When we ask for the meaning of a statement we are talking about language, and are using a metalanguage; and when we ask for the meaning of “meaning” we are using a metametalanguage, so it is not surprising that the question is difficult to …integer, for example, “3” can be defined as the class of all classes “similar” to the class consisting of the words “Newton,” “Gauss,” and “Bardot.”) The point of this representation is that it makes reference to linguistic operations alone…The difficulty of making the probability estimates [48] provides some
of the explanation of why men are not entirely rational in their proba-
bility estimates and in their recall. It is possible, for example, that, for
men, the probability …
Bertrand Russell
philosopher · 7 mentions across 4 readings
In this course
Russell's foundational work on logic, set theory, and the theory of types grounds the course's engagement with formal systems and their limits—particularly how abstraction and metalanguage operate in mathematical representation. The readings invoke Russell's type theory (excerpt 4, the barber paradox) to demonstrate how logical formalism encounters self-reference problems that become crucial when thinking about AI systems, meaning-making, and the hierarchies of abstraction that structure both computation and language.
Background
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, was an English philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He influenced mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic philosophy.
Wikipedia →Mentioned in 4 readings
(2) Consider next an example of an ill-typed variable. Suppose we are interested in the roles played by people in some community; we could not introduce an observable standing for those beauticians who depilate just those people who do not …Russell, B. (1902). Letter to Frege. In J. van Heijenoort (Ed.), From frege to gödel: A source book in mathematical logic, 1879–1931 (pp. 124–125). Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 1967.
Salthe, S. N. (1985). Evolving hierarchical s…
Appears alongside
People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.
Gottlob Frege 3Antoine Lavoisier 1Charles Kay Ogden 1Charles Sanders Peirce 1Colin Cherry 1Ivor Armstrong Richards 1Max Black 1Alison Coudert 1Christian Knorr von Rosenroth 1Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1Pythagoras 1Ramon Llull 1Stuart Brown 1Brigitte Bardot 1Carl Friedrich Gauss 1Isaac Newton 1Paul Halmos 1Akos Egyed 1Alfred Tarski 1Brown 1Carl Craver 1Gordon Globus 1Grover Maxwell 1Herbert A. Simon 1Irving Savodnik 1J. A. Scott Kelso 1J. M. Spivey 1Jean van Heijenoort 1Jonathan Schaffer 1Leonard Linsky 1