Frege, Russell, & Modern Logic - A. J. Ayer & Bryan Magee (1987)

a great deal of the philosophy that's

going on today in the English-speaking

World in fact probably most of it can be

traced back through intermediate

developments to the work of two men got

lob Fraga and Burton Russell working for

the most part independently of each

other they laid the foundations of

modern logic but more than that although

the work on which they began concerned

chiefly the principles of mathematics

and the relationship between mathematics

and logic its implications went so wide

that in the course of time it came to

have a profound influence on philosophy

in general

exactly the same happened with the

philosopher who most obviously and

directly followed on from them named

Wittgenstein Wittgenstein started by

developing Russells and fraga's work in

mathematical logic but he ended up

acquiring an influence at large on 20th

century philosophy which is second to

nobody's

in this program without going into any

of the technicalities of mathematics or

logic I want to give some indication of

how Freda and Russell came to have this

enormous influence on 20th century

thought and to say a little about some

of the more recent individuals and

groups who've come under that influence

first a word about the individuals

themselves Freda a German was born in

1848 and spent his entire working life

in comparative obscurity in the

mathematics Department of the University

of yena not until after his death did

his name become known at all widely even

among philosophers

his first major work published in 1879

was called the griefshrift and I'm

afraid even the English translation

keeps the German title because there's

no satisfactory English for it it means

something like the putting of Concepts

into notation and we'll begin to see

later what that's about

his next major work published in 1884 is

called in English the foundations of

arithmetic he went on producing

important and original work most notably

in 1893 and 1903 two volumes of the

projected larger work called in English

the basic laws of arithmetic

but it was all of such depth and

difficulty that his work in general

remained very largely unknown until

Bertrand rustled her attention to it in

1903.

