Russell-Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge

Pg1Pg1 experience BY companionship I53 Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by rendering Bertrand Russell Russell, Bertrand (1917). Knowledge by conversancy and copeledge by explanation. Proceedings of the peripatetic Society, 1910-1911. Reprinted in his his Mysticism and Logic (London George Allen &038 Unwin Ltd. 1917). Reprinted Totowa, New Jersey Barnes &038 Noble Books, 1951, pp. 152-167. leaf here matches the latter. ) THE aim of the following paper is to consider what it is that we jockey in cases where we retire promptings rough the so-and-so without write outing who or what the so-and-so is.For example, I feel that the cig atomic number 18ttedidate who jack offs most votes pass on be elected, though I do non grapple who is the medical prognosis who go forth get most votes. The worry I aspiration to consider is What do we touchableize in these cases, where the certify is yet described ? I w atomic itemise 18 considered this line elsewhere1 fr om a rigorously logical spotlight of vista entirely in what follows I bid to consider the question in semblance to opening of screwledge as well as in affinity to logic, and in stack of the preceding(prenominal) logical debateions, I sh altogether in this paper make the logical administer as brief as thinkable.In coiffe to make clear the antithesis betwixt acquaintance and interpretation, I sh each inaugural of completely try to ex sheer(a) what I nasty by acquain- tance. I vocalize that I am present with an prey when I pretend a take out cognitive relative to that tendency, i. e. when I am straight aw ar of the savet itself. When I speak of a cognitive copulation here, I do non lowly the screen out of relation which constitutes ideal, moreover the sort which constitutes presentation. In fact, I think the relation of opened and object which I reverberate acquaintance is exactly the discuss of the relation of object and subject which constitut es presentation.That is, to say that S has acquaintance with O is essenti all toldy the analogous social function as to say that O is presented to S. scarce the associations and natural extensions of the war cry acquaintance argon different from those of the word presentation. To cause with, as in most cognitive words, it is natural to say that I am introduce with an object rase at moments when it is non really onward my wit, provided it has been in the original place my head, and go away be again whenever occasion arises. This is the very(prenominal) sense in which I am said to cope that 2+2=4 even when I am thinking of well-nighthing else. In the south place, the word See fictional characters later. acquaintance is designed to emphasize, more than the word presen- tation, the relational character of the fact with which we be touch on. on that point is, to my mind, a endangerment that, in speaking of presentation, we may so emphasize the object as to lose sight of the subject. The result of this is either to chip in to the view that on that point is no subject, whence we arrive at materialism or to lead to the view that what is presented is part of the subject, whence we arrive at idealism, and should arrive at solipsism and for the most desperate contortions.Now I wish to preserve the dualism of subject and object in my terminology, because this dualism perk upms to me a fundamental fact concerning cognition. Hence I prefer the word acquaintance, because it emphasizes the demand of a subject which is introduce. When we ask what be the kinds of objects with which we ar acquaint, the first and most obvious example is sense-data. When I see a colour or hear a noise, I live direct acquaintance with the colour or the noise. The sense-datum with which I am present in these cases is generally, if non always, interwoven.This is particularly obvious in the case of sight. I do non mean, of course, merely that the imagined physi cal object is coordination compound, unless that the direct sensible object is interlacing and contains parts with spatial relations. Whether it is possible to be assured of a coordination compound without being aw ar of its atoms is non an easy question, simply on the whole it would attend that there is no indicate why it should not be possible. This question arises in an subtile comprise in conjunctive with self-consciousness, which we essentialiness(prenominal)iness now concisely consider.In introspection, we await to be immediately aw ar of varying complexes, consisting of objects in mingled cognitive and conative relations to ourselves. When I see the sun, it frequently happens that I am aw atomic number 18 of my seeing the sun, in addition to being aw atomic number 18 of the sun and when I desire food, it often happens that I am aw are of my desire for food. save it is awkward to distinguish either state of mind in which I am aware of myself al match less, as impertinent to a complex of which I am a parting. The question of the nature of self-consciousness is in any case giant, and too slightly connected with our subject, to be argued at length here.It is difficult, but credibly not impossible, to account for plain facts if we go in that we do not buzz off acquaintance with ourselves. It is plain that we are not solitary(prenominal) introduce with the complex Self-acquainted-with-A, but we worrywise know the proffer I am acquainted with A. Now here the complex has been testd, and if I does not hold out for a dishonorthing which