Abstraction and Use

A frequent challenge from Wittgenstein to Russell's Logicizing of Mathematics is raised by the question, 'What is its use?' Commentators have generally classified this challenge as a topic in Semantics, i. e. as debate with Russell's 'Extensionalist' Theory of Meaning, from the perspective of a 'Use' Theory of Meaning. Regardless of Wittgenstein's actual intentions, the question exposes a deeper methodological problem, regarding Abstraction, that is by no means peculiar to Russell. For example, in the 'Phenomenology' of Russell's contemporary, Husserl, the Phenomenological sphere is arrived at via an abstractive process which Husserl calls 'Epoche'. But, despite the inarguable fruitfulness of the subsequent Phenomenological descriptions, Husserl eventually encountered the limitations of his methodology later in his career, when attempting to apply it to the pre-Epoche sphere. Surprisingly, a generation of critics of Husserl--Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Derrida--never seem to target Epoche itself, so their criticisms remain circumscribed by that methodology. One, and possibly the most fundamental, problem with this Phenomenology is that it cannot represent the process of Epoche, which means that it has no applicablility to the pre-Epochal world. Russell's methods have an analogous problem--his Logical System cannot represent that process of Abstraction that opens the door to it, and, hence, its applicability to pre-Logical activities is problematic, as Wittgenstein has pinpointed. Hence, his Logic has no Systematic relation to his views on e. g. Ethics and Politics, a restrictiveness that it is unthinkable to not merely a Kant, but even to a Locke or a Hume. And, academic Analytic Philosophy has inherited Russellianism's limitation, often seeming more interested in making a virtue of its inefficacies, than in overcoming them. In contrast, Formaterialism attempts to accommodate not merely traditional processes of Abstraction, but its own as well, i. e. as modes of the Formal Principle, Becoming-the-Same. Hence, its scope of applicability is potentially greater than that of those traditional Systems.