Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (1919-2006) was an English philosopher and had interest broadly in the areas philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. His contribution to the above mentioned areas is worth consideration. Among others "On Referring"1 is a noted one as it is a philosophical disagreement to Bertrand Russell's two classics; "Descriptions"2 and "On Denoting"3. Strawson in his work 'On Referring' identified some logical and epistemological lacunas in Russell's arguments on "Descriptions", which are our considerations for discussions in this presentation and a few lectures ahead.
In the beginning of his essay, Strawson makes a distinction between a 'sentence'4 and a "use of a sentence". He said, in our mundane life we are 'using' many sentences to convey our thoughts to others, and those are not necessarily referring to something-something about the worldly affairs. For example, "I met an old man while walking on the road". This sentence does not refer to any particular man, rather it is an utterance about an old man, say X, or Y, or Z. But if I utter the sentence "I met Mr. John while walking on the road", the hearer will understand a particular man whose name is John. Take another example, I uttered the sentence, "The whale is a mammal". This sentence does not refer to a particular object or an individual. But if I utter the sentence "The whale struck the ship", it certainly indicates a particular whale. In a similar way, "Napoleon was the greatest French soldier" is mentioning about an individual but if I utter, "The greatest French soldier", the utterance itself doesn't mention any specific or particular individual. Thus, the expressions "The whale", "Mr. John" and "Napoleon" unlike 'the greatest French soldier', 'an old man 'etc. are mentioning (referring) a particular object or a person. This sort of reference, on the view of Strawson, is obtained through 'uniquely referring use' of the expressions.
| 1 | Strawson, P.F. (1950). On Referring. Mind, 59, 320-44. |
| 2 | Russell, B. (1919). Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Chapter XVI. London: Allen and Unwin Press. |
| 3 | Strawson refutes some of the arguments raised in the paper On Denoting. Please see, Russell, B. (1905). On Denoting. Mind, 14(56), 479-493. |
| 4 | According to Strawson, 'expression' and 'sentence' are not alike. An expression uniquely refers to something whereas a sentence always starts with an expression. Please see Strawson, P.F. (1950). On Referring. Mind, 59, 324-325. |