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Information to Users INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly firom the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 Nortti Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9237229 A case of philosophical amnesia: Russell, Wittgenstein and a forgotten manuscript Shosky, John Edwin, Ph.D. The American University, 1992 Copyright ©1993 by Shosky, John Edwin. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 A CASE OF PHILOSOPHICAL AMNESIA: RUSSELL, WITTGENSTEIN AND A FORGOTTEN MANUSCRIPT By John Edwin Shosky Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Signatures of Committee Chair jab=4_ Dêan .o|E t h e College Date 1991 The American University Washington, D.C. 20016 rra iiBEEiciK oiiTBfism im m DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of A.J. Ayer. XI A CASE OF PHILOSOPHICAL AMNESIA: RUSSELL, WITTGENSTEIN AND A FORGOTTEN MANUSCRIPT BY John Shosky ABSTRACT This dissertation analyzes Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge, published in 1984 by George Allen and Unwin, Volume 7 in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell. This manuscript by Russell is a major work by one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy, offering arguments on several topics that are crucial contributions to outstanding issues in epistemology and logic. It fills in several curious and large gaps in our understanding of the development of Russell's philosophical progress from 1912 through 1918. In addition, it provides an indispensable context for understanding the development of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The dissertation explores several related topics, including the development and later publication of Theory of Knowledge, the content of the book, the place of Russell's manuscript in the development of his thought, the influence of Theory iii of Knowledge on Wittgenstein's Tractatus. the joint collaboration in 1913 between Russell and Wittgenstein, and the significance of the 1913 manuscript in the history of philosophy. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee for bountiful assistance, encouragement and patience. The chairman, David Rodier, has been a mentor and friend. I can truthfully say that without his help and support I would not have received my Master of Arts degree nor would I have made it to this point in my Ph.D. work. Peter Simpson, Harold Durfee and Charles White have been extremely considerate and inspiring to me. I must include a special note of thanks to Antony Flew for agreeing to serve on my committee. I have long admired his work and learned much from him. It is a great honor and privilege to have him evaluate my scholarship. I must also thank Michelle Ward, Paul Summers, Birgit Summers, Elizabeth Stolpe, Bob Barnard, Cliff Henke, Brian Brooks and Michael Anderson for their constant concern, friendship and support. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Preface .............................................. 1 Chapter One: "An Event of First-Rate Importance"..... 8 Chapter Two: "The Simplest and Most Pervading Aspect of Experience".................. 24 Chapter Three; Resurrecting Russell .................. 44 Chapter Four: The Missing Reference..... .... ....... 76 Chapter Five: Russell's Tractatus? ................. 100 Chapter Six: Rewriting History ................... 110 Appendix: A Discussion of G o d e l ................ 114 Bibliography........................................ 127 VI PREFACE Bertrand Russell was born in 1872, at the height of the Victorian period. In 1967, after 95 years of life and some 70 years of professional work that produced some of the most important discoveries in the history of philosophy, including the theory of descriptions and the theory of types, as well as the Principia Mathematics and a Nobel prize for literature, Russell's career was close to completion. So, pressed for funds to support his International War Crimes Tribunal, Russell offered his personal papers and letters for sale. While cataloguing these papers for public auction, Kenneth Blackwell found a 208 page manuscript, numbered pages 143 to 350, dated 1913, and clearly written in Russell's hand. Russell's autobiography did not mention this document,^ nor did Alan Wood's biography of Russell,^ In fact, Russell's essay, "My Mental Development," in The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. (1944) Volume 5 in the Librarv of Living Philosophers Series, jumps from the publication of the Principle Mathematica in 1910 to the beginning of World War I in 1914, virtually leaving out his association with Wittgenstein and never mentioning an unpublished manuscript. In addition, the first volume of the Autobioaraphv of Bertrand Russell 1872-1914 (1967) gives 2 nor was there a reference to it in any of Russell's published materials, significantly absent from his own encompassing summary in 1959 entitled Mv Philosophical Development.^ Blackwell persuaded the literary agent in charge of the archives, Mr. Anton Felton, to write to Russell about the book. Russell did not answer the letter. Later in 1967, Blackwell asked Russell himself about the manuscript, which appeared to discuss topics in the theory of knowledge. Russell said that he could remember nothing about it, that a completely misleading picture. While not mentioning the manuscript, Russell argues that after the new year began in 1914, "I arranged for a shorthand typist to come next day, though I had not the vaguest idea what I should say to her when she came. As she entered the room, my ideas fell into place, and I dictated in a completely orderly sequence from that moment until the work was finished. What I dictated to her was subsequently published as a book with the titled Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophv. " (p. 210) Below an argument will be presented to place the date of the writing of the these lectures closer to the last months of 1913. However, Russell's passage indicates that he had not been working on epistemology, while in fact he had prepared the first two sections of a massive book, which biographer Ronald W. Clark (1975) called "(Russell's) first full-scale effort since Principia Mathematica." The Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 206. Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Skeptic. (1958) Until the publication of Ronald Clark's book in 1975, this was the definitive biography on Russell, and it is still a good source of sympathetic information. Mv Philosophical Development. (1959) Although, in all fairness, he does claim in "My Own Philosophy," (1946) that "my professional attention has been devoted to [the foundations of empirical knowledge] ever since the publication of Principia Mathematica" (p. 10). 3 "it would take some time to think about a period so long past.The matter was not raised again and the manuscript was noted in the catalogue of the archives.^ This paper is about an excavation of vital importance to philosophy. Russell's Theorv of Knowledge, published in 1984 by George Allen and Unwin, in collaboration with the Bertrand Russell archives, is Volume 7 in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell.* This manuscript is significant for several reasons. First, it is a major work by one of the most important figures in the history of Kenneth Blackwell and Elizabeth Ramsden Eames, "Russell's Unpublished Book on Theory of Knowledge," Russell, Autumn, 1975, p. 4. This omission is nothing short of fantastic. Russell begins his chapter in Mv Philosophical Development on "Theory of Knowledge" by dating his interest in epistemology as arising after World War I — an interest that represented "a more or less permanent change in my philosophical interests." (p. 95). He dates his first major work in this field as The Analvsis on Mind in 1921, significantly ignoring the lasting impact of his "shilling shocker". The Problems of Philosophv. in 1912 and his Lowell Lectures delivered while at Harvard in 1914 and later published that same year as Our Knowledge of the External World. Also, it is worth nothing that he used virtually nothing from his unpublished Theorv of Knowledge manuscript in the Lowell Lectures, even though the lectures were written and delivered no more than 10 months after Russell started writing the work under examination in this paper. Bertrand Russell, Theorv of Knowledge, The 1913 Manuscript, The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 7, edited by Elizabeth Ramsden Eames in collaboration with Kenneth Blackwell. Introduction by Elizabeth Ramsden Eames. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984. This volume will be referred to by the date of composition, 1913, rather than by the date of publication.
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