Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie : Volume 42 Issue 1 / Winter/Hiver 2003

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Front Matter JAMES LEVINE

Contents
The Metaphysicians of Meaning: Russell and
Book Reviews/
Frege on Sense and Denotation
Comptes rendus
2 JAMES LEVINE Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review /
The Metaphysicians of
Meaning: Russell and Frege Revue canadienne de philosophie
on Sense and Denotation
Volume 42, Issue 1 - Winter/Hiver 2003 pp. 145 - 146
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JAMES LEVINE

The Metaphysicians of Meaning: Russell and Frege on Sense and

Denotation
. By GIDEON MAKIN
New York: Routledge, 2000, viii + 229 pp.

As Gideon Makin introduces his book, it may seem that his concerns are primarily
historical and negative—namely, to show that when properly understood, Russell’s “On
Denoting” and Frege’s “On Sense and Reference” make little, if any, contact with issues
in contemporary philosophy of language. First, he claims that these papers are not
typically understood in the context of the philosophical development of their authors.
Russell’s central argument in “On Denoting”—the so-called “Gray’s Elegy argument”—
is directed against the theory of denoting concepts he advocated in The Principles of
Mathematics, while Frege begins “On Sense and Reference” by arguing against his
Begriffsschrift account of identity. And, for Makin, without a proper understanding of the
old theories which are being rejected, and the reasons why they are being rejected, we
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Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie : Volume 42 Issue 1 / Winter/Hiver 2003

will lack a full understanding of the new theories which are being advocated. More
generally, he claims that when we understand the theoretical context in which Russell
and Frege are operating, we will recognize that they are engaged in an “enterprise
which is radically different in kind from what current practitioners of the philosophy of
language profess to be doing” (p. 7), an enterprise which arises out of their logicist
project, which, in turn, is tied to their “peculiarly metaphysical conception of logic” (p. 6).

In fact, however, most of the book is devoted to a more positive agenda, one which may
be of interest to philosophers of language who are not so historically minded. Makin
argues that, in the Gray’s Elegy argument, Russell discovered a “fundamental flaw” (p.
169) not only in his earlier theory of denoting concepts but also in Frege’s theory of
sense; and he argues further that the theory of definite descriptions which Russell
introduced in “On Denoting” marks an improvement in “transparency” over Frege’s
various accounts of definite descriptions (pp. 173ff.). Hence, Makin may be regarded as
defending Russell’s theory of descriptions against Frege’s theory of sense, a position
congenial to contemporary Russellian philosophers of language. However, since Makin
suggests that “On Denoting” improves on “On Sense and Reference” only relative to the
metaphysical logic of Russell and Frege, it is not clear whether he holds that his
historically sensitive defence of the theory of descriptions has any bearing for
contemporary philosophy of language.

The book is divided into three parts. In Part I, Makin presents Russell’s theory of
denoting concepts (chap. 1); discusses in detail the Gray’s Elegy argument, and,

― 146 ―

somewhat more briefly, the transition from it to the theory of descriptions (chap. 2); and
argues more generally that “On Denoting” does not mark a fundamental shift in
Russell’s position (chap. 3). In Part II, he discusses Frege’s theory of identity
statements in the Begriffsschrift and his subsequent rejection of that theory in favour of
his theory of sense (chap. 4); then, after discussing various features of the theory of
sense, he argues in the following chapter that Frege “would have acknowledged [the
Gray’s Elegy argument] as fatal had it been pointed out to him” (p. 128). In Part III, he

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Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie : Volume 42 Issue 1 / Winter/Hiver 2003

compares the views of Russell and Frege, arguing in Chapter 6 that Frege’s theory of
sense and Russell’s theory of denoting concepts involve the “same theoretical device to
resolve essentially the same kind of problem” (p. 169), albeit a defective device which is
superseded by the more “transparent” theory of descriptions (pp. 173ff.); then he
considers, more generally, how “the Russell-Frege enterprise” bears on issues
concerning natural language, arguing that neither philosopher is concerned primarily
with analyzing ordinary language and that each is willing to revise ordinary usage in the
service of logicism (chap. 7).