Russell was a totally different sort of

person grandson of a British prime

minister from whom he was later by his

elder brother to inherit an eldom he was

always prominent on the political and

social scene as well as in philosophy in

fact a famous public figure all his life

he did a tremendous amount of popular

writing and journalism and broadcasting

which influenced social attitudes among

successive generations of British people

I think this is obscured for many the

fact that the true foundations of his

Fame as a philosopher lie in

contributions to mathematical logic of a

highly professional and Technical

character

he was born in 1872 and lived till 1970

and was politically active almost to the

end though the great bulk of his

philosophical work was done by the 1920s

here to discuss the work of these two

men and some of its influences down to

our own day is one of the most famous

philosophers of our time AJ air who has

written a great deal about Russell

including the best short introductory

book on Russell's work

Professor let's start with freygar as

being the earlier figure when he began

what was it he was trying to do well he

was trying to

um

make up what he thought well the

deficiencies in arithmetic he thought

that mathematical statements as they

were expressing his day were not

sufficiently precise and the

mathematical proofs were not

sufficiently rigorous and so he began by

trying to develop a notation the

progressive to referred to in which you

become in which this would be remedied

annotations to show exactly what

mathematical statement stated and

exactly what their proofs consisted in

it was supposed to make it obvious how

one step in a proof succeeded another

and this was it was a deficiency in

mathematics in his time applying even to

Euclid where there were assumptions not

made explicit which are required for the

proofs to be valid wasn't one of the

points involved that every argument

including a mathematical proof has to

have premises and what those premises

are often creates problems and he tried

to show that all mathematics was

ultimately derived from Pure principles

of logic exactly

both he and Russell did this and this

involved two Enterprises first of all

defining mathematical Concepts in pure

logical one and secondly showing that

mathematics were arithmetic anyhow not

all mathematics but arithmetic were

deducible from probably The Logical

premises and this has achieved the first

part was achieved fairly simply I think

fairly simple illustration will show how

it was done if you take let's say any

couple let's take

um Tom and Jerry then you could Define

them as a couple by saying that they are

both members of the set and anything

which is a member of is identical with

one or other of them they will Define

the number two as a set of of such sets

a set of couples and you do this for all

numbers there are certain complications

about Infinity but in this way you can

define a cardinal number in purely

logical terms is what he did and then

also so by generalizing logic which

hadn't been done are still in logic

which had prevailed from ancient times

until 19th century was not holy General

he was able to State premises from which

most terrific it was deducible it was

shown later by somebody by another

logician Augustine girdle that in fact

this couldn't be completely done the

derivative day couldn't be completed but

that in so far as it could be completed

freyr shared a method of doing it

wouldn't it also be true to say that

before Fraga the laws of logic had been

regarded as laws of thought that's to

say has something to do with human

mental processes but Fraga realized that

that this couldn't be so that the

validity of a proof couldn't depend on

our psychology oh yes this was very

important this is one of one of the most

important things that Fraga did and he

began by one of his early work was an

attack on a book of honorific German

philosopher called whose cell in which

logic was represented as a theory of

judgment and this was it was ruled by

the German idealists and fragrant

insisted he was entirely objective and

nothing to do with with psychological

processes but the the sets in which you

reduce numbers were entirely objective

things and that logic was quite

independent of uh wasn't about

psychology at all these were objective

truths which of course the mind is

capable of gospeling they didn't depend

upon features of thinking so the search

then becomes in a mathematical proof for

what it is that the proof conveys from

step to step that's right that

impersonally validates the conclusion

regardless of how we think and this in a

way accounts for Fraga having a

philosophical interests Beyond this

probably mathematical work because he

also developed a theory of of meaning

of meaning which would show how

mathematics could be objectively valid

and he talked of of the he tied up the

meaning of mathematical statements but

this could be extended to statements in

general with

truth Traditions with with the features

in them that made them candidates for

truth or falsehood I suppose the most uh

historically influential distinction

that he introduced was the distinction

between sense and reference which has to

do with his theory of meaning and one

still hears people constantly referring

to this can you explain it yes it's it's

fairly it's fairly complicated the tool

German expressions are Zin which are

generally translated since and bedok

which is translated well it is in fact

the German word for meaning but by

philosophers usually translated as I

have a reference or denotation and the

denotation of a name is the object to

which it uh which it names I mean the

irritation of brown McGee is is you the

actual person

whereas the sense of of the name is the

contribution that it makes

to the meaning and say if if I uh just

say Tom you have to say to me who's Tom

and then I say well Tom his son says

brother and or the person who invented

such and such or all the first person

that kind of the mountain and in this

