Friday, September 4, 2009

Russell’s Metaphysics

russellMetaphysics is not a school or tradition but rather a
sub-discipline within philosophy, as are ethics, logic and
epistemology. Like many philosophical terms, "metaphysics" can be
understood in a variety of ways, so any discussion of Bertrand
Russell's metaphysics must select from among the various possible ways
of understanding the notion, for example, as the study of being qua
being, the study of the first principles or grounds of being, the
study of God, and so forth. The primary sense of "metaphysics"
examined here in connection to Russell is the study of the ultimate
nature and constituents of reality.

Since what we know, if anything, is assumed to be real, doctrines in
metaphysics typically dovetail with doctrines in epistemology. But in
this article, discussion of Russell's epistemology is kept to a
minimum in order to better canvas his metaphysics, beginning with his
earliest adult views in 1897 and ending shortly before his death in
1969. Russell revises his conception of the nature of reality in both
large and small ways throughout his career. Still, there are positions
that he never abandons; particularly, the belief that reality is
knowable, that it is many, that there are entities – universals – that
do not exist in space and time, and that there are truths that cannot
be known by direct experience or inference but are known a priori.

The word "metaphysics" sometimes is used to describe questions or
doctrines that are a priori, that is, that purport to concern what
transcends experience, and particularly sense-experience. Thus, a
system may be called metaphysical if it contains doctrines, such as
claims about the nature of the good or the nature of human reason,
whose truth is supposed to be known independently of (sense)
experience. Such claims have characterized philosophy from its
beginnings, as has the belief that they are meaningful and valuable.
However, from the modern period on, and especially in Russell's own
lifetime, various schools of philosophy began to deny the legitimacy
and desirability of a priori metaphysical theorizing. In fact,
Russell's life begins in a period sympathetic to this traditional
philosophical project, and ends in a period which is not. Concerning
these "meta-metaphysical" issues (that is, doctrines not in
metaphysics but about it and its feasibility), Russell remained
emphatically a metaphysician throughout his life. In fact, in his
later work, it is this strand more than doctrines about the nature of
reality per se that justify his being considered as one of the last,
great metaphysicians.

1. The 1890s: Idealism

Russell's earliest work in metaphysics is marked by the sympathies of
his teachers and his era for a particular tradition known as idealism.
Idealism is broadly understood as the contention that ultimate reality
is immaterial or dependent on mind, so that matter is in some sense
derivative, emergent, and at best conditionally real. Idealism
flourished in Britain in the last third of the nineteenth century and
first two decades of the twentieth. British idealists such as Bernard
Bosanquet, T.H. Green, Harold Joachim, J.M.E. McTaggart and F.H.
Bradley – some of whom were Russell's teachers – were most influenced
by Hegel's form of absolute idealism, though influences of Immanuel
Kant's transcendental idealism can also be found in their work. This
section will explore British Idealism's influence on the young
Bertrand Russell.
a. Neo-Hegelianism

Until 1898, Russell's work a variety of subjects (like geometry or
space and time) is marked by the presumption that any area of study
contains contradictions that move the mind into other, related, areas
that enrich and complete it. This is similar to Hegel's dialectical
framework. However, in Hegel's work this so-called "dialectic" is a
central part of his metaphysical worldview, characterizing the
movement of "absolute spirit" as it unfolds into history. Russell is
relatively uninfluenced by Hegel's broader theory, and adopts merely
the general dialectical approach. He argues, for example, that the
sciences are incomplete and contain contradictions, that one passes
over into the other, as number into geometry and geometry into
physics. The goal of a system of the sciences, he thinks, is to reveal
the basic postulates of each science, their relations to each other,
and to eliminate all inconsistencies but those that are integral to
the science as such. ("Note on the Logic of the Sciences," Papers 2)
In this way, Russell's early work is dialectical and holistic rather
than monistic. On this point, Russell's thinking was probably
influenced by his tutors John McTaggart and James Ward, who were both
British idealists unsympathetic to Bradley's monism.
b. F. H. Bradley and Internal Relations

Bradley, most famous for his book Appearance and Reality, defines what
is ultimately real as what is wholly unconditioned or independent. Put
another way, on Bradley's view what is real must be complete and
self-sufficient. Bradley also thinks that the relations a thing stands
in, such as being to the left of something else, are internal to it,
that is, grounded in its intrinsic properties, and therefore
inseparable from those properties. It follows from these two views
that the subjects of relations, considered in themselves, are
incomplete and dependent, and therefore ultimately unreal. For
instance, if my bookcase is to the left of my desk, and if the
relation being to the left of is internal to my bookcase, then being
to the left of my desk contributes to the identity or being of my
bookcase just as being six feet tall and being brown do. Consequently,
it is not unconditioned or independent, since its identity is bound up
with my desk's. Since the truly real is independent, it follows that
my bookcase is not truly real. This sort of argument can be given for
every object that we could conceivably encounter in experience:
everything stands in some relation or other to something else, thus
everything is partially dependent on something else for its identity;
but since it is dependent, it is not truly real.

The only thing truly real, Bradley thinks, is the whole network of
interrelated objects that constitutes what we might call "the whole
world." Thus he embraces a species of monism: the doctrine that,
despite appearances to the contrary, no plurality of substances exists
and that only one thing exits: the whole. What prevents us from
apprehending this, he believes, is our tendency to confuse the limited
reality of things in our experience (and the truths based on that
limited perspective)- with the unconditioned reality of the whole, the
Absolute or One. Hence, Bradley is unsympathetic to the activity of
analysis, for by breaking wholes into parts it disguises rather than
reveals the nature of reality.

The early Russell, who was familiar with Bradley's work through his
teachers at Cambridge, was only partly sympathetic to F. H. Bradley's
views. Russell accepts the doctrine that relations are internal but,
unlike Bradley, he does not deny that there is a plurality of things
or subjects. Thus Russell's holism, for example, his view of the
interconnectedness of the sciences, does not require the denial of
plurality or the rejection of analysis as a falsification of reality,
both of which doctrines are antithetic to him early on.
c. Neo-Kantianism and A Priori Knowledge

Russell's early views are also influenced by Kant. Kant argued that
the mind imposes categories (like being in space and time) that shape
what we experience. Since Kant defines a priori propositions as those
we know to be true independently of (logically prior to) experience,
and a posteriori propositions as those whose truth we know only
through experience, it follows that propositions about these
categories are a priori, since the conditions of any possible
experience must be independent of experience. Thus for Kant, geometry
contains a priori propositions about categories of space that
condition our experience of things as spatial.

Russell largely agrees with Kant in his 1898 Foundations of Geometry,
which is based on his dissertation. Other indications of a Kantian
approach can be seen, for example, in his 1897 claim that what is
essential to matter is schematization under the form of space ("On
Matter," Papers 2).
d. Russell's Turn from Idealism to Realism

There are several points on which Russell's views eventually turn
against idealism and towards realism. The transition is not sudden but
gradual, growing out of discomfort with what he comes to see as an
undue psychologism in his work, and out of growing awareness of the
importance of asymmetrical (ordering) relations in mathematics. The
first issue concerns knowledge and opposes neo-Kantianism; the second
issue concerns the nature of relations and the validity of analysis
and opposes Neo-Hegelianism and Monism. The former lends itself to
realism and mind/matter dualism, that is, to a view of matter as
independent of minds, which apprehend it without shaping it. The
latter lends itself to a view of the radical plurality of what exists.
Both contribute to a marked preference for analysis over synthesis, as
the mind's way of apprehending the basic constituents of reality. By
the time these developments are complete, Russell's work no longer
refers to the dialectic of thought or to the form of space or to other
marks of his early infatuation with idealism. Yet throughout Russell's
life there remains a desire to give a complete account of the
sciences, as a kind of vestige of his earlier views.
i. His Rejection of Psychologism

