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Michael Della Rocca–probably our leading contemporary monist–thinks Bradley won that debate. Curious to hear from the Russellians!
I find the argument disputable on many points. It is disputable that a relationship must be explained or grounded in some things. It is disputable that a relationship must be essentially grounded in a thing. It is disputable that R is grounded in what is called the grounding relation.
Relations, in some sense anyway, exist. They are used on US tax forms, for instance (how many dependents do you have?). So in this sense anyway, the argument cannot be valid, or must argue from false principles.
In particular, if the argument is supposed inevitably to lead to the thesis that only one thing exists, then again, this thesis is clearly not so, since I exist, and my computer exists, and I am not my computer. If Mr. Della Rocca thinks not, then he is using a different notion of "exist".
I'm not a Russellian, either, but seems to me that the most Della Rocca can say about the Bradley-Russell debate is that it ended in a draw. Neither succeeds in showing the other's view to be incoherent or based on a false premise. Basically, they agree that if the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) is true, relations are unreal. Bradley goes with modus ponens while Russell goes with modus tollens–or rather, Russell does not accept the PSR to begin with, and so he thinks Bradley's argument does not have any force. He is happy to concede that relations are not fully grounded (while maintaining they are nevertheless real). Incidentally, Russell pulled the same move in his famous 1948 BBC radio debate with Copleston over the existence of God, dismissing the contingency cosmological argument with the retort, "the universe is just there, and that's all." In both cases Russell does not even attempt to prove that the PSR is false (which is Della Rocca's complaint); but it can equally be said that neither of his opponents even attempts to prove that it is true.
Surely the previous commenter must recognize that appealing to the existence of myself and my computer is as dialectically effective in debating monists as kicking a rock is in debating idealists. That's exactly the kind of reliance on 'common sense' that Della Rocca thinks has had a pernicious influence on analytic philosophy from the beginning.
Doesn't PSR require the existence of relations?
If "each thing or fact has an explanation," then isn't the thing/fact a, the explanation b, and [what explanations do] R?
Not my area of expertise, but I wonder: doesn’t the Principle of Sufficient Reason presuppose the reality of relations?
“a explains b” and “a is a sufficient reason for b” are relations. Without these relations, we cannot express PSR. So if PSR implies that there are no relations, isn’t that bad news for PSR?
Maybe not. I can say, "I am five meters from the door." I can say, "a explains b." In neither case must what we regard as real the relation.
The following represents another point of view.
“It may seem strange that a philosopher who made such disparaging remarks about terms and relations should be the principal modern source for the doctrine that all relations are internal, but such is the case; for in the Appendix to the second edition [of Appearance and Reality], Bradley ‘clarified’ these concepts in such a way that he felt obliged to defend the doctrine of internal relations.” — Harold H. Oliver, A Relational Metaphysic, p. 103 (PhilPapers https://philpapers.org › rec › OLIARM, by HH Oliver · 1981 · Cited by 49). https://www.uctv.tv/shows/6924
Marx and Internal Relations
“Marx was right: 'There is no other way to truth and freedom than through Feuerbach.'" — HH Oliver https://www.yorku.ca/hmyork/workshop/MARXISM%20AND%20THE%20PHILOSOPHY%20OF%20INTERNAL%20RELATIONS%20SYMPOSUM%20PANELS%20SCHEDULE.pdf
Nietzsche and Internal Relations
“No thing could be different without the whole world … being different as well. Indeed, things are ontologically dependent on one another—nothing is a thing in itself, everything is constituted by its relations to other things." — John Richardson, Nietzsche's Values, p. x. (cf. §§ 10, 331, 373, 556, 634-5, 638, 1032 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394704371).
Heidegger and Internal Relations
“Heidegger had a relational ontology … everything is what it is only in the relationships it has to other things." — Mark Wrathall https://youtu.be/FpWKGBdMTRk
Can't we just say that A is near B, without reifying the relation of nearness? A exists, and B exists. Moreover, it's true that A is near B. Yet no relation of nearness exists. We trade ontology for ideology.
One way of criticizing an argument is to point out that it depends on an unargued premiss and that, on reflection, there doesn't seem to be any clear reason to accept that premiss. The critic isn't obligated to refute the premiss (though, if the rest of the criticized argument is all right and its conclusion wildly implausible, the critic has implicitly given an argument against it!): it is enough to call attention to it, and to leave it up to the audience to decide whether they want to endorse it.
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But Della Rocca's reconstruction of Bradley's argument brings out another (dubitable) assumption: that, if the (holding of the particular case of the) relation depends (i.e. is grounded in, or requires for its explanation) on its terms, this fact depends (in the same sense) on the holding of the grounding relation between the relation and its terms. This is the essential step in getting the regress going. But it can be denied, by hiding that "Relation R is grounded in a and b" is simply a more verbose way of describing the same fact as "Rab": something sort of analogous to the rule of eta-conversion in Church's lambda calculus.
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So I think Russell wind. But, as a Russell fan, I would think that.
I haven’t read The Parmenidean Ascent, so maybe there’s a more compelling version there, but the Bradleyan regress argument just doesn’t seem especially compelling to me.
Okay, I am 5 feet from the door. Supposedly this must be grounded in something. If, having not been told the argument before, you were to ask me “What grounds your being 5 feet from the door?” I would answer “My location, the door’s location, and the fact that these locations are 5 feet apart”. And this isn’t to post some further relation at all.
When we explain a fact (in a metaphysical as opposed to epistemological sense, since that’s presumably what’s relevant here), we might be giving an account of how the fact came to be, or we might be giving an account of what makes the fact the sort of fact it is. In the first case, we’re probably talking about some prior cause, except perhaps in the case of a necessary existent. In the second case, we’re talking about what makes the fact a fact of this sort as opposed to a fact of some other sort: why is this a spatial relation rather than a weight relation? And the answer will be an analysis of the kind of relation it is.
Now, explanations of the first type at least typically involve posting something in addition to the original fact to be explained. There are difficulties here (has the universe existed forever or is there an uncaused first cause, or did it come from nothing?), but these don’t seem to be the puzzle Bradley is talking about. Explanations of the second kind do not require positing something in addition to the original fact to be explained (or if they do, it is some collection of necessarily existing types of property and relation).
How I got to be 5 feet from a door on a given occasion is no metaphysical mystery, so it must be the second sense of explanation that creates the problem. But, since only the first kind of explanation requires positing some additional fact, if our concern is the second kind of explanation, the regress doesn’t get started.
Maybe these two different senses of explanation are being conflated. In that case, the argument equivocates. Maybe some other sense of explanation is at play, but I have no idea what that would be.
I would like to direct those interested to my article in the Archiv für Geschichte, ‘Mathematics First: Russell’s Methodological Response to Bradley’, in which I show just why Russell rejected Bradley’s position: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/agph-2022-0017/html
In effect Russell argued that his and Bradley’s methodological commitments were incommensurable – Bradley held that all phenomena must admit of reductive analysis – Russell thought that it is an adequacy constraint on any philosophical theory that it be consistent with mathematical statements’ being true. On these very fundamental commitments, Russell thought, no real argument can be had. Russell therefore would have disagreed with the contention that he ‘lost the argument’.
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