Definite descriptions in Russell and the vernacular

Speranza

-- by H. P. Grice.

-- Russell, B. A. W.

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Russell, J. S.


Russell's research interests generally fall at the intersection of metaphysics, philosophy of physics, and philosophical logic—especially issues connected to possibility, space, and time.

One of Russell's tasks in his dissertation is develop a version of David Lewis’s counterpart theory that stands up to the objections raised by Allen Hazen, Michael Fara and Timothy Williamson, and Delia Graff Fara, that modal language that uses an actuality operator cannot be understood in terms of counterparts.

A closely related Lewisian doctrine is called “cheap haecceitism”.

Lewis holds that a single possible world can provide more than one way things could be.

This is a difficult doctrine to understand, but we can make sense of it if we go in for a metaphysical understanding of what the world is.

The world does not include everything that is the case; only the genuine facts. If we understand it this way, cheap haecceitism amounts to a kind of metaphysical anti-haecceitism: it says there aren’t any genuine facts about individuals over and above their qualitative roles.

Counterpart theory and cheap haecceitism have found interesting applications in the philosophy of physics, as a defense against Leibniz’s “shift” argument against the reality of space and time.

J. S. Russell doesn't think this defense succeeds; and in fact he thinks a version of Leibniz’s argument is sound.

Russell is also working on applying ideas from category theory to develop precise “structuralist” metaphysical theories. In the case of space-time metaphysics, Russell denies the existence of particular regions of space, time, or space-time, but I am committed to something like space-time structural roles. The trick is to make this idea precise.