All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestrial life, but only to an imagined celestial existence.
Russell, 1923, Vaguene...
Grice on Austin on Moore
I would begin by recalling that as a matter of historical fact Austin professed a strong admiration for G. E. Moore. “Some like Witters” he once said, “but Moore is my man.” [...] The question which now exercises me is why Moore’s stand on this matter should have specially aroused Austin’s respect, for what Moore said on this matter seems to me to...
Moore's 'so-and-so's
‘It all depends on what you mean by “the earth” and “exists” and “years”: if you mean so and so, and so and so, and so and so, then I do; but if you mean so and so, and so and so, and so and so, or so and so, and so and so, and so and so, or so and so, and so and so, and so and so, then I don’t, or at least I think it is extremely doubtful’.
Moore,...
Russell on heroic remedies on philosophy
As all these results were obtained, not by any heroic method, but by patient detailed reasoning, I began to think it probable that philosophy had erred in adopting heroic remedies for intellectual difficulties, and that solutions were to be found merely by greater care and accuracy. This view I had come to hold more and more strongly as time went...
Russell's confidence on logicism
But in spite of its [i.e. Principia Mathematica] shortcomings I think that no one who reads this book will dispute its main contention, namely, that from certain ideas and axioms of formal logic, by the help of the logic of relations, all pure mathematics can be deduced, without any new undefined idea or unproved propositions.
Russell, 2010, The...
Russell on the most important part of philosophy
The most important part [of philosophy], to my mind, consists in criticizing and clarifying notions which are apt to be regarded as fundamental and accepted uncritically.
Russell, 2010, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism, p. 148...
Russell on logically perfect language
A logically perfect language, if it could be constructed, would not only be intolerably prolix, but, as regards its vocabulary, would be very largely private to one speaker. That is to say, all the names that it would use would be private to that speaker and could not enter into the language of another speaker.
Russell, 2010, The Philosophy...
Russell on the length of doing philosophy
That, of course, is especially likely in very abstract studies such as philosophical logic, because the subject-matter that you are supposed to be thinking of is so exceedingly difficult and elusive that any person who has ever tried to think about it knows you do not think about it except perhaps once in six months for half a minute. The rest of...
Russell on philosophical method
There is not any superfine brand of knowledge, obtainable by the philosopher, which can give us a standpoint from which to criticize the whole of the knowledge of daily life. The most that can be done is to examine and purify our common knowledge by an internal scrutiny, assuming the canons by which it has been obtained, and applying them with more...
Russell on philosophy
Considered in that way you may say that the whole of our problem belongs rather to science than to philosophy. I think perhaps that is true, but I believe the only difference between science and philosophy is, that science is what you more or less know and philosophy is what you do not know. Philosophy is that part of science which at present people...
Russell on ordinary language
It is exceedingly difficult to make this point clear as long as one adheres to ordinary language, because ordinary language is rooted in a certain feeling about logic, a certain feeling that our primeval ancestors had, and as long as you keep to ordinary language you find it very difficult to get away from the bias which is imposed upon you by language.
Russell,...
Quessertion
My some times mischievous friend Richard Grandy once said, in connection with some other occasion on which I was talking, that to represent my remarks, it would be necessary to introduce a new form of speech act, or a new operator, which was to be called the operator of quessertion. It is to be read as “It is perhaps possible that someone might...
Grice on Practical Use of Philosophy
But I doubt if any of the other tasks which I would like to see the philosophers fulfill will be enough to satisfy some people who raise this objection. They want philosophy to be grand, to yield one important, nonempirical information which will help one to solve either the world's problems or one's personal problems, or both. To them I feel inclined...
Grice on Conceptual Analysis and Mystification
Many of the great philosophers’ questions can be interpreted as requests for a conceptual analysis (not necessarily in full with the greatest precision). No doubt the great philosophers themselves did not recognize the possibility of this kind of interpretation (how could they have?), but the link between contemporary discussion and their work is...
Foot on why she wrote psychologism at the beggining
I wrote it because I knew that I needed to attack that preconception in order to get so much as a hearing for the thought that there is no change in the meaning of 'good' between the word as it appears in ‘good roots’ and as it appears in ‘good dispositions of the human will’.
Foot, 2001, Natural Goodne...
Schwartz on Features of Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophers have always struggled with themselves and each other, their tradition, its origins and ideas. No feature of analytic philosophy has gone unchallenged by other analytic philosophers.
Schwartz (2012) A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls, p...
Kuhn and Positivists
Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published as Volume II, No. 2 of the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science? This was a series of publications started by positivists. Many positivists and former members were on the editorial board. This irony reveals the extent to which they themselves were engaged in and sympathetic...
Crane's Citation of Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein is said to have asked his students why people used to think that the sun went around the earth. One replied: ‘because it looks as if the sun goes around the earth.’ To which Wittgenstein is said to have responded: ‘and how would it look if the earth went around the sun?’ The obvious answer—‘exactly the same!’—can be given to the analogous...