When Russell begins to question idealism, he does so in part because
of the idealist perspective on the status of truths of mathematics. In
his first completely anti-idealist work, The Principles of Mathematics
(1903), Russell does not reject Kant's general conception of the
distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, but he
rejects Kant's idealism, that is, Kant's doctrine that the nature of
thought determines what is a priori. On Russell's view, human nature
could change, and those truths would then be destroyed, which he
thinks is absurd. Moreover, Russell objects that the Kantian notion of
a priori truth is conditional, that is, that Kant must hold that 2 + 2
equals 4 only on condition that the mind always thinks it so
(Principles, p. 40.) On Russell's view, in contrast, mathematical and
logical truths must be true unconditionally; thus 2 + 2 equals 4 even
if there are no intelligences or minds. Thus Russell's attack on
Kant's notion of the a priori focuses on what he sees as Kant's
psychologism, that is, his tendency to confuse what is objectively
true even if no one thinks it, with what we are so psychologically
constructed as to have to think. In general, Russell begins to sharply
distinguish questions of logic, conceived as closely related to
metaphysics, from questions of knowledge and psychology. Thus in his
1904 paper "Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions" (Essays in
Analysis, pp. 21-22), he writes, "The theory of knowledge is often
regarded as identical with logic. This view results from confounding
psychical states with their objects; for, when it is admitted that the
proposition known is not the identical with the knowledge of it, it
becomes plain that the question as to the nature of propositions is
distinct from all questions of knowledge…. The theory of knowledge is
in fact distinct from psychology, but is more complex: for it involves
not only what psychology has to say about belief, but also the
distinction of truth and falsehood, since knowledge is only belief in
what is true."
ii. His Rejection of Internal Relations

In his early defense of pluralism, external relations ( relations
which cannot be reduced to properties) play an important role. The
monist asserts that all relations within a complex or whole are less
real than that whole, so that analysis of a whole into its parts is a
misrepresentation or falsification of reality, which is one. It is
consonant with this view, Russell argues, to try to reduce
propositions that express relations to propositions asserting a
property of something, that is, some subject-term (Principles, p.
221.) The monist therefore denies or ignores the existence of
relations. But some relations must be irreducible to properties of
terms, in particular the transitive and asymmetrical relations that
order series, as the quality of imposing order among terms is lost if
the relation is reduced to a property of a term. In rejecting monism,
Russell argues that at least some relations are irreducible to
properties of terms, hence they are external to those terms
(Principles, p. 224); and on the basis of this doctrine of external
relations, he describes reality as not one but many, that is, composed
of diverse entities, bound but not dissolved into wholes by external
relations. Since monism tends to reduce relations to properties, and
to take these as intrinsic to substances (and ultimately to only one
substance), Russell's emphasis on external relations is explicitly
anti-monistic.
2. 1901-1904: Platonist Realism

When Russell rebelled against idealism (with his friend G.E. Moore) he
adopted metaphysical doctrines that were realist and dualist as well
as Platonist and pluralist. As noted above, his realism and dualism
entails that there is an external reality distinct from the inner
mental reality of ideas and perceptions, repudiating the idealist
belief that ultimate reality consists of ideas and the materialist
view that everything is matter, and his pluralism consists in assuming
there are many entities bound by external relations. Equally
important, however, is his Platonism.
a. What has Being

Russell's Platonism involves a belief that there are mind-independent
entities that need not exist to be real, that is, to subsist and have
being. Entities, or what has being (and may or may not exist) are
called terms, and terms include anything that can be thought. In
Principles of Mathematics (1903) he therefore writes, "Whatever may be
an object of thought,…, or can be counted as one, I call a term. …I
shall use it as synonymous with the words unit, individual, and
entity. … [E]very term has being, that is, is in some sense. A man, a
moment, a number, a class, a relation, a chimera, or anything else
that can be mentioned, is sure to be a term…." (Principles, p. 43)
Russell links his metaphysical Platonism to a theory of meaning as
well as a theory of knowledge. Thus, all words that possess meaning do
so by denoting complex or simple, abstract or concrete objects, which
we apprehend by a kind of knowledge called acquaintance.
b. Propositions as Objects

Since for Russell words mean objects (terms), and since sentences are
built up out of several words, it follows that what a sentence means,
a proposition, is also an entity — a unity of those entities meant by
the words in the sentence, namely, things (particulars, or those
entities denoted by names) and concepts (entities denoted by words
other than names). Propositions are thus complex objects that either
exist and are true or subsist and are false. So, both true and false
propositions have being (Principles, p. 35). A proposition is about
the things it contains; for example, the proposition meant by the
sentence "the cat is on the mat" is composed of and is about the cat,
the mat, and the concept on. As Russell writes to Gottlob Frege in
1904: 'I believe that in spite of all of its snowfields Mount Blanc
itself is a component part of what is actually asserted in the
proposition "Mount Blanc is more than 40,000 meters high." We do not
assert the thought, for that is a private psychological matter; we
assert the object of the thought, and this is, to my mind, a certain
complex (an objective proposition, one might say) in which Mount Blanc
is itself a component part.' (From Frege to Gödel, pp. 124-125)

This Platonist view of propositions as objects bears, furthermore, on
Russell's conception of logical propositions. In terms of the degree
of abstractness in the entities making them up, the propositions of
logic and those of a particular science sit at different points on a
spectrum, with logical propositions representing the point of maximum
generality and abstraction (Principles, p. 7). Thus, logical
propositions are not different in kind from propositions of other
sciences, and by a process of analysis we can come to their basic
constituents, the objects (constants) of logic.
c. Analysis and Classes

Russell sometimes compares philosophical analysis to a kind of mental
chemistry, since, as in chemical analysis, it involves resolving
complexes into their simpler elements (Principles, p. xv). But in
philosophical analyses, the process of decomposing a complex is
entirely intellectual, a matter of seeing with the mind's eye the
simples involved in some complex concept. To have reached the end of
such an intellectual analysis is to have reached the simple entities
that cannot be further analyzed but must be immediately perceived.
Reaching the end of an analysis – that is, arriving at the mental
perception of a simple entity, a concept – then provides the means for
definition, in the philosophical sense, since the meaning of the term
being analyzed is defined in terms of the simple entities grasped at
the end of the process of analysis. Yet in this period Russell is
confronted with several logical and metaphysical problems. We see from
his admission in the Principles that he has been unable to grasp the
concept class which, he sees, leads to contradictions, for example, to
Russell's paradox (Principles, pp. xv-xvi).

Russell's extreme Platonist realism involves him in several
difficulties besides the fact that class appears to be a paradoxical
(unthinkable) entity or concept. These additional concerns, which he
sees even in the Principles, along with his difficulty handling the
notion of a class and the paradoxes surrounding it, help determine the
course of his later metaphysical (and logical) doctrines.
d. Concepts' Dual Role in Propositions

One difficulty concerns the status of concepts within the entity
called a proposition, and this arises from his doctrine that any
quality or absence of quality presupposes being. On Russell's view the
difference between a concept occurring as such and occurring as a
subject term in a proposition is merely a matter of their external
relations and not an intrinsic or essential difference in entities
(Principles, p. 46). Hence a concept can occur either predicatively or
as a subject term. He therefore views with suspicion Frege's doctrine
that concepts are essentially predicative and cannot occur as objects,
that is, as the subject terms of a proposition (Principles, Appendix
A). As Frege acknowledges, to say that concepts cannot occur as
objects is a doctrine that defies exact expression, for we cannot say
"a concept is not an object" without seemingly treating a concept as
an object, since it appears to be the referent of the subject term in
our sentence. Frege shows little distress over this problem of
inexpressibility, but for Russell such a state of affairs is
self-contradictory and paradoxical since the concept is an object in
any sentence that says it is not. Yet, as he discovers, to allow
concepts a dual role opens the way to other contradictions (such as
Russell's paradox), since makes it possible for a predicate to be
predicated of itself. Faced with paradoxes on either side, Russell
chooses to risk the paradox he initially sees as arising from Frege's
distinction between concepts and objects in order to avoid more
serious logical paradoxes arising from his own assumption of concepts'
dual role. (See Principles, Chapter X and Appendix B.) This issue
contributes to his emerging attempt to eliminate problematic concepts
and propositions from the domain of what has being. In doing so he
implicitly draws away from his original belief that what is thinkable
has being, as it is not clear how he can say that items he earlier
entertained are unthinkable.
e. Meaning versus Denoting

