Abstract
I argue that Russell’s logical atomism has been misunderstood as an epistemologically-driven search for complexes constituted by logical atoms with which we are acquainted, which I call acquaintance-complexes. This epistemologically-driven search for acquaintance-complexes, while important to the Russell of the 1918 logical atomism lectures, is not the essence of logical atomism. This is because interpreting Russell’s logical atomism as a search for acquaintance-complexes produces a grossly inaccurate history of logical atomism. This interpretation fails to fit the historical data we have about logical atomism’s origins and its longevity in Russell’s thought. It also fails to fit the data contained in the logical atomist texts, such as Russell’s own statements about what logical atomism is. After establishing this negative conclusion, I offer desiderata for a correct interpretation of logical atomism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Bostock rightly considers the logical atomist period beyond the 1918 lectures (Bostock 2012: vi–vii). Linsky’s recent work on logical constructions closely follows the connections between earlier and later works, and he rightly links logical constructions to Russell’s logical atomism (Linsky 2003: 372, 2014: §1).
- 2.
- 3.
Galaugher (2013: Chaps. 1–2) provides a critical historical context for Russell’s rejection of the doctrine of internal relations.
- 4.
“We will give the name ‘a complex’ to any such object as ‘a in the relation R to b’ or ‘a having the quality q’ or ‘a and b and c standing in the relation S.’ Broadly speaking, a complex is anything which occurs in the universe and is not simple ” (PM2: 47).
- 5.
“When I speak of a ‘fact,’ I do not mean one of the simple things of the world; I mean that a certain thing has a certain quality, or that certain things have a certain relation” (OKEW: 51).
- 6.
A fact need not make a statement true. Arguably, there would still be logical facts even if there were no truths. This does not change that facts are the sort of thing that could make something true.
- 7.
“The fact itself is objective, and independent of our thought or opinion about it; but the assertion is something which involves thought, and may be either true or false” (OKEW: 52).
- 8.
“Thus atomic facts are what determine whether atomic propositions are to be asserted or denied” (OKEW: 52).
- 9.
“Now a fact, in this sense, is never simple , but always has two or more constituents” (OKEW: 51).
- 10.
“Atomic propositions, although, like facts, they may have any one of an infinite number of forms, are only one kind of propositions. All other kinds are more complicated” (OKEW: 51).
- 11.
His examples in 1914 are this is red, this is before that, Napoleon was ambitious, Napoleon married Josephine, A is jealous of B on account of C, Charles I was executed, and Socrates is a man (OKEW: 51, 53, 57).
- 12.
“The constituents of facts, in the sense in which we are using the word ‘fact,’ are not other facts, but things and qualities or relations” (OKEW: 51). The sense of “fact” here is specifically atomic facts.
- 13.
I once thought that Russell flatly posited them in his 1918 lectures. Perović (this volume) has shown that the issue is more complicated than I had originally supposed. I thank Perović for changing my mind on this point.
- 14.
Now Russell does posit negative facts in his 1919 “On Propositions”: “Thus facts, and forms of facts, have two opposite qualities, positive and negative” (OP: 280). But negative facts are not endorsed in his 1924 “Logical Atomism”, and he argues against them in the 1940s.
- 15.
“Russell sometimes uses ‘monadic relation’ for quality, and he sometimes uses ‘predicate’ for quality; he is explicit about this practice” (PLA: 177).
- 16.
“Particulars have the purely logical properties of substances, but do not have their metaphysical properties. That is to say, particulars can only be either the subjects of predicates or the terms of relations” (AR: 135).
- 17.
“It remains to be investigated what particulars you actually can find in the world, if any. The whole question of what particulars you actually find in the world is a purely empirical one which does not interest the logician as such” (PLA: 177).
- 18.
“From the logical point of view, any simple existence is independent of any other, and the only dependence is that of the complex on the simple ” (AR: 135).
- 19.
