Bertrand Russell

I present an answer to the title question which relates Russell’s writings to a remark by C.D. Broad. Russell shared the same concerns as Broad about the new postgraduate students at the University of Cambridge but instead of voicing them, his writings left a problem.

According to what has long been the dominant school of thought in analytic meta-ontology––defended not only by W. V. O. Quine, but also by Bertrand Russell, Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, and many others––the meaning of ‘there is’ is identical to the meaning of ‘there exists.’ The most (in)famous aberration from this view is advanced by Alexius Meinong, whose ontological picture has endured extensive criticism (and borderline abuse) from several subscribers to the majority view. Meinong denies the identity of being (...) and existence. That is, he denies that ‘there is’ and ‘there exists’ are semantically equivalent, and espouses a theory according to which there are things that do not exist. Here I defend a revised version of this view, which I call “Noncontradictory Neo-Meinongianism.” Focusing primarily on van Inwagen’s arguments in “Meta-Ontology” (1998), I argue that Noncontradictory Neo-Meinongianism is, on commonsensical grounds, preferable to the meta-ontological theories of van Inwagen and Meinong. (shrink)

The goal of this note is to bring into wider attention the often neglected important work by Bertrand Russell on the foundations of physics published in the late 1920s. In particular, we emphasize how the book The Analysis of Matter can be considered the earliest systematic attempt to unify the modern quantum theory, just emerging by that time, with general relativity. More importantly, it is argued that the idea of what I call Russell space, introduced in Part III of that (...) book, is more fundamental than quantum theory, general relativity, and quantum gravity since the topological ordinal space proposed by Russell would naturally incorporate into its very fabric the emergent nature of spacetime by deploying event assemblages, and not spacetime or particles, as the fundamental building blocks of the world. (shrink)

Russell’s role in the controversy about the paradoxes of material implication is usually presented as a tale of how even the greatest minds can fall prey to basic conceptual confusions. Quine accused him of making a silly mistake in Principia Mathematica. He interpreted “if- then” as a version of “implies” and called it material implication. Quine’s accusation is that this decision involved a use-mention fallacy because the antecedent and consequent of “if-then” are used instead of being mentioned as the premise (...) and the conclusion of an implication relation. It was his opinion that the criticisms and alternatives to the material implication presented by C. I. Lewis and others would never be made in the first place if Russell simply called the Philonian construction “material conditional” instead of “material implication”. Quine’s interpretation of the topic became hugely influential if not universally accepted. This paper will present the following criticisms against this interpretation: (1) the notion of material implication does not involve a use-mention fallacy, since the components of “if-then” are mentioned and not used; (2) Quine’s belief that the components of “if-then” are used was motivated by a conditional-assertion view of conditionals that is widely controversial and faces numerous difficulties; (3) if anything, it was Quine who could be accused of fallacious reasoning: he ignored that in the assertion of a conditional is the whole proposition that is asserted and not its constituents; (4) the Philonian construction remains counter-intuitive even if it is called “material conditional”; (5) the Philonian construction is more plausible when it is interpreted as a material implication. (shrink)

Traditional descriptivism and Kripkean causalism are standardly interpreted as rival theories on a single topic. I argue that there is no such shared topic, i.e. that there is no question that they can be interpreted as giving rival answers to. The only way to make sense of the commitment to epistemic transparency that characterizes traditional descriptivism is to interpret Russell and Frege as proposing rival accounts of how to characterize a subject’s beliefs about what names refer to. My argument relies (...) on a development of the distinction between speaker’s reference and semantic reference. (shrink)

This chapter clarifies that it was the works Giuseppe Peano and his school that first led Russell to embrace symbolic logic as a tool for understanding the foundations of mathematics, not those of Frege, who undertook a similar project starting earlier on. It also discusses Russell’s reaction to Peano’s logic and its influence on his own. However, the chapter also seeks to clarify how and in what ways Frege was influential on Russell’s views regarding such topics as classes, functions, meaning (...) and denotation, etc., and summarizes the correspondence between Frege and Russell and the light it sheds on the philosophical logic of both. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars’ “myth of the given” had a momentous influence on 20th-century epistemology, putting under pressure the internalist foundationalism so prominent in early analytic philosophy. In this paper, I argue that the core themes in Sellars’ argument are anticipated in the work of the London philosopher and psychologist Beatrice Edgell (1871-1948). Indeed, in some respects Edgell’s argument against the myth of the given is even more compelling than Sellars’. The paper logically reconstructs and historically contextualizes Edgell’s line of argument, as (...) emerging out of a critique of Russell’s epistemology, with the goal of showing that the “myth of the given” effectively predated Sellars by four decades. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s epistemology had the interesting structural feature that it made propositional knowledge (“S knows that p”) asymmetrically dependent upon what Russell called knowledge by acquaintance. On this view, a subject lacking any knowledge by acquaintance would be unable to know that p for any p. This is something that virtually nobody has defended since Russell, and in this paper I initiate a sympathetic reconsideration.

