Russell vs. Wittgenstein: In Defense of Russell (A Reply to Some Old Thesis of Peter Hacker’s Interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus) Henrique Jales Ribeiro, Coimbra, Portugal [email protected] Peter Hacker is currently one of the most influential and Russell and Wittgenstein: i) the philosophy of the for- brilliant specialists of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. His thesis mer―before Tractatus―has wrongly confused the subjec- on the connection between Russell and Wittgenstein, both matter of logic with those of psychology and epistemology; prior to Tractatus and therein, were presented mainly in ii) the philosophy of the latter proved, particularly in that Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic Phi- book, that such confusion was illegitimate by putting logic losophy, published in 1996, that is, 14 years ago. In sub- in its right place and unveiling its true meaning; iii) by and sequent books, Hacker resumes these thesis and contin- large Russell accepted this fact, although he did not fully ues to use them in his readings of Wittgenstein after the understand it, nor managed to draw the appropriate con- Tractatus. To my knowledge they have not been subjected sequences from it. to any more or less systematic criticism from reviewers particularly interested in Russell’s philosophy, as would be The first assumption needs to be elaborated for a perfectly natural, since (as I will suggest) they are debat- better understanding. An important illustration of it are able or even controversial for those who have interpreted Russell’s views on the relation between logic and ordinary this philosopher under different, and probably more coher- language. Max Black had previously argued that it is pre- ent, presuppositions. Hacker’s theses are illustrations of cisely the confusion between logic and epistemology that what I have polemically called in my doctoral dissertation in the end explains the need for a logically perfect lan- and in some papers in English (Ribeiro 1999, 2001, 2005) guage when this is contrasted to a ordinary one (see a ‘Wittgensteinian reading of Russell’s philosophy”. For all Black 1989), and for what is known as the “myth of the of the above reasons, I will focus essentially on Hacker’s paraphrase” or of “the ideal translation”. According to book previously mentioned. Naturally, my intention, as his Hacker, both Frege and Russell subscribe to the same in Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies, is to pro- fundamental view on the matter: “They held natural lan- vide input for a better understanding of the matters at is- guages to be logically defective, both in containing vague sue. terms and in failing adequately to represent the subject- matter of the truths of logic. Hence, for logical, proof- Peter Hacker’s central thesis is that the Tractatus theoretic and metaphysical purposes, they should be re- provides the first systematic research on the nature of logic placed by a logically perfect language: namely the lan- from a viewpoint which, albeit largely metaphysical, envis- guage of Begriffsschrift or Principia. This would make ages eliminating any impure associations with psychology sense only if… the role of the propositions of logic is in- and epistemology, or, as he says, “liberating the philoso- deed to represent a certain subject-matter with maximal phy of logic from its antecedents failure to differenciate accuracy…Contrary to Frege and Russell, Wittgenstein adequately the truths of logic from empirical, psychological argued that ‘all propositions of everyday language, just as or putative Platonist generalisations” (Hacker 1996: 34), as they stand, are in perfect logical order’ (TLP, 5.5563). By the ones of Frege and Russell. The novelty and originality this, he later explained, he meant that ‘the propositions of of Tractatus consists, in fact, in such logical reduction of its our ordinary language are not in any way less correct or subject-matter, against the mentioned associations made less exact or more confused than propositions written by those thinkers, in spite of the antipsychologistic prem- down, say, in Russell’s symbolism or any other ‘Be- ises of their respective philosophies. In the case of Russell griffsschrift’” (Hacker 1996: 26). and before that book, there were, of course, serious incon- sistencies in his philosophy, which lead to Wittgenstein’s Russell’s concept of ordinary language can be criticisms and are carefully studied by Hacker; but the main summarised in three main ideas, according to Hacker’s difference between the two philosophers, according to him, interpretation, which, as previously mentioned, matches was not merely a technical one. What we have with Trac- that of Black and other authors: α) ordinary language is not tatus is a new conception of logic based on the rejection of in perfect logical order, i.e., it is essentially vague and de- the confusion between logic, on the one hand, and psy- fective, and it is for