BRACERS Record Detail for 77585
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BR has referred Jones to “On Denoting”. She is replying to a letter he wrote on the article, "Mr. Russell's Objections to Frege's Analysis of Propositions", which she published in Mind, July 1910.
The following is a chronology of the interactions of BR and Jones in 1910–11, which helps in providing the year of each of her extant letters to BR. The chronology draws upon unpublished work by James Levine and Bernard Linsky.
- July 1910 Jones publishes “Mr. Russell’s Objections to Frege’s Analysis of Propositions” in Mind, using (but not naming) only "On Denoting". The paper directs many questions at BR.
- Aug.? 1910 Rhetorical or not, the questions (or some of them) are addressed by BR in a lost letter he wrote to Jones.
- 5 Aug. [1910] Jones thanks BR for an exposition of his views; she counter-argues in detail.
- 14 Oct. 1910 BR begins his lecture course “The Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics”. [L&L, p. 12]
- 2 Nov. [1910] Jones asks if she and “some friend” may attend the “Concepts of Mathematics” course.
- 1 Dec. [1910] Jones thanks BR for the course and cites Principles of Mathematics.
- 2 Dec. 1910 Jones delivers “Categorical Propositions and the Law of Identity” to the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club (CMSC) [summary in minutes, L&L, p. 79]. Published as “A New ‘Law of Thought’ ”, Mind, Jan. 1911.
- 3 March 1911 BR delivers “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description” (KAKD) to CMSC. Jones “took a very active part” in the ensuing discussion [minutes, L&L, p. 80].
- 10 March 1911 BR delivers KAKD to the Aristotelian Society. Jones is not noted in the minutes as participating in the discussion.
- [19 March 1911 BR’s affair – and almost daily correspondence – with Lady Ottoline Morrell begins. This is too late for BR to remark on his controversy with Jones, and she is apparently not referred to until 1914.]
- 22 May 1911 BR speaks on ?? at Girton College.
- 29 May 1911 Jones delivers “A New ‘Law of Thought’ ” to the Aristotelian Society, which includes a response to BR’s KAKD. She refers (p. 175) to the newly published Principia Mathematica. BR is not noted in the minutes as participating in the discussion.
Her paper seems to be the textual basis of her 1911 book, A New Law of Thought and Its Logical Bearings (Girton College Studies, no. 4; Cambridge U. Press), which has 3 pages on BR, though she does not refer to PM. Her paper may therefore postdate her book; in this regard, Stout’s preface to the book is dated March 1911. - 26 June 1911 Jones thanks BR for agreeing to give a lecture at Girton College in August.
- 7 Aug. [1911] BR speaks on “Philosophy and Common Sense” at Girton. [L&L, p. 24]
E.E.C. JONES TO BR, 5 AUG. [1910]
BRACERS 77585. ALS. McMaster
Proofread by K. Blackwell. Transcribed by G. Ostertag
<letterhead>
Girton College,
Cambridge.1
August 5th2
Dear Mr Russell,
Thank you very much for your letter — it is very good of you to have written and given me an exposition which, I think, has made clear to me the particular difficulty on Frege’s view which had not seriously appealed to me before, and which has caused me to frame another theory — I am hoping very shortly, when I get back to Cambridge, to read again carefully your article on Denoting. Meanwhile I think a way out of the difficulty may probably be found by considering the attitude of the assertor of any proposition of the form S is P — he must have present to his mind some whole SP which he analyses — the assertion of S is not P musta present two elements, S and P, distinct from each other — owing to the possibilities of linguistic manipulation, the latter may be stated in affirmative form — similarlyb S is P may be stated in negative form — it occurs to me that such verbal combinations as a round-square does not exist, A-not-A is B, are originally and essentially negative — I ought perhaps to apologise for a hasty suggestion, but I hope to try and work this out as soon as I can give some time to it.
With regard to your postscript, I am afraid that it does not remove my difficulties about the interpretation of “one and the same”. You say: “One and the same” means “identical”, i.e. that properties of either are properties of the other, when I use this phrase.
How exactly are Either and the other to be understood?
The a and b (of a is b) are not “identical” in meaning (intension in Dr Keynes’s sense) — if they were, we should have a is a. Taking a intensionally, its properties are not properties of b taken intensionally (I speak interrogatively and not dogmatically) — and except intensionally, it seems to me that there is no “one” and “other” in the case. Similarly with Scott and author of Waverlyc there is here only the one person referred to — which is an identity of denotation, in my meaning of denotation — the difference in the case being solely a difference of “intension” —
I am
Yours sincerely
EEC Jones
