1 Introduction

Bertrand Russell is perhaps one of the most important philosophers whose recognition moves far beyond the community of professional philosophers. Although he made enormous contributions in the field of logic and philosophy of language, during the last half of his life he was troubled by the widespread presence of violence in the political life of the state and its people and so wrote extensively on larger social and political issues. He became a rallying point for several social and political activists. India did not escape his attention. Many Indians were eager to know his views about the events that colonial India lived through. With scores of conflicting ideas about the correct course of the Indian freedom movement and the response of the colonial power (sometimes brutal) to the Indian unrest, distinguished Indians such as Bhim Rao Ramji Ambedkar looked to Russell’s views on these matters. As the present paper shows, Russell’s response to various events that colonial India experienced and his views on the search for a uniquely Indian identity entertained by many of the leaders of the freedom movement is complex and nuanced. Due to the exposure of many of the Indian philosophers to British analytic philosophy, Russell, needless to say, was a great influence on many of them. Russell’s celebrated works on logic and philosophy of language were discussed by Indian philosophers such as Pranab Kumar Sen and Madhucchanda Sen with great attention and scrutiny. The present paper articulates some of these Indian responses to Russell’s philosophy.

2 Russell’s Message for Social Reconstruction in India

Bhim Rao Ambedkar¹ was profoundly disturbed by the inequality among the different strata of Indian society resulting in the dehumanization of a large section of people in the traditional Indian community. What was more worrying to Ambedkar was that this inequality among the people was defended in terms of a societal structure that seemed to have gained legitimacy over time. Sometimes by taking recourse to divine intervention, or by taking refuge in spurious time-tested social phenomena, a large section of people in traditional India had been deprived of education, human dignity, and economic benefits. This injustice continued for such a long time that even the victims got used to it. Ambedkar, perhaps for the first time in twentieth-century India, made a concerted move both in the level of theory and activism to make people aware of the insidious consequence of the age-old discrimination, the urgent need to break the caste hierarchy, and the much-needed boost to the victims to make them empowered for a life that an individual can aspire after for her well-being. But then the question is: How does one introduce reform in a society that thrives on inequality, injustice, and structural caste hierarchy? That too in a country which is run by a foreign rule at least till 1947! Russell’s advocacy of pacifism has sometimes been understood as a kind of quietism regarding reform in Indian society. This apprehension of Ambedkar led him to review Russell’s Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916). The question that Ambedkar was grappling with is: What if the attempt to ensure justice gives rise to new forms of injustice? This question had been responded to by Ambedkar taking cues from his teacher John Dewey.² Russell’s analysis of the relationship between the aggressive attitude of an individual within a society that has violence inbuilt into its structure drew Ambedkar’s attention. Ambedkar was not a professional philosopher and so was not attracted by Russell’s philosophy of logic and language. Nonetheless, Ambedkar’s social activism led him to deal with some questions for which he took cues from Russell.

Ambedkar’s lifelong mission was to form a just society that is free from all kinds of hatred and exploitation. In his mission, he fell back on Russell, especially the latter’s ideas formulated in The Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916). Ambedkar wrote a review of Russell’s book in 1918 (Ambedkar 2014). In this book, Russell is concerned with understanding the cause of war and the way to free ourselves from it. In Ambedkar’s understanding, Russell does not think that it is through reason alone that we can stop war. It is the positive impulses of life and passions, a certain view of the springs of human action that can possibly make us realize the futility of war (Ambedkar 2014, 483). This reference to a novel view of the spring of human action leads Russell, according to Ambedkar, to embrace behaviouristic psychology, where it is held that it is not the external circumstances that are responsible for man’s action, rather man has springs of action within him (2014, 483). Man is born with certain tendencies to act, and these tendencies can be modified and this modification constitutes education in the broad sense. And in this modification, social and political institutions play a significant role. This is why the nature of these modifications needs to be studied in great detail. Russell studies these modifications under various frameworks like state, war, property, education, marriage, and religion. Ambedkar, in this context, focusses on how property brings in modifications in the spring of human action.

Ambedkar interprets Russell as suggesting that violence is required to combat a nation that has the impulse of violence, without sacrificing other valuable ends required for the stability of the world. Force can be used, but only constructively and not as destructive violence. Ambedkar cautions the reader that Russell’s pacifism does not prescribe a blanket condemnation of the use of force (Ambedkar 2014, 484). Ambedkar refers to the bias of the Indian reader of Russell who holds that the theory that replaces the philosophy of force is essentially an Eastern philosophy. Ambedkar endorses Nietzsche’s comment about the impracticability of Christianity and questions the ascription of the same to Indian philosophy. This so-called pacifist attitude allegedly attributed to Indian thought by the Indian nationalists is something that one should guard against. For Ambedkar, the East’s self-glorification, especially in relief work in war hinting at its professed pacifism,³ is marred by the overwhelming absence of any impulse whatsoever. Ambedkar approvingly quotes Russell (1916, 93) in accepting that impulses and conflicts are necessary for a progressive life, only that which is to be avoided is that conflict must not breed death and destruction.

