ONT Re: Russell -- Philosophy Of Logical Atomism
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POLA. Note 11
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| 1. Facts and Propositions (cont.)
|
| Perhaps I ought to say a word or two about what I am
| understanding by symbolism, because I think some people
| think you only mean mathematical symbols when you talk
| about symbolism. I am using it in a sense to include
| all language of every sort and kind, so that every
| word is a symbol, and every sentence, and so forth.
|
| When I speak of a symbol I simply mean something that "means" something else,
| and as to what I mean by "meaning" I am not prepared to tell you. I will in
| the course of time enumerate a strictly infinite number of different things
| that "meaning" may mean but I shall not consider that I have exhausted the
| discussion by doing that. I think that the notion of meaning is always
| more or less psychological, and that it is not possible to get a pure
| logical theory of meaning, nor therefore of symbolism. I think that
| it is of the very essence of the explanation of what you mean by a
| symbol to take account of such things as knowing, of cognitive
| relations, and probably also of association. At any rate
| I am pretty clear that the theory of symbolism and the
| use of symbolism is not a thing that can be explained
| in pure logic without taking account of the various
| cognitive relations that you may have to things.
|
| Russell, POLA, p. 45.
|
| Bertrand Russell, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism", pp. 35-155
| in 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism', edited with an introduction
| by David Pears, Open Court, La Salle, IL, 1985. First published 1918.
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