RUSSELL AND WHITEHEAD

RICKYRight. Two philosophers. Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. And I want to start with a fact, because the fact is the whole story.

KARLGo on.

RICKYThey spent ten years writing one book together. Principia Mathematica. Three volumes. The idea was to build the whole of mathematics up from pure logic, from nothing, with every single step proved. It's hundreds and hundreds of pages before they've got anywhere near saying one and one is two.

KARL(pause) It is two.

RICKYIt IS two, yes, thank you Karl, but they wanted to PROVE it, from the ground, with no gaps.

KARLHow long's that take?

RICKYTen years, most of Russell's health, and by the end Whitehead was so sick of it he never went near that kind of work again.

STEVE(quietly) Ten years to get to one and one.

RICKYAnd then - this is the bit - they go in completely opposite directions. Same ten years, same desk, same enormous effort. Two completely different conclusions about what the world is like, and they never come back together.

RICKYRussell first, and Russell's the one you'd expect. His view is: the world is made of facts, and facts are made of simpler facts, and if you keep analysing - keep breaking it down - you get to the simple bits at the bottom that everything else is built out of. And you do it with logic, carefully, one step at a time, and you say clearly what you mean and no more than you mean.

KARLWhat's at the bottom?

RICKY(pause) The simplest facts. The atoms of it.

KARLAye, but what are THEY made of?

RICKYThey're not made of anything, that's the point, that's why they're the bottom.

KARLHow d'yer know yer've got there? 'Cause every time anyone's ever said "that's the smallest bit," somebody's come along an' split it. They did it with atoms. Called 'em atoms 'cause they couldn't be cut, an' then they cut 'em.

STEVE(writing) "Called them atoms because they couldn't be cut, and then they cut them."

RICKY(fairly) That's a real objection and it's been made. But hang on, I want to defend him, because he's not a fool and this is not a small thing. Russell's method is why you can catch anyone out. It's how you take a sentence that sounds fine and find the joint it's hiding in. He's got this famous thing about "the present King of France is bald" - there isn't one, so is the sentence false, or is it nonsense, and it turns out the sentence has a hidden claim inside it that there IS such a king, and once you see that, the confusion just evaporates.

KARL(genuinely interested) Oh, that's alright, that. That's what I do.

RICKY(pointing) IT IS WHAT YOU DO. That's exactly what you do. You find the bit that's smuggled in.

KARLSo he's sound then.

RICKYHe's more than sound. He's the reason anyone can argue properly.

STEVESo what happened to the other one?

RICKYWhitehead goes off to America in his sixties and starts again from scratch, and what he comes out with is - and I'll be honest with you before I start - I have read this and I have never been confident I've understood it.

KARLGo on then.

RICKYHe says there are no things. Not really. What there actually is, is happenings. Events. Processes. And a "thing" is just a happening that's going on long enough and steadily enough that we find it handy to give it a name and treat it as one item.

KARLWell aye.

RICKY(stopping) ...sorry?

KARLWell that's a river, in't it.

RICKYWhat?

KARLA river's not a thing. It's water goin' past. Yer've named a bit of goin'-past after the place it goes past. Nobody thinks there's a river sat there. If yer went an' got the river yer'd have a bucket.

STEVE(very carefully) Rick. Is that it? Is that the thing?

RICKY(quiet) That's... that's not a bad version of it, no.

KARLAn' a flame's the same. Flame's not a thing, is it. It's burnin' happenin'. Yer can't pick a flame up an' put it in yer pocket 'cause there's nowt there, it's just summat goin' on.

RICKY(putting his cup down) Karl, Russell himself found Whitehead's later stuff more or less impenetrable. That's on the record. They'd shared a desk for ten years and he couldn't follow where the man went.

KARL(shrugging) It's just rivers.

RICKYIT IS NOT JUST RIVERS.

STEVEPush it though. Karl, if there are no things, only happenings - what's that chair?

KARL(without hesitating) It's a slow one.

STEVEA slow happening.

KARLAye. It's a tree happenin' dead slow. It'll be dust in a bit.

RICKY(grudgingly) ...that's annoyingly close.

KARLSo if yer sat on it fast enough it'd not be there.

RICKY(flatly) No.

KARLWell if it's only there 'cause it's slow-

RICKYNo. No, that's not - the speed isn't about YOU, Karl, it's not a race, you can't outrun a chair into non-existence.

