Heir by many aspects to work to Gottlob Frege during the 19th century the logical atomism is philosophical doctrines supported by Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein during the first part of the 20th century. Based on the rejection of the idealistic monism of hégélien type and the recognition of an irreducible pluralism in the world, the logical atomism receives with Wittgenstein and Russell two versions different. The word of “logical atomism” is due to Russell itself, and appears for the first time in the philosophy of the logical atomism .

The atomism russellien

At Frege, and in contemporary first order logic, the truth of the proposals is function of the elements which constitute this proposal. Thus, by analyzing its elements, it is possible to determine the value of truth of any proposal.

The thesis defended by Russell is that these ultimate elements are at the same time private individuals, i.e. sounds, images, feelings specific, and universals, which are the predicates and the relations of these private individuals. The private individuals and the predicates are the atoms of our knowledge, the primitive components which we seize in the world and from which our knowledge is elaborate. Thus, the logical atomism is not a physical atomism, since one tries to release from the logical atoms which will constitute knowledge, and not physical atoms.

From the private individuals and predicates, and in their uniting the various logical connectors, it becomes possible to form a proposal. The simplest proposal is the atomic proposal, only made up of one private individual and a predicate, form F (a) . She says simply that a private individual has is F . This proposal refers to a fact, which is the criterion of the truth of the proposal. Thus, the logical atomism is accompanied by an ontological thesis: the world consists of facts. These facts are a certain state of this world, they are units discrete and independent of the human spirit. The facts admit also an analysis. The atomic facts correspond to the atomic proposals. And the more complex facts will correspond to the complex proposals (molecular proposals).

The logical atomism is a reaction to the idealistic philosophy of Hegel. Russell indeed received a philosophical formation marked by this idealism, doctrines then dominant in England, and defended by the Neo-Hegelians like Bradley. For the idealists, the whole has an ontological and epistemological privilege on the parts. The whole is the subject of any preaching (what brings to the thesis criticized by Russell of the internal relations), and is also the main object of our knowledge. The knowledge of the parts is only one abstraction of the knowledge of totality.

The distinction which Russell between the predicates and the relations establishes, innovation made possible by the new logical one and that traditional logic founded on the model of the subject and the predicate could not see, are very important to include/understand the nature of the error made by the thesis of the internal relations. In a proposal as “Pierre is larger than Paul”, traditional logic will judge that “Pierre” is the subject of the sentence, and “than Paul” the predicate is larger. Thus, being larger than Paul becomes an internal property of Pierre, in the same way that Pierre is a man or a musician. With the modern logic, one can distinguish the proposal saying that Pierre is a man, who allot a predicate to Pierre, and that which says that it is larger than Paul, which establishes a relation between two terms. Thus, the relation is external insofar as it is not any more one predicate pertaining to Pierre. The relation thus does not imply any more one internal complexity of the subject, which can be a private individual. And it is essential for theory of knowledge that such relations between private individuals are possible, because it is they which will make it possible to build more elaborate entities, like material objects, obtained by the association of the feelings.

Russell supports that there exists an isomorphism between our knowledge and the nature of the world. But that is true only for one perfect logical language, and not for the ordinary language. In a perfect language, each atomic proposal which constitutes a molecular proposal corresponds to each atomic fact constituting a complex fact. And the molecular proposal with the same logical form as the fact that it describes. This shows the need for a logical analysis of the natural language, which contains ambiguities, and is source of philosophical errors. It is within this framework that are registered the Théorie of the types and the theory of the definite Description.

The version wittgensteinienne

See the detailed article: Tractatus logico-philosophicus

Student and friend of Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein also developed to him a philosophy logical nuclear physicist in his years of youth. Influenced and influencing its professor, Wittgenstein proposes in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus a theory logical nuclear physicist appreciably different of Russell.

He also affirms him that “the world breaks up into facts”, and that “the proposal is an image of the reality”, which reflects the logical structure of it. But supports contrary to its Master that they are the facts and not the objects which are the logical atoms of reality. Null analysis is not possible beyond the fact; the object being inaccessible independently of the fact in which it appears.

Perenniality

One will find in the logical Construction of the world of Rudolf Carnap of the elements pointing out the reductionnism frégéen and the logical atomism. Carnap analyzes our representation of the world indeed as a comparison of proposals protocolar (which are rigorous formulations of an elementary significant experiment) by means of the logical rules.

The logical atomism will however be overall thereafter abandoned. Criticisms of this theory will come in particular from Wittgenstein itself, whose philosophical Recherches , will show that the language cannot be under consideration like a simple reflection of the structure of the world, and that it does not have to be improved by logic.

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