Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Russell, Bertrand
Mathematics; Philosophy; Science
When, therefore, I say that we must substitute for "Julius Cæsar" some
description of Julius Cæsar, in order to discover the meaning of a
judgment nominally about him, I am not saying that we must substitute
an idea. Suppose our description is "the man whose name was _Julius
Cæsar_." Let our judgment be "Julius Cæsar was assassinated." Then it
becomes "the man whose name was _Julius Cæsar_ was assassinated." Here
_Julius Cæsar_ is a noise or shape with which we are acquainted, and
all the other constituents of the judgment (neglecting the tense in
"was") are _concepts_ with which we are acquainted. Thus our judgment
is wholly reduced to constituents with which we are acquainted, but
Julius Cæsar himself has ceased to be a constituent of our judgment.
This, however, requires a proviso, to be further explained shortly,
namely that "the man whose name was _Julius Cæsar_" must not, as a
whole, be a constituent of our judgment, that is to say, this phrase
must not, as a whole, have a meaning which enters into the judgment.
Any right analysis of the judgment, therefore, must break up this
phrase, and not treat it as a subordinate complex which is part of the
judgment. The judgment "the man whose name was _Julius Cæsar_ was
assassinated" may be interpreted as meaning "one and only one man was
called _Julius Cæsar_, and that one was assassinated." Here it is
plain that there is no constituent corresponding to the phrase "the
man whose name was _Julius Cæsar_." Thus there is no reason to regard
this phrase as expressing a constituent of the judgment, and we have
seen that this phrase must be broken up if we are to be acquainted
with all the constituents of the judgment. This conclusion, which we
have reached from considerations concerned with the theory of
knowledge, is also forced upon us by logical considerations, which
must now be briefly reviewed.
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