Bertrand Russell · Public domain edition · 105 cards · 28 chapters
Bertrand Russell’s The Analysis of Mind argues against treating mind as a separate substance or as essentially intentional, proposing instead a neutral, experience-based account of mental phenomena. The deck covers his critiques of Brentano, James, behaviourism, and Freud, plus his definitions of desire, unconscious wishes, and mechanical movement.
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Chapter 1 · Question
What theory of mind does Russell aim to refute in his first lecture?
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Chapter 1 · Answer
Russell seeks to refute the widely held view, which he formerly accepted, that the essence of everything mental is a peculiar something called "consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects or as a pervading quality of psychical phenomena. He draws his objections from analysis and from comparative psychology and psycho-analysis.
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XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 1)4 cards
What theory of mind does Russell aim to refute in his first lecture?
Russell seeks to refute the widely held view, which he formerly accepted, that the essence of everything mental is a peculiar something called "consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects or as a pervading quality of psychical phenomena. He draws his objections from analysis and from comparative psychology and psycho-analysis.
Chapter 1
According to Brentano, what marks every psychical phenomenon?
Brentano holds that every psychical phenomenon is characterized by the medieval scholastics' "intentional inexistence" of an object: a relation to a content or direction towards an object. Presentation presents something, judgment acknowledges or rejects, love loves, hatred hates. He claims no physical phenomenon shows anything similar, so psychical phenomena can be defined by this intentional containment of an object.
Chapter 1
What three elements does Meinong distinguish in the thought of an object?
Meinong distinguishes the act, the content, and the object. The act is the same in any two thoughts of the same kind; the content is the particular mental event, differing between thinking of Smith and of Brown; the object need not exist in the mind and may be past, future, physical, abstract, imaginary, or even self-contradictory. The content exists whenever the thought does.
Chapter 1
Why does Russell reject Brentano's view that mental phenomena essentially refer to objects?
Russell says he once believed, like Brentano, that mental phenomena essentially reference objects, except possibly pleasure and pain, but now no longer believes this even for knowledge. He argues Brentano's apparent simplicity cannot survive analytic scrutiny or facts from psycho-analysis and animal psychology, though he admits rejecting it makes the analysis of knowledge harder.
Chapter 1
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 2)3 cards
What is James's thesis about 'pure experience' and knowing?
James holds there is only one primal stuff, 'pure experience,' of which everything is composed. Knowing is a particular relation between portions of pure experience; one term becomes the knower, the other the object known. Experience has no inner duplicity—the split into consciousness and content comes by addition, not subtraction.
Chapter 2
How does James use the paint analogy?
James compares paint in a paint-shop, where it is just 'saleable matter,' with paint in a picture, where it 'performs a spiritual function.' Likewise an undivided portion of experience plays the part of a knower in one context of associates and of a thing known in another—in one group a thought, in another a thing.
Chapter 2
What do the Behaviourists claim psychology as a science concerns?
Behaviourists, led by Watson with Dewey also associated, hold that nothing can be known except by external observation. They deny a separate source of knowledge called introspection, and say psychology as a science concerns only behaviour—what we do—since only that can be accurately observed. They report finding no evidence of thought in observing behaviour.
Chapter 2
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 3)4 cards
How does Russell define an unconscious desire?
Russell argues an unconscious desire is merely a causal law of behaviour: we remain restlessly active until a certain state of affairs is realized, then achieve temporary equilibrium. If we know beforehand what that state is, the desire is conscious; if not, unconscious. It is not something actually existing but a tendency to behaviour, with the same status as a force in dynamics.
Chapter 3
What is Russell's main criticism of Freud's account of the unconscious?
Russell argues Freud and his followers demonstrated the importance of unconscious desires but never explained what an unconscious desire actually is, giving the doctrine a mythological air. He rejects the picture of the unconscious as a second consciousness imprisoned by a censor. He also doubts Freud's claim that every unconscious wish was once conscious and then repressed, holding that wishes are unconscious to begin with.
Chapter 3
What does Russell say about psycho-physical parallelism and mind-matter interaction?
Russell says parallelism—that mental and physical events each have causes in their own sphere and run side by side—has no basis except metaphysical theory and is hard to harmonize with obvious facts. He cites a letter inviting him to dinner: apprehending its meaning is matter affecting mind, and going to the right place is mind affecting matter. He proposes a world of neutral entities instead.
Chapter 3
Why does Russell think the usual reason for unconscious wishes is not repression?
Russell holds that although Freudian repression undoubtedly occurs and matters, it is not the usual reason for unconsciousness of wishes. The usual reason is that wishes are all unconscious to begin with and only become known when actively noticed. From laziness, people accept the current theory of human nature and attribute to themselves whatever wishes that theory predicts.
Chapter 3
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 4)4 cards
How does Russell define a 'mechanical' movement in animals?
Russell defines a movement of an animal's body as mechanical when it proceeds as if only dead matter were involved, such as falling over a cliff under gravitation. Mechanical movements lack appropriateness except by accident. He contrasts them with vital movements, which depend for their causation on the special properties of the nervous system rather than properties shared with matter in general.
