Devine 1

A Discussion on Russell, Wittgenstein and Austin

Bertrand Russell is considered one of the originators of analytic

philosophy. His controversial view outlined in The Philosophy of

Logical Atomism came into heavy criticism from both Ludwig

Wittgenstein, and later by J.L. Austin, who criticized Russell as well as

other Russellian philosophers, in Sense and Sensibilia.

Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell had a tumultuous

unique relationship. It can be argued that their effect on each other

profoundly changed both of their philosophical ideologies. Russell’s

views on how language organizes the world are deeply rooted in the

traditional 17th century metaphysics mixed astutely with a keen sense

of analytic philosophy. Both Wittgenstein and J.L. Austin have shown

that we cannot put too much weight in Russell’s views, however it is

not certain if they have successfully shown that Russell’s work is

entirely void of any explanatory ability.

In what follows, I will discuss Russell's views on sense-data and

language, views that stem from his logical atomism. I also discuss

these views in light of the criticism they received from Wittgenstein

and J.L. Austin, and argue that these criticisms are only partly feasible.

Russell’s view centers on the concept that the world consists of

facts that he defines as “the kind of thing that makes a proposition

true or false.” His point is that facts exist independently of the

 Devine 2

language describing them. The sentence “Russell is dead” is neither

true nor false in and of itself. Its truthness is dependent on some part

or occurrence of the world. The opposite statement “Russell is alive”

represents the same fact as the previous statement and that

occurrence is what makes the statement false. He makes the claim:

When we speak falsely it is an objective fact that makes what we

say false, and it is an objective fact which makes what we say

true when we speak truly. (Russell 42)

His point centers around the distinction between types of facts:

particular facts, those that describe specific things about certain

objects, and general facts, which make claims about an object’s class.

Specifically, his point is that these facts are independent of the

language that is being used. Russell states this to make sure that his

point is understood:

[A] proposition is not a name for a fact, from the mere

circumstance that there are two propositions corresponding to

each fact. (Russell 46)

These facts are objective by nature and form what he calls atomic facts

or facts about the relationships in the external world. Any atomic fact

has a relation to “particulars” or “terms of relations in atomic facts.

(Russell 60)” He uses the example of “This is white” to describe this

exact relationship. The statement refers to a relationship between an

 Devine 3

object and its properties.

Now that he has his groundwork laid he begins to talk about how

we interact with these atomic facts and particulars. He doesn’t think

that we can be directly connected with this external world because we

can only be acquainted with the world by our sense, or as he calls it,

‘sense-data’. This view means he thought that language describes the

world in a sort of one-to-one correspondence, the idea that

prepositions specifically pick out something intelligible about the

external world.. He thought that to believe in logical atomism was to

believe “that one does believe the world can be analyzed into a

number of separate things with relations and so forth.” (Russell 49)

There are two points that we can infer from Russell’s Logical

Atomism: First, language mirrors the nature of the world or “states of

affairs.” Second, that we perceive the world through sense-data, and

these sensations are the only thing we can be directly acquainted with.

These views were interestingly developed with a pupil of his,

Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein’s first, and only published work,

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, closely parallels Russell’s view of

what language does, and how we use language to describe this

external world we can only know through our sense-data. Although

later in Wittgenstein’s investigations of language he no longer agrees

with Russell over what language represents, he seems still sympathetic

 Devine 4

to the theory of sense-data.

Wittgenstein’s rejection of logical atomism can be described

astutely from a thought experiment he suggests we consider.

[F]or example the proceedings that we call ‘games’… What

is common to them all? – Don’t say: ‘There must be something

common, or they would not be called “games” ‘ – but look and

see whether there is anything common to all. (Kenny 44)

His point doesn’t seem obvious at first, but it is an important

distinction about the way we use language. According to Russell one

should be able to come up with a precise formal system that mirrored

the actual world, or some description of what games are through a

series of statements. But ultimately Wittgenstein’s point is just this:

We can’t! There are words are in a way self-evident, because

language isn’t the precise setup we perceive it as.

We know what a game is independently of its lexical definition. If

we define ‘game’ as something that has rules, do we call the man who

is tossing a ball against a wall, or throwing it up into the air and

catching it a ‘game’? Do we not call these things ‘games’? This

distinction is one that creates problems for Russell’s view, as it shows

that there are instances when we cannot define words in a meaningful

way, but that doesn’t mean that we consider them meaningless. When

I say the word ‘game’, you know what I mean, or what I am talking
 Devine 5

about regardless of what our definition of the word is. Specifically

even though we cannot come up with an acceptable definition for the

word ‘game’ we could never find anyone who would say the word is

meaningless.

This is a valid point against Russell. It shows that our concept of

language and word’s definitions cannot be defined in these clear,

decisive ways. Words are naturally disconnected from the external

world, because they aren’t doing exactly what Russell thinks they are

doing (describing how the world actually is). The difference is that we

cannot find out anything more about the world from defining these

words, and some words are impossible to define without creating a

contradiction of a definition that clearly leaves out something it should

include. For Wittgenstein the meaning of any word in language is its

use in that instance.