In the passage quoted, Russell actually uses the word ‘simple’. A simple in Russell’s logical sense is what has no parts. Note that a simple need not be concrete. Now Russell’s sense-data are given as examples of logical atoms, despite having parts. So we can distinguish logical simples from logical atoms, which are taken to be simple relative to a given logical construction and are accordingly picked out by, as Russell says, “a simple symbol”. For Russell allows that we might analyze them further at a later stage, and yet that we can pick them out by simple symbols in a given logical construction. So logical atoms are not simple in an absolute, construction-independent sense as simples, if there are any, are. The distinction between logical atoms and simples is not critical to my argument here, but it is a vital one to understanding Russell’s meaning.
- 20.
“It is analytic, because it claims that the existence of the complex depends on the existence of the simple , and not vice versa, and that the constituent of a complex, taken as a constituent, is absolutely identical with itself as it is when we do not consider its relations. This philosophy is therefore an atomic philosophy” (AR: 133).
- 21.
“The only way, so far as I know, in which one thing can be logically dependent upon another is when the other is part of the one” (OKEW: 74).
- 22.
“Woodrow Wyatt: What kind of philosopher would you say you are? Russell: Well, the only label I’ve ever given myself is logical atomist, but I’m not very keen on the label. I’ve rather avoided labels. Wyatt: What does that mean? A logical atomist. Russell: It means, in my mind, that the way to get at the nature of any subject matter you’re looking at is analysis—and that you can analyze until you get to things that can’t be analyzed any further and those would be logical atoms. I call them logical atoms because they’re not little bits of matter. They’re the ideas, so to speak, ideas out of which a thing is built up” (Wyatt 1960: 15). This forty-second interview segment is viewable on the Internet Archive at the 5:55-6:35 mark: https://archive.org/details/BertrandRussellDiscussesPhilosophy.
- 23.
“… particulars which are known are called sense-data” (AR: 135).
- 24.
“Logically a sense-datum is an object, a particular of which the subject is aware. It does not contain the subject as a part, as for example beliefs and volitions do. The existence of the sense-datum is therefore not logically dependent upon that of the subject …” (RSDP: 9).
- 25.
“You will note that this philosophy is the philosophy of logical atomism. Every simple entity is an atom . One must not suppose that atoms need persist in time, or that they need occupy space: these atoms are purely logical” (AR: 135).
- 26.
I cite Problems because Russell’s descriptions there are far more detailed than his description in the logical atomism lectures. Russell abandoned acquaintance relations by 1919 (OP: 294–295; LA: 167).
- 27.
“When I speak of a cognitive relation here, I do not mean the sort of relation which constitutes judgment , but the sort which constitutes presentation. In fact, I think the relation of subject and object which I call acquaintance is simply the converse of the relation of object and subject which constitutes presentation” (KAKD: 148).
- 28.
“All cognitive relations—attention, sensation, memory, imagination, believing, disbelieving, etc.—presuppose acquaintance” (CPBR 7: 5).
- 29.
“In a philosophy of logical atomism one might suppose that the first thing to do would be to discover the kinds of atoms out of which logical structures are composed. But I do not think that is quite the first thing; it is one of the early things, but not quite the first” (PLA: 169). “I have been speaking hitherto of what it is not necessary to assume as part of the ultimate constituents of the world. But logical constructions, like all other constructions, require materials, and it is time to turn to the positive question, as to what these materials are to be” (LA: 169).
- 30.
“Russellian analyses proceed by way of definitions, terminate with indefinables, and, at that point, base themselves on acquaintance” (Pears 1985: 9).
- 31.
“The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted” (PoP: 91).
- 32.
Paul J. Hager’s analysis diagrams are useful in grasping the options here; Hager’s foundationalist diagram captures the dominant interpretation’s notion of Russellian analysis (Hager 1994: 48, Fig. 4.3).
- 33.
“The theoretical reason for postulating simple particulars is that, when a complex singular expression is fully analyzed, there must be one or more particulars to carry the qualities and relations mentioned in its analysis, and these particulars will be simple because all qualities and relations will have been stripped from them” (Pears 1972: 37).
