Abstract:Russell (in Principles of Mathematics) and Wittgenstein (in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) largely agree on the twin questions of why pairs of congruent objects cannot always be made to coincide and why surfaces can never be uniformly two colours at once. Both philosophers take space and colour to be mathematically representable, construe the relevant impossibilities as mathematical and hold that mathematical impossibility is at root logical. It is not by chance that Russell says nothing about the phenomena in his Introduction to the (...) Tractatus or surprising that Wittgenstein was unmoved by the objection that his account of colour incompatibility puts paid to his early philosophy. (shrink)

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

The paper aims at comparing Wittgenstein’s discussion of color exclusion in his to Johnson’s doctrine of determinable and determinate expounded in his. I first summarize Wittgenstein’s developments about the incompatibility of elementary propositions and about the logic of color statements. In the second part, I present and discuss Johnson’s doctrine in relation to Wittgenstein’s development. In a third conclusive moment, drawing on a early work of Prior, I argue that the distinction made by Wittgenstein and Johnson between predication and determination (...) should be looked at from a long term historical perspective. (shrink)

In 1929, Wittgenstein reconsidered the vexing color-Incompatibility problem: explaining how and why more than one color cannot be at a single time and place. He continued discussing the problem in 1930 and later. He offered solutions in the "tractatus", In 1929 and in 1930. Are the solutions the same? clearly not, Because the 1929 solution differs from his earlier one. However, I argue that the 1930 solution is substantially identical with that of 1929 and that the 1929-30 solution is continuous (...) with the "tractatus" as well as some later doctrines. Therefore 1929-30 marks a period of intellectual ferment rather than massive abandonment of his earlier views. (shrink)

After Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein realized that elementary propositions may logically conflict with each other, due to the fact that the most elementary measurements may contradict each other. This led to the view that logic consists of various calculi. A calculus consists of measurement scales, each scale being a rule for the application of numbers. These scales determine logical relationships between elementary propositions by reason of arithmetical relations. Attempts to reject Wittgenstein's change in viewpoint, which ignore the relevance of measurement and (...) arithmetic, are remiss. In this light, I discuss Sarah Moss’s criticism of intermediate Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Este artigo trata do chamado “problema de incompatibilidade de cores”, enfrentado por Wittgenstein no Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, em seus Manuscritos inéditos 105 e 106, e em seu único artigo publicado – “Some Remarks on Logical Forms” (SRLF). Nossa tarefa será dupla. Primeiro, pretendemos mostrar como e por que Wittgenstein ficou preso nesse dilema. Nossa segunda tarefa será muito mais específica.Tentaremos elucidar alguns detalhes sobre a impossibilidade de reduzir predicados de cor a unidades mais fundamentais de brilho, croma e intensidade. Nosso objetivo (...) é mostrar como e por que os números tiveram que ser introduzidos na estrutura interna das proposições elementares. Também queremos investigar como Wittgenstein tentou fazer isso através da ideia de um “esquema” e uma operação nãover-funcional. Pretendemos também apresentar algumas vantagens que Wittgenstein obteve ao usar uma notação de barra para sua construção dos “esquemas”.AbstractThis paper deals with the so-called “color incompatibility problem”, faced by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in his unpublished Manuscripts 105 and 106, and in his only published paper – “Some Remarks on Logical Forms” – (SRLF, for now on). Our task will be a twofold one. First, we aspire to show how and why Wittgenstein got stuck into that dilemma. Our second task will be much more specific. We will try to elucidate some details about the impossibility of reducing color predicates to more fundamental units of brightness, chroma, and intensity. We aim to show how and why numbers had to be introduced into the inner structure of elementary propositions. We also want to investigate how he tried to do that through the idea of a “scheme” and a non-truth functional operation. We aim also to present some advantages Wittgenstein gained from using a bar notation for his construal of the “schemes”. (shrink)

