Category: Russell
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Russell’s Paradox Explained
A reader asked for an explanation of Russell's Paradox. My pleasure. 1. From a contradiction, anything follows. Ex contradictione quod libet. Another way of putting it would be to say that every argument having contradictory premises is valid. 'Valid' is a technical term. An argument A is valid =df no argument of A's form has…
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Ray Monk on Frege, Russell, Patriotism and Prejudice
Excerpt: The single thing I can imagine Russell finding most shocking would be Frege’s endorsement of patriotism as an unreasoning prejudice. The absence of political insight characteristic of his times, Frege says, is due to “a complete lack of patriotism.” He acknowledges that patriotism involves prejudice rather than impartial thought, but he thinks that is…
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Sorry Gottlob, Sorry Bertrand
Attributes are at the things to which they are attributed. Existence, then, is in a broad sense an attribute of existing items despite adding nothing to the quiddity of the thing to which it is attributed apart from its capacity to have a quiddity.
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Is Empiricism Self-Refuting?
Russell says it is; I examine his claim. Substack latest. Addenda (11/19) Tony Flood writes, Brian Kilmeade mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali's conversion to Christianity quickly as he introduced her, one of his guests tonight, but I heard it on TV which was on in the background; I thought I had misheard Kilmeade. I've always admired…
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Of Russell’s Teapot and Abbey’s Angry Lunicorn
Does the angry unicorn on the dark side of the Moon manage his anger by sipping herbal tea from Russell's teapot? Substack latest.
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Untangling Plato’s Beard
I was asked by a commenter what motivates the thin theory of existence. One motivation is . . . the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the…
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How to Grow Old and the Question of an Immortality Worth Wanting
Sage advice from Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) who grew old indeed. The best part of his short essay follows: I think that a successful old age is easiest for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that…
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Their Cocks Make Them Sure
There are those who are cocksure that there is no God, no soul, no post-mortem judgment, no ultimate meaning to human existence, and that we are all just material bits of a material world. Now it may be so for all we know. This is not an area in which proofs or disproofs are possible. …
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Half-Way Fregeanism About Existence: Questions for Van Inwagen
In section 53 of The Foundations of Arithmetic, Gottlob Frege famously maintains that . . . existence is analogous to number. Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number nought. Because existence is a property of concepts the ontological argument for the existence of God breaks down. (65) Frege is here advancing a…
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Russell, Sense Data, and Qualia
Reader K. G. writes, I recently came across a passage in Russell's Mysticism and Logic which you may find interesting. In the essay "The Ultimate Constituents of Matter," Russell writes (p. 144), "… the existence of sense-data [qualia] is logically independent of the existence of mind, and is causally dependent upon the body of the…
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Bertrand Russell: Empiricism is Self-Refuting. Is He Right?
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), 1969 Pelican ed., pp. 156-157: I will observe, however, that empiricism, as a theory of knowledge, is self-refuting. For, however it may be formulated, it must involve some general proposition about the dependence of knowledge upon experience; and any such proposition, if true, must have as a consequence…
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Can Anyone Recommend a Good History of Philosophy?
A graduate student in philosophy asks about histories of philosophy: Suppose I wanted, over time, to work through a text or series of texts. Which ones are worthy of consideration? I've heard good things about Copleston's 11 volumes. There's also Russell's history of western philosophy and Anthony Kenny has done a history as well. Do…
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Not Enough Evidence?
"Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence!" (Bertrand Russell) It may well be that our predicament is such as to disallow conclusive or even sufficient evidence of the truth about it. If Plato's Cave Allegory is apt, if it lays bare the truth of the human predicament, then it must be that the evidence that…
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Van Inwagen on Russell’s Teapot
I thank Jannai Shields for referring me to Peter van Inwagen's Russell's China Teapot and Andrew Bailey for making van Inwagen's papers available on the Web.