Bertrand Russell vs Ludwig Wittgenstein on Truth
Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein on truth, side by side — 4 passages against 7, and what the disagreement is actually about.
Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein both have a great deal to say about truth — 4 passages and 7 respectively in thinkr's library — and they do not say the same thing. Setting them side by side is more useful than reading either alone, because the disagreement shows you what each position is actually giving up.
Bertrand Russell on truth
British logician, philosopher, and public intellectual. Co-author of Principia Mathematica, and later a passionate voice for peace and free thought.
“I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.”
“Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth.”
“Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict.”
“No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein on truth
Austrian-born philosopher who twice changed the course of analytic philosophy — first with the Tractatus, then with the Philosophical Investigations.
“One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.”
“It is true: Man is the microcosm: I am my world.”
“It is quite impossible for a proposition to state that it itself is true. (4.442)”
“A tautology's truth is certain, a proposition's possible, a contradiction's impossible. (Certain, possible, impossible: here we have the first indication of the scale that we need in the theory of probability.) (4.464)”
“Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.) (5)”
“To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth.”
“What is troubling us is the tendency to believe that the mind is like a little man within.”
Where they part
UK, 1872–1970 and Austria/UK, 1889–1951 are not the same world, and the difference is not only historical. Bertrand Russell treats truth as something to be i do wish I believed in… — a matter of practice. Ludwig Wittgenstein approaches it from another side entirely. Neither is refuting the other; they are answering slightly different questions, and noticing which question you are actually asking is most of the work.