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Full Idea
The relation involved in judging or believing must, if falsehood is to be duly allowed for, be taken to be a relation between several terms, not between two.
Gist of Idea
In order to explain falsehood, a belief must involve several terms, not two
Source
Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.12)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'The Problems of Philosophy' [OUP 1995], p.72
A Reaction
His point is that if a belief relates to one object ('D's love for C') it will always be true. Russell is trying to explain what goes wrong when we believe a falsehood. It is not clear how the judgement 'x exists' involves several terms.
| 2284 | I make errors because my will extends beyond my understanding [Descartes] |
| 5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
| 4841 | People make calculation mistakes by misjudging the figures, not calculating them wrongly [Spinoza] |
| 21542 | Do incorrect judgements have non-existent, or mental, or external objects? [Russell] |
| 6443 | Surprise is a criterion of error [Russell] |
| 22306 | To explain false belief we should take belief as relating to a proposition's parts, not to the whole thing [Russell] |
| 6097 | The theory of error seems to need the existence of the non-existent [Russell] |
| 5425 | In order to explain falsehood, a belief must involve several terms, not two [Russell] |
| 23475 | The form of a proposition must show why nonsense is unjudgeable [Wittgenstein] |