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Was Russell Shot or Did He Fall?
Journal article

Was Russell Shot or Did He Fall?

Abstract

In his critical notice of Russell's Theory of Knowledge , R. E. Tully takes issue with my interpretation of Wittgenstein's criticism of Russell's theory of judgment. Against it he raises two objections and also sketches an alternative interpretation. On Tully's characterization, I believe that Russell was shot out of the tree by a subtle but devastating argument, while Tully believes that he was shaken out of the tree by a much broader but non-lethal attack on his conception of a proposition. The metaphor is not inappropriate. I certainly believe that Wittgenstein's attack was lethal to Russell's theory of judgment and shows extraordinary marksmanship. But I do not want to deny that there was a lot of tree shaking going on at the same time—concerning, in particular, the logical constants and the concept of a proposition, both of which were topics closely related to the theory of judgment. Thus, while I maintain that Russell was shot, I do not subscribe to a single-bullet theory (although it must be admitted that, in such cases, the individuation of bullets is far from precise).

Authors

Griffin N

Journal

Dialogue, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 549–554

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Publication Date

January 1, 1991

DOI

10.1017/s0012217300011860

ISSN

0012-2173
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