(a) Why does Strawson consider person to be a primitive concept ? What implication does it have for the mind-body dualism ?…

Strawson’s Primitive Concept of Person and Mind-Body Dualism

In Individuals, P.F. Strawson formulates descriptive metaphysics, identifying the "person" as a logically primitive concept. Rejecting Cartesian substance dualism, which construes a human being as an uneasy compound of two distinct substances (res cogitans and res extensa), Strawson argues that a person is a basic particular to which two irreducible kinds of predicates are equally ascribed: Material-predicates (M-predicates like height, weight, physical location) and Personal-predicates (P-predicates like thinking, feeling, perceiving, and intending).

This formulation fundamentally alters the mind-body debate. Strawson demonstrates that Cartesian dualism commits a conceptual confusion akin to Gilbert Ryle’s "category mistake" by treating mental and physical attributes as properties of two separate subjects rather than aspects of a unified whole. Furthermore, Strawson refutes the "no-ownership" theory of the self (associated with Lichtenberg and Hume), which treats experiences as ownerless events. He shows that one cannot identify an experience without already identifying the person who undergoes it; crucially, attributing states of consciousness to oneself (first-person) logically requires the ability to identify and attribute them to others (third-person). Therefore, the concept of a person is logically prior to any derived notions of an incorporeal soul or an animated corpse. Dualism fails because abstracting consciousness away from the bodily person renders the re-attribution of P-predicates conceptually impossible.

Russell and the Problem of Definite Descriptions

Bertrand Russell considered the proposition "The present King of France is bald" problematic because it is meaningful and grammatically subject-predicate in form, yet the grammatical subject lacks an existent referent. Under classical referential semantics, meaningfulness requires a referent, leading Alexius Meinong to postulate a bloated ontology of "subsisting" non-existent entities, generating severe logical paradoxes.

Russell resolved this dilemma through his Theory of Definite Descriptions by distinguishing grammatical surface structure from logical deep structure. Definite descriptions like "The present King of France" are incomplete symbols, not proper names. Russell translates the proposition into a conjunction of three distinct claims: Existence: There is an x such that x is the present King of France (∃ x Kx). Uniqueness: For any y, if y is the present King of France, y = x (∀ y (Ky → y=x)). Predication: x is bald (Bx).

Since the existential conjunct is false, the proposition is simply false, escaping Meinong’s paradox while retaining meaning.

Critically, P.F. Strawson objected that Russell conflated a sentence with its contextual assertion. Strawson argued that referring is an act performed by a speaker, not a property of an expression. The existence of the King is a presupposition of the utterance, not an explicit assertion; when the presupposition fails, a truth-value gap arises (the statement is neither true nor false), showing that Russell’s rigid logical paraphrase distorts ordinary language use.

Wittgenstein’s Shift from Picture-Theory to Use-Theory

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, early Ludwig Wittgenstein advanced the Picture Theory of Meaning, holding that propositions are logical pictures of facts, sharing an isomorphic logical structure with reality through a strict naming-relation between simple names and atomic objects.

In the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein abandoned this atomistic framework for the Use Theory of Meaning ("the meaning of a word is its use in the language"). Key reasons for this shift include: Critique of the Augustinian Picture: The assumption that every word functions as a label for an object misrepresents the functional richness of language. Multiplicity of Language-Games: Language functions like a dynamic toolbox encompassing diverse activities—commanding, joking, praying, thanking—defying reduction to truth-conditional picturing. Family Resemblance and Rule-Following: Concepts are not bound by common essences or rigid logical definitions, but by overlapping networks of similarities. Impossibility of Private Language: Meaning cannot rely on private, subjective ostension; correct rule-following requires public, normative criteria embedded in a shared "form of life."

While scholars debate whether this represents a radical rupture or an evolving therapeutic method, it definitively decentred formal logical analysis.

Conclusion

The philosophical trajectory from Russell's formal reduction to Strawson's descriptive metaphysics and Wittgenstein's language-games marks the transition from logical atomism to ordinary language philosophy. Moving forward, a robust philosophical framework must synthesize Russell’s logical precision with Strawson’s and late Wittgenstein’s recognition that meaning, reference, and personhood are fundamentally embedded in normative, public practices.