Chapter 4
How does Russell distinguish vital from mechanical movements using dynamite?
Russell compares a human body to dynamite: both store energy in unstable equilibrium, so a physically small disturbance like a spoken word can release movements out of proportion to the cause. Vital movements exploit this stored nervous energy; mechanical movements do not involve it. He notes the reduction to physical laws would require minute microscopic equations, while macroscopic laws may differ.
Chapter 4
What is the essential point of Lloyd Morgan's definition of instinct for Russell?
Russell says Morgan defines instinctive behaviour as independent of prior experience on first occurrence, tending to well-being and race preservation, performed by all members of a group, and modifiable by later experience. Russell argues the group criterion makes it impossible to judge an isolated individual, and well-being is only usual, not universal. The essential point for psychology is independence from prior experience.
Chapter 4
How does Russell distinguish instinctive from learnt movements?
Russell calls a movement instinctive if it is a vital movement performed the first time an animal meets a novel situation, or one it would perform were the situation novel. A movement is learnt or habitual if due to previous experience of similar situations. He notes complications: instincts mature gradually, instincts may give only rough outlines requiring learning, and some instinct is needed to start learning.
Chapter 4
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 5)4 cards
What five main points about instinct does Russell emphasize against popular conceptions?
Russell lists five: (1) instinct requires no prevision of the biological end it serves; (2) it is adapted only to usual circumstances and has no more precision than success as a rule requires; (3) instinctive processes often improve with experience; (4) instinct supplies impulses to experimental movements needed for learning; (5) nascent instincts are easily modifiable and attachable to various objects. All but the no-prevision point are established by external observation.
Chapter 5
How does Russell illustrate instinct growing wiser through experience?
Russell cites Semon's account of hunters who attract stags by imitating the sounds of other members of their species, male or female. The hunters find that the older a stag becomes, the more difficult it is to deceive him, and the more accurate the imitation has to be. This shows an instinct being modified by experience rather than operating with fixed precision.
Chapter 5
What is Russell's common-sense view of desire, and why does he reject it?
The common-sense view holds that desire is essentially an attitude toward something imagined rather than actual—the imagined object is the end or purpose, with a specific feeling of desiring attached, and both the discomfort of unsatisfied desire and the resulting actions are effects of that desire. Russell calls this view one against which common sense would not rebel, yet argues it is radically mistaken, though it cannot be refuted logically.
Chapter 5
How does Russell propose we should understand desire, based on animal behaviour?
Russell argues desire should be treated as a causal law of our actions, not something actually existing in the mind. Since we can observe only animals' actions, their desire must be displayed in a cycle of actions: activity of movements likely to produce a result, continuance until achieved, then quiescence. He proposes calling this observable bodily behaviour 'hunger' or 'desire,' not an unknowable mental ingredient.
Chapter 5
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 6)2 cards
How does Russell distinguish discomfort from pain, following Head?
The author, citing Dr. H. Head, treats pain as a distinct sensory quality like heat and cold, gradable by stimulus intensity, while discomfort is a feeling-tone directly opposed to pleasure that may accompany sensations not themselves painful, such as tickling. Confusing the two makes discomfort seem more substantial than it is, which in turn distorts views of pleasure.
Chapter 6
How does Russell define discomfort and pleasure as causal properties?
Discomfort is a property of a sensation or mental occurrence consisting in its stimulating voluntary or reflex movements tending to produce a change involving cessation of the occurrence. Pleasure is a property of an occurrence that either stimulates no such movement or only movements tending to prolong it. Russell adopts this causal definition because the intrinsic-quality theory cannot be decided by evidence.
Chapter 6
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 7)4 cards
According to Russell, what is the essence of 'experience'?
Russell defines experience as the modification of behaviour produced by what is experienced. An animal 'experiences' an occurrence when it modifies the animal's subsequent behaviour, making it the mnemic portion of the cause of future occurrences. A burnt child that fears fire has experienced it; a stick thrown on and removed has not, since it offers no more resistance than before.
Chapter 7
What single law does Russell use to summarize verifiable mnemic phenomena?
Russell states: if a complex stimulus A has caused a complex reaction B in an organism, the occurrence of part of A on a future occasion tends to cause the whole reaction B. He says this contains what is verifiable in Semon's two laws, though it needs supplementing with an account of frequency and similar factors.
Chapter 7
What is Semon's 'engram' and what status does Russell assign it?
Semon defines the engram as the difference between the primary indifference-state before a stimulus and the secondary indifference-state after it—the engraphic effect. Semon admits it must consist in some material alteration in the body. Russell calls it hypothetical, invoked for theoretical uses rather than direct observation, and doubts it simplifies the account of mnemic phenomena.
Chapter 7
How does Russell illustrate mnemic causation using language?
