Russell

today we're going to talk some about an attitude of cynicism at the turn of the century will be discussing the contrast between realism and idealism again and also its effect on values and we'll examine the works of George Bernard Shaw and specifically in appendix - Man and Superman called Maxim's for revolutionists before that I want to talk some about a Bertrand Russell article andhe noting that revolutionized philosophy right around the same time sadly the link on the webpage doesn't work I don't know why but I'll fix that but it's just as well you haven't read it because you wouldn't have been able to make any sense of it anyway however after this I think you'll be able to read it and be happy and feel like you understand it at least I hope so parts of it you may think wait you didn't talk about this part that's fine skip it in fact there is this long section where he talks about Gray's elegy no one understands what he's talking about ok I mean they know the poem Gray's elegy famous poem ok but the argument as far as people can tell makes no sense there are a long complicated articles about it a few people think it can be rescued most people think it's nonsense so I've omitted that entirely and actually I think I dropped it out of this reading but if you come along this text in another place you'll see all this stuff about Gray's elegy it's long it's complicated it's nonsense so ignore it in that case we will talk about first of all birds and Brussels of article Antonelli Russell was lured Russell he was born into a very highly placed British family he was the godson of John Stuart Mill and teaching for most of his career at Cambridge well I say most of his career most of his academic career at a certain point he lost his job Sydney University in New York trying to hiren he was so controversial that they managed to they basically regents in the public defeated that plan and so he ended up supporting himself by writing books throughout most of his career he wrote a lot a lot of popular books like why I'm not a Christian of writing things about war and peace and so on as well as more philosophical and almost anybody who is schooled in contemporary philosophy has studied a lot of Russell these were just things I happen to have have on my shelf for example now the article we're going to be discussing appeared in October 1905 in mind Britain's leading philosophical journal then and now actually and as you can see it stands out in a certain way pragmatism versus absolute is a predetermination personal endeavor as humanism of philosophical advance all these things related to what was a popular way of thinking about philosophy at the turn of the century namely idealism and since idealism was originally developed in Germany you can see the dependence of British philosophy on German philosophy critical notices that his book reviews look all the books are in German yeah okay so British philosophy at the time very much saw itself as a handmaiden to German philosophy but there is Russell's little article on des noting it would have struck people as bizarre at the time if they paid any attention at all for a number of reasons one of them is it's striking a blow for realism release it's trying to us we'll see it doesn't go as far as people initially thought it does but nevertheless it strikes a blow for realism against the dominant idealism at the time it doesn't really seem to be on a philosophical topic at all in fact it saw the sort of linguistic matter the meaning of the word luffa and it's often thought to be the beginning of analytic philosophy which is the dominant school of philosophy now in Britain in the United States and other english-speaking countries analytic philosophers stressed the importance of clarity stress logical structure stress argumentation and all of that gets its beginnings with some figures in the nineteenth century like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill and Duncan Fraga but really becomes a standard way of doing philosophy starting with this article I want to note now what is the topic of it ought to be noting he talks about it as being denoting phrases but unfortunately he never really gives us a definition of a narrowing phrase what does he mean exactly all he gives us are some examples a man some man any man every man all men the present king of England the present King of France so on linguist today would call these noun phrases or determiner phrases determiners being words like well some any everyall etc and importantly thump now really it turns out that this is a paper about definite descriptions it is a paper about the meaning of the word though and Russell at one point says I think this is so important that I would endeavour to give a theory of that word even if I were dead from the neck down now why most of you are probably sitting there thinking if I were dead from the neck down and knew I had only moments to live the last thing I want to do was develop a theory of the word thought but he thought it was that important now why will he sees definite descriptions as one of the key ways in which language and indirect thumb relate to the world so the idea is this we say things about the world all the time I can say it's muggy outside and I'm talking about the world in some fashion um that's not a way that involved a definite description but I can easily do that I can say the students are attentive for example and what am i referring to the students is the idea group of you perhaps if I'm talking about this classroom and so those phrases might be thought to be one of the key ways in which language and thought linked up to the world now there are other ways I might just say look at that or I might use a proper name and so names the monstrous like this and that those are also ways in which language seems to look up to the world when I say it's muggy the it somehow blinks up to the world too so that is only one of the ways of doing this but nevertheless he thinks it's a very important way so the background question of this article really is how does our thoughtfully to the world what is the connection between mind and world between my thinking and the way the world out there really is notice the world out there really is that presupposes a sort of realist picture there's my mind and the thoughts I have and then there's a world and it's independent of me and my thoughts now thoughts are kind of hard to grasp in themselves but at least often you can express them in language and so Russell's is to focus on language he says maybe we can understand how language relates to the world and thereby get some insight into how thoughts this is often instead of the beginning of what is known as