Another difficulty with Russell's Platonist realism concerns the way
concepts are said to contribute to the meaning of propositions in
which they occur. As noted earlier, propositions are supposed to
contain what they are about, but the situation is more complex when
these constituent entities include denoting concepts, either
indefinite ones like a man or definite ones like the last man. The
word "human" denotes an extra-mental concept human, but the concept
human denotes the set of humans: Adam, Benjamin, Cain, and so on. As a
result, denoting concepts have a peculiar role in objective
propositions: when a denoting phrase occurs in a sentence, a denoting
concept occurs in the corresponding proposition, but the proposition
is not about the denoting concept but about the entities falling under
the concept. Thus the proposition corresponding to the sentence "all
humans are mortal" contains the concept human but is not about the
concept per se – it is not attributing mortality to a concept – but is
about individual humans. As a result, it is difficult to see how we
can ever talk about the concept itself (as in the sentence "human is a
concept"), for when we attempt to do so what we denote is not what we
mean. In unpublished work from the period immediately following the
publication of Principles (for example, "On Fundamentals," Papers 4)
Russell struggles to explain the connection between meaning and
denoting, which he insists is a logical and not a merely psychological
or linguistic connection.
f. The Relation of Logic to Epistemology and Psychology

In his early work, Russell treats logical questions quite like
metaphysical ones and as distinct from epistemological and
psychological issues bearing on how we know. As we saw (in section
1.d.i above), in his 1904 "Meinong's Theory of Complexes and
Assumptions" (Papers 4), Russell objects to what he sees as the
idealist tendency to equate epistemology (that is, theory of
knowledge) with logic, the study of propositions, by wrongly
identifying states of knowing with the objects of those states (for
example, judging with what is judged, the proposition). We must, he
says, clearly distinguish a proposition from our knowledge of a
proposition, and in this way it becomes clear that the study of the
nature of a proposition, which falls within logic, in no sense
involves the study of knowledge. Epistemology is also distinct from
and more inclusive than psychology, for in studying knowledge we need
to look at psychological phenomena like belief, but since "knowledge"
refers not merely to belief but to true belief, the study of knowledge
involves investigation into the distinction between true and false and
in that way goes farther than psychology.
3. 1905-1912: Logical Realism

Even as these problems are emerging, Russell is becoming acquainted
with Alexius Meinong's psychologically oriented philosophical
concerns. At the same time, he is adopting an eliminative approach
towards classes and other putative entities by means of a logical
analysis of sentences containing words that appear to refer to such
entities. These forces together shape much of his metaphysics in this
early period. By 1912, these changes have resulted in a metaphysic
preoccupied with the nature and forms of facts and complexes.
a. Acquaintance and Descriptive Psychology

Russell becomes aware of the work of Alexius Meinong, an Austrian
philosopher who studied with Franz Brentano and founded a school of
experimental psychology. Meinong's most famous work, Über
Gegenstandstheorie (1904), or Theory of Objects, develops the concept
of intentionality, that is, the idea that consciousness is always of
objects, arguing, further, that non-existent as well as existent
objects lay claim to a kind of being – a view to which Russell is
already sympathetic. Russell's 1904 essay "Meinong's Theory of
Complexes and Assumptions" (Papers 4) illustrates his growing
fascination with descriptive psychology, which brings questions
concerning the nature of cognition to the foreground. After 1904,
Russell's doctrine of the constituents of propositions is increasingly
allied to epistemological and psychological investigations. For
example, he begins to specify various kinds of acquaintance – sensed
objects, abstract objects, introspected ones, logical ones, and so
forth. Out of this discourse comes the more familiar terminology of
universals and particulars absent from his Principles.
b. Eliminating Classes as Objects

Classes, as Russell discovers, give rise to contradictions, and their
presence among the basic entities assumed by his logical system
therefore impedes the goal, sketched in the Principles, of showing
mathematics to be a branch of logic. The general idea of eliminating
classes predates the discovery of the techniques enabling him to do
so, and it is not until 1905, in "On Denoting," that Russell discovers
how to analyze sentences containing denoting phrases so as to deny
that he is committed to the existence of corresponding entities. It is
this general technique that he then employs to show that classes need
not be assumed to exist, since sentences appearing to refer to classes
can be rewritten in terms of properties.
i. "On Denoting" (1905)

For Russell in 1903, the meaning of a word is an entity, and the
meaning of a sentence is therefore a complex entity (the proposition)
composed of the entities that are the meanings of the words in the
sentence. (See Principles, Chapter IV.) The words and phrases
appearing in a sentence (like the words "I" and "met" and "man" in "I
met a man") are assumed to be those that have meaning (that is, that
denote entities). In "On Denoting" (1905) Russell attempts to solve
the problem of how indefinite and definite descriptive phrases like "a
man" and "the present King of France," which denote no single
entities, have meaning. From this point on, Russell begins to believe
that a process of logical analysis is necessary to locate the words
and phrases that really give the sentence meaning and that these may
be different than the words and phrases that appear at first glance to
comprise the sentence. Despite advocating a deeper analysis of
sentences and acknowledging that the words that contribute to their
meaning may not be those that superficially appear in the sentence,
Russell continues to believe (even after 1905), that a word of phrase
has meaning only by denoting an entity.
ii. Impact on Analysis

This has a marked impact on his conception of analysis, which makes it
a kind of discovery of entities. Thus Russell sometimes means by
"analysis" a process of devising new ways of conveying what a
particular word or phrase means, thereby eliminating the need for the
original word. Sometimes the result of this kind of analysis or
construction is to show that there can be no successful analysis in
the first sense with respect to a particular purported entity. It is
not uncommon for Russell to employ both kinds of analysis in the same
work. This discovery, interwoven with his attempts to eliminate
classes, emerges as a tactic that eventually eliminates a great many
of the entities he admitted in 1903.
c. Eliminating Propositions as Objects

In 1903, Russell believed subsistence and existence were modalities of
those objects called propositions. By 1906, Russell's attempt to
eliminate propositions testifies to his movement away from this view
of propositions. (See "On the Nature of Truth, Proc. Arist. Soc.,
1906, pp. 28-49.) Russell is already aware in 1903 that his conception
of propositions as single (complex) entities is amenable to
contradictions. In 1906, his worries about propositions and paradox
lead him to reject objective false propositions, that is, false
subsisting propositions that have being as much as true ones.

In seeking to eliminate propositions Russell is influenced by his
success in "On Denoting," as well as by Meinong. As he adopts the
latter's epistemological and psychological interests, he becomes
interested in cognitive acts of believing, supposing, and so on, which
in 1905 he already calls 'propositional attitudes' ("Meinong's Theory
of Complexes and Assumptions," Papers 4) and which he hopes can be
used to replace his doctrine of objective propositions. He therefore
experiments with ways of eliminating propositions as single entities
by accounting for them in terms of psychological acts of judgment that
give unity to the various parts of the proposition, drawing them
together into a meaningful whole. Yet the attempts do not go far, and
the elimination of propositions only becomes official with the theory
of belief he espouses in 1910 in "On the Nature of Truth and
Falsehood" (Papers 6), which eliminates propositions and explains the
meaning of sentences in terms of a person's belief that various
objects are unified in a fact.
d. Facts versus Complexes

By 1910 the emergence of the so-called multiple relation theory of
belief brings the notion of a fact into the foreground. On this
theory, a belief is true if things are related in fact as they are in
the judgment, and false if they are not so related.

In this period, though Russell sometimes asks whether a complex is
indeed the same as a fact (for example, in the 1913 unpublished
manuscript Theory of Knowledge (Papers 7, p. 79)), he does not yet
draw the sharp distinction between them that he later does in the 1918
lectures published as the Philosophy of Logical Atomism (Papers 8),
and they are treated as interchangeable. That is, no distinction is
yet drawn between what we perceive (a complex object, such as the
shining sun) and what it is that makes a judgment based on perception
true (a fact, such as that the sun is shining). He does, however,
distinguish between a complex and a simple object (Principia, p. 44).
A simple object is irreducible, while a complex object can be analyzed
into other complex or simple constituents. Every complex contains one
or more particulars and at least one universal, typically a relation,
with the simplest kind of complex being a dyadic relation between two
terms, as when this amber patch is to the right of that brown patch.
Both complexes and facts are classified into various forms of
increasing complication.
e. Universals and Particulars

In this period, largely through Meinong's influence, Russell also
begins to distinguish types of acquaintance – the acquaintance we have
with particulars, with universals, and so on. He also begins to
relinquish the idea of possible or subsisting particulars (for
example, propositions), confining that notion to universals.

The 1911 "On the Relations of Universals and Particulars" (Papers 6)
presents a full-blown doctrine of universals. Here Russell argues for
the existence of diverse particulars – that is, things like tables,
chairs, and the material particles that make them up that can exist in
one and only one place at any given time. But he also argues for the
existence of universals, that is, entities like redness that exist in
more than one place at any time. Having argued that properties are
universals, he cannot rely on properties to individuate particulars,
since it is possible for there to be multiple particulars with all the
same properties. In order to ground the numerical diversity of
particulars even in cases where they share properties, Russell relies
on spatial location. It is place or location, not any difference in
properties, that most fundamentally distinguishes any two particulars.

