Remarks on the famous debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston

Amalac

The remarks will be about this fragment of the debate as well as part of the rest of their first discussion, about the argument from contingency:

Russell at the end seems to be contradicting himself: first he points out that the question about the cause of the world has meaning, and at the end he says that it is illegitimate and meaningless.

I suppose he meant that it is illegitimate if one tried to answer that question with "God is the cause of the world", based on his theory of descriptions. But that does not imply that the question is illegitimate, since it could still be answered with a description instead of a proper name (unless no such description is possible, in which case the question would have no meaning, contradicting Russell's initial claim).

Like Wittgenstein said: “For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered”.

In a certain part of the video Russell uses as an analogy the claim that the existent round square doesn't exist, then Copleston says he agrees. But it seems Copleston may have interpreted what Russell says about “meaning” differently from what Russell meant.

This confusion goes away once we realize the sense in which Russell is using the term “meaning”:

C: But are you going to say that we can't, or we shouldn't even raise the question of the existence of the whole of this sorry scheme of things -- of the whole universe?

R: Yes, I don't think there's any meaning in it at all. I think the word "universe" is a handy word in some connections, but I don't think it stands for anything that has a meaning.

C: If the word is meaningless, it can't be so very handy. (...)

R: First may I take up the point that if a word is meaningless it can't be handy. That sounds well but isn't in fact correct. Take, say, such a word as "the" or "than." You can't point to any object that those words mean, but they are very useful words; I should say the same of "universe." (...)

Here we see that when he said the statement “the existent round square exist” is meaningless, he meant only that there is no object which is denoted by “the existent round square”, meaning: that there is not a thing out there in the world that the words “the existent round square” mean, not that the statement is meaningless as in neither true nor false, nor unintelligible. This is consistent with his theory of descriptions, and is different from the way in which Copleston seems to have interpreted him, as his (Copleston's) answers suggest.

Regarding Russell's argument, and leaving aside his inconsistency as to whether the question “Does the cause of the world exist?” has meaning or not, let us assume that Russell maintains that it does not have meaning: his reason would be that the notion of cause is not applicable to logical classes or sets, only to particular things or states of affairs in the empirical world.

According to this perspective, it makes sense to ask about the (immediate) cause of the existence of a particular tree, but it makes no sense to ask about the (immediate) cause of the existence of, say, the set of all the trees in Canada, since the set of all trees in Canada does not exist in the same sense in which a particular tree exists, and that all one means when asking for the cause of a set is to repeatedly ask the cause, one by one, of each element in that set. (Or, if the question is interpreted differently, we would have to answer that the cause of the existence of the set of all trees is our human minds).

In the same way, the universe (“the whole”), being a logical set or class, does not exist: it is only a logical construction that is useful to us in order to communicate certain ideas, and group things or states of affairs into bundles.

Copleston could reply that when asking about the cause of a class, what he does is ask what is the common cause of all the elements of the set "universe" (both the known and the unknown), to which Russell will object that there is no reason to suppose that all the elements of the set must have a common cause.

To this Copleston may have replied that a set of things can have a common cause, for example the Big Bang. But if the Big Bang is included in the set of all states of affairs (universe), then there is no reason to think that all elements of the class or set "universe" must have a common cause, could be Russell's reply.

Furthermore, different states of affairs involved in the Big Bang caused the existence of different particular things, so in a strict sense it would not be correct to say that the Big Bang is the common cause of all particular things. (This is due to the maxims: "same cause, same effect" and "different effects, different causes").

180 Proof

Both Russell and Copleston would have profitted from studying Spinoza. Copleston's 'Thomist metaphysics' is almost painfully incoherent (vide Witty). Anyway, the point of the OP? What question/s do you wish to discuss?

Amalac

↪180 Proof

Anyway, the point of the OP? What question/s do you wish to discuss? — 180 Proof

The point was just the remarks (discussing if they are wrong, and if so why), that’s why I didn’t check the “question” box.

But I can make a question for you: Is the question: “does the cause of the world exist?” a meaningful question to you?

180 Proof

↪Amalac

Philosophically meaningless. Scientifically meaningful. QFT, for instance, suggests "the world" is a vacuum fluctuation – brute fact – and that, insofar as "the world" consists of causes (re: GR), "the world" is not the effect of (an) cause(s) external / prior to "the world".

