'The first wave': Wittgenstein's early influence upon Russell's philosophy

It is now a well-known fact that Bertrand Russell abandoned in the summer of 1913 what would have been a work of immense importance within his epistemology because of a famous objection raised by Wittgenstein after reading a portion the work. What precisely the objection amounted to, however, and why it should have had such an effect upon Russell, remains a subject of controversy. It is here argued that the objection was part of a much broader dispute between the two philosophers at this time concerning the nature of, and the relation between, propositions and facts.; When the objection is in this way construed as part of a deeper and more fundamental challenge of Russell's philosophical logic, a great deal of explanatory light is cast upon subsequent developments in Russell's philosophy. First of all, Russell's abrupt abandonment of the TK manuscript becomes less puzzling, for at the core of its account of propositional knowledge lay the very logical views that Wittgenstein was challenging: the nature of truth and falsehood, the nature of facts, and the nature of propositions. Secondly, a certain continuity becomes apparent, linking these events of 1913 to some of Russell's work in the latter part of the decade, namely his fresh statement of a new philosophical logic in his lectures on the "Philosophy of Logical Atomism" (1918). Here we find assimilated into Russell's philosophy Wittgenstein's 1913 views as to propositions and facts, a set of views that would also have a prominent place in the new theory of judgment adopted by Russell in his "On Propositions: What They Are and How They Mean" (1919).; Thus we find that the influence of the 1913 clash with Wittgenstein did not culminate in Russell's abandoning the philosophical project in which he was engaged at the time. Rather, it extended to the latter part of the decade, contributing in part to a transformation in Russell's theory of judgment through a profound impact upon his philosophical logic.