ABSTRACT
Russell’s logical atomism is a complex fusion of doctrines concerning the nature of language, of knowledge and of the world. Two vital elements concern meaning. One of these, which I call Russell’s realist theory of meaning, is that the meaning of an expression is an entity: the entity for which the expression stands. The other, which I call Russell’s principle of acquaintance, is that understanding the meaning of an expression involves acquaintance with that entity which is its meaning. These two doctrines form the main themes of this chapter, and I aim also to locate them within the overall position that Russell referred to as logical atomism.
