Wittgenstein vs. Russell on Skepticism and Logical Atomism

Introduction: Russell, Wittgenstein, and the Problem of Skepticism

Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein's personal and professional relationship is well-known, with Russell having famously sponsored Wittgenstein's submission of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus for PhD credit. Both philosophers were important early contributors to the theory of logical atomism, and although they would both go on to reject many of the ideas central to that theory, their work nevertheless represented an important break from philosophical Idealism and set the stage for the major developments of twentieth-century analytic philosophy (Hylton 105, 116). However, despite the general agreement between Russell's The Philosophy of Logical Atomism and Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the two philosophers disagree on the question of skepticism. For Russell, skepticism is an irrefutable position, whereas Wittgenstein characteristically describes skepticism as being "palpably senseless" (Wittgenstein 187). Fully understanding Wittgenstein's meaning requires an analysis of the role of skepticism in both philosophers' work, but one can ultimately say with relative confidence that Wittgenstein is largely successful in dissolving the problem of skepticism — he is able to demonstrate how skepticism falls within a category of thought exercise that he sees as outside the useful parameters of philosophy because it does not actually contain any kind of sense or meaning.

Examining Wittgenstein's description of skepticism as a kind of self-evident nonsense allows one not only to appreciate how he dissolves the supposed problem of skepticism discussed by Russell, but also gives insight into Wittgenstein's larger criticism of the tendency to propose questions for which there is no answer — something Wittgenstein argues is neither useful nor an appropriate part of philosophy. Instead, Wittgenstein argues for a simple critical methodology in which the full extent of philosophy's purpose is the delineation of what is and is not knowable and intelligible, and the pointing out of those statements which fall outside this delineation and can thus be described as senseless or nonsensical. In this way, Wittgenstein is able to simultaneously disregard a number of supposedly crucial philosophical problems while offering readers a fairly simple means of performing philosophical work going forward.

Logical Atomism: Facts, Beliefs, and the Break from Idealism

Before discussing skepticism in greater detail, it will be helpful to provide a brief overview of logical atomism in order to better contextualize both Russell's and Wittgenstein's positions. Russell proposes that the idea of logical atomism can first be understood to mean that he "share[s] the common-sense belief that there are many separate things," and furthermore that these separate things are not simply "phases and unreal divisions of a single individual Reality" (Russell 2). This is what is meant by the term "atomistic." To this Russell adds the term "logical" because "the atoms that [he wishes] to arrive at as the sort of last residue in analysis are logical atoms and not physical atoms," meaning that Russell is suggesting a mode of philosophy that has as one of its goals the identification and use of fundamental units of logic (Russell 3). This entire notion is based on what Russell sees as the self-evident truism "that the world contains facts, which are what they are whatever we may choose to think about them, and that there are also beliefs, which have reference to facts, and by reference to facts are either true or false" (Russell 6).

In some ways Russell is essentially describing the division between subjectivity and objectivity, with facts representing the objectivity of the universe while beliefs correspond to the subjective experience and interpretation of that objectivity. There is a slight difference, of course, because while one can speak of true or false beliefs, it is difficult to speak of true or false subjectivities — every subjective experience of objectivity is "true" in the sense that it cannot by definition be anything else, even if that subjective experience leads to untrue conclusions regarding the nature of objectivity. This is part of why Russell's logical atomism is so useful: by discussing facts and beliefs rather than the objective and subjective, Russell does not need to deal with the individual or any of the complications that might arise when attempting to delineate between individual subjectivity and everything else.

The idea of logical atomism was groundbreaking because it represented a distinct shift away from Idealism, which posited the existence of a single, holistic reality that could not ultimately be atomized or discussed in legitimately discrete units. This shift is important for Russell because it allows him to discuss reality with an eye towards "passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow" (Russell 4). Russell is concerned with identifying and parsing the atomistic facts that underlie belief and perception, and as such he adopts a position of skepticism, ultimately presuming that what one believes to be true can be analyzed philosophically in order to determine the relation between that belief and the atomistic facts which underlie it.

Russell's Irrefutable Skepticism

At the same time, Russell seems to recognize that these facts are ultimately unattainable, because although there appears to be a kind of correspondence or congruence between the realm of language (and thought) and the seeming self-evidence of facts, one cannot escape the limitations imposed by subjectivity. As a result, Russell presumes that skepticism is both necessary and irrefutable, because one will never have sufficient access to the actual facts that might refute a position of skepticism regarding any given proposition. This does not prevent Russell from making certain claims or arguing for a particular interpretation of certain facts, but it does suggest a kind of asymptotic futility to the process of philosophical investigation — in Russell's framework, one can only ever move infinitely toward the clarification and refinement of ambiguously rendered "intrinsic obviousness" without ever arriving at a definitive kernel of logic or fact (Hylton 321).

This is why for Russell skepticism is irrefutable. It can never be fully justified or refuted, because either outcome would require a level of accuracy and knowledge that is ultimately impossible through philosophical inquiry. As will be seen, this decision to view skepticism as irrefutable represents a kind of misidentification of philosophical propositions, because Wittgenstein makes clear that those statements which cannot be refuted or justified are not merely difficult problems — they are actually meaningless in the sense that they cannot refer to anything intelligible.

Conclusion: The Elegant Simplicity of Wittgenstein's Method

Although Wittgenstein and Russell begin from largely the same premises and claims regarding the existence of facts and the totality of what can be discussed and described, they differ in the details of their theories, and it is in these details that one is able to see where the two philosophers part ways. In particular, while they both agree on the purpose of philosophy in general and on many of its essential units, they differ markedly when it comes to applying this purpose to the extant philosophical questions they encounter. While Russell suggests a kind of eternal, irrefutable skepticism based on the impossibility of ever fully demonstrating the validity of a claim or accurately reconciling many of the supposed problems of philosophy, Wittgenstein sidesteps this issue completely by demonstrating that the philosophical propositions Russell is skeptical of do not actually contain any sort of sense that might make them properly intelligible or refutable. Thus, Russell's idea of an irrefutable skepticism is in fact the result of a misidentification of philosophical propositions as meaningful statements rather than senseless, ultimately unintelligible pronouncements.