It is widely believed that some a priori necessary truths are not analytic in the sense of transformable by substitution of synonyms into logical truths. One much-cited example comes from the supposed incompatibility between colour predicates. The idea is that sentences like “Nothing is both blue all over (or uniformly or at a point) and also red” are not transformable into a logical truth in the same way as “Nothing is both a bachelor and married” because the requisite conceptual link (...) between “bachelor” and “not married” is absent between “blue” and “not red”. This paper examines whether colour exclusion may be more like the bachelor case than it initially appears. It transpires that the most promising line of thought is not, however, as has been argued at length in the literature, that “blue” in some more or less convoluted way manages to mean “not red”. Instead it is suggested that the requisite conceptual link may reside in the oft-ignored qualifications (“all over”, “uniformly”, etc.), without which there is no incompatibility in the first place. (shrink)

It is commonly held that Wittgenstein abandoned the Tractatus largely because of a problem concerning color incompatibility. My aim is to solve this problem on Wittgenstein’s behalf. First I introduce the central program of the Tractatus (§1) and the color incompatibility problem (§2). Then I solve the problem without abandoning any Tractarian ideas (§3), and show that given certain weak assumptions, the central program of the Tractatus can in fact be accomplished (§4). I conclude by distinguishing my system of analysis (...) from others and by explaining the historical underpinnings of my understanding of the nature of elementary propositions (§5). (shrink)

A founder of modern analytic philosophy and one of the most important logicians of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell has influenced generations of philosophers. This volume explores this influence in detail and responds to renewed interest in Russell's philosophical approach, presenting the best guide to research in Russell studies today. Bringing new insights into Russell's relationship with his contemporaries, a team of experts explore his life-long battles with important philosophical issues. They consider how he influenced thinkers and schools of thought, (...) from Schröder, Frege and Meinong to Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, while also covering his impact on individual issues in epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and political philosophy. Importantly this companion discusses often overlooked topics. Through a combination of enlightening historical background and sustained focus on Russell's impact on contemporary areas of philosophy, it demonstrates why Russell continues to influence philosophers of language, mathematics, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

I argue that Wittgenstein’s engagement with Russell’s The Analysis of Mind was crucial for the development of his new method. First, I show that Wittgenstein’s criticism of the causal theory of meaning (namely: that it generates an infinite regress and that it does not determine the depiction of a fact) is motivated by its incompatibility with the pictorial conception of language. Second, I show that in reacting against that theory he comes to invent the calculus conception of language. Third, I (...) argue that the calculus conception is vulnerable to critiques that parallel those presented against Russell’s theory (a rule-following regression and the indeterminacy of depicted facts). Fourth, the striking similarity between the problems present in Russell’s theory and in Wittgenstein’s own views makes him realize that both were working under misleading trains of thought and false analogies. It is this realization that brings Wittgenstein to the view that his task is to investigate the genesis of philosophical puzzlement in order to stop philosophical theorizing right from the beginning. Thus, in explaining the invention of Wittgenstein’s new method I show its relation to Russell’s philosophy and indicate the origins of the rule-following problem. (shrink)

A founder of modern analytic philosophy and one of the most important logicians of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell has influenced generations of philosophers. The Bloomsbury Companion to Bertrand Russell explores this influence in detail and responds to renewed interest in Russell's philosophical approach, presenting the best guide to research in Russell studies today. -/- Bringing new insights into Russell's relationship with his contemporaries, a team of experts explore his life-long battles with important philosophical issues. They consider how he influenced (...) thinkers and schools of thought, from Schröder, Frege and Meinong to Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, while also covering his impact on individual issues in epistemology, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and political philosophy. Importantly this companion discusses often overlooked topics. Focusing on Russell's later views, including his moral philosophy and his politics, reveals that Russell did make significant contributions to ethics - both theoretical and practical - in the course of his career. -/- Through a combination of enlightening historical background and sustained focus on Russell's impact on contemporary areas of philosophy, The Bloomsbury Companion to Bertrand Russell demonstrates why Russell continues to influence philosophers of language, mathematics, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

This 2002 book explores Wittgenstein's long engagement with the work of the pragmatist William James. In contrast to previous discussions Russell Goodman argues that James exerted a distinctive and pervasive positive influence on Wittgenstein's thought. For example, the book shows that the two philosophers share commitments to anti-foundationalism, to the description of the concrete details of human experience, to the priority of practice over intellect, and to the importance of religion in understanding human life. Considering in detail what Wittgenstein learnt (...) from his reading of Principles of Psychology and Varieties of Religious Experience the author provides considerable evidence for Wittgenstein's claim that he is saying 'something that sounds like pragmatism'. This provocative account of the convergence in the thinking of two major philosophers usually considered as members of discrete traditions will be eagerly sought by students of Wittgenstein, William James, pragmatism and the history of twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