His point stems from a realization he had about what language

can actually tell us about the external world: his previous view was

flawed. He now thinks that things cannot be hidden in objects anymore

than a math problem “like 753/7 is hidden until the division has been

carried out.” (Kenny 36). His previous view, more in line with Russell’s

Logical Atomism, was wrong:

I wasn’t clear about the sense of the words a logical

product is hidden in a sentence’ (and suchlike)… The proposition

 Devine 6

‘this place is now red’ (or ‘this circle is now red’) can be called an

elementary proposition if this means that it is neither a truth-

function of other propositions nor defined as such… But from ‘a

is now red’ there follows ‘a is now not green’ and so elementary

propositions in this sense aren’t independent of each other like

the elementary propositions in the calculus I once described… I

[previously] thought that the whole use of propositions must be

reducible. (Kenny 36)

It means that it is not the case that there is a neat, pretty

packaged language correlated to the actual world. When we use the

words like ‘cat’, ‘game’, etc. these words are not amenable to

Russellian analysis. Specifically we cannot provide a series of

descriptions that truly defines its use that does not in some way

contradict itself.

Another example of this same scenario is when we consider

when someone ‘misuses’ a word. Do we say that we truly did not

understand his or her point? No, we would never say that. There are

plenty of examples that you can tell the meaning of the misused word

through the tone, or the emphasis on the phrase. Suppose I was to say

“The government has usurped my car!” The lexical definition says that

this sentence is meaningless for the definition is to seize and hold by

force without legal authority. The point here is that words and their
 Devine 7

definitions seem to hinge on more than just what we’ve previously

described them to be. It seems to be the case, however, where a word

is completely misused, where no facet of the words use is in its lexical

definition is spoken, but somehow the sentence is still completely

understood. Furthermore we would never say that the sentence is

completely meaningless.

So does it seem to be the case that we do actually know what

they are saying, even though their use of the words seem counter-

intuitive to the way that we usually infer that word’s meaning?

Wittgenstein also considers situations he thinks that Russell’s

(and earlier Wittgenstein) ideas can’t describe:

Imagine a language-game in which A asks and B reports

the number of slabs in a pile… Such a report might run: “Five

slabs”. Now what is the difference between the report or

statement “Five slabs” and the order “Five slabs!”? (Wittgenstein

10e)

He considers that maybe the difference is inherent in the tone, or in

the fact that we consider one version a statement and the other a

command. But these distinctions cannot be attributed to the language

itself, but merely how we are using it. He thinks that Russell’s views

cannot distinguish the difference between the two utterances for two

reasons: First, There is something more to language than just the

 Devine 8

words themselves. Second, we can’t even seem to talk about language

intelligently in Russellian terms because we are still in the same

language framework that we’re trying to analyze.

An implication of Wittgenstein’s view is that it impossible to talk

about language in a meta sense because any time we try to do that,

we are still stuck using a language. This issue stems from the fact that

we cannot escape language in any circumstance because of the fact

that we rely on it solely to communicate. We cannot ever talk

intelligently about language for we already rely on it to talk about

everything. So any flaw that is inherent in our language is also

apparent in any discussion we have about it.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Russell has to throw in the

metaphysical “towel.” Wittgenstein’s views rely heavily on examples

of when we aren’t using language in a way that Russell might call its

true sense. The statements we are uttering could be considered

unclear. The difference is that if we flesh out exactly what we mean

when we say “Five slabs” is ambiguous by nature and that we’re using

the situation to take it out of ambiguity. There is a clear difference

between the two utterances of “Five slabs,” one of them is an answer

to a question, while the other one is unprecedented by any previous

statement. Just because we can assume the use of the statement by

the situation that encompasses it doesn’t mean that the language is

 Devine 9

ambiguous.

Wittgenstein, however, doesn’t seem to be as critical of Russell’s

view of sense perception and his ideology of sense-data. This sets the

stage for another philosopher by the name of J.L. Austin to attack

another facet of Russell’s work: sense-data.

J.L. Austin did not think you could even make sense of Russell’s

view that our interaction of the world was only through sense-data. He

thought that there were some fundamental issues that Russell

overlooked.

Austin couldn’t understand how we were coming to doubt our

senses in the first place. He wants to look at what the ordinary man

believes versus the philosopher’s beliefs or what they are “prepared to

admit” because “[w]e must look at both sides of this contrast, and with

particular care at what is assumed in, and implied by, what is actually

said.” (Austin 7)

Austin thinks the ordinary man will say that he perceives

material things. The mere idea of saying that we aren’t seeing these

material things seems strange. Basically, the fact is that all the phrase

“material thing” is doing is acting as a foil to the phrase “sense-data.”

He does the same thing for the other philosophers’ definitions such as

“directly”, “perception,” etc. Austin’s first point was just that he

thought using the words “sense-data” begged the question that they
 Devine 10

already existed. Furthermore, he thought these words were

unintelligible. But even if that isn’t the case, he thinks the idea is still

flawed. He wonders specifically why we have any reason to doubt our

senses at all:

[I]t is also implied, even taken for granted, that there is

room for doubt and suspicion, whether or not the plain man feels

any… [i]t suggests that when, for instance, I look at a chair a few

yards in front of me in broad daylight, my view is that I have

(only) as much certainty as I need and can get that there is a

chair and that I see it. But in fact the plain man would regard

doubt in such a case… as plain nonsense (Austin 10).

