Russell's On Denoting and Frege's On Sense and Reference are now widely held to be two of the founding papers of twentieth century philosophy and form the heart of the famous "linguistic turn." The Metaphysicians of Meaning is the first book to challenge the accepted secondary work on these two seminal papers, forcing us to reconsider the interpretation of these two vitally important works on meaning.

Russell's On Denoting and Frege's On Sense and Reference are now widely held to be two of the founding papers of 20th-century philosophy and form the heart of the famous linguistic turn. They have generated a wealth of secondary literature and remain at the forefront of contemporary discussion in philosophy of language, thought and logic. This book challenges the accepted understanding of these two seminal papers. It forces us to reconsider contemporary approaches to the semantics of proper names and definite descriptions through a historically sensitive interpretation of Russell's and...