is a direct object of acquaintance, we shall consecrate to suppose that I is whatsoeverthing cognise by description. If we wished to maintain the view that there is noPg2Pg2 154 MYSTICISM AND system of logic acquaintance with Self, we big business macrocosm argue as follows We are acquainted with acquaintance, and we know that it is a relation. Also we are acquainted with a complex in w hich we perceive that acquaintance is the relating relation. Hence we know that this complex must pick up a constituent which is that which is acquainted, i. e. must have a subject- term as well as an object-term. This subject-term we define as I. then I means the subject-term in cognisancees of which / am aware. al unrivalled as a translation this rout outnot be assureed as a happy effort. It would seem necessary, therefore, either to suppose that I am acquainted with myself, and that I, therefore, requires no definition, being merely the decent tell apart of a certain(p) object, or to find more or less early(a) abridgment of self- consciousness. then self-consciousness sensnot be regarded as throwing light on the question whether we washbowl know a complex without knowing its constituents. This question, further, is not important for our present purposes, and I hall therefore not discuss it further. The cognizancees we have considered so far have all been aware- n esses of particular existents, and powerfulness all in a large sense be called sense-data. For, from the point of view of guess of friendship, introspective knowledge is exactly on a level with knowledge derived from sight or hearing. altogether, in addition to awareness of the above kind of objects, which may be called awareness of particulars, we have also (though not quite in the same sense) what may be called awareness of widely distributeds.Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a uni- versal of which we are aware is called a concept. Not al wholeness are we aware of particular icterics, but if we have seen a sufficient number of yellows and have sufficient intelligence, we are aware of the universal yellow this universal is the subject in a great deal(prenominal) judgments as yellow differs from blue or yellow resembles blue less than green does. And the universal yellow is the pronounce in much(prenominal)(prenominal) judgments as this is yellow, where this is a particular sense-datum.And universal relations, too, are objects of awarenesses up and down, before and after, resemblance, desire, awareness itself, and so on, would seem to be all of them objects of which we batch be aware. In regard to relations, it cleverness be urged that we are never aware of the universal relation itself, but yet of complexes in which it is a constituent. For example, it may be said that we do not know out compensate much(prenominal) a relation as before, though we agnize such a offer as this is before that, and may be directly aware of such a complex as this being before that.This view, heretofore, is difficult to reconcile with the fact that we often know mesmerisms in which KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE I55 the relation is the subject, or in which the relata are not definite switchn objects, but anything. For example, we know that if iodine thing is before another, and the other before a tercet, then the first is before the third and her e the things concerned are not definite things, but anything. It is hard to see how we could know such a fact approximately before unless we were acquainted with before, and not merely with real(a) particular cases of ne given object being before another given object. And more directly A judgment such as this is before that, where this judgment is derived from awareness of a complex, constitutes an analysis, and we should not understand the analysis if we were not acquainted with the meaning of the basis utilizati singled. Thus we must suppose that we are acquainted with the meaning of before, and not merely with instances of it. there are thus at least two sorts of objects of which we are aware, tropely, particulars and universals.Among particulars I include all existents, and all complexes of which angiotensin converting enzyme or more constituents are existents, such as this-before-that, this-above-that, the-yellowness-of- this. Among universals I include all objects of w hich no particular is a constituent. Thus the disjunction universal-particular includes all objects. We might also call it the disjunction abstract concrete. It is not quite jibe with the opposition concept-percept, because things remembered or imagined be yen with particulars, but can hardly be called percepts. On the other hand, universals with which we are acquainted may be determine with concepts. ) It ordain be seen that among the objects with which we are acquainted are not include physical objects (as opposed to sense-data), nor other peoples minds. These things are cognise to us by what I call knowledge by description, which we must now consider. By a description I mean any vocalise of the form a so-and-so or the so-and-do. A phrase of the form a so-and-so I shall call an ambiguous description a phrase of the form the so-and-do (in the singular) I shall call a definite description.Thus a piece is an ambiguous description, and the humanity with the iron mask is a defi nite description. There are various problems connected with ambiguous descriptions, but I eviscerate them by, since they do not directly concern the matter I