the linguistic turn in philosophy so if we're going to do that we're gonna think about this relationship between thought in the world and then say well let's do that by looking at the relationship between language in the world we want to focus on the expressions in language that do link us up to the world most directly things like proper names definite descriptions too monstrous like this and that and we're going to think of them more broadly the theory of reference the theory of those connections between language in the world is really a central philosophical problem so ever since Russell philosophers have tended to think at least philosophers in the analytic tradition have tended to think of the theory of reference as one of the central topics of philosophy now at first glance that seems kind of dull right reference really like how the name John Stuart Mill relates to the person John Stuart Mill that's a big deal well yes it is because it's one of the key places where language and thought who come to the world so let's take a look at Russell steel think about Sutton's like in general the F is G okay the kitten is hungry where the president is in Washington where the camera is black here is he says what that means you might think it's a simple referring expression might be F refers to an object in the world the way a name would let's say and so we've got an object picked out D F and then we describe that object as G but he says that's not the right way to do it at all that's not actually what this is it's not a simple referring expression instead the F is G is equivalent to the conjunction of three propositions there is at least one F there is at most one F and every F is G okay these two there is in other words exactly one F there is a unique F and it is G would be another way of putting the same idea huh I like this poster individuality always remember you're unique just like everybody else okay so here are some examples the president is in walking that means according to Russell there is at least one person there is at most one president and every president is in Washington okay or the kitten is hungry there's at least one kitten my daughter found that kitten up in Georgetown on Monday so I lose one captain then a couple of weeks later I gain a new cat anyway he's four weeks old and he doesn't have a name yet there is at most one kitten and every kitten is hundreds no we have he has no name so gap brilliant ideas for cat name now when I think about the first example here the president let's assume we mean of the United States is in Washington it's entirely plausible to say there is at least one President of the United States there is at most one president and every president of the United States is in Washington those makes sense right however in this case there's a complication there is at least one kitten well that's certainly true that there is at most one kitten how many kittens are there in the world just one no there are lumps right and so at first glance it seems like well this can't possibly be right and every kitten is hungry well no probably a lot of kittens are hungry but many cut kittens are playing or asleep from separate cetera and so we've really to make this plausible got to think of ourselves as describing not you know at least one and a post one in the entire world but at least one at most one and then every in some contextual domain in some domain of discourse that we're talking about so in my family if we have lots of kittens then to save the kitten we're like witch-king right but since only one of our cats is a kitten then we could say it's a kitten and the understanding is we were talking about our cat's not just all the cats in the world okay so Russell says any philosopher ought to stock his or her mind with lots of puzzles because that's how you make advances you think about puzzles and then setup trying to solve them so here's his first puzzle it's a puzzle involving the indiscernible ax T of identicals if a is B than anything true of aid must be true of B okay so substituting a for be on a preserve truthfulness and indeed most of the time that works out fine hey Russell wrote on denoting a truffle was Jon Stewart oh god son then Jon Stewart mills godson wrote on demoting that seems right right that seems to follow from what we have there if I am the professor and I say your paper is due today then the professor says your paper is due today it's every however ok he says sometimes it doesn't seem to work Sir Walter Scott pictured there was the offer of wait with it that's a novel George the fourth wish to know whether the Scott was the author of Waverly we should be able to substitute Scott or the author of Waverly right or vice versa and so it looks as if we should be able to infer that George the fourth wish to know whether Scott was Scott but Russell says an interest in the law of identity can hardly be ascribed to the First Gentleman of Europe yeah he doesn't look like a guy who's spending a lot of time in the library okay here's Russell's solution he says look as long as you think of a definite description like the author of Waverly as picking out an object in the world in a sort of simple way then you really have a problem because it looks like well then there are just two ways the author of wavering and Scott is picking out the same object just like four and two plus two for example and you should be able to substitute one for the other if four is equal to 2 squared then 2 squared is equal to 2 plus 2 you should be able to make those substitutions if that's all that's going on but this solution is to say look that's not what's going on words and phrases in general only have a meaning in the context of a sentence and so in particular something like the F the author of Waverly in this case only has a meaning in the context of a sentence remember the author of Waverly is Scott really means there is at least one off of Waverly and there is it most one offer of Waverly and every offer of Waverly is Scott and so it isn't the case that we've got this simple referring expression the author of Waverly instead we've got these three general claims and so there is really no way to make a substitution because the offer Waverly actually isn't a constituent of the underlying logical structure it's very important here that Russell is saying there's a surface structure of language and in that surface structure the the author of Whateley like any other definite description appears to be a denoting phrase it appears to be a simple noun phrase a subject subject of a sentence for example but it's really doing something else at an underlying logical form so we have a little lives here of something like a two-level