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Single Idea 6443

[filed under theme 18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 6. Judgement / b. Error ]

Full Idea

Surprise is a criterion of error.

Gist of Idea

Surprise is a criterion of error

Source

Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.15)

Book Ref

Russell,Bertrand: 'My Philosophical Development' [Routledge 1993], p.136

A Reaction

Russell is not too precise about this, but it is a nice point. Surprise is thwarted expectation, which implies prior misjudgement.

The 23 ideas from 'My Philosophical Development'

6420 Only by analysing is progress possible in philosophy [Russell]
6419 In 1899-1900 I adopted the philosophy of logical atomism [Russell]
6426 Intuitionism says propositions are only true or false if there is a method of showing it [Russell]
7528 Leibniz bases everything on subject/predicate and substance/property propositions [Russell]
6423 We tried to define all of pure maths using logical premisses and concepts [Russell]
6424 Formalists say maths is merely conventional marks on paper, like the arbitrary rules of chess [Russell]
6425 Formalism can't apply numbers to reality, so it is an evasion [Russell]
6427 Unverifiable propositions about the remote past are still either true or false [Russell]
6431 Empiricists seem unclear what they mean by 'experience' [Russell]
6432 Analysis gives new knowledge, without destroying what we already have [Russell]
6430 In epistemology we should emphasis the continuity between animal and human minds [Russell]
6434 Facts are everything, except simples; they are either relations or qualities [Russell]
6433 Behaviourists struggle to explain memory and imagination, because they won't admit images [Russell]
6435 You can believe the meaning of a sentence without thinking of the words [Russell]
6440 Universals can't just be words, because words themselves are universals [Russell]
6436 I gradually replaced classes with properties, and they ended as a symbolic convenience [Russell]
6438 Complex things can be known, but not simple things [Russell]
6437 The theory of types makes 'Socrates and killing are two' illegitimate [Russell]
6439 Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell]
6442 Truth belongs to beliefs, not to propositions and sentences [Russell]
6441 Pragmatism judges by effects, but I judge truth by causes [Russell]
6443 Surprise is a criterion of error [Russell]
6444 True belief about the time is not knowledge if I luckily observe a stopped clock at the right moment [Russell]