Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Russell, Bertrand
Mathematics; Philosophy; Science
Miss Jones[46] contends that there is no difficulty in admitting
contradictory predicates concerning such an object as "the present
King of France," on the ground that this object is in itself
contradictory. Now it might, of course, be argued that this object,
unlike the round square, is not self-contradictory, but merely
non-existent. This, however, would not go to the root of the matter.
The real objection to such an argument is that the law of
contradiction ought not to be stated in the traditional form "A is not
both B and not B," but in the form "no proposition is both true and
false." The traditional form only applies to certain propositions,
namely, to those which attribute a predicate to a subject. When the
law is stated of propositions, instead of being stated concerning
subjects and predicates, it is at once evident that propositions about
the present King of France or the round square can form no exception,
but are just as incapable of being both true and false as other
propositions. Miss Jones[47] argues that "Scott is the author of
Waverley" asserts identity of denotation between _Scott_ and _the
author of Waverley_. But there is some difficulty in choosing among
alternative meanings of this contention. In the first place, it should
be observed that _the author of Waverley_ is not a _mere_ name, like
_Scott_. _Scott_ is merely a noise or shape conventionally used to
designate a certain person; it gives us no information about that
person, and has nothing that can be called meaning as opposed to
denotation. (I neglect the fact, considered above, that even proper
names, as a rule, really stand for descriptions.) But _the author of
Waverley_ is not merely conventionally a name for Scott; the element
of mere convention belongs here to the separate words, _the_ and
_author_ and _of_ and _Waverley_. Given what these words stand for,
_the author of Waverley_ is no longer arbitrary. When it is said that
Scott is the author of Waverley, we are not stating that these are two
_names_ for one man, as we should be if we said "Scott is Sir Walter."
A man's name is what he is called, but however much Scott had been
called the author of Waverley, that would not have made him be the
author; it was necessary for him actually to write Waverley, which was
a fact having nothing to do with names.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account