way I give you a sense and in this way I

enable you to identify him now this

distinction becomes important in certain

contexts generally what you care about

in the case of a name is what the name

stands for and but there are certain

cases where it's important to make a

distinction between uh sense and

denotation and one good example would be

statements of identity the phrase

favorite example was that of the evening

star and The Morning Star both of which

as you know uh uh

Venus and but if someone says the

evening Stars I don't this is where the

Morning Star a man takes the reference

of these two expressions to be in the

denotation then he's simply saying Venus

is Venus which is the tautology and of

no interest whereas in fact the morning

star in the evening star is a

mathematical Discovery and therefore in

this usage well the Expressions referred

to is not 30 notation not the object not

their senses

so in other words he he analyzed meaning

into two different components that's

right sense and reference yes and a

statement may have a sense but not have

a reference well this happens in two

ways and uh uh there could be names

or or nominal expressions like uh

president King of France for example

which has a sense but no reference

because nobody

corresponds to it and also there is the

complicated case of Expressions which

have a function in in a sentence as

contributing to its making it capable of

being true or false

um but don't you know anything like

periodicus is is is good is bad is the

answer which themselves are what he

called incomplete Expressions namely

don't themselves have a reference but

contribute to giving the sentence a

sense and through its sense of reference

and these distinctions that he

introduced and his theory of meaning had

in fact had a very widespread influence

in philosophy haven't they they've

become very fashionable in recent years

that's and and there's been a a change

in the anyhow in England and perhaps to

go to well in the United States to some

extent and uh a change in sort of main

concern of philosophy for a very long

time the theory of knowledge was

dominant ever since stick out in in

these in 2017 Century the main concern

has been the theory of knowledge uh what

we what we can know and how we can know

it and how we are justified in hurting

the beliefs we do and in recent years

this has given way to what's sometimes

called the philosophy of logic which is

mainly concerned with questions about

meaning and here fragrance coming to get

prominence and for instance my successor

as Professor logic Oxford and Michael

damit has voted nearly I mean certainly

two large books uh two fragrance worked

and is concerned with exploring the

implications of fragrance distinctions

for a theory of meaning well Michael

dummett who I suppose is must be called

the leading living commentator on frago

makes enormously large claims for him

doesn't he he says that he's introduced

a whole new era in philosophy that he

has

de-psychologized philosophy that in the

way you just explained he dethroned the

theory of Knowledge from the center of

philosophy and replaced it with logic

and this has changed 300 years of

philosophical development well I think

there has been a different emphasis but

I think that Michael exaggerates in two

ways first of all philosopher's always

been concerned with meaning ever since

Socrates went about saying what is

knowledge what is what is goodness and

so on which is a way of asking what what

the what the Greek equivalence of these

terms meant so there's always an

interest in in meaning in in philosophy

and secondly I don't seek interest in

the theory of knowledge has totally

disappeared I think I think that that

there are still people who are connected

with with concerned with this and

insofar as even in metal damage own work

uh the theory of meaning is very much uh

bound up with uh questions about truth

and falsehood this also doesn't entirely

take us away from the idea of knowledge

because after all of that I'm always

concerned with what reason we have to

suppose that certain statements

propositions are true or false so I

think that that there has been a shift

of emphasis but not the the great break

the damage insists on before we continue

with the more recent applications of

fraga's work I want to turn to Russell

for a moment when I introduced this

discussion I emphasized the fact that

Fraga worked in isolation throughout

almost the whole of his life and this

becomes very important when one starts

to consider Russell because poor Russell

spent the first several years of his

life reinvent work that fragr had

already done without realizing that he'd

done it didn't he uh cat so that should

make it rather easy for you to explain

to us something about the importance of

Russell's very early work quite know how

to say poor Russell because it is quite

true that Russell did a lot of work that

Fraga had done before him but Russell

also exposed a fatal deficiency in

fraga's system he showed that fraga's

system of logic actually contained a

paradox it's like the famous old

contradiction of epimenity as the

Christian who said that all creations

were Lars it follows and it it it comes

into the category of self-defeating

propositions and also although on the

surface it seems to be trivial it's not

trivial because it shows that the

underlying argumentation has something

wrong with it it does it shows that one

of one of uh flag is essential

assumptions led to contradiction and

when and Russell in 19 I think it was in

1903 uh conveyed this in a letter to

Fraga and fraga's first reaction was not

oh I'm wrong you've seen the Arrogant to

reply the whole of mathematics has been

shown to be worthless

then he thought this is going too far

and he then

managed to put together some sort of

answer to Russell's objection but then

it was shown only after faker's death in

fact by a polished Edition that fraga's

answer also was untenable it led the

foundation and Frank himself never

