Repairing Bertrand Russell’s 1913 Theory of Knowledge

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction and Overview

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 1-76

3. What Is Logic?

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 77-115

4. Facts About Principia

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 117-175

5. Acquaintance

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 177-238

6. Direction

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 239-277

7. Compositionality

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 279-323

8. Scientific Philosophy’s Necessity

   • Gregory Landini

   Pages 325-375

9. Back Matter

   Pages 377-397

   PDF

This book repairs and revives the Theory of Knowledge research program of Russell’s Principia era. Chapter 1, 'Introduction and Overview', explains the program’s agenda. Inspired by the non-Fregean logicism of Principia Mathematica, it endorses the revolution within mathematics presenting it as a study of relations. The synthetic a priori logic of Principia is the essence of philosophy considered as a science which exposes the dogmatisms about abstract particulars and metaphysical necessities that create prisons that fetter the mind. Incipient in The Problems of Philosophy, the program’s acquaintance epistemology embraced a multiple-relation theory of belief. It reached an impasse in 1913, having been itself retrofitted with abstract particular logical forms to address problems of direction and compositionality. With its acquaintance epistemology in limbo, ScientificMethod in Philosophy became the sequel to Problems. Chapter 2 explains Russell’s feeling intellectually dishonest. Wittgenstein’s demand that logic exclude nonsense belief played no role. The 1919 neutral monist era ensued, but Russell found no epistemology for the logic essential to philosophy. Repairing, Chapters 4–6 solve the impasse. Reviving, Chapters 3 and 7 vigorously defend the facts about Principia. Studies of modality and entailment are viable while Principia remains a universal logic above the civil wars of the metaphysicians.

• Bertrand Russell
• Philosophical Logic
• Epistemology
• Intentionality
• Logicism
• Indexicals
• Meinong
• Propositions

• Department of Philosophy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA

  Gregory Landini

Gregory Landini is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa, USA. His research interests include philosophy of logic, metaphysics, modal logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and the history of early analytic philosophy. His books include: Frege’s Notations: What They Are and How They Mean (2012), Russell (2010), Wittgenstein’s Apprenticeship with Russell (2007) and Russell’s Hidden Substitutional Theory (1998).

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