Bertrand Russell and "Descriptions": An Excerpt

I've gotten a few inquiries into the title of my blog. While I have no apology for the subtitle, I do have a distinct source for the title itself: More than my description. As some may know, I was a Philosophy major in college. One of my favorite readings from my courses during that time period comes from Bertrand Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Before you think I'm too much a geek, I should tell you the reason I liked it so much--it made me laugh. Hard. He has an entire chapter devoted to descriptions, part of which I will now share with you:

"The question of "unreality," which confronts us at this point, is a very important one. Misled by grammar, the great majority of those logicians who have dealt with this question have dealt with it on mistaken lines. They have regarded grammatical form as a surer guide in an analysis than, in fact, it is....

"For want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians have been driven to the conclusion that there are unreal objects....Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features. To say that unicorns have an existence in heraldry, or in literature, or in imagination, is a most pitiful and paltry evasion. What exists in heraldry is not an animal, made of flesh and blood, moving and breathing of its own initiative. What exists is a picture, or description in words. Similarly, to maintain that Hamlet, for example, exists in his own world, namely, in the world of Shakespeare's imagination, just as truly as (say) Napoleon existed in the ordinary world, is to say something deliberately confusing, or else confused to a degree which is scarcely credible. There is only one world, the "real" world: Shakespeare's imagination is a part of it, and the thoughts that he had in writing Hamlet are real. So are the thoughts that we have in reading the play. But it if of the very essence of fiction that only the thoughts, feelings, etc. in Shakespeare and his readers are real, and that there is not, in addition to them, an object Hamlet. When you have taken account of all the feelings roused by Napoleon in writers and readers of history, you have not touched the actual man; but in the case of Hamlet you have come to the end of him. If no one thought about Hamlet, there would be nothing left of him; if no one had thought about Napoleon, he would have soon seen to it that someone did. The sense of reality is vital in logic, and whoever juggles with it by pretending that Hamlet had anothing kind of reality is doing a disservice to thought. A robust sense of reality is very necessary in framing a correct analysis of propositions about unicorns, golden mountains, round squares, and other such pseudo-objects."

There aren't many ways of casting perspective that make me want to be like Napoleon, but Russell has here found one that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. Napoleon would still (have) exist(ed) even if never described, just like me; the referent of his description is more than a set of thoughts and feelings in someone's imagination, just like me; the aspects and truth of who Napoleon was are not exhausted in his description, just like me. Hamlet has a definite end in the human imagination; he may reflect aspects of personal realities because he is a purportedly human character imagined by a human and audienced by humans, but he is words on pages that reference thoughts and feelings in Shakespeare's mind. He is open for interpretation by director and actor and viewer; he is not his own, he belongs to everyone because he is no one. But a real referent in history directs our understanding of Napoleon so that his identity is governed by more than an imaginative description. Indeed, I am much more than my description. And if you're reading this, so are you.

Now everyone can let out that pent up 'duh.'