Language

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521591041.047

44 - Language

from 10 - Knowledge, language, and the end of metaphysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

David Holdcroft

Edited by

Thomas Baldwin

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David Holdcroft: Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Thomas Baldwin: Affiliation:
University of York

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Summary

Language became a major concern during this period. Moreover, theories of language suggested methodologies for the study of philosophy itself, so that the two topics often became intertwined. A number of main tendencies can be distinguished: whereas at the beginning of the period models suggested by logic and other formal disciplines predominated, by the end there was a growing interest in psychological and sociological approaches, and increasing scepticism about the value of formal models.

LOGICAL ATOMISM

Russell coined this term in a series of lectures given in 1918 (Russell 1918 [1956: 177]). Non-logical expressions are, he argued, either complex or simple. To understand the former one has to understand the simple expressions contained in their analyses. Since complex expressions can be analysed only in the context of analyses of sentences in which they occur, the apparent formof such sentences may be a poor guide to the logical form revealed by analysis (for Russell an important example of this situation arises from his theory of descriptions). Analysis terminates when all the complex non-logical items have been eliminated, and only simple ones remain. To understand these it is necessary to be cognitively acquainted with the items they stand for, which are literally their meanings. So, to understand (S1) ‘This is blue’ one has to be acquainted both with the sense-datum identified by ‘this’, and with the universal blue. A sentence such as (S1) that cannot be further analysed corresponds to what Russell called an atomic fact. The fact to which it corresponds, if true, is of the simplest kind and consists in the possession by a particular of a property.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Philosophy 1870–1945 , pp. 554 - 564

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521591041.047 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2003

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