The author attacks the view that identity, Like largeness, Is a relative relation. The primary advocate of the view that identity is relative is p.T. Geach. It is argued that geach has not shown that the failure of the identity of indiscernibles principle, As a truth of logic, Forces us to stop taking indiscernibility within particular formal theories or languages as a sufficient condition for identity. The author also argues that the whole notion of relative identity, As explicated by geach, (...) Is very probably incoherent. (shrink)

Based mainly on unpublished papers this is the first detailed study of the early, neo-Hegelian period of Bertrand Russell's career. It covers his philosophical education at Cambridge, his conversion to neo-Hegelianism, his ambitious plans for a neo-Hegelian dialectic of the sciences and the problems which ultimately led him to reject it.

The paper describes the evolution of russell's theory of judgment between 1910 and 1913, With especial reference to his recently published "theory of knowledge" (1913). Russell abandoned the book and with it the theory of judgment as a result of wittgenstein's criticisms. These criticisms are examined in detail and found to constitute a refutation of russell's theory. Underlying differences between wittgenstein's and russell's views on logic are broached more sketchily.

Russell’s rejection in 1898 of the doctrine of internal relations — the view that all relations are grounded in the intrinsic properties of the terms related — was a decisive part of his break with Hegelianism and opened the way for his turn to analytic philosophy. Before rejecting it, Russell had given the doctrine little thought, though it played an essential role in the most intractable of the problems facing his attempt to construct a Hegelian dialectic of the sciences. I (...) argue that it was Russell’s early reading of Leibniz, in preparation for his lectures on Leibniz given at Cambridge in 1899, that most probably alerted him to the role the doctrine was playing in his own philosophy. Leibniz defended a similar doctrine and extricated it from difficulties like those faced by Russell by means of devices that were not open to Russell. Russell would have come across these views of Leibniz in writings by Leibniz that he read in the summer of 1898, just before he rejected the doctrine of internal relations. References F. H. Bradley. Appearance and Reality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. Originally published 1893. Nicholas Griffin. Russell’s Idealist Apprenticeship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. Nicholas Griffin. Russell and Leibniz on the Classification of Propositions. In Ralf Krömer and Yannick Chin-Drian, editors, New Essays on Leibniz Reception. Basel, Birkhäuser, pp. 85–127, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0346-0504-5 G. W. Leibniz. Die Philosophischen Schriften von Leibniz, 7 Volumes. Edited by C.I. Gerhardt. Berlin, Weidman, 1875–90. G. W. Leibniz. The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz. Edited by G.M. Duncan. New Haven, Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor, 1890. G. W. Leibniz. New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Translated by A.G. Langley. London, Macmillan, 1896. G. W. Leibniz. The Monadology and other Philosophical Writings. Edited by R. Latta. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898. G. W. Leibniz. Philosophical Papers and Letters, 2 Volumes. Edited by L.E. Loemker. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956. G. W. Leibniz. New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Translated and Edited by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981. Massimo Mugnai. Leibniz’ Theory of Relations. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1992. Massimo Mugnai. Leibniz’s Ontology of Relations: A Last Word?. In Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume IV. Edited by Daniel Garber and Donald Rutherford. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659593.001.0001 Walter H. O’Briant. Russell on Leibniz. Studia Leibniziana, 11: 159–222, 1979. B. Russell. An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry. New York, Dover, 1956. B. Russell. My Philosophical Development. London, Allen and Unwin, 1959. B. Russell. The Principles of Mathematics. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964. B. Russell. The Monistic Theory of Truth. In Philosophical Essays New York, Simon and Schuster, pages 131–46, 1968. B. Russell. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. London, Allen and Unwin, 1975. B. Russell, The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 1, Cambridge Essays, 1888–99, edited by Kenneth Blackwell, et al. London, Allen and Unwin, 1983. B. Russell. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 2, Philosophical Papers, 1896–99, edited by Nicholas Grif?n and Albert C. Lewis. London, Routledge, 1989a. B. Russell. On the Relations of Number and Quantity (1897). In Russell [1989a], pages 70–82, 1989b. B. Russell. An Analysis of Mathematical Reasoning (1898). In Russell [1989a], pages 163–241, 1989c. B. Russell. The Classification of Relations (1899), in Russell [1989a], pages 138–46, 1989d. B. Russell. The Fundamental Ideas and Axioms of Mathematics (1899). In Russell [1989a], pages 265–305, 1989e. B. Russell. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 3, Towards “The Principles of Mathematics”, 1900–02, edited by Gregory H. Moore. London, Routledge, 1993a. B. Russell. The Principles of Mathematics, 1899–1900 Draft. In Russell [1993a], pages 13–180, 1993b. B. Russell. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, vol. 11, Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–68. Edited by John G. Slater. London, Routledge, 1997. (shrink)

