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5784
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In its primary and formal sense, 'true' applies to propositions, not beliefs [Russell]
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Full Idea:
We call a belief true when it is belief in a true proposition, ..but it is to propositions that the primary formal meanings of 'truth' and 'falsehood' apply.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §IV)
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A reaction:
I think this is wrong. A proposition such as 'it is raining' would need a date-and-time stamp to be a candidate for truth, and an indexical statement such as 'I am ill' would need to be asserted by a person. Of course, books can contain unread truths.
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5783
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Propositions of existence, generalities, disjunctions and hypotheticals make correspondence tricky [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The correspondence of proposition and fact grows increasingly complicated as we pass to more complicated types of propositions: existence-propositions, general propositions, disjunctive and hypothetical propositions, and so on.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §IV)
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A reaction:
An important point. Truth must not just work for 'it is raining', but also for maths, logic, tautologies, laws etc. This is why so many modern philosophers have retreated to deflationary and minimal accounts of truth, which will cover all cases.
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5780
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The three questions about belief are its contents, its success, and its character [Russell]
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Full Idea:
There are three issues about belief: 1) the content which is believed, 2) the relation of the content to its 'objective' - the fact which makes it true or false, and 3) the element which is belief, as opposed to consideration or doubt or desire.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III)
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A reaction:
The correct answers to the questions (trust me) are that propositions are the contents, the relation aimed at is truth, which is a 'metaphysical ideal' of correspondence to facts, and belief itself is an indefinable feeling. See Hume, Idea 2208.
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5778
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If we object to all data which is 'introspective' we will cease to believe in toothaches [Russell]
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Full Idea:
If privacy is the main objection to introspective data, we shall have to include among such data all sensations; a toothache, for example, is essentially private; a dentist may see the bad condition of your tooth, but does not feel your ache.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §II)
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A reaction:
Russell was perhaps the first to see why eliminative behaviourism is a non-starter as a theory of mind. Mental states are clearly a cause of behaviour, so they can't be the same thing. We might 'eliminate' mental states by reducing them, though.
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5781
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Our important beliefs all, if put into words, take the form of propositions [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The important beliefs, even if they are not the only ones, are those which, if rendered into explicit words, take the form of a proposition.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III)
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A reaction:
This assertion is close to the heart of the twentieth century linking of ontology and epistemology to language. It is open to challenges. Why is non-propositional belief unimportant? Do dogs have important beliefs? Can propositions exist non-verbally?
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5782
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A proposition expressed in words is a 'word-proposition', and one of images an 'image-proposition' [Russell]
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Full Idea:
I shall distinguish a proposition expressed in words as a 'word-proposition', and one consisting of images as an 'image-proposition'.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III)
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A reaction:
This, I think, is good, though it raises the question of what exactly an 'image' is when it is non-visual, as when a dog believes its owner called. This distinction prevents us from regarding all knowledge and ontology as verbal in form.
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