Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Clitophon', 'Problems in the Explanation of Action' and 'The Ultimate Constituents of Matter'

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11 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory
7548 Classes, grouped by a convenient property, are logical constructions [Russell]
     Full Idea: Classes or series of particulars, collected together on account of some property which makes it convenient to be able to speak of them as wholes, are what I call logical constructions or symbolic fictions.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.125)
     A reaction: When does a construction become 'logical' instead of arbitrary? What is it about a property that makes it 'convenient'? At this point Russell seems to have built his ontology on classes, and the edifice was crumbling, thanks to Wittgenstein.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
7545 Visible things are physical and external, but only exist when viewed [Russell]
     Full Idea: I believe that common sense is right in regarding what we see as physical and (in one of several possible senses) outside the mind, but is probably wrong in supposing that it continues to exist when we are no longer looking at it.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.123)
     A reaction: This remark (in 1915) is a bit startling from a philosopher well known for his robustly realist stance. Just one of his phases! It seems very counterintuitive - that objects really exist externally, but only when viewed. Schrödinger's Cat?
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / b. Nature of sense-data
7553 Sense-data are purely physical [Russell]
     Full Idea: Sense-data are purely physical, and all that is mental in connection with them is our awareness of them.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.138)
     A reaction: Once this account of sense-data becomes fully clear, it also becomes apparent what a dualist theory it is. The mind is a cinema, I am the audience, and sense-data are the screen. There has to be a big logical gap between viewer and screen.
7549 If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist [Russell]
     Full Idea: My meaning may be made plainer by saying that if my body could remain in exactly the same state in which it is, though my mind had ceased to exist, precisely that object which I now see when I see a flash would exist, though I should not see it.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.126)
     A reaction: Zombies, 70 years before Robert Kirk! Sense-data are physical. It is interesting to see a philosopher as committed to empiricism, anti-spiritualism and the priority of science as this, still presenting an essentially dualist picture of perception.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
7546 A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell]
     Full Idea: The real man, I believe, however the police may swear to his identity, is really a series of momentary men, each different one from the other, and bound together, not by a numerical identity, but by continuity and certain instrinsic causal laws.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.124)
     A reaction: This seems to be in the tradition of Locke and Parfit, and also follows the temporal-slices idea of physical objects. Personally I take a more physical view of things, and think the police are probably more reliable than Bertrand Russell.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
7550 We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell]
     Full Idea: It seems not improbable that if we had sufficient knowledge we could infer the state of a man's mind from the state of his brain, or the state of his brain from the state of his mind.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.131)
     A reaction: This strikes me as being a very good summary of the claim that mind is reducible to brain, which is the essence of physicalism. Had he been born a little later, Russell would have taken a harder line with physicalism.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / b. Types of intention
20074 We can keep Davidson's account of intentions in action, by further explaining prior intentions [Davidson, by Stout,R]
     Full Idea: Davidson's original account of intentions might still stand if we could accept that prior intentions are different in kind from intentions with which one acts.
     From: report of Donald Davidson (Problems in the Explanation of Action [1987]) by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's'
     A reaction: Davidson says prior intention is all-out judgement of desirability. Prior intentions are more deliberate, with the other intentions as a presumed background to action. Compare Sartre's dual account of the self.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
1590 The just man does not harm his enemies, but benefits everyone [Plato]
     Full Idea: First, Socrates, you told me justice is harming your enemies and helping your friends. But later it seemed that the just man, since everything he does is for someone's benefit, never harms anyone.
     From: Plato (Clitophon [c.372 BCE], 410b)
     A reaction: Socrates certainly didn't subscribe to the first view, which is the traditional consensus in Greek culture. In general Socrates agreed with the views later promoted by Jesus.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter
7551 Matter is a logical construction [Russell]
     Full Idea: We must regard matter as a logical construction.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.132)
     A reaction: A logical construction is a fancy way of saying a best explanation (but with Ockham's Razor hanging over it). A key component missing from Russell's account is that we can directly experience matter, because we are made of it.
7547 Matter requires a division into time-corpuscles as well as space-corpuscles [Russell]
     Full Idea: A true theory of matter requires a division of things into time-corpuscles as well as space-corpuscles.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.125)
     A reaction: The division of matter in space seems decidable by physicists, but the division in time seems a bit arbitrary (unless it is quanta of time?). Russell focuses on observable qualities, but are there also intrinsic qualities?
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 2. Space
7552 Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell]
     Full Idea: The world of particulars is a six-dimensional space, where six co-ordinates will be required to assign the position of any particular, three to assign its position in its own space, and three to assign the position of its space among the other spaces.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.134)
     A reaction: Not a proposal that has caught on. One might connect the idea with the notion of 'frames of reference' in Einstein's Special Theory. Inside a frame of reference, three co-ordinates are needed; but where is the frame of reference?