We wish to defend Jonathan Westphal's view that colour is complex against a recent ‘phenomenological’ criticism of Eric Rubenstein. There is often thought to be a conflict between two kinds of determinants of colour, physical and phenomenal. On the one hand there are the complex physical facts about colour, such as the determination of a surface colour by an absorption spectrum. There is also, however, the fact that the apparently simple phenomenological quality of what is seen is a function of (...) the physiological and psychological state of the viewing subject. Should the physical trump the phenomenal, or is it the other way round? Much of the phenomenal variation of colour, however, is explained by physical facts. There is a physics and a psychophysics of colour. Colours appear, to the colour scientists at least, to be in some sense objective, a sense not explained by the view that they are purely phenomenal. Taking physics and psychophysics into account will mean rejecting the claim that the content of what our concepts of colours are concepts of is exhausted by the purely phenomenal, or that we can determine these concepts simply by gazing at a colour. Taking account of physics will lead, as Westphal argued, instead to a view about white and the other colour terms like Putnam's account of gold. Necessary truths about colours cannot be explained without reference to the logic of the compossibility of what is given in reflection and absorption spectra, the analogue of H2O. (shrink)

Between 1937 and 1951 Wittgenstein had numerous philosophical conversations with his student and close friend, Rush Rhees. This article is composed of Rhees’s notes of twenty such conversations — namely, all those which have not yet been published — as well as some supplements from Rhees’s correspondence and miscellaneous notes. The principal value of the notes collected here is that they fill some interesting and important gaps in Wittgenstein ’s corpus. Thus, firstly, the notes touch on a wide range of (...) subjects, a number of which are only briefly addressed by Wittgenstein elsewhere, if at all. The subjects discussed include: explanation, ethics, anarchism, contradiction, psychoanalysis, colour, religion, concepts, classification, seeing-as, evolution, the relation between science and philosophy, and free will, amongst others. Secondly, the notes contain references to, and brief remarks about, philosophers of whom Wittgenstein otherwise says very little, if anything — such as Brentano, Heidegger, Aquinas, and Marx, amongst others. And thirdly, the notes provide us with valuable examples of Wittgenstein ’s use of some key ‘Wittgensteinian’ terms of art which are surprisingly rare in his written works, such as ‘surface-’ and ‘depth-grammar’, and ‘centres of variation’. (shrink)

Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language presents the Tractatus as a work of mystic theology intended to direct the reader to a transcendental plane from which human existence can be viewed from the divine perspective. More than any other work on Wittgenstein, this study integrates text material with personal biographical information, especially information dealing with his spiritual and psychological states. The result is a fresh, coherent, and extremely illuminating picture of Wittgenstein, successfully avoiding the pitfalls of either psychological reductionism or (...) unfaithfulness to the text. It is bold without being reckless, passionately argued without being doctrinaire, and makes a very powerful and persuasive case for its main thesis. (shrink)

System Requirements System requirements Minimum 80486, 66MHz IBM PC or full compatible ; Minimum 16MB RAM 177MB hard disk space to store and run the Nachlass, an extra 12MB in addition to this should be available during installation. SVGA monitor set to 800x600 pixels, 16-bit colour, or higher setting recommended to use and display the transcription text and facsimiles; Quad-speed CD-ROM drive or higher; Windows 3.1, 3.11; Windows 95/98; Windows NT 4.0; Windows 2000. Microsoft mouse or compatible Network versions Windows (...) NT 4, and Novell networks. Customers with Wide Area Networks should ring Customer Services to discuss specific requirements. Customer Service Contact: Customer Services, Electronic Publishing Tel: +44 1865 267979 Fax: +44 1865 267990 Email: [email protected]. (shrink)