This chapter explores the metaphysical views about higher-order logic held by two individuals responsible for introducing it to philosophy: Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). Frege understood a function at first as the remainder of the content of a proposition when one component was taken out or seen as replaceable by others, and later as a mapping between objects. His logic employed second-order quantifiers ranging over such functions, and he saw a deep division in nature between objects and functions. (...) Russell understood propositional functions as what is obtained when constituents of propositions are replaced by variables, but eventually denied that they were entities in their own right. Both encountered contradictions when supposing there to exist as many objects as functions, and both adopted views about the meaningfulness of higher-order discourse that were difficult to state from within their own strictures. (shrink)

From 1901 till, at least, 1919, Russell persistently maintained that there are two kinds of logic, between which he sharply discriminated: mathematical logic and philosophical logic. In this paper, we discuss the concept of philosophical logic, as used by Russell. This was only a tentative program that Russell did not clarify in detail, so our task will be to make it explicit. We shall show that there are three (-and-a-half) kinds of Russellian philosophical logic: (i) “pure logic”; (ii) philosophical logic (...) investigating the logical forms of propositions; (iii) philosophical logic exploring the logical forms of facts: in epistemology; and in the external world. In particular, Russell’s program or philosophical logic of the facts of the external world remained less than sketchily outlined. We shall discuss it in some detail in the hope that it can start a new life. (shrink)

The conception of truth-making, albeit in a rudimentary form, could already be discerned in the writings of G. E. Moore and E. Husserl in the early 1900s. A few years later it was more extensively exploited by William James. It was Wittgenstein, however, who gave the concept a precise meaning. In 1913/1914 Wittgenstein advanced a theory of possible worlds, only one of which was real. Every proposition suggests a part of a possible world which does or does not correspond to (...) parts of the real world. In the first case the proposition is true, in the second case false. Moreover, the part of the real world makes the sentence true. This part is a truth-maker, and the sentence is a truth-bearer. Surprisingly enough, Wittgenstein’s concept of truth-making had its family resemblance with William James’s conception of truth. In 1915 Wittgenstein stopped using the concept of truth-making—it was also not men-tioned in the Tractatus. Unfortunately, Russell did not notice this and in 1918 he adopted the concept of truth-making. In the 1930s, it was used by some second generation analytic philosophers (Schlick, Stebbing, and Wisdom). However, it became rather popular among analytic philosophers only in the 1980s. (shrink)

In this article, the author analyses the relationship between two prominent philosophers of the 20th century in Europe and Great Britain—Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell. According to a lot of correspondence available nowadays we can reconstruct not only the environment of thought in Cambridge in the beginning and the first half of the 20th century but to find out some very personal, subjective grounds for the changes of relationship between thinkers, misunderstandings between them. Such a kind of biographical-historical reconstruction does (...) not interfere but helps to understand better the origin, development, and criticism of philosophical ideas and theories. In this context, the personal relationship between Russell and Wittgenstein, their friendship for more than 30 years, and mutual assistance, both intellectual and business, played a big role in the development and formation of both philosophers as philosophers. Even mutual disagreements and criticism of ideas over time helped them to see the shortcomings and sometimes even complete failure of their theses and statements. First, the author describes in detail the role of Russell in Wittgenstein’s life: first meeting and inspiration to do philosophy, support in studies, assistance in the publication of Wittgenstein’s first book, support, and facilitation in returning to Cambridge in 1929, obtaining PhD degree and receiving Trinity College grant. Second, the author considers the fundamental points of philosophical disagreements between the two philosophers and Wittgenstein’s critique of Russell’s ideas. (shrink)