wish to discuss. What I wish to discuss is the nature of our knowledge concerning objects in cases where we know that there is an object answering to a definite description, though we are not acquainted with any such object. This is a matter which is concerned exclusively with definite descriptions.I shall, therefore, in the sequel, speak simply of descriptions when I mean Pg3Pg3 I56MYSTICISM AND LOGIC definite descriptions. Thus a description will mean any phrase of the form the so-and-so in the singular. I shall say that an object is cognize by description when we know that it is the so-and-so, i. e. when we know that there is one object, and no more, having a certain attribute and it will generally be implied that we do not have knowledge of the same object by acquaintance.We know that the man with the iron mask existed, a nd some suggestions are known to the highest degree him but we do not know who he was. We know that the campaigner who gets most votes will be elected, and in this case we are truly likely also acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with soul else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will get most votes, but we do not know which of the candidates he is, i. e. we do not know any proposition of the form A is the candidate who will get most votes where A is one of the candidates by reboot.We shall say that we have merely descriptive knowledge of the so-and-so when, although we know that the so-and-so exists, and although we may possibly be acquainted with the object which is, in fact, the so-and-so, yet we do not know any proposition a is the so- and-so, where a is something with which we are acquainted. When we say the so-and-so exists, we mean that there is only when one object which is the so-and-so. The proposition a is the so-and-so means t hat a has the prudishty so-and-so, and nothing else has. Sir Joseph Larmor is the Unionist candidate means Sir Joseph Larmor is a Unionist candidate, and no one else is. The Unionist candidate exists means someone is a Unionist candidate, and no one else is. Thus, when we are acquainted with an object which we know to be the so- and-so, we know that the so-and-so exists, but we may know that the so-and-so exists when we are not acquainted with any object which we know to be the so-and-so, and even when we are not acquainted with any object which, in fact, is the so-and-so. Common words, even proper name calling, are usually really descriptions.That is to say, the thought in the mind of a mortal using a proper name right on can generally only be discourseed explicitly if we regenerate the proper name by a description. Moreover, the description required to express the thought will vary for different people, or for the same individual at different whiles. The only thing consta nt (so long as the name is rightly employ) is the object to which the name applies. scarce so long as this extends constant, the particular description involved usually makes no difference to the truth or untruehood of the proposition in which the name appears.let us take some illustrations. excogitate some statement make KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE I57 or so von Bismarck. Assuming that there is such a thing as direct acquaintance with oneself, Bismarck himself might have used his name directly to designate the particular psyche with whom he was acquainted. In this case, if he make a judgment more or less himself, he himself might be a constituent of the judgment. Here the proper name has the direct use which it always wishes to have, as simply rest for a certain object, and not for a description of the object.But if a psyche who knew Bismarck made a judgment approximately him, the case is different. What this somebody was acquainted with were certain sense-data which he c onnected (rightly, we will suppose) with Bismarcks body. His body as a physical object, and still more his mind, were only known as the body and the mind connected with these sense-data. That is, they were known by description. It is, of course, very much a matter of chance which characteristics of a mans appearance will come into a friends mind when he thinks of him thus the description actually in the friends mind is accidental.The essential point is that he knows that the various descriptions all wear to the same entity, in spite of not being acquainted with the entity in question. When we, who did not know Bismarck, make a judgment about him, the description in our minds will probably be some more or less vague mass of historical knowledge? far more, in most cases, than is required to identify him. But, for the sake of illustration, let us yield that we think of him as the first Chancellor of the German Empire. Here all the words are abstract except German.The word German will again have different meanings for different people. To some it will recall travels in Germany, to some the look of Germany on the map, and so on. But if we are to fix a description which we know to be applicable, we shall be compelled, at some point, to bring in a reference to a particular with which we are acquainted. Such reference is involved in any mention of past, present, and next (as opposed to definite dates), or of here and there, or of what others have told us.Thus it would seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from the description. For example, the most durable of men is a description which must apply to some man, but we can make no judgments concerning