The only answer to Why that does not precipitate an infinite regress and, in effect, begs the question is There Is No Why. — 180 Proof

In other words, sufficient reason for the PSR is lacking or (hidden) somewhere north of the North Pole. :smirk:

Amalac

↪180 Proof

Hmm, I think there may be some equivocation involved in how scientists and philosophers approach and argue that question. The former usually mean “the observable/known universe” when talking about the world, whereas the latter usually mean both the observable/known and the unobservable/unknown universe when they use that same word.

Do you agree that the “universe” is not a thing in the same sense in which, say, a rock is a thing, but is rather a set or class of things/events? (I'm referring to Kant's view on this point) Because if so, it would seem like there is no sense even in asking for the cause of the known universe, unless we mean merely to repeatedly ask for the cause, one by one, of each element of the set/class “universe”.

180 Proof

↪Amalac

I prefer the parsimony of Witty's statement

The world is the totality of facts, not of things. — TLP 1.1

This reminds me of Democritus' atoms & void. However, what scientists mean by "world" or "universe" are simply methodological concepts which satisfy theoretical models and not ontological posits.

Count Timothy von Icarus

↪Amalac

I think the idea would be that several aspects of the universe, namely physics' fundemental forces, would be uncaused brute facts; they simply are and produce effects. You can't talk about what does not exist as part of the universe in the same way you can't talk about a round square. "Universe" is just a category for the set of things that can have meaningful statements made about it.

I think this gets back to Parmenides and the problem of language in dealing with actual potentialities versus actualities. So the idea of a unicorn exists, it exists as a meme that lives encoded in human neurons, but the actuality doesn't exist, but it doesn't not exist in the same way as a round circle does, i.e. ruled out by contradiction.

It's been a while since I read Aristotle and it's 5 am in Mountain time, just couldn't sleep, so I'm not going to hazard an explanation of him here, but I feel he did a pretty good job parsing out the difference between potential and actual events, which answers the Parmenidean problem of how what is not can exist in our minds, or exist in the past. In that sense, it is meaningful to talk about potential actualities, and I think using the universe as "the material world" in which the potential becomes actual is a useful definition.

I'll try to find the relevant passages. I think universe could be used meaningfully. The problem is you really have two definitions, the physicalists universe as all actual material, and its potential states, versus the subjective world with all potential experience. Confusion there is a problem of definition though, not a problem of logical contradiction. "That" and "the" aren't nouns and the universe is and I think Russell's claim runs into the problem that universe certainly can be defined meaningfully in the way the word is most commonly employed.

I suppose the problem for physicalism in asserting various aspects of material being is a set of brute facts is on the one hand, that we keep peeling back layers on the onion and finding that these brute facts do have causes resulting from other layers of fundemental forces, and our elementary particles prove they can break down into even more elementary particles. Newton's gravity was brute fact, and highly predictive and it ultimately was disproven. This is more of a problem vis-a-vis the Big Bang because generally we have to posit fundemental forces changing in that enviornment. The other part of the problem is the Hard Problem of Conciousness, and a gap in explaining how subjective experience arises, and how, if everything is filtered through it, we can posit meaning without it. Because to talk about meaning without an understander can also be said to be meaningless.

These don't seem to be problems for Russell because he is handwaving it all away as meaningless, but if I read him right he seems to be falling back into a Parmenidean trap. It always struck me that Russell fell into the habit of mistaking what his analytical tools worked on for being synonymous with being worth consideration. If the tools he favored didn't work for a problem, the problem wasn't real, was meaningless, or at least should lay outside philosophy.

Amalac

↪Count Timothy von Icarus

The problem is you really have two definitions, the physicalists universe as all actual material, and its potential states, versus the subjective world with all potential experience. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd actually use only the first definition (both the known and the unknown actual material) you give, since when speaking about “all actual material” I think we are still talking about a set or class of states of affairs or things, not about a thing. Just like Kant's idea that space is not a thing, since things are in space, the universe is not a thing, since things are in the universe (in the sense of belonging to the set or class we call “universe”).

Where do you think I used the second one? I did say that if we take the word “cause” to mean something different from what it means in a question like: What's the cause of a burning house?, then the question “what is the cause of the world?” would have to be answered with: our human minds, which cause all sets or classes in order to group events into bundles.