recalled from this player after he

received after the publication of the

great shift you see of the bishop the

yes

um you yourself said earlier he never

wrote the third volume and he simply

came up from 1903 to 1925 his death he

never did anything and this was the

result he thought his life's work has

been abolished yes so that in fact

um

it's a very sad story yes and and a

tragic story and Russell then went on to

meet this Paradox in his own way some

complicated thing called the theory of

types it remains true I had ought to

press this point that an enormous amount

of the of the work that Russell had done

and spent years over Fraga had already

done and Russell didn't know yes that is

true but it's also true that although

Fraga did it first and some experts

today think that Fraga did most of it

better it was through Russell that the

ideas actually became famous in

philosophy and influential in philosophy

that is true I don't know why it was

that frago's work was so uh neglected

and partly because the third reason that

um interest in the new developments of

logic was very much an English thing

because therefore frago's work wasn't

taken up in Germany

uh because in Germany the psychological

mistaken psychological view of logic

still prevailed yeah and wasn't taken

I'm in England simply because of English

instrumentality and and in incompetence

in foreign languages and it was left but

Russell who had been brought up by

German governesses and German nurses but

even Russell only got indirect clear

what happened was the Russell and his

collaborator Whitehead went to a

congress in Paris in 1903 I met an

Italian logician called piano and it was

through piano

whose work enormously impressed them and

was working in the same direction with a

less efficient system and fragrance that

they got to hear a Fraga and then

Russell redfagger had once realized how

how important that it was and the result

of all this was that the science of

logic which had remained virtually

static for over 2 000 years since

Aristotle suddenly exploded a whole new

and enormously through Russ mainly

through Russell and Whitehead's

principle of Mathematica which took them

together about ten oh ten years well

Russell wrote the principles of

mathematics in 1903 where he does

recognize with the freak I think in the

previous and in the opinion he does yes

and then then he went on with his with

his tutor uh Trinity Cambridge Whitehead

to write a three volume worked called

principal Mathematica in which he

actually tried to do the work of

deducing mathematics from logic and it's

full of formulas and and it is it is a

stupendous work although as you rightly

said it doesn't uh quite achieve the

standards of logical rigor that freyja

achieved before it but this was the one

that really uh popularized the subject

we had all sorts of people took it up

but it man it took from there on it has

preceded by Leaps and Bounds and it's

now so to speak a major field of

intellectual Endeavor throughout the

Western World in every University but

it's interesting I think also should be

mentioned that one of the effects has

been not so much to subdue mathematics

to logic which is what Fraga and Russell

wanted but to subdue logic to

mathematics and that the the in recent

years

mathematical logic has become more and

more mathematical yes and less and has

had less and less to do with philosophy

in general and even a disciple Fraga

like Michael damit is more interested in

the semantic side of it the theory of

meaning that he has his friend himself

to be in the purely mathematical side

well unlike Fraga Russell actually made

the explicit step after he'd done all

this work to General philosophy really

not until he was 40 years old but then

he did and he started producing General

works of philosophy can you give us some

indication of of of what position well

it's very hard how little the two were

connected they

um

the one place where I suppose they are

connected is something that Russell

called the theory of uh descriptions

there was a puzzle about the meaning of

of statements like the president King of

France which didn't denote anything what

did you say the president King of France

is bald exactly there is no king of

France therefore I didn't know anything

and therefore there was a question how

it could be meaningful and there had

been philosophers a notable example is a

German called Minong who then thought

that that these things not everybody

called subsistent entities and Russell

thoughts was rubbish and he he shared a

way of translating out such Expressions

by saying that they in fact contained

covert existence

claims okay was translated into there is

one thing that now rules over France and

whatever it is France is born roughly

and this got rid of of the of the

apparent Paradox and so in that way his

logical work had a result of implication

but in the main he simply went off from

another attack his first purely

philosophical book came out in 1912 it's

called the problems of philosophy it's a

home University library books and in my

view still all the best introduction to

philosophers there is because Russell

says a marvelous writer although it's a

little bit old-fashioned and there he

really takes no account with logical

work at all he simply continues the

British imperative tradition this is a

book that follows straight on from

and it starts off with the theory of our

perception it's very like Barclay there

it says that what we perceive are not

tables and chairs and things but what

Berkeley what luck called Simple ideas

what uh Russell following his friend

were called sense data and then deals

with the old traditional philosophical

question how on the basis of being

presented with these sense impressions

we arrive at physical objects and then

he deals with a set of traditional

philosophical problems in in that sort

of way and

he more or less gave up logic after uh

Mathematica he himself said that

um this wore him out

um

he collaborated in the book on the book

