An essay on the foundations of geometryRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
An essay on the foundations of geometry
Russell, Bertrand
Geometry -- Foundations
=134.= Let us repeat our original argument in the light of this
elucidation. A position is completely defined when, and only when,
enough relations are known to enable us to determine its relation
to any fresh known position. Only by relations within the form of
externality, as we have just seen, and never by relations which
involve a reference to the particular matter filling the form,
can such a definition be effected. But the possibility of such a
definition follows from the Law of Excluded Middle, when this law is
interpreted to mean, as Bosanquet makes it mean, that "Reality ... is
a system of reciprocally determinate parts[141]." For this implies
that, given the relations of a part _A_ to other parts _B_, _C_ ...,
a sufficient wealth of such relations throws light on the relations
of _B_ to _C_, etc. If this were not the case, the parts _A_, _B_,
_C_ ... could not be said to form such a system; for in such a
system, to define _A_ is to define, at the same time, all the other
members, and to give an adjective to _A_, is to give an adjective to
_B_ and _C_. But the relations between positions are, when we restore
the matter from which the positions were abstracted, relations
between the things occupying those positions, and these relations, we
have seen, can be studied without reference to the particular nature,
in other respects, of the related things. It follows that, when we
apply the general principle of systematic unity to these relations in
particular, we find these relations to be dependent on each other,
since they are not dependent, for their definition, on anything else.
This gives the axiom of dimensions, in the above general form, as
the result, on our abstract geometrical level, of the relativity of
position and the law of excluded middle.
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