Russell-Quin's Study Of Individual Term Theory

As early as the ancient Greek period,Plato put forward a paradox on single terms,that is, people claim that something does not exist - such as Linghu Chong - must also exist, or can not justify. Because, if the Linghu Chong simply does not exist, then whether he exists or not exist are meaningless. For more than two thousand years, the"mystery of non-existence" has never been a perfect solution until the creation of modern mathematical logic to solve this puzzle. This is mainly because we do not have a proper logical analysis of the single terms, and if we can not satisfactorily answer the question,then a series of questions such as the sentence of negating existence, will not have an effective solution. This paper to illustrate the important role of the logical analysis in solving the philosophical pseudo-problem and clarifying the concept by a logical analysis of the single terms.This article is divided into three main parts: the first is to discuss the four puzzles about the single terms. The paper will first introduce Frege and Russell's views on what the single term is, so as to give a definition of the single terms. And then discuss four logical and philosophical perplexities about single terms in order to better understand Russell and Quinn's theory of single terms. The second part focuses on Russell 's theory of descriptive words,and depend on which to give solutions to the puzzles in the first part. And next this paper analyzes the problem of the theory and criticism from some philosophers. The third part introduces Quinn's theory of single terms, and explains how his theory is developed from Russell's descriptive words,which includes the discussion of single terms and free variables, how to interpret proper nouns as descriptive words and the single terms' context definition.In short, by Russell and Quinn's theory of single terms, both the degree of generalization of the logic theory and the philosophical value are added. Because their practice can be applied to the single terms in all contexts, and can make the theory of ontological commitment be clear.