Russell notes that telling an Englishman 'You have a smut on your nose' makes him remove it, but the same words have no such effect on a Frenchman who knows no English. The effect of words depends on past experience, making it a mnemic phenomenon. Understanding a word is a disposition, not an actual mental content present when unthought.
Chapter 7
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 8)4 cards
Why does Russell reject the traditional conception of cause and effect?
The author argues the traditional notion of a particular event A necessarily causing B is fundamentally erroneous and must be replaced by laws of change. Such invariable, necessary sequences have not been found in nature, since everything is in continuous change and what we call an event is really a process. Cause and effect must therefore be temporally contiguous processes, and causal laws become differential equations describing a direction of change at each moment.
Chapter 8
What does Russell say about the uniqueness of causes?
The author argues the assumption that each event has one phenomenon that is THE cause is a mistake. Cause, in its practical sense, means 'nearly invariable antecedent.' We cannot find an antecedent known to be quite invariable, since something unaccounted for may prevent the effect, and many antecedents are nearly invariable. His example: the twelve o'clock hooter seems the cause of workers leaving, but innumerable other hooters have equal right to that title.
Chapter 8
How does Russell treat empirical generalizations versus exact physical laws?
The author argues exact laws assumed in physics are known to be somewhere near the truth but not known to be true as they stand, since all empirical knowledge is approximate and liable to exceptions. Rough empirical generalizations like 'taking arsenic is followed by death' have the advantage of dealing with observable phenomena. Science starts from 'A is usually followed by B,' the nearest approach to a traditional causal law.
Chapter 8
How does Russell define a physical object like a table?
The author argues the 'real' table behind different observers' appearances is inferred, not perceived, and we need not assume it. Instead, the table neutral between observers is the set of all particulars called 'aspects' from different points of view, collected by similarity and by laws of perspective, reflection and diffraction. These particulars, together with correlated unperceived ones, jointly ARE the table—a first approximation.
Chapter 8
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 9)3 cards
How does Russell distinguish perception from other appearances of an object?
Russell defines a perception as an impression due to an intervening medium such as a sense-organ and optic nerve. It interests psychology on its own account, not merely as one of the correlated particulars forming the physical object perceived. He notes this definition arose from his topic and may not be the only or best way to define perception.
Chapter 9
How does Russell define a piece of matter in terms of appearances?
Appearances change partly by intrinsic laws of perspective and partly by the intervening medium, whose effect lessens as we approach the object. Given an appearance x, we construct hypothetically the system of appearances it would belong to under perspective laws alone, independent of distortion beyond x. Moving x nearer the object yields a limiting set, which physics may define as the piece of matter.
Chapter 9
What is Russell's view of introspection as a separate kind of knowledge?
Russell argues the stuff of mental life consists wholly of sensations and images, distinguished by causation rather than vividness. Since images and sensations do not require two different ways of knowing, introspection as a separate kind of knowledge disappears. He credits American psychologists, notably Knight Dunlap's 'The Case against Introspection,' with the main criticism of introspection.
Chapter 9
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 10)4 cards
How does Russell define the difference between public and private sensations?
Russell argues the distinction is one of degree, not kind. No two people ever have exactly similar sensations of the same object, since perspective and point of view differ; they have only correlated sensations. Even the most private sensation, like a toothache, has correlations others could theoretically observe, such as the dentist seeing the cavity that causes it.
Chapter 10
Why does Russell reject privacy as a reason to exclude introspective data from science?
Russell argues privacy alone does not make a datum unfit for scientific treatment. It is through many private observations that correlations are established, for example between toothaches and cavities. Therefore the objection to introspection based on privacy must be rejected, since private data help build the very correlations science uses.
Chapter 10
What does Russell say is the essential characteristic of introspective data?
Russell argues the essential characteristic concerns localization: introspective data are either not localized at all, or localized where something physically occupies the space, like a visual image of a friend in an empty chair. Such images cannot be placed in the body or the chair, so they seem not to obey physical laws, though Russell thinks they may ultimately be brought under them.
Chapter 10
How trustworthy does Russell consider introspection compared with external perception?
Russell argues introspection is not in any degree more trustworthy than external perception. Spontaneous beliefs about ourselves and the outer world are rash and error-prone; we are often unaware of beliefs and desires, and psycho-analysis shows fallibility about desire. Autobiographies contain inadvertent errors, and analysing mental operations requires hypotheses tested by consequences, as in physical science.
Chapter 10
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 11)3 cards
What two characteristics distinguish perceptions from appearances where no living being exists?
Russell says perceptions are distinguished by two features, both tied to mnemic phenomena: (1) they give rise to mnemic phenomena, being remembered, associated, or producing images and habits; and (2) they are themselves affected by mnemic phenomena, differing according to past experience—as a spoken sentence's effect depends on whether the hearer knows the language.
Chapter 11
How does Russell define sensation as opposed to perception?
Russell defines sensation as the theoretical core of experience—the part of a perception that proceeds from the character of the object without mnemic influences. The remainder, which is a mnemic phenomenon, must be added to the sensation to make up the perception. So the actual experience is the perception; the sensation is only a theoretical core, and Russell admits grave difficulties in applying these definitions.