theory there's language as we ordinarily find it that's as it were the manifest image of language but there's an underlying level a logical form where different things are happening and indeed linguists continue to take that idea of a two-level theory very seriously almost all modern semantic theories have that sort of thing where there's a surface level and then an underlying logical form and Russell's really the one who starts off to know it so what does Scott was the author of Waverly really mean it just means at least one person wrote Waverly at most one person wrote Waverly and every person who wrote major liepa's Scott okay but notice there is no phrase the author of weight-related so there's no way to substitute to named Scott for the author of Waverly because the author of Waverly doesn't even appear in the underlying logical form he'll there's an image from the original publication of the Waverly here's the second puzzle the puzzle of the excluded middle the law of excluded middle in logic just says well P or not B for every proposition P okay either it's muggy outside today or it's not either I'm speaking or I'm not now let's consider this instance of the present King of France is fault or the present King of France is not bold but Russell says Wheaton okay France has no King so we're not gonna find the prison King of France on a list of the bold things nor will we find about a list of an on ball things and so what do we say about this imagine we're going to develop X so here we've got a list of all babies over the laughs right we're going ball ball ball and then dawn ball things we start with trips Troy Polamalu would go along that's like okay we keep going Alton so we find the present King of France on the boldface list so do we find them on the non vult things list no so what do we do Russell's joke is get me into a lot of synthesis will probably conclude that he wears a wig okay well yeah one way of going about this is saying oh the law of excluded middle is false after all when we have a definite description that doesn't denote anything like the present king of breaths well sentence is involving it or neither true nor false Russell doesn't like the idea of giving up basic law of logic in order to solve this puzzle so he says to solve it we have to notice that actually that sentence the premium present game frenzies not bald is ambiguous what does it mean he says it can have two meanings it might mean it is not the case that the president king of France is bald or it might mean that the president king of France he sucks that he is not bald now he says one of those sentences is true and one of those is false what is this one it's not the case that the president king of France is bald is that true or false okay that's true like the present king of France is bald according to Russell means that there is at least one present King of France there is most one present King of France and every present King of France is tall well is that true no there isn't of these one present give rats so when I say is not the case that's true how about this one the present king of France is not bald that means there is at least one present king of France and at most one present king of France and every present king of France is not bald but hold on a second that's not true because there is at least one present can cracks so Russell's analysis is that the first one of those is true the second okay yeah well okay right what can we have yeah what can we say about these cases one thing you might say is look okay well the first thing you might say is what you said first and ludecke philosophy is a waste of time now I love it I was a philosophy major didn't encounter it until I was a senior and then I was completely seduced by it's like wow I love mathematics I love philosophy this brings the two together this is awesome so I was just love as I read this article it was love at first sight but I realize most people don't read onto noting and just say I wanted to put my life to this they think what a waste of time and so yeah that's the first thing a lot of people would react exactly the way you're reacting but what about the more specific thing phrases like uh president King of France oh that's a bit silly right because we shouldn't talk about that but there might be all sorts of phrases that can come up that might not denote anything okay what would be some examples where you might say look there's an issue here and it's an important factual issue about whether this thing exists about whether whether there is such thing as - all bla bla bla bla bla what could be like yeah nah ordinarily we you know we say no president okay there is a president so we're all cool with that but sometimes we can talk about the blank blank blank and actually it's a controversial issue whether there is such a thing whether or not that thing exists like identifying that higher being is one thing or another okay good you might say the Son of God right and there might be disagreement but with it there is such a thing or you might just say the perfect being and that seems to be a description of God from one point well I suppose everybody's perspective except that some people say that doesn't de know anything right it's just like the prison King of France whereas others will think it does now if we react by saying hey wait a minute if it doesn't de know anything it's meaningless then actually I mean is the present King of France people is those words meaningless not really I mean you can you know there isn't one right because you understand to meet the other words so we don't want the meaningfulness of our language to depend on whether the things we're talking about exist not only because of things like that but how do I tell you a story I say once upon a time there were three bears who lived together in a cottage on the wood the mama bear the Papa Bear and the baby there I went on a walk then Goldie except in the original by Robert Sundy only Goldilocks isn't a young girl it's an old nasty lady the old woman comes interpreter okay now notice what I'm doing there I'm talking about the three bears I'm talking about the cottage in the woods I'm talking about later the bowls of porridge and so on thought mama bear thought papa bear do you say I've investigated this there really were no bears who lived in the country since the woods in a Tokyo and so everything you've just said is two completely meaningless no it's not meaningless now there is an interesting question is it false or is it just neither true nor false think about an atheist reaction to the kinds of things people say in church is it false or is it just neither true nor false that's in a sense the issue Russell is