that reason that philosophical analysis chology and epistemology, on the other hand, “even requires a logically perfect language; β) such is precisely though distortions remained” (ibid.) This was already the the artificial language of Principia; γ) Russell believes in α) direction in which Wittgenstein’s review of Russell’s theo- because he wrongly confuses the subject-matter of logic ries in the manuscript Theory of Knowledge pointed (see with the ones of psychology and epistemology. ibid.: 26). Hacker, like some other critics before him (see I now intend to briefly dispute the reading of Russell Hylton 1990), suggests that Russell should have lead his and Wittgenstein which can be drawn from the thesis de- thought according to the methodologically pure path of scribed above. As for Russell: In spite of Hacker’s careful Wittgenstein’views on logic, and that he did not know how historical analysis, he does not takes into consideration to do it without renouncing to its own approach, which was some special developments of Russell’s philosophy after the cause of the inextricable troubles underlying his theo- “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, which lead to find- ries. Furthermore, he believes that the evolution of Rus- ings on the connection between logic and ordinary lan- sell’s philosophy after Tractatus had no relevance at all to guage signficantly different from the ones already pre- the genesis of contemporary analytical philosophy. In sented. I will return to this point later on. On the other short, Hacker’s interpretation is founded on three funda- hand, Hacker’s reading is based on the metahistorical mental assumptions regarding the connection between assumption that the development of Russell’s philosophy, 268 Russell vs. Wittgenstein: In Defense of Russell … / Henrique Jales Ribeiro after Principia, should have been subordinated to Wittgen- clearly in the preparatory manuscripts of The Analysis of stein’s conception of logic, in view of its greater consis- Mind (Russell 1988), even before the English edition of tency . Why should the foundations of logic not be Tractatus, and had as its main consequence the with- grounded on psychology and epistemology, contrary to drawal of the acquaintance theory. In fact, it was just this what Russell suggests in the introduction of Tractatus (cf. partial holism that leads Russell to a new concept of Wittgenstein 1933: 7-8)? Evidently, only by developing a vagueness (Russell 1988a) and to a view similar to that of philosophical project of the kind could Russell have found Wittgenstein, according to which ordinary language is in the answer to the question; and this was just what he en- order and does not require any correction through a logi- deavoured until the book An Inquiry into Meaning and cally perfect language (see Russell 1978: Lecture X). And Truth. The argument that, after Tractatus, the most inter- it is from its perspective, against to a radical version of esting developments of logic were achieved entirely inde- holism that leads directly to the end of the philosophy, as pendently of Russell’s views and pursuant to those of Witt- happens apparently with Tractatus, that we should reread genstein, is disputable and, on several accounts, contro- today Russell’s introduction to that book (Ribeiro 2005). versial. Nonetheless, it is unacceptable in the protohistori- Generally speaking, after the 1920s holism and its prob- cal version that Hacker lends to it in Wittgenstein’s Place in lems are the leitmotif of the development of Russell’s phi- Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy: that Wittgenstein, losophy. already at the time of Tractatus, was to some extent aware of the impact and historical scope of his own theories. Concluding and in light of the observations above, I woukd like to comment briefly Hacker’s thesis on the con- However, this is not very important for me here. I cept of logically perfect language. First, the concept only would like to reply to Hacker’s theory according to which appears to us in 1918, namely in “The Philosophy of Logi- both Russell’s philosophy and that of Wittgenstein at the cal Atomism” (Russell 1986: 176). Hacker, like Black be- time of Tractatus were essentially atomist, the difference fore him, ambiguously suggests to its readers that the between the two atomisms being that, unlike the former, concept had already been unveiled in Principia (Hacker the latter would be pure and free of epistemological as- 1996: 20); but for reasons I cannot develop here, this is sumptions (cf. Hacker 1996: 29-30). In my view, this is a not true. Furthermore, one cannot forget that when the disputable interpretation, which once again comes closer concept emerges in the development of Russell’s philoso- to the interpretations of some English authors of the 1960s phy its purpose was not to correct ordinary language and who believed in an alleged “tradition of British empiricism” to restore a precision or accuracy somehow alienated.