Chapter 11
What is the difference between regular and irregular appearances of a star?
A regular appearance is one the star presents in vacuo, derivable from the laws of perspective; it is an actual member of the system that is the star, caused by the star alone. Irregular appearances arise when light passes through a medium—refraction, mist, the eye—and are caused twofold: by the object and by the intervening medium. Perception is therefore vague and confused, a matter of degree.
Chapter 11
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 12)4 cards
Why does Russell reject the subject as an ingredient of the world?
Russell argues the subject is a logical fiction, like mathematical points and instants, introduced for linguistic convenience and demanded by grammar rather than revealed by observation. Its apparent functions can be performed by classes, series, or other logical constructions from less dubious entities. Dispensing with it avoids a gratuitous assumption, but it also removes the basis for distinguishing sensation from sense-datum.
Chapter 12
What is Russell's view of pure sensation and knowledge?
Russell holds that a patch of colour, which is the sensation, is a constituent of the physical world and is not itself knowledge. Pure sensation is therefore not cognitive. It causes cognitions through its psychological effects: it acts as a sign of correlated things, such as sight and touch sensations, and it gives rise to images and memories after it fades.
Chapter 12
Why does Russell reject vividness as the criterion for distinguishing images from sensations?
Hume defined impressions by force and violence and ideas as faint images, but conceded they may approach each other in sleep, fever, madness, or violent emotion. Stout modified this with an 'aggressiveness' belonging to percepts, yet Russell notes sensations can be extremely faint, and intense emotion or hallucination can give images compelling force, as in Macbeth's horrid image. Vividness therefore cannot define the difference.
Chapter 12
What does Russell say the 'unreality' of images really means?
Russell argues images are as truly part of the actual world as sensations; calling them 'unreal' only means they lack the concomitants a sensation would have, such as tactile correlations with a visual chair. This amounts to their not obeying the laws of physics, which returns us to the causal distinction. The feeling of unreality cannot define images, since in dreams an image feels as real as a sensation.
Chapter 12
XV. Characteristics of Mental Phenomena (part 13)4 cards
How does Russell distinguish images from sensations?
Russell holds that images are distinguished from sensations chiefly by their causes and, to a lesser degree, by their effects. In intrinsic nature they often seem dimmer, vaguer, or fainter, but not always or universally, so faintness cannot define them. Images are private events in a person, not public happenings in the orderly world, though their privacy need not prevent scientific study, just as bodily sensations are studied despite being observable by only one observer.
Chapter 13
What did Galton find about visual imagery and education?
Galton investigated visual imagery and found that education tends to kill it: Fellows of the Royal Society had much less of it than their wives. Russell says he sees no reason to doubt Galton's conclusion that the habit of abstract pursuits makes learned men inferior to the average in visualizing power and more exclusively occupied with words in their thinking. Russell adds that Watson, who denies imagery, is a very learned man.
Chapter 13
What is Russell's objection to Watson's view of imagery?
Watson proposed throwing out imagery altogether and showing that all natural thought goes on in terms of sensori-motor processes in the larynx. Russell says this flatly contradicts experience: try persuading an uneducated person she cannot call up a visual picture of a friend in a chair but can only use words describing it, and she will conclude you are mad. Russell notes this statement is based on experiment.
Chapter 13
What does Hume claim about simple ideas and impressions?
Hume defines impressions as perceptions entering with most force and violence — sensations, passions, and emotions at first appearance — and ideas as their faint images in thinking and reasoning. He explains that a complex idea may occur without a similar complex impression, but every simple idea has a resembling simple impression and vice versa. His general principle: all simple ideas in first appearance derive from correspondent simple impressions, which they exactly represent.
Chapter 13
Section I). (part 1)4 cards
Why does Russell say images can be called images 'of' something?
Russell holds that images resemble antecedent sensations, and this recognizable resemblance is what lets us call them images 'of' this or that. He notes Hume's principle that simple ideas derive from correspondent impressions, admitting possible exceptions but treating it as broadly true. This resemblance is fundamental for memory and knowledge generally, though as education advances images tend to be replaced by words.
Chapter 14
What problem does Russell raise about comparing an image with the past sensation it copies?
The sensation an image supposedly copies is past when the image exists, so it can only be known by memory, while memory of past sensations seems possible only through present images. Thus we cannot bring image and prototype together in one experience to compare them. Russell says the difficulty is equally acute whether we claim images resemble or differ from their prototypes.
Chapter 14
What two sorts of feelings make us treat images as more or less accurate copies of the past?
Russell says images come with (1) feelings of familiarity, which lead us to trust our memories, and (2) feelings giving a sense of pastness, which assign remembered events places in the time-order. He rejects vagueness as the mark of untrusted images, noting that under fatigue a friend's face may appear vividly yet distorted and still be distrusted.
Chapter 14
What does Russell's 'world began five minutes ago' hypothesis illustrate about memory-beliefs?
