The purpose of this essay is not actually to create a theory on Truth and Meaning or to discuss my own view on language. My aim is actually twofold: (1) to examine Russell’s and Strawson’s accounts on Meaningfulness and Truthfulness of a proposition, and (2) to show their strengths and weaknesses so that I can make an account on which among the two is more acceptable.
Russell and Strawson have opposing views concerning meaningfulness and truthfulness of a proposition. The former holds a referential theory of meaning. The latter holds that meaning is dependent on context and convention. The main difference is that the former believes that the meaning is solely dependent on the referent while the latter believes that the meaning is dependent on how a statement is used by the speaker who uttered it.
The referential theory of meaning is not actually discussed on Russell’s Descriptions, but his essay implies that he believes this. He implicitly asserted that the term “unicorn” in the statement “I met a unicorn” has its meaning that could be seen in its referent, which is not an actual unicorn but a “concept of unicorn”. He further argued that the analysis must not be that of grammar, but that of logic; where logic considers “a robust sense of reality” as necessary. Hence, every word must be capable of having a sense of reality (be compared with reality) in order for it to become meaningful.
One may misinterpret Russell and think that he does not consider words, which do not have referents in material reality, as meaningless. When Russell said that a proposition must have a sense of reality, he only means that it must be able of being compared with reality whether or not it talks about a non-existent entity (e.g. “I met a unicorn” makes sense because I can compare it with reality and see whether there is actually a unicorn. But this is false because there exists no unicorn). Russell asserted that “the golden mountain” and “the round square” would seem to have no meaning, but in examining the meaning, we must not examine the descriptions (the golden mountain and the round square) in isolation. We must not look for the meaning of an individual word (or of a particular description) but look for the meaning of the whole proposition (“… the definition to be sought is a definition of propositions in which the phrase occurs, not a definition of phrase in isolation”). Hence, with Russell’s theory of Descriptions, we can now talk of “the golden mountain” and “the round square” as meaningful.
Following this line of argument, the statement “The present King of France is bald” is meaningful even if it is false because there is no actual King of France. The statement makes sense because it is capable of being asserted and we can indeed compare it with reality. Even if there is no King of France, we can picture an if-then situation, i.e. “If there is a present King of France, then it is bald”. In this sense, the statement becomes meaningful.
Strawson, on the other hand, does not actually try to refute the whole of Russell’s Descriptions. He merely stated that the theory rests under certain fundamental mistakes. On his essay, he stated that Russell implies that “…an expression intended to be a logically proper name (in contrast to what Russell call as description) is meaningless unless there is some single object for which it stands”; that it is only the name, which must designate something, that could only be used as a subject in a sentence with a subject-predicate form. Strawson is saying that this account of Russell fails to include expressions used in the uniquely referring way (e.g. it, this, that, etc.) as those that can be used as subjects.
Strawson used the example “The King of France is wise” in stating that we have to consider the context. He said that the sentence might be uttered at various times, from the time when France is still a monarchy until now that it is already a republic. Hence, (according to Strawson) Russell cannot just say that the statement is false by virtue of referring it to reality and confirming whether there is in fact a King of France. We must take into consideration how the sentence is used, for “we cannot talk of the sentence being true or false, but only of its being used to make a true or false assertion”. Strawson criticizes Russell and says that he cannot use the sentence to refer to something in reality in looking for its meaning because mentioning (or referring to) is a characteristic of the use of an expression. The meaning of a sentence is its function, not its constituent in reality.
Lastly, Strawson would say that the statement “The present King of France is bald” has no truth-value. We cannot ask whether it is true or false because there is no King of France. The statement, which is not actually incompatible with saying that “There is no King of France”, is significant; but if we would want to talk about it truly or falsely (that is, with truth-value), we certainly have to use it in talking about someone. Strawson says that Russell created a mistake when the latter said that to speak of “The present king of France is bald” is to say that “There is at least one, and at most one King of France, which is a member of bald things”. The statement, as he said, contains not an existential assertion, but a mere referring phrase, and since it fails to refer to an actual present King of France, we cannot talk of its truth or falsity.
I am actually inclined to think that the meaning of a statement is its function in the linguistic community. I have argued about this several times in different essays. However, this does not mean that I reject Russell’s view and hold as more acceptable Strawson’s. Strawson made an important account on meaningfulness of a statement as dependent on context but failed to refute Russell’s theory. Furthermore, the theory of Descriptions is not actually incompatible with saying that context is important in analyzing a statement; hence, a combination of the two theories must be the solution to this issue. Let me explain these one by one.
First, let me argue that if we will strictly follow Russell’s theory of Descriptions, we would fail to account the value of context and/or of linguistic convention. The statement “The present King of France is bald” may surely be uttered in various periods, so we cannot just analyze the statement using our time and say that it is false. At this point, I agree with Strawson concerning this issue. However, a slight modification of Russell’s theory, without actually eliminating his essential arguments, would tell us that his (Russell’s) theory does not actually discount the value of context and of convention. I will argue on this later.
Second, let me argue that Strawson’s refutations of Russell’s arguments are insufficient. Let me give two points:
(1) Strawson argues that Russell implies that a name will be meaningful only if it stands for a particular object, and in this way, Russell fails to include expressions used in a uniquely referring way (e.g. it, this, that, etc.). This is just Strawson’s interpretation of Russell’s arguments and I would say that this interpretation is flawed. Russell argues that a name must refer to something, but he also said that in talking of meaning, we analyze the meaning of the proposition as a whole and not of a particular word (e.g. name). Hence, he does not actually discount expressions such as “it”, “this” and “that” because we may see that they can refer to something if we will analyze the whole proposition wherein they are used.
(2) Strawson argued that the statement “The present King of France is bald” is not incompatible with “There is no King of France” because the former contains no existential assertion; hence, Russell is wrong in saying that to state “The present King of France is bald” is to state “There is at least, and at most, one present king of France, which is a member of bald things”. Strawson argued that “the present king of France” is just a referring phrase. I, on the other hand, argue that we cannot refer without having an existential assertion. We cannot make a statement without actually logically implying certain assumptions (i.e. we cannot not assert the existence of present King of France when we assert, “The present King of France is bald”). When we speak of a sentence in a subject-predicate form (The present King of France is bald), we also speak of its if-then situation (If there is a present King of France, then it is bald), where in its antecedent (if there is a present King of France), we are taking into consideration the existence or the non-existence of the subject (the present King of France).
Lastly, Russell’s theory can be modified and interpreted without actually eliminating the essential points. Strawson’s example “The King of France is wise” may surely be uttered by different persons in different periods (one during the time of the first King of France when it is still a monarchy; and the other during the second King of France). In this manner, one proposition, used in different periods by two different people may have different truth-values. This is not actually incompatible with Russell’s theory. We just have to modify it and say that in knowing the truth-value of a statement, we have to consider the time, the situation and the context of the speaker before we compare it to reality. In knowing the truth-value of an uttered statement (e.g. “The King of France is wise” uttered by a person who lived during the time of the first king of France, referring to the first King of France), we compare it to a reality, which must include the real referent (the first King of France); wherein we can only know that the real referent is the first King of France if we will examine the nature of the utterance (by examining the context). This would not contradict Russell’s theory; it is actually compatible to a view that Russell will surely not reject – that a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time; but it can be if it is uttered and used in different contexts (in different time).
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