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)

of (from British Columbia Philosophy Graduate Conference) This paper attempts to argue for an interpretation of Peter Strawson�s account of moral responsibility that successfully eliminates the threat of determinism. The goal is to capture the spirit of Strawson�s view and elucidate that spirit. I do this by emphasizing an aspect of Strawson�s account that others, like Paul Russell, may find insignificant, and then I demonstrate how this aspect is meant to quash the threat of determinism. Specifically, I claim that Strawson (...) wishes us to recognize that certain interpersonal relationships are explanatorily prior to the capacities necessary for morally responsible agency, and this explanatory relationship implies that (at least in our world) the capacities necessary for morally responsible agency could not include freedom from determinism. (shrink)

Overview -/- Most philosophical explorations of responsibility discuss the topic solely in terms of metaphysics and the "free will" problem. By contrast, these essays by leading philosophers view responsibility from a variety of perspectives—metaphysics, ethics, action theory, and the philosophy of law. After a broad, framing introduction by the volume's editors, the contributors consider such subjects as responsibility as it relates to the "free will" problem; the relation between responsibility and knowledge or ignorance; the relation between causal and moral responsibility; (...) the difference, if any, between responsibility for actions and responsibility for omissions; the metaphysical requirements for making sense of "collective" responsibility; and the relation between moral and legal responsibility. (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)

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)

American philosophical realism developed in two forms: “new” and “critical” realism. While the new realists sought to ‘emancipate’ ontology from epistemology and defended a direct theory of perception, the critical realists promoted a representationalist account of perception and thus argued for an epistemological dualism. Bertrand Russell’s early philosophical writings figured prominently in both of these American realist camps. However, while the new realists quite enthusiastically embraced the Russellian analytic style of reasoning (and Russell himself appreciated the American new realists as (...) anti-idealist allies), the critical realists were significantly more reserved toward Russell’s point of view. In the present paper, I identify the reasons for this difference in reception. In particular, I will show that the critical realists’ reservations pertained primarily to a more traditionalist—‘continental’—account of philosophy, whereas the neo-realists proved instrumental in setting the stage for later full-blown analytic philosophy in the United States. (shrink)

In this article I describe the contributions made by Samuel Alexander to the issue of relations which so vexed Bertrand Russell and F. H. Bradley in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I provide a novel understanding of Alexander’s position concerning relations and describe the way in which he viewed his position as superior to those of Bradley and Russell. I offer, therefore, a more complete picture of a philosophical debate central to the relevant period, through the introduction of (...) a third character whose views have been largely omitted from available narratives. (shrink)

In this article I examine the dispute between F. H. Bradley and Bertrand Russell concerning the reality of relations. I show that Bradley’s objections to Russell’s view, that there are such things as relations which serve to effect the unity of complex items, were rooted in a methodological approach which Russell did not share. On Bradley’s view, one must be able to offer reductive analyses of the items one postulates in order that commitment to those items be justified. I argue (...) that Russell expressly rejected this methodological principle of Bradley’s, and instead adopted the view that one may justifiably postulate entities if doing so aids in the illumination of mathematical truths. I show that the postulation of relations does, on Russell’s view, serve to provide that illumination. Russell held that the truths of mathematics constitute fixed data, and that philosophical positions may be judged as successful according to the extent that they possess explanatory power with respect to this data. I argue that Bradley’s and Russell’s exchanges in print, as well as in private correspondence, reflect Russell’s awareness of a fundamental difference in methodological approach. I conclude that Russell elected not to answer Bradley’s objections on their own terms, but rather rejected the methodological assumptions from which those objections emerged. (shrink)

This paper presents Jean Nicod (1893–1924) as a mediator in the dispute between Bergson and Russell. In La géométrie dans le monde sensible (1924), Nicod extensively discusses Bergson’s epistemology focusing on those aspects that Russell critically discusses in The Philosophy of Henri Bergson (1912) and Our Knowledge of the External World (1914). His aim is to establish a middle ground between synthesis and analysis: to show how most of the disagreements between Bergson and Russell can be resolved without compromising the (...) central principles of their thought. Throughout this paper, I explicate Nicod’s exposition of two points of contention between Bergson and Russell: (1) the nature of sense-data and analysis, and (2) the relation between geometry and the sensible world. I will also show that his attempt to reconcile synthesis and analysis results in an innovative account of representation inspired by an early reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In the conclusion, I reflect on how Nicod’s proficiency to engage with two increasingly diverging philosophical programmes, namely early analytic philosophy and the French epistemological tradition, could have affected the development of early twentieth-century philosophy. (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)