Russell uses it to show that everything constituting a memory-belief happens now, not in the past it refers to. Since there is no logically necessary connection between events at different times, nothing present or future can disprove the hypothesis. He calls it logically tenable but uninteresting, using its tenability only to analyze what occurs when we remember.
Chapter 14
Section I). (part 2)4 cards
How does Russell distinguish true memory from habit-memory?
Russell argues that habit-memory and Semon's image laws do not address the belief that images refer to past occurrences. True memory consists of knowledge-memory: the belief or judgment that an image refers to a past event. This belief, not the mere recurrence of images, is what interests theory of knowledge and distinguishes true memory from habit acquired through past experience.
Chapter 15
What is the feeling of familiarity, and does it yield knowledge of the past?
Familiarity is a definite feeling that can exist without an object, normally tied to some feature of the environment. It comes in degrees and is not always reliable, as the illusion that everything happened before shows. The judgment that what is familiar was experienced before is a product of reflection, not part of the feeling itself, so no knowledge of the past derives from familiarity alone.
Chapter 15
What are Russell's two senses of recognition?
In the first sense, a thing feels familiar and we know it is such-and-such, like recognizing Jones or a cat; this involves past experience but not knowledge of the past, and may be mere habit of association. In the second sense, recognition is knowing that we have seen it before: a cognitive belief expressible as 'this has existed before,' which does involve knowledge about the past.
Chapter 15
Why does Russell reject the behaviourist account of recognition?
Behaviourists suggest recognition consists in behaving the same way when a stimulus repeats. Russell argues this is the opposite of the truth: the essence of recognition is the difference between a repeated and a new stimulus. On the first occasion there is no recognition; on the second there is. Recognition's cause is therefore two occasions together, neither alone sufficing, making it a complex causal unit like habit.
Chapter 15
Section I). (part 3)3 cards
In the simplest memory-belief, what does the judgment 'this occurred' actually mean?
Russell argues that in primitive memory we do not distinguish the image from the sensation it copies (its prototype). The word 'this' covers both, so the judgment is vague rather than false. Ordinary speech does not separate identity from close similarity, so the vague identity involved is really close similarity, not a precise claim of sameness.
Chapter 16
How does Russell define accuracy in instruments and in thought?
An instrument is accurate in proportion as it reacts differently to very slightly different stimuli; a small stimulus difference producing a great response difference means high accuracy. The same applies to thought and perception: a musician or a native speaker responds to minute distinctions others miss. Accuracy of response improves with practice, and complete accuracy is a theoretical ideal, not practically attainable.
Chapter 16
What distinguishes a vague word from a general word, according to Russell?
A word is general when it is understood to apply to many objects in virtue of a common property. A word is vague when it in fact applies to many objects because, owing to some common property, the user has not perceived them as distinct. The user has not judged them identical, merely made the same response without judging difference. Vague words precede judgments of identity and difference.
Chapter 16
Section I). (part 4)4 cards
According to the chapter, what does a proper name like "Napoleon" actually mean?
The author argues a proper name means a series of occurrences bound together by causal laws of the kind that constitutes one person, animal, or thing. Napoleon as empirically known was a series of gradually changing appearances, not a simple entity. There may be a single simple ego, but there is no reason to suppose so. Neither the word nor what it names is an ultimate indivisible constituent of the world.
Chapter 17
How does the chapter define understanding a word, and does it require knowing definitions?
A person understands a word when suitable circumstances make him use it (active understanding) and hearing it causes suitable behaviour (passive understanding). Dogs often have passive but not active understanding. The author argues understanding does not consist in knowing dictionary definitions or being able to specify appropriate objects; it is more like understanding cricket—a matter of habits. The use of the word comes first, and meaning is distilled out by observation and analysis.
Chapter 17
How does the chapter distinguish words for processes like "walking" from general names like "man"?
Both denote sets of similar occurrences, but two instances of walking resemble each other, whereas two instances of Jones are causally connected. An instance of walking is a process in time with causal connection between earlier and later parts, differing from an instance of man only by having a shorter life. The author argues there is no logical impossibility in walking occurring as an isolated phenomenon without a person performing it.
Chapter 17
What does the chapter say about the vagueness of a word's meaning?
The author argues the meaning of a word is not absolutely definite; there is always a greater or less degree of vagueness. Meaning is an area like a target: it may have a bull's eye, but outlying parts remain more or less within the meaning, diminishing as we travel further out. As language grows more precise, less of the target lies outside the bull's eye and the bull's eye shrinks, but it never shrinks to a point.
Chapter 17
Section I). (part 5)4 cards
According to Russell, what is the most essential function of words?
The author argues that the most essential function of words is that, originally through their connection with images, they bring us into touch with what is remote in time or space. When words operate without the medium of images, this appears to be a telescoped process. Thus the problem of the meaning of words connects with the problem of the meaning of images.
Chapter 18
How does Russell criticize Watson's account of words used in the box's absence?
