In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The emergence of Russell's logical construction of physical objects by Sajahan M iah 1. INTRODUCTION IN THE PREFACE to Our Knowledge ofthe External World (1914), Russell states that The central problem by which I have sought to illustrate method is the problem of the relation between the crude data of sense and the space, time, and matter of mathematical physics. I have been made aware of the importance of this problem by my friend and collaborator Dr. Whitehead, to whom are due almost all the differences between the views advocated here and those suggested in The Problems ojPhilosophy [1912]. lowe to him the definition of points, the suggestion for the treatment of instants and "things," and the whole conception of the world of physics as a construction rather than an inference. I This passage conveys several impressions: that Russell became a construction 'ist, for the first time, in Our Knowledge; that the constructionist theory emerged directly out of The Problems of Philosophy; and that Whitehead deserves full credit for Russell's becoming a constructionist . The received view accepts all of these impressions. In this paper, I dispute them all. My aim is to establish the following theses: 'Our Knowledge of the External World, 2nd ed. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1926), pp. 7-8. 11 12 Russell summer 1987 The logical construction of physical objects 13 II. RUSSELL'S PRE-CONSTRUCTIONIST VIEW OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS In the Problems Russell's approach to the problem of the external world is similar to that of the classical British empiricists. There relying on perceptual relativity, he concludes that we perceive not physical objects but sense-data: such things as colours, smells, sounds, hardnesses, etc. 3 The text I shall concentrate on is "On Matter", supplemented by Russell 's private correspondence with Lady Ottoline Morrell. "On Matter" is of special interest both for identifying the weaknesses of the Problems and for the emergence ofthe constructionist theory. Before proceeding, I wish to stipulate that, in this paper, I take logical constructionism to be an epistemological theory which is confined to the construction of physical objects out of actual and possible sense-data; and I hold that Russell considered this, for the first time, in 1912. 2 2 Russell first developed logical constructions in 1903 (although he did not use the term "logical construction") in the philosophy of mathematics. He applies the method in The Principles ofMathematics in the definitions of cardinal, ordinal and real numbers. Instead of defining the cardinal number of any given class as the property common and peculiar to all the members of that class, Russell shows how it could be regarded as a logical construction out of equivalence classes. See The Principles of Mathematics (Cambridge U.P., 1903), pp. 114-16. See also Principia Mathematica, 2nd ed. (Cambridge V.P., 1925, 1927), Vol. II (1st published in 1912), p. 4; "The Relation of Sensedata to Physics" (1914; reprinted in Mysticism and Logic, Penguin, 1953), p. 149; Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1919), p. 18; "Reply to Criticisms", in The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, ed. P.A. Schilpp (Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern U., 1944), p. 692. In Principia Mathematica Russell and Whitehead jointly apply the method of logical constructions to more mathematico-logical problems. l The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford, 1946; New York: Oxford [Galaxy], 1959), p. 12. In the Problems, Russell happily accepts (I) and (2) but rejects (3) and (4). While admitting the gap between sense-data and physical objects, Russell steps aside from scepticism and tries to bridge the epistemological gap by a process of inductive reasoning (not induction by simple enumeration). By assuming an inductive principle, we are able to infer, from the existence of sense-data, physical objects that transcend and are causes of these data. The application of the inductive principle in this procesS of inference rests partly on the simplicity hypothesis and (I) Our knowledge of physical objects, if any, is based on senseexperience . (2) Sense-experience gives knowledge only of sense-data. (3) There is no valid deductive or inductive inference from sense-data to physical objects. (4) So we have no knowledge of physical objects. 4 David Hume, A...

pdf

Share