Susanne Langer was a student at Radcliffe College between 1916 and 1926---a highly transitional period in the history of American philosophy. Intellectual generalists such as William James, John Dewey, and Josiah Royce had dominated philosophical debates at the turn of the century but the academic landscape gradually started to shift in the years after World War I. Many scholars of the new generation adopted a more piecemeal approach to philosophy---solving clearly delineated, technical puzzles using the so-called “method of logical analysis”. (...) Especially at Harvard, the intellectual climate rapidly changed. The department hired several philosophers who had contributed to the development of symbolic logic---H. M. Sheffer, C. I. Lewis, and A. N. Whitehead---and Harvard quickly began to be viewed as a central hub for analytic philosophy in the United States. This chapter contextualizes Langer’s earliest work by reading it through the lens of this shifting academic environment. Though Harvard did not allow women to take its courses until 1943, Langer is one of the most significant fruits of this period. Her dissertation “A Logical Analysis of Meaning” and her first publications are all illustrations of the approach that came to dictate the American philosophical conversation. By exploring the increased focus on the logical-analytic method and Langer’s attempts to expand the new approach to what she later called “non-discursive” symbolisms, I situate her publications in the intellectual context of the 1920s. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was neither the first nor the last philosopher to engage in serious theorizing about propositions. But his work between 1903, when he published The Principles of Mathematics, and 1919, when his final lectures on logical atomism were published, remains among the most important on the subject. And its importance is not merely historical. Russell’s rapidly evolving treatment of propositions during this period was driven by his engagement with – and discovery of – puzzles that either continue to shape (...) contemporary theorizing about propositions, or ought to do so. Russell’s creative responses to these puzzles also laid the foundation for many later accounts (most obviously, contemporary ‘Russellian’ accounts of propositions). In this entry we provide an opinionated overview of Russell’s influential treatment of propositions, with a focus on the evolution of his views from 1903 to 1919. A growing secondary literature is dedicated to Russell’s changing views during this period, and their often complex or opaque motivations. We do not intervene overmuch in this ongoing scholarly discussion. Instead, our aim is to trace some of the central motivations for Russell’s evolving views, and highlight the extent to which these motivations remain relevant to contemporary theorizing about propositions. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Bertrand Russell depicts the relation of mysticism to three other areas of human activity: philosophy, science, and religion, and thus: its special role. In his essay Mysticism and Logic (1914), Russell defines mystical thinking as beliefs in (1) the existence of special insight, (2) the unity of all things, (3) the unreality of time, and (4) the effacement of the boundaries between good and evil. Although he considers full mysticism – as (...) a belief about the ontic structure of the world – to be erroneous – as a life attitude he attributes to it an element of wisdom that is lacking in other areas of human intellectual activity. Mysticism proves wrong also at the epistemological level, i.e. as a certain test of truth. But in its spirit of inquiry, it contains something that science also benefits from, and from which, therefore, scientific philosophy should take its cue. What additionally gives mysticism its value is the claim of impartial contemplation which gives rise to an attitude of love towards the whole world. Significantly, it was the combination of the best features of mystical thinking with scientific thinking and method which gave rise to Russell’s advocacy of scientific philosophy. In light of this, I argue that according to Russell mysticism is not an exclusively religious phenomenon, which is demonstrated, among other things, by the fact that he attributes two aspects of mysticism to the field of mathematics. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s _Principles of Mathematics_ (1903) gives rise to several interpretational challenges, especially concerning the theory of denoting concepts. Only relatively recently, for instance, has it been properly realised that Russell accepted denoting concepts that do not denote anything. Such empty denoting concepts are sometimes thought to enable Russell, whether he was aware of it or not, to avoid commitment to some of the problematic non-existent entities he seems to accept, such as the Homeric gods and chimeras. In this paper, (...) I argue first that the theory of denoting concepts in _Principles of __Mathematics_ has been generally misunderstood. According to the interpretation I defend, if a denoting concept shifts what a proposition is about, then the aggregate of the denoted terms will also be a constituent of the proposition. I then show that Russell therefore could not have avoided commitment to the Homeric gods and chimeras by appealing to empty denoting concepts. Finally, I develop what I think is the best understanding of the ontology of _Principles of __Mathematics_ by interpreting some difficult passages. (shrink)

Logicism is the view that mathematical truths are logical truths. But a logical truth is commonly thought to be one with a universally valid form. The form of “7 > 5” would appear to be the same as “4 > 6”. Yet one is a mathematical truth, and the other not a truth at all. To preserve logicism, we must maintain that the two either are different subforms of the same generic form, or that their forms are not at all (...) what they appear. The historical record shows that Russell pursued both these options, but that the struggle with the logical paradoxes pushed him away from the first kind of response and toward the second. An object cannot itself have a kind of inner logical complexity that makes a proposition have a different logical form merely in virtue of being about it, nor can their representatives in logical forms be single things different for different forms, at least not without postulating too many such objects and thereby creating Cantorian diagonal paradoxes. There are only apparent objects which are actually fragments of logical forms, different in different cases. (shrink)

