Essays by Bertrand Russell: On Denoting, Russell-einstein Manifesto, Why I Am Not a Christian, 16 Questions on the Assassination

by Bertrand Russell

Chapters: On Denoting, Russell-einstein Manifesto, Why I Am Not a Christian, 16 Questions on the Assassination. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: "On Denoting," written by Bertrand Russell, is one of the most significant and influential philosophical essays of the 20th century. It was published in the philosophy journal Mind in 1905; then reprinted, in both a special 2005 anniversary issue of the same journal and in Russell's Logic and Knowledge, 1956. In it, Russell introduces definite and indefinite descriptions, formulates descriptivism with regard to proper names, and characterizes proper names as "disguised" or "abbreviated" definite descriptions. In the 1930s, Frank P. Ramsey referred to the essay as "that paradigm of philosophy." More recently, a contributor to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy singled it out as "the paradigm of philosophy," and called it a work of "tremendous insight" that has provoked discussion and debate among philosophers of language and linguists for over a century. For Russell, a denoting phrase is a singular noun phrase, preceded by a quantifier, whose predicate term is satisfied by some particular. Such phrases do not contribute objects as the constituents of the singular propositions in which they occur. Denotation, in other words, is a semantically inert property, in this view. Whereas Frege held that there were two distinct parts (or aspects) of the meaning of every term, phrase or sentence (its Sinn and Bedeutung), Russell explicitly rejects the notion of sense (Sinn) and replaces it with the idea of a propositional function (i.e., a function from objects to abstract propositions that are the contents of sentences). This is so because, for Russell, propositions must have concrete, really existing entiti...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=472209

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Politics

Unknown Binding

First published June 21, 2010

About the author

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

Reviews

[Colin Howard]

On Denoting: this is by far the most important of the essays in this collection, and perhaps one of the most influential essays written by Bertrand Russell on analytic philosophy. It is, that’s very unfortunate that I can’t say I fully understood it. Even after having watched many lectures and rereading it while taking notes, it remains (un?)necessarily convoluted. Nevertheless, understanding the gist of it, I am glad I took the time to read it.

Russell-Einstein Manifesto: this was an interesting read, though unfortunately, we can now say that the warning was not heeded. At the same time, in hindsight, we can see that the fear that nuclear arsenals would be used if possessed has turned out not be the case, at least thus far.

Why I am Not a Christian: outside of the world of academia and philosophy lovers, this is probably Russell’s most known argument, that of atheism. While it has within it a few interesting arguments, it is relatively weak, philosophically speaking, compared to the many others that have been proposed – which is a little bit disappointing, coming from an intellectual at the level of Russell. For a better argument might I recommend the argument from nonbelief.

16 Questions on the Assassination: Akin to the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, this is a strictly political and historically-emblematic piece. The arguments, for the doubts of evidence are well based, and it does lead a reasonable person to question the sincerity of the clams put forward by the press at the time of the assassination. Though this might put Russell in the camp of conspiracy theorist, based on his intellect, and overall genius, I wonder if it might instead merit moving those with a similar belief (or rather lack of belief) out of the camp of conspiracy theorists.

Overall: overall the reading was relatively light and easily understandable, with the exception of course of “On Denoting”, and both historically and ahistorically relevant. Would I recommend this collection of essays to my friends? Unlikely; unless, of course they were cramming to try to get into a masters degree.

[Mohamad Jaber]

Those books are getting predictable and monotonous.

[Dmitry Sharikov]

Довольно очевидные аргументы для тех, кто пробовал заниматься этим вопросом