Anything new in philosophy after Russell, early 20th century?
April 14, 2010 12:36 PM Subscribe
[PhilosophyFilter] Are there any responses in the 20th/21st century to Bertrand Russel's stance on existence, beliefs, logic, truth, and knowledge, as he presented it in The Problems of Philosophy? If yes, what and from whom?
The Problems of Philosophy (1912, likely now in the public domain) was a condensed (~100p) summary of Russell's approach to several topics, wherewith I find myself in great accordance.
However, since that work is now a century old, I wonder if more recent great thinkers have moved a step forward and built upon Russell's work, or criticized it. Do you know of any such works?
The Problems of Philosophy (1912, likely now in the public domain) was a condensed (~100p) summary of Russell's approach to several topics, wherewith I find myself in great accordance.
However, since that work is now a century old, I wonder if more recent great thinkers have moved a step forward and built upon Russell's work, or criticized it. Do you know of any such works?
A couple more thoughts - a lot of the chapters in The Problems of Philosophy, things like Universals, Truth, a priori knowledge and the like are just bytes from huge swaths of philosophical discourse. Contemporary philosophers are still debating things like universals and epistemology. Any given philosophical journal could have various papers on these subjects from Russellian approaches or otherwise.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:49 PM on April 14, 2010
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:49 PM on April 14, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for the hint at Wittgenstein. I agree that the topics are broad, but I was hoping that other authors would make handbooks to summarize the state of the art at their period, much like Russell himself did. Is that much to ask?
posted by knz at 12:53 PM on April 14, 2010
posted by knz at 12:53 PM on April 14, 2010
As Lutoslawski said, there's a lot to this question - is there a more specific area you're interested in?
To give one answer: modern truthmaker theorists (such as Armstrong) see themselves as continuing a part of Russell. In fact, Armstrong traces that back to Aristotle even: see Truth and Truthmakers section 2.2
posted by chndrcks at 12:59 PM on April 14, 2010
To give one answer: modern truthmaker theorists (such as Armstrong) see themselves as continuing a part of Russell. In fact, Armstrong traces that back to Aristotle even: see Truth and Truthmakers section 2.2
posted by chndrcks at 12:59 PM on April 14, 2010
Response by poster: Ok I'll look at Armstrong also. The specific "area" I'm interested in is the process of a constructive, incremental definition of a thought system and the constructive rationalization of the relationship between beliefs, truths and knowledge.
No metaphysics, thus.
posted by knz at 1:01 PM on April 14, 2010
No metaphysics, thus.
posted by knz at 1:01 PM on April 14, 2010
I would submit that, as modern philosophers go, Rorty comes as close as any to presenting the contemporary state (for his day) of the discipline.
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:02 PM on April 14, 2010
posted by OHenryPacey at 1:02 PM on April 14, 2010
Hmmm. That's a good question. I don't think I know of any - but it would be awesome if something like that did exist. Russell had a knack for writing great survey books that were academic but not esoteric (like History of Western Philosophy, which I cannot recommend highly enough).
Something you might consider are books like the Blackwell Companions or the Oxford Handbooks. They do a pretty good job of collecting good essays that address all the major current issues and trends in philosophy.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:03 PM on April 14, 2010
Something you might consider are books like the Blackwell Companions or the Oxford Handbooks. They do a pretty good job of collecting good essays that address all the major current issues and trends in philosophy.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:03 PM on April 14, 2010
Best answer: The specific "area" I'm interested in is the process of a constructive, incremental definition of a thought system and the constructive rationalization of the relationship between beliefs, truths and knowledge.
It sounds like you're looking for discourse on epsitemology. I would recommend something like this book.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:09 PM on April 14, 2010
It sounds like you're looking for discourse on epsitemology. I would recommend something like this book.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:09 PM on April 14, 2010
*epistemology.
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:09 PM on April 14, 2010
posted by Lutoslawski at 1:09 PM on April 14, 2010
Best answer: Your question is too broad to answer well. Yes, a great many people have responded to Russell's views
over the past hundred years. There is no one work which is a canonical response. Many people have written up books describing their own views on these questions, and there is no one canonical most interesting one that I would recommend.
It might help to know that today, philosophers in the analytic tradition (the tradition that Russell is at the beginning of) spend most of their time on relatively smaller questions, so they don't write books that give their own view in large sweeping scope. They are likely to write in an accessible way about the Really Big Questions in large sweeping scope only if they're writing "Introduction to X" type books. So, you may find that books called "Introduction to Epistemology" etc are what you want. These will present several alternative views on each big question in epistemology. (Epistemology is the study of philosophical questions about knowledge and belief.)