with Whitehead but Whitehead was

teaching mathematics at Cambridge and

mainly occupied with that Russell at

that time was living independently had a

lecture ship but came into 1915 but in

the first decade of the century he was

living on his independent income and so

he had that the actual work of writing

out all his proofs and he said that this

really

um

incapacitated him but ever doing any

detailed work in future and this is some

extent true all his network is full of

brilliant ideas they never he never

fully works out it's a certain point he

gets born he says oh yes it goes on like

this he just bought through to dot the

eyes and and cross the t's and this is

true of what it's there to work I think

that I see one very important continuing

concern in the later work I'd be

interested to know if you agree with

this or not you've just said I'm sure

rightly that that Russell was a a

radical empiricist in a direct tradition

of Lark and human uh it seems to me that

Russell was always concerned to validate

the Natural Sciences in terms of sense

data that he always wanted to show that

the whole Corpus of our scientific

knowledge could be derived from and was

derived from nothing but observations

and our Reflections on our observations

not always uh I think you make one very

important important Point here and one

in fact that I overlooked when I was uh

to ask you a few moments ago and that is

that from the very beginning

Russell's approaches philosophy was an

interest in justification there's a

quite an amusing story that uh when he

was about 12 his elder brother who said

to school Russell was taught at home the

elder brother Frank was said to school

taught Russell geometry and Russell

refused to accept the axioms he wanted

to have them proved and his brother said

that they couldn't get on unless they

give us accepted the accidents they

agreed to provisionally but he always

wanted just to have everything Justified

and this was common both in his approach

to logical mathematics and his approach

to other branches of knowledge and as

you say also in his opposed to science

he wanted to have a basis for our belief

in science and but here his views varied

in the um

uh mentioned the problems of philosophy

it's quite true that he wanted to start

with sense data but he didn't think that

all scientific or even all common sense

statements statements like out of the

table can be could be reduced to sensory

statements he adopted a causal theory

that you could

um assume the existence of the physical

world as the best explanation for our

sensory experiences then he changed his

View and in the next important book he

published on the theory of knowledge

which was a knowledge of the external

World which came out in 1914 he did take

the view you just you just referred to

namely he thought you could actually

reduce

every not only every Common Sense

statement but every scientific statement

two statements about our actual and

possible hypothetical sense experiences

and this this put this view which is

technically known as phenomenalism and

was the view of of uh Barclay if you rob

Barkley of God and also the viewer of

John Stuart Mill who was incidentally

Russell's Godfather lay Godfather

because because

they Godfather

um this phenomenalistic view was

developed in Arnold's external world and

also in some important essays that

Russell wrote in a book called mysticism

and logic which he produced during the

first world war an essay called

something like sense later and physics

is the most important one

and he continued this

um in another important book called The

analysis of mind which came out I think

in 1921 and he adopted a theory which

had been Advanced before him by the

pragmatist William James Henry James's

um elder brother in which both mind and

matter were composed of what James

called neutral stuff and which were

where in fact since data and images and

and they differed only in being

different Arrangements this fundamental

data but then Russell gave this up and

in 1925 we'll identifies the Curious

book that is the matter where he well

the traces of this view still remaining

but he mainly went back to the causal

theory that that he'd held in 1912 and

when he revived his interest in

philosophy in the 1940s and any news

final or his next last philosophical

book uh human knowledge and scope and

limits he goes back to a causal theory

he always he always thought that the

basis of our knowledge uh was laying in

in in science experience but he varied

uh in uh in the next step I mean he it

was only during one period of his work

that he thought that the whole thing

could be uh reduced to sensory terms uh

more often and certainly in the LA at

the end of his life irreverently he he

adhered to the causal Theory which put

the physical world beyond all the veil

observation one thing that is constant

with Russell

um is the attempt to bring a wholly new

rigor to bear in philosophy not only of

a logical kind but one's tempted to say

the scientific kind he was always very

concerned for example that our beliefs

should relate to the evidence for them

this is something he reiterated over and

over again isn't it and it's something

which if taken seriously sweeps aside a

great deal of traditional philosophizing

and traditional thinking oh yes that I

think is true and I think that this you

already mentioned that uh Russell and

inflambikistan indeed wickenstein was

Russell's uh

and uh as you know wittenstein and also

that group of philosophers in Vienna

called the Vienna Circle condemned what

they call metaphysics and metaphysics in

their view was existed at least partly

in any attempt to describe the world in

non-scientific terms they thought that

this was the only World there is and

that science was a matter of forming

theories about it which were verified by

observation and any assumption that was

Superior world a world inhabited by gods

or anything of that thought was

nonsensical and Russell certainly all

the time held this there and was always

