## 1. Biographical Sketch



Born in Wales in 1848, Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones matriculated at
Girton College, Cambridge University's newly established
women's college, in 1875. She studied for the Moral Sciences
Tripos under Henry Sidgwick, James Ward and John Neville Keynes,
receiving a "First Class", Sidgwick being among her
examiners. (Her brothers' education took priority over her own,
delaying her entry into the academy and occasioning subsequent
interruptions.) It was due to the interventions of Sidgwick and Ward
that Jones, fluent from childhood in both German and French, was
offered to complete, upon graduation, the remaining half of a
translation of Hermann Lotze's massive *Mikrocosmos*,
left unfinished by Elizabeth Hamilton (the recently deceased daughter
of Sir William Hamilton). Jones later went on to become
Sidgwick's literary executor. Her research in philosophical
logic dates from 1884, when she began her career at Girton College as
Resident Lecturer in Moral Sciences and was called upon to teach
courses in logic; she later became Vice-Mistress and, subsequently,
Mistress of Girton. During this period, Jones wrote a number of
introductory logic texts, some of which went through several
printings. By 1890, in her *Elements of Logic as a Science of
Propositions*, whose main philosophical themes are summarized in
"The Import of Categorical Propositions" (Jones 1893a),
she developed her "law of significant assertion"--the
"new law of thought" which would become the focus of her
subsequent work in philosophical logic, culminating in the
eponymously-titled monograph, published by Cambridge University Press
in 1911. During the same period Jones also published numerous papers,
as well as an introductory text (Jones 1909), in ethics. While her
work in this area was primarily devoted to the exposition,
interpretation and defense of Sidgwick's work, she arguably broke
new ground in her attempt at resolving Sidgwick's dualism of
practical reason. Jones was also a capable administrator. When she
became Mistress of Girton in 1903, the college was PS43,000 in
debt (equivalent to PS5,185,069 in 2020); at the time of her
retirement in 1916, the debt had been paid off and funds had been
raised to finance several fellowships. Her death in 1922 was marked by
the appearance of substantial obituaries in *Mind*,
*Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society* and *The
International Journal of Ethics* (now *Ethics*).


## 2. A New Law of Thought


### 2.1 The Paradox of Predication



In her autobiography, Jones wrote of an early fascination with issues
related to the nature and structure of content:



> 
> This unsettled question--*what is asserted when you make a
> statement, and what is the proper form of statement?*--had
> deeply interested me from the time when I was a student and puzzled
> over Mill's and Jevons' accounts of propositions. (Jones
> 1922: 71)
> 



Part of what fascinated her concerned (what I'll call) the
paradox of predication--a paradox that Jones traced to
Plato's *Sophist.* To understand Jones's main
contributions to philosophical logic, it is useful to review Hermann
Lotze's influential discussion, well known to Jones, of this
paradox:



> 
> This absolute connection of two concepts *S* and *P*, in
> which the one is unconditionally the other, and yet both stand over
> against each other as different, is a relation quite impracticable in
> thought; by means of this copula, the simple 'is' of the
> categorical judgment, two different contents cannot be connected at
> all; they must either fall entirely within one another, or they must
> remain entirely separate, and the impossible judgment,
> '*S* is *P*', resolves itself into three
> others, '*S* is *S*', '*P* is
> *P*', '*S* is not *P*.' (Lotze
> 1888, 79)
> 



To predicate *P* of *S* is either to say of *S*
what it is not, or it is to say of *S* what it is. That is, it
is to say that *S* is not *S* (because it is
*P*), or it is to say that it is *S*. We either get a
contradiction--we say, in effect, that *S* is not
*S*--or an instance of the law of identity--we say
that *S* is *S*. Neither option is satisfactory.



For Lotze, the paradox has an immediate upshot: that the 'is' of
predication be expunged from logic. Grammatical appearances
notwithstanding, the basic form an assertion takes is that of an
identity statement or of its negation. This, however, renders him
incapable of making sense of (what Jones called) "significant
assertion". The content of an assertion, if it is not to be an
absurdity (*A* is not *A*), must be a triviality
(*A* is *A*). (Lotze vaguely hints at a pragmatic
account of the apparent significance of what he counts as
trivialities, remarking that, perhaps, "what we *mean* by
them will eventually justify itself.") As we shall see, Jones
does not depart from Lotze's austere conception of logical form:
an affirmative proposition *S is P* states an identity, and is
true just in case the extension of *S* = the extension of
*P*. However, she is able to graft a notion of intensional
content onto Lotze's logical skeleton, thus avoiding his
paradoxical conclusion that, despite appearances, all positive
assertion is analyzed in terms of *A* is not *A*.



The debate surrounding this paradox was not marginal, but at the
center of contemporary discussion. Although Jones's own solution
falls squarely within the framework of nineteenth century logic, she
seems to be responding to worries that were shared by Russell and
Moore. Indeed, Dreben and Floyd (1991), who provide a useful
discussion of the historical context, argue that the paradox is
implicated in Russell and Moore's break with idealism.


### 2.2 Identity Propositions and Significant Assertion



The distinction between the intension (or connotation) and extension
(or denotation) of names, which traces back to the
 Port Royal Logic,
 was widely acknowledged by nineteenth century logicians. But the
distinction was applied, as a rule, to *general* names, not
*proper* names. With regard to proper names, logicians
generally sided with John Stuart Mill in holding that they lack
connotation. Keynes, for example, writes that proper names are
"non-connotative"--that is, "their application
is not determined by a conventionally assigned set of
attributes" (Keynes 1906, 42).



Jones's "New Law of Thought"--the law of
significant assertion--incorporates the distinction as
follows.



> 
> *The Law of Significant Assertion:*
>   
> 
> Any Subject of Predication is an identity of denotation in diversity
> of intension. (Jones 1910-11, 169; 1911b, 2)
> 



The general idea is quite straightforward and will have a familiar
ring to anyone acquainted with Frege's sense-reference
distinction (or Russell's pre-"On Denoting"
distinction between meaning and denotation), even if the formulation
is slightly clumsy: when we predicate a property of an individual or
collection *x*, we first identify *x* via an intension
*f* and then assert its identity with an individual or
collection *y*, where *y* is itself identified via a
distinct intension, *g*. We thus combine "identity of
denotation" or "denotational oneness" with
"diversity of intension". As she puts it as early as 1893,
"the very essence of Categorical statements... is the
reference (in affirmatives) of two terms to one object, in such a way
as to indicate that the object (or group) pointed out by the one term
has also the characteristics signified by the other..."
(1893a, 219). Or, as Stout writes in his Preface to Jones (1911b),
"every affirmative proposition asserts, and every negative
proposition denies, the union of different attributes within the unity
of the same thing" (Stout 1911, v).