Here are some entries from the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which may help you find jumping off points for further reading. These entries summarize the existing debate over a specific issue, and I've included several of the items you may be interested in about Russell's epistemology etc.
Bertrand Russell
What makes us justified in believing something to be true? One answer comes from foundationalist theories of epistemic justification - Russell was a foundationalist, as were most philosophers until the 20th century. He held the "acquaintance theory" version of foundationalism (see next entry). In the 20th century there were a number of challenges raised against foundationalism.
Knowledge by acquaintance vs description
Sense-data - short version: sense-data theory has fallen by the wayside and is no longer widely believed among philosophers.
epistemological problems of perception
Descriptions- In thinking about how our words are able to connect to things in the world, Russell's theory of descriptions was extremely influential and started a major literature of its own, though few today believe that his theory was correct in its original form.
Truth - You said you don't want metaphysics, but questions about truth are metaphysical questions. So here's a summary of developments after Russell. In Problems of Philosophy, he advocates what's called a "correspondence theory" of truth. Philosophers today are divided over this; some accept correspondence theory, some accept other theories.
Russell's logical atomism is a nice summary of this overarching part of his view, and a bit about how it was influential later. It does not contain much about critiques or alternatives.
Analysis - see especially section 6
The analytic/synthetic distinction - widely believed in and relied upon before c. 1950, this idea was subject to major critique by Quine and others in the middle of the 20th century.
For lighter reading, you might also enjoy the recent graphic novel treatment of some major themes in early 20th century philosophy, centering around Russell: Logicomix.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:12 PM on April 14, 2010 [2 favorites]
over the past hundred years. There is no one work which is a canonical response. Many people have written up books describing their own views on these questions, and there is no one canonical most interesting one that I would recommend.
It might help to know that today, philosophers in the analytic tradition (the tradition that Russell is at the beginning of) spend most of their time on relatively smaller questions, so they don't write books that give their own view in large sweeping scope. They are likely to write in an accessible way about the Really Big Questions in large sweeping scope only if they're writing "Introduction to X" type books. So, you may find that books called "Introduction to Epistemology" etc are what you want. These will present several alternative views on each big question in epistemology. (Epistemology is the study of philosophical questions about knowledge and belief.)
Here are some entries from the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which may help you find jumping off points for further reading. These entries summarize the existing debate over a specific issue, and I've included several of the items you may be interested in about Russell's epistemology etc.
Bertrand Russell
What makes us justified in believing something to be true? One answer comes from foundationalist theories of epistemic justification - Russell was a foundationalist, as were most philosophers until the 20th century. He held the "acquaintance theory" version of foundationalism (see next entry). In the 20th century there were a number of challenges raised against foundationalism.
Knowledge by acquaintance vs description
Sense-data - short version: sense-data theory has fallen by the wayside and is no longer widely believed among philosophers.
epistemological problems of perception
Descriptions- In thinking about how our words are able to connect to things in the world, Russell's theory of descriptions was extremely influential and started a major literature of its own, though few today believe that his theory was correct in its original form.
Truth - You said you don't want metaphysics, but questions about truth are metaphysical questions. So here's a summary of developments after Russell. In Problems of Philosophy, he advocates what's called a "correspondence theory" of truth. Philosophers today are divided over this; some accept correspondence theory, some accept other theories.
Russell's logical atomism is a nice summary of this overarching part of his view, and a bit about how it was influential later. It does not contain much about critiques or alternatives.
Analysis - see especially section 6
The analytic/synthetic distinction - widely believed in and relied upon before c. 1950, this idea was subject to major critique by Quine and others in the middle of the 20th century.
For lighter reading, you might also enjoy the recent graphic novel treatment of some major themes in early 20th century philosophy, centering around Russell: Logicomix.
posted by LobsterMitten at 2:12 PM on April 14, 2010 [2 favorites]
Go lobstermitten!
Also, seconding the remark that Problems of Philosophy is an intro book, not his Great Work. This isn't quite what you asked for, but if you want a more recent book that covers similar ground for a similar audience, you might try Conee & Sider's Riddles of Existence. (You said "no metaphysics," but I'm not sure you know what that means. There's a lot of metaphysics in Problems.)
