Abstract

In 1913 Wittgenstein criticized portions of a manuscript that Russell had been working on that summer, a manuscript known today as Russell’s ‘Theory of Knowledge’ manuscript. One such criticism survives in a letter to Russell dated June of 1913. Nicholas Griffin has interpreted the criticism as a claim to the effect that Russell’s theory fails to ensure that the content of any given judgment is significant rather than nonsensical, while David Pears has interpreted it as one to the effect that the theory fails to explain how it is that any given subject is cognitively equipped to form significant judgments rather than nonsensical ones. In this paper I argue that the objection was not a criticism of Russell’s views as to the nature of those psychological facts called judgments ; rather, it was a criticism of Russell’s views as to the nature of the symbols signifying judgments