Lebens - Bertrand Russell and the Nature of Propositions

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

35 Wittgenstein and Heidegger

Pathways and Provocations

Edited by David Egan, Stephen Reynolds, and Aaron James Wendland

36 The Textual Genesis of Wittgensteins Philosophical Investigations

Edited by Nuno Venturinha

37 The Early Wittgenstein on Metaphysics, Natural Science, Language and Value

Chon Tejedor

38 Walter Benjamins Concept of the Image

Alison Ross

39 Donald Davidsons Triangulation Argument

A Philosophical Inquiry

Robert H. Myers and Claudine Verheggen

40 Heideggers Shadow

Kant, Husserl, and the Transcendental Turn

Chad Engelland

41 Ernst Jngers Philosophy of Technology

Heidegger and the Poetics of the Anthropocene

Vincent Blok

42 Bertrand Russell and the Nature of Propositions

A History and Defence of the Multiple Relation Theory of Judgement

Samuel Lebens

I was tremendously blessed as a graduate student at Birkbeck College to be surrounded by fabulous teachers and peers. The amount of time and guidance that my supervisors first Fraser MacBride and then Dorothy Edgington gave to me went far beyond what most graduate students receive, and I am so grateful to them. In fact, when I was an undergraduate at University College London, it was Fraser MacBrides lectures on Bertrand Russell (alongside some very engaging tutorials with Colin Johnston) that first drew me in to the Multiple Relation Theory of Judgement.

Susan James and Anthony Price were the faculty that encouraged me to pursue my PhD at Birkbeck. I am so glad that they did. Alongside my official supervisors at Birkbeck, I was fortunate to be able to forge a relationship with Keith Hossack, whose rich work has had a clear impact upon my own. The entire faculty there were truly engaged in creating and sustaining a supportive and invigorating intellectual environment. Furthermore, I was lucky to join Birkbeck alongside a tremendously engaging set of peers. Coffees, seminars and pub-nights with Alex Douglas, Simon Hewitt, Nick Jones, Frederique Lauret and Steven Methven were a major part of my philosophical education and certainly had an impact on the content of this book.

Friendship and conversations with other graduate students in London such as Jonny McIntosh, Arthur Schipper and Lee Walters were also a tremendous resource to me. Facebook has made it possible to take many of these people with me over the course of the intervening years as sources of advice and friendship. Perhaps I should be thanking Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has also allowed me to have very helpful conversations on the topics of this book with scholars Ive not yet had the pleasure to meet, such as Christopher Menzel and Joseph Jedwab. Many thanks to them and to Lorraine Juliano Keller, a real-life and Facebook friend, who often receives random Facebook messages from me and has been a rich resource of ideas and useful references.

Tom Baldwin and Mark Textor were my PhD examiners and have been a source of encouragement and advice ever since. I am very grateful to both of them.

Returning to professional academia after a four-year hiatus in Rabbinical School wasnt at all easy. It was made possible by a number of people, events and programs that encouraged me to pursue a new research interest in the philosophy of religion. Thanks are particularly due to Kelly Clark, Tyron Goldschmidt, Aaron Segal, Eleonore Stump, Dani Rabinowitz, Mike Rota, Mike Rea and especially Dean Zimmerman (without whom Im pretty certain I wouldnt be in academia today) for making this new chapter of my philosophical career possible.

My various endeavours in the philosophy of religion, over the years, have received generous support from the John Templeton Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust and the World Templeton Charity Foundation Inc. (the views expressed in this book are not intended to represent the views of any organisation, nor was this research, in particular, funded by them I merely acknowledge that without their support for my research in the philosophy of religion, I may not have remained in professional academia at all). The only real evidence of any philosophy of religion in this book is hidden all the way back in , but at least I managed to sneak some in somewhere!

My return to professional philosophy brought me to the University of Notre Dame and Rutgers University, before my very recent move to the University of Haifa. During this time, I was able to revisit my PhD thesis and bring it up to do date to become this book. A major feature of this process of updating was to bring the thesis more directly into conversation with contemporary philosophers of language. Rutgers, in particular, was a wonderful environment in which to perform such a task.

At Rutgers, I had access to faculty who were very generous with their time, expertise and encouragement. Conversations with Bob Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Elisabeth Camp, Jeff King (Jeff Speaks at Notre Dame) and Ernie Lepore were invaluable to me. Andy Egan and Jonathan Schaffer were both kind enough to read long excerpts of my work and give me really helpful comments. What was most remarkable about my time at Rutgers was the invaluable help I received from the graduate students there. Much of the newest material to this book is owed to conversations with David Black, Eddy Kemming Chen, Simon Goldstein, Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini and Daniel Rubio. I owe a great debt to all of the graduate students at Rutgers for creating such a wonderful intellectual community to have been a part of, alongside the other research fellows, Andrew Moon and Phil Swenson.

This manuscript was completed during my first semester at the University of Haifa. Even in that short time, I have learnt a tremendous amount from my colleagues here, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in such a warm and conducive intellectual environment. Thanks especially to Michael Anthony, Jonathan Berg, Ariel Meirav and Gil Sagi, who have discussed some of the contents of the book with me, as I was desperately trying to tie up loose ends, and to Saul Smilansky for being such a supportive head of department.

I am honoured to have this book published alongside the other Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Indeed, I am very grateful to Andrew Weckenmann, Alexandra Simmons, and their colleagues at Routlege. They have been very encouraging, endlessly helpful and truly professional. The anonymous reviews that Routledge commissioned for this book were insightful and constructive. I extend my thanks to all concerned.