When in May 1930, the Council of Trinity College, Cambridge, had to decide whether to renew Wittgenstein's research grant, it turned to Bertrand Russell for an assessment of the work Wittgenstein had been doing over the past year. His verdict: "The theories contained in this new work . . . are novel, very original and indubitably important. Whether they are true, I do not know. As a logician who likes simplicity, I should like to think that they are not, but (...) from what I have read of them I am quite sure that he ought to have an opportunity to work them out, since, when completed, they may easily prove to constitute a whole new philosophy." "[ Philosophical Remarks ] contains the seeds of Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mind and of mathematics. Principally, he here discusses the role of indispensable in language, criticizing Russell's The Analysis of Mind . He modifies the Tractatus 's picture theory of meaning by stressing that the connection between the proposition and reality is not found in the picture itself. He analyzes generality in and out of mathematics, and the notions of proof and experiment. He formulates a pain/private-language argument and discusses both behaviorism and the verifiability principle. The work is difficult but important, and it belongs in every philosophy collection."--Robert Hoffman, Philosophy "Any serious student of Wittgenstein's work will want to study his Philosophical Remarks as a transitional book between his two great masterpieces. The Remarks is thus indispensible for anyone who seeks a complete understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy."--Leonard Linsky, American Philosophical Association. (shrink)

Against MacIntyre’s view that capitalism is incompatible with the conduct of economic production as a genuine practice, this paper claims that capitalist economies take a number of institutionally distinct forms, and that these differ significantly in the extent to which, and the reasons for which, they are antithetical to production as a practice. Drawing on the extensive literature in comparative political economy on varieties of capitalism, it argues that while ‘Liberal’ Market Economies such as the USA and UK conform (...) quite closely to MacIntyre’s understanding of capitalism, ‘Coordinated’ Market Economies such as Germany and Japan do not. In particular, the industry-based associations of the German model are argued to be highly conducive to the internal goods and standards of excellence central to MacIntyrean practices. (shrink)

Perhaps the most important work of philosophy written in the twentieth century, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus first appeared in 1921 and was the only philosophical work that Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) published during his lifetime. Written in short, carefully numbered paragraphs of extreme compression and brilliance, it immediately convinced many of its readers and captivated the imagination of all. Its chief influence, at first, was on the Logical Positivists of the 1920s and 30s, but many other philosophers were stimulated by its philosophy (...) of language, finding attractive, if ultimately unsatisfactory, its view that propositions were pictures of reality. Perhaps most of all, Wittgenstein himself, after his return to philosophy in the late 1920s, was fascinated by its vision of an inexpressible, crystalline world of logical relationships. The posthumous publication of other writings has, therefore, only served to reawaken interest in the Tractatus and to illuminate its more neglected aspects. David Pears and Brian McGuinness revised their translation in the light of Wittgenstein's own suggestions and comments in his correspondence with C.K. Ogden about the first translation. In addition, this edition contains the introduction by Bertrand Russell which appeared in the original English translation. (shrink)

Three claims wittgenstein makes in the tractatus are explicated via schopenhauer's idealism: 1) ethical reward and punishment lie in the action itself, 2) the good or bad exercise of the will alter the world's limits, So that it waxes or wanes, 3) eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Schopenhauer's theory fills out some of wittgenstein's statements. For example, The happy man's world waxes to the degree that he frees himself from the false perspective of the "principium (...) individuationis". However, The link between schopenhauer's metaphysics and his ethics is tighter than the analogous link in wittgenstein. (shrink)

In the third and final part of his A Theory of Determinism (TD) Ted Honderich addresses the fundamental question concerning “the consequences of determinism.” The critical question he aims to answer is what follows if determinism is true? This question is, of course, intimately bound up with the problem of free will and, in particular, with the question of whether or not the truth of determinism is compatible or incompatible with the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility. It (...) is Honderich’s aim to provide a solution to “the problem of the consequences of determinism” and a key element of this is his articulation and defence of an alternative response to the implications of determinism that collapses the familiar Compatibilist/Incompatibilist dichotomy. Honderich offers us a third way – the response of “Affirmation” (HFY 125-6). Although his account of Affirmation has application and relevance to issues and features beyond freedom and responsibility, my primary concern in this essay will be to examine Honderich’s theory of “Affirmation” as it concerns the free will problem. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 28 (summer 2008): 69–93 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 eviews WITTGENSTEIN, CRITIC OF RUSSELL Russell Wahl English and Philosophy / Idaho State U Pocatello, id 83209, usa [email protected] Jérôme Sackur. Formes et faits: Analyse et théorie de la connaissance dans l’atomisme logique. Paris: Vrin, 2005. Pp. 313. (...) ¤31.00. isbn 978-2-7116-1722-7. Sackur joins several other recent French authors in writing penetrating analyses of Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s work. Forms and Factsz is an explication of the Tractatus, conducted by means of a contrast between Russell’s work and Wittgenstein’s. Sackur examines the interplay between Russell’s and Wittgenstein ’s versions of logical atomism, particularly, as Sackur puts it, between Russell’s original thought on the one hand, which provides the material for Wittgenstein’s position in the Tractatus, and Wittgenstein’s critique and development on the other, which, he says, provides a unity to Russell’s position (p. 12). While recognizing the inXuence of Russell on Wittgenstein’s project, Sackur in the end sees Wittgenstein as undermining and ultimately rejecting Russell’s logicism. He does not just repeat old claims about Wittgenstein, Russell and logical form. His analysis is very subtle and, perhaps unusually for a work on Wittgenstein which defends Wittgenstein over Russell, Formes et faitsz displays a surprisingly detailed knowledge of Russell’s work, before, during and after the period in question, 1913–19. Anyone who is interested in Russell’s and Wittgenstein ’s work during this period, and in particular Wittgenstein’s criticisms of Russell, will beneWt greatly from this book. There are detailed, well informed discussions of important points of disagreement, particularly Russell and Whitehead ’s account of succession and the ancestor relation, Wittgenstein’s remarks on operators, in particular the Nz operator, various remarks about the theory of types, and Wittgenstein’s now well known criticism of Russell’s theory of judgment. The subtitle of the work, “Analysis and the theory of knowledge in logical atomism”, reXects the points where Sackur sees the greatest disagreement between Russell and Wittgenstein. In the Wrst place, he sees them diTering in their attitude toward analysis, with Russell oTering translations of sentences into a September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 70 Reviews 1 For the Wrst point, see (among others) P.yM.yS. Hacker, Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth Century Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 69–70. For the second, see (again among others), David Pears, The False Prison (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1987), i: 63, where Pears says that Russell’s atomism was founded on the doctrine of “forced acquaintance”. 2 P.yJ. Hager, Continuity and Change in the Development of Russell’s Philosophy (Dordrecht: Klewer, 1994). perspicuous language and Wittgenstein oTering explications, or elucidations, of senses already in the sentences. Secondly, they diTer on the role that epistemology should play in logical atomism, with Wittgenstein criticizing the role of acquaintance in the development of logic. While both of these points have been made before,1 Sackur’s discussion is more thorough than previous studies and leads to some new interpretations of passages in the Tractatus. Sackur’s discussion of analysis is important to his argument. He is interested in a tension between what he sees as two aims of analysis in Wittgenstein’s work, one found in Tractatusz 3.2–3.3 and the other in Tractatusz 4.21–4.2211. He sees analysis in the Wrst group as revealing or elucidating the sense a proposition expresses, a sense understood and already there in the ordinary unanalyzed proposition, and analysis in the second group, driven by the theses of necessity and logical independence, as focusing on truth-functional analysis in terms of elementary propositions that consist of names referring to simple objects. He argues that these two aims don’t automatically go together and in fact appear to be at cross purposes. In the course of the Wrst chapter, the major distinction Sackur makes is between analysis... (shrink)

