display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
4 ideas
| 5381 | In seeing the sun, we are acquainted with our self, but not as a permanent person [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When I see the sun, it does not seem necessary to suppose that we are acquainted with a more or less permanent person, but we must be acquainted with that thing which sees the sun and has acquaintance with sense-data. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right. I personally believe that I have a very clear personal identity as I write this, but I do not believe that there is a strict identity with the person who wrote similar comments three years ago. So how do I change 'my' mind? |
| 5380 | In perceiving the sun, I am aware of sun sense-data, and of the perceiver of the data [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When I am acquainted with 'my seeing the sun', it seems plain that on the one hand there is the sense-datum which represents the sun to me, on the other hand there is that which sees this sense-datum. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: This appears to flatly contradict Hume's scepticism about seeing his 'self', but maybe Russell is only aware of his body, and then fictionalises a 'self' as the controller of this body. But I agree with Russell. I am the thing that cares about the sun. |
| 7546 | A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The real man, I believe, however the police may swear to his identity, is really a series of momentary men, each different one from the other, and bound together, not by a numerical identity, but by continuity and certain instrinsic causal laws. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.124) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be in the tradition of Locke and Parfit, and also follows the temporal-slices idea of physical objects. Personally I take a more physical view of things, and think the police are probably more reliable than Bertrand Russell. |
| 6475 | In perception, the self is just a logical fiction demanded by grammar [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In perception, the idea of the subject appears to be a logical fiction, like mathematical points and instants; it is introduced, not because observation reveals it, but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded by grammar. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII) | |
| A reaction: In 1912, Russell had felt that both the Cogito, and the experience of meta-thought, had confirmed the existence of a non-permanent ego, but here he offers a Humean rejection. His notion of a 'logical fiction' is behaviouristic. I believe in the Self. |