Finally, he argues that our perceived space consists of asymmetrical
relations such as left and right, that is, relations that order space.
As he sees it, universals alone can't account for the asymmetrical
relations given in perception – particulars are needed. Hence,
wherever a spatial relation holds, it must hold of numerically diverse
terms, that is, of diverse particulars. Of course, there is also need
for universals, since numerically diverse particulars cannot explain
what is common to several particulars, that is, what occurs in more
than one place.
f. Logic as the Study of Forms of Complexes and Facts

Though he eliminates propositions, Russell continues to view logic in
a metaphysically realist way, treating its propositions as objects of
a particularly formal, abstract kind. Since Russell thinks that logic
must deal with what is objective, but he now denies that propositions
are entities, he has come to view logic as the study of forms of
complexes. The notion of the form of a complex is linked with the
concept of substituting certain entities for others in a complex so as
to arrive at a different complex of the same form. Since there can be
no such substitution of entities when the complex doesn't exist,
Russell struggles to define the notions of form and substitution in a
complex in a way that doesn't rule out the existence of forms in cases
of non-existent complexes. Russell raises this issue in a short
manuscript called "What is Logic?" written in September and October of
1912 (Papers 6, pp. 54-56). After considering and rejecting various
solutions Russell admits his inability to solve difficulties having to
do with forms of non-existent complexes, but this and related
difficulties plague his analysis of belief, that is, the analysis
given to avoid commitment to objective false propositions.
g. Sense Data and the Problem of Matter

An interest in questions of what we can know about the world – about
objects or matter – is a theme that begins to color Russell's work by
the end of this period. In 1912 Russell asks whether there is anything
that is beyond doubt (Problems of Philosophy, p. 7). His investigation
implies a particular view of what exists, based on what it is we can
believe with greatest certainty.

Acknowledging that visible properties, like color, are variable from
person to person as well as within one person's experience and are a
function of light's interaction with our visual apparatus (eyes, and
so forth), Russell concludes that we do not directly experience what
we would normally describe as colored – or more broadly, visible –
objects. Rather, we infer the existence of such objects from what we
are directly acquainted with, namely, our sense experiences. The same
holds for other sense-modalities, and the sorts of objects that we
would normally describe as audible, scented, and so forth. For
instance, in seeing and smelling a flower, we are not directly
acquainted with a flower, but with the sense-data of color, shape,
aroma, and so on. These sense-data are what are immediately and
certainly known in sensation, while material objects (like the flower)
that we normally think of as producing these experiences via the
properties they bear (color, shape, aroma) are merely inferred.

These epistemological doctrines have latent metaphysical implications:
because they are inferred rather than known directly, ordinary sense
objects (like flowers) have the status of hypothetical or theoretical
entities, and therefore may not exist. And since many ordinary sense
objects are material, this calls the nature and existence of matter
into question. Like Berkeley, Russell thinks it is possible that what
we call "the material world" may be constructed out of elements of
experience – not ideas, as Berkeley thought, but sense-data. That is,
sense-data may be the ultimate reality. However, although Russell
thought this was possible, he did not at this time embrace such a
view. Instead, he continued to think of material objects as real, but
as known only indirectly, via inferences from sense-data. This type of
view is sometimes called "indirect realism."

Although Russell is at this point willing to doubt the existence of
physical objects and replace them with inferences from sense-data, he
is unwilling to doubt the existence of universals, since even
sense-data seem to have sharable properties. For instance, in
Problems, he argues that, aside from sense data and inferred physical
objects, there must also be qualities and relations (that is,
universals), since in "I am in my room," the word "in" has meaning and
denotes something real, namely, a relation between me and my room
(Problems, p. 80). Thus he concludes that knowledge involves
acquaintance with universals.
4. 1913-1918: Occam's Razor and Logical Atomism

In 1911 Ludwig Wittgenstein, a wealthy young Austrian, came to study
logic with Russell, evidently at Frege's urging. Russell quickly came
to regard his student as a peer, and the two became friends (although
their friendship did not last long). During this period, Wittgenstein
came to disagree with Russell's views on logic, meaning, and
metaphysics, and began to develop his own alternatives. Surprisingly,
Russell became convinced that Wittgenstein was correct both in his
criticisms and in his alternative views. Consequently, during the
period in question, Wittgenstein had considerable impact on the
formation of Russell's thought.

Besides Wittgenstein, another influence in this period was A.N.
Whitehead, Russell's collaborator on the Principia Mathematica, which
is finally completed during this period after many years' work.

The main strands of Russell's development in this period concern the
nature of logic and the nature of matter or physical reality. His work
in and after 1914 is parsimonious about what exists while remaining
wedded to metaphysical realism and Platonism. By the end of this
period Russell has combined these strands in a metaphysical position
called logical atomism.
a. The Nature of Logic

By 1913 the nature of form is prominent in Russell's discussion of
logical propositions, alongside his discussion of forms of facts.
Russell describes logical propositions as constituted by nothing but
form, saying in Theory of Knowledge that they do not have forms but
are forms, that is, abstract entities (Papers 7, p. 98). He says in
the same period that the study of philosophical logic is in great part
the study of such forms. Under Ludwig Wittgenstein's influence,
Russell begins to conceive of the relations of metaphysics to logic,
epistemology and psychology in a new way. Thus in the Theory of
Knowledge (as revised in 1914) Russell admits that any sentence of
belief must have a different logical form from any he has hitherto
examined (Papers 7, p. 46), and, since he thinks that logic examines
forms, he concludes, contra his earlier view (in "Meinong's Theory of
Complexes and Assumptions," Papers 4), that the study of forms can't
be kept wholly separate from the theory of knowledge or from
psychology.

In Our Knowledge of the External World (1914) the nature of logic
plays a muted role, in large part because of Russell's difficulties
with the nature of propositions and the forms of non-existent
complexes and facts. Russell argues that logic has two branches:
mathematical and philosophical (Our Knowledge, pp. 49-52; 67).
Mathematical logic contains completely general and a priori axioms and
theorems as well as definitions such as the definition of number and
the techniques of construction used, for example, in his theory of
descriptions. Philosophical logic, which Russell sometimes simply
calls logic, consists of the study of forms of propositions and the
facts corresponding to them. The term 'philosophical logic' does not
mean merely a study of grammar or a meta-level study of a logical
language; rather, Russell has in mind the metaphysical and ontological
examination of what there is. He further argues, following
Wittgenstein, that belief facts are unlike other forms of facts in so
far as they contain propositions as components (Our Knowledge, p, 63).
b. The Nature of Matter

In 1914 -1915, Russell rejects the indirect realism that he had
embraced in 1912. He now sees material objects as constructed out of,
rather than inferred from, sense-data. Crediting Alfred North
Whitehead for his turn to this "method of construction," in Our
Knowledge of the External World (1914) and various related papers
Russell shows how the language of logic can be used to interpret
material objects in terms of classes of sense-data like colors or
sounds. Even though we begin with something ultimately private –
sense-data viewed from the space of our unique perspective – it is
possible to relate that to the perspective of other observers or
potential observers and to arrive at a class of classes of sense data.
These "logical constructions" can be shown to have all the properties
supposed to belong to the objects of which they are constructions. And
by Occam's Razor – the principle not to multiply entities
unnecessarily – whenever it is possible to create a construction of an
object with all the properties of the object, it is unnecessary to
assume the existence of the object itself. Thus Russell equates his
maxim "wherever possible, to substitute constructions for inferences"
("On the Relation of Sense Data to Physics, Papers 8) with Occam's
razor.
c. Logical Atomism

In the 1918 lectures published as Philosophy of Logical Atomism
(Papers 8) Russell describes his philosophical views as a kind of
logical atomism, as the view that reality consists of a great many
ultimate constituents or 'atoms'. In describing his position as
"logical" atomism, he understands logic in the sense of "philosophical
logic" rather than "technical logic," that is, as an attempt to arrive
through reason at what must be the ultimate constituents and forms
constituting reality. Since it is by a process of a priori
philosophical analysis that we reach the ultimate constituents of
reality – sense data and universals – such constituents might equally
have been called "philosophical" atoms: they are the entities we reach
in thought when we consider what sorts of things must make up the
world. Yet Russell's metaphysical views are not determined solely a
priori. They are constrained by science in so far as he believes he
must take into account the best available scientific knowledge, as
demonstrated in his attempt to show the relation between sense-data
and the "space, time and matter" of physics (Our Knowledge, p. 10).
i. The Atoms of Experience and the Misleading Nature of Language

Russell believed that we cannot move directly from the words making up
sentences to metaphysical views about which things or relations exist,
for not all words and phrases really denote entities. It is only after
the process of analysis that we can decide which words really denote
things and thus, which things really exist. Analysis shows that many
purported denoting phrases – such as words for ordinary objects like
tables and chairs – can be replaced by logical constructions that,
used in sentences, play the role of these words but denote other
entities, such as sense-data (like patches of color) and universals,
which can be included among the things that really exist.

Regarding linguistics, Russell believed that analysis results in a
logically perfect language consisting only of words that denote the
data of immediate experience (sense data and universals) and logical
constants, that is, words like "or" and "not" (Papers 8, p. 176).
ii. The Forms of Facts and Theory of Truth

These objects (that is, logical constructions) in their relations or
with their qualities constitute the various forms of facts. Assuming
that what makes a sentence true is a fact, what sorts of facts must
exist to explain the truth of the kinds of sentences there are? In
1918, Russell answers this question by accounting for the truth of
several different kinds of sentences: atomic and molecular sentences,
general sentences, and those expressing propositional attitudes like
belief.

So-called atomic sentences like "Andrew is taller than Bob" contain
two names (Andrew, Bob) and one symbol for a relation (is taller
than). When true, an atomic sentence corresponds to an atomic fact
containing two particulars and one universal (the relation).

Molecular sentences join atomic sentences into what are often called
"compound sentences" by using words like "and" or "or." When true,
molecular sentences do not correspond to a single conjunctive or
disjunctive fact, but to multiple atomic facts (Papers 8, pp. 185-86).
Thus, we can account for the truth of molecular propositions like
"Andrew is kind or he is young" simply in terms of the atomic facts
(if any) corresponding to "Andrew is kind" and "Andrew is young," and
the meaning of the word "or." It follows that "or" is not a name for a
thing, and Russell denies the existence of molecular facts.

Yet to account for negation (for example, "Andrew is not kind")
Russell thinks that we require more than just atomic facts. We require
negative facts; for if there were no negative facts, there would be
nothing to verify a negative sentence and falsify its opposite, the
corresponding positive atomic sentence (Papers 8, pp. 187-90).

Moreover, no list of atomic facts can tell us that it is all the
facts; to convey the information expressed by sentences like
"everything fair is good" requires the existence of general facts.
iii. Belief as a New Form of Fact

Russell describes Wittgenstein as having persuaded him that a belief
fact is a new form of fact, belonging to a different series of facts
than the series of atomic, molecular, and general facts. Russell
acknowledges that belief-sentences pose a difficulty for his attempt
(following Wittgenstein) to explain how the truth of the atomic
sentences fully determines the truth or falsity of all other types of
sentences, and he therefore considers the possibility of
explaining-away belief facts. Though he concedes that expressions of
propositional attitudes, that is, sentences of the form "Andrew
believes that Carole loves Bob," might, by adopting a behaviorist
analysis of belief, be explained without the need of belief facts
(Papers 8, pp. 191-96), he stops short of that analysis and accepts
beliefs as facts containing at least two relations (in the example,
belief and loves).
iv. Neutral Monism

By 1918, Russell is conscious that his arguments for mind/matter
dualism and against neutral monism are open to dispute. Neutral monism
opposes both materialism (the doctrine that what exists is material)
and British and Kantian idealism (the doctrine that only thought or
mind is ultimately real), arguing that reality is more fundamental
than the categories of mind (or consciousness) and matter, and that
these are simply names we give to one and the same neutral reality.
The proponents of neutral monism include John Dewey and William James
(who are sometimes referred to as American Realists), and Ernst Mach.
Given the early Russell's commitment to mind/matter dualism, neutral
monism is to him at first alien and incredible. Still, he admits being
drawn to the ontological simplicity it allows, which fits neatly with
his preference for constructions over inferences and his increasing
respect for Occam's razor, the principle of not positing unnecessary
entities in one's ontology (Papers 8, p. 195).
5. 1919-1927: Neutral Monism, Science, and Language

During this period, Russell's interests shift increasingly to
questions belonging to the philosophy of science, particularly to
questions about the kind of language necessary for a complete
description of the world. Many distinct strands feed into Russell's
thought in this period.

First, in 1919 he finally breaks away from his longstanding dualism
and shifts to a kind of neutral monism. This is the view that what we
call "mental" and what we call "material" are really at bottom the
same "stuff," which is neither mental nor material but neutral. By
entering into classes and series of classes in different ways, neutral
stuff gives rise to what we mistakenly think of distinct categories,
the mental and the material (Analysis of Mind, p. 105).

Second, Russell rather idiosyncratically interweaves his new monist
ideas with elements of behaviorism, especially in advancing a view of
language that moves some of what he formerly took to be abstract
entities into the domain of stimuli or events studied by psychology
and physiology. In neither case is his allegiance complete or
unqualified. For example, he rejects a fully behaviorist account of
language by accepting that meaning is grounded in mental images
available to introspection but not to external observation. Clearly,
this is incompatible with behaviorism. Moreover, this seems to commit
Russell to intrinsically mental particulars. This would stand in
opposition to neutral monism, which denies there are any intrinsically
mental (or physical) particulars. (See Analysis of Mind, Lecture X.)

Third, he begins in this same period to accept Ludwig Wittgenstein's
conception (in the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus) of logical
propositions as tautologies that say nothing about the world.

Though these developments give Russell's work the appearance of a
retreat from metaphysical realism, his conception of language and
logic remains rooted in realist, metaphysical assumptions.
a. Mind, Matter, and Meaning

Because of his neutral monism, Russell can no longer maintain the
distinction between a mental sensation and a material sense-datum,
which was crucial to his earlier constructive work. Constructions are
now carried out in terms that do not suppose mind and matter
(sensations and sense-data) to be ultimately distinct. Consciousness
is no longer seen as a relation between something psychical, a subject
of consciousness, and something physical, a sense datum (Analysis of
Mind, pp. 142-43). Instead, the so-called mental and so-called
physical dimensions are both constructed out of classes of classes of
perceived events, between which there exist – or may exist –
correlations.

Meaning receives a similar treatment: instead of a conception of minds
in a relation to things that are the meanings of words, Russell
describes meaning in terms of classes of events stimulated or caused
by certain other events (Analysis of Mind, Chapter X). Assertions that
a complex exists hereafter reduce to assertions of some fact about
classes, namely that the constituents of classes are related in a
certain way.

His constructions also become more complex to accommodate Einstein's
theory of relativity. This work is carried out in particular both in
his 1921 Analysis of Mind, which is occupied in part with explaining
mind and consciousness in non-mental terms, and in his 1927 Analysis
of Matter, which returns to the analysis of so-called material
objects, that in 1914 were constructed out of classes of sense-data.
b. Private versus Public Data

Despite his monism, Russell continues to distinguish psychological and
physical laws ("On Propositions," Papers 8, p. 289), but this dualist
element is mitigated by his belief that whether an experience exists
in and obeys the laws of physical space is a matter of degree. Some
sensations are localized in space to a very high degree, others are
less so, and some aren't at all. For example, when we have an idea of
forming the word "orange" in our mouth, our throat constricts just a
tiny bit as if to mouth, "orange." In this case there exists no clear
distinction between the image we have of words in the mouth and our
mouth-and-lip sensations (Papers 8, p. 286). Depending on your choice
of context the sensation can be labeled either mental or material.