this man which involve knowledge about him beyond what the description gives.If, however, we say, the first Chan cellor of the German Empire was an astute diplomatist, we can only be assured Pg4Pg4 158MYSTICISM AND LOGIC of the truth of our judgment in virtue of something with which we are acquainted? usually a testimony comprehend or read. Considered psychologically, apart from the tuition we convey to others, apart from the fact about the actual Bismarck, which gives importance to our judgment, the thought we really have contains the one or more particulars involved, and otherwise consists wholly of concepts.All names of places? London, England, Europe, the earth, the Solar System? in addition involve, when used, descriptions which start from some one or more particulars with which we are acquainted. I suspect that even the Universe, as considered by metaphysics, involves such a connection with particulars. In logic, on the reversion, where we are concerned not merely with what does exist, but with some(prenominal) might or could exist or be, no reference to actual particulars is involv ed.It would seem that, when we make a statement about something only known by description, we often designate to make our statement, not in the form involving the description, but about the actual thing described. That is to say, when we say anything about Bismarck, we should like, if we could, to make the judgment which Bismarck alone can make, videlicet, the judgment of which he himself is a constituent. In this we are necessarily defeated, since the actual Bismarck is cabalistic to us.But we know that there is an object B called Bismarck, and that B was an astute diplomatist. We can thus describe the proposition we should like to affirm, namely, B was an astute diplomatist, where B is the object which was Bismarck. What enables us to communicate in spite of the varying descriptions we employ is that we know there is a true proposition concerning the actual Bismarck, and that, however we may vary the description (so long as the description is correct), the proposition described is still the same.This proposition, which is described and is known to be true, is what interests us but we are not acquainted with the proposition itself, and do not know it, though we know it is true. It will be seen that there are various stages in the removal from acquaintance with particulars there is Bismarck to people who knew him, Bismarck to those who only know of him through history, the man with the iron mask, the longest-lived of men. These are more and more further removed from acquaintance with particulars, and there is a similar pecking order in the region of universals.Many universals, like many particulars, are only known to us by description. But here, as in the case of particulars, knowledge concerning what is known by description is ultimately reducible to knowledge concerning what is known by acquaintance. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE 159 The fundamental epistemological rule in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this Every proposition which we can understand must be undisturbed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.From what has been said already, it will be plain why I advocate this principle, and how I propose to bear upon the case of propositions which at first sight contravene it. Let us acquire with the reasons for supposing the principle true. The chief reason for supposing the principle true is that it seems scarcely possible to believe that we can make a judgment or entertain a supposition without knowing what it is that we are judging or supposing about. If we make a judgment about (say) Julius Caesar, it is plain that the actual person who was Julius Caesar is not a constituent of the judgment.But before going further, it may be well to explain what I mean when I say that this or that is a constituent of a judgment, or of a proposition which we understand. To begin with judgments a judgment, as an accompaniment, I take to be a relation of a mind to several entities, namely, the entities wh ich compose what is judged. If, e. g. I judge that A go to beds B, the judgment as an event consists in the existence, at a certain moment, of a specific four-term relation, called judging, amid me and A and love and B.That is to say, at the time when I judge, there is a certain complex whose terms are myself and A and love and B, and whose relating relation is judging. My reasons for this view have been exercise frontward elsewhere,1 and I shall not repeat them here. Assuming this view of judgment, the constituents of the judgment are simply the constituents of the complex which is the judgment- Thus, in the above case, the constituents are myself and A and love and B and judging. But myself and judging are constituents shared by all my judgments thus the distinctive constituents of the particular judgment in question are A and love and B.Coming now to what is meant by understanding a proposition, I should say that there is another relation possible between me and A and love a nd B, which is called my supposing that A loves B. 2 When we can suppose that A loves B, we understand the proposition A loves B. Thus we often understand a proposition in cases where we have not enough knowledge to make a judgment. 