Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in PhilosophyRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy
Russell, Bertrand
Knowledge, Theory of; Logical atomism
If a relational theory of instants is constructed, in which an "instant"
is defined as a group of events simultaneous with each other and not all
simultaneous with any event outside the group, then if our resulting
series of instants is to be compact, it must be possible, if _x_ wholly
precedes _y_, to find an event _z_, simultaneous with part of _x_, which
wholly precedes some event which wholly precedes _y_. Now this requires
that the number of events concerned should be infinite in any finite
period of time. If this is to be the case in the world of one man's
sense-data, and if each sense-datum is to have not less than a certain
finite temporal extension, it will be necessary to assume that we always
have an infinite number of sense-data simultaneous with any given
sense-datum. Applying similar considerations to space, and assuming that
sense-data are to have not less than a certain spatial extension, it
will be necessary to suppose that an infinite number of sense-data
overlap spatially with any given sense-datum. This hypothesis is
possible, if we suppose a single sense-datum, _e.g._ in sight, to be a
finite surface, enclosing other surfaces which are also single
sense-data. But there are difficulties in such a hypothesis, and I do
not know whether these difficulties could be successfully met. If they
cannot, we must do one of two things: either declare that the world of
one man's sense-data is not continuous, or else refuse to admit that
there is any lower limit to the duration and extension of a single
sense-datum. I do not know what is the right course to adopt as regards
these alternatives. The logical analysis we have been considering
provides the apparatus for dealing with the various hypotheses, and the
empirical decision between them is a problem for the psychologist.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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