Moreover, tactile images of words in the mouth do not violate the laws
of physics when seen as material events located in the body,
specifically, in the mouth or jaw. In contrast, visual images have no
location in a body; for instance, the image of your friend seated in a
chair is located neither in your mouth, jaw, nor anywhere else in your
body. Moreover, many visual images cannot be construed as bodily
sensations, as images of words can, since, no relevant physical event
corresponding to the visual image occurs. His admission that visual
images are always configured under psychological laws seems to commit
Russell to a doctrine of mental particulars. For this reason, Russell
appears not so much to adopt neutral monism, which rejects such
entities, as to adapt it to his purposes.
c. Language, Facts, and Psychology

Immediately after the lectures conclude, while in prison writing up
notes eventually published in the 1921 Analysis of Mind (Papers 8, p.
247), Russell introduces a distinction between what a proposition
expresses and what it asserts or states. Among the things that are
expressed in sentences are logical concepts, words like "not" and
"or," which derive meaning from psychological experiences of rejection
and choice. In these notes and later writings, belief is explained in
terms of having experiences like these about image propositions
(Analysis of Mind, p. 251). Thus what we believe when we believe a
true negative proposition is explained psychologically as a state of
disbelief towards a positive image proposition (Analysis of Mind, p.
276). Despite this analysis of the meaning of words for negation,
Russell continues to think that negative facts account for what a
negative belief asserts, that is, for what makes it true. The
psychological account doesn't do away with the need for them, Russell
explains, because the truth or falsity of a proposition is due to some
fact, not to a subjective belief or state.
d. Universals

Russell continues to analyze truth in terms of relation to facts, and
to characterize facts as atomic, negative, and so on. Moreover, he
continues to assume that we can talk about the constituents of facts
in terms of particulars and universals. He does not abandon his belief
that there are universals; indeed, in the 1920s he argues that we have
no images of universals but can intend or will that an image, which is
always a particular, 'mean' a universal ("On Propositions," Papers 8,
p. 293). This approach is opposed by those like Frank P. Ramsey, for
whom notions like "atomic fact" are analogous to "spoken word": they
index language rather than reality. For Ramsey – and others in the
various emerging schools of philosophy for which metaphysics is
anathema – Russell's approach confuses categories about language with
categories of things in the world and in doing so is too metaphysical
and too realist.
e. The Syntactical View

To some extent, Russell accepts the syntactical view in the following
sense. Beginning in 1918 he concedes that logical truths are not about
the world but are merely tautologies, and he comes to admit that
tautologies are nothing more than empty combinations of meaningless
symbols. Yet Russell's conception of language and logic remains in
some respects deeply metaphysical. For example, when, following
Ramsey's suggestion, Russell claims in the 1925 second edition of
Principia that a propositional function occurs only in the
propositions that are its values (Principia, p. xiv and Appendix C),
he again aligns that idea with a doctrine of predicates as incomplete
symbols, that is, with a metaphysical doctrine of the distinction
between universals and particulars. Opposing this, Ramsey praises what
he thinks is Wittgenstein's deliberate attempt to avoid metaphysical
characterizations of the ultimate constituents of facts, a view he
infers from Wittgenstein's cryptic remark in the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus that, in a fact, objects "hang together" like
links in a chain.
6. 1930-1969: Anti-positivist Naturalism

The choice of years framing this final category is somewhat artificial
since Russell's work retains a great deal of unity with the doctrines
laid down in the 1920s. Nevertheless, there is a shift in tone,
largely due to the emergence of logical positivism, that is, the views
proposed by the members of the Vienna Circle. Russell's work in the
remaining decades of his life must be understood as metaphysical in
orientation and aim, however highly scientific in language, and as
shaped in opposition to doctrines emanating from logical positivism
and the legacy following Ludwig Wittgenstein's claim that
philosophical (metaphysical) propositions are nonsensical
pseudo-propositions. Yet even as it remains metaphysical in
orientation, with respect to logic Russell's work continues to draw
back from his early realism.
a. Logical Truths

In his 1931 introduction to second edition of Principles of
Mathematics, Russell writes that, "logical constants…must be treated
as part of the language, not as part of what the language speaks
about," adopting a view that he admits is "more linguistic than I
believed to be at the time I wrote the Principles" (Principles, p. xi)
and that is "less Platonic, or less realist in the medieval sense of
the word" (Principles, p. xiv). At the same time he says that he was
too generous when he first wrote the Principles in saying that a
proposition belongs to logic or mathematics if it contains nothing but
logical constants (understood as entities), for he now concedes there
are extra-logical propositions (for example "there are three things")
that can be posed in purely logical terms. Moreover, though he now
thinks that (i) logic is distinguished by the tautological nature of
its propositions, and (ii) following Rudolf Carnap he explains
tautologies in terms of analytic propositions, that is, those that are
true in virtue of form, Russell notes that we have no clear definition
of what it is to be true in virtue of form, and hence no clear idea of
what is distinctive to logic (Principles, p. xii). Yet, in general, he
no longer thinks of logical propositions as completely general truths
about the world, related to those of the special sciences, albeit more
abstract.
b. Empirical Truths

In his later work, Russell continues to believe that, when a
proposition is false, it is so because of a fact. Thus against logical
positivists like Neurath, he insists that when empirical propositions
are true, "true" has a different meaning than it does for propositions
of logic. It is this assumption that he feels is undermined by logical
positivists like Carnap, Neurath and others who treat language as
socially constructed, and as isolable from facts. But this is wrong,
he thinks, as language consists of propositional facts that relate to
other facts and is therefore not merely constructed. It is this he has
in mind, when in the 1936 "Limits of Empiricism" (Papers 10), he
argues that Carnap and Wittgenstein present a view that is too
syntactical; that is, truth is not merely syntactical, nor a matter of
propositions cohering. As a consequence, despite admitting that his
view of logic is less realist, less metaphysical, than in the past,
Russell is unwilling to adopt metaphysical agnosticism, and he
continues to think that the categories in language point beyond
language to the nature of what exists.
c. A Priori Principles

Against logical positivism, Russell thinks that to defend the very
possibility of objective knowledge it is necessary to permit knowledge
to rest in part on non-empirical propositions. In Inquiry into Meaning
and Truth (1940) and Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)
Russell views the claim that all knowledge is derived from experience
as self-refuting and hence inadequate to a theory of knowledge: as
David Hume showed, empiricism uses principles of reason that cannot be
proved by experience. Specifically, inductive reasoning about
experience presupposes that the future will resemble the past, but
this belief or principle cannot similarly be proved by induction from
experience without incurring a vicious circle. Russell is therefore
willing to accept induction as involving a non-empirical logical
principle, since, without it, science is impossible. He thus continues
to hold that there are general principles, comprised of universals,
which we know a priori. Russell affirms the existence of general
non-empirical propositions on the grounds, for example, that the
incompatibility of red/blue is neither logical nor a generalization
from experience (Inquiry, p. 82). Finally, against the logical
positivists, Russell rejects the verificationist principle that
propositions are true or false only if they are verifiable, and he
rejects the idea that propositions make sense only if they are
empirically verifiable.
d. Universals

Though Russell's late period work is empiricist in holding that
experience is the ultimate basis of knowledge, it remains rationalist
in that some general propositions must be known independently of
experience, and realist with respect to universals. Russell argues for
the existence of universals against what he sees as an overly
syntactical view that eliminates them as entities. That is, he asserts
that (some) relations are non-linguistic. Universals figure in
Russell's ontology, in his so-called bundle theory, which explains
thing as bundles of co-existing properties, rejecting the notion of a
substance as an unknowable 'this' distinct from and underlying its
properties. (See Inquiry, Chapter 6.) The substance-property
conception is natural, he says, if sentences like "this is red" are
treated as consisting of a subject and a predicate. However, in
sentences like "redness is here," Russell treats the word "redness" as
a name rather than as a predicate. On the substance-property view, two
substances may have all their properties in common and yet be
distinct, but this possibility vanishes on the bundle theory since a
thing is its properties. Aside from his ontology, Russell's reasons
for maintaining the existence of universals are largely
epistemological. We may be able to eliminate a great many supposed
universals, but at least one, such as is similar, will remain
necessary for a full account of our perception and knowledge (Inquiry,
p. 344). Russell uses this notion to show that it is unnecessary to
assume the existence of negative facts, which until the 1940s he
thought necessary to explain truth and falsity. For several decades
his psychological account of negative propositions as a state of
rejection towards some positive proposition coexisted with his
account, using negative facts, of what justifies saying that a
negative belief is true and a positive one is false. Thus Russell does
not eliminate negative facts until 1948 in Human Knowledge: Its Scope
and Limits, where one of his goals is to explain how observation can
determine the truth of a negative proposition like "this is not blue"
and the falsity of a positive one like "this is blue" without being
committed to negative facts (Human Knowledge, Chapter IX). In that
text, he argues that what makes "this is not blue" true (and what
makes "this is blue" false) is the existence of some color differing
from blue. Unlike his earlier period he now thinks this color other
than blue neither is nor implies commitment to a negative fact.
e. The Study of Language