The Russell-Myhill paradox puts pressure on the Russellian structured view of propositions by showing that it conflicts with certain prima facie attractive ontological and logical principles. I describe several versions of RMP and argue that structurists can appeal to natural assumptions about metaphysical grounding to provide independent reasons for rejecting the ontological principles used in these paradoxes. It remains a task for future work to extend this grounding-based approach to all variants of RMP.

By means of a reductio argument, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus calls into question the very idea that we can represent logical form. My paper addresses three interrelated questions: first, what conception of logical form is at issue in this argument? Second, whose conception of logic is this argument intended to undermine? And third, what could count as an adequate response to it? I show that the argument construes logical form as the universal, underlying correlation of any representation and the reality it represents. (...) I further show that the argument seeks to undermine core commitments of Frege’s and Russell’s. But the reductio, as I read it, is not intended to establish the falsity of any of their specific assumptions. Rather, its aim is to make manifest the indeterminacies that underlie the language in which these assumptions are framed, and establish the need for a transformation of that language. So understood, Wittgenstein’s argument exemplifies his idea that philosophy is not a theory, but an activity of elucidation. The interpretation I propose bears on one of the central debates in the literature, namely how we should understand Wittgenstein’s contention that his elucidations succeed despite being nonsensical. (shrink)

In che cosa crede chi pratica la meditazione buddhista? Dare una risposta univoca e coerente è assai difficile; il Buddhismo infatti si concretizza in una molteplicità di scuole e dottrine caratterizzate da complesse logiche e metafisiche. Ci sono tuttavia delle indicazioni minimali che fungono da denominator comune per chi si accosta alla meditazione. Esse riguardano soprattutto l’assenza di punti di vista determinati, l’esperienza del tempo e la relazione di dipendenza reciproca di ogni cosa con ogni altra. Utilizzando gli strumenti della (...) filosofia analitica, questo libro propone una interpretazione dei princìpi basilari che guidano la meditazione buddhista, facendo leva sulle potenzialità del senso comune, inteso non semplicemente come l’opinione generica della maggioranza – troppo spesso già infarcita di presupposti metafisici discutibili - bensì come insieme di credenze che tutti noi possediamo, ma di cui non sempre siamo consapevoli. (shrink)

During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the French philosopher Henri Bergson became an international celebrity, profoundly influencing contemporary intellectual and artistic currents. While Bergsonism was fashionable, L. Susan Stebbing, Bertrand Russell, Moritz Schlick, and Rudolf Carnap launched different critical attacks against some of Bergson’s views. This book examines this series of critical responses to Bergsonism early in the history of analytic philosophy. Analytic criticisms of Bergsonism were influenced by William James, who saw Bergson as an ‘anti-intellectualist’ ally of (...) American Pragmatism, and Max Scheler, who saw him as a prophet of Lebensphilosophie. Some of the main analytic objections to Bergson are answered in the work of Karin Costelloe-Stephen. Analytic anti-Bergsonism accompanied the earlier refutations of idealism by Russell and Moore, and later influenced the Vienna Circle’s critique of metaphysics. It eventually contributed to the formation of the view that ‘analytic’ philosophy is divided from its ‘continental’ counterpart. (shrink)

Exposed in 1948, within his masterpiece on the scope and limits of human knowledge, the epistemological tenets that Bertrand Russell regarded as fundamental elements in the construction of scientific knowledge, are still worthy of a detailed discussion today. Given the excellence of the author, it will not be surprising to see that Russell's gnoseologic postulates, even for the present scientific view, address some of the most controversial questions still to be solved in the theory of knowledge.

