Russell’s Descriptivism about Proper Names and Indexicals: Reconstruction and Defense

In his lectures on logical atomism Russell maintains that (i) the proper names of natural language are really definite descriptions, and (ii) indexicals are also definite descriptions, to the extent that they are used to refer to ordinary objects. In spite of the dominant referentialist trend championed by Kripke and Kaplan, there are good reasons to still think that Russell is right in holding these views. However, Russell’s descriptivist account of proper names and demonstratives makes their meanings unpalatably idiosyncratic or subjective. I shall discuss and compare some ways in which this subjectivism can be avoided.