Bertrand Russell’s logical atomism is quite interesting in the ideas and theories he brings forward to contribute to Occam’s Razor, but one in particular has stuck with me. He discusses his idea of existence and what it means to attribute existence to things, what things have existence, and even goes as far as to say hallucinations are the purest form of reality, which I take to mean existing. However, what starts off as an idea that I can follow and makes sense, ends up leaving me questioning my own identity in the world.

First, let’s start with a little background knowledge to carry us through my thought processes. Russell’s philosophy rests on the idea that everything is made up of smaller things. For Russell “atom”  is not meant in a scientific sense, but in a sense of being the smallest building block. These, for Russell, are sense data. They are the characteristics and data collected when something is perceived. For example, if the bottle sitting to the right of me as I write this is the object being perceived, the sense data upon perceiving it might be “blue,” “black lid,” and “heavy” to name a few. Together, that sense data makes up the thing that is ‘the bottle.’ Using this same sense data logic, Russell says that phantoms and hallucinations, or private mental images are also existing. He says they are at the same level of existing as the object in question. They, the phantoms, are created out of sense data, which is something that cannot be argued as it is something happening within myself by myself, therefore, the mental images are real. Much like Macbeth hallucinating a dagger, if I simply imagine an image of what my bottle looks like, according to the sense data, they’re the same: the object bottle and the phantom. The key difference in the two is the tactile sensation lacking with the phantom. So far, this makes sense to me; I can follow Russell’s ideas and understand what he is saying.

The first issue comes when he says, “They (Phantoms) have the most complete and absolute and perfect reality that anything can have.” (p. 146) Initially, it makes sense that without the sense of tactility, whatever is imagined is not just physically untouched but untouched by changes in sense data. I understand this notion in the way I understand the way oxygen causes rust: if oxygen never interferes or interacts with a certain metal object, maybe it’s locked away in an oxygen-less container, then the object will remain perfectly intact, as far as oxygen and rust goes. In addition, Russell states, just before, that he is not denying existence but just refusing to admit it. By asserting something has a perfect form of reality, or to assert its realness, feels to me like asserting its existence. To distinguish a sort of difference in reality and existence feels, to me, like nonsense. Can you have reality without having existence? As per the dictionary: Reality is the state or quality of having existence. So, I don’t understand how he can say those things, especially so closely on the same page. Perhaps I’m reading into it incorrectly and he is simply using this as a way to promote his propositional functions. To instead use ‘is possible’ instead of exists and completely negate the errors I’ve stumbled into. Nonetheless, in time, I’ve circled around to having an issue with the way Russell uses existence and reality.

Russell states that phantoms exist on the same level as the object. The phantom of the bottle exists in the same way as the object that I can hold. Russell then goes on to say that he doesn’t deny nor affirms existence and attributes phantoms to having a perfect reality. Again, he actually says: “They have the most complete and absolute and perfect reality that anything can have.” Here is where I take issue: I attribute the ability of tactility to existence. If I cannot touch something how can I truly know that something is there? I can imagine anything, with the ability to think visually, but that doesn’t mean it exists. This puts a wrench in my grasp of hallucinations and phantoms as existing for Russell, but I think I might have a solution. Let’s look at what it is to have an idea, I would say that my mental state of having an idea is real. It is something that happens and cannot be argued as it happens privately, and seeing as I think with visuals, it is created from sense data. Ideas are real, but they cannot be touched; therefore, I don’t think they have existence. For example, vampires are an idea that is real in the sense of an idea, we can think of what is a vampire or what would make up a vampire; however, they are not existing. We may all think of a phantom of a vampire, but they’re all going to be different because they’re a matter of mental states and creativity. They don’t have a corresponding fact to go along with them. I have ideas of stories that I would like to write, they are real; however, I take three philosophy classes in a semester so I haven’t written them to provide them with existence. Therefore, I think phantoms are real, in the way that they are a mental state, but they lack existence as they lack tactility. Simply put: to exist is to have tactility, in some time or another; therefore, phantoms are real, in the way that ideas are, but have no existence. This also puts a nice division between the phantom and the object that makes understanding easier. The phantom of the bottle, the mental image of the blue thing with the black lid, is real while the object that is this bottle that is blue with a black lid, is existing.

In conclusion, did I fall victim to the very thing Russell wanted to avoid with existence? Maybe. Did he provide a clear enough pathway so that I didn’t fall here by reading his lectures? No. Russell’s back and forth on existence and reality left me rather confused. If phantoms exist with perfect reality, I’m not sure what that makes of me and my own physical existence and reality, but if we alter the words around as I’d posed, I can make more sense of what is happening. Things can be real without existence, but things must be tactile in order to exist.