concerned to just write sounds and was

always worried by the fact he thought

the justification for science was

extremely problematic yeah I mean and it

remained problematic to the end to the

end I mean and in the interesting in in

the last book that he wrote a human

knowledge the one I referred to he then

sets out what he thinks uh the set of

assumptions that required to be made if

belief in scientific theories is to be

justified and makes it quite clear do

you think this is these assumptions must

as well be taken on faith yes and he

tried to work out what we call a theory

of induction but was never entirely

satisfied with it and and more or less

said well I remember what he said he

said that we really can't be sure that

science is true but it has a greater

chance of being true than anything else

that could be surrounded its rival yes

that he still couldn't validate it in

the way he couldn't validate in the way

he would like to like to have done

that's just talk now in an orderly way

about the influence of Russell because

he and Wittgenstein I suppose must be

the two most influential philosophers in

the 20th century at least in the

English-speaking world now I suppose

Russell's first great influence was on

his immediate contemporaries and indeed

older uh contemporaries like Whitehead

and MOA in the in the Cambridge of his

young day

um let us put it this way in in the

purely

logical work in which Russell Almighty

had collaborated it was I think Russell

who had the monitoring ideas I mean I

think the theory of types they have

descriptions uh came from Russell but

when it came to trying to apply that

sort of technique to philosophy which is

what saint Russell did in knowledge of

the external world for example in trying

to reduce abstract

Concepts like concepts of points and

instance to observational terms then it

Whitehead who took the lead and Russell

got his ideas of Whitehead and did they

quarreled over this because Russell

didn't pay Whitehead sufficient

acknowledgment you'll find that they are

developed in two books of writing that

came out after the war the principles of

natural knowledge and the concept of

Nature and Russell at one time

was influenced by McTaggart who was the

disciple of Hegel and got Russell to be

both Russell Moore to begin to be

idealists and more first of all rebelled

against this the interests of Common

Sense more was great defender of Common

Sense and the influence Russell to the

extent that he that he cured Russell

very belief in idealism so the infant

the influence went that way also it with

respect to ethics which was never

greatly interested he accepted like all

Bloom's prayer he accepted Morris

principal ethical he believed that good

was a non-natural indefinable uh concept

but then Russell had a very big

influence on the later for my generation

of philosophers in as much as he

convinced us that since science was

Sovereign in the description of the

world or philosophy could do was he

elucidated analyze and so Russell can be

regarded I think as the father of

analysis but here he differs profoundly

from Wittgenstein I don't want to go to

too deeply to wickenstein but well I'd

rather you didn't because we're going to

devote the whole of the next program to

be but one thing it will come out in our

next program it's the biggest I thought

that philosophy was largely a matter of

people being getting into a model and

The Business of people like because I

must do as in his own famous phrase show

the fly the way out of the fly bottle to

kill people of these models well Russell

always thought that philosophical

problems had a solution and that was why

he was so very hostile to the purely

linguistic philosophy a little bit of

Oxford after the war under the

leadership of of Austin because

the mere explanation of language for its

own sake the the the exploration of the

implications of English usage was

trivial and Russell really thought there

were questions about justification of

our beliefs that

um it was this is a philosophy to answer

and these questions were answerable he

thought that the answers could be

discovered if you worked at it hard

enough otherwise you didn't think

philosophy was worth doing I'm not here

I agree with it yes I was going to say I

want to put a personal question to you

because you own your life you have

acknowledged that you yourself have been

enormously influenced so we wrestled and

you make that very clear and always have

so you you can tell us what it's like

from the inside as it were to have been

influenced by Russell what has its

influence been on you on me uh it's been

first of all that unlike most of my

contemporaries I still think one should

start with what Russell called sends

data what I now political since qualia

that is a technical difference whether

you begin with the particulars or or or

something more General

um but for our present purposes it comes

to the same thing so that on the whole I

I share his um uh certainly the starting

point of views on perception I share

them I also agree with the importance

the Primacy he attaches to the theory of

knowledge I

M until I've always been a thorough

going empiricist I agree with the view

that Russell derived from Hume there's

no necessity of The Logical necessity

and so that there's not such thing as

causal tests they cause it was just a

matter

about whom originally said it was namely

constant conjunction and something

purely contingent I agree with Russell

in rejecting any form of theology or

anyhow Transcendent Theology and

injecting metaphysics and I also most

importantly agree with Russell the

philosophy wouldn't be worth doing

unless it posed questions to which we

could find the answers perhaps not he

perhaps not I but cleverer persons than

I will eventually find them and all

these are examples not just of your

agreeing with him but of him having

influence oh yes are they all of them

quite directly yes quite directly quite

directly and I think you've even been

