserting that there is one and only one individual
which has certain characteristics (e.g. is of a certain kind,
or stands in a certain relation to the speaker, or both).
This is, in other words, the distinction between
(i) sentences containing an expression used to indicate
ON REFERRING 39
or mention or refer to a particular person or thing ; and
(2) uniquely existential sentences.
What Russell does is progressively to assimilate more and
more sentences of class (i) to sentences of class (2), and con-
sequently to involve himself in insuperable difficulties about
logical subjects, and about values for individual variables
generally : difficulties which have led him finally to the
logically disastrous theory of names developed In the Enquiry
into Meaning and Truth and in Human Knowledge. That
view of the meaning of logical-subject-expressions which
provides the whole incentive to the Theory of Descriptions
at the same time precludes the possibility of Russell's ever
finding any satisfactory substitutes for those expressions
which, beginning with substantival phrases, he progressively
degrades from the status of logical subjects. 1 It is not
simply, as is sometimes said, the fascination of the relation
between a name and its bearer, that is the root of the trouble.
Not even names come up to the impossible standard set.
It Is rather the combination of two more radical misconcep-
tions : first, the failure to grasp the importance of the
distinction (section II above) between what may be said of
an expression and what may be said of a particular use of
it ; second, a failure to recognize the uniquely referring use
of expressions for the harmless, necessary thing it is, dis-
tinct from, but complementary to, the predicative or ascriptive
use of expressions. The expressions which can in fact occur
as singular logical subjects are expressions of the class I
listed at the outset (demonstratives, substantival phrases,
proper names, pronouns) : to say this is to say that these
expressions, together with context (in the widest sense), are
what one uses to make unique references. The point of the
conventions governing the uses of such expressions is, along
with the situation of utterance, to secure uniqueness of
reference. But to do this, enough is enough. We do not,
and we cannot, while referring, attain ifte point of complete
1 And this in spite of the danger-signal of that phrase, 'misleading gram-
matical form*.
40 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
explicitness at which the referring function is no longer per-
formed. The actual unique reference made, if any, is a
matter of the particular use in the particular context ; the
significance of the expression used is the set of rules or con-
ventions which permit such references to be made. Hence
we can, using significant expressions, pretend to refer, in
make-believe or in fiction, or mistakenly think we are refer-
ring when we are not referring to anything. 1
This shows the need for distinguishing two kinds (among
many others) of linguistic conventions or rules : rules for
referring, and rules for attributing and ascribing ; and for
an investigation of the former. If we recognize this dis-
tinction of use for what it is, we are on the way to solving a
number of ancient logical and metaphysical puzzles.
My last two sections are concerned, but only in the barest
outline, with these questions.
IV
One of the main purposes for which we use language is
the purpose of stating facts about things and persons and
events. If we want to fulfil this purpose, we must have
some way of forestalling the question, 'What (who, which
one) are you talking about ? 5 as well as the question, 'What
are you saying about it (him, her) ?' The task of forestalling
the first question is the referring (or identifying) task. The
task of forestalling the second is the attributive (or descriptive
or classificatory or ascriptive) task. In the conventional
English sentence which is used to state, or to claim to state,
a fact about an individual thing or person or event, the
performance of these two tasks can be roughly and approxi-
mately assigned to separable expressions. 2 * And in such a
[* This sentence now seems to me objectionable in a number of ways, notably
because of an unexplicitly restrictive use of the word 'refer'. It could be more
exactly phrased as follows : * Hence we can, using significant expressions, refer
in secondary ways, as in make-believe or in fiction, or mistakenly think we are
referring to something in the primary way when we are not, in that way, referring
to anything'.]
2 I neglect relational sentences; for these require, not a modification in
the principle of what I say, but a complication of the detail.
ON REFERRING 41
sentence, this assigning of expressions to their separate roles
corresponds to the conventional grammatical classification
of subject and predicate. There is nothing sacrosanct about
the employment of separable expressions for these two tasks.