As noted, Jones's conception of logical form is austere: every
positive proposition asserts an identity. Accordingly, she takes the
terms of *all F is G* to be the quantifier phrase *all
F* and the predicate *G*. ("I understand the
*terms* to include the *whole* of any proposition except
the copula" [1893-94, 36].) This departs from the
then-standard view, which distinguishes, in addition to the copula,
subject term (*F*), predicate term (*G*) and quantifier
or "term indicator" (*all*). The quantifier, she
also notes, is optional, citing 'Cicero is Tully' as a
case of an identity proposition in which it is absent (1890, 5).



There are thus only two forms that can properly be referred to as
*logical forms* for Jones--identities and their negations.
While Jones holds that *S is P* asserts an "identity of
denotation" in "diversity of intension", *S*
*is not P* asserts "difference of denotation" in
"intensional diversity". (Even if one accepts the former
analysis, however, the latter is problematic. As Augusta Klein (1911)
notes, for a statement of the form *S* *is not P* to be
informative, more is required than the mere "intensional
diversity" of *S* and *P*. To see this note that,
while 'Horses are not house plants' gives us a case of
"difference of denotation" in "intensional diversity", it is
no more informative than 'Horses are horses.' For Klein,
the intensions must overlap to a significant degree for the claim of
their diversity to have any cognitive value.)



Jones thus solves a problem that must be faced by anyone espousing the
view that predication is, at root, identity. If assertively uttering a
sentence exemplifying '*S* is *P*' is
construed as asserting a *proposition* that *A* is
*A*, then we fail to capture the point of the assertion. The
assertion appears significant and informative; yet the content is
trifling--something about which we can hardly be
"informed". If we take the general form of assertion to be
an informative identity--to be "an identity of denotation
in diversity of intension"--then the problem disappears.
The solution, of course, applies to the cases that interested
Frege--sentences that are explicitly of the form *A* =
*A*. Indeed, Jones's proposal here is in rough outline that
of Frege (1892). (See the entry on
 Frege--in
 particular, the section
 Frege's Philosophy of Language.)
 



It is worth remarking, however, that Jones's label "a new
law of thought" is somewhat misleading. In the nineteenth
century, the laws of thought were commonly understood to be the
following: *the law of identity*, *the law of
non-contradiction*, and *the law of excluded middle*. These
are all easily statable in a first-order language. But Jones does not
state a new firs-order law, in addition to these three; nor does she
explain how the new "law" can supplant the law of
identity. 



What then is the status of her law, *vis-a-vis* the
other laws? The following passage provides some help:



> 
> If we genuinely accept *A* is *A* as the expression of a
> fundamental and primary logical principle, the difficulty is, how
> theoretically to get beyond it. If we reject it, what we need, and
> what we find, to put in its place, is a principle of significant
> assertion of the form *S* is *P*. The laws of
> contradiction and excluded middle are laws of the relations of
> assertions, and they cannot be expressed in satisfactory and
> unambiguous form without the use of *S* is *P*,
> *S* is *not* P, propositions. *So even for them we
> require a prior principle, explaining and justifying the *S* is
> *P* proposition itself.* Such a logical principle, based on
> a new analysis of *S* is *P*, I think I can provide.
> (1911b, 10-11; emphasis added)
> 



For Jones, the laws of contradiction and excluded middle apply
exclusively to contentful assertions. Jones's worry is that the
conception of content inherited from Lotze, on which *S is P*
is, effectively, *A is A*, is a poor model not only for
ordinary assertions, but also of instances of the laws of
contradiction and excluded middle. These laws tell us, respectively,
that it cannot be the case, for example, *both* that Socrates
is mortal and that he is not, and that it must be the case that
*either* Socrates is mortal or he is not. In short, they tell
us, of a *significant assertion* Ph, that either Ph or its
negation obtains, and that Ph and its negation cannot both obtain.




Although Jones calls her law a "prior principle", this
does not mean that she takes her law to be *logically* prior to
the other laws. These other laws provide us with logical forms that
cannot have false instances. Jones's law does something else: it
places a constraint on significant assertion, whether true or false,
telling us what conditions an assertion has to meet for it to be a
significant instance, not only of identity, but also of contradiction
and excluded middle. 


### 2.3 Observations on Intension and Extension



Although the concept of intension plays an important role in
Jones's theory, she recognizes that grasping the intension of a
name is neither necessary nor sufficient for grasping its extension.
One may grasp the intension of a term and not grasp its extension, or
conversely, grasp its extension but not its intension. Although
undeveloped, her observations here are remarkably prescient.



Concerning the possibility that grasping an expression's
extension does not require grasping its intension, she writes:



> 
> 
> I know that *metal* in extension denotes gold, silver, copper,
> iron, lead, tin, mercury, aluminium, etc., and I know these when I see
> them, but I am not able to give a satisfactory statement of the
> intension which they have in common...
> 
> 
> 
> Or again I know, or I may know, all the inhabitants of a country
> parish and be able to greet them correctly by name when I meet them,
> but may be entirely unable to give a recognizable description of any
> of them. Or I may know real diamonds from paste, or one disease from
> another, and always apply the names rightly, and yet be unable to set
> out even to myself the connotation or intension. (1911b, 13)
> 
> 
> 



The point applies to the intensions of proper names as well as natural
kind terms. What these considerations suggest, as similar
considerations later suggested to Gareth Evans (1982), Saul Kripke
(1980) and Hilary Putnam (1975), is that names and natural kind terms
do not pick out their referents descriptively: mastery of either
proper names or natural kind terms does not require that we associate
with them any reference-determining description. Jones, however,
doesn't draw this bold conclusion. In fact, she thinks the
observation is harmless, since, on her view, the intension of a term
*can* be reconstructed by reflecting on its extension:



> 
> What I insist on is that all the names we use have both extension and
> intension; and either of these may be a guide to the other. I may have
> the things to which a name applies put before me... and from
> examination of them reach the intension; or have intension given, and
> go out and by means of it determine extension. (1911b, 14)
> 



It doesn't appear, however, that Jones is committing herself to
any strong thesis here--that, *contra* Russell, there is a
"backward road" from referent to sense; only that, in
practice, a term's intension can often be gleaned from
examination of its extension.



In addition, grasping a term's intension does not guarantee
being able to identify its extension:



> 
> On the other hand I may have full descriptive knowledge of a person or
> plant or precious stone, and yet not be able to recognize the person
> or plant or jewel though it may much concern me to do so. I may even
> know much more about a person than his ordinary acquaintances, or even
> than his dearest friend, and be able to give a much more accurate
> description of his appearance and manner, and yet not know him when I
> meet him. (1911b, 13-4)
> 



To connect this observation with the previous, we must assume that the
competent use of *N*, where *N* is a name or natural
kind term, involves a capacity to recognize *N*'s
referent. What this passage then shows is that this recognitional
capacity is not grounded in our grasping any reference-securing
description or intension. But then grasping a name's intension
does not, by itself, put one in a position to use it to refer.



