Do these expressions denote?

Question

Say I have a sentence like:

'If I had a dog, I would walk it'

What is the role of 'a dog' and 'it', from reading about indefinite descriptions, the fact that I am discussing in general implies there is no particular dog, suggesting there is no denotation to 'a dog' in this sentence and context. However, what would be the denotation of 'it'?

If 'a dog' has no denotation then 'it' cannot refer to the same thing as 'a dog'.

Is 'a dog' actually denoting a 'hyptothetical' dog? I understand Russell did not want to include 'non-existent' objects in his ontology.

In the same way, If I have, an example like 'I need a man' is this sentence have 'a man' denoting in this sentence?

How about 'He met the current King of France and liked him' can 'The current king of france' not denote? In which case how can we use 'him' as a denoting expression later? Of course there is no 'Current King of France' so this must not denote.

Can we 'refer' but not denote?

Answer 1

There is actually very strong disagreement in the philosophical literature how anaphoric pronouns like the "it" in your first if-clause should be interpreted. The currently most favoured theory is that such pronouns are disguised definite descriptions (this is called the E-type theory of anaphora). According to that theory, "If I had a dog, I would walk it" is semantically equivalent to "If I had a dog, I would walk the dog."

Now, in order to find out whether the "it" has a denotation, we need a theory of definite descriptions. Frege believed that definite descriptions are singular terms, whereas Russell famously believed that they are disguised quantifiers who assert uniqueness. Currently the Russell view is more popular. If we accept both the E-type theory and the Russellian view, then the answer to your question is: The "it" has no denotation at all.

Answer 2

In the sentence 'If I had a dog, I would walk it', 'a dog' is an indefinite description, meaning it refers to any dog that might fit the description. It does not denote a specific dog, because the sentence is talking about a hypothetical situation in which the speaker does not actually have a dog. The pronoun 'it' is used to refer back to the noun 'dog', which is the antecedent of 'it'. In this case, 'it' does not denote a specific dog either, because the sentence is talking about a hypothetical situation. In the sentence 'I need a man', 'a man' is also an indefinite description, referring to any man who might fit the description. Like in the previous example, it does not denote a specific man. In the sentence 'He met the current King of France and liked him', 'the current King of France' is a definite description, meaning it refers to a specific person who fits the description. However, there is no actual current King of France, so the description does not denote anyone. As a result, the pronoun 'him' also does not denote anyone, because it is used to refer back to the noun phrase 'the current King of France', which does not denote anyone. It is possible to refer to something without denoting it. For example, a person might say 'I saw the man who won the Nobel Prize for Physics last year' even if they do not know the name of the person who won the prize. In this case, the speaker is referring to the person who won the prize, but they are not denoting the person because they do not know who it is.