Conceptual engineers have made hay over the differences of their metaphilosophy from those of conceptual analysts. In this article, I argue that the differences are not as great as conceptual engineers have, perhaps rhetorically, made them seem. That is, conceptual analysts asking ‘What is X?’ questions can do much the same work that conceptual engineers can do with ‘What is X for?’ questions, at least if conceptual analysts self-understand their activity as a revisionary enterprise. I show this with a study (...) of Russell's metaphilosophy, which was just such a revisionary conception of conceptual analysis. (shrink)

In Tractatus 5.132 Wittgenstein argues that inferential justification depends solely on the understanding of the premises and conclusion, and is not mediated by any further act. On this basis he argues that Frege’s and Russell’s rules of inference are “senseless” and “superfluous”. This line of argument is puzzling, since it is unclear that there could be any viable account of inference according to which no such mediation takes place. I show that Wittgenstein’s rejection of rules of inference can be motivated (...) by taking account of his holistic construal of the relation between inference and understanding. (shrink)

How can we think or say what is not? If we equate what-is-not with nothing, then a thought of nothing is no thought at all; if we don’t, we are condemned to admit that what-is-not is, seemingly incurring in self-refutation. In this paper, I address this paradox through the lenses of Parmenides, Plato, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein.

In The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell presents a justification of induction based on a principle he refers to as “the principle of induction”. Owing to the ambiguity of the notion of probability, the principle of induction may be interpreted in two different ways. If interpreted in terms of the subjective interpretation of probability, the principle of induction may be known a priori to be true. But it is unclear how this should give us any confidence in our use of (...) induction, since induction is applied to the external world outside our minds. If the principle is interpreted in light of the objective interpretation of induction, it cannot be known to be true a priori, since it applies to frequencies that occur in the world outside the mind, and these cannot be known without recourse to experience. Russell’s principle of induction therefore fails to provide a satisfactory justification of induction. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je propose de défendre le monisme russellien, une théorie posant l’existence de quiddités phénoménologiques au fondement de la réalité. Je propose en particulier de montrer que le monisme russellien échappe aux objections qui en font une version inadéquate du physicalisme. Pour ce faire, j’identifie les trois raisons qui motivent le physicalisme, c’est-à-dire la parcimonie, le naturalisme et l’argument de la clôture causale, et j’argumente qu’il faut considérer que le monisme russellien satisfait ces trois motivations. Ainsi, si j’ai (...) raison, le monisme russellien devrait être considéré comme imperméable aux critiques qui voient en lui une forme problématique de physicalisme. (shrink)

I investigate why Frege rejected the theory of types, as Russell presented it to him in their correspondence. Frege claims that it commits one to violations of the law of excluded middle, but this complaint seems to rest on a dogmatic refusal to take Russell’s proposal seriously on its own terms. What is at stake is not so much the truth of a law of logic, but the structure of the hierarchy of the logical categories, something Frege seems to neglect. (...) To come to a better understanding of Frege’s response, I proceed to investigate his conception of the nature of the logical categories, and how it differs from Russell’s. I argue that, for Frege, our grasp of the logical categories cannot be severed from our grasp of the Begriffsschrift notation itself. Russell, on the other hand, attaches no such importance to notation. From Frege’s point of view, Russell has not succeeded in presenting an alternative conception of the logical hierarchy, since such a conception must go in tandem with the development of a notation. Moreover, Frege has good reasons to think that Russell’s proposal does not admit of a suitable notation. (shrink)

The concepts of work, labour, leisure, and play have been widely debated by the social sciences. By contrast, most canonical figures in the history of analytic philosophy have written very little, if anything, on the topic. One of the few exceptional discussions of the concept of labour and its history can be found in Bertrand Russell’s popular work from the 1930s, and more specifically his well-known essay ‘In Praise of Idleness’. In the essay, Russell attempts a spirited defence of a (...) specific, qualified proposal for eventual reform: the universal limitation of the working day to four hours. Looming in the background of this proposal is a bolder thesis, namely the view that social progress involves the eventual minimisation (if not the complete elimination) of labour in the sphere of human activity. It is this bolder view that, as I shall show in what follows, Russell at least partly shares with another philosopher whose work shaped the history of analytic philosophy, Moritz Schlick. While Russell's work on the future of leisure and labour was written for a popular audience and widely read, Schlick’s early writings on work and play have not received adequate scholarly attention. Aside from some differences in their scope and details, there are some striking parallels between Russell’s and Schlick’s overall views on the future of work and play. (shrink)

