Peter Frederick Strawson

Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (born the November 23rd 1919 with London, dead the February 13rd 2006), British Philosopher.

Biographical elements

Metaphysical professor of at the university of Oxford, it is known for his article One Referring (1950) and for his work Individuals .

Strawson opposes the philosophers, who like Descartes, Leibniz and Berkeley intend to revise our conceptual design, to philosophers like Aristote and Kant, which propose to reveal it. According to him this descriptive company is the gasoline of the analytical philosophy, of which it was one of the largest representatives within the school of Oxford. He is opposed to Bertrand Russell, to the positivists and Willard Quine, and defends the idea of a " logic philosophique" abstract, based on the grammatical categories rather than logical. (Pascal Engel, obituary published in Le Monde the March 3rd 2006)

One Referring

In One Referring Strawson opposes the theory definite descriptions of Russell.

It reproaches Russell for not making distinction between a sentence, its use, and the fact of stating a sentence.

(1) the current king de France east bald person

is a sentence which could be stated at various times of the history (at times when the king was Louis XIV, Louis XVI, or at moments when there was no king in France). It is always about the same sentence, but according to the context of its stating it does not have the same use. Under the reign of Louis XIV it is used to refer to Louis XIV, under that of Louis XVI to refer to Louis XVI.

For Russell the sentence (1) must be or true, or false. And it is what carries out it to analyze it as a definite description with proposes of a X : as at its time there is no x' which fills the requirements so that this sentence is true, then the sentence is false. Strawson answers that so that a sentence is true or false, it presupposed there which must be filled, without what the sentence does not have a value of truth. The sentence (1) is consequently neither true nor distorts, since so that it can have a value of truth it would be necessary that the condition (A) either filled.

(A) There exists X single which is king de France

Another aspect

Strawson refuses one of the logical laws most fundamental according to which

$\ P has \ implies \ exists X P x$

and replaces it by

$\ P has \ wedge \ exists has \ implies \ exists X P x$

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