Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Archives

PEARS' TWO DOGMAS OF RUSSELI.:S LOGICAL ATOMISM KONRAD TALMONT-KAMINSKI Philosophy I Monash University Clayton 3168, Australia ktk@silas.cc.monash.edu.au INTRODUCTION1 I n the first seven pages of his Introduction to the 1985 Open Court edition of Russell's Philosophy of Logical Atomism! David Pears expounds what he takes to be Russell's "two main lines of thought, which must be kept in mind by anyone trying to understand Russell's logical atomism" (p. 7). He charges that any Russellian logical atomist would have to espouse one or the other to support what Pears chinks are two premisses of logical atomism. However, as we will see, Pears' argument to this effect fails because it is based upon false premisses. In dealing with Pears' argument, I will show that a Pragmatic option, which Pears explicitly rejects in his argument, turns oue to be far more condign than either of the two options Pears settles for. Leaving aside,. for the moment, consideration of the Pragmatic Approach, the two lines of thought Pears sees in Russell's work Pears dubs the Empirical and the Rationalist Approaches: The difference between them is not a difference ofopinion about the nature of things, but only about the way to establish what their nature is.... A philosopher who uses the Rationalist Approach will claim that this conclusion is selfevidently true, or, at least, that it can be established from apriori reasoning. The I William Demopoulos and Tim Kenyon, both at the University ofWestern Ontario, were invaluable in pushing my thinking on the issues discussed in this paper. 1 The edition also includes "Logical Atomism" (1924). russell: tho )ournzl of the Ikrtrmd Russell Archive, McMaster University Press n.S. 18 (winter 1998-99): 117-15 ISSN 0036-016)[ lI8 KONRAD TALMONT-KAMINSKI Empiricist Approach, on the other hand, leads to the claim that it is established by actual logical analysis. (P 6) One may ask how Pears justifies the claim that these "Approaches" are part and parcel of Russell's logical atomism. He does it by arguing from what he considers to be two basic "premisses" of Russell's logical atomism; correspondence realism and che existence of simples. He makes these premisses explicit in writing that, "there must be a general correspondence between the ways in which we divide up reality in thoughc and speech and the ways in which it divides up in fact" and, "the twO ... processes of analysis do not continue indefinitely" (p. 2). Having stated the putative premisses of logical atomism, Pears derives the two approaches (Empirical and Rationalist) by claiming that if we "start from the assumption that there isa general correspondence between language and reality", then, to show "that reality is composed of logical atoms which are not further analyzable" we must use either the Rationalist or the Empiricist Approach (p. 4)· The two approaches, therefore, are alternative ways of showing the existence of simples, given (the assumption of) correspondence realism. Rather than examine Pears' argument in detail, let us investigate the truth of che propositions upon which Pears bases his argument viz., thac logical atomists have to be correspondence realists, and chac they require the existence of simples.3 THE ONTOLOGICAL AGNOSTICISM OF LOGICAL ATOMISM In the opening paragraph of"Logical Atomism" Russell writes, regarding realism, "I could alter my view on this issue without changing my mind as to any of the doctrines upon which I wish to lay stress" (p. 157; Papers 9: 162). In light of this comment one would expect Pears to provide thorough support for his own claim that realism is a premiss of logical 1 In showing both of Pears' premisses to be incompatible with Russell's own writings I limit myself to the contents of the Open Coun edition of The PhiLosophy ofLogicaL Atomism (La Salle, IlL, (985) that Peats introduces. The Introduction replaces that ofthe original edition. titled RlISseU.} LogicaL Atomism. ed. David Pears (London: Fontana! Collins. 19T~). Both editions, incidentally, have an index to other writings by Russell in which key ropies in PLA are discussed. Pears' Two Dogmas ofRussell's LogicalAtomism 119 atomism. Surprisingly, though, Pears does not mention the difficulty, offers only a brief and unsatisfYing...