Russell, Berkeley and Objective Matter

Abstract

The problem discussed in the paper is how Russell can avoid reaching the conclusion that the notion of objective matter is meaningless without rejecting his Principle of Knowledge. Berkeley accepted a similar principle and could not avoid that conclusion. The principle of knowledge says that
(a) “Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.”
And “we shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths”.
Russell would have to admit the conclusion if he accepted the following propositions (that seem obvious):
(b) One cannot be acquainted with any (objective, material) table in itself.
(c) The constituents of the proposition P, namely that the table before me (a certain objective and material table) is rectangular, are the table itself and the quality of being rectangular.
Here the conclusion would be that
(d) We cannot understand P.
But a similar argument can be made about every proposition that is about a material object.
Russell’s way out consists in denying (c). Fortunately his theory of descriptions provides a different analysis of P. What the proposition means is really the following conjunction:
(i) There is at least one thing that has the property of being the table before me.
(ii) There is at most one thing that has the property of being the table before me.
(iii) Nothing has the property of being the table before me without having the property of being rectangular.
So, (c) is false since the table before me is not a constituent of P. The constituents of P are certain properties and relations and oneself. Now the problem is that if we are acquainted with ourselves and other properties and relations, Russell cannot be sure that we can be acquainted with the property of being a table.
The key to the solution of this problem is to be found in Chapter X of The Problems of Philosophy, where Russell says: “Many universals, like many particulars, are only known to us by description. But here, as in the case of particulars, knowledge concerning what is known by description is ultimately reducible to knowledge concerning what is known by acquaintance.”
Berkeley had also admitted that if we could find a clear relation between (the notion of) matter and our ideas of colours, forms, etc., we could then understand the notion of matter. The idea that matter holds those qualities doesn’t seem to mean anything.
Rusell, as we gather from Chapters II and III, thinks that this relation is causality. Matter, with its properties, causes the relevant sensations in us. We are acquainted with the effect, but are we acquainted with the notion of cause? Russell’s answer is that what is useful in the notion of cause involves only functional relations between events, and these functional relations can be known by acquaintance since they are presumably relations of space and time.

Hugo Margáin