The Analysis of Mind, Bertrand Russell [best desktop ebook reader .txt] 📗

the meanings of

its constituent words. Propositions occur in pairs, distinguished

(in simple cases) by the absence or presence of the word “not.”

Two such propositions have the same objective, but opposite

meanings: when one is true, the other is false, and when one is

false, the other is true.

 

The purely formal definition of truth and falsehood offers little

difficulty. What is required is a formal expression of the fact

that a proposition is true when it points towards its objective,

and false when it points away from it, In very simple cases we

can give a very simple account of this: we can say that true

propositions actually resemble their objectives in a way in which

false propositions do not. But for this purpose it is necessary

to revert to image-propositions instead of word-propositions. Let

us take again the illustration of a memory-image of a familiar

room, and let us suppose that in the image the window is to the

left of the door. If in fact the window is to the left of the

door, there is a correspondence between the image and the

objective; there is the same relation between the window and the

door as between the images of them. The image-memory consists of

the image of the window to the left of the image of the door.

When this is true, the very same relation relates the terms of

the objective (namely the window and the door) as relates the

images which mean them. In this case the correspondence which

constitutes truth is very simple.

 

In the case we have just been considering the objective consists

of two parts with a certain relation (that of left-to-right), and

the proposition consists of images of these parts with the very

same relation. The same proposition, if it were false, would have

a less simple formal relation to its objective. If the

image-proposition consists of an image of the window to the left

of an image of the door, while in fact the window is not to the

left of the door, the proposition does not result from the

objective by the mere substitution of images for their

prototypes. Thus in this unusually simple case we can say that a

true proposition “corresponds” to its objective in a formal sense

in which a false proposition does not. Perhaps it may be possible

to modify this notion of formal correspondence in such a way as

to be more widely applicable, but if so, the modifications

required will be by no means slight. The reasons for this must

now be considered.

 

To begin with, the simple type of correspondence we have been

exhibiting can hardly occur when words are substituted for

images, because, in word-propositions, relations are usually

expressed by words, which are not themselves relations. Take such

a proposition as “Socrates precedes Plato.” Here the word

“precedes” is just as solid as the words “Socrates” and “Plato”;

it MEANS a relation, but is not a relation. Thus the objective

which makes our proposition true consists of TWO terms with a

relation between them, whereas our proposition consists of THREE

terms with a relation of order between them. Of course, it would

be perfectly possible, theoretically, to indicate a few chosen

relations, not by words, but by relations between the other

words. “Socrates-Plato” might be used to mean “Socrates precedes

Plato”; “PlaSocrates-to” might be used to mean “Plato was born

before Socrates and died after him”; and so on. But the

possibilities of such a method would be very limited. For aught I

know, there may be languages that use it, but they are not among

the languages with which I am acquainted. And in any case, in

view of the multiplicity of relations that we wish to express, no

language could advance far without words for relations. But as

soon as we have words for relations, word-propositions have

necessarily more terms than the facts to which they refer, and

cannot therefore correspond so simply with their objectives as

some image-propositions can.

 

The consideration of negative propositions and negative facts

introduces further complications. An image-proposition is

necessarily positive: we can image the window to the left of the

door, or to the right of the door, but we can form no image of

the bare negative “the window not to the left of the door.” We

can DISBELIEVE the image-proposition expressed by “the window to

the left of the door,” and our disbelief will be true if the

window is not to the left of the door. But we can form no image

of the fact that the window is not to the left of the door.

Attempts have often been made to deny such negative facts, but,

for reasons which I have given elsewhere,* I believe these

attempts to be mistaken, and I shall assume that there are

negative facts.

 

* “Monist,” January, 1919, p. 42 ff.

 

Word-propositions, like image-propositions, are always positive

facts. The fact that Socrates precedes Plato is symbolized in

English by the fact that the word “precedes” occurs between the

words “Socrates” and “Plato.” But we cannot symbolize the fact

that Plato does not precede Socrates by not putting the word

“precedes” between “Plato” and “Socrates.” A negative fact is not

sensible, and language, being intended for communication, has to

be sensible. Therefore we symbolize the fact that Plato does not

precede Socrates by putting the words “does not precede” between

“Plato” and “Socrates.” We thus obtain a series of words which is

just as positive a fact as the series “Socrates precedes Plato.”

The propositions asserting negative facts are themselves positive

facts; they are merely different positive facts from those

asserting positive facts.