Banking on Russell’s thoughts, Ambedkar argues that force as energy is to be espoused and force as violence is to be shunned. “Russell … is against war, but is not for quieticism”, he concludes (Ambedkar 2014, 484). Without the use of force, the use of all ideals will remain empty, and Ambedkar defends the idea that ends justify the means. The problem arises when the application of means produces many ends other than our desired end. Here we have to be cautious of the operations that we perform in producing the end. We must be aware that while producing the desired end, we must ensure other equally worthy ends. East must not blame the materialism of the West for war and violence, for, according to Ambedkar, we all are materialists. Action, some mild form of war, is better than inaction. Some elements of resistance, some elements of contest are required for man’s ability to act on his faculties.

Concerning the claim that India is among the oldest surviving countries in the world, Ambedkar notes that it is not only survival that matters, for even the weak may survive by a retreat from the impulses of life. The quality of life that survives is what matters and Ambedkar urges the Indian readers of Russell to reevaluate the qualities of their life.

Ambedkar also summarises Russell’s views on property and his analysis of different economic organizations of society. There are three stakeholders of an economic institution: (1) the consumer, (2) the producer, and (3) the capitalist. The failure of the present system, according to Russell, is that while considering the interests of these stakeholders, the interest of the community has been ignored. Despite the fact that a cooperative system and syndicalism fare better, neither could stop the exploitation of the labour class, thereby affecting the interests of the community and producing unrest. Consequently, the state took the opportunity to enforce its power over the community, seriously compromising the freedom of the people.

People have paid little attention to industrial democracy compared to political democracy. Russell (1916, 141–42) advocates a combination of a cooperative system and a syndicalism whereby all the men involved in the work can feel pride in their work and everybody’s creative impulse could get manifest. This is different from capitalism, for in the former private ownership of land would cease to exist; this is different from socialism, for it is not a static system; it only provides a scheme to facilitate the expression of one’s impulses.

Appreciating Russell’s approach to economic institutions, Ambedkar is critical of what he sees as Russell’s negative evaluation of the “love of money”. According to him, Russell believes that the love of money misconstrues the idea of success and contributes nothing to human welfare. Ambedkar thinks that this is an archaic idea and that the economic life and the philosophical outlook of society are more intimately connected than what is usually thought of (Ambedkar 2014, 486). The moralists’ opposition to the love of money is part of their general apathy to the goods in the world. When despite their best efforts, people cannot get what they want, the philosophy of sour grapes arises. This is why there is a significant difference in the perspectives of the haves and have-nots to goods of the world. Each one in this group tries to idealize what he does; thus morality is sought in the immoral. In the old world of “pain economy” where productivity was extremely low, worldly pleasures were looked down upon only because they were not achievable. On the other extreme, we have “pleasure economy” attached to “conspicuous consumption” where anything cheap is regarded as not worth it. For Ambedkar, Russell’s mistake lies in not enquiring into the purpose of love of money. Different people do different things with money. So even the love of money would result in the manifestation of a variety of creative impulses.

If one looks at the laws of consumption, then also Russell’s negative attitude to love of money becomes susceptible to doubt. Ambedkar argues that the utility of an object depends on the condition of the organism whose satisfaction the object is supposed to serve. To a person who is overfed, food won’t serve his utility, which is certainly not the case with a hungry man. Thus, the utility of an object could be zero or even negative to an organ. Sometimes, even the underfed organ might divert our attention from the object that has been over enjoyed. So, it is hardly possible to accept that only one kind of satisfaction will overpower all others. According to Ambedkar, human beings, by nature, are against lopsided development.

Russell holds that the attitude of possession of one’s own property leads to war (Russell 1916, 234). Ambedkar accepts this but adds more nuances to it. People are not only possessive of their properties, often they are also prone to lose their properties in bargains so as to incur less loss. This, according to Ambedkar, shows that possession of property per se is not the problem, it is the unequal distribution of property that gives birth to the problem. This explains why people who have no property are more disposed to indulge in mob violence to acquire property than those who own property.

