more on this theme | more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Russell's analysis of sentences containing definite descriptions has as an immediate consequence the doctrine that molecular sentences containing definite descriptions are syntactically ambiguous as regards the scope of the definite description.
Gist of Idea
Russell's analysis means molecular sentences are ambiguous over the scope of the description
Source
comment on Bertrand Russell (On Denoting [1905]) by David Kaplan - How to Russell a Frege-Church I
Book Ref
'The Possible and the Actual', ed/tr. Loux,Michael J. [Cornell 1979], p.211
A Reaction
Presumably this is a virtue of Russell's account, and an advert for analytic philosophy, because it reveals an ambiguity which was there all the time.