An if you really want this:
The specific "area" I'm interested in is the process of a constructive, incremental definition of a thought system and the constructive rationalization of the relationship between beliefs, truths and knowledge.
then you might consider Williamson's Knowledge and its Limits......
posted by kestrel251 at 3:30 PM on April 14, 2010
Also, seconding the remark that Problems of Philosophy is an intro book, not his Great Work. This isn't quite what you asked for, but if you want a more recent book that covers similar ground for a similar audience, you might try Conee & Sider's Riddles of Existence. (You said "no metaphysics," but I'm not sure you know what that means. There's a lot of metaphysics in Problems.)
An if you really want this:
The specific "area" I'm interested in is the process of a constructive, incremental definition of a thought system and the constructive rationalization of the relationship between beliefs, truths and knowledge.
then you might consider Williamson's Knowledge and its Limits......
posted by kestrel251 at 3:30 PM on April 14, 2010
Russell's most devastating critic was Gödel.
The Problems of Philosophy was published in the same year as the second volume of Principia Mathematica (modest title, no?), when Russell's confidence in his program was presumably at it's peak, but in 1931, Kurt Gödel published On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems (the English title), which completely undermined, crushed and destroyed the overall project of Principia (by then at three volumes), and in my opinion put paid to any hopes for a sound and productive analytic philosophy.
I'd say Gödel probably does the same for your desire for the process of a constructive, incremental definition of a thought system and the constructive rationalization of the relationship between beliefs, truths and knowledge. No metaphysics... as well.
posted by jamjam at 4:04 PM on April 14, 2010
The Problems of Philosophy was published in the same year as the second volume of Principia Mathematica (modest title, no?), when Russell's confidence in his program was presumably at it's peak, but in 1931, Kurt Gödel published On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems (the English title), which completely undermined, crushed and destroyed the overall project of Principia (by then at three volumes), and in my opinion put paid to any hopes for a sound and productive analytic philosophy.
I'd say Gödel probably does the same for your desire for the process of a constructive, incremental definition of a thought system and the constructive rationalization of the relationship between beliefs, truths and knowledge. No metaphysics... as well.
posted by jamjam at 4:04 PM on April 14, 2010
Best answer: Maybe check out Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations and Ayers' Language, Truth, and Logic.
posted by One Thousand and One at 4:06 PM on April 14, 2010
posted by One Thousand and One at 4:06 PM on April 14, 2010
Best answer: Lobstermitten answered this well: this question is too big to answer concisely.,
I would think that many empiricist philosophers today would self-identify as anti-foundationalist, against the a priori and the analytic/synthetic distinction, and opposed to sense data and correspondence theories of truth. Sense data in particular... sense data formed the foundation of Russell's epistemology, and later his metaphysics, but there are like, maybe, six people today who believe in sense data. Quine is probably the guy who attacks all the above positions who you want to look at. He abides by Russell's general philosophical method (logic-oriented), but attacks the content of his philosophy. Other suggested philosophers like Rorty or Wittgenstein kinda represent reactions against Russell's method rather than his content.
posted by painquale at 12:58 AM on April 15, 2010
I would think that many empiricist philosophers today would self-identify as anti-foundationalist, against the a priori and the analytic/synthetic distinction, and opposed to sense data and correspondence theories of truth. Sense data in particular... sense data formed the foundation of Russell's epistemology, and later his metaphysics, but there are like, maybe, six people today who believe in sense data. Quine is probably the guy who attacks all the above positions who you want to look at. He abides by Russell's general philosophical method (logic-oriented), but attacks the content of his philosophy. Other suggested philosophers like Rorty or Wittgenstein kinda represent reactions against Russell's method rather than his content.
posted by painquale at 12:58 AM on April 15, 2010
Response by poster: As to the relationship between truth and metaphysics, I get how they are related, but I care less for truth and its certainty than the relationship between mind, truth, belief and knowledge. In other words, I don't care whether something is true or not and why but I care about how someone perceives and manipulate truthness and how they get there (ultimately, my goal is to get a rational handle on the relationship between people, their behavior, and their perception of truth -- I have plenty of sociology sources to work with, but little philosophy yet besides Russell). All this is more about thought processes than metaphysics, IMHO.
@jamjam: I am relatively familiar with Gödel's work, and I understand that his main criticism only addresses the question of whether all true knowledge can be derived formally from "intuitive knowledge" (answer is obviously "not like Russell would have wanted in Principia"!). Even without that, methinks Russell's conceptual framework is a solid toolbox to address questions of epistemology.
Thanks to all for the hints towards Wittgenstein and Rorty for method, and Quine for content. I'll check that and the Oxford handbooks when I get my hands on them.
posted by knz at 2:28 AM on April 15, 2010
@jamjam: I am relatively familiar with Gödel's work, and I understand that his main criticism only addresses the question of whether all true knowledge can be derived formally from "intuitive knowledge" (answer is obviously "not like Russell would have wanted in Principia"!). Even without that, methinks Russell's conceptual framework is a solid toolbox to address questions of epistemology.