Russell's late work assumes that it is meaningful and possible to
study the relation between experience and language and how certain
extra-linguistic experiences give rise to linguistic ones, for
example, how the sight of butter causes someone to assert "this is
butter" or how the taste of cheese causes someone to "this is not
butter." Language, for Russell, is a fact and can be examined
scientifically like any other fact. In The Logical Syntax of Language
(1934) Rudolph Carnap had argued that that a science may choose to
talk in subjective terms about sense data or in objective terms about
physical objects since there are multiple equally legitimate ways to
talk about the world. Hence Carnap does not believe that in studying
language scientifically we must take account of metaphysical
contentions about the nature of experience and its relation to
language. Russell opposes Rudolf Carnap's work and logical positivism,
that is, logical empiricism, for dismissing his kind of approach as
metaphysical nonsense, not a subject of legitimate philosophical
study, and he defends it as an attempt to arrive at the truth about
the language of experience, as an investigation into an empirical
phenomenon.
7. References and Further Reading

The following is a selection of texts for further reading on Russell's
metaphysics. A great deal of his writing on logic, the theory of
knowledge, and on educational, ethical, social, and political issues
is therefore not represented here. Given the staggering amount of
writing by Russell, not to mention on Russell, it is not intended to
be exhaustive. The definitive bibliographical listing of Russell's own
publications takes up three volumes; it is to be found in Blackwell,
Kenneth, Harry Ruja, and Sheila Turcon. A Bibliography of Bertrand
Russell, 3 volumes. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
a. Primary Sources
i. Monographs

* 1897. An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
* 1900. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz.
Cambridge, UK: University Press.
* 1903. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
* 1910-1913. Principia Mathematica, with Alfred North Whitehead. 3
vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. Revised ed., 1925-1927.
* 1912. The Problems of Philosophy. London: Williams and Norgate.
* 1914. Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for
Scientific Method in Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court. Revised edition,
London: George Allen & Unwin, 1926.
* 1919. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: George
Allen & Unwin.
* 1921. The Analysis of Mind. London: George Allen & Unwin.
* 1927. The Analysis of Matter. London: Kegan Paul.
* 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. New York: W. W. Norton.
* 1948. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: George Allen & Unwin.

ii. Collections of Essays

* 1910. Philosophical Essays. London: Longmans, Green. Revised
ed., London: George Allen & Unwin, 1966.
* 1918. Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays. London: Longmans, Green.
* 1956. Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950, ed. Robert Charles
Marsh. London: George Allen & Unwin.
* 1973. Essays in Analysis, edited by Douglas Lackey. London:
George Allen & Unwin.

iii. Articles

* "Letter to Frege." (Written in 1902) In From Frege to Gödel, ed.
J. van Heijenoort, 124-5. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967.
* "Meinong's Theory of Complexes and Assumptions." Mind 13 (1904):
204-19, 336-54, 509-24. Repr. Essays in Analysis.
* "On Denoting." Mind 14 (1905): 479-493. Repr. Logic and Knowledge.
* Review of Meinong et al., Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie
und Psychologie. Mind 14 (1905): 530-8. Repr. Essays in Analysis.
* "On the Substitutional Theory of Classes and Relations." In
Essays in Analysis. Written 1906.
* "On the Nature of Truth." Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 7 (1906-07): 28-49. Repr. (with the final section excised) as
"The Monistic Theory of Truth" in Philosophical Essays.
* "Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types." American
Journal of Mathematics 30 (1908): 222-262. Repr. Logic and Knowledge.
* "On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood." In Philosophical Essays.
* "Analytic Realism." Bulletin de la société française de
philosophie 11 (1911): 53-82. Repr. Collected Papers 6.
* "Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description."
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 11 (1911): 108-128. Repr.
Mysticism and Logic.
* "On the Relations of Universals and Particulars." Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society 12 (1912): 1-24. Repr. Logic and Knowledge.
* "The Ultimate Constituents of Matter." The Monist, 25 (1915):
399-417. Repr. Mysticism and Logic.
* "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism." The Monist 28 (1918):
495-27; 29 (1919): 32-63, 190-222, 345-80. Repr. Logic and Knowledge.
Published in 1972 as Russell's Logical Atomism, edited and with an
introduction by David Pears. London: Fontana. Republished in 1985 as
Philosophy of Logical Atomism, with a new introduction by D. Pears.
* "On Propositions: What They Are and How They Mean." Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society. Sup. Vol. 2 (1919): 1 – 43. Repr. Logic
and Knowledge.
* "The Meaning of 'Meaning.'" Mind 29 (1920): 398-401.
* "Logical Atomism." In Contemporary British Philosophers, ed.
J.H. Muirhead, 356-83. London: Allen & Unwin, 1924. Repr. Logic and
Knowledge.
* Review of Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics. Mind 40 (1931): 476- 82.
* "The Limits of Empiricism." Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 36 (1936): 131-50.
* "On Verification." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 38
(1938): 1-20.
* "My Mental Development." In The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell,
ed. P.A. Schilpp, 1-20. Evanston: Northwestern University, 1944.
* "Reply to Criticisms." In The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell,
ed. P.A. Schilpp. Evanston: Northwestern, 1944.
* "The Problem of Universals." Polemic, 2 (1946): 21-35. Repr.
Collected Papers 11.
* "Is Mathematics Purely Linguistic?" In Essays in Analysis, 295-306.
* "Logical Positivism." Revue internationale de philosophie 4
(1950): 3-19. Repr. Logic and Knowledge.
* "Logic and Ontology." Journal of Philosophy 54 (1957): 225-30.
Reprinted My Philosophical Development.
* "Mr. Strawson on Referring." Mind 66 (1957): 385-9. Repr. My
Philosophical Development.
* "What is Mind?" Journal of Philosophy 55 (1958): 5-12. Repr. My
Philosophical Development.

iv. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell

* Volume 1. Cambridge Essays, 1888-99. (Vol. 1) Ed. Kenneth
Blackwell, Andrew Brink, Nicholas Griffin, Richard A. Rempel and John
G. Slater. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983.
* Volume 2. Philosophical Papers, 1896-99. Ed. Nicholas Griffin
and Albert C. Lewis. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
* Volume 3. Towards the "Principles of Mathematics," 1900-02. Ed.
Gregory H. Moore. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
* Volume 4. Foundations of Logic, 1903-05. Ed. Alasdair Urquhart.
London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
* Volume 6. Logical and Philosophical Papers, 1909-13. Ed. John G.
Slater. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.
* Volume 7. Theory of Knowledge: The 1913 Manuscript. Ed.
Elizabeth Ramsden Eames. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984.
* Volume 8. The Philosophy of Logical Atomism and Other Essays,
1914-1919. Ed. John G. Slater. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1986.
* Volume 9. Essays on Language, Mind, and Matter, 1919-26. Ed.
John G. Slater. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
* Volume 10. A Fresh Look at Empiricism, 1927-1942. Ed. John G.
Slater. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
* Volume 11. Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-1968. Ed. John G.
Slater. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

v. Autobiographies and Letters

* 1944. "My Mental Development." The Philosophy of Bertrand
Russell, ed. Paul A. Schilpp, 1-20. Evanston: Northwestern University.
* 1956. Portraits from Memory and Other Essays. London: George
Allen & Unwin.
* 1959. My Philosophical Development. London: George Allen & Unwin.
* 1967-9. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 3 vols. London:
George Allen & Unwin.

b. Secondary sources
i. General Surveys

* Ayer, A.J.. Bertrand Russell. New York: Viking Press, 1972.
* Dorward, Alan. Bertrand Russell: A Short Guide to His
Philosophy. London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1951.
* Eames, Elizabeth Ramsden. Bertrand Russell's Dialogue with His
Contemporaries. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1989.
* Griffin, Nicholas, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand
Russell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
* Jager, Ronald. The Development of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy.
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972.
* Klemke, E.D., ed. Essays on Bertrand Russell. Urbana: Univ. of
Illinois Press, 1970.
* Sainsbury, R. M. Russell. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.
* Schilpp, Paul, ed. The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. Evanston:
Northwestern University, 1944.
* Schoenman, Ralph, ed. Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the
Century. London: Allen & Unwin, 1967.
* Slater, John G. Bertrand Russell. Bristol: Thoemmes, 1994.

