Bertrand Russell

Russell's flirtation with Phenomenology

by Robert Barnard

A draft of an older paper I want to re-work.  Comments welcome

This paper suggests that there are deep similarities between the view espoused by Russell in his 1913 _Theory of... more This paper suggests that there are deep similarities between the view espoused by Russell in his 1913 _Theory of Knowledge_ manuscript and the early 1907 "Idea of Phenomenology" lectures from Husserl.

An Epistemological Investigation of Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description

by Melissa Fabrizio

Russell’s distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description with an investigation of... more Russell’s distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description with an investigation of knowledge which we are directly aware without inference, as supported by Morton.

Sobre tener una mente moderna (traducción)

by J. Fernando Galindo

Traducción al castellano del Capítulo VI (paginas 65-70) del libro Unpopular Essays: 12 Adventures in Argument by 1950’s Nobel Prize Winner, de Bertrand Russell, 1950. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Spanish translation of chapter VI (pgs. 65-70) of Unpopular Essays: 12 Adventures in Argument by 1950’s Nobel Prize Winner, by Bertrand Russell, 1950. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Conhecimento por Contato em Bertrand Russell

by Laura Luedy

On Bertrand Russell as a Historian of Philosophy

by Anthony Gottlieb

Essay on the early reception of Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" and the reliability of the book. Published in 2009 as the Introduction to Routledge's Collectors Edition of the work.

A Nervous Splendor

by Anthony Gottlieb

Essay on the Wittgenstein family, especially Ludwig Wittgenstein and Paul Wittgenstein, a propos Alexander Waugh's "The House of Wittgenstein". Published in the New Yorker on 6th April, 2009

  The Philosophers that Sophie Skipped

by Anthony Gottlieb

Essay on the origins and rise of analytic philosophy. Published in The Economist on 7th December, 1996

Cromagnon Readings and Reviews

by Jacques Coulardeau

CRO-MAGNON
READINGS AND REVIEWS
A WORK IN PROGRESS
Assistant Ivan EVE
Here are some of the reviews of some of the readings I have been doing over the last 18 months for this project, Cromagnon’s Language. July 2005 to present,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. JOHN D. BENGTSON – IN HOT PURSUIT OF LANGUAGE IN PREHISTORY, ESSAYS IN THE FOUR FIELDS... more TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. JOHN D. BENGTSON – IN HOT PURSUIT OF LANGUAGE IN PREHISTORY, ESSAYS IN THE FOUR FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
2. PETER FORSTER & COLIN RENFREW eds. – PHyLOGENETIC METHODS AND THE PREHISTORY OF LANGUAGES
3. JOSEPH H. GREENBERG – WILLIAM CROFT, ed. – GENETIC LINGUISTICS, ESSAYS ON THEORY AND METHOD
4. JOSEPH H. GREENBERG – LANGUAGE UNIVERSALS – MOUTON DE GRUYTER – BERLIN NEW YORK – 1966-2005
5. PAUL MELLARS, KATIE BOYLE, OFER BAR-YOSEF & CHRIS STRINGER – RETHINKING THE HUMAN REVOLUTION – McDONALD INSTITUTE MONOGRAPHS - McDONALD INSTITUTE FOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH – CAMBRIDGE UK - 2007
6. RAY KURZWEIL – TERRY CROSSMAN, MD – TRANSCEND, NINE STEPS TO LIVING WELL FOREVER
7. RAY KURZWEIL – THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR
8. THREE INITIATES – KYBALION – 1908 – 1912 – 1940
9. RENÈ LABAT – MANUEL D’ÈPIGRAPHIE AKKADIENNE (Bilingual)
10. GEORGE LAKOFF – MARK JOHNSON – METEPHORS WE LIVE BY
11. JOHN D. BENGTSON – LINGUISTIC FOSSILS
12. ZELJKO BOSKOVIC – HOWARD LASNIK – MINIMALIST SYNTAX
13. BERTRAND RUSSELL – AN ANALYSIS OF MIND
14. THEO VENNEMANN gen. BIERFELD – EUROPA VASCONICA – EUROPA SEMITICA – MOUTON DE GRUYTER – BERLIN, NEW YORK – 2003
15. FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO – THE WORLD, A BRIEF HISTORY - 2008

Exploration Through Impartial and Ethical Worldly Contemplation

by Matthew Brousil

A short essay published in the College of DuPage undergraduate journal, ESSAI. Written for my Philosophy 1100 course in April of 2011.