He then goes on to consider what it actually means to be deceived by

our senses, specifically what the philosopher means by deceiving our

sense. He thinks that talking about deception is strange because we

are usually not being deceived. His point being that if we can describe

away all of our deceptions, using reason, then how are they ultimately

the types of deceptions that should cause us to doubt our senses.

Austin also makes the distinction between “seeing a bright green

after-image against a white wall [being] exactly like a bright green

patch on the wall” (Austin 49). His point seems to hinge on this: if

Russell is allowed to use reason to show how our sense-data is able to

understand things such as chairs and tables, as opposed to things like

 Devine 11

brown blobs among white backgrounds, then why can’t he say that the

reason a stick seems like it is bent when it is placed in water, is

because it is in water!? He is saying why should we doubt our senses in

the first place? As soon as one lets reason into the picture at all, it

explains away the illusion our senses “perceive” as merely being a

misunderstanding of our reasoning when we decide what they are.

Once we can explain away the illusion, or how our minds are

misinterpreting what we are seeing, is it really a delusion of the kind

that Descartes and Russell rely on to show that we cannot trust our

senses? The answer hinges on what evidence are we really using to

doubt our senses, but more importantly it seems that Austin is really

making the claim that the ordinary man wouldn’t even consider these

illusions reason to doubt our senses in the first place:

As Ayer observes, probably truly, ‘a child who had not

learned that refraction was a means of distortion would naturally

believe that the stick really was crooked as he saw it’; but how is

the fact that an uninstructed child probably would not

discriminate between being refracted and being crooked

supposed to establish the allegation that there is no ‘qualitative’

difference between the two cases? (Austin 51)

But then in the next sentence he seems ultimately to contradict

himself. He is trying to come up with an example that he thinks can

 Devine 12

turn Ayer’s view into one that supports his vision of how much reason

we can use in conjunction with situations where we doubt our senses.

But instead it seems he is giving a thought experiment that invalidates

the core of his argument:

What sort of reception would I be likely to get from a professional

tea-tester, if I were to say to him, ‘But there can’t be any

difference between the flavours of these two brands of tea, for I

regularly fail to distinguish between them? (Austin 51-52)

Lets take his same example and plug these into his positions: the

ordinary man and the philosopher. His point is supposed to show that

there is some difference between Russell’s view (the child thinks the

stick is crooked in the same way that what our sense are really seeing

is a crooked stick) and his own (that the professional tea-taster should

be able to use his knowledge to be a part of his senses). But he seems

to go wrong, as it seems his sides are actually reversed. Why

shouldn’t the philosopher be the tea-taster in his example? Isn’t he

the one who actually has some expertise with language? Hasn’t he

spent time dissecting and discussing “what we actually mean” when

we use certain terms? These questions make it seem obvious that

Austin is misrepresenting his own argument. The ordinary man is just

that: the person who cannot distinguish between the two different

types of teas. The person who hasn’t dissected language in a way that
 Devine 13

tells us about how we can uses words in different ways and has to

sometimes create language, in use, to describe these new phenomena.

Austin seems to think that the language that the ordinary man is

good enough to talk intelligently about whatever we need to talk

about, but the tea-taster, wine-taster, or beer connoisseur ultimately

has their own language to talk about those things in the same way that

a philosopher has its own terms for talking about the way we perceive

the world. The philosopher is able to notice distinctions in the world

that the ordinary man just cannot see, as he is untrained to do so.

Therefore the words that Austin thinks are being misappropriated by

the philosopher, specifically because the ordinary language is already

full of great distinctions, seem to be false by his own accord. The tea-

taster does need its own language with its own distinctions to talk

intelligently about the different types of teas, just as the philosopher

does. By saying that the ordinary man has some insight into the way

that we use language seems to be the equivalent of trusting your

gardener for advice on how to fix your car. He just doesn’t have the

applicable knowledge to talk intelligently on the subject in the first

place.

Austin’s objection to a philosopher who is using terms such as

‘sense-data’ is unintelligible. He wants us to believe that using such

terms seems unintelligible however his theory on why the philosopher

 Devine 14

can’t use those terms seem ultimately invalid.

But what does this mean for Russell? Are his views still valid?

Wittgenstein has raised some strong counter-examples to show how

Russell’s philosophy cannot explain certain ways that we actually use

language. Wittgenstein also has a valid point that we cannot truly be

talking about language outside of the language itself. These points

seem to hinder the explanatory power of what exactly language can

actually be referring to, specifically that this idea of a one-to-one

correspondence to the external world. But what about Russell’s view

on how we perceive the world, and if we are directly connected to it?

Even with Austin’s objections it seems safe to say that this view is still

quite defendable, even if it means we have to admit that perhaps

being directly connected with an external world is impossible, though

we are merely acquainted with it through our sense-data.