ABSTRACT
Bertrand Russell accepts the main principle of naive semantics, that, essentially, meaning is just reference; he finds ways round the apparent need to postulate sense. Russell's way of explaining the word 'The' is what he calls contextual definition, or definition-in-use. Russell was well aware that existence and identity problems arise for ordinary proper names as well as for definite descriptions. Russell's response is to suppose that ordinary proper names are not really referring expressions at all, but disguised definite descriptions. Gottlob Frege’s theory of the semantical functioning of terms is such as 'The Loch Ness monster' as referring terms. In his book The Principles of Mathematics Russell thought of language as moreor-less transparent, that one could 'see' through it the entities meant, and that the logical form underneath of facts, universals and objects. Russell sets out to solve the puzzles addressed by Frege's theory of sense and reference, without positing the category of sense in addition to reference.
