Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement

Description

In 1911 Bertrand Russell began a historically formative interchange about the nature of logic and cognition with his student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1913, Russell set to work on a manuscript, the Theory of Knowledge, designed to move from the analysis of perception to judgment and on to knowledge of the world. After Wittgenstein interrupted Russell's daily writing with a series of objections to his doctrine of judgment and conception of logic, Russell abandoned his project in despair, leaving it unfinished. His subsequent work can be understood largely as an attempt to assimilate and respond to Wittgenstein's challenge in 1913. Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement is the first book-length treatment of Russell's decisive 1913 exchanges with Wittgenstein. Rosalind Carey incorporates little-known notes and diagrams into a new analysis of the problems Russell was facing. She also evaluates the numerous interpretations of Russell's positions and Wittgenstein's objections to them. The result is a new perspective on both these great thinkers, at a crucial point in the development of twentieth-century philosophy.

Rosalind Carey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lehman College, City University of New York, USA. She is the author of Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement (Continuum, 2007) and co-author, with John Ongley, of A Historical Dictionary of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).

"Rosalind Carey's new book, Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement, offers a fresh look at Wittgenstein's fateful but notoriously obscure criticisms of Russell's so-called 'multiple-relation theory of judgement', offered in May-June of 1913 as Russell was hastily composing the Theory of Knowledge manuscript...Carey's book is well researched, well written, and makes a thorough and powerful case for its central thesis. Without a doubt, it constitutes an important contribution to both the scholarship addressing this key event within the history of analytics philosophy in particular, and that concerning Russell's work more generally...Carey develops a formidable case for her reconstruction, which is backed up by painstaking research and insightful analysis. Most importantly, Carey offers what seems to me to be a both novel and illuminating perspective on these events, one which promises to enliven scholarly debate on the matter for years to come." -James Connelly, Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, Winter 2008-09 "Carey's suggestions about the origin of the idea that propositions are incomplete symbols...certainly go some way towards completing the picture that Russell scholarship has so far painted of the relation between the multiple-relation theory and Russell's other appeals to incomplete symbols...The claim that propositions are incomplete symbols is obviously a more complex claim and seems at times metaphorical. Carey's attempt to take the claim seriously and to provide some literal interpretation of the metaphor is therefore a welcome contribution...Carey's book provides a useful summary of the dispute between Russell and Wittgenstein that will make it an invaluable resource for those engaging in the study of that dispute." British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2009 "Do you remember that . . . I wrote a lot of stuff about the theory of knowledge which Wittgenstein criticised with the greatest severity? His criticism . . . was an event of first-rate importance in my life, and affected everything I have done since. I saw that he was right, and I saw that I could not hope ever again to do fundamental work in philosophy. My impulse was shattered, like a wave dashed to pieces against a breakwater. I became filled with utter despair, and tried to turn to you for consolation." Bertrand Russell, 1916, in a letter to Ottoline Morel. * Blurb from reviewer * "I recommend the book to anyone interested in the development of Russell's thoughts between 1910 and 1918, and in Russell's relation with Wittgenstein" -- Maria van der Schaar * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *