Professor Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (1919-2006)

Did I mention that Strawson died last week?
Russel answered his ‘On Referring’ somewhat like this (from memory): If mr. Strawson (god forbid) accused his chair-woman for stealing from the funds and she indignantly replied "I ain’t never done no one no harm", and we interpreted this according to Strawson, we would believe the woman acknowledged that there existed at least one point in time where she was injuring the entire human race.

Elegant. Strawson attacked Russel on wrong grounds. That is not to say that Strawson wasn’t an intelligent man. The example above is just the only thing I can remember at the moment.

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