Editing Logical atomism (section)

== Origin ==

As mentioned above, the term "logical atomism" was first coined by Russell in 1911. However, since the paper in which it was first introduced was published only in French during Russell's lifetime, the view was not widely associated with Russell in the English-speaking world until Russell gave a series of lectures in early 1918 under the title "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism". These lectures were subsequently published in 1918 and 1919 in ''The Monist'' (Volumes 28 and 29), which at the time was edited by [[Philip Jourdain|Phillip Jourdain]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-27900704|title=THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOGICAL ATOMISM [with Discussion]|last=Russell|first=Bertrand|date=1918-10-01|publisher=The Monist|others=JSTOR}}</ref> Russell's ideas as presented in 1918 were also influenced by Wittgenstein, as he explicitly acknowledges in his introductory note. This has partly contributed to the widely-held view that Wittgenstein was also a logical atomist, as has Wittgenstein's atomistic metaphysics developed in the ''Tractatus''.

However, logical atomism has older roots. Russell and Moore broke themselves free from [[British Idealism]] in the 1890s. And Russell's break developed along its own logical and mathematical path. His views on philosophy and its methods were heavily influenced by revolutionary nineteenth-century mathematics by figures like [[Georg Cantor|Cantor]], [[Richard Dedekind|Dedekind]], [[Giuseppe Peano|Peano]], and [[Karl Weierstrass|Weierstrass]]. As he says in his 1901 essay, republished in his 1917 collection ''Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays'' under the title "Mathematics and the Metaphysicians":<blockquote>What is now required is to give the greatest possible development to mathematical logic, to allow to the full the importance of [[relation (mathematics)|relation]]s, and then to found upon this secure basis a new philosophical logic, which may hope to borrow some of the exactitude and certainty of its mathematical foundation. If this can be successfully accomplished, there is every reason to hope that the near future will be as great an epoch in pure philosophy as the immediate past has been in the principles of mathematics. Great triumphs inspire great hopes; and pure thought may achieve, within our generation, such results as will place our time, in this respect, on a level with the greatest age of Greece. (pg. 96)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924059441125|title=Mysticism and logic, and other essays|last=Russell|first=Bertrand|date=1918|publisher=New York, Longmans, Green and co.|others=Cornell University Library}}</ref></blockquote>
With the operations of the [[calculus of relations]] as atoms or indefinables ([[primitive notion]]s), Russell described [[logicism]], or mathematics as logic, in ''[[The  Principles of Mathematics]]'' (1903). Russell thought the revolutionary mathematical work could, through the development of relations, produce a similar revolution in philosophy. This ambition overlays the character of Russell's work from 1900 onward. Russell believes in fact that logical atomism, fully carried out and implemented throughout philosophy, is the realization of his 1901 ambition. As he says in the 1911 piece where he coins the phrase "logical atomism":<blockquote>The true method, in philosophy as in science, should be inductive, meticulous, respectful of detail, and should reject the belief that it is the duty of each philosophy to solve all problems by himself. It is this method which has inspired analytic realism [a.k.a. logical atomism], and it is the only method, if I am not mistaken, with which philosophy will succeed in obtaining results as solid as those obtained in science. (pg. 139)<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>Logical atomism rightly makes logic central to philosophy. In doing so, it makes philosophy scientific, at least in Russell's view. As he says in his 1924 "Logical Atomism":<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KfsPAQAAIAAJ&q=new+instrument+for+the+discussion|title=Essays on language, mind, and matter, 1919-26|last1=Russell|first1=Bertrand|last2=Slater|first2=John Greer|last3=Frohmann|first3=Bernd|date=1988|publisher=Unwin Hyman|isbn=9780049200753|language=en}}</ref><blockquote>The technical methods of mathematical logic, as developed in this book [''Principia Mathematica''], seem to me very powerful, and capable of providing a new instrument for the discussion of many problems that have hitherto remained subject to philosophical vagueness.</blockquote>In summary, Russell thought that a moral of the revolutionary work in mathematics was this: equally revolutionary work in philosophy could occur, if we only make logic the essence of philosophizing.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/ourknowledgeofth005200mbp|title=OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD|last=BERTRAND RUSSELL|publisher=GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD|others=Universal Digital Library}}</ref> This aspiration lies at the origin, and motivates and runs through, logical atomism.