Russell says Watson gives only one brief sentence on the word arising when no box is present, which is inadequate: the habit was to use the word when the box was present, so its extension to absent cases needs explaining. Russell suggests an image of the box may cause the word, but notes this is true only in some cases and merely shifts the problem to what causes the image.
Chapter 18
What law does Russell invoke to explain words used in the absence of their objects?
Russell invokes the law that when two things have frequently existed in close temporal contiguity, either comes in time to cause the other, which is the basis of both habit and association. He argues this law of habit is adequate to account for word use without objects, and would be adequate even without introducing images, so images gain no extra argument from language.
Chapter 18
How does Russell define the meaning of an image?
Russell says the meaning of an image is constituted by a combination of likeness and associations. A vague image, derived from many prototypes, means 'dog' in general if it has the associative effects all dogs share but not those of any special dog. He notes this is not a sharp conception, and often it will be impossible to decide with certainty what an image means.
Chapter 18
Section I). (part 6)4 cards
What does Russell say correct speech proves about mental content?
Russell argues that correct speech is no better evidence of mental content than any other biologically useful movement, such as flight or combat. Saying "There is a dog" and throwing stones at a cat could both be equally mechanical. All language shows is that two very different instances of a universal may cause two very similar utterances of the same word.
Chapter 19
How does Berkeley argue against Locke's abstract triangle?
Berkeley denies he can form an idea of triangle in general without deciding its sort. Any imagined hand, eye, or man must have some particular shape and colour. He accepts abstracting parts separable in reality, but denies conceiving qualities that cannot exist separately, or framing general notions by abstracting from particulars. He suspects such abstract notions, if they exist, are confined to the learned.
Chapter 19
How does Berkeley explain how words become general?
Berkeley holds a word becomes general not by signifying an abstract general idea but by being made the sign of several particular ideas, any one of which it indifferently suggests. A geometrician's particular black inch-long line becomes general by representing all lines. Likewise the name "line" derives its generality from the various particular lines it indifferently denotes.
Chapter 19
How does Russell distinguish vague from general images?
Russell says Semon's composite image may get us no further than the vague. Whether it reaches the general depends on whether, besides the generalized image, we also have particular images of the instances compounded, clear enough to be recognized as different. With only the composite image, it is vague; with particular images compared and contrasted, it can function as a general idea.
Chapter 19
Section I). (part 7)3 cards
What does Russell conclude about 'imageless thinking'?
Russell remains unconvinced that thinking consists neither of images nor of words. He suggests advocates rashly assumed thinking where habit had made thinking unnecessary, comparing this to Thorndike's animals, whose associations were between sensory stimulus and bodily movement without any non-physiological intermediary. He applies the same reasoning to our own habitual actions and internal speech.
Chapter 20
How does Russell explain knowledge of universals without consciousness of universals?
A horse reacts similarly to any instance of the smell of a bear, even from a bearskin, but is not conscious of the universal. Likewise a man saying 'I smell a bear' reacts similarly without consciousness of universals. Words with universal logical meaning can be used correctly without such consciousness, which exists only as reflective judgment observing similarities and differences.
Chapter 20
What does Russell say about behaviorist psychology and introspective data?
Russell argues behaviorist psychology can be an independent science accounting for behavior commonly taken as evidence of thought, which weakens reliance on introspective data. But he contends behaviorism fails in the last analysis because it rests on an inadequate philosophy of physics; if the physical world is infected with subjectivity, private introspective observations become necessary.
Chapter 20
Section I). (part 8)4 cards
According to the chapter, what must the content of a belief contain?
The content of a belief may consist of words only, images only, a mixture of the two, or either or both together with one or more sensations. It must contain at least one constituent that is a word or an image, and it may or may not contain sensations as constituents.
Chapter 21
How does the chapter distinguish words from sensations within a belief?
The chapter argues that sensations occurring in their own right enter into both the belief and its objective, whereas words enter the belief only as symbols, in virtue of their meaning. The objective contains the sensations themselves but only the meanings of the words.
Chapter 21
Why does the chapter claim image-propositions are more primitive than word-propositions?
The author argues image-propositions may ante-date language, since memory-images with the simple belief-feeling of memory could occur before language arose. He adds it would be rash to deny such memory in higher animals, and notes elementary perceptual beliefs often remain at the level of images.
Chapter 21
What does the chapter say about unconscious beliefs?
The author argues most beliefs, like most wishes, are 'unconscious' in that we never tell ourselves we have them. They display themselves when expectations fail, as when tea is mistaken for beer or a tiled-looking floor turns out to be carpet; the shock of surprise reveals habitual expectations that must be classed as beliefs.
Chapter 21
Section I). (part 9)4 cards
What does James's italicized principle say about uncontradicted objects?
James asserts that any object which remains uncontradicted is ipso facto believed and posited as absolute reality. Russell notes that if this is correct, it follows, though James does not draw the inference, that no specific feeling called belief is needed: the mere existence of images yields all that is required.
Chapter 22
How does Russell illustrate the state of suspended judgment?