This chapter examines Bertrand Russell’s various confrontations with Bergson’s work. Russell’s meetings with Bergson during 1911 would be followed in 1912 by the publication of Russell’s earliest polemical pieces. His 1912 review of Bergson’s Laughter ridicules the effort to develop a philosophical account of humour on the basis of some formula. In his 1912 “The Philosophy of Bergson”, Russell develops a series of objections against Bergson’s accounts of number, space, and duration. Bergson’s position is defended against Russell’s onslaught by H. (...) W. Carr (1913) and Karin Costelloe-Stephen (1914), though Russell only replies to the former. By contrast to Bergson’s silence in the face of Russell’s criticisms, Russell would continue responding to Bergson’s views in multiple works during the 1910s and 1920s. As this chapter shows, Russell not only develops further objections against specific theses upheld by Bergson, but also comments upon the political implications of Bergson’s philosophy, as well as its positioning within the history of French philosophy. (shrink)

Desires are contentful mental states. But what determines the content of a desire? Two different classic answers were proposed by Russell and by Wittgenstein, starting in the 1910s. Russell proposed a behaviorist account according to which the content of the desire is fixed by the type of state that puts an end to the relevant kind of behavior which was triggered by some initial discomfort. The desire’s content consists in its “satisfaction conditions”. Wittgenstein criticized such an account for neglecting the (...) crucial point that the relation between a desire and its content is a conceptual, internal one, not an external contingent one. Desires specify their own contents, their “fulfillment conditions”. Even though there is a lot to say in favor of Wittgenstein’s criticism, this paper argues that Russell pointed at an important aspect of desires which plays a crucial role for accounts of self-knowledge of one’s own desires. It turns out that fulfillment conditions and satisfaction conditions are tied together in rational self-knowledge of one’s own desires. In this sense, the views of Russell and Wittgenstein can be combined in a fruitful way. (shrink)

This article investigates religious ideals persistent in the datafication of information society. Its nodal point is Thomas Bayes, after whom Laplace names the primal probability algorithm. It reconsiders their mathematical innovations with Laplace's providential deism and Bayes' singular theological treatise. Conceptions of divine justice one finds among probability theorists play no small part in the algorithmic data-mining and microtargeting of Cambridge Analytica. Theological traces within mathematical computation are emphasized as the vantage over large numbers shifts to weights beyond enumeration in (...) probability theory. Collateral secularizations of predestination and theodicy emerge as probability optimizes into Bayesian prediction and machine learning. The paper revisits the semiotics and theism of Peirce and a given beyond the probable in Whitehead to recontextualize the critiques of providence by Agamben and Foucault. It reconsiders datafication problems alongside Nietzschean valuations. Religiosity likely remains encoded within the very algorithms presumed purified by technoscientific secularity or mathematical dispassion. (shrink)

I argue that the reception of Hegel in the sub-field of history and philosophy of science has been in part impeded by a misunderstanding of his mature metaphilosophical views. I take Alan Richardson’s influential account of the rise of scientific philosophy as an illustration of such misunderstanding, I argue that the mature Hegel’s metaphilosophical views place him much closer to the philosophers who are commonly taken as paradigms of scientific philosophy than it is commonly thought. Hegel is commonly presented as (...) someone who conceived of philosophy as a science that relied on the solitary genius of the individual thinker, and as a science whose propositions could not and should not be made accessible to “the common people”. Against this view, I argue that Hegel in fact thought that philosophy was a thoroughly anti-individualistic activity, and that he emphasized the importance of the intersubjective accessibility of philosophical discourse. I argue that when we carefully reconstruct Hegel’s reasons for his break with Schelling, and if we pay close attention to his explicit metaphilosophical pronouncements, we can see that he in fact adhered to what I call a “proto-modernist” conception of philosophy as a science. I conclude by pointing out how the mischaracterization of Hegel has served to obscure the existence of a strand of scientific philosophy that emerged by way of an immanent critique of Hegel, namely Marxist philosophy. (shrink)

Arnošt Kolman (1892–1979) was a Czech mathematician, philosopher and Communist official. In this paper, we would like to look at Kolman’s arguments against logical positivism which revolve around the notion of the fetishization of mathematics. Kolman derives his notion of fetishism from Marx’s conception of commodity fetishism. Kolman is aiming to show the fact that an entity (system, structure, logical construction) acquires besides its real existence another formal existence. Fetishism means the fantastic detachment of the physical characteristics of real things (...) or phenomena from these things. We identify Kolman’s two main arguments against logical positivism. In the first argument, Kolman applied Lenin’s arguments against Mach’s empiricism-criticism onto Russell’s neutral monism, i.e. mathematical fetishism is internally related to political conservativism. Kolman’s second main argument is that logical and mathematical fetishes are epistemologically deprived of any historical and dynamic dimension. In the final parts of our paper we place Kolman’s thinking into the context of his time, and furthermore we identify some tenets of mathematical fetishism appearing in Alain Badiou’s mathematical ontology today. (shrink)

