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Full Idea
We can reintroduce 'not' by a definition: the words 'this is not blue' are defined as expressing disbelief in what is expressed by the words 'this is blue'. In this way the need of 'not' as an indefinable constituent of facts is avoided.
Gist of Idea
If we define 'this is not blue' as disbelief in 'this is blue', we eliminate 'not' as an ingredient of facts
Source
Bertrand Russell (Human Knowledge: its scope and limits [1948], 9)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'Human Knowledge' [Routledge 2009], p.114
A Reaction
This is part of Russell's programme of giving a psychological account of logical connectives. See other ideas from his 1940 and 1948 works. He observes that disbelief is a state just as positive as belief. I love it.
| 1554 | Contradiction is impossible, since only one side of the argument refers to the true facts [Prodicus, by Didymus the Blind] |
| 1705 | It doesn't have to be the case that in opposed views one is true and the other false [Aristotle] |
| 12368 | Negation takes something away from something [Aristotle] |
| 16491 | If we define 'this is not blue' as disbelief in 'this is blue', we eliminate 'not' as an ingredient of facts [Russell] |
| 12594 | If one proposition negates the other, which is the negative one? [Harman] |
| 12338 | We must either assert or deny any single predicate of any single subject [Badiou] |
| 19005 | Not-A is too strong to just erase an improper assertion, because it actually reverses A [Yablo] |
| 18906 | Negating a predicate term and denying its unnegated version are quite different [Engelbretsen] |
| 11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
| 18829 | The truth grounds for 'not A' are the possibilities incompatible with truth grounds for A [Rumfitt] |