A milestone in Wittgenstein scholarship, this collection of essays ranges over a wide area of the philosopher's thought, presenting divergent interpretations of his fundamental ideas. Different chapters raise many of the central controversies that surround current understanding of the Tractatus, providing an interplay that will be particularly useful to students. Taken together, the essays present a broader and more comprehensive view of Wittgenstein's intellectual interests and his impact on philosophy than may be found elsewhere.The thirteen chapters treat topics from both (...) periods of Wittgenstein's work: More than half are devoted to his early thought, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of 1921, reflecting a growing interest today among philosophers in reexamining this seminal book, while three chapters treat the Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. The remaining chapters discuss such "nonstandard" topics as philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and anthropology.Contents: The Early Wittgenstein and the Middle Russell, Kenneth Blackwell; Frege and Wittgenstein, Michael Dummett; Wittgenstein and the Theory of Types, Hide Ishiguro; The So-called Realism of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Brian McGuinness; The Logical Independence of Elementary Propositions, David Pears; The Rise and Fall of the Picture Theory, Peter Hacker; The Picture Theory and Wittgenstein's Later Attitude to It, Erik Stenius; Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy of Mind, Anthony Kenny; A Theory of Language?, G. E. M. Anscombe; Im Anfang war die Tat, Peter Winch; Wittgenstein's Full Stop, D. Z. Phillips; Quote: Judgments from Our Brain, Paul Ziff; Wittgenstein and the Fire Festivals, Frank Cioffi, Index.Irving Block is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at The University of Western Ontario. (shrink)

Professional philosophers have tended either to shrug off American philosophy as negligible or derivative or to date American philosophy from the work of twentieth century analytical positivists such as Quine. Russell Goodman expands on the revisionist position developed by Stanley Cavell, that the most interesting strain of American thought proceeds not from Puritan theology or from empirical science but from a peculiarly American kind of Romanticism. This insight leads Goodman, through Cavell, back to Emerson and Thoreau and thence to William (...) James and John Dewey, as they assimilated to American circumstances and intellectual habits the currents of European thought from Kant to Wittgenstein. (shrink)

This volume collects the most substantial correspondence and documents relating to Wittgenstein’s long association with Cambridge between the years 1911 and his death in 1951, including the letters he exchanged with his most illustrious Cambridge contemporaries Russell, Keynes, Moore and Ramsey (and previously published as Cambridge Letters). Now expanded to include 200 previously unpublished letters and documents, including correspondence between Wittgenstein and the economist Piero Srafafa, and between Wittgenstein and his pupils Includes extensive editorial annotations Provides a fascinating and intimate (...) insight into Wittgenstein’s life and thought. (shrink)

In this paper I reconsider James and Wittgenstein, not in the quest for what Wittgenstein might have learned from James, or for an answer to the question whether Wittgenstein was a pragmatist, but in an effort to see what these and other related but quite different thinkers can help us to see about animals, including ourselves. I follow Cora Diamond’s lead in discussing a late paper by Vicki Hearne entitled “A Taxonomy of Knowing: Animals Captive, Free-Ranging, and at Liberty”, which (...) draws on Wittgenstein and offers some insights that accord with pragmatist accounts of knowledge. (shrink)

