About the Book

Russell's On Denoting and Frege's On Sense and Reference are now widely held to be two of the founding papers of twentieth century philosophy and form the heart of the famous "linguistic turn". The Metaphysicians of Meaning is the first book to challenge the accepted secondary work on these two seminal papers, forcing us to reconsider the interpretation of these two vitally important works on meaning.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Russell Chapter 1: Russell's First Theory of Denoting I. The Elements II. The Mathematical context III. Denoting, definition and identity IV. Three essential elements V. Post PoM developments Chapter 2: The Collapse of the First Theory and the Discovery of the Theory of Descriptions I. Introduction: the obscure passage in 'On Denoting' II. The argument: the 'substantial' round (i) C2 is a different entity from C1 (ii) C1 cannot be a constituent of C2 (iii) 'But this cannot be an explanation' I. (iv) The third charge III. The argument: the 'symbolic' round (i) The twin phenomena (ii) Use and mention IV. 'But this cannot be an explanation II (i) The burden of proof (ii) A survey of theoretical possibilities (iii) C2 as a description of C1 (iv) Denoting and other logical relations V. The Transition VI. The discovery of the Theory of Descriptions Chapter 3: The Place of 'On Denoting' in Russell's Development I. 'On Denoting' and Russell's ontological development: some preliminaries I. Russell's case against Meinong III. Russell's ontology in PoM reconsidered IV. Methodological developments: 'Every word must have some meaning' V. Contextual definition VI. The Notion of an incomplete symbol VII. The role of language VIII. Some positive remarks Part II: Frege Chapter 4: From Begriffsschrift to sense and Reference I. Introduction II. The problem III. Frege's solution in Bs IV. 'Sinn und Bedeutung': the collapse of the first theory V. 'Sinn und Bedeutung': The new solution Chapter 5: Further Considerations Regarding Sense and Reference I. The priority of the distinction for proper names II. Sense and indirect speech III. Sense as a route and empty senses IV. Sense determines reference I - The question of relativization V. Sense determines reference II - The conceptual model VI. The application of Russell's argument in OD to Frege's distinction Part III: Russell and Frege Chapter 6: Russell and Frege Compared I. Introduction: The strategy II. The PoM theory of denoting and the theory of Sense and Reference: some preliminaries III. The common ground: propositionalism, sensism, and the implied Metaphysicial model IV. The differences, and further similarities, in relation to the Metaphysical mode. V. An apparent gap in Frege's argument VI. Can all expressions have sense? VII. The taxonomic difference: a diagnosis of Frege's position VIII. Frege's suppressed premise: are all names on a par? IX. The theory of Descriptions versus sense and reference: an adjustment on the Russelian side X. Frege's description operator and the theory of descriptions XI. The progression towards transparency Chapter 7: The Russell-Frege Enterprise and Natural Language I. Introduction II. Ordinary names and logically proper names III. What morals can we draw from illustration? IV. The revisionary nature of Russell's and Frege's enterprise V. Logic as Metaphysics VI. The latency of the Metaphysical facet VII. Concluding remarks: the nature of the enterprise Appendix A: The Text of the obscure passage from 'On Denoting' Appendix B: 'The denotation of C ... means something which ,.. denotes what is denoted by the denotion we want' Appendix C: Some Recent Discussions of the Obscure Passage I. Searle, Blackburn and Code, Hylton II. Pakaluk III. Kremer IV. Noonan Bibilography