- 34.
“That is to say, each particular that there is in the world does not in any way logically depend upon any other particulars. Each one might happen to be the whole universe; it is a merely empirical fact that this is not the case. There is no reason why you should not have a universe consisting of one particular and nothing else. That is a peculiarity of particulars” (PLA: 179, see also 181).
- 35.
“The acquaintance with the simpler is presupposed in the understanding of the more complex, but the logic that I should wish to combat maintains that in order thoroughly to know any one thing, you must know all its relations and all its qualities, all the propositions in fact in which that thing is mentioned; and you deduce from that that the world is an interdependent whole. It is on a basis of that sort that the logic of monism develops” (PLA: 181).
- 36.
“In the same way, in order to understand a name for a particular, the only thing necessary is to be acquainted with that particular. When you are acquainted with that particular, you have a full, adequate, and complete understanding of the name, and no further information is required. No further information as to the facts that are true of that particular would enable you to have a fuller understanding of the meaning of the name” (PLA: 179).
- 37.
“This characteristic, that you can understand a proposition through the understanding of its component words, is absent from the component words when those words express something simple . Take the word ‘red’, for example … You cannot understand the meaning of the word ‘red’ except through seeing red things” (PLA: 173).
- 38.
“Russell used the empirical argument and claimed, in the spirit of Hume, that, when we find that we cannot push the analysis of words any further, we can plant a flag recording the discovery of genuine logical atoms” (Pears 1985: 5).
- 39.
Confer (Jager 1972: §6.14; Sainsbury 1979: §II.3; Pears 1985: 3–4; Hager 1994: Chap. 4; Linsky 2003: 384–386; Bostock 2012: §14.1). Russell’s response to a question from H. Wildon Carr at the end of Lecture II indicates Russell is open to analysis having no end (PLA: 180). Likewise Russell’s 1924 essay “Logical Atomism” allows for the same (LA: 173–174). In both cases, Russell notes that that his considered view is that complexes are composed of simples, and that positing simples is inessential to logical atomism.
- 40.
Russell broke with Neo-Hegelian philosophy in mid-1898 (Griffin 1991: 181). Perhaps Russell means to date his firm adoption of logical atomism to the 1899 publication of Moore’s “The Nature of Judgment” in Mind. More likely, as we see below he means to include his subsequent adoption of the doctrine of external relations and of Peano’s logic.
- 41.
So far as we know Russell coined the phrase “logical atomism” in his 1911 “Analytic Realism”, which first appeared in English in 1992 (AR: 135). So strictly speaking, as the article was originally published in French, he first used the phrase “atomisme logique” (AR: 412).
- 42.
The other conjunct relates to his rejecting the doctrine of internal relations: “Moreover, by the rejection of à priori constructions the way is opened for philosophy to become inductive, and to begin the patient cooperative accumulation of results by which the triumphs of science have been achieved” (BoR: 131). Klement concisely details the importance of this rejection (Klement 2016: §2.1). The importance of this is also missed by reading logical atomism as the search for acquaintance-complexes, so a parallel criticism could be made that the traditional interpretation misses the importance of external relations for Russell’s logical atomism. I ignore that here due to space constraints and focus narrowly on the importance of logic.
- 43.
He retitled the essay “Mathematics and the Metaphysicians” in a 1917 reprinting: “The essay ‘Mathematics and the Metaphysicians’ was written in 1901, and appeared in an American magazine, The International Monthly, under the title ‘Recent Work in Philosophy of Mathematics’” (MaL: v). Another 1901 essay covering similar ground, “Recent Italian Work on the Foundations of Mathematics”, remained unpublished until 1993 (RIWFM: 350–351).
- 44.
Cantor and Dedekind did not mean concrete part. Cantor and Dedekind used the idea of bijections (one-to-one correspondences). Using this idea, we can say a collection is infinite means there exists a bijection from itself to a proper sub-collection of itself.
