Logical Atomism - Differences Between Russell's and Wittgenstein's Atomism

Differences Between Russell's and Wittgenstein's Atomism

At the time Russell delivered his lectures on logical atomism, he had lost contact with Wittgenstein. After the First World War, Russell met with Wittgenstein again and helped him publish the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein's own version of Logical Atomism.

Although Wittgenstein did not use the expression Logical Atomism, the book espouses most of Russell's logical atomism except for Russell's Theory of Knowledge (T 5.4 and 5.5541). By 1918 Russell had moved away from this position. Nevertheless, the Tractatus differed so fundamentally from the philosophy of Russell that Wittgenstein always believed that Russell misunderstood the work.

The differences relate to many details, but the crucial difference is in a fundamentally different understanding of the task of philosophy. Wittgenstein believed that the task of philosophy was to clean up linguistic mistakes. Russell was ultimately concerned with establishing sound epistemological foundations. Epistemological questions such as how practical knowledge is possible did not interest Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein investigated the "limits of the world" and later on meaning.

For Wittgenstein, metaphysics and ethics were nonsensical, though he did not mean to devalue their importance in life by describing them in this way. Russell, on the other hand, believed that these subjects, particularly ethics, though belonging not to philosophy nor science and of possessing an inferior epistemological foundation, were of certain interest.