Ambedkar is also critical of the Russellian distinction between creative and possessive impulse, which clearly reveals his bias for creative impulse (Russell 1916, 234–36). This impulse is prone to create things that otherwise would not exist, and possessive impulse is prone to acquire more of what already exists. Ambedkar questions the very idea of the impulse of appropriation. Every impulse, by nature, is creative. Whether the product will be appropriated or not depends on the method of its production and the nature of the product. In a family, for example, when all the members join the dinner at a dining table, nobody claims to appropriate the food served, it belongs to all the members of the family. But certainly, each of the members of the family can claim to appropriate individual’s clothes. The impulse to possess has finer elements in it. Creative impulse lies on a different level. The logic of the increase/decrease of these two impulses has their independent trajectories.

Ultimately, the main thrust of Ambedkar’s argument is that it is wrong to interpret Russell as an advocate of quietism. While India’s demand for a peaceful life and non-resistance might find support in Russell, Ambedkar warns of this reading of Russell. Russell, for Ambedkar, advocates force as a creativity, as a positive life impulse.

3 Russell and Indian Culture

Some Indian thinkers were attracted by Russell’s love-and-hate relationship with mysticism. Russell, on the one hand, was opposed to Christian religious rituals and beliefs, and, on the other hand, he expressed experiencing inner flashes of insight into the nature of human existence. It is undeniable, however, that in Russell logic and rationalism reigned supreme, but there too an underlying mystic thinking popped up its head occasionally. According to Dilip Kumar Roy, the famous Indian singer and musicologist, Russell’s robust faith in the ultimate good that humanity can achieve is what makes him a mystic.⁴ Roy got this impression during his conversation⁵ with Russell (Roy 1950, 81).

Dilip Kumar Roy is famous for his travelogues. According to his confession, in his early teens he was moved by the advice of Mahendra Nath Gupta (popularly called Sri M),⁶ the well-known author who managed to note down the reports of his daily meetings with Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the famous mystic saint of Kolkata, to collect and write down the important parts of conversations while meeting important people.⁷ Roy followed this advice when he met well-known personalities of his time, including Romain Rolland, Bertrand Russell, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sri Aurobindo. Roy’s knowledge of Indian music, his childlike simplicity and willingness to know the other, as well as his ineluctable kindness have perhaps made him succeed in having some of the eminent personalities open up to him, sharing their reservoir of knowledge and experiences with him.

In his response to a query by Roy about whether or not it is a luxury to engage oneself in the cultivation of music and other art forms at a time when the people in colonial India are living in abject poverty and suffering from all kinds of discrimination, Russell holds that one must not violate one’s disposition. One’s forced renunciation of natural dispositions at the cost of some other higher ideals often brings in more harm than benefit. Russell himself admits that he spends half of his time on politics and society and the rest is devoted to the thoughts that his nature likes most. Even after India gains independence, there must be people who will cultivate music and arts and for this there must be people who are well-trained, who must be receiving training in colonial India (Roy 1950, 82). It ultimately all depends on one’s likes and disposition.

Russell lamented over the very poor royalties that he got from the sales of his books (Roy 1950, 84). He undertook a trip to America primarily to earn money from his lectures. In his conversation with Dilip Kumar Roy, Russell talks about his mission to start a school for middle-class children. He expressed his disapproval of receiving donations from the rich to build the school, for, according to Russell, once rich people donate, they will interfere in the management of the school. It is only the government that must be pressurized to bring reform in education and for this people’s opinion must be strengthened. In this context, Russell argues that man is essentially neither an angel nor an evil, neither completely good nor solely bad. Man takes recourse to certain principles for his survival. Education, if formulated in a way that does not reject some such fundamental principles, could be proved beneficial for man (Roy 1950, 85).

Continuing his conversation, Russell holds that it is doubtful whether children are peace-loving creatures. War and violence have been there since time immemorial, so much so that it has entered into our blood and fiber. The attempt to spread the word of peace has been a recent event. Russell cautions that forcing the belief in peace on young children could be counterproductive.

Russell also opposes all kinds of imperialism. Even Bolshevik imperialism is not an exception. Though Russell acknowledges the role of communism in initiating us into atheism and making us realize the hypocrisy of the priestly class, it has failed to cultivate the ideals in the human mind. About taking measures to teach the fundamentals of communism to young children, Russell thinks that this kind of propaganda might have the opposite result. Some beliefs and opinions of individuals do indeed affect society in general and especially in Christianity many of these beliefs have effects that are not at all desirable.