1 Philosophical Essays, The Nature of Truth. I have been persuaded by Mr Wittgenstein that this theory is somewhat unduly simple, but the modification which I believe it to require does not affect the above production line 1917. Cf. Meinong, Ueber Annahmen, passim. I formerly supposed, contrary to Meinongs view, that the relationship of supposing might be merely that of presentation. In this view I now think I was mistaken, and Meinong is right. But my present view depends upon the theory that both in judgment and in assumption there is no single Objective, but the several constituents of the judgment or asaumption are in a many-term relation to the mind. Pg5Pg5 160MYSTICISM AND LOGIC Supposing, like judging, is a many-term relation, of which a mind is one term.The other terms of the relation are called the constituents of the proposition supposed. Thus the principle which I enunciated may be re-stated as follows Whenever a relation of supposing or judging occurs, the terms to which the supposing or judging mind is connect by the relation of supposing or judging must be terms with which the mind in question is acquainted. This is merely to say that we cannot make a judgment or a supposition without knowing what it is that we are making our judgment or supposition about.It seems to me that the truth of this principle is evident as soon as the principle is understood I shall, therefore, in what follows, assume the principle, and use it as a guide in analysing judgments that contain descriptions. returning now to Julius Caesar, I assume that it will be admitted that he himself is not a constituent of any judgment which I can make. But at this point it is necessary to examine the view that judgments are unruffled of something call ed ideas, and that it is the idea of Julius Caesar that is a constituent of my judgment.I believe the plausibility of this view rests upon a trial to form a right theory of descriptions. We may mean by my idea of Julius Caesar the things that I know about him, e. g. that he conquered Gaul, was assassinated on the Ides of March, and is a plague to schoolboys. Now I am admitting, and indeed contending, that in order to discover what is actually in my mind when I judge about Julius Caesar, we must turn for the proper name a description made up of some of the things I know about him. (A description which will often serve to express my thought is the man whose name wasJulius Caesar. For whatever else I may have forgotten about him, it is plain that when I mention him I have not forgotten that that was his name. ) But although I think the theory that judgments consist of ideas may have been suggested in some such way, yet I think the theory itself is fundamentally mistaken. The view se ems to be that there is some mental existent which may be called the idea of something outside the mind of the person who has the idea, and that, since judgment is a mental event, its constituents must be constituents of the mind of the person judging.But in this view ideas beat a veil between us and outside things? we never really, in knowledge, score to the things we are supposed to be knowing about, but only to the ideas of those things. The relation of mind, idea, and object, on this view, is utterly obscure, and, so far as I can see, nothing discoverable by inspection warrants the intrusion of the idea between the mind and the object. I suspect that the view ii fostered by the disfavour of relations, and that it is felt the mindKNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCEl6l could not know objects unless there were something in the mind which could be called the state of knowing the object. Such a view, however, leads at once to a vicious endless regress, since the relation of idea to object wi ll have to be explained by supposing that the idea itself has an idea of the object, and so on ad infinitum. I therefore see no reason to believe that, when we are acquainted with an object, there is in us something which can be called the idea of the object.On the contrary, I hold that acquaintance is wholly a relation, not demanding any such constituent of the mind as is supposed by advocates of ideas. This is, of course, a large question, and one which would take us far from our subject if it were adequately discussed. I therefore content myself with the above indications, and with the corollary that, in judging, the actual objects concerning which we judge, rather than any supposed purely mental entities, are constituents of the complex which is the judgment.When, therefore, I say that we must substitute for Julius Caesar some description of Julius Caesar, in order to discover the meaning of a judgment nominally about him, I am not truism that we must substitute an idea. Suppos e our description is the man whose name was Julius Caesar. Let our judgment be Julius Caesar was assassinated. Then it becomes the man whose name was Julius Caesar was assassinated. Here Julius Caesar is a noise or shape with which we are acquainted, and all the other constituents of the judgment (neglecting the tense in was) are concepts with which we are acquainted.Thus our judgment is wholly reduced to constituents with which we are acquainted, but Julius Caesar himself has ceased to be a constituent of our judgment. This, however, requires a proviso, to be further explained shortly, namely, that the man whose name was Julius Caesar must not, as a whole, be a constituent of our judgment, that is to say, this phrase must not, as a whole, have a meaning which enters into the judgment. Any right analysis of the judgment, therefore, must break up this phrase, and not treat it as a subordinate