dealing with here if I talk about the present King of France being bald is that meaningless I don't think so because we know it's there is no present King of France so we can figure out the words mean on the other hand is it all false or or is a lot of it just neither true nor false in some kind of ambiguous setting if it really is neither true nor false then logic does have to be changed the LOB excluded middle is false and so we have to change our and there are lots of people who are in favor of changing our life I say I'm one of them I think there's truth and falsehood and then all sorts of other things like neither true nor false I may be both true and false oh yeah right the reason I I put it this way is I'm trying to show you that at least contemporary philosophers starting with Russell would think this is what is called the scope ambiguity is the negation here the knot is that governing the whole proposition or is that just governing bald am I saying something is not bald like his Harry or am i saying is not true yeah it's like mathematics it's like - law isn't you know ba-ba-ba-ba-ba and - okay well anyway I can see it I'm losing you your attention and your patience so all the same Russell solutions or King of France isn't on that bulb list he's all of an oddball bliss but look this is true the king of France is bald or it is not the case that the king of France is bald that's true and that's the proper instance of excluded middle so he says we've saved logic the law of excluded middle is saved when I say the present king of France is bald that really does have a truth value it's just false because I'm claiming in the present King of France all but there is a king of France and there isn't so what I've said is false now all right I admit this is the first time I've tried teaching this paper in the course this is experiment I did this as part of the video for the MOOC I had to do this lecture about 4 times because the people there who were filming it kept saying not that made any sense you're confirming my earlier judgment that I shouldn't do this but yeah what am i doing yet why am I putting you through this there are a couple of ideas in rustles paper that are reading one of them is something that has to do with the theory of knowledge he draws a distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description and basically says some of our knowledge is immediate and some is inferred from that some is basic we know it directly immediately and others we know because we infer it from the other things we know so there's a lot of things that are immediately known by acquaintance that is what other philosophers called the gift and that's why Hegel refers to this as the question of immediacy do we know anything immediately directly without inferring it by it from anything else Hegel says no of course and so here is directly contradicting Hegel saying nonsense there are things we know by a quick acquaintance like for example that this is black or that I am myself those are things we know the right and then there are other things that are inferred from those things the second important idea he says really names might seem to be different they might seem to pick out things in the world but actually they're just describe the sky's descriptions too so the general idea is that most of what we say about the world nevertheless involves knowledge by description knowing that Joe is here the Jay is working but the lights are on it's on all of that is really known indirectly inferentially not directly now why does that matter well only a few things turn out to be known by acquaintances in other words there is that basic level of things that are given but actually there's not much handled things like this and that ok so that's cool I guess that's directly observed or at least that that looks read if I'm looking at the wall in the back and so on the are things that me might be able to know directly but he says actually only when they refer to the contents of immediate experience what does he mean by that well he is attacking hey he's saying look we do know some things directly so Hegel you're wrong there there is knowledge that we can have without the intermediary of concepts however that's the exception most of what we know does relate to reality actually quite indirectly it's only things that are directly before the mind and he ends up later calling those sense-data not in other words tables and chairs and walls and so on but just color patches or sounds those are the things we know directly and everything else we infer from those little bits of experience okay well I will skip to yeah just this yeah they're ordinary objects or really logical fictions only census data for ultimately real so he says what about me I'm the same way I'm not real either I'm a logical thing I'm just extreme experiences those experiences are real so the visual impression I'm having right now of each of you that's real but you're not real neither am i that's what he's saying in fact we know something about well that's actually a little bit of a distortion we're not ultimately reading the things that are real in the world ultimately real are just those color patches those sounds those little touches or whatever that's real you and I were fictions constructed out of them we no other objects we know ourselves we know each other only indirectly we infer all of that the things we know immediately are just the contents of immediate experience yeah that's very much like what he's saying our thoughts are real but we're not real but wait he was fighting against the idealist but if the ultimately real things are all thoughts or contents of experiences that's pretty idealist right so here's the way I think Russell is inside this idealist bubble and he knows he's in the bubble and he's over there at the ends of the bubble board trying to fight his way out and it keeps trapping him alright I said have a little video he was probably trying to fight their way out of a paper bag okay he's trying to do that he keeps failing he's like oh I've almost got it yes we can know some things immediately but I made those things before my mind well they're kind of mental aren't they and so that's what's going on here now at the time he shot his people because he's trying to get out of the bag he's trying to get it out of the idealist bubble but I think as 20th century philosophy has unfolded we see yeah he didn't really do that he thought he got out he was kind of like

Channel: Daniel Bonevac

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Keywords: Bertrand Russell (Author)

Id: KtrA3TwpXsY

Length: 28min 48sec (1728 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 25 2013