Russell's Scientific Realism (original) (raw)

RUSSELL ON MATTER AND OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD

view that sensations are not caused by but rather constitute ordinary objects. Indeed, prima facie, his 1914 Our Knowledge of the External World reduces objects to sensedata. However, Russell did not think his view was phenomenalist, and he said that he never gave up either the causal theory of perception or a realist understanding of objects. 1

Reference in conceptual realism

Synthese, 1998

A conceptual theory of the referential and predicable concepts used in basic speech and mental acts is described in which singular and general, complex and simple, and pronominal and nonpronominal, referential concepts are given a uniform account. The theory includes an intensional realism in which the intensional contents of predicable and referential concepts are represented through nominalized forms of the predicate and quantifier phrases that stand for those concepts. A central part of the theory distinguishes between active and deactivated referential concepts, where the latter are represented by nominalized quantifier phrases that occur as parts of complex predicates. Peter Geach's arguments against theories of general reference in Reference and Generality are used as a foil to test the adequacy of the theory. Geach's arguments are shown to either beg the question of general as opposed to singular reference or to be inapplicable because of the distinction between active and deactivated referential concepts.

Russell's Robust Sense of Reality: A Reply to Butchvarov

Grazer Philosophische Studien, 1988

Free author download. Six recommendations and over 365 reads on ResearchGate as of January 16, 2025. Presented to the Bertrand Russell Society at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting in December 1987, published in 1988. It is the first work in which I offer my interpretation of the 1918 Russell as having three senses of "exists" which work together. In the primary (Parmenidean) sense, to be is not to be nothing. In the secondary (Berkeleyan and Humean) sense, to be real is to be a lawful series of classes of sensibilia. In the tertiary (Fregean) sense, existence is the individual quantifier. Comments and replies are published in the same journal issue. This paper is superseded by chapter 4 of The Ontology of the Analytic Tradition and Its Origins. The three senses of "exists" become three implicit levels of modality in chapter 3 in both editions of Bertrand Russell on Modality and Logical Relevance. The ontology book has the best and fullest presentation of the three senses of "exists," but omits their modal implications. A good faith effort was made to request permission from the publisher to post the paper here in its original format. The emailed request was promptly acknowledged by a representative of the publisher, and a reasonable period of time (over six weeks) was waited; but the publisher never replied with an answer. I hand-lined out a duplicate line near the middle of page 160. I saw it in 1988, but at the time I somehow persuaded myself that it was a correct duplicate line.

The Tenability of Russell's Early Philosophy

Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, 1988

WINCHESTER: I'm hoping this will be a very informal session. Our panelists will, of course, feel free to say anything that they feel like, that they want to get off their chests, and then the audience will take it upon themselves to make comments. AYER: I think I'd like the audience to interrupt if they feel like it-if we say anything outrageous or platitudinous, or both. I'll start off by saying a few words. I noticed that early on we had a very well-known, typical Russell quotation, namely, that, where possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities. But an interesting one that passed unquoted occurs in The Problems of Philosophy, namely that every proposition we can understand must be composed of constituents with which we are acquainted. It seems to me-and this is something I would like my companions to discuss-that this ties Russell very closely to phenomenalism, because he argued as early as The Problems of Philosophy that the only particulars we are acquainted with in addition to our Selves are sense-data; and he excludes Selves by the time he gets to The Analysis of Mind. Otherwise, he allows us to be acquainted with universals. Now if you interpret the theory of definite descriptions in the way that Quine does (and I agree with Quine), Russell should be interpreted as permitting-not only permitting but encouraging-the elimination of singular terms. This means that all the stuffing, as it were, in your statements gets into the predicates, and there's nothing left to be a value of the existentially quantified variable except something that requires no connotation, namely the object of a demonstrative. If that is so, and if the object of demonstratives for Russell can be only sense-data-something he maintained throughout his career right up to Inquiry into Meaning (J.nd Truth-it means that you are only referring to sense-data and to what properties they can have. This leaves you no other alternative but phenomenalism. * In passing two series of proofs of the discussion, the panelisls and "olher voices" nol infrequently revised the wording ascribed to them. The result offered here. while nol a verbatim transcript of the discussion that took place on 24 June 1984, is what each speaker wishes printed. Editorial thanks for assistance with the transcription are extended to

On Denoting" and the Principle of Acquaintance

Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, 2007

While Russell's concerns in developing the theory of descriptions were primarily with his foundation of logic, he was aware of the epistemological uses of both the theory of denoting concepts and the 1905 theory of deWnite descriptions. At the end of "On Denoting" he suggests that the principle of acquaintance is a "result" of the new theory of denoting. In this paper I examine the relation between the theory of descriptions and the principle of acquaintance, and I reject two suggestions, one that Russell's view commits him to the position that quantiWers range only over objects of acquaintance, the other that the principle of acquaintance plays a crucial role in the Gray's Elegy argument.

Paradoxical Aspects of the Russellian Conception of Existence

Foundations of Science, 2021

In this paper, the authors try to clarify the relations between Meinong's and Russell's thoughts on the ontological ideas of existence. The Meinongian theory on non-existent objects does not in itself violate the principle of non-contradiction, since the problem that this hypothesis offers to the theory of definite descriptions is not so much a logical problem as an ontological problem. To demonstrate this we will establish what we believe are the two main theses basic to the theory of descriptions: the epistemological thesis and logical thesis.

Our Knowledge of Universals A Case for Sense-Perceiving Immanent Universals

2015

universals inhere in their concrete particulars. 3 B. We can have knowledge of concrete particulars by way of sense-perception as a knowledge source. C. While sense-perceiving a concrete particular, we have a cognitive ability to directly recognize a universal inherent in a concrete particular. D. Therefore, not only do universals exist, but also we have direct knowledge (i.e., cognitive access) to a large number of them. 3 John Cook Wilson in Statement and Inference warns philosophers of the concrete and abstract distinction. "Of late years it has been customary to speak of a concrete and abstract universal. These terms are to be avoided. Concrete was originally merely opposed to abstract and should mean a particular existence. Nothing is gained by calling an existence concrete, and the term has the danger of seeming to give an explanation" (1926, p. 714). I recognize Cook's warning, however, I use "concrete" to mean ordinary objects like pots, cows, tables, chairs etc. On the other hand, the term "particular" seems to range over all kinds of entities from tropes to space & time or spacetime, instances of justice or motions or events, minds, souls, angels, God or gods, black holes, bosons, or quantum fields. Furthermore, I also recognize how relations are often thought as a particular or universal. In this work I do not touch upon sense-perceiving universal relations.

Ontology Limits Epistemology: Russellian Acquaintance in New Realism

Cartesian and Kantian skepticism about objects has plagued philosophy for over three hundred years, culminating into postmodern subjectivism. Bertrand Russell's notion of knowledge by acquaintance recognizes that at the foundation of knowledge are facts presented by objects to subjects. These facts present limitations, which subjects may not amend. Thus, the notion that reality is merely a social construction cannot be true. Knowledge by description, using knowledge by acquaintance as its base, provides a defense for a positive realism that posits that epistemology proceeds from ontology.