Abstract
In ‘The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’ (1918), Russell frees himself from the Platonism to which he had subscribed earlier. He no longer regards propositions as entities which exist independently of thoughts and sentences. He now identifies them with the symbols that express them:
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“A proposition is just a symbol”.1
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“A proposition… is a sentence in the indicative…”.2
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“If you were making an inventory of the world, propositions would not come in”.3
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“… obviously propositions are nothing”.4
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References
B. Russell, ‘The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’, in R. C. Marsh (ed.), Logic and Knowledge, Essays 1901–1950, Allen and Unwin, London, 1956, p. 185.
Russell, Ibid., p. 185.
Russell, Ibid., p. 214.
Russell, Ibid., p. 223.
Russell, Ibid,, p. 182–183.
Russell, Ibid., passim.
W. V. O. Quine, ‘Russell’s Ontological Development’, Journal of Philosophy, (1966) 664.
B. Russell, Human Knowledge, Allen and Unwin, London 1948, p. 165.
B. Russell, My Philosophical Development, Allen and Unwin, London 1959, p. 186.
B. Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, p. 187.
A. J. Ayer, Thinking and Meaning, 1947, p. 20.
Lalande, Vocabulaire technique et historique de la philosophie, edn. 1959, p. 334.
Quine, Op. cit., p. 664.
L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-philosophicus 4. 1272, Routledge and Kegan, London, 1961, p. 11.
R. Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1964, p. 303. [Originally appeared as Logische Syntax der Sprache (1934).)
J. Vuillemin, ‘La référence des phrases declaratives’, unpublished.
M. Black, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Cambridge University Press, 1964, p. 35–36.
S. Stebbing, A Modern Introduction to Logic, London, 1930, p. 36–37.
S. Stebbing, ‘Substance, Events and Facts’, Journal of Philosophy 29, (1932) 311.
S. Stebbing, A Modern Introduction to Logic, p. 36.
S. Stebbing, ‘Substance, Events and Facts’, p. 311.
F. P. Ramsey, ‘Facts and Propositions’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, VII, 1927, p. 156.
F. A. Tillman, ‘Facts, Events and True Statements’, Theoria XXXII, 1966, p. 125.
M. T. Keeton, ‘On defining the Term ‘Fact’’, Journal of Philosophy 39, (1942) 126.
E. L. Beardsley, ‘The Semantical Aspect of Sentences’, Journal of Philosophy (1943).
J. L. Austin, Philosophical Papers, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1960, p. 104, quoted by Tillman. Oxford paperbacks, p. 156.
Austin, Ibid., p. 116, Oxford paperbacks, p. 168.
Z. Vendler, Linguistics in Philosophy, Cornell University Press, New York, 1967, p. 142.
R. Carnap, Meaning and Necessity, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956, p. 30.
P. Marhenke, ‘Propositions and Sentences’, Meaning and Interpretation, University of California Press, Vol. 25, 1950, p. 289. [My italics — P.G.I]
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1027 620 Loeb Classical Library, transl. H. Fredernick, Harvard University Press, London, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 306–307.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1027 630, Ibid., pp. 308–309.
G. Küng, Ontology and the Logistic Analysis of Language, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, p. 165.
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© 1980 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Gochet, P. (1980). The Nature of Facts. In: Outline of a Nominalist Theory of Propositions. Synthese Library, vol 98. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8949-8_6
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