definite description

philosophy

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June 25, 2026

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A definite description is a phrase that refers to a specific individual or object, such as "the present king of France." A key philosophical problem arises when such descriptions are used in sentences that are meaningful but do not refer to anything, like "The present king of France is bald."12

Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions proposes that these phrases are not names but quantificational expressions. For example, "The present king of France is bald" can be analyzed as "There is one and only one king of France, and that individual is bald." This analysis shows that the sentence is false but not nonsensical, as it doesn't require a "present king of France" to exist for the sentence to have meaning. This approach was foundational to the "linguistic turn" in philosophy, emphasizing the analysis of language to solve philosophical problems.12

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formal logic
Definite descriptions
…“the so-and-so” is called a definite description; and (ιx), known as a description operator, can be thought of as forming a name of an individual out of a proposition form. (ιx) is analogous to a quantifier in that, when prefixed to a wff α, it binds every free occurrence of…
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…“the so-and-so” is called a definite description; and (ιx), known as a description operator, can be thought of as forming a name of an individual out of a proposition form. (ιx) is analogous to a quantifier in that, when prefixed to a wff α, it binds every free occurrence of…
Read More

philosophy of language
Russell’s theory of descriptions
…the further step of bringing definite descriptions—noun phrases of the form the so and so, such as the present king of France—into the scope of Frege’s logic. The problem addressed by Russell was how to account for the meaningfulness of definite descriptions that do not refer to anything. Such descriptions…
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…the further step of bringing definite descriptions—noun phrases of the form the so and so, such as the present king of France—into the scope of Frege’s logic. The problem addressed by Russell was how to account for the meaningfulness of definite descriptions that do not refer to anything. Such descriptions…
Read More