In the paper I present the famous argument between Peter F. Strawson and Bertrand Russell on definite descriptions. I do not go into details of the two rival solutions to the problem of definite descriptions. Instead I present the controversy against the background of two traditions within analytic philosophy, i.e. the philosophy of natural language (Strawson) and the philosophy of ideal language (Russell). In consequence, the aim of this paper is to sketch the principal features of the two traditions and to indicate their influence on the argument. In the first paragraph I discuss Russell’s theory of descriptions and present it as a result of dramatic changes that he had made in his philosophy before he finally presented them in On Denoting in 1905. The second paragraph deals with the two traditions within analytic philosophy after the linguistic turn and underlines the role of Strawson in the philosophy of natural language. In the third paragraph I analyze in detail Strawson’s arguments against the theory of descriptions and I focus on some details that are usually omitted in standard presentations. The fourth paragraph discusses Russell’s response to Strawson’s objections, i.e. the counter-arguments formulated from the standpoint of philosophy of ideal language. I end with some suggestions about how to reconcile both approaches.

The aim of the paper is to present the theory of meaning formulated by Roman Ingarden in the Controversy over the Existence of the World, The Literary Work of Art, and in The Cognition of the Literary Work of Art. When this has been done here, I test Ingarden’s theory by applying it to selected problems of contemporary philosophy of language. These problems include the semantics of empty names, the controversy between Millianism and descriptivism over the nature of proper names, the problem of substitutability in intensional contexts, meaning holism, compositionality, and the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. My analysis of these problems within the framework of Ingarden’s theory and my presentation of their solutions as delivered by G. Frege, K. Ajdukiewicz, W.V. Quine and D. Davidson shed interesting light on this extremely complex and ‘fine‑grained’ theory based on Ingarden’s original ontology. Although Ingarden’s theory does not fall within the dominant current of language philosophy, it offers a solution to the problem of empty names, the relation of proper names to definite descriptions, and substitutability. The theory is not holistic nor does it blur the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. Unfortunately, Ingarden’s theory is not compositional and reifies meanings, which may be seen as a serious objection to it. Therefore, the assessment of this theory cannot be unequivocal.

In his 1903 monograph Principles of Mathematics Bertrand Russell formulated a theory which interpreted a proposition expressed by a sentence as a unitary bond of referents (meanings) of its parts. In the paper I argue that the problem he faced in his attempt to define the unity of proposition is a special case of a wider philosophical problem of the relation between language and the world. Mentioned for the first time by Plato in Parmenides and then repeated by Aristotle in Metaphysics, infinite regress formulated as ʻthe third man argument’ presented a problem for Francis Bradley, Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege. It was reformulated in syntactic terms by Hans Reichenbach and used by Donald Davidson as an argument against referential semantics. The conclusion of the paper is as follows: ʻthe third man argument’ is a result of projecting syntactic structures of language on metaphysically conceived referential semantics. It does not undermine ontology conceived as an investigation of possible beings.

StreszczenieDyrektywalna teoria znaczenia powstała w okresie, gdy Kazimierz Ajdukie-wicz pozostawał pod wpływem radykalnego konwencjonalizmu. Pogłdy te spowodowały odrzucenie korespondencyjnej teorii prawdy i próbę zbudowania holistycznej i nieodniesieniowej teorii znaczenia. Motywem napisania mojego artykułu było przekonanie, że teoria znaczenia Ajdukiewicza może zostać - po odpowiednich modyfikacjach - zastosowana do języka naturalnego. W tym celu analizuję konsekwencje wybranych aspektów teorii dyrektywalnej i pró-buję wskazać, w jaki sposób teoria ta powinna bye zmodyfikowana, aby mogła pełnić funkcję teorii znaczenia j?zyka naturalnego. Podstawową wadą teorii dyrektywalnej, która uniemożliwia pełnienie tej funkcji, jest brak rekurencyj-ności, co sprawia, że nie wyjaśnia ona, w jaki sposób znaczenie zdania jest wyznaczone przez znaczenia występujacych w nim slów. Konieczne jest zatem uzupełnienie teorii Ajdukiewicza o komponent rekurencyjny. Kolejna wada tej teorii wiąze się z budową macierzy języka, do której Ajdukiewicz wprowadza dane doświadczenia jako komponent pozajęzykowy. Wada ta może bye łatwo usunięta przez odwołanie się do holistycznego aspektu teorii. Również podana przez Ajdukiewicza definicja związku znaczeniowego powoduje niepoządane konsekwencje, dotyczace znaczen wyrażeń w językach otwartych.