Other methods could be, and are, employed. There is, for
instance, the method of uttering a single word or attributive
phrase in the conspicuous presence of the object referred to ;
or that analogous method exemplified by, e.g., the painting
of the words ' unsafe for lorries' on a bridge, or the tying of
a label reading * first prize ' on a vegetable marrow. Or one
can imagine an elaborate game iri which one never used an
expression in the uniquely referring way at all, but uttered
only uniquely existential sentences, trying to enable the
hearer to identify what was being talked of by means of an
accumulation of relative clauses. (This description of the
purposes of the game shows in what sense it would be a
game : this is not the normal use we make of existential sen-
tences.) Two points require emphasis. The first is that the
necessity of performing these two tasks in order to state
particular facts requires no transcendental explanation : to
call attention to it is partly to elucidate the meaning of the
phrase, * stating a fact'. The second is that even this elucida-
tion is made in terms derivative from the grammar of the
conventional singular sentence ; that even the overtly
functional, linguistic distinction between the identifying and
attributive roles that words may play in language Is prompted
by the fact that ordinary speech offers us separable expressions
to which the different functions may be plausibly and approxi-
mately assigned. And this functional distinction has cast long
philosophical shadows. The distinctions between particular
and universal, between substance and quality, are such
pseudo-material shadows, cast by the grammar of the con-
ventional sentence, in which separable expressions play
distinguishable roles. 1
To use a separate expression to perform the first of these
[ J What is said or implied in the last two sentences of this paragraph no
longer seerns to me true, unless considerably qualified.]
42 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
tasks Is to use an expression in the uniquely referring way.
I want now to say something in general about the conven-
tions of use for expressions used in this way, and to contrast
them with conventions of ascriptive use, I then proceed to
the brief illustration of these general remarks and to some
further applications of them.
What in general is required for making a unique refer-
ence is 5 obviously, some device, or devices, for showing both
that a unique reference is intended and what unique reference
it is ; some device requiring and enabling the hearer or reader
to identify what is being talked about. In securing this result,
the context of utterance is of an importance which it is almost
impossible to exaggerate ; and by 'context' I mean, at least,
the time, the place, the situation, the identity of the speaker,
the subjects which form the immediate focus of interest, and
the personal histories of both the speaker and those he is
addressing. Besides context, there is, of course, convention ;
linguistic convention. But, except in the case of genuine
proper names, of which I shall have more to say later, the
fulfilment of more or less precisely stateable contextual con-
ditions is conventionally (or, in a wide sense of the word,
logically] required for the correct referring use of expressions
in a sense in which this is not true of correct ascriptive uses.
The requirement for the correct application of an expression
in its ascriptive use to a certain thing is simply that the thing
should be of a certain kind, have certain characteristics. The
requirement for the correct application of an expression in
its referring use to a certain thing is something over and
above any requirement derived from such ascriptive meaning
as the expression may have ; it is, namely, the requirement
that the thing should be in a certain relation to the speaker
and to the context of utterance. Let me call this the con-
textual requirement. Thus, for example, in the limiting
case of the word ' T the contextual requirement is that the
thing should be identical with the speaker ; but in the case of
most expressions which have a referring use this requirement
cannot be so precisely specified. A further, and perfectly
ON REFERRING 43
general, difference between conventions for referring and
conventions for describing is one we have already encoun-
tered, viz. that the fulfilment of the conditions for a correct
ascriptive use of an expression is a part of what is stated by
such a use ; but the fulfilment of the conditions for a correct
referring use of an expression is never part of what is stated,
though it is (in the relevant sense of 'implied') implied by
such a use.
Conventions for referring have been neglected or mis-
interpreted by logicians. The reasons for this neglect are
not hard to see, though they are bard to state briefly. Two
of them are, roughly : (i) the preoccupation of most logicians
with definitions ; (2) the preoccupation of some logicians
with formal systems, (i) A definition, in the most familiar
sense, is a specification of the conditions of the correct
ascriptive or classificatory use of an expression. Definitions
take no account of contextual requirements. So that in so
far as the search for the meaning or the search for the
analysis of an expression is conceived as the search for a
definition, the neglect or misinterpretation of conventions
other than ascriptive is inevitable. Perhaps it would be better
to say (for I do not wish to legislate about 'meaning' or
' analysis ') that logicians have failed to notice that problems
of use are wider than problems of analysis and meaning.
