The Russell/Bradley dispute and its significance for twentieth-century philosophy / Stewart Candlish.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Candlish, Stewart.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Russell, Bertrand, 1872-1970.

Russell, Bertrand.

Bradley, F. H. (Francis Herbert), 1846-1924.

Bradley, F. H.

Analysis (Philosophy)--History--20th century.

Analysis (Philosophy).

Idealism--History--20th century.

Idealism.

History.

Physical Description:

xix, 235 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Summary:

In the early twentieth century a philosophical debate took place between F. H. Bradley and Bertrand Russell concerning a range of connected issues of apparently technical significance: the nature and unity of the proposition; the proper account of truth; and the status of relations. The historical outcome was momentous: the demise of the philosophical movement known as British Idealism and its eventual replacement by various forms of Analytic Philosophy. Since then, a conception of this debate and its rights and wrongs has become entrenched in English-language philosophy. Stewart Candlish examines afresh not only the events of this formative period in twentieth-century thought but also the standard conception of them, providing a reassessment of Bradley's contribution to modern philosophy, new insight into the development of Russell's thought, and some surprising conclusions.

Contents:

1 The Stereotypical Picture of the Russell/Bradley Dispute 1

The protagonists 1

Locating the dispute 3

The stereotypical picture outlined 4

The sources and pervasiveness of the stereotype 6

Displacing the stereotype 18

2 Finding a Way into Bradley's Metaphysics 21

Preliminary sketch 21

The foundations of Bradley's thought 24

Intellectual satisfaction 26

Ideal experiment 27

The sceptical principle, mark I 33

The attack on predication 37

The attack on external relations 39

The sceptical principle, marks II and III 40

The attack on internal relations 42

To monism and idealism 44

Contingency, sufficient reason and circularity 46

3 Judgment 49

An initial contrast between Bradley and Russell on judgment 50

Russell's 1903 binary relation theory of judgment 53

The origins of the multiple relation theory of judgment 58

The 1910 version 62

The 1912 version 67

The 1913 version 69

The 1918 non-theory 73

Subsequent developments 75

4 Truth 78

Bradley and the coherence theory of truth 79

Bradley on coherence and correspondence 81

Russell and the correspondence theory of truth 85

The derivation of Bradley's metaphysical theory of truth 89

The nature of Bradley's metaphysical theory of truth 93

The availability of the identity theory of truth 97

Russell and the identity theory of truth 100

Russell, the multiple relation theory, and correspondence 103

5 Grammar and Ontology 106

The transparency thesis, the theory of descriptions, and the usual story 106

The consequences of replacing the usual story 111

Grammar, descriptions and analysis 115

Negative propositions 120

Universal propositions 124

Subject-predicate grammar and the status of relations 128

Subject-predicate grammar: substance and attribute 136

6 Relations 141

The significance of relations 141

Logic, metaphysics and internal relations 145

Interpreting the doctrine of internal relations 150

The development of Bradley's views on relations 155

Russell, internality and unreality 163

Bradley's arguments for the unreality of relations and their terms 167

7 Decline and Fall 174

Health warning 174

The decline of monistic idealism 174.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-224) and index.

ISBN:

0230506852

9780230506855

OCLC:

69021068

Online:

Contributor biographical information