Interpreting Russell’s Gray’s Elegy Argument

Abstract

“On Denoting” is central to the analytic tradition, yet one of its key arguments (the Gray’s Elegy Argument) lacks a canonical reading. Some interpret the passage as rejecting denoting concepts as inconsistent, or the theory that posits them as incoherent. Such readings are too strong, and at odds with the passage. We interpret the argument as a set of considerations that leave the old view as a logically viable (though uneconomical and cumbersome) competitor to Russell’s new semantic theory.