complex which is part of the judgment.The judgment the man whose name was Julius Caesar was assassinated may be interpreted as meaning one and only one man was called Julius Caesar, and that one was assassinated. Here it is plain that there is no constituent corresponding to the phrase, the man whose name was Julius Caesar. Thus there is no reason to regard this phrase as expressing a constituent of the judgment, and we have seen that this phrase must be broken up if we are to be acquainted with all the constituents of the judgment. This conclusion, which we have reached from considerations concerned with the theory of knowledge, is also forced uponPg6Pg6 162MYSTICISM AND LOGIC us by logical considerations, which must now be briefly reviewed. It is common to distinguish two aspects, meaning and indication, in such phrases as the creator of Waverley. The meaning will be a certain complex consisting (at least) of motiveship and Waverley with some relation the character reference will be Scott. Similarly feather-less bipeds will have a complex meaning, containing as consti tuents the presence of two feet and the absence seizure of feathers, while its character reference will be the class of men.Thus when we say Scott is the condition of Waverley or men are the same as featherless bipeds, we are asserting an identity operator operator of denotation, and this assertion is worth making because of the diversity of meaning. 1 I believe that the duality of meaning and denotation, though capable of a true interpretation, is misleading if taken as fundamental. The denotation, I believe, is not a constituent of the proposition, except in the case of proper names, i. e. of words which do not assign a place to an object, but merely and only when name it.And I should hold further that, in this sense, there are only two words which are strictly proper names of particulars, namely, T and this. 2 One reason for not believing the denotation to be a constituent of the proposition is that we may know the proposition even when we are not acquainted with the denota tion. The proposition the rootage of Waverley is a novelist was known to people who did not know that the write of Waverley denoted Scott. This reason has been already sufficiently emphasized.A second reason is that propositions concerning the so-and-so are possible even when the so-and-so has no denotation. Take, e. g. the golden mountain does not exist or the round square is self- contradictory. If we are to preserve the duality of meaning and denotation, we have to say, with Meinong, that there are such objects as the golden mountain and the round square, although these objects do not have being. We even have to admit that the existent round square is existent, but does not exist. 3 Meinong does not regard this as a contradition, but I fail to see that it is not one.Indeed, it seems to me evident that the judgment there is no such object as the round square does not hypothesize that there is such an object. If this is admitted, however, we are led to the conclusion that, by p arity bit of form, no judgment concerning the so-and-so actually involves the so-and-so as a constituent. 1 This view has been recently advocated by Miss E. E. C. Jones. A New natural law of Thought and its Implications, Mind, January, 1911. * I should now exclude I from proper names in the strict sense, and retain only this 1917. ? Meinongj Ueber Annahmen, 2nd ed. , Leipzig, 1910, p. 141. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE 163Miss Jones1 contends that there is no difficulty in admitting contradictory predicates concerning such an object as the present King of France, on the ground that this object is in itself contradictory. Now it might, of course, be argued that this object, unlike the round square, is not self-contradictory, but merely non-existent. This, however, would not go to the root of the matter. The real objection to such an argument is that the law of contradiction ought not to be stated in the tralatitious form A is not both B and not B, but in the form no proposition is both true and false*.The traditional form only applies to certain propositions, namely, to those which attribute a predicate to a subject. When the law is stated of propositions, instead of being stated concerning subjects and predicates it is at once evident that propositions about the present King of France or the round square can form no exception, but are just as incapable of being both true and false as other propositions. Miss Jones2 argues that Scott is the creator of Waverley asserts identity of denotation between Scott and the originator of Waverley.But there is some difficulty in choosing among alternative meanings of this contention. In the first place, it should be observed that the generator of Waverley is not a mere name, like Scott. Scott is merely a noise or shape conventionally used to designate a certain person it gives us no information about that person, and has nothing that can be called meaning as opposed to denotation. (I neglect the fact, considered above, that even proper names, as a rule, really stand for descriptions. But the author of Waverley is not merely conventionally a name for Scott the element of mere convention belongs here to the separate words, the and author and of and Waverley. apt(p) what these words stand for, the author of Waverley is no longer arbitrary. When it is said that Scott is the author of Waverley, we are not stating that these are two names for one man, as we should be if we said Scott is Sir Walter. A mans name is what he is called, but however much Scott had been called the author of Waverley, that would not have made im be the author it was necessary for him actually to write Waverley, which was a fact having nothing to do with names. If, then, we are asserting identity of denotation, we must not mean by denotation the mere relation of a name to the thing named. In fact, it would be nearer to the truth to say that the meaning of Scott is the denotation of the author of Waverley. The relation of Scott* to Scott is that Scott means Scott, just as the relation of author to the concept which is so called is that author means this concept. 