Russell is sceptical of the theosophist/spiritualist experiments to prove the existence of the spirit (Roy 1950, 90). Russell holds that even if one sincerely makes an experiment to prove the disembodied spirit, one will not succeed in proving the existence of the spirit. To accept the existence of something, one needs proof. Even if no proof can be given for the non-existence of the spirit, such a belief is like betting on a horse that one believes will win. To those who then feel that all the human creativities will end in void, Russell replies that it is not necessarily a great feeling either that we will all survive for eternity. Sometimes we feel positive about our life, sometimes not so. Creation does not take place in accordance with our feelings, our likes and dislikes. According to Russell, whatever progress we have made is due to our attempt to look at life independently of our likes and dislikes. Truth can be known only through an unbiased inquiry. This is where Russell opposes religion, for religion always teaches us to look at life in terms of our personal likes and dislikes, or our personal ideas of good and bad. Religion, for Russell, makes humans self-centered. Russell holds great respect for Buddha, though he does not accept the teachings of the disciples of Buddha (Roy 1950, 92). Russell opposes Christ for the latter’s espousal of the ideas of hell, the fire of hell, and unreasonable condemnation of all material pleasure.

Russell, of course, does not advocate the unrestrained pursuit of sex. Sublimation of sexual desire, he believes, paves the way for artistic creation. But at the same time, complete blockage of sexual desire does more harm than provide benefit. The ascetics do not advocate sexual repression for the sake of artistic creation; they are more driven by an ordinary sense of morality and immorality. When an artist creates his artistic product, the sublimation of sexual desire comes to him from within, he does not force his sexual repression. We exercise restraint as much as required to live in society. Maybe for an artist, some amount of sexual frustration is needed for his creative act, but this is not necessarily the case for a scientist.

During his conversation with Roy, Russell argues that one must not conflate evolution and progress (Roy 1950, 95). Evolution means survivability in new situations. In so far as the intellect is concerned, we have not been able to move beyond the Greeks, although our knowledge of the world and nature has increased many times. The only way man can make further progress is by giving a free hand to scientific investigation. Science can make an arrangement such that only humans with great potential can be conceived. Others can have sexual unions without giving birth to babies. It is religion that opposes using contraception. Religion produces worthless people; science wants unbiased progress.⁸ Russell had great hope for America in this respect. He expressed his disappointment with Europe (Roy 1950, 96). Loving life for life itself and not for the sake of being happy is the recipe for happiness.

On the effects of English rule in India, Russell holds that it is true that English people went to India to do business, but as an offshoot of this rule, the modern industrial outlook got imprinted on the Indian mind. Russell thinks that industrialism has its evil side and in this, he agrees with Gandhi, but one cannot avoid industrialism (Roy 1950, 97). He hopes that the evils of industrialism could be thwarted by an intervention of Asian values.

We are often misled into thinking that our beliefs are the springboard of our actions. Human nature is the real cause of our actions. Religion does not produce a good man. The nobility of character does not depend on religion. As against the idea that religion advocates love, friendship, and charity, Russell holds that these noble qualities have risen in man because of his reason, actions, and experience, and not because of religion. Being immersed in spiritual loneliness and consequent experience of pleasure, man becomes ignorant of the demands of the external world, to the multifarious pleasures and actions of the world. Although Russell is critical of Buddha being a mendicant, he acknowledges that his respect for Buddha outweighs his respect for Christ. Russell holds Christ responsible for implanting Jewish thoughts in the Greek culture and thus blocking human progress. Russell praises the Greeks for discovering geometry. Russell clarifies himself, while being referred to Rabindranath as a believer, by suggesting that he is opposed to organized religion and not to individual spirituality. Talking about Gandhi’s opposition to the use of contraception, Russell argues that it is the religion in Gandhi that leads him to this opposition (Roy 1950, 106).

Russell disapproves of some of the Indian students in Cambridge eulogizing the ancient Indian culture, for Russell thinks that all the ancient cultures suffer from certain evils and ancient India cannot be an exception (Roy 1950, 107). Russell is sceptical of the possibility of the English rule gifting something good to India unless they are forced to do it. He also expressed his disappointment over any government in general.