(2) The influence of the preoccupation with mathematics and
formal logic is most clearly seen (to take no more recent
examples) in the cases of Leibniz and Russell. The con-
structor of calculuses, not concerned or required to make
factual statements, approaches applied logic with a pre-
judice. It is natural that he should assume that the types of
convention with whose adequacy in one field he is familiar
should be really adequate, if only one could see how, in a quite
different field that of statements of fact. Thus we have
Leibniz striving desperately to make the uniqueness of unique
references a matter of logic in the narrow sense, and Russell
striving desperately to do the same thing, in a different way,
both for the implication of uniqueness and for that of existence.
ON REFERRING 45
names like * The Round Table' substantival phrases
which have grown capital letters.
(3) Finally, they may be divided into the following two
classes : (i) those of which the correct referring use is
regulated by some general referring-cum-ascriptive
conventions ; (ii) those of which the correct referring
use is regulated by no general conventions, either of
the contextual or the ascriptive kind, but by conven-
tions which are ad hoc for each particular use (though
not for each particular utterance). To the first class
belong both pronouns (which have the least descrip-
tive meaning) and substantival phrases (which have
the most). To the second class belong, roughly
speaking, the most familiar kind of proper names.
Ignorance of a man's name is not ignorance of the
language. This is why we do not speak of the mean-
ing of proper names. (But it won't do to say they are
meaningless.) Again an intermediate position is
occupied by such phrases as 'The Old Pretender'.
Only an old pretender may be so referred to ; but to
know which old pretender is not to know a general,
but an ad hoc, convention.
In the case of phrases of the form 'the so-and-so' used
referringly, the use of * the J together with the position of the
phrase in the sentence (i.e. at the beginning, or following a
transitive verb or preposition) acts as a signal that a unique
reference is being made ; and the following noun, or noun
and adjective, together with the context of utterance, shows
what unique reference is being made. In general the
functional difference between common nouns and adjectives
is that the former are naturally and commonly used refer-
ringly, while the latter are not commonly, or so naturally,
used in this way, except as qualifying nouns ; though they
can be, and are, so used alone. And of course this functional
difference is not independent of the descriptive force peculiar
to each word. In general we should expect the descriptive
force of nouns to be such that they are more efficient tools
4 6 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
for the job of showing what unique reference is intended
when such a reference is signalized ; and we should also
expect the descriptive force of the words we naturally and
commonly use to make unique references to mirror our
interest in the salient, relatively permanent and behavioural
characteristics of things. These two expectations are not
independent of one another ; and, if we look at the differences
between the commoner sort of common nouns and the com-
moner sort of adjectives, we find them both fulfilled. These
are differences of the kind that Locke quaintly reports, when
he speaks of our ideas of substances being collections of
simple ideas; when he says that 'powers make up a great
part of our ideas of substances' ; and when he goes on to
contrast the identity of real and nominal essence in the case
of simple ideas with their lack of identity and the shiftingness
of the nominal essence in the case of substances. 'Sub-
stance' itself is the troublesome tribute Locke pays to his
dim awareness of the difference in predominant linguistic
function that lingered even when the noun had been ex-
panded into a more or less indefinite string of adjectives.
Russell repeats Locke's mistake with a difference when,
admitting the inference from syntax to reality to the extent
of feeling that he can get rid of this metaphysical unknown
only if he can purify language of the referring function
altogether, he draws up his programme for ' abolishing par-
ticulars '; a programme, in fact, for abolishing the dis-
tinction of logical use which I am here at pains to emphasize.
The contextual requirement for the referring use of pro-
nouns may be stated with the greatest precision in some
cases (e.g. T and 'you') and only with the greatest vague-
ness in others ('it* and 'this')- I propose to say nothing
further about pronouns, except to point to an additional
symptom of the failure to recognize the uniquely referring
use for what it is ; the fact, namely, that certain logicians
have actually sought to elucidate the nature of a variable
by offering such sentences as 'he is sick', 'it is green', as
examples of something in ordinary speech like a sentential
ON REFERRING 47
function. Now of course it is true that the word c he* may
be used on different occasions to refer to different people or
different animals: so may the word 'John' and the phrase
'the cat'. What deters such logicians from treating these
two expressions as quasi-variables is, in the first case, the
lingering superstition that a name is logically tied to a single
individual, and, in the second case, the descriptive meaning
of the word 'cat'. But 'he', which has a wide range of
applications and minimal descriptive force, only acquires a
use as a referring word. It is this fact, together with the
failure to accord to expressions, used referringly, the place
in logic which belongs to them (the place held open for the
mythical logically proper name), that accounts for the mis-
leading attempt to elucidate the nature of the variable by
reference to such words as 'he*, 'she', 'it 1 .