Russell and the Universalist Conception of Logic

by Ian Proops

Published in Noûs, 2007, 41: 1, 1–32

The paper examines the widespread idea that Russell subscribes to a "Universalist Conception of Logic".... more The paper examines the widespread idea that Russell subscribes to a "Universalist Conception of Logic". Various glosses on this somewhat under-explained slogan are considered, and their fit with Russell's texts and logical practice examined. The results are, by an large, unfavorable to the Universalist interpretation.

Logical Syntax in the Tractatus

by Ian Proops

An essay on Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense and its relation to his idea that "logic must take care of... more An essay on Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense and its relation to his idea that "logic must take care of itself". I explain how Wittgenstein's theory of symbolism is supposed to resolve Russell's paradox, and I offer an alternative to Cora Diamond's influential account of Wittgenstein's diagnosis of the error in the so-called "natural view" of nonsense.


This is a pre-publication copy. The published version appears in: Richard Gaskin, ed.,*Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy* (Routledge, 2001).

Russell on Substitutivity and the Abandonment of Propositions

by Ian Proops

Published in The Philosophical Review, 2011, 120: 2, 151–205

The paper argues that philosophers commonly misidentify the substitutivity principle involved in Russell’s puzzle... more The paper argues that philosophers commonly misidentify the substitutivity principle involved in Russell’s puzzle about substitutivity in “On Denoting” (the so-called "George IV puzzle"). This matters because when that principle is properly identified the puzzle becomes considerably sharper and more interesting than it is often taken to be. This article describes both the puzzle itself and Russell's solution to it, which involves resources beyond the theory of descriptions. It then explores the epistemological and metaphysical consequences of that solution. One such consequence, it argues, is that Russell must abandon his commitment to propositions.

A Farewell to Isms

by John Bolender

Human Uniqueness, Cognition by Description, and Procedural Memory

by John Bolender

Co-authors: Burak Erdeniz, Cemil Kerimoglu

Evidence will be reviewed suggesting a fairly direct link between the human ability to think about entities which one... more Evidence will be reviewed suggesting a fairly direct link between the human ability to think about entities which one has never perceived — here called ‘cognition by description’ — and procedural memory. Cognition by description is a uniquely hominid trait which makes religion, science, and history possible. It is hypothesized that cognition by description (in the manner of Bertrand Russell’s ‘knowledge by description’) requires variable binding, which in turn utilizes quantifier raising. Quantifier raising plausibly depends upon the computational core of language, specifically the element of it which Noam Chomsky calls ‘internal Merge’. Internal Merge produces hierarchical structures by means of a memory of derivational steps, a process plausibly involving procedural memory. The hypothesis is testable, predicting that procedural memory deficits will be accompanied by impairments in cognition by description. We also discuss neural mechanisms plausibly underlying procedural memory and also, by our hypothesis, cognition by description.