Of course, the points are, as indicated, undeveloped, and the above
interpretation, written in the light of later discussions by Kripke,
Putnam and Gareth Evans, may put more weight on Jones's remarks
than they can plausibly bear. But the passage's placement early
on in the monograph reflects an awareness of its significance. (The
passage does, of course, fail to register the thought that her
observations could undermine a key aspect of her proposal--that
names and natural kind terms have intensions, or sense.)


### 2.4 Applying the Analysis



As we have seen, Jones holds that all affirmative propositions are
identities. Applying the analysis can be less than straightforward,
however. Consider her analysis of (1):



(1)
 This small fragrant wild flower is Clematis.


On her view, 'this small fragrant wild flower' and
'Clematis' have the same extension, yet they possess
distinct intensions (Jones 1893-94, 36). Jones doesn't
fully work out the details of this proposal, but the idea seems to be
that the extension of the subject term is identical to *some*
Clematis--a subset of the things in the extension of
'Clematis'.



As can be seen, the analysis assumes that predicate terms are
implicitly quantified. Jones held, following William Hamilton, that
quantification is not restricted to subject terms, but applies to
predicate terms as well (although the quantifier attaching to the
predicate is never articulated). While Hamilton's doctrine of
the quantification of the predicate allowed for all sorts of
monstrosities (Kneale and Kneale, 1962, 352-4), the only cases
that Jones discusses involve quantifying the predicate with
'some', and assigning truth conditions to
'*Q* + *S* are some *P*' is
relatively straightforward:




|  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| All \(S\) is some \(P\) |  \(|S - P^\*| = 0\) | where | \(P^\* \subseteq P\) |
| Some \(S\) is some \(P\) | \(|S^\* \cap P^\*| \gt 0\) | where | \(S^\* \subseteq S\) and \(P^\* \subseteq P\) |



In each case, we get precisely the truth conditions we would have with
a quantifier-free predicate. E.g., 'All *S* is some
*P*' is true just in case all *S* are
*P*.



The endorsement of Hamilton's view might seem
perverse--and, in fact, Jones is elsewhere critical of his view
(1906, 35-6)--but it is necessary if Jones is to retain the
view that significant assertion is, at root, the assertion of an
identity. After all, if 'All humans are mortal' asserts an
identity, then, given that identity is commutative, it entails the
apparently nonsensical 'Mortals are all humans.' The
result is at least intelligible if we suppose that the predicate is
also quantified--if, that is, 'All humans are mortal'
is just 'All humans are some mortals.' For then, the
consequence would be 'Some mortals are all humans,' which
is just the claim that some subset of the set of mortals is identical
to the set of (all) humans. (This, of course, is not quite an identity
statement, since one of the terms is quantified, but it is the closest
we can get to a workable version of Jones's proposal.)



Hamilton's doctrine provides a straightforward explanation of
the validity of conversion. Indeed, Jones go so far as to claim that
conversion itself *presupposes* some such approach: "The
possibility of conversion... implies that the predicate, as well
as the subject, of any proposition has denotation, and a denotation
that is implicitly quantified" (1911b, 3; see also Jones, et al.
1914-15, 364). To be clear, Jones has a non-standard conception of
conversion, on which the converse of 'All humans are
mortals' is 'Some mortals are humans' and not, as
usually understood, 'All mortals are humans' (she follows
Keynes 1906, SS96). Jones takes the former, fully articulated, to be
'All humans are some mortals.' Conversion switches the
positions of the subject and predicate terms, giving us 'Some
mortals are all humans'. Of course, since the original and its
converse are both, at logical form, identity statements, this is just
an instance of the commutativity of identity (Keynes 1906, SS142).




The analysis is applied to a variety of statement forms (see 1911b,
48-53). One cannot escape the impression, however, that Jones,
like the Oxbridge logicians generally, "dissected with some
crude instruments" (Grattan-Guinness 1985-86, 113). Indeed, as
W. E. Johnson objected in an early exchange with Jones, the analysis
seems to presuppose the very notion it seeks to
eliminate--predication (Johnson 1892, 23). Consider (2):



(2)
 Socrates is mortal.
 On Jones's analysis, (2)'s logical form is given by
'Socrates is identical to some mortal.' Using contemporary
notation, this becomes (3) (recall that, for Jones, *some
mortal* refers to a class):


(3)
\(\exists y (y\in \{x | \textit{Mortal}(x)\}\amp \textit{Socrates}=y)\)

As Johnson notes, in thus specifying the set of mortals ('the
set of things x such that x is a mortal'), we are invoking the
relation of predication--the very notion that Lotze, and by
implication Jones, rejected as
 unintelligible.[1]
 (Jones responds in Jones 1893a.)



Still, while the Law of Significant Assertion cannot be true in its
full generality, a restriction of the law to identity sentences is
worth considering. Accordingly, in discussing Jones in relation to
Frege and Russell, I will construe The Law of Significant Assertion as
a doctrine concerning identity sentences--sentences of the form
*a* is *b* (where *a* and *b* are names,
demonstratives or descriptions and *is* functions accordingly
as the *is* of identity, not predication)--and not as a
claim about subject-predicate sentences generally.


## 3. Comparison with Frege and Russell



Jones's analysis of identity sentences has obvious affinities
with similar analyses advanced by Frege and the early Russell. In
light of this, it is instructive to review how Frege and Russell argue
for their respective analyses and compare their arguments with
Jones's own.


### 3.1 Comparison with Frege



In the opening paragraph of "On Sense and Reference"
(Frege 1892), Frege argues that a theory that identifies the semantic
value of a name with its referent--the naive
theory--cannot differentiate between the contents of
'Hesperus = Hesperus' and 'Hesperus =
Phosphorus'. Given the plausible assumption that the proposition
expressed by a sentence is a function of the semantic values of its
constituent expressions together with their mode of combination, it
seems inevitable that what the latter sentence says is just what the
former sentence says--assuming, with the naive theory, that
'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' possess the same
semantic value. Of course, the latter sentence is potentially
informative, whereas the former sentence is not. This leads Frege to
reject the naive theory. He also rejects, for reasons that need
not detain us, a view according to which identity is a relation
between the *names* 'Hesperus' and
'Phosphorus'. The view he settles on is that the
contribution that 'Hesperus' makes to the propositions
expressed by the above-quoted identity sentences is a *sense*
--a way of thinking of the referent. (While one might say that
*the* semantic value of 'Hesperus' is the
associated sense, this would be incorrect, since, on Frege's
view, 'Hesperus' has two semantic values--its sense,
and the referent determined by this sense. The proposition expressed
by, e.g., 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' is partly determined by
this sense, whereas the referent of this sentence--for Frege, its
truth-value--is partly determined by the associated
referent.)