Russell compares the person considering a proposition without believing it to a man about to run a race waiting for the signal. Though not moving, he is in a very different condition from a man quietly at rest. Likewise, the suspended believer is in a state of tension, restraining the natural tendency to act on the proposition.
Chapter 22
What three kinds of belief does Russell advocate, and what distinguishes them?
Russell holds there are at least three kinds of belief: memory, expectation, and bare assent. Each is constituted by a certain feeling or complex of sensations attached to the content believed. The same content, such as images of rain, may enter into memory, expectation, or assent; the difference lies not in the content but in the nature of the belief-feeling.
Chapter 22
Why can't mere coexistence of content and belief-feeling constitute belief?
Russell argues a specific relation is required between content and belief-feeling, namely that the content is what is believed. Otherwise, whenever we had a memory-feeling we would remember any proposition in our minds at the same time. But we may simultaneously remember one proposition and merely consider another, so mere coexistence does not suffice.
Chapter 22
I.4 cards
According to Russell, what two characteristics must responses show to indicate knowledge?
Russell says that when we observe a human being's responses from outside, they display knowledge if they show two distinct and sometimes incompatible characteristics: accuracy and appropriateness. He illustrates this with a tiger pursuit, where turning to look aids accuracy while running away without seeking more knowledge aids appropriateness.
Chapter 23
What two conditions define an accurate instrument, per Russell?
Russell defines an instrument as accurate when it (a) gives different responses to stimuli differing in relevant ways, and (b) gives the same response to stimuli not differing in relevant ways. What counts as relevant depends on the instrument's nature and purpose—wind direction matters for a weather-cock, but not wind strength.
Chapter 23
Why does Russell deny that a calculating machine knows the answer?
Russell admits the machine gives correct answers with complete accuracy, but says we do not call it knowledge because the machine has no purpose of its own in answering: it does not wish to impress you or feel proud of being a good machine. Accuracy alone is insufficient; purpose is required.
Chapter 23
How does Russell distinguish knowledge from mere sensitiveness of response?
Russell says an object is sensitive to a feature if it behaves differently according to that feature's presence or absence, as iron is sensitive to magnetism. But sensitiveness is not knowledge, and knowledge of a non-sensible fact is not sensitiveness to it. Beyond question-and-answer, defining knowledge behavioristically requires considering purpose—a pigeon flying home knows the way, a stone rolling downhill does not.
Chapter 23
II.4 cards
What two intrinsic criteria of truth does Russell examine and reject?
Russell examines self-evidence and mutual coherence as proposed intrinsic criteria for distinguishing true from false beliefs. He argues both are inadequate, concluding that no intrinsic criterion hitherto suggested will suffice. His stated motive for the search is the wish to feel more certainty about truth than a relation-to-fact view allows, making the pursuit of truth seem less arduous.
Chapter 24
Why does Russell say self-evidence fails as a practical guarantee of truth?
Russell argues self-evidence cannot be a guarantee because people find mutually incompatible propositions self-evident, as with the Antipodes belief. Meinong's reply that some beliefs are self-evidently self-evident still leaves practical risk of error, requiring an endless series of ever more complicated self-evident beliefs. Russell also notes self-evidence must not be confused with absence of doubt or subjective certainty, which is usually a result of habit.
Chapter 24
How does Russell explain the self-evidence of logical and mathematical judgments?
Russell suggests mathematical propositions like two and two are four follow by logical deduction from definitions, so their truth results from the meanings of symbols rather than properties of objects. Similarly, the impossibility of a thing being in two places at once follows from the definitions of 'one thing' and 'one place.' The author argues such self-evidence reflects our decisions about word use, not laws of physics.
Chapter 24
What is Russell's main objection to coherence as the definition of truth?
Russell's fundamental objection is logical, criticizing the doctrine of relations behind the view; he says the powers of logic are far less than the theory supposes. If taken seriously, any one truth would be logically inferable from any other, so Caesar conquering Gaul would reveal tomorrow's weather. He also notes no attempt is made to show a consistent whole of false propositions, as in a novel, is impossible.
Chapter 24
III.4 cards
What is the essence of the question of verifiability, and what is Russell's answer?
The question is whether we can discover any set of beliefs never mistaken, or any test that always discriminates true from false beliefs. Russell answers negatively: no infallible criterion has been found, and any belief that we have found one may itself be mistaken. Testing a criterion by itself would beg the question.
Chapter 25
What does Russell call the plainest case of verification?
The happening of something expected. You believe a train will be at a certain time, find it, board it, and it starts as expected. This is verification: an image accompanied by expectation-belief is succeeded by a sensation that is the image's 'meaning.' Russell says this is in a sense the converse of memory, differing in time-order and accompanying feelings.
Chapter 25
How does Russell propose to account for verification theoretically?
He prefers an external, causal view over comparing image and sensation. Verification occurs when the occurrence brings a feeling of expectedness and the prior expectation enabled appropriate action. This whole experience is defined as verification and constitutes the truth of the expectation. Appropriate action during expectation is additional verification but not essential.
