Abstract

My thesis traces Russell's development of his theory of belief from 1913 to 1918 under the impact of his student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. ;In chapter one I focus on Russell's multiple relation theory of belief from 1910 to early 1913 and on Russell's view of perception as a relation between minds and objects. I show that, on Russell's theory, acts of believing or judging are intended to explain the different types of judgments and to account for how propositions acquire a complete sense. I argue that Russell faces difficulties explaining the status of relations occurring in propositions which are believed, and that his account of how we perceive types of objects is in tension with his theory that beliefs are facts. ;In chapter two I examine Wittgenstein's influence on Russell's 1913 work, Theory of Knowledge. I argue that in Theory of Knowledge Russell responds to Wittgenstein's objections to his theory of judgment by proposing a theory of unnamable asymmetrical relations and unasserted mental relations. I further argue that Russell begins to see that, without postulating further judgments and thus entailing a vicious regress, his notion of perception cannot support an adequate account of distinctions between types of entities judged. I claim---with Sommerville and others---that Russell's "paralysis" in the face of Wittgenstein's criticisms in 1913 concerns his inability to explain judgment without explaining type distinctions and vice versa. ;In chapter three I examine the development of Russell's thought between 1914 and late 1918 in response to Wittgenstein. I suggest that in early 1918 Russell begins to accept Wittgenstein's claim that in belief-contexts, the proposition is a fact consisting of grammatical relations of words. I further claim that, unlike Wittgenstein, Russell explains all such relations by giving an account of our psychological needs and limitations. Finally I conjecture that Russell begins to be inclined to reject his relational conception of perception, and of belief as involving a subject, not only because he begins to take neutral monism more seriously, but also because of difficulties internal to his theory of perception, difficulties that Wittgenstein may have suggested to him