Jones's argument is similar, but not identical, to
Frege's. She argues that a theory that assimilates all assertion
to *A* is *A* must fail to account for cases of
significant assertion--cases in which we go beyond "pure
tautology". Frege's argument is more sophisticated, making
implicit appeal to a principle of compositionality, and considering
alternative theories of the semantic contents of singular terms.
Still, both are concerned to correct a similar--perhaps the
same--mistake. Indeed, Jones's and Frege's interest
in identity may derive from a common source, namely Lotze. (See
Gabriel 2002 and Heis 2013 for assessments of Lotze's role in the
development of Frege's thought.)


### 3.2 Comparison with Russell



Russell's analysis of identity sentences in *Principles*
SS64 falls out of his theory of denoting concepts--concepts
that, like intensions, determine an extension. In this section Russell
shows how the theory of denoting concepts can explain "why it is
ever worthwhile to affirm identity":



> 
> But the question arises: Why is it ever worth while to affirm
> identity? The question is answered by the theory of denoting. If we
> say "Edward VII is the King," we assert an identity; the
> reason why this assertion is worth making is, that in the one case the
> actual term occurs, while in the other a denoting concept takes its
> place... Often two denoting concepts occur, and the term itself
> is not mentioned, as in the proposition "the present Pope is the
> last survivor of his generation." When a term is given, the
> assertion of an identity with itself, though true, is perfectly
> futile, and is never made outside the logic-books; but where denoting
> concepts are introduced, identity is at once seen to be significant.
> In this case, of course, there is involved, though not asserted, a
> relation of the denoting concept to the terms, or of the two denoting
> concepts to each other. But the *is* which occurs in such
> propositions does not itself state this further relation, but states
> pure identity. (Russell 1903; note omitted)
> 



This bears a striking similarity to Jones's proposal. When an
identity statement relates two "terms", or individuals, it
is trivial and "is never made outside the logic-books";
but when at least one denoting concept is involved, the statement is
significant. While these cases "involve" a relation of
co-reference between the denoting concepts, or between one denoting
concept and the term denoted, this relation is not part of what is
stated: the one relation stated remains "pure identity".
Thus, even in the case of an identity statement involving a denoting
concept, such as 'the present Pope is the last survivor of his
generation,' we nonetheless assert an identity involving the
individual determined by the denoting concept.



In "The Existential Import of Propositions" (Russell
1905a), the theory of denoting concepts is applied to the problem of
vacuous singular terms. Russell explains how the failure of a singular
term to denote is compatible with the term's nonetheless having
meaning, if we assume that denoting phrases (such as 'the
present King of France') and at least certain names
('Apollo') express denoting concepts. Jones seems not to
have considered the application of her denotation-connotation
distinction to the problem of vacuous terms and does not appeal to its
utility in this connection in arguing for her proposal.


## 4. Russell's Recognition of Jones



As we have seen, Jones's and Russell's respective analyses
of identity statements are similar and, moreover, similarly motivated.
This raises a question: did Russell, prior to their public exchange
(discussed below), have any awareness of Jones's work? Complete
ignorance on Russell's part seems unlikely, considering that her
teacher, Ward, and her champion, Stout, were Russell's teachers
at
 Cambridge.[2]
 It seems plausible that they would have attempted to interest Russell
in the work of someone whose concerns overlapped with his so
significantly. Moreover, Russell was a regular reader of the journals
to which Jones contributed; in several cases, the two appeared in the
same issue of *Mind* or of the *Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society*. (In fact, Jones's contribution to
*The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society* for
1906-07, which occurs in the same issue as Russell's
"On the Nature of Truth", is in part a commentary on
Russell's paper.) But then we have another question--why
does he never cite her distinction? Surely his audience, in particular
readers of *Mind*, members of the Aristotelian Society and
members of the Moral Sciences Club (see below), could be expected to
be acquainted with it. If so, then it would make sense to mention it,
if only to show how his (or Frege's) version of the distinction
is markedly different. Even if there is disagreement with the
framework in which the distinction is grounded, Russell's total
silence demands an explanation. After all, in "On
Denoting" Russell cites approvingly Bradley's account of
universal generalizations in terms of conditionals, even though he has
decisively parted ways with Bradley's logic. So he was clearly
capable of separating a valuable idea from the framework in which it
is expressed.



One document of interest concerning the question of influence is a
letter to Philip Jourdain, dated September 5, 1909. Jourdain had sent
Russell the draft of a long survey article on Frege's work, in
which he mentions Jones's distinction, in Jones (1890) and
(1982a), between intension and denotation--a distinction
endorsed, as he noted in the published version of the article, by
Keynes in the fourth (and final) edition of his influential text,
*Studies and Exercises in Formal Logic* (Jourdain,
1911-12, 201-2, footnote 153). Although Jourdain's
letter is now lost, it appears he is querying Russell about the
relation between Jones's distinction and Frege's (and,
quite possibly, Russell's related distinction between meaning
and denotation). Here Russell responds:



> 
> It would seem, from what you say in your letter, that Miss
> Jones's distinction of signification and denotation must be much
> the same as Frege's Sinn and Bedeutung. But of course
> *some* such distinction is a commonplace of logic, and
> everything turns on the form given to the distinction. I have neither
> Keynes nor Miss Jones here, or I would look up the point.
> (Grattan-Guinness 1977, 119)
> 



The note displays a remarkable lack of charity. Russell, instead of
expressing interest in the possibility that Jones anticipated Frege on
sense and reference, dismisses the distinction as "a commonplace
of logic." Going by what he writes here, *how* it is
made, and not the distinction itself, is what is crucial. But until
Russell developed the theory of descriptions, the distinction was made
informally, both in his own case and in the case of Frege (1892).
(While Frege 1893, SS11, does present a formal theory of definite
descriptions, one which could conceivably be employed as a formal
theory of sense, it is doubtful that Russell had this version of
Frege's theory in mind when writing the above.) Surely the
distinction had been worth making in the cases of Frege and of his
earlier self, even though no particular form seems to have been given
to the distinction in either case. Russell's dismissal is
therefore puzzling.



