 The development of externalist conceptions of intentionality informs the reception of Russell’s legacy in contemporary philosophy of mind as well. Russell also helped to put in play a conception of the intentionality of mental states, according to which each such state is seen as involving the individual’s “acquaintance with a proposition” (counterpart to Fregean “grasping”)—which proposition is at once both what is understood in understanding expressions by which the state of mind is reported, and the content of the individual’s state of mind. Thus for many philosophers influenced by the Russellian heritage, intentional states are conceived of as attitudes towards propositions—propositional attitudes. Also importantly, Russell’s famous analysis of definite descriptions into phrases employing existential quantifiers and predicates underlay many subsequent philosophers’ rejection of any conception of intentionality (like Meinong’s) that sees in it a relation to non-existent objects. And, Russell’s treatment drew attention to cases of what he called “logically proper names” that apparently defy such analysis in descriptive terms (paradigmatically, the terms “this” and “that”), and which (he thought) thus must refer directly to objects. Reflection on such “demonstrative” and “indexical” (e.g., “I”, “here”, “now”) reference led some (Kaplan 1979; Perry 1977) to maintain that the content of our states of mind cannot always be constituted by Fregean senses but must be seen as consisting partly of public objects in the world outside our heads to which we refer, demonstratively, indexically—another source of support for an externalist view of mental content, hence, of intentionality.