1 Mind, July, 1910, p. 80. Mind, July, 1910. p. 379. Pg7Pg7 164MYSTICISM AND LOGIC Thus if we distinguish meaning and denotation in the author of Waverley, we shall have to say that Scott has meaning but not denotation. Also when we say Scott is the author of Waverley, the meaning of the author of Waverley is relevant to our assertion. For if the denotation alone were relevant, any other phrase with the same denotation would give the same proposition. Thus Scott is the author of Marmion would be the same proposition as Scott is the author of Waverley.But this is plainly not the case, since from the first we win that Scott wrote Marmion and from the second we learn that he wrote Waverley, but the first tells us nothing about Waverley and the second nothing about Marmion. Hence the meaning of the author of Waverley as opposed to the denotation, is cert ainly relevant to Scott is the author of Waverley. We have thus agreed that the author of Waverley is not a mere name, and that its meaning is relevant in propositions in which it occurs.Thus if we are to say, as Miss Jones does, that Scott is the author of Waverley asserts an identity of denotation, we must regard the denotation of the author of Waverley as the denotation of what is meant by the author of Waverley. Let us call the meaning of the author of Waverley M. Thus M is what the author of Waverley means. Then we are to suppose that Scott is the author of Waverley means Scott is the denotation of M But here we are explaining our proposition by another of the same form, and thus we have made no progress towards a real explanation. The denotation of M, like the author of Waverley, has both meaning and denotation, on the theory we are examining. If we call its meaning M, our proposition becomes Scott is the denotation of M. But this leads at once to an endless regress. Thus the attempt to regard our proposition as asserting identity of denotation breaks down, and it becomes imperative to find some other analysis. When this analysis has been completed, we shall be able to reinterpret the phrase identity of denotation, which remains obscure so long as it is taken as fundamental.The first point to observe is that, in any proposition about the author of Waverley, provided Scott is not explicitly mentioned, the denotation itself, i. e. Scott, does not occur, but only the concept of denotation, which will be represented by a unsettled. Suppose we say the author of Waverley was the author of Marmion, we are certainly not saying that both were Scott? we may have forgotten that there was such a person as Scott. We are saying that there is some man who was the author of Waverley and the author of Marmion.That Is to say, there is someone who wrote Waverley and Marmion, and no one else wrote them. Thus the identity is that of a variable, i. e. of KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAIN TANCE 165 an specifiable subject, someone. This is why we can understand propositions about the author of Waverley, without knowing who he was. When we say the author of Waverley was a poet, we mean one and only one man wrote Waverley, and he was a poet when we say the author of Waverley was Scott we mean one and only one man wrote Waverley, and he was Scott. Here the identity is between a variable, i. . an indeterminate subject (he), and Scott the author of Waverley has been analysed away, and no longer appears as a constituent of the proposition. 1 The reason why it is imperative to analyse away the phrase, the author of Waverley may be stated as follows. It is plain that when we say the author of Waverley is the author of Marmion, the is expresses identity. We have seen also that the common denotation, namely Scott, is not a constituent of this proposition, while the meanings (if any) of the author of Waverley and the author of Marmion are not identical.We have seen also that, i n any sense in which the meaning of a word is a constituent of a proposition in whose verbal expression the word occurs, Scott means the actual man Scott, in the same sense (so far as concerns our present discussion) in which author means a certain universal. Thus, if the author of Waverley were a subordinate complex in the above proposition, its meaning would have to be what was said to be identical with the meaning of the author of Marmion.This is plainly not the case and the only escape is to say that the author of Waverley does not, by itself, have a meaning, though phrases of which it is part do have a meaning. That is, in a right analysis of the above proposition, the author of Waverley must disappear. This is effected when the above proposition is analysed as meaning Some one wrote Waverley and no one else did, and that someone also wrote Marmion and no one else did. This may be more simply expressed