Russell’s “paralysis”

Abstract

January 28, 2009 (12:22 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2802\russell 28,2 051red.wpd 182 Reviews RUSSELL’S “PARALYSIS” James Connelly Philosophy, Trent U./York U. Peterborough, on k9l 1z6 / Toronto, on m3j 1p3, Canada jamesconnelly@trentu.ca Rosalind Carey. Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement. London and New York: Continuum International, 2007. Pp. [viii], 150. isbn 978-0-82648811 -4. us$132.00; £65.00 (hb). Rosalind Carey’s new book, Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement , oTers a fresh look at Wittgenstein’s fateful but notoriously obscure criticisms of Russell’s so-called “multiple-relation theory of judgment”, oTered in May–June of 1913 as Russell was hastily composing the Theory of Knowledge manuscript. In light of the fact that this manuscript was abandoned and subsequently suppressed as a result of these criticisms, and given the fact that Russell nevertheless went on the develop and defend new versions of the multiple- January 28, 2009 (12:22 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2802\russell 28,2 051red.wpd Reviews 183 1 In giving this reading, Carey follows Peter Hylton, Russell, Idealism, and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy (Oxford, UK: Clarendon P., 1990), esp. pp. 266–7, and relation theory long after these events, Carey sets out to answer the question: “what objections to his theory of judgment could have allowed Russell to think that his theory of judgment was still viable, but suUced to cause him to abandon the manuscript?” (p. 2). Through a careful and detailed examination of extant correspondence, working notes and diagrams, as well as of both the manuscript itself and subsequent work of Russell’s, Carey attempts to reconstruct the events of May–June 1913 in such a way as to give a plausible answer to this question. In so doing, she makes a powerful case against the orthodox interpretation of Wittgenstein ’s criticisms and Russell’s reactions to them, an interpretation according to which the criticisms culminate in the so-called “postcard” objection of June 1913 and concern either issues of logical type, or the unity of the proposition. Carey downplays the signiWcance of the June letter and instead sees Russell’s paralysis as consisting in his having no ready analysis of the form of beliefz which will both account for the bipolarity of judgment as well as accommodate Wittgenstein ’s critique. Unwilling to eliminate belief and so succumb to Wittgenstein ’s more austere extensionalism, Russell had no choice but to cease writing the manuscript, while holding out hope that an analysis of the form of belief which is immune to Wittgenstein’s critique would someday be forthcoming. Carey develops her case over the course of four compact chapters (the whole of which make for a quite digestible 120 pages), each of which builds on the insights of those coming previously. In Chapter 1, Carey looks at the development of Russell’s epistemological and logical views over the period from 1903 through 1910, for the express purposes of showing “how the multiple relation theory of judgment emerges from and is inXuenced by a number of problems and doctrines that contribute to his eventual paralysis in the face of Wittgenstein’s objections” (p. 6). She begins by introducing Russell’s early conception of belief as involving a dual relation between a subject and a complex unity, a so-called “Russellian proposition”, and grounds this conception in Russell’s view to the eTect that word meanings consist in mind- and language-independent, often Platonic, objects and properties. The relation between these semantic doctrines and Russell’s characterization of logical truths as topically and contextually unrestricted , universal principles, is also probed. Carey then goes on to show how tensions within and amongst these views lead to important theoretical diUculties , which in turn motivate the development of the theory of incomplete symbols. Notably, Carey reads the theory of incomplete symbols as designed primarily to address the sorts of concerns outlined in the so-called “Grey’s Elegy argument” contained in “On Denoting” and having only secondarily to do with either issues of ontological parsimony, or diUculties surrounding non-referring singular terms, e.g. “The Present King of France”.1 That is, she reads the theory January...