Strawson and Russell on Referring and Denoting

This paper offers a comprehensive and critical examination of Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions as articulated in On Denoting (1905) and P. F. Strawson's response in On Referring (1950). Russell's logical analysis aims to resolve puzzles of non-referring expressions by treating definite descriptions as quantified expressions rather than singular terms. Strawson challenges this view by arguing that Russell conflates sentence meaning with speaker use, and that reference is a pragmatic achievement dependent on context and presupposition. The paper reconstructs both positions with precision, evaluates their respective strengths and weaknesses, and situates the debate within broader developments in analytic philosophy, including presupposition theory, ordinary language philosophy, and later contributions by Donnellan and Kripke. The conclusion argues for a pluralistic framework in which Russell's formal semantics and Strawson's pragmatic insights are jointly necessary for a full theory of reference.