Recall the Principle ...
\emph{The Principle of Acquaintance}:
‘Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted’
\citep[p.~209]{Russell:1910fa}
Russell, 1910 [1963] p. 209
Structure of larger argument -- Russell’s own argument is interesting
but doesn’t go deep enough; we need to think more carefully about
why knowledge of reference is needed.
we cannot make a judgement or a supposition without knowing what it is that we are making our judgement or supposition about.
\citep[pp.~210--11]{Russell:1910fa}.
Russell, 2010 pp. 210-11
‘I think the theory that judgements consist of ideas ... is fundamentally mistaken.
Russell, 1910 [1963] pp. 211–2
‘I think the theory that
judgements consist of ideas ... is fundamentally mistaken.
The view seems to be that there is some mental existent which may be called the
‘idea’ of something outside the mind of the person who has the idea, and that,
since judgement is a mental event, its constituents must be constituents of the
mind of the person judging.
But in this view ideas become a veil between us and
outside things—--we never really, in knowledge, attain //p. 212// to the things
we are supposed to be knowing about, but only to the ideas of those things.
The relation of mind, idea, and object, on this view, is utterly obscure ...
I ... see no reason to believe that, when we are acquainted with an object,
there is in us something which can be called the ‘idea’ of the object.
On the contrary, I hold that acquaintance is wholly a relation,
not demanding any such constituent of the mind as is supposed by
advocates of ‘ideas’’
\citep[pp.~211--12]{Russell:1910fa}.