5 - How Predicative Beliefs Correspond to the World

Summary

THE OBJECTIONS TO RUSSELL'S THEORY ANALYSED AS DILEMMAS

One of the motivations behind Russell's multiple relation theory was to avoid true belief being a matter of thinking of a certain fact, since true belief and false belief are the same sort of thing, and false belief cannot be a matter of thinking of a certain fact. The components of the proposition must be brought together in such a way that they do not have the sort of unity appropriate to a fact, and yet, apparently, they are not to form merely an ordered set or a list. Candlish thinks that no middle way exists.

For the mind, in judging that, say, A loves B, is supposed to bring the real things A and B and love, not just mental or linguistic proxies, into the appropriate relation without actually making A love B. These powers are not only magical but mutually inconsistent.

True enough, if the relation “loves” is a relating relation, then it must relate particulars, and consequently a fact must exist. From which it follows that belief is possible only if the corresponding fact exists, even if belief cannot be credited with actually creating a fact. If, on the other hand, the relation “loves” is an abstract relation, then the unity that the terms of the belief have is that appropriate to an ordered set or a list.