A note on Linsky's \textit{Referring} (Q2544375)

In his book ``Referring'' [New York: Humanities Press (1967)], \textit{Leonard Linsky} claims that one of Russell's arguments for the claim that definite descriptions are not names is circular. Russell claims that (1) ``Scott is the author of `Waverly' '' does not have the same meaning as (2) ``Scott is Scott''. Thus ``the author of `Waverly' '', a definite description, cannot be a name like ``Scott''. Linsky claims that the argument is circular because we couldn't know that (1) and (2) have different meanings unless we know that ``the author of `Waverly' '' is not a name to begin with. I claim that Russell, and we, know that (1) and (2) mean different things without assuming that definite descriptions are not names.