Is the present king of france bald?

Bertrand Russell, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Bertrand Russell answers

Neither bald nor not bald — and the reason is worth a moment's attention. When I say "the present King of France is bald", I am not simply predicating baldness of some entity. The proposition asserts that there exists exactly one thing which is now King of France, and that thing is bald.¹ Since France has no king, the proposition is false. But here is where the matter becomes interesting: "the present King of France is not bald" is also false, if we take "the King of France" to have what I call a primary occurrence — that is, if the denial is read as asserting that there exists a King of France who is not bald.²

The denial, properly construed, is more complicated than it first appears. To deny that the King of France is bald, you may proceed by denying either of two parts: you may deny that he exists, or you may deny that he is bald while granting his existence.³ The first route is the correct one here. So the true statement is not "the present King of France is not bald" but rather "it is false that there is an entity which is now King of France and is bald." This is precisely why "the author of Waverley" is not the subject of the proposition "the author of Waverley is human" in the way that Scott would be if I simply said "Scott is human." A description is not a name; it is an incomplete symbol, and it vanishes on analysis into a set of conditions which may or may not be satisfied.⁴⁵

When they are not satisfied, existence is not a property the missing object lacks — existence is not a property at all, whether of kinds of things or of individual things described.⁶ The King of France, in short, wears neither hair nor wig. He simply is not there to be either.

Sources

1. If I say 'The present King of France is bald', that implies that the present King of France exists.

   Part II, p. 265

2. That is, 'the King of France is not bald' is false if the occurrence of 'the King of France' is primary, and true if it is secondary.

   Part III, p. 243

3. In order to deny this statement that the present King of France is bald, which is a statement consisting of two parts, you can proceed by denying either part. You can deny the one part, which would lead you to suppose that the present King of France exists but is not bald, or the other part, which will lead you to the denial that the present King of France exists.

   Part II, pp. 265–266

4. 'the present King of France is not bald' is certainly false... but it is true if it means 'It is false that there is an entity which is now King of France and is bald.'

   Part III, p. 243

5. when I say 'The author of Waverley is human', 'the author of Waverley' is not the subject of that proposition, in the sort of way that Scott would be if I said 'Scott is human', using 'Scott' as a name.

   Part II, pp. 265–266

6. there is a vast amount of philosophy that rests upon the notion that existence is, so to speak, a property that you can attribute to things... That is rubbish, whether you take kinds of things, or individual things described.

   Part II, pp. 265–266