4 Russell and the Indian Independence Movement

Russell’s reaction to the various aspects of the Indian independence movement is rather complex and multifaceted. Many of Russell’s close relatives were associated with activities related to India (Bone 2015–2016, 102). Russell never visited India, except for a brief stopover in Kolkata on his return journey from Australia. Although Russell never devoted a book-long discussion to British India, in his numerous articles and political commentaries he referred to events taking place in India under British rule. At one place he described himself as “a lifetime friend of India” (Bone 2015–2016, 101). He, on many occasions, condemned the repressive measures of the English rule in India. At the same time, however, he was critical of Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement (Bone 2015–2016, 103). Russell’s ambivalent relation with imperialism is evident in his self-description as a “liberal imperialist” where Russell acknowledges that when a superior civilization imposes itself on another civilization and infiltrates its values into the latter one, this is not necessarily worth condemning. He argues that modern-day colonization does not aim at complete occupation of the territory of the colonized people, it aims at certain governmental and trade-related domination. Russell, in fact, was critical of the Indian Congress, because he thought that the Congress party was a movement of elites uninterested in the social regeneration of the Indian population. Russell was appreciative of the great work done by the British in India like establishing railways and abolishing many evil social practices (Bone 2015–2016, 109). In this, he completely disagreed with Gandhi’s wholesale condemnation of the attempt to introduce Western civilization to Indian soil. Although Russell was sympathetic to India’s demand for independence, he was very critical of Indian culture as a whole. He did not show any interest in ancient Indian literature and philosophy. He refused to write on Indian philosophy because he had decided to “hold my tongue about things that I do not like in India” (Bone 2015–2016, 111). It is true, of course, that Russell used one of the poems from Rabindranath Tagore (the first Asian Noble laureate) in the former’s pamphlet for peace (Dasgupta 1973, 5).⁹ Nonetheless, Russell regarded Tagore’s ideas as mystical nonsense. In many of his comments, Russell appreciates the urge for political freedom and democracy among the Indians, but at the same time was critical of the talk of the great past of Indian culture. He was critical of the British administration when it delayed the attempts to introduce social reforms.

With the advent of World War II, the international scene got complicated so much that Russell thought that Gandhi’s demand for complete independence is not justified. For if that happened, then Japan might subjugate both China and India (Bone 2015–2016, 114). Russell, along with his wife Patricia Russell, also apprehended that the civil war (between Hindus and Muslims) might become unmanageable once the British colonial power moved out of India (Bone 2015–2016, 114). As is clear from the above discussion, Russell was critical of the oppressive measures taken by the British administration from time to time. Russell’s sympathy for the urge for Indian independence grew stronger when he accepted chairing the “India League” in 1930 (Bone 2015–2016, 123). The main purpose of this league was to keep the events in India at the forefront of the policymakers in London and it acted as a pressure group. Russell was instrumental in writing a report on the experience of the three representatives of the India League who visited India. This report describes the brutal measures taken by the British administration to crush the genuine aspirations of the Indians while also containing a vivid description of the appalling condition of people living in villages. But, at the same time, he was so upset with the aggression of the Axis powers that he thought it was better for the British to stay back in India to counter the Japanese imperialism, if needed, by force. This is why he was critical of Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement and also explains why he expressed opposition to the American press who were supportive of Gandhi.

It is interesting to note that Russell had a brief appearance in an Indian film called Aman, directed by Mohan Kumar (1967). It was released in 1967. The protagonist of the film was a doctor by profession. He traveled to Japan to help the victims of the catastrophic effect of the nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While depicting a brief interview urging people to refrain from war, the film shows Russell talking about the danger of war in a nuclear age that mankind faces.

5 Russell and Philosophy of Language

Due to the exposure of numerous Indian philosophers to British philosophy, it is quite natural that Russell’s philosophical thoughts entered the discourse of Indian philosophy. From the 1960s onwards, Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy (1912) was included in the curriculum of most of the Indian universities. This book became so popular that it was translated into many Indian languages so that the students could have easy access to Russell’s thoughts (see for instance Chandramal 1972; Bhattacharya 2010). This explains why a large number of philosophy students in Indian universities are more or less acquainted with some of the basic philosophical ideas of Russell.