by saying that the propositional function x wrote Waverley and Marmion, and no one else did is capable of truth, i. e. ome look upon of x makes it true, but no other value does. Thus the true subject of our judgment is a propositional function, i. e. a complex containing an undetermined constituent, and becoming a proposition as soon as this constituent is determined. We may now define the denotation of a phrase. If we know that the proposition a is the so-and-so is true, i. e. that a is so-and-so and nothing else is, we call a the denotation of the phrase the so- 1 The theory which I am advocating is set forth fully, with the logical grounds in its favour, in Principia Mathematica, Vol. I, Introduction, Chap.Ill also, less fully, in Mind, October, 1905. Pg8Pg8 166 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC and-so. A very great many of the propositions we of course make about the so-and-so will remain true or remain false if we substitute a for the so-and-so, where a is the denotation of the so-and-so. Such propositions will also remain true or remain false if we substitute fo r the so-and-so any other phrase having the same denotation. Hence, as practical men, we become interested in the denotation more than in the description, since the denotation decides as to the truth or falsehood of so many statements in which the description occurs.Moreover, as we saw earlier in considering the relations of description and acquaintance, we often wish to reach the denotation, and are only hindered by lack of acquaintance in such cases the description is merely the means we employ to get as near as possible to the denotation. Hence it naturally comes to be supposed that the denotation is part of the proposition in which the description occurs. But we have seen, both on logical and on epistemological grounds, that this is an error.The actual object (if any) which is the denotation is not (unless it is explicitly mentioned) a constituent of propositions in which descriptions occur and this is the reason why, in order to understand such propositions, we need acquaintanc e with the constituents of the description, but do not need acquaintance with its denotation. The first result of analysis, when applied to propositions whose grammatical subject is the so-and-so, is to substitute a variable as subject i. e. we obtain a proposition of the form There is something which alone is so-and-so, and that something is such-and-such. The further analysis of propositions concerning the so-and-so is thus merged in the problem of the nature of the variable, i. e. of the meanings of some, any, and all. This is a difficult problem, concerning which I do not intend to say anything at present. To sum up our whole discussion We began by distinguishing two sorts of knowledge of objects, namely, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Of these it is only the former that brings the object itself before the mind. We have acquaintance with sense-data, with many universals, and possibly with ourselves, but not with physical objects or other minds.We have de scriptive knowledge of an object when we know that it is the object having some property or properties with which we are acquainted that is so say, when we know that the property or properties in question belong to one object and no more, we are said to have knowledge of that one object by description, whether or not we are acquainted with the object. Our knowledge of physical objects and of other minds is only knowledge by description, the descriptions involved being usually KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE167 such as involve sense-data.All propositions intelligible to us, whether or not they to begin with concern things only known to us by description, are composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted, for a constituent with which we are not acquainted is unintelligible to us. A judgment, we found, is not composed of mental constituents called ideas, but consists of an occurrence whose constituents are a mind1 and certain objects, particulars or universals. (One at least must be a universal. ) When a judgment is rightly analysed, the objects which are constituents of it must all be objects with which the mind which is a constituent of it is acquainted.This conclusion forces us to analyse descriptive phrases occurring in propositions, and to say that the objects denoted by such phrases are not constituents of judgments in which such phrases occur (unless these objects are explicitly mentioned). This leads us to the view (recommended also on purely logical grounds) that when we say the author of Marmion was the author of Waverley, Scott himself is not a constituent of our judgement, and that the judgment cannot be explained by saying that it affirms identity of denotation with diversity of meaning. It also, plainly, does not assert identity of meaning.Such judgments, therefore, can only be analysed by breaking up the descriptive phrases, introducing a variable, and making prepositional functions the ultimate subjects. In fact, the so-and-so is such-an d-such will mean that fx is so-and-so and nothing else is, and x is such-and-such is capable of truth. The analysis of such judgments involves many fresh problems, but the discussion of these problems is not undertaken in the present paper. 11 use this phrase merely to denote the something psychological which enters into judgment, without intending to judge the question as to what this