Brandom’s inferentialism offers, in many ways, a radically new approach to old issues in semantics and the theory of intentionality. But, in one respect at least, it clings tenaciously to the mainstream philosophical tradition of the middle years of the twentieth century. Against the theory’s natural tendencies, Brandom aligns it with the ’linguistic turn’ that philosophy took in the middle of the last century by insisting, in the face of considerable opposing evidence, that intentionality is the preserve of those who (...) can offer and ask for reasons and thus of language users alone. In this paper, I argue that there is no good reason for giving inferentialism a linguistic twist, and that, in doing so, Brandom is forced to make claims which are implausible in themselves and lead him, in the attempt to mitigate them, to a number of doubtful expedients. (shrink)

Wittgenstein expounds his notion of a family resemblance in two important passages. The first is from The Blue Book:This craving for generality is the resultant of a number of tendencies connected with particular philosophical confusions. There is— The tendency to look for something common to entities which we commonly subsume under a general term. We are inclined to think that there must be something common to all games, say, and that this common property is the justification for applying the general (...) term “game” to the various games; whereas the games form a family the members of which have family likenesses …. There is a tendency rooted in our usual forms of expression, to think that a man who has learnt to understand a general term, say, the term “leaf,” has thereby come to possess a kind of general picture of a leaf, as opposed to pictures of particular leaves …. This again is connected with the idea that the meaning of a word is an image, or a thing correlated with the word. (shrink)

It is widely accepted by formal and informal logicians alike that a formal logic which, by the lights of English, gets the connectives wrong, nevertheless conspires to get entailment right—right that is, modulo English. There is a vexing problem occasioned by this semantic alienation of formal logic. It is next to impossible for formal logic to meet the expectations of realism. What, then, of informal logic?

This article examines the development of Russell's treatment of propositions, in relation to the topic of psychologism. In the first section, we outline the concept of psychologism, and show how it can arise in relation to theories of the nature of propositions. Following this, we note the anti-psychologistic elements of Russell's thought dating back to his idealist roots. From there, we sketch the development of Russell's theory of the proposition through a number of its key transitions. We show that Russell, (...) in responding to a variety of different problems relating to the proposition, chose to resolve these problems in ways that continually made concessions to psychologism. (shrink)

The extant manuscript is described in relation to Russell’s Trinity College lecture course in 1899 and its subsequent preparation for the book of 1900. Alterations within the MS are reported. So are revisions that must have followed on a missing typescript, as derived from comparing G. E. Moore’s copy of the page proofs with the MS. His suggested changes are compared with the text of the first edition along with emendations Russell must have made on his own copy of the (...) proofs. (shrink)

Russell brought three arguments forward against Meinong's theory of objects. None of them depend upon a misinterpretation of the theory as is often claimed. In particular, only one is based upon a clash between Meinong's theory and Russell's theory of descriptions, and that did not involve Russell's attributing to Meinong his own ontological assumption. The other two arguments were attempts to find internal inconsistencies in Meinong's theory. But neither was sufficient to refute the theory, though they do require some revisions, (...) viz. a trade-off between freedom of assumption and unhmited characterization. Meinong himself worked out the essentials of the required revisions. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell ranks as one of the giants of 20th century philosophy. This Companion focuses on Russell's contributions to modern philosophy and, therefore, concentrates on the early part of his career. Through his books, journalism, correspondence and political activity he exerted a profound influence on modern thought. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Russell available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Russell.

Russell brought three arguments forward against Meinong's theory of objects. None of them depend upon a misinterpretation of the theory as is often claimed. In particular, only one is based upon a clash between Meinong's theory and Russell's theory of descriptions, and that did not involve Russell's attributing to Meinong his own ontological assumption. The other two arguments were attempts to find internal inconsistencies in Meinong's theory. But neither was sufficient to refute the theory, though they do require some revisions, (...) viz. a trade-off between freedom of assumption and unhmited characterization. Meinong himself worked out the essentials of the required revisions. (shrink)