Some of the Indian philosophers who received training in analytic philosophy have engaged themselves with Russell. Pranab Kumar Sen¹⁰ has worked on Russell’s arguments against Fregean sense (Sen 1991, 111–39). Sen focuses on a few passages in Russell’s “On Denoting” (eight paragraphs as found in Russell [1905] 1956, 48–51) where Russell questions Frege’s distinction between sense and reference. Sen minutely analyzes almost sentence by sentence the main arguments of Russell against Frege.¹¹ Sen starts with some clarificatory notes. Instead of using the Fregean expressions like “sense” and “reference”, Russell uses terms like “meaning” and “denotation”. Sen notes that Russell has been careless in using single and double quotes, which is important, for often, in this context, we are referring to expressions and talking about their meaning and denotation. Sen also thinks that Russell’s argument is aimed at Frege and not at Russell’s earlier view formulated in his The Principles of Mathematics (1903). Sen holds that Russell not only questions the sense-reference distinction, but that he goes further and claims that “there is no meaning and only denotation in some cases” (Sen 1991, 114). He interprets Russell as proposing that if, following Frege, one wants to make a distinction between sense and reference, then one must be able to talk about meaning (sense) as opposed to the denotation of a denoting phrase. Sen, for the sake of his argument, assumes that the denotative sentence has a denotation. When a phrase occurs by itself, we talk about its denotation. But when a phrase occurs within inverted commas, we talk about its meaning. Thus, for example, we are actually determining the relation between C (the denotation) and ‘C’ (meaning). This relation between C and ‘C’ cannot be a merely linguistic one, for not only the phrase denotes, but also the meaning of the phrase denotes. There is a direct relation between meaning and denotation. Meaning denotes by itself and not only via the phrase. And so, the relation between meaning and denotation is not merely linguistic, it has to be logical. This is where, according to Sen, Russell finds a problem in Frege. It is not possible to preserve this distinction and also to prevent one from collapsing into the other. Sen argues that Russell is not content with showing the impossibility of maintaining the meaning–denotation distinction, he (Russell) further holds that it is not possible to get meaning except through a denoting phrase. If this is what Russell holds, then, Sen wonders, why is this regarded as a problem by Russell? It is not obvious why one cannot use a denoting phrase to get at meaning. Sen thinks that it would indeed be a problem if we believed in certain other requirements. Sen interprets Russell as proposing that the problem that such a proposition would lead to is that we cannot maintain a distinction between meaning and denotation and at the same time we cannot account for the connection between the two. Since we get at meaning and also denotation through the same denoting phrase, we must be able to formulate the connection between the two. While attempting to do this, the distinction between the two cannot be maintained anymore. This is the main point that Russell wants to draw our attention to, according to Sen (1991, 119).

Sen explains Russell’s argument against Frege as follows. First, Frege holds that meaning is distinct from denotation. Second, Frege holds that a denoting phrase has both meaning and denotation. Third, Frege holds that both meaning and denotation are objective entities and the relation between them is also objective. Fourth, he holds that not only the denoting phrase but also the meaning denotes the denotation. All of this reinforces Frege’s thesis that when meaning denotes, it is not simply a matter of linguistic convention—unlike what happens when a denoting phrase denotes.

Sen argues that although the thesis that meaning denotes denotation sounds odd, this view could be attributed to Frege given two other views that Frege holds: (1) the reference (denotation) of a sentence is its truth value, and (2) it is the thought (meaning) of a sentence that is capable of being either true or false. Moreover, when Russell talks about the logical relation between meaning and denotation as logical, he means that this relation is not determined by the linguistic expressions and their conventions. Russell also means that the relation between meaning and denotation is not psychological. Understanding a concept involves grasping a logical relation to other related concepts. And so, when meaning denotes, the relation between meaning and what it denotes cannot be merely linguistic in nature. Sen unpacks Russell’s idea that if, as Frege holds, the meaning of a proper name is the mode of presentation of the object (which, as we noted above, requires that the reference of the proper name exists), then meaning cannot help but denote its denotation. There is a logical necessity that explains why meaning has that specific denotation and not anything else. And this is why Russell treats the relation between meaning and denotation as logical in nature (Sen 1991, 122).

The main thrust of Russell’s criticism of Frege seems to center round the claim that it is not possible to speak of meaning and denotation of a denoting phrase by using the denoting phrase, resulting in the conclusion that one cannot claim that a denoting phrase has both meaning and denotation. Russell assumes that if the meaning is distinct from denotation (the thesis that Frege advocates), then one must be able to talk about the meaning of a denoting phrase as distinct from its denotation. Sen, however, is sceptical of this Russellian assumption. If the denoting phrase has meaning and denotation, the denoting phrase is expected to relate itself to meaning and denotation in different ways. We use the denoting phrase to talk about its denotation. And the meaning of the denoting phrase is the mode of presentation of the denotation. It is not clear why one cannot speak of the meaning of a denoting phrase independently of its denotation. Sen concludes that Russell can claim to have shown this much: that one cannot speak of meaning the way one can speak of denotation (Sen 1991, 138).¹² This falls short of the original claim of Russell that the distinction between meaning and denotation is not tenable or that meaning can be gotten rid of.