The purpose of this chapter is to argue that the work of Susan Stebbing, an analytic philosopher and proponent of both common sense philosophy and logicism at the time of their emergence in English scholarship, provides a better model for an analysis of continental thought than the work of her contemporary, Bertrand Russell. The comparison is important as it shows why Stebbing’s work should be chosen over Russell’s if the goal is to find a quintessential analytic approach to continental thought (...) from an influential and early figure of analytic philosophy whose approach also engages and does justice to the continental thought it addresses. To do so the article demonstrates why the methods Stebbing utilised when analysing philosophy from traditions different from her own were superior to Russell’s tactics for the same purposes. Their respective interpretations of the philosophy of Henri Bergson are compared to give a concrete example of the results of their respective methods of understanding. The article begins with a general account of what makes Stebbing’s approach particularly effective. This includes the premises she adopts and her tactics of analysis. It then gives a more elaborate account of these vis-à-vis her study of Bergson’s philosophy. Following is an explanation of Russell’s tendencies when analysing philosophical frameworks different to his own, including Bergson’s. Finally, Stebbing and Russell’s respective understanding of Bergson’s philosophy is compared on four general pillars: classification of Bergson’s work (with focus on its purported rapport with pragmatism); Bergson’s stance on intellectualism; the philosophical pertinence of his style; and the place of argumentation in his philosophy. These comparisons demonstrate the superiority of Stebbing’s approach. (shrink)

Is the set of all self-membered sets, S, a member of itself? In naive set theory, this is Russell’s hypodox. By the Laws of Excluded Middle and Non-contradiction, S is a member of itself xor it is not, but no principle of classical logic or naive set theory determines which. (Herein, ‘xor’ extends English with a specifically exclusive disjunction.) As a hypodox, the Truth-teller is a sentence that says of itself simply that it is true; by the above mentioned principles, (...) the Truth-teller is true xor not true, but no principle of classical logic or naive truth determines which. Many concepts that have paradoxes have related hypodoxes, although the focus here is on these two. I argue that the Truth-teller does not rely on a principle of truth, in particular it does not rely on the T-schema. I also argue that Russell’s hypodox does not rely on Comprehension. Yet I relate Russell’s paradox and hypodox based on involution functions. The Liar and the Truth-teller are also related by means of involutions. Relations based on these involution functions can be represented in duality squares. Although hypodoxes are not paradoxes, these involution functions and duality relations warrant some commonality in a correct solution to a paradox and its dual hypodox. Using this and some other premises, I provide novel arguments supporting non-classical solutions for the Liar paradox and the significance of Russell’s hypodox for solutions to Russell’s paradox. (shrink)

Russell derived many of his logical symbols from the pioneering notation of Giuseppe Peano. Principia Mathematica (1910–13) made these “Peanese” symbols (and others) famous. Here I focus on one of the more peculiar notational derivatives from Peano, namely, Principia ’s dual use of a squared dot or dots for both conjunction and scope. As Dirk Schlimm has noted, Peano always had circular dots and only used them to symbolize scope distinctions. In contrast, Principia has squared dots and conventions such that (...) some dots mark scope distinctions while others symbolize conjunction. How did this come to pass? In this paper I trace a genealogy of Principia ’s square dots back to Russell’s appropriation of Peano’s use of circular dots. Russell never explicitly justifies appropriating Peano’s notations to symbolize two distinct notions, but below I explain why Russell deployed Peano’s dot notations in this manner. Further, I argue that it was Cambridge University Press who squared the circular dots. (shrink)