Of ordinary proper names it is sometimes said that they
are essentially words each of which is used to refer to just
one individual. This is obviously false. Many ordinary
personal names names par excellence are correctly used
to refer to numbers of people. An ordinary personal name
is, roughly, a word, used referringly, of which the use is net
dictated by any descriptive meaning the word may have,
and is not prescribed by any such general rule for use as a
referring expression (or a part of a referring expression) as
we find in the case of such words as 'I 3 , 'this' and 'the', but
is governed by ad hoc conventions for each particular set of
applications of the word to a given person. The important
point is that the correctness of such applications does not
follow from any general rule or convention for the use of the
word as such. (The limit of absurdity and obvious circularity
is reached in the attempt to treat names as disguised 'descrip-
tion in Russell's sense ; for what is in the special sense implied,
but not entailed, by my now referring to someone by name
is simply the existence of someone, now being referred to,
who is conventionally referred to by that name ) Even this
feature of names, however, is only a symptom of the purpose
for which they are employed. At present our choice of names
48 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
Is partly arbitrary, partly dependent on legal and social
observances. It would be perfectly possible to have a
thorough-going system of names, based e.g. on dates of
birth, or on a minute classification of physiological and
anatomical differences. But the success of any such system
would depend entirely on the convenience of the resulting
name-allotments for the purpose of making unique refer-
ences ; and this would depend on the multiplicity of the
classifications used and the degree to which they cut hap-
hazard across normal social groupings. Given a sufficient
degree of both, the selectivity supplied by context would do
the rest ; just as is the case with our present naming habits.
Had we such a system, we could use name-words descriptively
(as we do at present, to a limited extent and in a different way,
with some famous names) as well as referringly. But it is
by criteria derived from consideration of the requirements
of the referring task that we should assess the adequacy of
any system of naming. From the naming point of view, no
kind of classification would be better or worse than any other
simply because of the kind of classification natal or
anatomical that it was.
I have already mentioned the class of quasi-names, of
substantival phrases which grow capital letters, and of which
such phrases as 'the Glorious Revolution', 'the Great War',
1 the Annunciation ', ' the Round Table * are examples. While
the descriptive meaning of the words which follow the
definite article is still relevant to their referring role, the
capital letters are a sign of that extra-logical selectivity in
their referring use, which is characteristic of pure names.
Such phrases are found in print or in writing when one
member of some class of events or things is of quite out-
standing interest in a certain society. These phrases are
embryonic names. A phrase may, for obvious reasons, pass
into, and out of, this class (e.g. 'the Great War*).
ON REFERRING 49
V
I want to conclude by considering, all too briefly, three
further problems about referring uses.
(a) Indefinite references. Not all referring uses of
singular expressions forestall the question 'What (who,
which one) are you talking about ? ' There are some which
either invite this question, or disclaim the intention or ability
to answer it. Examples are such sentence-beginnings as 'A
man told me that . . .', ' Someone told me that * . .' The
orthodox (Russellian) doctrine is that such sentences are
existential, but not uniquely existential. This seems wrong
in several ways. It is ludicrous to suggest that part of what
is asserted is that the class of men or persons is not empty.
Certainly this is implied in the by now familiar sense of
implication ; but the implication is also as much an implica-
tion of the uniqueness of the particular object of reference
as when I begin a sentence with such a phrase as 'the table*.
The difference between the use of the definite and indefinite
articles is, very roughly* as follows. We use 'the* either
when a previous reference has been made, and when 'the*
signalizes that the same reference is being made ; or when,
in the absence of a previous indefinite reference, the context
(including the hearer's assumed knowledge) is expected to
enable the hearer to tell what reference is being made. We
use 'a* either when these conditions are not fulfilled, or when,
although a definite reference could be made, we wish to keep
dark the identity of the individual to whom, or to which,
we are referring. This is the arch use of such a phrase as
' a certain person' or 'someone' ; where it could be expanded,
not into 'someone, but you wouldn't (or I don't) know who'
but into 'someone, but Fm not telling you whoV
(ff) Identification statements. By this label I intend
statements like the following :
(id;) That is the man who swam the channel twice on
one day.
