We were rejoined by Elucidations’ Matt Teichman to talk about one of the most readable yet still very weird texts in the canon of analytic philosophy, Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (1980), about what makes a name actually refer to some particular person (Kripke says it’s NOT because the name implies a description that you then have in your head that makes it refer), how this works for general terms (does “human” refer likewise because of some definition we have in mind?), and what implications this has for science. Really! There are some!
Precognition of Ep. 83: New Work
An introduction to and summary of Frithjof Bergmann’s New Work, New Culture, read by Mark Linsenmayer.
Precognition of Ep. 83: New Work
An introduction to and summary of Frithjof Bergmann’s New Work, New Culture, read by Mark Linsenmayer.
Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness” and Gary Gutting’s Modern Response
One of the resources raised in our Not School Bergmann discussion was Bertrand Russell’s 1932 article “In Praise of Idleness,” which you can read here. Here’s his snarky definition of work: Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. Continue Reading …
Logicomix on Not School
As mentioned on the Quine episode, I’m proposing a Not School reading group on Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Christos H. Papadimitriou, Apostolos Doxiadis, and some fine illustrators, which is about Russell and Wittgenstein, with some cameos by Frege, Gödel, and other names dropped during our analytic episodes. It’s a graphic novel, running 300+ pages, and seems comfortably Continue Reading …
Audiobook: Bertrand Russell’s “On Denoting”
New Thing for Sale (and Free for Members): A Reading of Russell’s “On Denoting”
I’ve released a new recording: me reading Bertrand Russell’s essay, “On Denoting”. It’s available free to members, or (since it’s public domain), anyone can purchase it here. A key point of transition between our Frege episode and our very-soon-to-be-released Quine episode is Russell’s theory of definite descriptions. In “On Denoting” from 1905, which you can read here, Russell argues that Continue Reading …
Bertrand Russell on Aristotle’s Politics
Listen on YouTube. Like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate. Even so, Bertrand Russell’s prose is entertaining enough to make this audio chapter on Aristotle’s Politics a worthwhile supplement to PEL’s Politics episode. -Daniel Horne
A Theological Summary (and Condemnation) of Emotivism
This video by “Theologica37,” part of a “failure of secular ethics” series, makes a decent stab at tracing emotivist tendencies through
Russell’s Atomistic Metaphysics
Some information about Russell’s atomism was discussed in in our Wittgenstein’s Tractatus podcast. For a bit more information, here’s his essay “The Ultimate Constituents of Matter,” pointed out to us (dismissively) by frequent blog discussion contributor Burl and mentioned on our recent episode. I leave it to you all to explore this essay as you like, but let me give Continue Reading …
Russell’s Epistemology: “The Problems of Philosophy”
I wanted to follow up on a reference I made on the episode for folks who want to know more about Russell’s epistemology: His book The Problems of Philosophyis an easy-reader intro to his take on traditional epistemological problems. Some of it will be familiar if you’ve listened to our episodes (from p. 42). For instance, he claims: “The faculty Continue Reading …
Bertrand Russell’s Very Short Introduction to His Ontology
Watch in YouTube For those who can’t get enough Bertrand Russell, here’s an introduction to logical analysis from his History of Western Philosophy. In this concluding chapter, Russell explains his own philosophy, as inspired by Frege, so even critics of Russell-as-historian shouldn’t object. I was particularly taken with Russell’s ontology, via Einstein. Russell succinctly and I think fairly summarizes a Continue Reading …
Georg Cantor and Ever Larger Infinities
Watch on youtube. A big name-drop during the middle of the Russell episode was the sad story of Georg Cantor and his insanity-inducing continuum hypothesis. Anyone unaware of Cantor and his contributions might want to look at this clip from the Dangerous Knowledge BBC documentary. I thought it provided a good visual explanation of higher levels of infinity. But perhaps Continue Reading …
Episode 38: Bertrand Russell on Math and Logic (Citizens Only)
Discussing Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), ch. 1-3 and 13-18. How do mathematical concepts like number relate to the real world? Russell wants to derive math from logic, and identifies a number as a set of similar sets of objects, e.g. “3” just IS the set of all trios. Hilarity then ensues.
End song: “Words and Numbers,” by Mark Lint & the Madison Lint Ensemble. Read about it.
PREVIEW-Episode 38: Bertrand Russell on Math and Logic
Discussing Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), ch. 1-3 and 13-18. How do mathematical concepts like number relate to the real world? Russell wants to derive math from logic, and identifies a number as a set of similar sets of objects, e.g. “3” just IS the set of all trios. Hilarity then ensues. With guest Josh Pelton.
Russell on Locke’s Political Philosophy
On our not-yet-released Russell episode, Wes dismisses Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy as pretty bad overall, but we also comment on that episode that Russell was a great admirer of Locke, so maybe he didn’t do as badly in that part of the book. In any case, some nice gentleman has posted a recording of this part of that Continue Reading …
Topic for #38: Russell on Math and Logic
What is a number? Is it some Platonic entity floating outside of space and time that we somehow come into communion with? We’ll be following up our foray into analytical philosophy with Frege with some Bertrand Russell: specifically his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), which is the much shortened, non-technical version of his famous Principia Mathematica(written with Whitehead). Frege and Continue Reading …
A.J. Ayer and Bryan Magee on Frege and Russell
Bryan Magee and A.J. Ayer, a famous philosopher in his own right, here give an overview of Frege’s project and Bertrand Russell’s reaction to it. Watch on Youtube. The whole first clip here is just an overview of Frege, with his sense and reference distinction coming in around minute 8. In part two, Ayer and Magee talk up Michael Dummett Continue Reading …
Logicomix!
In the recent Frege episode, Mark related the famous anecdote of how Bertrand Russell, the man who “discovered” Frege, later confounded him by pointing out a paradox apparent within his logical system. As Wes recounted, Russell’s own attempt to ground mathematics in logic was also later frustrated by a young Kurt Gödel, whose early incompleteness theorems crippled the central purpose of Principia Continue Reading …
Episode 34: Frege on the Logic of Language (Citizens Only)
Discussing Gottlob Frege’s “Sense and Reference,” “Concept and Object” (both from 1892) and “The Thought” (1918).
What is it about sentences that make them true or false? Frege, the father of analytic philosophy who invented modern symbolic logic, attempted to codify language in a way that would make this obvious, which would ground mathematics and science. Applying his symbolic system to natural language forced him to invent strange entities like “thoughts” and “senses” that are neither physical nor psychological, and we pretty much spend this episode kvetching about the metaphysical implications of this and the fact that Frege didn’t care about them.