"That" and "the" aren't nouns and the universe is and I think Russell's claim runs into the problem that universe certainly can be defined meaningfully in the way the word is most commonly employed. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If your claim here is that there is some thing which is meant by the word “universe”, then what would that thing be? Remember that when Russell talks about the word universe having no meaning, he means that there isn't an object to which the word “universe” refers, not that the word “universe” is meaningless in the sense of being unintelligible (which seems to be also how Copleston interpreted him).

Some of Russell's passages in Mysticism and Logic illustrate this:

I believe the conception of "the universe" to be, as its etymology indicates, a mere relic of pre-Copernican astronomy(...)

In the days before Copernicus, the conception of the "universe" was defensible on scientific grounds: the diurnal revolution of the heavenly bodies bound them together as all parts of one system, of which the earth was the centre.(...)

When Copernicus swept away the astronomical basis of this system of thought, it had grown so familiar, and had associated itself so intimately with men's aspirations, that it survived with scarcely diminished force—survived even Kant's "Copernican revolution," and is still now the unconscious premiss of most metaphysical systems.

The oneness of the world is an almost undiscussed postulate of most metaphysics. "Reality is not merely one and self-consistent, but is a system of reciprocally determinate parts"[19]—such a statement would pass almost unnoticed as a mere truism. Yet I believe that it embodies a failure to effect thoroughly the "Copernican revolution," and that the apparent oneness of the world is merely the oneness of what is seen by a single spectator or apprehended by a single mind.

I suppose the problem for physicalism in asserting various aspects of material being is a set of brute facts is on the one hand, that we keep peeling back layers on the onion and finding that these brute facts do have causes resulting from other layers of fundemental forces, and our elementary particles prove they can break down into even more elementary particles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

True, but one of Russell's points in the debate is that one can't apply the notion of cause to things like sets or classes:

C: Well, to say that there isn't any cause is not the same thing as saying that we shouldn't look for a cause. The statement that there isn't any cause should come, if it comes at all, at the end of the inquiry, not the beginning. In any case, if the total has no cause, then to my way of thinking it must be its own cause, which seems to me impossible. Moreover, the statement that the world is simply there if in answer to a question, presupposes that the question has meaning.

R: No, it doesn't need to be its own cause, what I'm saying is that the concept of cause is not applicable to the total.

but if I read him right he seems to be falling back into a Parmenidean trap. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I actually see it as the opposite of what you say, since according to Parmenides if a word can be used significantly, it must mean something other than other words, something outside the mind, and Russell is denying that by pointing out that there are words like “the” or “and” which do not refer to any object, and yet can still be used significantly.

I suppose it could be maintained, however, that if the word “universe” referred to something in some platonic realm, it would still need to have a cause, as well as that whole platonic realm. But then we are no longer talking about the universe as an “all encompassing whole”.

Count Timothy von Icarus

↪Amalac

Maybe it's the framing of physics that is throwing me, but, at least in that context, "universe" does not apply to a class. Nor does it do so vis-a-vis the Big Bang. The universe is the sum total of actual energy and matter that exists, and the volume occupies. Thus the Big Bang talks about the universe expanding. Indeed, some of the best evidence for the theory comes from evidence of this expansion. Classifications don't expand, these text books clearly refer to an expanding material entity, the universe. References to "other universes" generally don't mean "other classes," they mean parallel sum totals of mass and energy that don't interact with each other, or only interact in the magic of science fiction.

In modern English, the class argument probably applies better to the word "being," but I suppose decades of Big Bang being a headline theory might have changed the sense of the word universe since Russell.

Amalac

↪Count Timothy von Icarus

at least in that context, "universe" does not apply to a class. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But what Russell seems to be saying is not that it applies to a class, it's that it is a class.

The universe is the sum total of actual energy and matter that exists, and the volume occupies. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But isn't it true that a “sum total” must be a class or set?

Suppose I have 5 apples: there is little doubt that each individual apple exists, but does a set that has only those 5 apples as members exist? I'd say it doesn't, not in the same sense in which each individual apple exists anyway.

But I suppose a counterargument to what I say would be to point out that we, for example, are sets of atoms, and that therefore sets can exist. Russell himself seems to have held this view, suggesting that he may have changed his mind about this subject:

From all this it seems to follow that events, not particles, must be the "stuff" of physics. What has been thought of as a particle will have to be thought of as a series of events.