Thanks to all for the hints towards Wittgenstein and Rorty for method, and Quine for content. I'll check that and the Oxford handbooks when I get my hands on them.
posted by knz at 2:28 AM on April 15, 2010
Let me rephrase the question: is there work after Russell on epistemology, the problem of universals and induction. It has been some time since I read PoP, but those seem to be the main areas of the book.
Well, yes. Let me point you to some of them.
Epistemology:
- the Gettier problem
- foundationalism/coherentism
- internalism/externalism
- reliablism
- truth tracking accounts
- causal theories of knowledge
- sources of knowledge
- sense-data theory of perception vs. intentional theory of perception vs. disjunctive theory of perception
Problem of Universals:
(my particular area of interest)
- start with David Armstrong's "Universals: An Opinionated Introduction". It is an essential purchase and a mind-blowing piece of work.
- much harder to find is Armstrong's two-volume work "Universals and Scientific Realism" which looks at all the nominalist theories and then tries to develop a theory of universals that is compatible with the scientific realist account of the world.
- for a theistic, Platonic critique of Armstrong and of the nominalists, check out J. P. Moreland's book. It isn't nearly as well-written as Armstrong but it is a useful tome.
- then read up on trope theory - D.C. Williams, J Cook Wilson (he believes in tropes and universals which is kinda strange), Keith Campbell
Induction
- Nelson Goodman's "grue" problem - the "new problem of induction" - and all the literature that has come out of that. There's lots. Someone ought to really come up with a word to talk about "grueizing" - to make a grue style analogy.
- and loads more. Barely a week goes by without another Ph.D student thinking they've solved the problem of induction (either the old one or Goodman's new one) and presenting their solution at a conference for people to dutifully applause and then ignore.
What to read? Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for any of the topics mentioned is a good start. For books, check the bibliographies at the end of the article. (Let me repeat the subliminal message: read more David Armstrong.) Also look at the London Philosophy Study Guide which is compiled by philosophers at my alma mater and is pretty damn comprehensive - albeit biased towards the sort of analytical stuff that gets taught in London...
posted by tommorris at 5:53 PM on April 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
Well, yes. Let me point you to some of them.
Epistemology:
- the Gettier problem
- foundationalism/coherentism
- internalism/externalism
- reliablism
- truth tracking accounts
- causal theories of knowledge
- sources of knowledge
- sense-data theory of perception vs. intentional theory of perception vs. disjunctive theory of perception
Problem of Universals:
(my particular area of interest)
- start with David Armstrong's "Universals: An Opinionated Introduction". It is an essential purchase and a mind-blowing piece of work.
- much harder to find is Armstrong's two-volume work "Universals and Scientific Realism" which looks at all the nominalist theories and then tries to develop a theory of universals that is compatible with the scientific realist account of the world.
- for a theistic, Platonic critique of Armstrong and of the nominalists, check out J. P. Moreland's book. It isn't nearly as well-written as Armstrong but it is a useful tome.
- then read up on trope theory - D.C. Williams, J Cook Wilson (he believes in tropes and universals which is kinda strange), Keith Campbell
Induction
- Nelson Goodman's "grue" problem - the "new problem of induction" - and all the literature that has come out of that. There's lots. Someone ought to really come up with a word to talk about "grueizing" - to make a grue style analogy.
- and loads more. Barely a week goes by without another Ph.D student thinking they've solved the problem of induction (either the old one or Goodman's new one) and presenting their solution at a conference for people to dutifully applause and then ignore.
What to read? Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for any of the topics mentioned is a good start. For books, check the bibliographies at the end of the article. (Let me repeat the subliminal message: read more David Armstrong.) Also look at the London Philosophy Study Guide which is compiled by philosophers at my alma mater and is pretty damn comprehensive - albeit biased towards the sort of analytical stuff that gets taught in London...
posted by tommorris at 5:53 PM on April 23, 2010 [1 favorite]
« Older No translation language flash cards! | How do I behave when he's asking for a little... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
I could definitely be wrong, but I don't think there is any work that address The Problems of Philosophy specifically, for many reasons not the least of which is that such a book would have to be immensely broad. A good place to start might be Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein was a student of Russell and later a critic of his work, much of which is illuminated, though not always directly, in the PI.
posted by Lutoslawski at 12:45 PM on April 14, 2010 [1 favorite]