6 Russell and Philosophy of Mind

The implication of what is called “Russell’s Principle” by Gareth Evans (1982, 42–63)¹³ has been worked out in detail by Madhucchanda Sen.¹⁴ She draws out the implications of Russell’s criterion of the singular term for the internalism–externalism debate in the philosophy of mind (Sen 2010, 62–86).¹⁵ While formulating Russell’s criterion, Sen holds that if a noun phrase, lacking reference, does not render the sentence where it occurs meaningless, then this noun phrase cannot be regarded as a genuine Russellian singular term. Sen thinks that for Russell, the grammatical subject of a proposition is a genuine proper name only if the occurrence of it, while lacking a reference, makes the proposition meaningless. Following this criterion, Russell would hold that most ordinary proper names and even demonstratives are covert descriptions. This formulation of Russell’s criterion of a genuine proper name leads to what is known as Russell’s principle, viz., for a subject to entertain a thought about an object, the subject must know the object in question. And the subject could know an object either through a description that uniquely satisfies the object or the subject could be acquainted with the object. For Russell, entertaining a genuine singular thought requires being acquainted with the object rendering the genuine singular reference possible. Sen understands Russell as holding that the objects a subject could be genuinely acquainted with are the private mental indexicals and demonstratives (Sen 2010, 67). Sen claims that Russell’s criterion of a genuine proper name is due to his loyalty to the Cartesian idea that one can never be mistaken about whether one has a thought. This ascription of infallibility to self-knowledge is the bone of contention among the externalists and the internalists in the philosophy of mind.

Sen refers to thought experiments where attempts have been made to compare the entertainment of a thought by a subject both in a genuine situation and in a counterfactual one. In the counterfactual situation, the thoughts do not have any reference. One could explain this either by proposing that the subject in this case thinks of the reference in a descriptive mode and the description might fail to instantiate, or by suggesting that in this case, the subject has an illusion of entertaining a thought; she does not have any determinate thought at all. Sen contends that Russell’s principle of a genuine proper name inspires the illusion version of externalism (Sen 2010, 75).

7 Russell and the Response from Sanskrit Philosophers

As part of a larger initiative to construct a dialogue between Sanskrit-trained classical Indian philosophers and Indian philosophers trained in Western philosophy, a project was undertaken to present Western philosophical concepts and debates before Sanskrit-trained Indian philosophers who were not familiar with Western philosophy to elicit a response from them.¹⁶ To make Western philosophical ideas accessible to Sanskrit scholars, important Western philosophical ideas and their formulations were translated into Sanskrit. In one of these experiments, Russell’s idea of proposition was taken up for critical scrutiny. M. P. Rege, the main architect behind this project, thinks that the nature of proposition as Russell articulates it in his The Principles of Mathematics (1903) could be a fit subject of analysis for both Sanskrit-trained philosophers and Indian philosophers having had exposure to Western philosophy. Thus, a new beginning in philosophical analysis in India could be started (Rege 1991, xxv). It would facilitate a dialogue since the idea of the proposition could be formulated without much reference to earlier theories and debates. Rege also thought that Russell’s realism and analytic approach would make it convenient for the traditional Indian philosophers belonging especially to the Nyāya and Mīmaṃsā schools to engage in a dialogue.¹⁷ To organize this dialogue, Russell’s formulation of the idea of proposition was first stated in English and this was followed by a Sanskrit translation of it, so that Russell’s thesis could be conveyed to the Sanskrit scholars (Rege 1991, xxv). In the dialogue, all the comments made by the Indian philosophers trained in Western philosophy were translated into Sanskrit to elicit responses from the Sanskrit philosophers. What is significant is that the Sanskrit scholars engaged themselves in intense conversation with the philosophers trained in Western philosophy.

I would like to present briefly how a traditional Indian philosopher, after being presented with Russel’s theory of proposition (in Sanskrit), makes a critical assessment of Russell. According to Badrinath Shukla,¹⁸ Russell talks about two types of entities: actually existent things and understandable content (Shukla 1991, 203). Things that lack actual existence but of which truth or falsity is attributed is what Russell calls “proposition”. Shukla reconstructs Russell’s argument for the idea of the proposition as follows. For any experience of knowledge, first, we know the content, and then once we find correspondence of this content in the actual world, we recognize the content as true. For example, after looking at a piece of shining conch shell, I might claim to know “This is silver”, which is a case of false knowledge. In another case, after looking at a piece of silver, I might have the knowledge “This is silver”. In the former case, after minute observation I come to conclude that my knowledge was false. In the latter case, after finding out the presence of the silver, I come to conclude that what I thought was true. Thus, what I judge to be true or false is a proposition. In a philosophical debate, when one argues that “X is eternal” and the other holds that “X is non-eternal”, the debating parties cannot claim to have the knowledge of the claim of the other party, simply because they do not believe what the other party claims. The advocate of the claim that “X is eternal” cannot claim to know his adversary’s claim because she simply does not believe in the claim made by her opponent. But we do come across these kinds of debates in the history of philosophy. Russell, to account for the possibility of such a debate, comes up with the idea of proposition, argues Shukla. The knowledge “X is eternal” can be negated by the knowledge “X is non-eternal”, but the proposition that X is eternal cannot be so negated for here the pre-established certainty about X being non-eternal is yet to arise. It is only after the corresponding empirical verification that the possibility of one knowledge claim being negated by another knowledge claim arises. This is why Russell attributes truth or falsity to what he calls the “proposition”. Shukla concludes, “Without the admission of propositions a debate or philosophical controversy of the above sort would not be possible” (Shukla 1991, 205).

