文档介绍：Russell, Idealism, and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy
Peter Hylton, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara
In this book, the author seeks to shed light on the tradition of analytic philosophy by
examining one important phase in its formation. This phase is Bertrand Russell's rejection
of Absolute Idealism, and his development of a new philosophy based, in part, on the
logic that he developed. The book begins by examining the British Idealism of T. H.
Green and F. H. Bradley. Against this background, it discusses Russell's own early work,
which was in this idealist tradition. The author then considers the philosophical views
that G. E. Moore and Russell initially developed in reaction to that tradition (around
1900). In Russell's work, this philosophy was bined with the logic that he
developed (following Peano) and with the thesis of logicism: that mathematics can be
reduced to logic, and so makes no philosophical demands beyond those made by logic.
The book examines subsequent developments in Russell's thought, to about 1912, in
some detail; these include the theory of descriptions and the theory of types. It concludes
with a less detailed discussion of the evolution of Russell's thought over the next few
years. In this latter period, Russell develops a constructivist programme, which makes
evident the continuity of this phase of his thought with that of later analytic philosophers.
Preface
This book arises out of an interest in the origins of analytic philosophy—that is, roughly,
of the philosophical tradition which has been dominant in English-speaking countries for
most of this century. My interest in the origins of this tradition arises, in turn, from the
twofold reaction which I had to philosophy, beginning almost as early as my first serious
study of the subject. On the one hand, pletely absorbed me. On the other hand, its
inconclusiven