influenced by him in the way you write

haven't you that appears what I do

regard him as a master of English

prayers and I think I'm not in the same

class as

but I do think that I do write English

reasonably well and I do think and again

partly under his influence

yes I think there is affiliation there

both the ideas and of style

from Hume through Mill

to Russell and coming down the stage to

me yeah now the the philosophers that

we're discussing here Fraga and Russell

have enormous effect on the living

yourself included now I now want to talk

about the Revival of interest in Fraga

after the second world war so that the

interest in Fraga and the interest in

Russell for the first time proceeds side

by side into the age that we now live in

it's very difficult to account for

historical events particularly in such

short perspective and the I think the in

the there certainly was in immediately

after the war a decline in Russell's

influence in here in England and this is

I think not due to a Revival of interest

in Fraga but to uh

an increased importance attached to the

work of Wittgenstein and Moore in most

cases that I enormously liked and

respect him as a man I think

philosophically it was excessive and I

think this was to be responsible for

this but partly not so much Ryle who

respected Russell but mainly Austin who

uh was the linguistic philosopher and

narrowest possible sense and had a great

respect for more as as someone who

attached great importance to ordering

his users into common sense and so on

Common Sense was said by Russell is that

it'll be the metaphysics of savages and

I think it was the upgrading of more

that was responsible for at that time

for the downgrading of Russell and this

is a train that's now been reversed I'm

glad to say I I think you go a bit too

far in saying Russell was downgraded

because if one thinks back to those

post-war years and thinks about who were

the major philosophers in the

English-speaking world the shortest of

shortlists would have to include apart

from Russell himself vittgenstein Karl

Popper Quine Gilbert rail yourself and

all of you were massively influenced by

Russell yes Perhaps Perhaps I'm I

uh I mean yes so you would know better

than I because you after our upper talks

in in in the 50s when I had already

departed um uh for for London but my

certainly the impression reaching Us in

London was that wrestlers began that

means you're taking an oxford-based View

and I think that's what's mistaken about

the view right I think there were other

people around then who disparaged

Russell it's perfectly true yes but

their work and their influences I'm very

glad he had to hear this yeah and I

certainly Russell has has recovered he

himself yeah the fact that he himself

thought this yeah because I was seeing

great idea we believe him at the time I

I organized the group in LA in London

that he attended and he was certainly uh

miffed his perhaps too mild but he

thought that that he that he wasn't

getting his due and all floss is a

slightly vein and and he this certainly

caused him pain but we agree in any case

that that he's come back he's come back

yes now um the Revival of freyja is

something that I really I think I'm

can't explain I don't even know exactly

how it happened probably

it started in America uh with the

development of our school of logicians

led by a man called Alonso Church who

insisted on very great rigor in logical

mathematics and found it in Fraga and

didn't find it in in Russell and

Whitehead of course they did find it

elsewhere they found it for example in

Hilbert they disagree with Hilbert for

other reasons and in England it seems to

have been

the first evidence I can find of it is

in a book published or fairly late about

1960 I think by William and Martha Neal

which is a very uh impressive history of

logic in which which very great

importance is given to Freda he's put on

a level with Aristotle these are two

great names

suddenly remind me there was a

translation in the early 50s 1950 itself

950 itself made by Austin

of fraga's grundlagen and then there was

also a translation made two or three

years later by uh Max black an

Englishman living working in America and

by Peter geech

of two of fragras very obscure but

important semantic essays one of them

called sense and reference and the other

called functional concept and so there

was in the early 50s this sudden

interest in Prego but I'm not quite

certain what led to it or indeed what

conference is it had well a lot of very

bright younger people took it up didn't

they and were influenced by it whether

that'll last a lot I don't know but it

certainly seems to me to have been going

on recently I find very little influence

of fragrant current philosophical work

apart from the work of damit if you if

you look at the example I think now

perhaps some of the most interesting

work being done has been done in America

and if we look at the work of people

like Quine and and Putnam and and Thomas

Nagel and uh and Donald Davidson in

particular you don't find so strong

influence of Fraga except perhaps in

Davidson's case indirectly through the

work of the Polish tradition Dusky on

Truth which says links up with vegan as

much as frega linked himself linked

meaning and Truth are you confident that

the influence of Russell will last

uh yes do i why why so because I think

because that because that is who I take

a philosophy I think that that the

questions he asked are the important

philosophical questions and I think that

his answers to them whether uh right or

wrong will always need to be taken into

consideration and if I'm right about you

too you also think that he's approached

his conception of what philosophy is is

the right conception yes that it

consists of clarification therefore

analysis and justification therefore

argument of our important beliefs

written in straightforward English prose

oh well obviously English was written in

in straightforward prayer and

straightforward prayers yes thank you

very much professor