Russell''s Philosophy of Logical Analysis, 1897-1905

This systematic and historical treatment of Russell's contributions to analytic philosophy, from his embrace of analysis in 1898 to his landmark theory of descriptions in 1905, draws important connections between his philosophically motivated conception of analysis and the technical apparatus he devised to facilitate analyses in mathematics

How does Russell''s realist conception of the proposition and its constituents inform the techniques for analysis which he adopted in mathematics? Jolen Galaugher''s book sheds light on this perplexing issue. In this book, Galaugher provides a detailed treatment of Russell''s early conception of analysis in the light of the philosophical doctrines to which it answered, and the demands imposed by existing mathematics on his early logicist program. She ties together the philosophical commitments which occasioned Russell''s break with idealism and the problems which guided his selection of technical apparatus in his embrace of logicism. The result is a detailed synthesis of the primary materials from the emergence of Russell''s realism in 1898 to his landmark theory of descriptions in 1905. Galaugher''s broad thesis is that although Russell adopted increasingly refined techniques by which to carry out his logical analyses and avoid the Contradiction, the most crucial aspects of his philosophical conception of logical analysis were retained.