The conventional wisdom has it that between 1905 and 1919 Russell was critical to pragmatism. In particular, in two essays written in 1908–9, he sharply attacked the pragmatist theory of truth, emphasizing that truth is not relative to human practice. In fact, however, Russell was much more indebted to the pragmatists, in particular to William James, as usually believed. For example, he borrowed from James two key concepts of his new epistemology: sense-data, and the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and (...) knowledge by description. Reasonable explanation of this is that, historically, Russell’s logical realism and James’s pragmatism have the same roots—the German philosopher Rudolph Hermann Lotze (1817–1881). In this paper we are going to explore the fact that in 1905, under Lotze’s influence, Russell married propositions with beliefs. A few years later this step also made Russell prone to embrace the theory of truth-making that has its roots in James. In contrast to the concept of sense-data and to the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, however, the understanding that we believe propositions—and not, for example, simply grasp them—was in tension with Russell’s Principle of Extensionality, according to which propositions can be logically connected with other propositions only as truth-functions. The point is that when we judge a mind-relation (for example, a relation of belief) to a proposition, the latter cannot be determined as true or false. The two most talented pupils of Russell, Wittgenstein and Ramsey, severely criticized the central place propositional attitudes play in Russell’s logic. Wittgenstein analyzed “A believes that p” to “ ‘p’ says p” (5.542). Ramsey criticized Russell’s beliefs in propositions the other way round: He stressed that belief is an ambiguous term that can be interpreted for the better in the sense of pragmatism. Prima facie surprisingly, he maintained that his “pragmatism is derived from Mr Russell.” (1927: 51). (shrink)

Bis heute wird Russells Philosophie nicht selten der Vorwurf gemacht, es fehle ihr an Kohärenz und Zusammenhang. Russell wird als ein Autor charakterisiert, der alle paar Jahre eine neue alternative Philosophie vorgeschlagen habe. In der vorliegenden Arbeit soll dagegen argumentiert werden, daß diese These auf einer zu oberflächlichen Ein–schätzung von Russells Denken beruht. Seine Philosophie verfügte sehr wohl über eine Einheit, die durch ihre charakteristische einheitsstiftende Methode vermittelt wurde. Dies war die Methode der logischen Analyse, die sich als Invariante in (...) allen Phasen seines Denkens durchhielt. Die logische Analyse erlaubte es, die in gegebenen Sach–verhalten enthaltenen Möglichkeiten zu explizieren. Philosophie wurde damit für Russell zu einer “Möglichkeitswissenschaft”. (shrink)

The notion of logical construction was used by Bertrand Russell in the early 20th century, which originally comes from A. N. Whitehead. Russell said that matter as a mind-independent thing can only be known by description. He also argued that matter is a logical construction of sense-data. However, this leads to an incoherent view of the direct or indirect connection between a mind and the external world. The problem examining is whether a collapsing house is a logical construction of the (...) sense-data of rumbling sounds and collapsing shapes. Using Russell's writings between 1911 and 1918, I will analyze how Russell characterized logical constructions. Finally, I will show Russell’s view about the relation of logical constructions to matter and sense-data. A careful interpretation of Russell's thoughts shows that the contents of the statements of the physical world are not constructions being equivalent to the contents of the sense-datum statements. (shrink)

Several interesting themes emerge from G. E. Moore’s previously unpub­lished review of _The Principles of Mathematics_. These include a worry concerning whether mathematical notions are identical to purely logical ones, even if coextensive logical ones exist. Another involves a conception of infinity based on endless series neglected in the Principles but arguably involved in Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Moore also questions the scope of Russell’s notion of material implication, and other aspects of Russell’s claim that mathematics reduces (...) to logic. (shrink)

