This paper discusses a generalisation of Bertrand Russell's specific proposal for analysing out occurrences of definite descriptions. Because Russell's proposed treatment of such contexts is supposed to be relatively well known only the simplest of examples need be discussed. Thus to illustrate Russell's procedure let us consider the simple sentence the phi is psi Russell represents this formally as
and proposes that we should eliminate the second of the above sentences in favour of the following sentence:
(2)
This particular method of contextual elimination is regarded as having a distinctive philosophical significance in general, for it has been claimed for it that it offers a particular sort of way of dealing with definite descriptive phrases which fail to designate any existing individual. It is a 'particular way' for it is particularly suited to the logician's purposes in that it 'fills in truth value gaps' (by rendering assertions containing such descriptive phrases as false rather than as, possibly, meaningless or baffling), thus allowing a uniform approach to all occurrences of such descriptive phrases within a traditional two-valued logic, whether such phrases designate interesting individuals or not. Thus, to take two examples, consider the treatment which the following two claims receive: the author of Waverly is a man The King of France is bald