Descripciones definidas, composicionalidad y forma lógica

One hundred years after the publication of “On Denoting” few works have been published that deal with the relation between the Theory of Definite Descriptions, which Bertrand Russell introduced in this essay, and the Principle of Compositionality. This is the field to be explored in this paper with the aim of bringing out what reasons one could resort  in fact, what reasons led Russell  to constraint the application of such a principle. Seen to this light, the acceptance of the Principle of
Compositionality emerges as a decision that has to keep the right balance with further kinds of desiderata, i.e. logical, epistemological and metaphysical. To give support to this view, three theories of definite descriptions will be analysed and compared: two of them, those put forward by Russell and Peter Strawson, are among analytic philosophy’s classic contributions. The third and more recent one is Stephen Neale’s.