On Referring
E100614
"On Referring" is a seminal 1950 philosophical paper by P. F. Strawson that critiques Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions and reshapes debates about reference and meaning in analytic philosophy.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| On Referring canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T839900 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: On Referring Context triple: [P. F. Strawson, notableWork, On Referring]
-
A.
REFER
REFER was Portugal’s former state-owned rail infrastructure company responsible for managing and maintaining the national railway network before its merger into Infraestruturas de Portugal.
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B.
What Really Matters
"What Really Matters" is a non-fiction book by journalist and author Tony Schwartz that explores the rise of the human potential movement and the search for meaning and fulfillment in modern life.
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C.
On Equilibrium
On Equilibrium is a philosophical work by John Ralston Saul that explores the importance of balancing key human qualities—such as reason, ethics, and common sense—to create a more humane and democratic society.
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D.
The Challenge of Facts
"The Challenge of Facts" is an influential essay by American sociologist and classical liberal thinker William Graham Sumner that critiques moralistic interference in social and economic processes and defends empirical, scientific analysis of society.
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E.
On Denoting
"On Denoting" is a seminal 1905 philosophical essay by Bertrand Russell that introduced his influential theory of descriptions and reshaped analytic philosophy of language.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: On Referring Target entity description: "On Referring" is a seminal 1950 philosophical paper by P. F. Strawson that critiques Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions and reshapes debates about reference and meaning in analytic philosophy.
-
A.
REFER
REFER was Portugal’s former state-owned rail infrastructure company responsible for managing and maintaining the national railway network before its merger into Infraestruturas de Portugal.
-
B.
What Really Matters
"What Really Matters" is a non-fiction book by journalist and author Tony Schwartz that explores the rise of the human potential movement and the search for meaning and fulfillment in modern life.
-
C.
On Equilibrium
On Equilibrium is a philosophical work by John Ralston Saul that explores the importance of balancing key human qualities—such as reason, ethics, and common sense—to create a more humane and democratic society.
-
D.
The Challenge of Facts
"The Challenge of Facts" is an influential essay by American sociologist and classical liberal thinker William Graham Sumner that critiques moralistic interference in social and economic processes and defends empirical, scientific analysis of society.
-
E.
On Denoting
"On Denoting" is a seminal 1905 philosophical essay by Bertrand Russell that introduced his influential theory of descriptions and reshaped analytic philosophy of language.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (45)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
academic article
ⓘ
philosophical paper ⓘ |
| argues |
that definite descriptions can be used without successfully referring
ⓘ
that referring is an act performed by speakers rather than a property of expressions ⓘ that sentences with failed reference may lack truth value ⓘ |
| associatedWithConcept |
semantic presupposition
ⓘ
speaker reference ⓘ use–mention distinction ⓘ |
| author | P. F. Strawson ⓘ |
| centralDebate |
distinction between sentence meaning and speaker meaning
ⓘ
truth-value of sentences with non-referring expressions ⓘ whether definite descriptions are referring expressions ⓘ |
| citedAs |
On Referring (Mind, 1950)
ⓘ
linked to:
On Sense and Reference
|
| contrastsWith | Russell's quantificational analysis of descriptions ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| criticizes | identification of meaning with reference ⓘ |
| critiquesTheory | Russell's theory of descriptions ⓘ |
| critiquesWorkOf | Bertrand Russell ⓘ |
| describedAs |
classic of analytic philosophy
ⓘ
seminal paper in philosophy of language ⓘ |
| emphasizes | importance of ordinary language in analyzing reference ⓘ |
| field |
analytic philosophy
ⓘ
philosophy of language ⓘ |
| frequentlyAnthologizedIn | collections on reference and meaning ⓘ |
| hasCanonicalStatusIn | philosophy of language curricula ⓘ |
| hasNotableReception | widely discussed and criticized in 20th-century analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| historicalContext | post-war analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| influenced |
debates about reference in analytic philosophy
ⓘ
subsequent work on definite descriptions ⓘ theory of presupposition ⓘ |
| influencedPhilosopher |
H. P. Grice
ⓘ
Keith Donnellan ⓘ Peter F. Strawson himself in later work ⓘ Saul Kripke ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
definite descriptions
ⓘ
meaning ⓘ ordinary language ⓘ presupposition ⓘ reference ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | ordinary language philosophy ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1950 ⓘ |
| publishedIn | Mind ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics
ⓘ
Introduction to Logical Theory ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: On Referring Description of subject: "On Referring" is a seminal 1950 philosophical paper by P. F. Strawson that critiques Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions and reshapes debates about reference and meaning in analytic philosophy.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.