Neutral Monism - Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell 1921 later adopted a similar position to that of William James. Russell quotes from James's essay "Does 'consciousness' exist?" as follows:

"My thesis is," says, "That if we start with the supposition that there is only one primal stuff or material in the world, a stuff of which everything is composed, and if we call that stuff 'pure experience,' then knowing can easily be explained as a particular sort of relation towards one another into which portions of pure experience may enter. The relation itself is a part of pure experience; one of its 'terms' becomes the subject or bearer of the knowledge, the knower, the other becomes the object known (p. 4)".

Russell summarizes this notion as follows:

"James's view is that the raw material out of which the world is built up is not of two sorts, one matter and the other mind, but that it is arranged in different patterns by its inter-relations, and that some arrangements may be called mental, while others may be called physical".

Russell observes that "the same view of 'consciousness' is set forth in succeeding essay, "a World of Pure Experience" (ib., pp. 39-91)". In addition to the role of James, Russell observes the role of two American Realists:

"the American realists . . . Professor R. B. Perry of Harvard and Mr. Edwin B. Holt . . . have derived a strong impulsion from James, but have more interest than he had in logic and mathematics and the abstract part of philosophy. They speak of "neutral" entities as the stuff out of which both mind and matter are constructed. Thus Holt says: '... perhaps the least dangerous name is neutral-stuff.'".

Russell goes on to agree with James and in part with the "American realists":

"My own belief -- for which the reasons will appear in subsequent lectures -- is that James is right in rejecting consciousness as an entity, and that the American realists are partly right, though not wholly, in considering that both mind and matter are composed of a neutral-stuff which, in isolation is neither mental nor material".