Wittgenstein afirma no Tractatus que a teoria das classes é supérflua na Matemática e que isso está relacionado ao fato de que a generalidade exigida pela Matemática não é “acidental” (TLP 6.031). O objetivo deste texto é elucidar essa afirmação chamando a atenção para o que, seguindo Gregory Landini, tomaremos como uma forma de Logicismo compartilhada por Frege e Russell. Esta forma de Logicismo tem dois princípios básicos, a saber: o uso de uma teoria lógica cujas variáveis estruturadas incorporam o (...) que hoje chamamos de teoria dos tipos simples e a análise de atribuições numéricas em termos de afirmações sobre conceitos ou atributos que empregam conceitos de ordem superior exatamente análogos aos chamados quantificadores ‘numericamente definidos’. Argumentamos que é esse arcabouço teórico que Wittgenstein está rejeitando em 6.031 e não apenas o uso da Teoria dos Conjuntos na Matemática. Também é defendido que a noção de classe ainda tem um papel essencial a desempenhar no Tractatus.AbstractWittgenstein claims in the Tractatus that the theory of classes is superfluous in Mathematics and that this is related to the fact that the generality required by Mathematics is not “accidental” (TLP 6.031). My aim in this paper is to elucidate this claim by calling attention to what, following Gregory Landini, I refer to as a form of Logicism shared by Frege and Russell. This form of Logicism has two main tenets, namely:the use of a logical theory whose structured variables embody what we nowadays call the simple theory of types and the analysis of number ascriptions in terms of assertions about concepts or attributes which employ higher-order concepts exactly analogous to so-called ‘numerically definite’ quantifiers. It is argued that it is this shared theoretical framework that Wittgenstein is rejecting in 6.031 and not just the use of Set Theory in Mathematics. It is also argued that the notion of class still has an essential role to play in the Tractatus. (shrink)

I consider, in the light of Horsten’s and Ito’s paper, how the theory of arbitrary objects might help to make sense of Russell’s views on the nature of variables.

This Tractatus’s engagement with the issue of the nature of truth and falsity emerged from engagement with Russell. This engagement reverberated through the Vienna Circle and in particular affected Gödel. The Tractatus’s “elementary sentences” must be seen against the backdrop of Russell’s “multiple relation theory of judgment”, his theory of truth in Principia Mathematica, which Wittgenstein discussed at length with Russell in 1912–1913 and Gödel studied in 1929–1932. Russell’s approach was directed against both Idealism and William James’s pragmatist view of (...) truth. It aimed at a direct treatment of the distinction between truth and falsity in terms of particular, logically simple beliefs (judgments lacking in truth-functional and quantification complexity). Schlick rejected Russell’s view in favor of his more holistic correspondence theory, one which, however, tipped easily into pragmatism, conventionalism and verificationism. The Tractatus begins, rather, with Russell’s bottom-up approach truth, and then draws in two further ideas: (1) The need for a medium of representation and (2) The importance of modality (possibility and necessity) to logic. This approach was developed further in his later work, i.e., Philosophical Investigations.Aware of the Tractatus and Russell’s engagement with Wittgenstein on truth, Gödel continued to engage with Russell’s multiple relation theory of truth and Principia philosophically up through 1944. The parallel yet distinct engagements of Gödel and Wittgenstein with Russell on truth (and Vienna positivism) show that each regarded Russell’s view as requiring amendment. However, their philosophical differences with one another are not merely to be understood in terms of the dichotomy between conventionalism (the usual view of Wittgenstein) and Platonism (the usual view of Gödel). They must rather be seen to emerge from the original approach to truth we find in Russell. (shrink)