Moreover, had Russell consulted Keynes' account of Jones's
distinction, he would have encountered an example that is quite
similar to one used by Frege in the opening paragraph of "On
Sense and Reference":



> 
> If out of all triangles we select those which possess the property of
> having three equal sides, and if again out of all triangles we select
> those which possess the property of having three equal angles, we
> shall find that in either case we are left with precisely the same set
> of triangles. Thus, each side of our equation denotes precisely the
> same class of objects, but the class is determined or arrived at in
> two different ways. (Keynes 1906, 190)
> 



Whether or not Keynes and Frege give the same "form" to
the distinction, Keynes's presentation is sufficiently close to
Frege's to suggest that one could hardly be in a position to
dismiss the one, but not the other, as
 "commonplace".[3]



One explanation of Russell's dismissal of Jones's
distinction has to do with his correspondent. Jourdain, a former
student of Russell's, was quite conversant with the developing
mathematical logic (at least to a degree--he was a competent, but
not quite first-rate, practitioner), went on to publish informed
survey articles on (in addition to the piece on Frege already
mentioned) Boole, Jevons, MacColl, and Peano, and had written on
Russell's earlier work on the principles of mathematics.
It's conceivable that Russell resented the fact that Jourdain,
expert in both Oxbridge logic and mathematical logic, took Jones to be
touching on a point that he and Frege had already laid claim
to--perhaps even beating them to a crucial insight. Matters are
made worse by the suggestion that Jones had--however casually and
indirectly--influenced Russell. Any indication either that he was
influenced by Jones, or that she anticipated him in some small way,
would detract from Russell's own contribution. It is one thing
to acknowledge a debt to a Frege or to a Peano. Russell saw these men
not only as intellectual giants, but also as introducing genuinely
revolutionary ideas and techniques into the study of logic and the
foundations of mathematics. Not only was Jones manifestly *not*
of their caliber, she was also philosophically quite retrograde. For
Russell, mindful both of the figures he was allying himself with and
of the innovation in thought that they were introducing, acknowledging
that Jones had anticipated some of his ideas may have been repugnant.
Small wonder, then, that he kept silent on the matter in his published
work and correspondence. As it turns out, Jones *was* quickly
to take credit (in print) for first giving expression to the
distinction (see Jones 1910-11), although she sensibly refrained
from suggesting that her work influenced Russell.



None of this is to deny that there may have been entirely intellectual
reasons for Russell's dismissal. As indicated, Russell clearly
saw Jones as a throwback to an earlier period. Thus, even if there was
some recognition that she had come upon a distinction quite similar to
that between sense and reference or meaning and denotation,
Russell's indifference could quite easily be attributed to the
fact that the insight was grafted onto a system of logic that he
 rejected.[4]



See Waithe and Cicero (1995, 37-43) for an extended discussion
of the relation between Russell and Jones. 


## 5. The Exchange



On December 2, 1910, Jones delivered a paper to the Cambridge Moral
Sciences Club, titled "Categorical Propositions and the Law of
Identity" (later published, under a different title, as Jones
1911a). Russell responded at a meeting three months later, on March
10, 1911, delivering "Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by
Description". While Russell did not acknowledge being influenced
by Jones in his earlier work, nor did he compare her view to
Frege's, it is significant that he took her work seriously
enough to merit a public response, one that would be recorded in one
of his most influential papers.



The main point of their exchange concerns the following well-known
passage in "On Denoting":



> 
> If *a* is identical with *b*, whatever is true of one is
> true of the other, and either may be substituted for the other in any
> proposition without altering the truth or falsehood of that
> proposition. Now George IV wished to know whether Scott was the author
> of *Waverley*; and in fact Scott *was* the author of
> *Waverley*. Hence, we may substitute *Scott* for *the
> author of 'Waverley',* and thereby prove that George
> IV wished to know whether Scott was Scott. Yet an interest in the law
> of identity can hardly be attributed to the first gentleman of Europe.
> (Russell 1905b, 420)
> 



Of this passage, Jones writes:



> 
> 
> When George IV asked whether Scott was the author of
> *Waverley*, what he wanted to know was, whether the intension
> ('meaning', connotation) of *Author of
> 'Waverley'* could be assigned to
> Scott--*i.e.,*--whether identity of denotation could
> be asserted between *Scott* and *Author of
> 'Waverley'.* The "first gentleman of
> Europe" did not want to know whether Scott was Scott ...
> .
> 
> 
> 
> No doubt, 'if *a* is identical [in denotation] with
> *b,*' whatever is true of the thing denoted by *a*
> is true of the same thing denoted by
> *b***--**with the obvious reservation that
> *a is a* does not convey the information that *a* has
> the intension (or connotation) *b*. (Jones 1910a, 379-80;
> the insertion is Jones's) 
> 
> 
> 



I quote Russell's response at length:



> 
> 
> Miss Jones argues that 'Scott is the Author of
> *Waverley*' asserts identity of denotation between
> *Scott* and *the author of Waverley*. But there is some
> difficulty in choosing among alternative meanings of this contention.
> In the first place, it should be observed that *the Author of
> Waverley* is not a *mere* name, like *Scott*.
> *Scott* is merely a noise, or shape conventionally used to
> designate a certain person; it gives no information about that person,
> and has nothing that can be called meaning as opposed to denotation.
> (I neglect the fact, considered above, that names, as a rule, really
> stand for descriptions.) But the *author of Waverley* is not
> merely conventionally a name for Scott; the element of mere convention
> belongs here to the separate words, *the* and *author*
> and *of* and *Waverley*. Given what these words stand
> for, *the author of Waverley* is no longer arbitrary. When it
> is said that Scott is the author of *Waverley*, we are not
> stating that these are two *names* for one man, as we should be
> if we said 'Scott is Sir Walter'. A man's name is
> what he is called, but however much Scott had been called the author
> of *Waverley*, that would not have made him be the author; it
> was necessary for him to actually write *Waverley*, which was a
> fact having nothing to do with names. (Russell 1910-11,
> 27-28) 
> 
> 
> 



This passage expands on a point made in "On Denoting",
where Russell writes:



> 
> Now the relation of meaning and denotation is not merely linguistic
> through the phrase: there must be a logical relation involved, which
> we express by saying that the meaning denotes the denotation. (Russell
> 1905b, 421)
> 



In his response, Russell explains why it is that the relation between
a name and its referent is "merely linguistic through the
phrase", whereas the relation between a description and its
denotation must be "logical". The relation between a name
ss and what it stands for is (merely) linguistic in that it is
acceptable to specify what ss stands for with the phrase
'the referent/denotation of ss'. The reason that it
is acceptable is because ss has its reference or denotation
determined conventionally. Thus, since no analysis is possible, all we
can do is state the brute fact captured by the schema 'ss
stands for the referent/denotation of ss'. In contrast, the
relation between a description and what it denotes is
*logical*--the denotation relation is constrained by the
meanings of the constituents of the description and their mode of
combination. Thus, if ss is a description, 'ss stands
for the referent/denotation of ss' does not state a brute
fact about our use of ss. Rather, it states a fact that holds in
virtue of other facts--facts about the meanings of
ss's constituents and their mode of combination.