- 45.
Russell, at least by 1914, denied that ethics belonged to scientific philosophy: “Human ethical notions, as Chuang Tzu perceived, are essentially anthropocentric, and involve, when used in metaphysics, an attempt, however veiled, to legislate for the universe on the basis of the present desires of men. In this way they interfere with that receptivity to fact which is the essence of the scientific attitude towards the world” (SMP: 63). Russell admits, “the importance or value, within its own sphere”, of ethically inspired philosophy, he concludes, “The scientific philosophy, therefore, which only aims at understanding the world and not directly at any other improvement of human life, cannot take account of ethical notions without being turned aside from that submission to fact which is the essence of the scientific temper” (SMP: 64). Thus he held that ethical philosophy is disjoint from logical atomist philosophy. Here I leave open the consistency of ethical philosophy with logical atomist philosophy, and so of logical atomist ethics.
- 46.
In this work, Russell affirms logical atomism: “The philosophy which I wish to advocate may be called logical atomism or absolute pluralism …” (SMP: 65).
- 47.
Confer also his 1904 review of Moore’s Principia Ethica: “… philosophy will never advance, until the notion is dispelled, that sweeping general principles can excuse the patient attention to detail which, here as elsewhere, can alone lead to the discovery of truth” (TMG: 575).
- 48.
Russell earlier states, “… I call the philosophy which I advocate ‘logical atomism’” (OoP: 259).
- 49.
I think Russell is referring to his logical atomist philosophy here. He has just illustrated on the previous page “the utility of philosophical syntax” using his theory of definite descriptions (HWP: 859).
- 50.
Pears held that Wittgenstein did just that in reasoning a priori for positing simples (Pears 1985: 5–6).
- 51.
Urmson , for instance, says “this new, rich logic” merely “suggested” logical atomism (Urmson 1956: 7).
- 52.
Russell goes even further in his 1914 Our Knowledge: “Logic, we may say, consists of two parts. The first part investigates what propositions are and what forms they may have; this part enumerates the different kinds of atomic propositions, of molecular propositions, of general propositions, and so on. The second part consists of certain supremely general propositions, which assert the truth of all propositions of certain forms. This second part merges into pure mathematics, whose propositions all turn out, on analysis, to be such general formal truths. The first part, which merely enumerates forms, is the more difficult, and philosophically the more important; and it is the recent progress in this first part, more than anything else, that has rendered a truly scientific discussion of many philosophical problems possible” (OKEW: 57–58; see also SMP: 65–66).
- 53.
Here I am taking inspiration from the tree readers of the Tractatus (Bazzocchi 2014: IV–VII).
- 54.
“There are a great many different kinds of facts, and we shall be concerned in later lectures with a certain amount of classification of facts” (PLA: 164).
- 55.
“I propose to begin today the analysis of facts and propositions, for in a way the chief thesis that I have to maintain is the legitimacy of analysis …” (PLA: 169).
- 56.
“I do not see any reason to suppose that there is a complexity in the facts corresponding to these molecular propositions …” (PLA: 187).
- 57.
“Today we have to deal with a new form of fact … Now I want to point out today that the facts that occur when one believes or wishes or wills have a different logical form from the atomic facts containing a single verb which I dealt with in my second lecture” (PLA: 191).
- 58.
“We have such propositions as ‘All men are mortal’ and ‘Some men are Greeks.’ But you have not only such propositions; you also have such facts, and that, of course, is where you get back to the inventory of the world: that, in addition to particular facts … there are also general facts and existence-facts …” (PLA: 206).
- 59.
“I am proposing to deal this time with the subject of descriptions, and what I call ‘incomplete symbols’, and the existence of described individuals” (PLA: 211).
- 60.
“I come now to the proper subject of my lecture, but shall have to deal with it rather hastily. It was to explain the theory of types and the definition of classes” (PLA: 226).
- 61.