An Argument for Idealism

by John Bolender

Prehistoric Cognition by Description: A Rusellian Approach to the Upper Paleolithic

by John Bolender

Variables, generality and existence

by henry laycock

DRAFT CONFERENCE VERSION - ALMOST IDENTICAL WITH PUBLISHED VERSION

In that semantic tradition of which Frege and Russell are among the most distinguished members, the project of... more In that semantic tradition of which Frege and Russell are among the most distinguished members, the project of formalizing natural-language sentences is not simply a matter of developing smooth and effective techniques for the representation of reasoning. Over and above the representation of valid inference as valid, and invalid inference as invalid, there is a further objective. Logic in this tradition is what Frege himself famously calls a concept-script, the import of the notion being chiefly that in natural languages, as Frege emphasizes, ‘the connection of words corresponds only partially to the structure of concepts’, thereby compelling the logician to ‘conduct an ongoing struggle against language and grammar, insofar as they fail to give clear expression to the logical’. In the more recent past, a kindred overall approach is forcefully expounded in the work of Quine, who writes, albeit with a positivistic slant, that

the simplification and clarification of logical theory to which a canonical logical notation contributes is not only algorithmic, it is also conceptual ... each elimination of obscure constructions or notions that we manage to achieve, by paraphrase into more lucid elements, is a clarification of the conceptual scheme of science.

The approach is one with which I find myself in general sympathy; indeed the contrast between clear and less-than-clear ‘expressions of the logical’ is vital to the thesis of this work. Though it has not always received the understanding and respect which it deserves, the ideal of a logically transparent language represents, in my estimation, no merely interesting episode in the history of ideas. It embodies, rather, a permanently valid insight, an enduringly valuable ideal for any analytical conception of philosophy.

Theories of Matter

by henry laycock

Journal: Synthese.
Reprinted in Mass Terms: some Philosophical Problems.

DO NOT USE QUICK VIEW - DOES NOT WORK!

Theories of Matter documents the all-pervasive doctrine which I call the Ontology of Objects - a doctrine which claims... more Theories of Matter documents the all-pervasive doctrine which I call the Ontology of Objects - a doctrine which claims that there can be no other ontic category than that of objects (along with their properties and relations). Here this doctrine and its logico-semantic basis are attacked, the influential work of Helen Cartwright is criticized, and it is denied that matter must be re-identifiable.

Words without Objects - complete paper

by henry laycock

Journal: Principia (Brazil), 1998.

Resolution of the problem of mass nouns depends on an expansion of our logico/semantic/ontological taxonomy... more Resolution of the problem of mass nouns depends on an expansion of our logico/semantic/ontological taxonomy Semantically, mass nouns are neither singular nor plural, they apply to neither just one object, nor to many objects, at a time But their deepest kinship links them to the plural. A plural phrase — 'the cats in Kingston' — does not denote a single plural thing, but merely many distinct things Just so, 'the water In the lake' does not denote a single aggregate — it is not ONE, but rather MUCH. The world is not the totality of singular objects, plural objects, and mass objects, for there are no plural or mass objects. It is the totality of single objects and (just) stuff.

Any sum of parts which are water is water

by henry laycock

HUMANA.MENTE
International Journal of Philosophical Studies founded in Florence in 2007. Official journal of the Italian Philosophical Society

Issue 19 - December 2011
COMPOSITION, COUNTERFACTUALS AND CAUSATION
The idea behind this issue is to offer a representation of the most recent theories and position which are emerging in the debate and take David Lewis as their main theoretical source, critical target, or point of departure

ABSTRACT. Mereological entities often seem to violate ‘ordinary’ ideas of what a concrete object can be like, behaving... more ABSTRACT. Mereological entities often seem to violate ‘ordinary’ ideas of what a concrete object can be like, behaving more like sets than like Aristotelian substances. However, the mereological notions of ‘part’, ‘composition’, and ‘sum’ or ‘fusion’ appear to find concrete realisation in the actual semantics of mass nouns. Quine notes that ‘any sum of parts which are water is water’; and the wine from a single barrel can be bottled and distributed around the globe without affecting its identity. Is there here, as some have claimed, a ‘natural’ or ‘innocent’ form of mereology? The claim rests on the assumption that what a mass noun such as ‘wine’ denotes – the wine from a single barrel , for example – is indeed a unit of a special type, the sum or fusion of its many ‘parts’. The assumption is, however, open to question on semantic grounds.