Abstract
This chapter criticizes the empirical and “scientific” approach to consciousness as presented in analytic and linguistic philosophers. The chapter criticizes Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus theory of consciousness as reducible to language, as he seeks to base consciousness in the paucity and reductivism of simple names, words, and objects and as it is followed up in his Philosophical Investigations, which abandons the earlier paradigm in favor of his “ordinary language theory,” the latter as behaviorally learned. Russell’s foray against Hegelian absolute idealism is challenged by his invocation of a “logical atomism,” which he confesses is his nominal substitution for “physical atomism,” i.e., sense data and his flirtation with William James’ flawed theory of “neutral monism.” Both Wittgenstein and Russell are shown to be quite incapable of accounting for any plausible conception of a “personal identity.” Wittgenstein replaces “self-identity” with “language games” and Russell eliminates personal identity along with all metaphysical principles.
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Notes
- 1.
Mijuskovic, Ben, The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments: The Simplicity of Thought and Soul from the Cambridge Platonists to Kant: The History of an Argument (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). In the Phaedo, Plato sets the historical and philosophical stage for the principle of human consciousness as both immaterial and active, which evolves into both subjective and objective idealism. In his dialogue, the Meno, he also establishes the Kantian distinction of a priori synthetic judgments: “Socrates: Well, now, let’s us try to tell you what shape is. See if you accept this definition? Let us define it as the only thing which always [universally and necessarily] accompanies color…I should be content if your definition of virtue were on similar lines” (Phaedo, 75b). This is precisely the cognitive relational principle that both Wittgenstein and Russell epistemically violate. And although Kant would disapprove of this instantiation as an example, both Husserl and Sartre appeal to it.
- 2.
The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, edited by George Pitcher (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1966), 17. As many commentators have pointed out, Wittgenstein shares the “analytic” model of knowledge with most of the notable epistemological figures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Hobbes, Locke, and Hume; cf. John Gibson, John Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and Its Historical Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1968), 47 ff. Basically this principle was critically resumed as the pivotal rejoinder directed against the British Hegelians.
- 3.
Mijuskovic, Ben, “Hume on Space (and Time),” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 15:4 (1977); reprinted in David Hume: Critical Assessments, edited by Stanley Tweyman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1994), II, 167–175.
- 4.
Engel, Morris, S., “Schopenhauer’s Impact on Wittgenstein,” in Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement, edited by Michael Fox (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980), 236. Schopenhauer’s philosophy was very much in vogue during Wittgenstein’s Vienna years and served as a constant theme of discussion among the Vienna Circle of philosophers. Cf. Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), passim.
- 5.
Russell, Bertrand, Logic and Knowledge; Essays, 1901–1951, edited by R. C. Marsh (Allen and Unwin, 1966), 179, 203. For the purposes of this discussion, I have elected to avoid the difficult interpretational problems Russell introduces concerning the distinction between sense data, as immediate mental contents, elements of consciousness, and “qualitative” sensibilia, as independent possibilities of unsensed sensa, if one were to compare passages in Mysticism and Logic with Our Knowledge of the External World. Later, in The Analysis of Mind (1921), Russell insists even more clearly that William James’ theory of “neutral monism” implies a distinction between phenomenal sense data and physical sensations but that the difference depends on whether we are concerned with a mental, psychological context or with a material physical one. But these distinctions, as critics have pointed, hardly enable Russell any more than they did Hume to escape the confines of phenomenalism; cf., Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969), I, 306.
- 6.
Russell, Bertrand, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1963), 14–16, 29 ff., 36. In his analysis, space is anything but a simple datum. Cf. Russell’s A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958, first published in 1900). 103–104, 239, 241, 242; cf., Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, I, II, vi, pages 67–68; and see Ben Mijuskovic, “Hume on Space (and Time),” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 15:4 (1977), which discusses the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence debate over the ontological and epistemological status of Newtonian versus Leibnizian space and time and Hume’s doctrine of the minima sensibilia.
- 7.
Husserl, Edmund, The Idea of Phenomenology, translated by William Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), introductory comments, xxi–xxii. For Husserl’s view, consult pages 24, 40.
- 8.
Husserl, Edmund, The Paris Lectures, translated by Peter Koestenbaum (The Hague: Marinus Nijhoff, 1974), xii.
Bibliography
Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969).
Engel, Morris S., “Schopenhauer’s Impact on Wittgenstein,” in Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement, edited by Michael Fox (Sussex: Harvester Press, 1980), 236.
Gibson, John. John Locke’s Theory of Knowledge and Its Historical Relations (Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature, I, II, vi, pages 67–68.
Husserl, Edmund, The Idea of Phenomenology, translated by William Alston and George Nakhnikian (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.
Husserl, Edmund, The Paris Lectures, translated by Peter Koestenbaum (The Hague: Marinus Nijhoff, 1974), xii.
Janik, Allan, and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), passim.
Mijuskovic, Ben, The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments: The Simplicity, Unity, and Identity of Thought and Soul from the Cambridge Platonists to Kant: The History of an Argument (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974).
Mijuskovic, Ben, “Hume on Space (and Time),” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 15:4 (1977); reprinted in David Hume: Critical Assessments, edited by Stanley Tweyman (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1994), II, 167–175.
Pitcher, George, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1966).
Russell, Bertrand, Logic and Knowledge; Essays, 1901–1951, edited by R. C. Marsh (Allen and Unwin, 1966), 179, 203.
Russell, Bertrand. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958, first published in 1900).
Russell, Bertrand. Mysticism and Logic with Our Knowledge of the External World. Later, in The Analysis of Mind (1921).
Russell, Bertrand, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1963), 14–16, 29 ff.
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Mijuskovic, B.L. (2022). Consciousness Versus Language: Wittgenstein and Russell. In: The Philosophical Roots of Loneliness and Intimacy . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90602-3_2
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