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Rusell… Really.

March 2, 2009 · 4 Comments

In wondering why Russell has shown well in the Leiter poll, Weatherson actually winds up making a pretty decent case for Berty, or so it seems to me.  Fitelson and Chalmers speak up on Russell’s behalf in the comments.

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4 responses so far ↓

  • horatiox // March 3, 2009 at 9:20 am

    Russell the Apollonian logician deserves respect; Russell the Dionysian filosophe and belle-lettrist (or would-be Dionysian), had shortcomings. The Tractatus would not have occurred but for Russell though Russell should have probably retired from the philosophy business in the 20’s (in a sense he did, after realizing the significance–if not vacuity– of St. Ludwig’s tautological views of formal logic). Russell’s On Denoting remains an important document as does the Principia and the Principles of Mathematics (quite an encyclopedic work, which features Russell’s paradox, his account of Frege, early version of Theory of Types, criticism of Kant, etc ). Goedel’s counterexample (if it is) does not refute logicism as a whole. I suspect Russell was not so keen on analytical philosophy after WWI as he had been–though read (naively) as platonist, Russell did not lack a certain economic materialist perspective–perhaps more Hobbesian than marxist—usually overlooked by the analytical sorts.

    Russell’s philosophy of science writing, relativity, etc. remains somewhat relevant. Analysis of Mind was not a bad discussion of modern psychology, and Russell has some interesting comments on Wm James and behaviorism. Like Hume, Russell wrote quite eloquent prose, a skill rather lacking in the average Anglo or American philosophy student: he avoids merely spewing jargon.

    Politically, Russell was a bit naive, somewhat Shelleyan in a sense. His socialism seemed a bit too utopian, though his comments on marxism not completely worthless. He had the British arrogance and glibness that bothers most yankees. His political and economic writing, while well-informed, often insisted on utopian ideals, though some of his writing (after WWII) suggests a more cynical and gloomy outlook. His criticism of religion valuable, but again, somewhat naive, and reductionist (predating Dawkins by a few decades). While the 60’s leftists may have thought him a bit odd (if not fruity) he did criticize the pop-mysticism and bad marxism of the new left, while also denouncing the right, and the Vietnam War. Really, he’s a creature of the 19th century, of the era of Godwin, the Mills, Wollstonecraft, and the Shelleys.

  • jrshipley // March 3, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    One’s estimation of Russell increases with one’s appreciation of the significance of the logicist project, Godel notwithstanding, and also with one’s appreciation of the theory of descriptions as a paradigm of philosophical puzzle solving (and of its historical importance as such). Everyone also acknowledges that he’s important as a popular writer of philosophy and as a public intellectual, as a brand for the discipline, which is, I should think, one of the properties shared by every great philosopher.

    I’m not sure what you mean by calling Russell’s comments on religion “reductionist”. Could you expand?

    I would perhaps recommend Orwell’s political outlook over Russell’s as more subtle and more insightful, but “naive” is a bit much. Russell was a man of conviction and principle. To the extent that philosophy proposes ideals, it is not so much of a criticism to call a philosopher idealistic; leave the politics to the politicians. The philosophical mindset is dangerous when political idealism becomes dogmatist, but I don’t think that is true of Russell.

  • horatiox // March 3, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    One’s estimation of Russell increases with one’s appreciation of the significance of the logicist project, Godel notwithstanding, and also with one’s appreciation of the theory of descriptions as a paradigm of philosophical puzzle solving (and of its historical importance as such).

    Perhaps, though I am not sure Russell apres-Tractatus- -and WWI–would agree with that: I seem to recall him writing (in his AutoBio?) that he considered moving into economics or something, even in his 40’s.

    Logicism may seem important to logicians, and a few mathematicians and programmers, but it’ s not that important. In terms of applicability, formal logic just can’t do much: real world problems (like in economics) generally relate to data, evidence and probability issues. It would be nice if everything could be put into truth functional axioms, but everything can’t.

    I recently picked up a copy of the Scope of Human Knowledge and have perused a bit, and indeed Russell seems to move closer to an inductive viewpoint (even neo-empiricist in a sense) , and he takes on Carnap, discusses Keynes, causality etc. So does Russell himself abandon logicism? He may have, or at least he perceived its limitations: though admittedly he’s not discussing Turing or Goedel, etc. Logicism evolves into programming really; undecidability matters only in so far as a computational problem, or recursivity of some sort (and probably negligible in nearly all cases, especially if one just stipulates that no self-referential statements be used). The importance of Russell’s paradox itself overblown really–.

    For that matter, given Quine’s arguments in Two Dogmas OE–not to say a nominalist view in general– the a priori structure of first order logic does not seem so unassailable. I’m not a pro philosopher, but I find constructivism a bit more plausible than the older platonic view (though QuineBurger has some drawbacks as well).

    A lending crisis, record unemployment, environmental crisis, crime, not to say an impending depression are a bit more pressing than most philosopher’s spats, however inelegant: Orwell, not such a friend of academics, would probably have agreed. In ways I have more respect for someone like Rawls , attempting to do something practical and political, than the strict analytical sorts (including Quine and Russell).

  • jrshipley // March 4, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    On the one hand, you seem to downplay the importance of the logicist project (which, btw, I find interesting for purely intellectual reasons that I readily accept are not practical)… but then you go on to say “logicism evolves into programming really”, which strikes me as a both intellectually and practically important lineage. But in any case you’re absolutely correct that there’s some relativity of the term “important” to philosophers’ intellectual interests.

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