The series of events that replaces a particle has certain important physical properties, and therefore demands our attention; but it has no more substantiality than any other series of events that we might arbitrarily single out.

Thus "matter" is not part of the ultimate material of the world, but merely a convenient way of collecting events into bundles.

I guess the difference between both those senses of the word “set” is that in the case of the set of 5 apples, they need not be organized in any particular way, whereas in the case of us as sets of atoms, it is not just the members, but also their being organized in a certain way, which defines the set as a whole.

But then it could be asked why the same thing that holds about a set of atoms could not be said also about the universe. I guess that's a possibility, but it's also possible that there is no such thing as “the” universe, and that it is just a set like the set of 5 apples. I'm left doubtful.

Thus the Big Bang talks about the universe expanding. Indeed, some of the best evidence for the theory comes from evidence of this expansion. Classifications don't expand, these text books clearly refer to an expanding material entity, the universe — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not so sure, they could just use the word “universe” as a way of grouping events, as Russell maintains. When physicists talk about “the universe expanding”, they mean things like: “the distance between the milky way galaxy and other galaxies is increasing”, which does not require assuming that there's a thing called universe out there, only a set of descriptions of events/states of affairs. The word “universe” could just be a shortcut to express those facts, “a handy work on some connections” as Russell put it.

Phrases in which the word “universe” appears may merely mislead us because of their grammatical structure.

SophistiCat

But isn't it true that a “sum total” must be a class or set? — Amalac

The universe is a class or a set in the sense that these abstractions can be used to talk about the universe as the "sum total" of all there is, but not in the sense that that is all there is to say about the universe. As you rightly point out, classes and sets leave out relations between their members, such as causal relations, so they probably aren't the right sort of abstraction to use here.

I think a more productive approach is to ask what is meant by causes and reasons, to what sorts of things they apply, and where their expectation is warranted by our prior commitments. Copleston uses these notions very loosely throughout the debate. Russell had expressed strong skeptical opinions about things like "the law of causation," so one might have expected him to have pushed back more against the general premise. Nonetheless, the debate did eventually converge on that point, and there it ended.

Amalac

↪SophistiCat

The universe is a class or a set in the sense that these abstractions can be used to talk about the universe as the "sum total" of all there is, but not in the sense that that is all there is to say about the universe. As you rightly point out, classes and sets leave out relations between their members, such as causal relations, so they probably aren't the right sort of abstraction to use here. — SophistiCat

Well, I just don't see how we can tell whether the universe is a set in the same sense in which we are sets of atoms, or merely a set in the sense in which the set of all the objects in my table is a set. I'm just suggesting that to think the word universe refers to an object and not merely to a set may be a mistake.

If we suppose that the universe, defined as the sum total of all there is, isn't merely a set but also a thing (in the same sense in which an apple is a thing), then we could question Russell's claim, for why would the notion of cause not apply to the total then? That would be as arbitrary as saying that the notion of cause doesn't apply to me because I'm the “sum total” of the atoms that make up my body, and that therefore we could only apply the notion of cause to atoms.

But even that won't do, since atoms are also sets of subatomic particles, which in turn are also sets of smaller things, and so on; so that in the end we wouldn't be able to apply the notion of cause to anything except the ultimate constituents of matter. Unless matter is infinitely divisible, in which case we would have to abandon the notion of cause altogether.

SophistiCat

Well, I just don't see how we can tell whether the universe is a set in the same sense in which we are sets of atoms, or merely a set in the sense in which the set of all the objects in my table is a set. I'm just suggesting that to think the word universe refers to an object and not merely to a set may be a mistake. — Amalac

Are you saying that the universe is nothing more than an unstructured collection of items about which nothing can be said other than that they are distinct from each other? Because that is what insisting that the universe is nothing more than a "set" implies. If not, then where is the mistake? In referring to the universe as an "object"? OK, let's not refer to the universe as an "object". Where does that get us? We aren't any closer towards answering the question of whether we should expect the universe to have a cause.

In order to do that, we need to step back and ask what the notion of cause does apply to. And what sort of a notion is it? Is it an absolute metaphysical law? (Copleston apparently assumed there to be such a law; we know that Russell didn't share that view, but he didn't make that very explicit in this debate.)

