Forgotten Vintage

Abstract

Anyone interested in the development of analytic philosophy will likely find Russell's Theory of Knowledge a work of great importance in itself; but anyone who, in addition, is fascinated by scholarly mystery and the psychology of philosophers will certainly regard its publication at last, nearly three-quarters of a century after Russell abandoned it unfinished—principally because of the young Wittgenstein's virulent criticisms—as an event nothing short of momentous. Theory of Knowledge may well have played as important a role in Wittgenstein's early work (from the Notebooks to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) as the Tractatus itself did in his later writings—each representing for Wittgenstein an attitude, a philosophical method, and above all a theory of propositions, against which he was driven to react. But it would be a sad irony if renewed interest in Wittgenstein's early work were to eclipse all over again the very piece of writing which helped move him to creative rebellion. Unlike the two previous volumes in the Collected Papers (numbers 1 and 12), which broaden rather than deepen our knowledge of his philosophical growth, Theory of Knowledge deserves to become a standard text in Russell studies. It contains crucial material not found elsewhere in his writings and hence it fills a gap—ironically,, a gap Russell himself created—in what we know of his thought in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I, when his career at Cambridge was at its apogee.