Critique of Russell’s Philosophy of Language

Abstract

Thus far I have attempted to show the nature, purpose, and uses of Russell’s distinctive analytic method, reconstructionism. In the course of my exegesis I have, for the most part, concentrated on simply explicating what seem to me to be salient features of this method and the fundamental assumptions on which it rests. On the basis of the preceding examination I conclude that there are three major assumptions underlying Russell’s philosophy of language. In order of increasing importance they are as follows:

• (1) The Theory of Acquaintance: all propositions concerning matters of fact are meaningful only to the extent that the (non-syncategorematic) expressions they contain can be defined in terms of expressions standing for entities known by acquaintance. This is my paraphrase of Russell’s various statements relating meaning and acquaintance. I believe it is a succinct statemenct of what the theory of acquaintance, consistently applied, amounts to insofar as it has bearing on his philosophy of language.

• (2) The Doctrine of Logical Form: there is an isomorphism between facts and the propositions which assert them, such that in a logically perfect language a proposition would “mirror” the structure of the correlative fact.

• (3) Philosophical Analysis as Elucidation of Ontological Structure: the ultimate purpose of philosophical analysis is to discover the ontological structure of reality, i.e., to determine the “basic furniture of the world.”