A bit later, he continues:



> 
> If we are to say, as Miss Jones does, that 'Scott is the author
> of *Waverley*' asserts an identity of denotation, we must
> regard the denotation of 'the author of *Waverley*'
> as the denotation of what is *meant* by 'the author of
> *Waverley*'. Let us call the meaning of 'the author
> of *Waverley*' *M*. Thus *M* is what
> 'the author of *Waverley*' means. Then we are to
> suppose that 'Scott is the author of *Waverley*'
> means 'Scott is the denotation of *M*'. But here we
> are explaining our proposition by another of the same form, and thus
> have made no progress towards a real explanation. 'The
> denotation of *M*', like 'the author of
> *Waverley*'  has both meaning and denotation, on
> the theory we are examining. If we call its meaning *M*',
> our proposition becomes 'Scott is the denotation of
> *M*''. But this leads to an endless regress. Thus
> the attempt to regard our proposition as asserting identity of
> denotation breaks down, and it becomes imperative to find some other
> analysis. When this analysis has been completed, we shall be able to
> reinterpret the phrase 'identity of denotation', which
> remains obscure so long as it is taken as fundamental. (Russell
> 1910-11, 28-29)
> 



Let's unpack this. Russell is here evaluating a hypothesis
according to which a description such as 'the author of
*Waverley*' is, contrary to his own view, meaningful in
 isolation.[5]
 To assume that this description is meaningful in isolation is to
assume that, for some *M*, 'the author of
*Waverley*' means *M*. Let's call this
meaning *M\**. Since we accept the following:



> 
> The denotation of 'the author of *Waverley*' = the
> denotation of what is *meant* by 'the author of
> *Waverley*'
> 



we also accept



> 
> The denotation of 'the author of *Waverley*' = the
> denotation of *M\**
> 



Now the meaning-in-isolation theorist might suggest that our original
sentence, 'Scott is the author of *Waverley*',
means that Scott is the denotation of *M*\*. But, as Russell
observes, all this does is to replace one description with another.
Since the theorist fails to tell us what 'the author of
*Waverley*' means in terms that don't involve an
expression equally in need of analysis, we have been given no evidence
that this, or any, description is meaningful in isolation.



Jones responds:



> 
> Mr. Russell explains my meaning to be that the denotation of *The
> author of Waverley* is the denotation of what is *meant* by
> *the author of Waverley*. But I do not accept this. Meaning,
> intension, of *author* is *authorship*; denotation of
> *author* is *person of whom authorship is an attribute*.
> I do not see from the fact of one proposition being explained by
> another of the same form ... it follows that we "have made
> no progress towards a real explanation." This would seem to
> involve that one categorical proposition cannot be explained by other
> categorical propositions. (Jones 1910-11, 183-184)
> 



Jones rejects the proposal that what is denoted by *the F* =
what is denoted by *the meaning of 'the F'*. While
her reasoning is obscure, the point seems to be that these
descriptions cannot co-refer, since they involve different
concepts--one, but not the other, involves the concept of
denotation. The point is confused, however; clearly, the descriptions
are co-denoting--relative to the assumption that 'the
meaning of *the F*' has a denotation.



Her second point is more intriguing: Jones objects to the regress
argument's conclusion that no real explanation of the
*meaning* of denoting phrases can be achieved if we explain a
proposition containing such a phrase with another proposition
containing a phrase of the same form. Once again, however, the point
is undeveloped. Nonetheless, it is implied that a categorical
proposition *can* indeed be explained by another categorical
proposition, so from the fact that *p* and *q* share the
same form it does not follow that (e.g.) *q* fails to explain
*p* (in the relevant sense of 'explain'). (Recall
that she takes all categorical propositions to possess the same form.)
Echoing Jones's sentiment, R. M. Sainsbury writes, "it is
unclear what sort of explanation is needed, and why the circularity is
vicious. This objection [i.e., Russell's] must be regarded as
therefore inconclusive" (Sainsbury 1979, 105). (Broad (1912)
responds similarly.) Hylton (1990, 252-53), on the other hand,
argues quite persuasively that there *is* a vicious regress
here (Hylton's remarks are concerned specifically with the
passage in "On Denoting", however).



The point is developed further in Jones's reply to Broad (1912),
responding to Jones (1910-11):



> 
> 
> If I say that the import of, *e.g.* Scott is the Author of
> *Waverley*, is to assert identity of denotation with diversity
> of intension, I can of course also say that: What is denoted by
> 'what is denoted by "Scott"', is identical
> with what is denoted by 'what is denoted by "Author of
> *Waverley*"'. As Mr. Broad suggests, the repetition
> in Subject and Predicate is ineffective, and
> 
> 
> 
> (1)
>  Scott
> (2)
>  What is denoted by 'Scott'
> (3)
>  What is denoted by 'What is denoted by
> "Scott"'
> 
> 
> have all three the same identical denotation.
> 
> 
> 
> (1')
>  Scott is the Author of Waverley.
> 
> 
> If my analysis (as far as denotation is concerned) is applied to this,
> we get:--
> 
> 
> 
> (2')
>  What is denoted by 'Scott' is identical with what is
> denoted by 'Author of *Waverley*'. 
> 
> 
> If the same analysis is applied to (2) we have :--
> 
> 
> 
> (3')
>  What is denoted by 'What is denoted by
> "Scott"' is identical with what is denoted by
> 'what is denoted by "Author of
> *Waverley*"', 
> 
> 
> and so on. We have simply a repetition, for each successive more
> complicated proposition, of the analysis adopted.
> 
> 
> 
> I think that a regress equally "infinite," equally
> inevitable, equally innocuous, equally useless, would emerge in the
> case of any propositional analysis treated in the same way...
> (Jones 1913, 528) 
> 
> 
> 



Jones seems to miss an important point here. The existence of a
sequence such as (1')-(3') is predicted on both
analyses--one according to which 'Author of
*Waverley*' (or 'the author of
*Waverley*') has meaning in isolation, and one according
to which it does not. Thus, the inevitability of the sequence is of no
consequence, as it fails to tell against Russell's theory.



To see this, note that Russell could easily acknowledge that a
sequence of the following form will exist when
'*a*' is either a name or a definite
description



*a* is the referent of '*a*'
  

*a* is the referent of "the referent of '*a*'"
  

*a* is the referent of 'the referent of "the
referent of '*a*'"'
  

\(\vdots\)




In the case of names, the first clause provides the ultimate
explanation for the truth of each succeeding clause. This is not true,
however, when '*a*' is a description.



Consider, for example, the following segment of an infinite
sequence:



(4)
 Scott
(5)
 the referent of 'Scott'
(6)
 the referent of 'the referent of
"Scott"'


We can say that:



(4\*)
 'Scott' refers to (4).
(5\*)
 'Scott' refers to (5).
(6\*)
 'Scott' refers to (6).


Notice, however, that each member of the latter sequence
*after* (4\*) holds *because* (4\*) holds. (Unless, of
course, one wants to deny that even 'Scott' has meaning in
isolation; but this is obviously not Jones's position.) That is,
'Scott' refers to the referent of 'Scott'
(i.e., (5)) because 'Scott' refers to Scott (i.e.,
(4)).



