Knowledge by Acquaintance-Individuation by Acquaintance

The purpose of this paper is to try to see what the logical gist of Bertrand Russell’s doctrine of knowledge by acquaintance is. I take the outlines of what Russell says on this topic as being familiar enough.1 What is not equally clear is how Russell’s doctrine is to be understood and evaluated. At least this was not clear to myself before I came upon some ideas in the semantics of propositional attitudes which suddenly made the logic of Russell’s views— if not their correctness — perspicuously clear. Hoping that this clarity is not an illusion, I shall try to capture and preserve it by conveying it to others.2