The paper defends Meinong's theory of objects against criticism by Reinhardt Grossmann. In particular, it is argued that Grossmann fails to show that non-existent objects may not be constituents of states of affairs and fails to provide an adequate alternative analysis of states of affairs which putatively contain nonexistent items. Grossmann, in fact, is guilty of a pervasive psychologistic misinterpretation of Meinong according to which Meinong believed that objects have all the properties with which they appear before the mind. Once (...) this error is avoided, Meinong's theory not only escapes Grossmann's criticisms but has a highdegree of plausibility. (shrink)

A century after ‘On Denoting’ was published, the debate it initiated continues to rage. On the one hand, there is a mass of new historical scholarship, about both Russell and Meinong, which has not circulated very far beyond specialist scholars. On the other hand, there are continuing problems and controversies concerning contemporary Russellian and Meinongian theories, many of them involving issues that simply did not occur to the original protagonists. This work provides an overview of the latest historical scholarship on (...) the two philosophers as well as detailed accounts of some of the problems facing the current incarnations of their theories. (shrink)

When Russell was fifteen, he was given a copy of W.K. Clifford’s The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences . Russell later recalled reading it immediately “with passionate interest and with an intoxicating delight in intellectual clarification”. Why then, when Russell wrote An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry , did he choose to defend spaces of homogeneous curvature as a priori? Why was he almost completely silent thereafter on the subject of Clifford, and his writings on geometry and space? (...) We suggest that Russell may have avoided Clifford’s hypothesis that space had heterogeneous curvature because it seemed impossible to reconcile a coherent theory of measurement with a space of variable curvature. Whitehead objected to Einstein’s general theory of relativity on this basis, formulating an alternate theory that preserved the constant curvature of space and, therefore, a familiar sense of measurement. After Einstein’s general theory, Russell chose to distance himself from the position he argued in the Essay. (shrink)

As is well-known, Bradley maintained the curious view that Reality was a single, self-consistent whole without individuable parts. He supported this view not by direct arguments but indirectly, by trying to show that alternative positions led to contradiction. Undoubtedly the most important among his reductio arguments were the battery of arguments he used against relations in an attempt to prove that, since relations were impossible, there could be no multiplicity of related items. For if there were two or more items, (...) there would certainly be relations between them. The defects of these arguments are by now well-known. However, Bradley’s arguments against relations were only part of the case he made for monism. Another important part of his case concerns the arguments he brought against subject-predicate propositions. Bradley was concerned to argue not merely the now generally conceded view that not all propositions were subject-predicate in form, but the more radical thesis that there were no true subject-predicate propositions at all. (shrink)

For a long time it was widely believed that meinong held that every object of reference had being. this has since come to be recognized as a 'horrible travesty' (findlay's phrase) of meinong's position. however, a new horrible travesty has grown up: namely, that the original misinterpretation of meinong was due to russell's early discussions of his work. while it is conceded that russell's later writings contained travesties of meinong, it is shown (using unpublished documents in the bertrand russell archives (...) as well as russell's published writings) that, in his early critical discussions of meinong, russell was fully aware that for meinong some objects had no kind of being at all. (shrink)

In a recent paper M.R. Ayers attacks two widely held doctrines: Non-arbitary individuation requires principles of individuation and these are supplies only by sortal general terms. It is possible for an item a to be the same as b but not the same as b.I shall follow Ayers in calling a theory which includes both and ‘conceptualist’ or ‘sortalist’, but I shall not allow him to appropriate the honorific term ‘realist’ for his own theory, which I shall term ‘absolutist’. My (...) sole purpose here is to defend and in turn against Ayers’ attacks on them. Thus I shall ignore intermediate positions which accept but reject or vice-versa.Ayers’ paper is long and in many respects obscure; there are many points in it which require discussion but which can't receive it here for lack of space. In particular, I shall ignore his lengthy comments on the constitutive ‘is’, and also the wider metaphysical remarks in his conclusion and the postscript on Dummett. (shrink)

Russell’s most important source for his book on Leibniz was C. I. Gerhardt’s seven-volume Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Russell heavily annotated his copy of this important edition of Leibniz’s works. The present paper records all Russell’s marginalia, with the exception of passages marked merely by vertical lines in the margin, and provides explanatory commentary.

G. E. Moore attended Russell’s lectures on Leibniz in 1899 and kept detailed notes which have been preserved among his papers. The present article prints his notes in their entirety with annotations.

In preparation for his lectures on Leibniz delivered in Cambridge in Lent Term 1899, Russell started in the summer of 1898 to keep notes on writings by and about Leibniz in a large notebook of the type he commonly used for notetaking at this time. This article prints, with annotation, all the material on Leibniz in that notebook.