ii. History of Analytic Philosophy

* Griffin, Nicholas. Russell's Idealist Apprenticeship. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1991.
* Hylton, Peter. Russell, Idealism and the Emergence of Analytic
Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
* Irvine, A.D. and G.A. Wedeking, eds. Russell and Analytic
Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.
* Monk, Ray, and Anthony Palmer, eds. Bertrand Russell and the
Origins of Analytic Philosophy. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1996.
* Pears, David. Bertrand Russell and the British Tradition in
Philosophy. London: Fontana Press, 1967.
* Savage, C. Wade and C. Anthony Anderson, eds. Rereading Russell:
Essays on Bertrand Russell's Metaphysics and Epistemology.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
* Stevens, Graham. The Russellian Origins of Analytical
Philosophy: Bertrand Russell and the Unity of the Proposition. London
and New York: Routledge, 2005.

iii. Logic and Metaphysics

* Costello, Harry. "Logic in 1914 and Now." Journal of Philosophy
54 (1957): 245-263.
* Frege, Gottlob. Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
* Griffin, Nicholas. "Russell on the Nature of Logic (1903-1913)."
Synthese 45 (1980): 117-188.
* Hylton, Peter. "Logic in Russell's Logicism." In The Analytic
Tradition, ed. Bell and Cooper, 137-72. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.
* Hylton, Peter. "Functions and Propositional Functions in
Principia Mathematica." In Russell and Analytic Philosophy, ed. Irvine
and Wedeking, 342-60. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1993.
* Linsky, Bernard. Russell's Metaphysical Logic. Stanford: CSLI
Publications, 1999.
* Ramsey, Frank P. The Foundations of Mathematics. Paterson, NJ:
Littlefield, Adams and Co, 1960. Repr. as Philosophical Papers.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990
* Frege, Gottlob. "Letter to Russell." In From Frege to Gödel, ed.
J. van Heijenoort, 126-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967.
* Ramsey, F.P. "Mathematical Logic." Mathematical Gazette 13
(1926), 185-194. Repr. Philosophical Papers, F.P. Ramsey, 225-44.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990.
* Rouilhan Philippe de. "Substitution and Types: Russell's
Intermediate Theory." In One Hundred Years of Russell's Paradox, ed.
Godehard Link, 401-16. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004.

iv. Meaning and Metaphysics

* Burge, T. "Truth and Singular Terms." In Reference, Truth and
Reality, ed. M. Platts, 167-81. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1980.
* Donnellan, K.S. "Reference and Definite Descriptions."
Philosophical Review 77 (1966): 281-304.
* Geach, P., (1962). Reference and Generality. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1962.
* Hylton, Peter. "The Significance of On Denoting." In Rereading
Russell, ed. Savage and Anderson, 88-107. Minneapolis: Univ. of
Minnesota, 1989.
* Kneale, William. "The Objects of Acquaintance." Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society 34 (1934): 187-210.
* Kripke, S. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1980.
* Linsky, B. "The Logical Form of Descriptions." Dialogue 31 (1992): 677-83.
* Marcus, R. "Modality and Description." Journal of Symbolic Logic
13 (1948): 31-37. Repr. in Modalities: Philosophical Essays. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1993.
* Neale, S. Descriptions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press Books, 1990.
* Searle, J. "Proper Names." Mind 67 (1958): 166-173.
* Sellars, Wilfrid. "Acquaintance and Description Again." Journal
of Philosophy 46 (1949): 496-504.
* Strawson, Peter F. "On Referring." Mind 59 (1950): 320-344.
Urmson, J.O. "Russell on Acquaintance with the Past." Philosophical
Review 78 (1969): 510-15.

v. Beliefs and Facts

* Blackwell, Kenneth. "Wittgenstein's Impact on Russell's Theory
of Belief." M.A. thesis., McMaster University, 1974.
* Carey, Rosalind. Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of
Judgment. London: Continuum, 2007.
* Eames, Elizabeth Ramsden. Bertrand Russell's Theory of
Knowledge. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969.
* Griffin, Nicholas. "Russell's Multiple-Relation Theory of
Judgment." Philosophical Studies 47 (1985): 213-247.
* Hylton, Peter. "The Nature of the Proposition and the Revolt
Against Idealism." In Philosophy in History, ed. Rorty, et al.,
375-97. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984.
* McGuinness, Brian. "Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein's
Notes on Logic." Revue Internationale de Philosophie 26 (1972):
444-60.
* Oaklander, L. Nathan and Silvano Miracchi. "Russell, Negative
Facts, and Ontology." Philosophy of Science 47 (1980): 434-55.
* Pears, David. "The Relation Between Wittgenstein's Picture
Theory of Propositions and Russell's Theories of Judgment."
Philosophical Review 86 (1977): 177-96.
* Rosenberg, Jay F. "Russell on Negative Facts." Nous 6 (1972), 27-40.
* Stevens, Graham. "From Russell's Paradox to the Theory of
Judgment: Wittgenstein and Russell on the Unity of the Proposition."
Theoria, 70 (2004): 28-61.

vi. Constructions

* Anellis, Irving. "Our Knowledge of Our Knowledge." Russell: The
Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives, no. 12 (1973): 11-13.
* Carnap, Rudolf. The Logical Structure of the World & Pseudo
Problems in Philosophy, trans. R. George. Berkeley: Univ. of
California Press, 1967.
* Fritz, Charles Andrew, Jr. Bertrand Russell's Construction of
the External World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952.
* Goodman, Nelson. The Structure of Appearance. Cambridge Mass:
Harvard University Press, 1951.
* Pincock, Christopher. "Carnap, Russell and the External World."
In The Cambridge Companion to Carnap, ed. M. Friedman and R. Creath.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
* Pritchard, H. R. "Mr. Bertrand Russell on Our Knowledge of the
External World." Mind 24 (1915), 1-40.
* Sainsbury, R.M. "Russell on Constructions and Fictions." Theoria
46 (1980): 19-36.
* Wisdom, J. "Logical Constructions (I.)." Mind 40 (April 1931): 188-216.

vii. Logical Atomism

* Hochberg, Herbert. Thought, Fact and Reference: The Origins and
Ontology of Logical Atomism. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press,
1978.
* Lycan, William. "Logical Atomism and Ontological Atoms."
Synthese 46 (1981), 207-229.
* Linsky, Bernard. "The Metaphysics of Logical Atomism." In The
Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell, ed. N. Griffin, 371-92.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003.
* Livingston, Paul. "Russellian and Wittgensteinian Atomism."
Philosophical Investigations 24 (2001): 30-54.
* Lycan, William. "Logical Atomism and Ontological Atoms."
Synthese 46 (1981): 207-29.
* Patterson, Wayne A. Bertrand Russell's Philosophy of Logical
Atomism. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1993.
* Pears, David. 'Introduction.' In The Philosophy of Logical
Atomism, B. Russell, 1-34. Chicago: Open Court, 1985.
* Rodríguez-Consuegra, Francisco. "Russell's Perilous Journey from
Atomism to Holism 1919-1951." In Bertrand Russell and the Origins of
Analytical Philosophy, ed. Ray Monk and Anthony Palmer, 217-44.
Bristol: Thoemmes, 1996.
* Simons, Peter. "Logical Atomism." In The Cambridge History of
Philosophy, 1870-1945, ed. Thomas Baldwin, 383-90. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003.

viii. Naturalism and Psychology

* Garvin, Ned S. "Russell's Naturalistic Turn." Russell: The
Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, n.s. 11, no. 1 (Summer 1991).
* Gotlind, Erik. Bertrand Russell's Theories of Causation.
Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksell, 1952.
* O'Grady, Paul. "The Russellian Roots of Naturalized
Epistemology." Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, n.s.
15, no. 1 (Summer 1995).
* Stevens, Graham. "Russell's Re-Psychologising of the
Proposition." Synthese 151, no. 1 (2006): 99-124.

ix. Biographies

* Clark, Ronald W. The Life of Bertrand Russell. London: Jonathan
Cape Ltd, 1975.
* Monk, Ray. Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, 1872-1921.
New York: The Free Press, 1996.
* Monk, Ray. Bertrand Russell 1921-1970: The Ghost of Madness.
London: Jonathan Cape, 2000.
* Moorehead, Caroline. Bertrand Russell. New York: Viking, 1992.
* Wood, Alan. Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic. London:
Allen and Unwin, 1957.

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