This book comprises material on colour which was written by Wittgenstein in the last eighteen months of his life. It is one of the few documents which shows him concentratedly at work on a single philosophical issue. The principal theme is the features of different colours, of different kinds of colour (metallic colour, the colours of flames, etc.) and of luminosity—a theme which Wittgenstein treats in such a way as to destroy the traditional idea that colour is a simple and (...) logically uniform kind of thing. This edition consists of Wittgenstein's basic German text, together with an English translation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scientific Method in PhilosophyAuthor's note: Thanks to Gregory Landini for helpful clarifications.Gregory Landini. Repairing Bertrand Russell's 1913 Theory of Knowledge. (History of Analytic Philosophy.) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Pp. x, 397. isbn: 978-3-030-66355-1, us$139 (hb); 978-3-030-66356-8, us$109 (ebook).The title of this book might suggest a rather narrow study of a problem with Russell's Theory of Knowledge and a proposed solution. But as with Landini's first book, Russell's Hidden Substitutional (...) Theory, the title does not capture the full scope of the work. That work did not just point out the lingering substitution theory in Principia, but gave a sweeping view of Russell's overall development from Principles to Principia and one of the most detailed accounts of the formal system in Principia in any work. This work gives a sweeping overview of Russell's philosophy up to 1918, including not just Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgment, but the whole project of what Russell called scientific method in philosophy, which was the subtitle to his 1914 Our Knowledge of the ExternalWorld. Landini thinks this is the height of Russell's philosophy and proposes a fix to the problems which led Russell to abandon the project.Landini does not just present Russell's views during this period, but vigorously defends them, and not just the multiple-relation theory of judgment mostly associated with Theory of Knowledge, but also the views that logic should be understood as synthetic a priori, Russell's doctrine of acquaintance, including the acquaintance with universals as the grounding of synthetic a priori knowledge, and Russell's view that logic is the essence of philosophy. The book contains a wide range of discussions, including issues in philosophy of mind, theories of representation, theories of universals, evolution in philosophy, and the metaphysics of time and space.The book opens with an overview of some main themes, including Landini's view of the three main phases of Russell's post-idealist philosophy and his discussion of what he calls the revolutions in logic and mathematics. The three phases Landini has in mind are the Principles phase, the Principia phase [End Page 81] (which includes The Problems of Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge) and the neutral monist phase, which Landini sees as a mistake Russell made when he didn't see how to repair his 1913 work. According to Landini, the Principles era ends with the failure of the substitution theory from the po /ao paradox, the Principia era ends by 1918 with the abandonment of the attempt to finish the project of the 1913 Theory of Knowledge, and the neutral monist era begins in 1919 and continues through 1948. Landini wants to concentrate on repairing the view in the Principia era. Any remarks of Russell's from later rejecting, for example, his view of the subject, of acquaintance, of neutral monism, and remarks concerning logic as consisting of tautologies are to be rejected. Landini firmly believes that after abandoning the 1913 project, Russell took a wrong turn. Landini's discussion of the multiple-relation theory of judgment is therefore quite different from the other discussion in the literature, in that most commentators have thought Russell was correct in abandoning the theory and most think there is something to Wittgenstein's criticism. Landini thinks Wittgenstein's criticism was based on his new vision of logic, and that Russell should have rejected it and proceeded with the project of Theory of Knowledge.Given the controversies involved in these claims, I think the best way forward is an explication of Landini's new emphasis on the revolutions in logic and mathematics and some of the key claims Landini makes concerning the Principia era. Then we can look at the details of Landini's repairing of the project.the two revolutionsWhat is striking about Landini's more recent work is his emphasis on these two revolutions. One is the revolution within logic, which originates with Frege; the other a revolution in mathematics which originates with Weierstrass, von Staudt, Pieri and Cantor. While most historians of this period are aware of the important shifts... (shrink)

This article addresses the question of how, if at all, citizens can sustain an effective sense of political belonging without sacrificing other sources of ethical identity. We begin with a critical analysis of Rousseau's classic considerations of politics and religion, which concludes that membership of a sub-political ethical community is incompatible with an effective sense of political belonging. This critique leads us to a consideration of the basic character of contemporary constitutional-democratic polities (drawing on the work of James Tully) (...) and of Waldron's account of the circumstances of politics. These considerations are developed into the claim that we can identify two sources of political belonging: recognition and acknowledgement - which correspond to two aspects of democratic citizenship: as status and as mode of being. On the basis of this claim, we argue that an effective sense of political belonging can be compatible with membership of sub-political ethical communities iff members of the political community are characterised by the majoritarian virtue of civic responsiveness and the minoritarian virtue of civic endurance. We sketch the character of these virtues and the relationship to one another in arguing that only the widespread presence of both kinds of virtue is sufficient to secure citizens' confidence in the polity and hence its stability. (shrink)

Beards are a sort of dwelling. Much like Heidegger's linguistic play with related etymologies of building and dwelling, beards are in a constant state of becoming, forever changing length, shape, and color. To the person—usually, but not always, a man—who grows a beard, the end product is always projected out into the future, like Heidegger’s concept of being. The beard is trimmed and groomed constantly; it is cultivated in a way that feels authentic to its wearer. But the same ontological (...) problems that Heidegger applies to dwelling in a home also apply to beards. Long facial hair symbolizes wisdom in many cultures, but anyone who has grown a beard can attest to the existential dilemma of long facial hair. I didn’t recognize you with the beard, someone will say. Beards can serve as symbols of erudition, yes, but they are also masks for our social selves. The beard is, after all, is a curious appendage, as it is an extension of the self, but not the self per se. Herman Melville called beards “suburbs of the chin.” If, like Heidegger, we are to see being as not a fixed entity divorced from other beings, but a being-in-the-world, a set of relations among other beings, then beards are not simply static accessories or styles, but an example of the slippery nature of being itself. (shrink)

