The Remoulding Of Russell’s Reference Theory By Strawson

The question about how to refer to the non-being, such as round square, has been one of the bones of contention in philosophy area all the time. There are two ways to deal with this problem. One way is based on the artificial language represented by Bertrand Russell; the other prefers to ordinary language, like Peter Frederick Strawson. In fact, it’s the debate between two different arguing, which one is closer to the truth that is represented of language.Since On Denoting was published in1905, the use of logical technology in analyzing the logic structure of language has gained wide acceptance. Many scholars consider this method as the unique way to deal with referring problems effectively. Not until half of century later, On Referring written by Strawson aroused the public attention to review the rationality of Russell’s Reference Theory.Strawson’s remoulding of Russell’s Reference Theory always centered on the rationality of ordinary language. He correctly pointed out that Russell’s Reference Theory stressed on the logical structure and ignored the contextual analysis about the use of language. The significane of Strawson’s work lies in the three ways of dinstiction of both expression and sentence. This helps deepen the concept of context, driving the transformation of language research from semantics to pragmatics. However, he insists on the idea of ordinary language, which makes his reference theory lack of accuracy analysis.