S o ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
(iia) Napoleon was the man who ordered the execution
of the Due d'Enghien,
The puzzle about these statements is that their grammatical
predicates do not seem to be used in a straightforwardly
ascriptive way as are the grammatical predicates of the
statements :
(iff) That man swam the channel twice in one day.
(ii) Napoleon ordered the execution of the Due
d'Enghien.
But if, in order to avoid blurring the difference between (ia)
and (iff) and (iia) and (iiff), one says that the phrases which
form the grammatical complements of (ia) and (iia) are being
used referringly, one becomes puzzled about what is being
said in these sentences. We seem then to be referring to the
same person twice over and either saying nothing about him
and thus making no statement, or identifying him with himself
and thus producing a trivial identity.
The bogy of triviality can be dismissed. This only arises
for those who think of the object referred to by the use of an
expression as its meaning, and thus think of the subject
and complement of these sentences as meaning the same
because they could be used to refer to the same person.
I think the differences between sentences in the (a) group
and sentences in the (ff) group can best be understood by
considering the differences between the circumstances in
which you would say (ia) and the circumstances in which
you would say (iff). You would say (ia) instead of (iff) if
you knew or believed that your hearer knew or believed that
someone had swum the channel twice in one day. You say
(ia) when you take your hearer to be in the position of one
who can ask: c Who swam the channel twice in one day?'
(And in asking this, he is not saying that anyone did, though
his asking it implies in the relevant sense that someone
did.) Such sentences are like answers to such questions.
They are better called 'identification-statements' than
'identities'. Sentence (ia) does not assert more or less than
ON REFERRING 5*
sentence (ii). It is just that you say (to) to a man whom
you take to know certain things that you take to be unknown
to the man to whom you say (iff).
This is, in the barest essentials, the solution to Russell's
puzzle about s denoting phrases 2 joined by f is' ; one of the
puzzles which he claims for the Theory of Descriptions the
merit of solving.
(*) The logic of subjects and predicates. Much of what
I have said of the uniquely referring use of expressions can
be extended, with suitable modifications, to the non-uniquely
referring use of expressions ; i.e. to some uses of expressions
consisting of 'the 1 , 'all the', 'all', 'jsome', 'some of the 1 , etc.
followed by a noun, qualified or unqualified, in the plural ;
to some uses of 'they', 'them', 'those', 'these'; and to
conjunctions of names. Expressions of the first kind have a
special interest. Roughly speaking, orthodox modern criti-
cism, inspired by mathematical logic, of such traditional
doctrines as that of the Square of Opposition and of some
of the forms of the syllogism traditionally recognized as valid,
rests on the familiar failure to recognize the special sense
in which existential assertions may be implied by the refer-
ring use of expressions. The universal propositions of the
fourfold schedule, it is said, must either be given a negatively
existential interpretation (e.g. for A, 'there are no Xs which
are not Ys') or they must be interpreted as conjunctions of
negatively and positively existential statements of, e.g., the
form (for A) 'there are no Xs which are not Ys, and there
are Xs'. The I and O forms are normally given a positively
existential interpretation. It is then seen that, whichever
of the above alternatives is selected, some of the traditional
laws have to be abandoned. The dilemma, however, is a
bogus one. If we interpret the propositions of the schedule
as neither positively, nor negatively, nor positively and nega-
tively, existential, but as sentences such that the question of
whether they are being used to make true or false assertions
does not arise except when the existential condition is fulfilled
for the subject term, then all the traditional laws hold good
52 ESSAYS IN CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS
together. And this interpretation is far closer to the most
common uses of expressions beginning with 'all* and 'some'
than is any Russellian alternative. For these expressions
are most commonly used in the referring way. A literal-
minded and childless man asked whether all his children are
asleep will certainly not answer ' Yes ' on the ground that he
has none; but nor will he answer 'No' on this ground.
Since he has no children, the question does not arise. To
say this is not to say that I may not use the sentence, ' All my
children are asleep', with the intention of letting someone
know that I have children, or of deceiving him into thinking
that I have. Nor is it any weakening of my thesis to concede
that singular phrases of the form 'the so-and-so' may some-
times be used with a similar purpose. Neither Aristotelian
nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression
of ordinary language ; for ordinary language has no exact
logic.
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