Russell on Denoting, Part 2

Bertrand Russell, "On Denoting," Part 2; The Analytic Tradition, Spring 2017

[@Nimrod663]

Democratization of complicated knowledge in an accessible manner is no less important than developing the actual theorem: and you do so skilfully! thank you so much and BR from Israel.

[@bens5859]

Laughed out loud at the perfectly-timed zoom-in (following the "unfunny" joke around 8:17) Thank you for this lecture series, Dr. Bonevac!

[@stephenchavura8456]

Just watched it again. Great class! Cheers.

[@couch_philosoph3325]

Thank you so much. Im writing a small paper for university about russell, donnellan and kripke and your lecture helped me to get a good overview of russells theory.

[@die_schlechtere_Milch]

Great video as always. Thank you for uploading. Question for the students: what part of "for the sake of clarity, let's assume that proper names are unproblematic definite descriptions" is so hard to get?

[@pinosavac]

Great lecture. I recommend other viewer to have Russell's paper in the hand (or on the screen) during this lecture.

[@doodle3984]

hi thank you so much for these. they are a life saver in the post quarantine time. i had a question regarding how we are to distinguish between the the secondary and primary occurance in the second puzzle? sorry i dont really understand equations so couldn't grasp it

[@kallianpublico7517]

Now I know what "a distinction without a difference" means. A description has a referent, but what do definitions have? Is time a description without a referent? Is a point or line a definition or a description? Meaning without comparison is definition? Meaning without contrast is description? Language is a pretense of reality, time is the sequence of words qua ideas and space is the sequence of letters qua sounds. The continuous and discrete in opposition and interplay. Comparison and contrast: how "things" are alike (full of each other)and how "things" are different (empty of each other), as the mental components of cognition being acted upon by the senses. Cognition in concert with memory can produce meaning, but not necessarily. Meaning is the gateway to causation and, ultimately, prediction. Culture in humans, instinctive behavior in animals. I imagine Meaning being construed gradually. Construed by events of critical or traumatic difference with normal events: import. Events such as fire or rain, or, more remarkably, rain putting out fire.

[@robertstevens1287]

Substituting denoters causes problems, equivocation dangers. "If a=b, can a=a? What happened to a's uniqueness?" No, that's an equivocation on "uniqueness!" When you substitute b for a, the referent of a becomes the sense of a, because, although you can substitute b for a, their senses are not identical. Of course, there are gradients :D if 'a=b' was a perfectly strong comparison, it woukd be a direct comparison, 'a=a.' So, anyway, a cannot REALLY equal b. ...I guess I can see how one could get "all statements have infinite ambiguity," especially if you necessarily lose context, as a one-way hyperlink doesn't point back, especially if you're a possibilitarian who substitutes single words for sentences, but possibilitarianism does even less than a=a.

[@robertstevens1287]

"What does it mean to say 'the f is g'?" "F exist? F uniqe." LOL

[@asengbatagunanu5432]

i was hoping for explanation of puzzle 3 here but i can't find even after watching 1 hour

[@JamesJoyce12]

The third puzzle seems mostly to concern claims of non-existence. So one might put it by asking how it could be possible to say "The greatest prime number does not exist". Frege's theory would suggest that it has no truth-value while Russell would claim it can be both meaningful and true.

[@clockfixer5049]

JamesJoyce12 could you please elaborate on how that question can be interpreted as meaningful and true (does it have to do with secondary occurrences?)

[@diegomedeiros3286]

Does the term "Law" has a denotation?

[@clockfixer5049]

Diego Medeiros in fact, if you enumerate a few abstract nouns, you will surely find Russel's theory rather mechanic and not exactly productive. I suggest, if I may, that you take a look at both 'strong' (logical) and 'weak' semantics. The latter deals with the concept of meaning in a different way, namely it views meaning as a mental entity, which, to me, is the right way to go. By 'right' I understand 'productive'. Anyway, hope that helps. No end of world happened after 1905. Science pressed on.

[@n-hm]

Great teacher, mediocre students