 

We have thus, as regards the opposition of positive and negative,

three different sorts of duality, according as we are dealing

with facts, image-propositions, or word-propositions. We have,

namely:

 

(1) Positive and negative facts;

 

(2) Image-propositions, which may be believed or disbelieved, but

do not allow any duality of content corresponding to positive and

negative facts;

 

(3) Word-propositions, which are always positive facts, but are

of two kinds: one verified by a positive objective, the other by

a negative objective.

 

Owing to these complications, the simplest type of correspondence

is impossible when either negative facts or negative propositions

are involved.

 

Even when we confine ourselves to relations between two terms

which are both imaged, it may be impossible to form an

image-proposition in which the relation of the terms is

represented by the same relation of the images. Suppose we say

“Caesar was 2,000 years before Foch,” we express a certain

temporal relation between Caesar and Foch; but we cannot allow

2,000 years to elapse between our image of Caesar and our image

of Foch. This is perhaps not a fair example, since “2,000 years

before” is not a direct relation. But take a case where the

relation is direct, say, “the sun is brighter than the moon.” We

can form visual images of sunshine and moonshine, and it may

happen that our image of the sunshine is the brighter of the two,

but this is by no means either necessary or sufficient. The act

of comparison, implied in our judgment, is something more than

the mere coexistence of two images, one of which is in fact

brighter than the other. It would take us too far from our main

topic if we were to go into the question what actually occurs

when we make this judgment. Enough has been said to show that the

correspondence between the belief and its objective is more

complicated in this case than in that of the window to the left

of the door, and this was all that had to be proved.

 

In spite of these complications, the general nature of the formal

correspondence which makes truth is clear from our instances. In

the case of the simpler kind of propositions, namely those that I

call “atomic” propositions, where there is only one word

expressing a relation, the objective which would verify our

proposition, assuming that the word “not” is absent, is obtained

by replacing each word by what it means, the word meaning a

relation being replaced by this relation among the meanings of

the other words. For example, if the proposition is “Socrates

precedes Plato,” the objective which verifies it results from

replacing the word “Socrates” by Socrates, the word “Plato” by

Plato, and the word “precedes” by the relation of preceding

between Socrates and Plato. If the result of this process is a

fact, the proposition is true; if not, it is false. When our

proposition is “Socrates does not precede Plato,” the conditions

of truth and falsehood are exactly reversed. More complicated

propositions can be dealt with on the same lines. In fact, the

purely formal question, which has occupied us in this last

section, offers no very formidable difficulties.

 

I do not believe that the above formal theory is untrue, but I do

believe that it is inadequate. It does not, for example, throw

any light upon our preference for true beliefs rather than false

ones. This preference is only explicable by taking account of the

causal efficacy of beliefs, and of the greater appropriateness of

the responses resulting from true beliefs. But appropriateness

depends upon purpose, and purpose thus becomes a vital part of

theory of knowledge.

 

LECTURE XIV. EMOTIONS AND WILL

 

On the two subjects of the present lecture I have nothing

original to say, and I am treating them only in order to complete

the discussion of my main thesis, namely that all psychic

phenomena are built up out of sensations and images alone.

 

Emotions are traditionally regarded by psychologists as a

separate class of mental occurrences: I am, of course, not

concerned to deny the obvious fact that they have characteristics

which make a special investigation of them necessary. What I am

concerned with is the analysis of emotions. It is clear that an

emotion is essentially complex, and we have to inquire whether it

ever contains any non-physiological material not reducible to

sensations and images and their relations.

 

Although what specially concerns us is the analysis of emotions,

we shall find that the more important topic is the physiological

causation of emotions. This is a subject upon which much valuable

and exceedingly interesting work has been done, whereas the bare

analysis of emotions has proved somewhat barren. In view of the

fact that we have defined perceptions, sensations, and images by

their physiological causation, it is evident that our problem of

the analysis of the emotions is bound up with the problem of

their physiological causation.

 

Modern views on the causation of emotions begin with what is

called the James-Lange theory. James states this view in the

following terms (“Psychology,” vol. ii, p. 449):

 

“Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions, grief,

fear, rage, love, is that the mental perception of some fact

excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this

latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My

theory, on the contrary, is that THE BODILY CHANGES FOLLOW

DIRECTLY THE PERCEPTION OF THE EXCITING FACT, AND THAT OUR

FEELING OF THE SAME CHANGES AS THEY OCCUR IS THE EMOTION

(James’s italics). Common sense says: we lose our fortune, are

sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are

insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to

be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect, that

the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other,

that the bodily manifestations must first be interposed between,

and that the more rational statement is that we feel sorry

because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we

tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are

sorry, angry, or fearful, as the