Chapter 25
How is a scientific hypothesis or historical claim verified, and how certain is this method?
Indirectly, by deducing future consequences that subsequent experience confirms. Even Caesar's crossing the Rubicon could only be verified from the future, via manuscripts, arguments about their antiquity, and corroborating inscriptions. The method sifts beliefs and builds science, but Russell says it is not absolute or infallible and offers no theoretical refutation of the sceptic.
Chapter 25
IV. (part 1)4 cards
According to Russell, what determines a belief's objective reference besides its objective?
Russell argues the objective reference of a belief is determined not by the fact alone but also by the direction of the belief towards or away from the fact. A true belief points towards its objective; a false belief points away from it. He credits this way of viewing the matter to his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein. Two contradictory beliefs share the same objective but point in opposite directions.
Chapter 26
Why do two contradictory propositions have the same objective?
Russell explains that there are true and false propositions but not true and false facts. If today is Tuesday, there is no false objective "today is not Tuesday" to serve as the objective of the false belief. Hence two beliefs that are each other's contradictories share the same objective, differing only in whether they point toward or away from it.
Chapter 26
How does Russell define the meaning of a proposition hypothetically?
To avoid needing to know whether a proposition is true, Russell rephrases: the meaning of "today is Tuesday" consists in pointing to the fact "today is Tuesday" if that is a fact, or away from the fact "today is not Tuesday" if that is a fact. Thus we know a proposition's meaning when we know what would make it true and what would make it false.
Chapter 26
Why can't word-propositions correspond as simply as image-propositions?
Russell argues that in word-propositions relations are usually expressed by words, which are not themselves relations. In "Socrates precedes Plato," the objective has two terms with a relation between them, while the proposition has three terms with an order relation. Word-propositions therefore have more terms than the facts they refer to and cannot correspond as simply as some image-propositions.
Chapter 26
IV. (part 2)4 cards
According to James, what distinguishes a voluntary act from an involuntary one?
James maintains that the only distinctive characteristic of a voluntary act is that it involves an idea of the movement to be performed, made up of memory-images of the kinaesthetic sensations felt when the same movement occurred on a former occasion. On this view, no movement can be made voluntarily unless it has previously occurred involuntarily. Russell says he sees no reason to doubt the correctness of this view.
Chapter 27
What does Russell say volition in the emphatic sense adds beyond voluntary movement?
Russell says emphatic volition involves more than voluntary movement: it includes a judgment, "This is what I shall do," a sensation of tension during doubt, and a different sensation at the moment of deciding. Conflict of desires is essential to its causation, with kinaesthetic images of incompatible movements followed by the exclusive image of the willed movement. He sees no specifically new ingredient; sensations and images with their causal laws suffice.
Chapter 27
How does Russell define consciousness in terms of images and belief?
Russell defines consciousness in terms of meaning: an image of a word related to an object. When a sensation is followed by a copy-image accompanied by the sort of belief that makes the image a "sign" of something else, the image constitutes consciousness of the sensation. Mere imagination does not involve consciousness of anything, so an element of belief must be added to the images.
Chapter 27
Why does Russell add a truth proviso to his definition of consciousness?
Russell notes that perception involves expectations of future sensations based on correlations that are usual but not invariable, so such expectations can err, as when one tries to touch a reflection in a looking-glass. Since memory is also fallible, it would seem odd to say we are "conscious" of a thing that does not or did not exist. He therefore adds the proviso that the beliefs involved in consciousness must be true.
Chapter 27
IV. (part 3)4 cards
How does Russell define 'data' in relation to belief?
Russell argues there can be no datum apart from a belief: a sensation that merely comes and goes is not a datum until it is remembered, and in perception there is no datum without a judgment of perception. Since no belief is infallible, no datum is theoretically indubitable, and every datum has some degree of vagueness.
Chapter 28
What does Russell mean by a 'trained observer' as source of data?
Russell does not mean things we feel sure of before science begins, but what a trained observer with analytic attention, knowing what to look for, reports at an advanced stage of science. Such observation is as sophisticated as the theories built on it, since trained habits and practice are needed; yet once observed, belief in it rests on having been seen, not inference.
Chapter 28
Why are nerves and brain not truly data for physiology?
Russell argues that in the ideal structure of science, nerves and brain as physical objects are replaced by the sensations through which the physiologist perceives them. Saying we see a nerve is like saying we hear a nightingale: we hear a sound causally connected with the bird, and see a sight causally connected with a nerve. Strictly, only the sensation is the datum.
Chapter 28
How do physics and psychology differ in grouping particulars?
Russell holds that the causal laws of physics connect a particular with other appearances in the same piece of matter, grouping particulars with the same 'active' place, while psychology groups those with the same 'passive' place. Images have no active place, so they belong exclusively to psychology. A sensation used to verify physics is a sign of a material phenomenon; studied by psychology, it is regrouped.
Chapter 28
Source and licence
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #2529 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.
Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-18. Cards reviewed 2026-10-18.
These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.
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