Names, indexicals, and descriptive characters

In this paper I argue that recent attempts to rehabilitate Russellian descriptivism as a semantic theory for proper names and indexicals are both unsuccessful as semantic theories and do a disservice to Russell’s philosophical legacy. They are unsuccessful because they can only meet the classic objections to descriptivism if they are contrived to such an extent that they become intolerably ad hoc. They do a disservice to Russell’s philosophical legacy by unfairly shackling the theory of descriptions to a flawed semantic theory for names. I also argue that interpreting Russell as endorsing a descriptivist semantics for indexicals misrepresents Russell’s treatment of indexicals and ignores ways in which he recognized important aspects of the now widely endorsed direct reference semantics for indexicals.