In a 21 May 1918 letter, Russell writes, “To P. Jourdain … Is he going to print 2 of my logic lectures in July and 2 each subsequent quarter? I hope so” (Griffin 2001: #313). Jourdain was then editor of The Monist, where the logical atomism lectures were published.
- 62.
Thanks to the Bertrand Russell Archives in the William Ready Division of Research Collections, McMaster University Library, for permission to use this photograph.
- 63.
In a 17 April 1918 letter, Russell writes, “I wish to write two works concurrently, one to be called ‘Introduction to Modern Logic’ or some such title, more or less on the lines of the lectures I gave you before and after Christmas …” (Thompson 1975: 18).
- 64.
A case in point is Russell’s casual suggestion that there may not be logical simples (PLA: 180). Pears explains this away as Russell’s being confused (Pears 1985: 4). Pears thus squares what Russell actually believed with the text. But more to the point is that this interpretation poorly fits the text: for if logical atomism is crucially committed to an ontology with logical simples (knowable by acquaintance), Russell is either unaware of this fact or far too casual in entertaining an ontology without logical simples.
- 65.
“I hold that logic is what is fundamental in philosophy, and that schools should be characterized rather by their logic than by their metaphysic” (LA: 162).
References
Works by Other Authors
Ayer, A. J. (1972). Bertrand Russell. New York: The Viking Press.
Bazzocchi, Luciano (2014). The Tractatus According to Its Own Form: Supplements and Other Shavings. Raleigh, North Carolina: Lulu.
Bostock, David (2012). Russell’s Logical Atomism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Galaugher, Jolen (2013). Russell’s Philosophy of Logical Analysis: 1897–1905. History of Analytic Philosophy series. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Grayling, A. C. (1996). Russell. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Griffin, Nicholas (1991). Russell’s Idealist Apprenticeship. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Griffin, Nicholas (2001). The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 2: The Public Years (1914—1970). New York: Routledge.
Hager, Paul J. (1994). Continuity and Change in the Development of Russell’s Philosophy. Nijhoff International Philosophy series. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Jager, Ronald (1972). The Development of Bertrand Russell’s Philosophy. Muirhead Library of Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin LTD.
Klement, Kevin C. (2016). “Russell’s Logical Atomism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Summer 2016. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/logical-atomism/
Koç Maclean, Gülberk (2014). Bertrand Russell’s Bundle Theory of Particulars. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Landini, Gregory (2007). Wittgenstein’s Apprenticeship with Russell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Landini, Gregory (2011). Russell. London and New York: Routledge.
Linsky, Bernard (2003). “The Metaphysics of Logical Atomism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell, ed. Nicholas Griffin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 11: 371–391.
Linsky, Bernard (2014). “Logical Constructions.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2014. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/logical-construction/
Pears, D. F. (1972). “Russell’s Logical Atomism.” In Bertrand Russell: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. D. F. Pears. New York: Anchor Books. Chapter 2: 23–51.
Pears, D. F. (1985). “Introduction.” In The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, Bertrand Russell, ed. D. F. Pears. Open court: La Salle, Ill. 1–34.
Russell, Bertrand, and Woodrow Wyatt. (1960). Bertrand Russell speaks his mind. London: A. Baker. URL https://archive.org/details/BertrandRussellDiscussesPhilosophy.
Sainsbury, R. M. (1979). Russell. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Soames, Scott (2014). The Analytic Tradition in Philosophy, vol. 1, The Founding Giants. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Thompson, Michael (1975). “Some Letters of Bertrand Russell to Herbert Wildon Carr.” Coranto, Vol. 10, No. 1: 7–19.
Urmson, J. O. (1956). Philosophical Analysis: Its Development Between Two World Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Urmson, J. O. (1969). “Russell on Acquaintance with the Past.” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 74, No. 4: 510–515.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Elkind, L.D.C. (2018). On Russell’s Logical Atomism. In: Elkind, L., Landini, G. (eds) The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94364-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94364-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94363-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94364-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)