Now consider the following initial segment of an infinite sequence,
(7)-(9), together with the corresponding reference assignments,
(7\*)-(9\*):



(7)
 the author of *Waverly* 
(8)
 the referent of 'the author of *Waverly*'
(9)
 the referent of 'the referent of "the author of
*Waverly*"'
(7\*)
 'the author of *Waverly*' refers to (7)
(8\*)
 'the author of *Waverly*' refers to (8)
(9\*)
 'the author of *Waverly*' refers to (9)


Here we see a contrast with (4\*)-(6\*): to explain the fact
reported by (8\*) by citing the fact reported by (7\*) is unsatisfying,
since (7\*) is left unexplained. Moreover, (7\*), unlike (4\*), does not
state a brute semantic fact-a fact that cannot be further
explained in semantic terms. It is clear that, if 'the author of
Waverly' is a singular term and, *contra* Russell, has
meaning in isolation, then the relation between it and its denotation,
Scott, cannot be like the one that obtains between 'Scott' and
Scott.



This disanalogy between the two cases may not settle the case in
Russell's favor--perhaps, 'the author of
*Waverly*', like 'Scott', *is*
meaningful in isolation after all, even though its meaning (or
denotation), unlike that of 'Scott', can't be
assigned directly (indeed, Richard Montague provided the tools for
constructing precisely such a meaning). Even so, Jones is wrong in
thinking that the mere existence of a sequence such as (7\*)-(9\*)
is dispositive.


## 6. Related Criticisms of Russell



An important related criticism, not acknowledged by Russell in
subsequent writings (it appeared after his response to Jones in
"Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description")
is a critique of a famous passage in *Principia Mathematica*.
In arguing that descriptions are incomplete symbols and have no
meaning in isolation, Russell claims that although 'Scott is the
author of *Waverley*' expresses an identity, 'the
author of *Waverley*' cannot be a name. If it were, then
it would be a value of *c* in the propositional function
'Scott is *c*'. But this would mean that
'Scott is the author of *Waverley*' expresses what
'Scott is Scott' expresses, which is absurd:



> 
> The "author of *Waverly*" cannot mean the same as
> "Scott," or "Scott is the author of
> *Waverly*" would mean the same as "Scott is
> Scott" which it plainly does not; nor can the "author of
> *Waverly*" mean anything other than "Scott"
> or "Scott is the author of *Waverly*" would be
> false. Hence the "author of *Waverly*" means
> nothing. (Whitehead and Russell 1910, 67)
> 



Jones observes:



> 
> Granted that *Intension* and *Denotation* are
> differently defined, this argument seems to depend on a double use of
> the word meaning--thus: when it is said that *the author of
> Waverley* cannot *mean* the same as *Scott*,
> *meaning* signifies intension or connotation; plainly intension
> (or connotation) of *the author of Waverley* and of
> *Scott*, cannot be the same. But when it is said that *the
> author of Waverley* cannot *mean* anything other than
> *Scott*, or *Scott is the author of Waverley* would be
> false, "mean anything other than *Scott*" must be
> understood of denotation; if *Scott* and *the author of
> Waverley* are two distinct persons, clearly *Scott is the
> author of Waverley* must be false. (My identity-in-diversity
> theory removes the difficulty at once.) (Jones 1910-11,
> 175-76)
> 



Jones's point can be summarized as follows. When Russell argues
that 'author of *Waverly*' cannot mean the same as
'Scott' because this would imply that 'Scott is the
author of *Waverley*' and 'Scott is Scott'
express the same proposition, he uses 'meaning' in an
intensional sense: "plainly intension (or connotation) of
*the author of Waverley* and of *Scott*, cannot be the
same." But when he argues that 'the author of
Waverly' *must* mean the same thing as
'Scott', he uses 'meaning' in the denotational
sense. Russell's premises, disambiguated, can be recast as
follows: 'the author of *Waverly*' and
'Scott' cannot have the same intension; 'the author
of *Waverly*' and 'Scott' must have the same
denotation. From these, it does not follow that 'the author of
*Waverly*' has neither denotation nor
connotation--that it lacks meaning.



Jones seems to be perfectly correct here. The *Principia*
argument intending to show that descriptions such as 'the author
of *Waverly*' have no meaning in isolation assumes that
an expression can only possess one kind of meaning--and thus that
sameness of meaning is either sameness of intension or sameness of
denotation--and Jones is quite right to challenge this. (But see Perkins 2011 both for an alternative reading of the text as well as a useful history of the debate surrounding its interpretation.) 


## 7. The Dualism of Practical Reason



As indicated above, Jones also made significant contributions to
ethics and moral psychology. This section will focus on her major
contribution to these areas--her attempt at a resolution to a
problem that Sidgwick stated in his *The Methods of Ethics*
(*ME*), but which he never resolved to his satisfaction: the
dualism of practical reason.



A central goal of *ME* is to determine the rules guiding
practical rationality and to present these as
"methods"--"rational procedures for determining
right conduct in any particular case" (78). *ME* argues at
length for the rationality of benevolence: that our actions should
have "Universal Good or Happiness" as their goal (507).
But, alongside this primary rule or method, Sidgwick also recognizes a
secondary rule of self-love or egoism. The latter rule, he is forced
to acknowledge, is equally rational: "even if a man admits the
self-evidence of the principle of Rational Benevolence, he may still
hold that his own happiness is an end which it is irrational for him
to sacrifice to any other; *and that therefore a harmony between
the maxim of Prudence and the maxim of Rational Benevolence must be
somehow demonstrated, if morality is to be made completely
rational*" (498; emphasis added). 



The dualism of practical reason is precisely this fact, that practical
reason is guided by two distinct but potentially incompatible rules.
This incompatibility will not always rise to the surface, but there is
a possibility that the two methods give divergent results. As Sidgwick
writes, in such a case, "practical reason, being divided against
itself, would cease to be a motive on either side"(508). This
would be unacceptable for a moral rationalist like Sidgwick, who, in
requiring self-evidence of his methods would surely also require that
their conjunction meet the same requirement. 



Sidgwick's dissatisfaction with this state of affairs was not simply
intellectual. As Bart Schultz notes in his biography: 



> 
> The gloomy last line of the first edition of the *Methods* rang
> out like an English version of the "crisis of the
> Enlightenment", warning that practical reason might be reduced
> to a "chaos." (2004, 15; note removed)
> 



Sidgwick rejected a "metaphysical" resolution of the
dualism. On this view, selfless actions are rewarded in the afterlife,
with God or some other force guaranteeing that self-interest and
benevolence coincide. He similarly dismissed the view that the methods
coincide due to facts about our evolutionary history--that
selectional pressures have seen to it that what we desire for
ourselves is precisely what benefits the species as a whole. In each
case, we are asked to believe that the circumstances in which the
methods deliver conflicting results will simply not arise, either due
to "the moral government of the universe" or to the
contingencies of natural selection. 