This brief introduction is for people who want to know the leading approaches to philosophy in the twentieth century in English-speaking countries but do not have much time to study them. The book contains texts of lectures and quizzes with explained answers. By the end of this book, you will understand what analysis is and how to practice it in a philosophical way. Moreover, you will be able to talk confidently about some of the great ideas of such philosophers as (...) L. Wittgenstein, B. Russell, G. E. Moore, A. Ayer, J. Austin, W. V. O. Quine, P. F. Strawson, and more. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell’s conception of philosophy evolved dramatically in 1911 — the year he fell in love with Lady Ottoline Morrell. For many years Russell had been an ardent advocate of the view that philosophers ought to look for truths that are certain. The co-author of Principia Mathematica altered his commitment to certainty in philosophy in 1911. An analysis of his published views and correspondence from this time strongly suggests that the radical transformation was induced by an epiphany brought about by (...) his emotional entanglement with his lover. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to analyze the concept of acquaintance in the philosophy of Bertrand Russell. First, Russell’s epistemological program and works are presented in a general manner. Then, the concept of acquaintance is defined and characterized, as well as the so-called principle of acquaintance. After that, acquaintance is placed in Russell’s epistemology as the core of his theory of knowledge. Finally, I will make some critical remarks concerning the role of acquaintance in Russell’s epistemological framework.

There are some necessary conditions on causal relations that seem to be so trivial that they do not merit further inquiry. Many philosophers assume that the requirement that there could be no temporal gaps between causes and their effects is such a condition. Bertrand Russell disagrees. In this paper, an in-depth discussion of Russell’s argument against this necessary condition is the centerpiece of an analysis of what is at stake when one accepts or denies that there can be temporal gaps (...) between causes and effects. It is argued that whether one accepts or denies this condition, one is implicated in taking on substantial and wide-ranging philosophical positions. Therefore, it is not a trivial necessary condition of causal relations and it merits further inquiry. (shrink)

I characterize and argue against the standard interpretation of logical atomism. The argument against this reading is historical: the standard interpretation of logical atomism (1) fails to explain how the view is inspired by nineteenth-century developments in mathematics, (2) fails to explain how logic is central to logical atomism, and (3) fails to explain how logical atomism is a revolutionary and new "scientific philosophy." In short, the standard interpretation is a bad history of logical atomism. A novel interpretation of the (...) view that repairs these difficulties is sketched in the concluding section. (shrink)

This is a short reminder that Bertrand Russell suggested a number of a priori postulates which are to serve as foundation for an empiricist philsophy.

The article gives a short characterization of Russell's solution to Hume's problem: empirical postulates.

In 'On the nature of truth and falsehood' Russell offers both a multiple relation theory of judgment and a correspondence theory of truth. It has been a prevailing understanding of the Tractatus that Wittgenstein rejects Russell’s multiple relation idea but endorses the correspondence theory. Ramsey took the opposite view. In his 'Facts and Propositions', Ramsey endorses Russell’s multiple relation idea, rejects the correspondence theory, and then asserts that these moves are both due to Wittgenstein. This chapter will argue that Ramsey’s (...) ascriptions are both correct. The extent of the agreement between Ramsey and Wittgenstein will be argued, moreover, to count definitively against standard understandings of Ramsey as a redundancy theorist of truth. Wittgenstein is no correspondence theorist and Ramsey is no redundancy theorist; rather, both philosophers offer identity theories of truth. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was one of the best-known proponents of logicism: the theory that mathematics reduces to, or is an extension of, logic. Russell argued for this thesis in his 1903 The Principles of Mathematics and attempted to demonstrate it formally in Principia Mathematica (PM 1910–1913; with A. N. Whitehead). Russell later described his work as a further “regressive” step in understanding the foundations of mathematics made possible by the late 19th century “arithmetization” of mathematics and Frege’s logical definitions of arithmetical (...) concepts. The logical system of PM sought to improve on earlier attempts by solving the contradictions found in, e.g., Frege’s system, by employing a theory of types. In this article, I also consider and critically evaluate the most common objections to Russell’s logicism, including the claim that it is undermined by Gödel’s incompleteness results, and Putnam's charge of “if-thenism”. I suggest that if we are willing to accept a slightly revisionist account of what counts as a mathematical truth, these criticisms do not obviously refute Russell’s claim to have established that mathematical truths generally are a species of logical truth. (shrink)

Russell is often taken as a forerunner of the Quinean position that “to be is to be the value of a bound variable”, whereupon the ontological commitment of a theory is given by what it quantifies over. Among other reasons, Russell was among the first to suggest that all existence statements should be analyzed by means of existential quantification. That there was more to Russell’s metaphysics than what existential quantifications come out as true is obvious in the earlier period where (...) Russell still made a distinction between existence and being/subsistence. But even the later Russell, including that of the Logical Atomism lectures period, would not have understood ontological questions to be first and foremost questions of quantification. He would take fundamentality to be important too, which explains in part his assertions to the effect the the values of individual variables have a reality not attributable to values of higher-order variables, even ineliminable higher-order variables. (shrink)