Jin Yuelin (1895?1984), a Chinese logician and philosopher, is greatly influenced by Hume's and Russell's philosophies. How should we respond to Hume's problem of induction? This is an important clue to understand Jin's whole philosophical career. The first section of this paper gives a brief historical review of Russell and Jin. The second section outlines Hume's skeptical arguments against causality and induction. The third section expounds Russell's justification of induction by discussing his views on Hume's skepticism, causality, principle of induction, (...) and empirical postulates. The fourth section clarifies Jin's justification of induction by discussing his critique of Hume's epistemology and his arguments for the reliability of causality and the eternal truth and apriority of the principle of induction. The final section compares Jin's justification of induction with Russell's and concludes that there are similarities and differences between their projects and that both their attempts fail. This paper takes the similar responses to the problem of induction by Jin and Russell to demonstrate the communication that there has been between Chinese philosophers and the Western ones. (shrink)

I use van Heijenoort’s published writings and manuscript materials to provide a comprehensive overview of his conception of modern logic as a first-order functional calculus and of the historical developments which led to this conception of mathematical logic, its defining characteristics, and in particular to provide an integral account, from his most important publications as well as his unpublished notes and scattered shorter historico-philosophical articles, of how and why the mathematical logic, whose he traced to Frege and the culmination of (...) its formative period in the incompleteness results of Gödel, became modern logic, as distinct from the traditional logic of Aristotle, and why and how the logistic tradition that led from Frege through Russell, rather than the algebraic tradition that led from De Morgan and Boole through Peirce and Schröder, came, in his view, to define modern logic. (shrink)

This article examines the distinction that Russell drew between his work as a philosopher and his work as a journalist. It explains why, when warning against the threat posed by a nuclear arms race, Russell thought it better to write as a journalist (speaking on behalf of common sense) rather than as a philosopher. It is argued that to put aside philosophy in favour of common sense is, in this instance, a mistake.

In a review of Russell’s Principles from 1904, Edwin B. Wilson pays great attention to Peano’s work and that of his collaborators. His purpose was to make this work known in the USA where it “unfortunately is very little known and still less appreciated”. Wilson expands Russell’s well-known acknowledgement of Peano’s influence on his own development, seeing in Peano’s logic more than a new “mathematical tool”, describing Peano as a kind of proto-logicist, and defending him from Poincaré’s criticisms. Especially in (...) geometry, he vindicates several priority issues for Peano’s school with respect to Hilbert in the philosophy of the axiomatic method. (shrink)

This paper describes the materials in the Russell Archives relevant to Russell's work on logic and the foundations of mathematics, and suggests the kinds of information that may and may not be drawn about the historical development of his ideas. By way of illustration, a couple of episodes are described. The first concerns a logical system closely related to his theory of denoting, which preceeds the system used in Principia mathematics, while the second describes a delay in publishing the second (...) volume of that work due to the discovery by Whitehead of a conceptual error. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis dissertation is to propose a novel position in the debate on scientific realism, modal empiricism, and to show its fruitfulness when it comes to interpreting the cognitive content of scientific theories. Modal empiricism is an empiricist position, according to which the aim of science is to produce empirically adequate theories rather than true theories. However, it suggests adopting a broader comprehension of experience than traditional versions of empiricism, through a commitment to natural modalities. Following modal (...) empiricism, there are possibilities in nature, and constraints on what is possible, and a theory is empirically adequate if it correctly delimits the range of possible experiences. The position rests on a situated and pragmatic conception of natural modalities and of empirical confrontation. We claim that it can do justice to the empirical success of science, while not falling prey to the problem of theory change that undermines scientific realism. We explain how constraints of necessity on phenomena can be known by induction, and how this modal epistemology fits with scientific practice. Finally, we claim that a commitment to natural modalities allows for a rich interpretation of the cognitive content of theories. Modal empiricism could renew some metaphysical debates within a pragmatist framework, by tying them to experience and not being constrained by realist prejudices. -/- L'objet de cette thèse est de proposer une position originale dans le débat sur le réalisme scientifique, l'empirisme modal, et d'en démontrer la fructuosité quand il s'agit de tirer des enseignements du contenu cognitif des théories scientifiques. L'empirisme modal est une position empiriste, suivant laquelle le but de la science n'est pas de produire des théories vraies, mais des théories empiriquement adéquate. Cependant, il propose d'adopter un cadre plus large que les versions traditionnelles d'empirisme pour penser l'expérience, en incorporant un engagement envers les modalités naturelles, ou l'idée qu'il y a du possible dans la nature, et des contraintes sur les possibles. Nos théories sont empiriquement adéquates si elles délimitent correctement l'étendue des expériences possibles. Cette position s'appuie sur une conception située et pragmatique des modalités naturelles et de la confrontation empirique. Nous prétendons qu'elle est à même de rendre justice au succès empirique des sciences, sans pour autant faire face au problème du changement théorique qui mine le réalisme scientifique. Nous expliquons comment les contraintes de nécessité sur les phénomènes peuvent être connues à l'issue d'une induction, et en quoi cette façon de voir s'accorde avec la pratique scientifique. Enfin, nous affirmons qu'un engagement envers les modalités naturelles offre une richesse interprétative à même de renouveler, dans un cadre pragmatiste, plus ouvert que le réalisme, certaines questions métaphysiques tout en les ramenant à l'expérience . (shrink)