Although Shukla finds Indian cousins of Russellian propositions in some schools of Indian philosophy like that of the Grammarian school and the Non-dualist metaphysics,¹⁹ he is careful to add that Russell’s proposition is neither a mental entity nor an unreal link connecting the real entities. For Russell, a proposition is eternal.

Shukla moves further and argues that the aim for which Russell introduced the idea of proposition can be arrived at without talking about propositions. Shukla explains his point from the Nyāya account of perception.²⁰ One could think of two stages of an object in so far as our epistemic experience is concerned. Assuming that all knowledge is of the subject-predicate form, the first stage of the object consists of an awareness of the object as a locus of a certain mode of presentation. This, however, is not yet established. Therefore, at this stage, we do not have knowledge. In the next stage, when the mode of presentation has been proved to have the locus concerned, we acquire the knowledge. When, for example, one has the awareness that “X is eternal”, at first, “being eternal” (the mode of presentation) is cognized as having the locus. But it has not been proved yet that X is the locus of the property “being eternal”. So, the object is not yet known as eternal. It is only after practical efforts are made that the object is known as being the locus of the property concerned. What was cognized before becomes the object of knowledge now. An object of awareness becomes an object of knowledge. Thus, Shukla concludes that Russell’s idea of proposition becomes redundant (Shukla 1991, 207).

This two-tier theory of object in its epistemic perspective can also explain the possibility of debate. When, for example, Mr. P asserts “X is eternal”, Mr. Q, after hearing this sentence, acquires a knowledge which is inferential in nature. This inferential knowledge arises from the knowledge of the syntactic order of the words in the sentence. This inferential knowledge is the effect of the utterance of the words in a particular order. As we can infer cause from the effect, the particular inferential knowledge as an effect could be said to have the prior awareness of Mr. P about what is conveyed in the sentence “X is eternal” as the cause. In other words, what Mr. Q comes to infer is that Mr. P believes that X is eternal and not that X is eternal. In a debate where the participants hold contrary views, the proponent of one view tries to communicate her own awareness of a view to the participants. It would be misleading to claim that the proponent wants the participants to have knowledge of her claims. Shukla considers some other possible ways of defending the idea of proposition and rejects all of them (Shukla 1991, 209). This is historically important, for this is perhaps the first time a traditional Sanskrit scholar responded to Russell’s philosophy.

8 Conclusion

The above discussion shows that Russell was admired and respected among many Indians not only as a philosopher but also as a great thinker and an inspiring personality. Russell’s philosophical ideas provoked some Indian philosophers to think anew about some age-old debates and questions in philosophy. Even Sanskrit philosophers took the effort to respond to Russell. It must be noted, however, that philosophers like Kant and Hegel did have a significant bearing on some of the Indian philosopher, so much so that these Indian philosophers smuggled in some of the ideas of classical Indian philosophy while interpreting Kant or Hegel (Bhattacharyya 1983, 663–711). It is difficult to come across works of similar kinds on Russell by Indian philosophers. Some of the Indian philosophers who had their research training in the U. K. did work with the British philosophers who succeeded Russell. In this, they wrote on the philosophical issues raised in Anglo-American analytic philosophy where reference to Russell could be found, but these studies are peripheral to Russell’s philosophy. They did not try to extend or improve on Russell’s philosophy. On the other hand, Russell’s articles and books form an integral part of the curriculum of several Indian universities. Beyond philosophy, many Indians looked up to Russell as the champion of freedom, human rights, and peace. Russell’s interest in the Indian freedom movement and his expectation of the Free India that came out of colonial rule are witnesses to his humanistic thought. Russell endorsed the policy of peace encouraged by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. The problems and the predicaments of India, during the British rule and afterward, were certainly matters of concern for Russell.