Sidgwick's rationalism had him set a high bar for ethical
propositions--that they have the certainty of "any axiom in
Arithmetic or Geometry" (507). Since the above resolutions fall
far short of these standards, he could not accept them. 



Jones addressed the dualism on various occasions throughout her career
(Jones 1894, 1894-95, 1895, 1909, 1917-18, 1920), and a full survey of
these discussions is not possible here. This section will focus on her
most considered response to the dualism, her late publication
"Practical Dualism" (Jones 1917-18). Where relevant, I
will also quote from her roughly coeval entry on Sidgwick for the
*Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics* (Jones 1920). 



Jones's stated aim in "Practical Dualism" is to
"deduce" the rule of prudence (or rational self-interest)
from benevolence (Jones 1917-18, 323): "The reasonableness of
benevolence implies the reasonableness of self-love" (1920,
504). The upshot is that we have reduced our fundamental principles to
one, thus solving the problem of the dualism of two methods. 



The claim that benevolence entails self-love might strike us as
puzzling. At least since *The Republic*, the thought has been
that, if there is an entailment, it should go in the opposite
direction: self-love entails benevolence, and, accordingly, it is in
my interest to promote the happiness of others. But as the following
makes clear, Jones's point is slightly different: 



> 
> It would thus appear that Benevolence implies Self-Love, and Rational
> Benevolence irresistibly leads us back to the rationality of Self-Love
> as our starting-point. Similarly, in the precepts "Do unto
> others as ye would (reasonably would) *they should do unto
> you*," "Love your neighbour *as
> yourself*," it is implied that the love of self is logically
> prior to, and sets the standard for, love of our neighbour. (1917-18,
> 324; see also 1920, 504)
> 



What Jones is claiming here is that the very formulation of
benevolence *presupposes* the rationality of self-love. If we
had no independent conception of the value of happiness, then neither
self-love nor benevolence would be rationally binding. But the only
way that I can come to grasp the value of happiness is by grasping it
in my own case. If I grasp the value of your happiness *for
you*, it is only because I already grasp the value of my happiness
for me: 



> 
> Now, a man cannot experience, cannot directly know, any happiness but
> his own. It must, therefore, be on the ground that *his own*
> happiness is *to himself* ultimately and intrinsically
> valuable, valuable in itself, that he can logically regard the
> happiness of others as ultimately and intrinsically valuable to them.
> *His reasoned belief in the value for others of their own happiness
> must be based, it can only be based, on his recognition of the value
> for himself of his own happiness*. (323; final emphasis added)
> 



My appreciation of the intrinsic value of others' happiness to them
is grounded in my appreciation of the intrinsic value of my happiness
for me. What this means *logically* is that the principle
*presupposes* self-love. That is, the principle of benevolence
is neither true nor false if the principle of self-love is false. (See
the entry on
 Presupposition.)
 



Thus it appears that when Jones writes that "rational
benevolence implies or includes the rationality of self-love"
(328; emphasis added) she does not have logical implication in mind
but rather the relation of presupposition. Moreover, this claim is
itself far more plausible on the face of it than the claim of logical
entailment. 



Still, the question arises, what does the claim of presupposition
show? It shows at least this much, that the two principles are
consistent--relative to the assumption, as Jones is quick to
point out, that benevolence is itself non-contradictory (324). This is
a significant development, since Sidgwick's central concern was with
the compatibility of the two principles. If benevolence requires that
self-love be true for *it* to be true (or false), then the two
must be consistent (assuming benevolence is). 



One might challenge Jones's response in two ways. One might question
her assumption that the rule of benevolence presupposes self-love in
precisely the way that the Golden Rule presupposes self-love. Broad
(1930, 158-9), for example, held that benevolence has no such
presupposition. On his view, the ethical hedonist (who advocates
benevolence) and the rational egoist have different conceptions of the
good--"my Good [says the egoist] and your Good... are
not parts of a total Good." Since they involve distinct
conceptions of the good, the formulation of the one position cannot
presuppose the truth of the other. Nonetheless, since they make
conflicting commands regarding certain conceivable situations, we
cannot rationally subscribe to both. 



The other concern is that she has, at best, shown that one who
embraces benevolence cannot consistently reject self-love. But this
does not give us a positive argument for the rational egoist to accept
benevolence. Jones does argue, in "Practical Dualism,"
that as humans we are by nature empathetic, often, through an innate
impulse, identifying our happiness with the happiness of others. While
it may be possible to argue, on such a basis, that the mere possession
of the concept of happiness makes us value it in others as much as we
value it in ourselves, it remains the case that this is a
psychological fact. While it may be so that we by nature are drawn to
value in others what we value in ourselves, it does not follow that we
rationally ought to do so simply because we do so--or even that
we ought to do so--in our own case. 



Ostertag and Favia (2020) presents a more comprehensive account of
Jones's responses. See Soames (2014, 263-69) and the entries on
 Henry Sidgwick
 and
 Bertrand Russell's Moral Philosophy
 for more on the Sidgwickian background. 


## 8. Women in Early Analytic Philosophy



Jones was not the only woman approaching philosophical logic and
ethics from a broadly analytic perspective during this period:
Peirce's student, Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847-1930), made
significant contributions to logic and psychology (see Russinoff 1999
for Ladd-Franklin's contributions to the algebra of logic), and
the writings of Lady Victoria Welby (1837-1912) on meaning were
widely read. Indeed, Peirce wrote a joint review of her *What is
Meaning?* and Russell's *Principles of Mathematics*
for *The Nation*. (Dale 1996 discusses Welby's role in
the development of the theory of meaning.) Later figures include the
philosopher of science, Dorothy Wrinch (1894-1976), a Girton
student who went on to study under Russell, and Susanne Langer
(1895-1985), who wrote a dissertation under Alfred North
Whitehead at Radcliff in 1926. Wrinch, who published papers in
*Mind* on, among other things, the unity of the proposition and
the theory of relativity, later abandoned philosophy for chemistry,
teaching for many years at Smith College. Langer, who would achieve
prominence in the philosophy of art beginning in the 1940s, published
several technical articles on type theory and related topics early in
her career (Langer 1926, 1927; McDaniel 2017 is a useful guide to her
early work). Possibly the most prominent woman analytic philosopher of
the first half of the twentieth century, however, was another Girton
student,
 L. Susan Stebbing
 (1885-1943), Professor of Philosophy at Bedford College,
London, and co-founder of the journal *Analysis*. Stebbing,
through her most successful student, Max Black, is responsible for one
of the largest "families" in Josh Dever's Philosophy
Family Tree (see Other Internet Resources).



Waithe (1995) is an important resource for research into these women,
as well as numerous minor figures; see also van der Schaar and
Schliesser (2017). On the larger question of the erasure of women from
the history of philosophy, from antiquity to the French Revolution,
Eileen O'Neill's essay, "Disappearing Ink"
(O'Neill 1998), remains indispensable.