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Full Idea
Psychologically, 'or' corresponds to a state of hesitation. A dog waits at a fork in the road, to see which way you are going. For crumbs on a windowsill, birds behave in a manner we would express by 'shall I be brave, or go hungry?'.
Gist of Idea
'Or' expresses hesitation, in a dog at a crossroads, or birds risking grabbing crumbs
Source
Bertrand Russell (An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940], 5)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth' [Penguin 1967], p.79
A Reaction
I love two facts here - first, that Russell wants to link the connective to the psychology of experience, and second, that a great logician wants to connect his logic to the minds of animals.
| 21676 | Epicureans say disjunctions can be true whiile the disjuncts are not true [Epicurus, by Cicero] |
| 16479 | 'Or' expresses hesitation, in a dog at a crossroads, or birds risking grabbing crumbs [Russell] |
| 16481 | 'Or' expresses a mental state, not something about the world [Russell] |
| 16487 | Maybe the 'or' used to describe mental states is not the 'or' of logic [Russell] |
| 16483 | Disjunction may also arise in practice if there is imperfect memory. [Russell] |
| 16480 | A disjunction expresses indecision [Russell] |
| 16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
| 15424 | Asserting a disjunction from one disjunct seems odd, but can be sensible, and needed in maths [Burgess] |