This article has two purposes: first, to describe some archival discoveries about Nicod’s family background, academic development and political life; and second, to publish and comment on a newly discovered article by Nicod about Russell. This article acclaims not only Russell’s achievements in logic and philosophy—as one might expect from such a devoted protégé as Nicod—but also (albeit only in glimpses permitted by France’s wartime censorship) his anti-war politics and writings. As the reader will realize, the two objectives are connected: (...) what the archives reveal and what the article illustrates is a hitherto underappreciated level of political awareness and pacifist commitment in Nicod. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Moore’s BeginningsNicholas GriffinConsuelo Preti. The Metaphysical Basis of Ethics: G. E. Moore and the Origins of Analytic Philosophy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Pp. xx, 268. isbn: 978-0-230-27762-5, us$57.50 (hb); 978-1-137-31907-4, us$44.99 (ebook).For many years now Consuelo Preti has been studying the life and work of G. E. Moore, especially in the period before the First World War when he and Russell were closest. In a series of important (...) publications, she has transformed our knowledge of the early Moore, making full use of his papers, now in the Cambridge University Library after many years in private hands. Of these, the most important, at least for Russell scholars, was the publication of Moore’s two Fellowship dissertations, which she edited with Thomas Baldwin,1 for it was with the second of these that Moore broke free from neo-Hegelianism and took Russell with him. Preti now follows this up with an extensive and detailed account of the dissertations’ intellectual background.Moore submitted two dissertations—both called “The Metaphysical Basis of Ethics”—in an attempt to win a six-year Trinity College Prize Fellowship. The first, in 1897, like most first attempts at a Trinity Prize Fellowship, failed; but the second, the following year, was successful. In his autobiography Moore famously said that he didn’t think “the world or the sciences would ever have suggested to me any philosophical problems. What has suggested philosophical problems to me is things which other philosophers have said about the world [End Page 86] and the sciences.”2 Accordingly, his first dissertation was “an attempt to make sense” of Kant’s “extremely mysterious assertions” about freedom and the second an attempt “to see clearly what Kant meant” by the “very mystifying manner” in which he used the word “reason”.3 This may seem a long way from the metaphysical basis of ethics, but the concept of will was central to Kant’s ethics, so it was natural to inquire in what sense, if any, an action could be said to be freely willed and this in turn to the distinction between actions which were caused and those which were undertaken for a reason.As Moore admits in the preface to the first dissertation, he had not had time to complete it as he intended. As it stands, it consists of a longish introduction, a single very long chapter on “Freedom, with special reference to Kant”,4 and an appendix on Sidgwick’s hedonism. Almost all this material reappears in the second dissertation, but the long chapter was there divided into two, separating Moore’s treatment of Kant from his own views on freedom. (Both Sidgwick and Edward Caird, his examiners in 1897, had complained that it was not easy to tell when he was interpreting Kant and when he was giving his own views.)5 The appendix on Sidgwick’s hedonism is joined by a new one on the dating of Kant’s ethical writings. (Caird had complained that he had not paid enough attention to this in the 1897 dissertation.) There is a new introduction and a brief concluding chapter directly on Kant’s ethics. But, most importantly, Moore opened the 1898 dissertation with two wholly new chapters: “On the meaning of ‘Reason’ in Kant” and “Reason”. It was the second of these, the bulk of which Moore published in Mind in 1899 under the title “The Nature of Judgment”, that inaugurated the revolution in philosophy associated with his name and Russell’s.Preti doesn’t get to this part of the story until her fourth and final chapter. Most of her book is taken up with a wide-ranging and detailed back-story to the dissertations and she begins, reasonably enough, with what has become known (even in English) as the Psychologismusstreit: the quarrel about psychologism. Psychologism was a doctrine defined to be false: an inappropriate appeal to psychological elements in constructing a philosophical position. Of course, the keyword here is “inappropriate”, and substantive debates raged as to which psychological elements were inappropriate to which philosophical projects.6 By the late nineteenth century, most Anglophone... (shrink)

In this article we compare Fine’s theory of arbitrary objects with the theory of variables that Russell formulated in his Principles of Mathematics. We argue that Russell’s early theory of variables can be seen as a prefiguration of Fine’s theory of arbitrary objects. The main difference between Russell’s theory and Fine’s account lies in their account of dependence relations between variables. Fine develops a stable view of dependence between arbitrary objects, whereas no such view is presented in Principles of Mathematics. (...) We then sketch how Russell developed the notion of dependence between arbitrary objects in some of his subsequent works. (shrink)

'Wolterstorff (2009) provides an important explanation to the question: What caused the surprising resurgence in philosophical theology that has occurred over the last 50 years—a resurgence that rivals its zenith in the Middle Ages? This article supplements that with a more fine-grained answer to the question. Recent discoveries in Arthur Norman Prior’s correspondence with J.J.C Smart and Mary Prior, between November 1953 and August 1954 on the possibility of necessary existence, demonstrates the importance of Prior’s discussion of the Barcan formulae (...) in Time and Modality (1957) for the resurgence of analytic theology. The correspondence establishes that Prior’s discovery of tense-logic, and his discussion of quantified tense-logic constituted the perfect opportunity for him to challenge key anti-metaphysical assumptions in analytic philosophy, from which four important consequences can be drawn for the resurgence of philosophical theology. First, Prior’s discussion of time and existence challenged the idea of Russell (1945) and Findlay (1948) on the logical status of a necessary existing being. Second, the discussion challenged the Analytic school’s view of analysis and gave Prior the opportunity to introduce a different perspective on the relationship between logic and metaphysics. Third, it gave Prior a good opportunity to demonstrate that the then-prevailing attitude towards medieval logic was wrong. Fourth, it made it possible for Prior to demonstrate that the highly surprising metaphysical conclusions of quantified tense-logic brings modern logicians into a discussion with the theologically minded medieval logicians. (shrink)

While Russell famously rejected the pragmatist theory of truth, recent scholarship portrays his post-prison accounts of belief and knowledge as resembling James’s. But deeper divisions in fact persisted between Russell and James concerning the nature of mind. I argue 1) that Russell’s neutral monist approach to consciousness in The Analysis of Mind constitutes an early form of representationalism in that he took states to be phenomenally conscious partly in virtue of (truly) representing an antecedent (typically just-passed) sensation; 2) that although (...) James also saw representation (typically of expected kinaesthetic sensation) as a crucial component of consciousness, he contended that representation is a matter of affording future-directed action control that aligns with the agent’s interests; and 3) that what divides these contrasting approaches to consciousness and representation is precisely what Russell would continue to reject in the pragmatist theory of truth, namely the productive role James assigned to an agent’s interests. (shrink)

Wittgenstein gave a clearly erroneous refutation of Russell’s logicist project. The errors were ably pointed out by Mark Steiner. Nevertheless, I was motivated by Wittgenstein and Steiner to consider various ideas about the natural numbers. I ask which notations for natural numbers are ‘buck-stoppers’. For us it is the decimal notation and the corresponding verbal system. Based on the idea that a proper notation should be ‘structurally revelatory’, I draw various conclusions about our own concept of the natural numbers.

This book was inadvertently published with the addition of the editor’s name, C. J. Posy, as co-author of the chapter. His name has been removed now and the author’s name Saul A. Kripke has been updated in the chapter.

Abstract:This article recovers a submerged philosophical debate between Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions and T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Russell's concern with immediate experience ("acquaintance") underscores a dilemma troubling literary modernism generally and modernist abstraction in particular. In "Prufrock," acquaintance with reality marks an epistemic failure whose social form is the "etherization" gripping the city and everything in it. The conversation between Russell's philosophy and Eliot's poetry is grounded in but exceeds the men's real-life acquaintance. Rather (...) than influence, at stake is a circulation of ideas between philosophy and modernist poetry and the questions of knowledge raised by both. (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)