In my view, the strength of the book lies in its argumentative core—namely, Makin’s
interpretation of the Gray’s Elegy argument and his discussion of how it applies to
Russell’s theory of denoting concepts and Frege’s theory of sense. Both theories
require entities which function, in Makin’s phrase, as “aboutness-shifters”; for when a
Russellian-denoting concept or Fregean sense occurs in a subject-position in a
propositional content, that content is about, not that denoting concept or sense, but
rather the entity denoted by that denoting concept or sense. The denoting concept or
sense is not a linguistic item, nor (in general) is the entity denoted; hence, the relation
between denoting concept or sense and entity denoted is not the conventional relation
between linguistic symbol (here the denoting phrase) and entity symbolized, but is
rather, in Russell’s phrase, a “logical relation.” The problem raised by the Gray’s Elegy
argument concerns the means by which a propositional content may be about one of
these aboutness-shifters themselves. Such a content will have to contain a second
aboutness-shifter to be about the first. The problem is not the threat of an infinite
regress (which is not here vicious), but is rather to specify the constituents of the
second aboutness-shifter and to explain, in a way which is not, in Russell’s words,
“merely linguistic through the phrase,” how the second aboutness-shifter denotes the
first. While I am not convinced that Frege would succumb to Russell’s arguments as
readily as Makin claims (and, in particular, am not convinced that all Fregean responses
to this problem would be “linguistic through the phrase” in a way which Frege would
have to regard as illegitimate), Makin forcefully characterizes the problem raised by
Russell which confronts the Fregean.

However, in his zeal to argue that Russell and Frege share fundamentally the same
outlook and that Russell discovered a defect common to theories advanced by both of
them, Makin is not fully sensitive to some of the significant differences between them.
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Thus, for example, while Frege accepted quantificational analyses of sentences

involving phrases of the form “every F” and “some F” while he accepted his theory of
sense, Russell accepted such analyses only after he rejected his theory of denoting
concepts. Makin minimizes this difference, arguing that Russell’s pre-“On Denoting”
resistance to such analyses reflects only a certain “kind of hang-up” (p. 76) rather than
a fundamental philosophical position which he rejected only after “On Denoting.”

― 147 ―

Here, I believe, Makin fails to appreciate both a central difference between Russell and
Frege and also the full significance, for Russell, of “On Denoting.” Unlike Russell, who
always held that each proposition has a unique ultimate analysis, Frege held that there
are a number of equally adequate analyses of the same propositional content. Hence, it
was easier for Frege to accept quantificational analyses of general sentences than
Russell. Further, before “On Denoting,” Russell held that each meaningful unit of a
sentence contributes a corresponding entity (either simple or complex) to the
proposition expressed; only by arguing in “On Denoting” that denoting phrases cannot
so function could Russell accept quantificational analyses of general sentences as
philosophically correct. Accordingly, I believe, as against Makin, that “On Denoting”
inaugurates a genuinely new style of philosophical analysis for Russell, one which
invokes such notions as “definitions in use” and “incomplete symbols,” and permits the
development of his “no class” theories.

Again, on both his theory of denoting concepts and after, Russell distinguishes entities
with which we are acquainted and can speak directly about using logically proper
names from entities with which we cannot be acquainted (in the first instance, infinite
classes) and which we can “deal with” only by means of denoting phrases; in contrast,
Frege recognizes no such distinction, and holds that each name succeeds in referring
to an object only in virtue of expressing a sense which determines that object. While
Makin recognizes this difference, he argues that Russell’s position results from his more
“acute” sensitivity to issues which Frege should have faced (p. 164); and in doing so, he
interprets Frege’s position as amounting to the view that “senses are the only kind of
directly accessible epistemic objects” (p. 154). However, it might be argued that Makin

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Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie : Volume 42 Issue 1 / Winter/Hiver 2003

has here interpreted Frege through a Russellian framework, for (as Evans and
McDowell have argued) it is by no means clear that Frege is committed to regarding
senses as epistemological intermediaries which prevent us from having direct epistemic
access to physical objects. While the two issues I have just raised may not bear on
Makin’s interpretation of the Gray’s Elegy argument or its applicability to Frege’s
position, they suggest that Makin is too quick to view Frege and Russell as sharing a
fundamentally similar outlook.

Finally, I mention that the book is, in places, unnecessarily polemical, with Makin more
concerned with emphasizing his differences with other commentators than
acknowledging points of agreement, however independently arrived at they may be.
Thus, one unfamiliar with the secondary literature may not realize that Hylton had
already argued extensively against the view that “On Denoting” marks Russell’s break
with a Meingongian metaphysics; that Noonan presents an interpretation similar to
Makin’s of the manuscript passage in which Russell moves from rejecting the theory of
denoting concepts to introducing the theory of descriptions; or that Blackburn and Code
advance an interpretation of the Gray’s Elegy argument (dismissed by Makin in two
sentences) which anticipates Makin’s heterodox claim that the argument succeeds
against Frege’s position and which, for that reason, might have been usefully compared
with Makin’s interpretation. Makin’s central claims are of sufficient interest without
having to present them as being at the expense of all previous commentators.

JAMES LEVINE Trinity College, Dublin

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