Theme 1: Theory of science (Pre)

1.

A basic definition of the term sense-data would be things that we instantly “know” or “feel” from our senses, such as colors, smells, sounds, the texture of a material, etc. There are several reasons as to why Russell introduces this term. The first is that the sense-data from a physical object (such as a table or a knife) could differ not only depending on who is “sensing” it, but also in what angles and lighting conditions the object is being sensed. Russell gives some examples of this, such as a coin having a slight elliptic shape from almost every angle (except from above where it is completely circular). Another example would be that the color of a table could shift depending on viewing angle, the amount and temperature of the incoming of light, etc.

The second reason, which I find far more interesting from a philosophical standpoint, is that physical objects could be considered to only exist as sense-data on our minds. That means that there are no real physical objects, only our mind’s perception of them. This results in some not very logical (but still possible) consequences, such as objects disappearing when nobody is thinking of them. Another consequence would be that I (the person who is writing this) am the only person existing in the universe. All other material (people, things, etc.) are only a construct of my imagination. 

2.

A proposition could be defined as the “meaning”, or description of properties of a physical object or person. A proposition must (according to Russell) consist of an object and the properties of these objects. An example from Russell would be the phrase “Mr. A. is the Unionist candidate for this constituency”, where “Mr. A” is the object and “…is the Unionist candidate for this constituency” is the property of this object. Something that is important to notice is that there could be different propositions referring to the same object depending on how you chose to describe the object.

From what I understand Russell has no clear definition of the term “statement of fact”. It seems as if a proposition that is generally seen as “true” turns into a statement of fact. Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, a statement of fact is something that could be verified by a scientific method. This means that most parts of religious statements (such as “God exists” or “God did this and that”) could not be seen as facts since they cannot be verified using scientific methods. This is the difference between a regular verbal expression and a statement of fact; the statement could be verified whereas the verbal expression does not have to be verifiable.

3.

I think a good way to define the term “definite description” would be to simplify it as the grammatical term “singular”. A definite description points to a specific object such as “the paper” as opposed to the ambiguous description “a paper”. A more elaborate example of a definite description (used by Russell) could for instance be "the first Chancellor of the German Empire”.

The term description (short for definite description) is starting to become important when we are evaluating knowledge and how we acquire knowledge. Using terminology from the first question, the most fundamental knowledge we have comes from sense-data. This knowledge is called knowledge by acquaintance (such as the perception of a red table). This differs from the more complex knowledge by description, where previously acquired sense-data is combined to give a description of something. Russell uses the example of Bismarck: “"the first Chancellor of the German Empire." We do not have sense-data from this person since we have never met him, but previous sense-data (Chancellor or German) could be built upon to give a description/knowledge of this person.

4.

From what I understand Russell’s main problem with the theory of knowledge is that we could be “mislead” by false (and true) knowledge and false conclusions. In chapter 13, Russell gives the example of a man thinking that the late Prime Minister’s name starts with the letter B, because he thinks that the name of the late Prime Minister is Mr. Balfour. The first statement is indeed correct (since his name is Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman), but the conclusion is based on a false premise. Therefore Russell does not think that this constitutes “true knowledge”.