Este artículo evalúa los alcances del Cuaderno Azul como crítica sistemática en contra de la que se ha denominado una concepción o explicación causal del significado, específicamente la que formula Russell en The Analysis of Mind. Tal evaluación procederá, primero, aclarando la manera como la concepción causal defiende una noción de significado entendida como la conducta adecuada según el acontecer de leyes causales de orden psicológico. En segundo lugar, desarrollando la crítica que Wittgenstein elabora en el Cuaderno Azul contra la (...) concepción russelliana en tres momentos: 1) la crítica a la hipótesis de las imágenes; 2) el rechazo a la existencia de un proceso interno y oculto; 3) el abandono de una noción psicológica de comprensión para explicar el concepto de significado. Finalmente se aclarará de qué manera toda la crítica del Cuaderno Azul está orientada a debilitar la pretensión que subyace a la explicación causal de explicar científicamente el concepto de significado. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Causes of WarBertrand RussellRussell’s authorship of this anonymously published entry in An Encylopaedia of Pacifism (London: Chatto & Windus, 1937), pp. 12–13, has only just come to light, thanks to the recent sale at auction of a letter to him from Aldous Huxley. If this determination had been made earlier, the text would have featured in Papers 21. In acknowledging receipt of “Causes of War” on 14 December 1936, (...) Huxley, the volume’s editor, also wondered whether Russell would like to examine his subject “at greater length—say in 1,000 words” (internet print, ra3 1,850). The original editorial plan, to which Russell must have adhered, allocated a single page to each topic, which ranged alphabetically from “Armaments, Private Manufacture of”, to “Women in Modern War, Position of”. But as Huxley explained, such compression was “impossible” for some subjects. Russell evidently declined the offer (no reply is extant), for his published contribution amounted to 300 words only. It nevertheless lucidly distils a complex and contested issue. In the spirit of the publishing enterprise Russell had joined, “Causes of War” is also somewhat didactic. Yet there is little hint of either the psychological predispositions towards war he also regarded as crucial, or the absolute pacifist doctrines he had recently embraced and elaborated in Which Way to Peace? (1936). The latter ground, however, was well covered elsewhere, in entries on “Force” and “Non-Violence”, most explicitly, but also in those disparaging armed revolution, for example, or the use of sanctions to enforce international law.The two cross references at the end of Russell’s entry are probably not authorial. The text presented below is the only known version, from the cheap softcover edition of the Encyclopaedia (priced 6d ) published by Chatto & Windus under the auspices of the Peace Pledge Union—the British pacifist group of which both Huxley and Russell were sponsors, along with, in all likelihood, other of the work’s anonymous contributors. [End Page 83]CAUSES OF WARThe main causes of war are of three kinds (1) the pursuit of wealth, (2) the pursuit of glory, (3) the advocacy of a creed. Usually all three are combined in varying proportions, as, for example in the Book of Joshua. The economic motive has various forms:a. Occupation of fruitful territory—e.g. Whites and Indians in United States.b. Plunder—e.g. Romans in Asia Minor; Cortez and Pisarro.c. Trade—e.g. English and Dutch in seventeenth century.d. Markets and fields for investment—most modern imperialist wars.e. Raw materials—e.g. Japan in China, France and Germany as regards Lorraine.The notion of glory is usually dynastic or governmental—for example, the ancient Assyrians and Persians, and eighteenth-century wars so far as the Continent of Europe is concerned. But it can be made popular by propaganda, and always has been made so since the French Revolution.Creed wars may be religious or political; usually they are both. They almost always also have economic motives. The early Mohammedans, for example, had economic motives (a) and (b); the Protestants wished to secure church lands and revenues; and so on. The English Civil War combined religious and political motives in equal measure. The Albigensian crusade was, on the part of the instigators, more economic than political. The French revolutionary wars, the American Civil War, and the various civil wars since 1815, involved important politico-economic issues, and were all, in a greater or less degree, creed wars.The main causes predisposing to modern war are: first, the competition between States for markets and raw materials; secondly, the competition between classes as regards the distribution of the national wealth. These two causes are intertwined, because different governments stand for different economic systems. (See Economic Reform and Pacifism; Education and Peace.) [End Page 84]Bertrand RussellIntroduced by andrew g. bone Russell Research Centre / McMaster U. [email protected] © 2023 Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster University... (shrink)

This paper develops the account of our experience and knowledge of time put forward by Russell in his Theory of Knowledge manuscript. While Russell ultimately abandons the project after it receives severe criticism from Wittgenstein (though several chapters derived from it appear as articles in The Monist), in producing this manuscript time, and particularly the notion of the present time, play a central role in Russell’s account of experience. In the present discussion, I propose to focus largely on Russell’s writing (...) in 1912–3, comparing this with some of the remarks made about memory by Moore in 1910–11. My motivation is twofold. First as a matter of scholarship, to reveal an original interpretation of Russell’s notion of immediate memory and of his view of our experience and knowledge of time over this period. Second as a matter of philosophical curiosity. There has been an increase in interest in temporal experience in contemporary discussions of the philosophy of mind, from memory and the imagination to the temporal aspects of perceptual experience. Russell’s writing in 1912–3 provides us with a philosophically interesting account of temporal experience which has points of contact with contemporary debates. (shrink)

This paper develops the account of our experience and knowledge of time put forward by Russell in his Theory of Knowledge manuscript. While Russell ultimately abandons the project after it receives severe criticism from Wittgenstein (though several chapters derived from it appear as articles in The Monist), in producing this manuscript time, and particularly the notion of the present time, play a central role in Russell’s account of experience. In the present discussion, I propose to focus largely on Russell’s writing (...) in 1912–3, comparing this with some of the remarks made about memory by Moore in 1910–11. My motivation is twofold. First as a matter of scholarship, to reveal an original interpretation of Russell’s notion of immediate memory and of his view of our experience and knowledge of time over this period. Second as a matter of philosophical curiosity. There has been an increase in interest in temporal experience in contemporary discussions of the philosophy of mind, from memory and the imagination to the temporal aspects of perceptual experience. Russell’s writing in 1912–3 provides us with a philosophically interesting account of temporal experience which has points of contact with contemporary debates. (shrink)