I finished reading Russell's work entitled On Denoting; I must confess I found it rather difficult. So, I now reading it for a second time and hoping that the erudite members of this board might kindly guide me in my understanding of this work. Some of these questions may not be "philosophical" in nature, but rather questions about understanding sentences; as it is, the subject discussed is a little difficult and trying to interpret certain sentences adds to the difficulty. To begin, early in the work, when he is trying to understand the definite article "the," he states
What exactly does "in the above" refer to? There are many things that came before this. I presume he is referring toTo interpret "C(the father of Charles II.)," where C stands for any statement about him, we have only to substitute C(x) for "x was executed" in the above.
Why would plugging in C(x) into that particular statement help me interpret "C(the father of Charles II.)"? What is Russell saying? By substituting, does he mean, for instance, that C(x) could mean "x was annoying," and substituting in C(x) in the above would result in"it is not always false of x that x begat Charles II. and that x was executed and that 'if y begat Charles II., y is identical with x' is always
I still don't quite understand how this gives us a means of interpreting "C(the father of Charles II.)"."it is not always false of x that x begat Charles II. and that x was annoying and that 'if y begat Charles II., y is identical with x' is always
I'll leave it at that; I don't want to pose too many questions at once.
