In Russell's view, an object must have denotation, or reference, in order to have a place in rigorous logic. He explains that propositions cannot be determined true or false when discussing objects without a real-world reference. I mostly agree with Russell in this case, because although people often use logic with imaginary objects and scenarios, possibly to predict or plan the future, these imaginary objects and events lack in the amount of nearly-infinite properties and connotations that real objects have. For example, I can logically say that "unicorns are horse-like creatures", and that "humans ride horse-like creatures", which are both true in most people's senses of "unicorns" and "horse-like". However, I cannot say that in some imaginary world humans ride unicorns, because many details about unicorns (as well as those of what it means to be "horse-like", i.e. the sense of "horse") are not fully fleshed out. In this imaginary world, unicorns might be horse-like in looks and behavior, but buck off any men who try to ride them.
I do not quite agree with Russell on the idea that "I met Jones" and "I met a man" are of different forms. There exists a man who is Jones, and there exists an entity, Jones, who is a man. If there was no formal introduction and some one asks "Did you meet Jones, the librarian?" to someone coming out of the library, their friend might reply "I met a man", meaning "I met a man, and since he was the only person there, I assume the man I met is the Jones in question, but cannot be sure.
If names are really descriptions, as Russell proposes, why does he earlier claim that "Scott is Sir Walter" is an identity and that "Scott is the author of Waverly" is a proposition? Why isn't the latter considered an identity, since only one author of Waverly exists?
In the hopes to answer Hayley's question, I would pose the answer: 'Scott is Sir Walter' identifies two names 'Scott' and 'Sir Walter'. Both are proper nouns, which lack any qualities which make them separate. To my understanding, 'Scott' is as innately meaningless as 'Sir Walter', therefore they are equivalent, or form an identity relationship, with each other. There are no real world qualities that denote a 'Scott', rather 'Scott' can be specified as having the qualities of being a man and/or being the author of Waverly. Therefore, not only is 'Scott is Sir Walter' forming an identity relationship as they both innately refer to nothing, 'Scott is the author of Waverly' denotes an imaginary thing 'Scott' and prescribes it a real world quality 'the author of Waverly'.
ReplyDeleteThis extends to the previous paragraph with Hayley's disagreement with Russell's idea that 'I met Jones' and 'I met a man' are distinct. I think Russell would deny that there exists a man who is Jones. That, to my logic, would extend to 'a man having the quality of being a Jones', however Russell's qualities base themselves in the real world, so a conjuration such as Jones cannot be a quality.