If we suppose that the universe, defined as the sum total of all there is, isn't merely a set but also a thing (in the same sense in which an apple is a thing), then we could question Russell's claim, for why would the notion of cause not apply to the total then? — Amalac

You are generalizing Russell's objection into something much stronger (and as you point out, untenable) than what he intended. He merely denied Copleston's claim that the sum total of existents must have a cause. He didn't say that it cannot have a cause by virtue of being a collection. He did at one point say that the word "universe" had no meaning, which I thought was rather confusing. Perhaps where he was going with this was to say that the word "universe" has the function of a quantifier, rather than a proper noun, but he didn't get to develop that thought.

The thrust of Copleston's argument was in denying any brute facts of existence. Everything that exists contingently (whatever that means) must be entirely reducible to some other thing or things, and so on until you get to something that exists necessarily (whatever that means) and thus does not stand in need of a cause or a reason or an explanation (he used these terms interchangeably). And he wanted to apply that principle without restriction - a perilous undertaking. Recall how the unrestricted comprehension of predicates resulted in a set theory paradox that Russell had discovered earlier. Perhaps Russell was pushing in that direction when he offered this objection:

Well, I don't know. I mean, the explanation of one thing is another thing which makes the other thing dependent on yet another, and you have to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire to do what you want, and that we can't do. — Russell

There follows an exchange about whether the word "universe" is meaningful. But in the end, where Russell makes a stand is merely in denying that the principle of sufficient reason applies to the world as a whole.

Amalac

↪SophistiCat

Are you saying that the universe is nothing more than an unstructured collection of items about which nothing can be said other than that they are distinct from each other? Because that is what insisting that the universe is nothing more than a "set" implies. — SophistiCat

I only said it was a possibility, but point taken.

If not, then where is the mistake? In referring to the universe as an "object"? OK, let's not refer to the universe as an "object". Where does that get us? We aren't any closer towards answering the question of whether we should expect the universe to have a cause. — SophistiCat

I thought Russell's point was that the notion of cause applies only to objects (“particular things”). If the universe is neither an object nor an abstraction produced by the mind, then what is it?

He did at one point say that the word "universe" had no meaning, which I thought was rather confusing. Perhaps where he was going with this was to say that the word "universe" has the function of a quantifier, rather than a proper noun, but he didn't get to develop that thought. — SophistiCat

True, he could've been refering rather to universal quantification, I didn't think about it like that.

But then we agree that the universe is not a thing or object, so that it doesn't exist in the same sense in which an apple exists (or would you say a quantifier exists?), and therefore there is no sense in applying the notion of cause to it as we would with an apple, no?

Recall how the unrestricted comprehension of predicates resulted in a set theory paradox that Russell had discovered earlier. Perhaps Russell was pushing in that direction when he offered this objection:

Well, I don't know. I mean, the explanation of one thing is another thing which makes the other thing dependent on yet another, and you have to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire to do what you want, and that we can't do.
— Russell — SophistiCat

If to ask for the cause of the universe is to repeatedly ask, one by one, for the cause or sufficient reason of each of its parts, then I agree we can't do that. Plus there's no reason to suppose that all of its parts must have a common cause, as that seems to infringe the maxim “same cause, same effect”.

But in the end, where Russell makes a stand is merely in denying that the principle of sufficient reason applies to the world as a whole. — SophistiCat

True, as can be seen in the video, maybe his argument is just that Copleston commits the fallacy of composition when he tries to infer that the universe must have a cause because each of its parts have a cause.

Michael Zwingli

Both Russell and Copleston would have profitted from studying Spinoza.

↪180 Proof

Yes.

SophistiCat

I thought Russell's point was that the notion of cause applies only to objects (“particular things”). If the universe is neither an object nor an abstraction produced by the mind, then what is it? — Amalac

But then we agree that the universe is not a thing or object, so that it doesn't exist in the same sense in which an apple exists (or would you say a quantifier exists?), and therefore there is no sense in applying the notion of cause to it as we would with an apple, no? — Amalac

Whether or not the universe can be thought of as an "object", what's important in this context is whether it is the sort of... thing that can stand in a causal relation to something else. It's not just a question of mereology either: an apple, or a basket of apples, can be put into a causal relation, no problem. But can the universe?

Remarks on the famous debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston

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