I've been teaching Wittgenstein's On Certainty lately, and coming again to the question of Wittgenstein's relation to pragmatism.1 This is of course a question Wittgenstein raises himself when he writes in the middle of that work: 'So I am trying to say something that sounds like pragmatism'.2 He adds to this sentence the claim that 'Here I am being thwarted by a kind of Weltanschauung', but in the remarks to follow I want to focus not on Wittgenstein's differences from or (...) antipathy to pragmatism, nor on the world view that he felt thwarted him, but on those elements of his philosophy that sound like pragmatism-as he says. I will work primarily from On Certainty but also from the Philosophical Investigations, which intersects with that late, unfinished work at various places, and which also, at times, sounds like pragmatism. (shrink)

The present study assessed the language teachers' pedagogical beliefs and orientations in integrating technology in the online classroom and its effect on students' motivation and engagement. It utilized a cross-sectional correlational research survey. The study respondents were the randomly sampled 205 language teachers (μ= 437, n= 205) and 317 language students (μ= 1800, n= 317) of select higher educational institutions in the Philippines. The study results revealed that respondents hold positive pedagogical beliefs and orientations using technology-based teaching in their language (...) classroom. Test of difference showed that female teachers manifested a firmer belief in student-centered online language teaching than their male counterparts. However, the utilization and attitude towards technology in the language classroom is favorably associated with the male teachers. As to students' level of language learning motivation and engagement, it was found out that male and female students have high level of language learning engagement. Further, the test of relationship showed that the higher the teachers' belief in utilizing student-centered teaching to integrate technology in the language classroom, the higher the students are motivated and engaged in learning. In like manner, it was also revealed that teacher-centered belief is negatively correlated to student’s motivation and engagement in online language learning. In this regard, the pedagogical assumptions that hold EFL teachers positively to integrate technology in the language classroom. This study generally offers implications for enhancing language teacher's digital literacy to promote motivating, fruitful, and engaging language lessons for 21ts century learning. (shrink)

Stanley Cavell has been a brilliant, idiosyncratic, and controversial presence in American philosophy, literary criticism, and cultural studies for years. Even as he continues to produce new writing of a high standard -- an example of which is included in this collection -- his work has elicited responses from a new generation of writers in Europe and America. This collection showcases this new work, while illustrating the variety of Cavell's interests: in the "ordinary language" philosophy of Wittgenstein and Austin, in (...) film criticism and theory, in literature, psychoanalysis, and the American transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The collection also reprints Richard Rorty's early review of Cavell's magnum opus, The Claim of Reason (1979), and it concludes with Cavell's substantial set of responses to the essays, a highlight of which is his engagement with Rorty. (shrink)

Logical Atomism is a philosophy that sought to account for the world in all its various aspects by relating it to the structure of the language in which we articulate information. In _The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,_ Bertrand Russell, with input from his young student Ludwig Wittgenstein, developed the concept and argues for a reformed language based on pure logic. Despite Russell’s own future doubts surrounding the concept, this founding and definitive work in analytical philosophy by one of the world’s (...) most significant philosophers is a remarkable attempt to establish a novel way of thinking. (shrink)

Sharply in focus in the United States right now is the disproportionate COVID‐19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, and Pacific Islanders living in the United States in contrast to White people. These COVID‐19 disparities are but one example of how systemic racism filters into health outcomes for many Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC). With these issues front and center, more attention is being given to the ways that White medical professionals contribute to these (...) disparities, including their socialization to ignore or deny inequities. As such, the present study sought to understand how educating White health‐care pre‐professionals about systemic racism might influence their understanding of and responsibility for disrupting White supremacy. Data were drawn from 49 White‐identified nursing students who participated in a mapping project that uncovered instantiations of systemic racism in the United States. Participant written reflections were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed that mapping projects can develop White people's knowledge and understanding of systemic racism. We introduce the construct, transformative dissonant encounters, to describe how this project precipitated shifts in world view necessary for White people to confront systemic racism. Implications for nursing educators, psychological researchers, and antiracist activists are discussed. (shrink)