KARLI'm only sayin' what yer said.

RICKYYou're not, you've heard "slow" and gone somewhere with it. (to Steve) Log it.

STEVE(writing) Dud. Tried to outrun a chair.

RICKYRight, but here's the bit of Whitehead I do understand and I think it's the best thing in him. He's got a name for a mistake. He reckons it's the biggest one we make. It's when you take something you've abstracted - something you simplified on purpose, to make it easy to handle - and then you forget you did that, and you start treating your simplification as if it were the actual solid thing in the world.

KARLThat's the noddin'.

RICKY(caught) Sorry?

KARLThat's what everybody does. That's "the economy". There's no economy. There's people buyin' bread. Somebody's added up all the bread an' called it summat, an' then everyone starts talkin' about what "the economy" WANTS, like it's stood there wantin' summat.

STEVE(going very still) Rick.

RICKYI know.

STEVEThat's episode one. That's "they're all in it together." That is the exact same complaint.

KARLAn' "the market" an' all. "The market didn't like it." Market's not got a face. It's a lot of people doin' things on a Tuesday an' somebody's put a hat on it.

RICKY(to Steve, slowly) Whitehead's got a formal name for that error, it's in the books, and Karl's just done it with bread.

STEVE(closing the notebook, which he never does mid-episode) Right, stop. I need to say something and I think it's the biggest thing we've had.

RICKYGo on.

STEVEWe are not a Russell programme. We have always thought we were, and we are not.

RICKY(bristling) We absolutely are. Everything we do is take the sentence apart, find the smuggled bit, ask what's behind it. That's Russell top to bottom.

STEVEThat's our METHOD. Yes. That's the tool. But look at what Karl actually SAYS when he's right, every single time. Episode three: the purpose of a thing is what it does, not what it says it does. That's not analysis, Rick, that's process. That's "there is no thing, there's only what's happening."

RICKY(slowly) ...oh.

STEVEAnd episode eleven. The best thing he's said in the whole run. Same ship isn't a thing the ship's got, it's a thing people want off it. We all sat here going, that's very good, where's that from. THAT'S FROM HERE. That's this. That's a man saying identity isn't a property of the object, it's a feature of what's going on around it.

KARLI don't know what yer sayin'.

STEVEI'm saying you've been doing this bloke since March and nobody told you his name.

RICKY(genuinely a bit stunned) We use Russell to CHECK and Whitehead to SEE.

STEVE(pointing at him) That's it. Say that again slower, because I'm writing it down.

RICKYWe use Russell to check and Whitehead to see. The taking-apart is how we test whether a claim survives. But what Karl notices in the first place - before any of the testing - is always the same move: that's not a thing, that's a happening that somebody's given a name to and then started treating like furniture.

STEVE(writing) "Russell to check. Whitehead to see."

RICKYBut I'm not having the other thing, and I want it on the record, because I know where this goes and it goes somewhere stupid.

STEVEWhere does it go?

RICKYIt goes: everything's a process, everything's connected, it's all flowing into everything else, and that sounds deep and it's the most useless sentence in the world. Because you can't DO anything with it. You can't check a claim with it. You can't say "hang on, that word's smuggling something." The moment you actually want to catch someone out, you need the other bloke. You need the taking-apart. You need somebody who'll sit there for ten years to prove one and one.

KARL(mildly) Yer'd not need it if nobody lied.

RICKYBUT THEY DO.

KARLAye. Fair enough.

STEVENo, Ricky's right, and it's the honest split. If everything is only ever a process and nothing can be pinned down, then nothing can be wrong either, and the whole instrument dies. You need things to hold still long enough to be checked. That's what Russell gives you. It's a convenience and you have to remember it's a convenience, which is what Whitehead is shouting about, but you still need it.

KARLSo yer need both.

STEVEYou need both, and they spent ten years at the same desk and then never agreed again.

RICKYLast thing. Whitehead's got a line - everyone knows it - about the whole of European philosophy being basically a series of notes in the margin of Plato.

KARLWhat's that mean?

RICKYIt means everyone since has been arguing about the same few questions he raised, and mostly just adding footnotes to him.

KARLIs it true?

RICKY(pause) It's a bit true and it's very flattering to people who like saying it.

KARLSo it's a good line an' it's not been checked.

RICKY(closing his eyes) ...yes. Yes, that's exactly what it is.

KARLThat's what we do to other people all day.

RICKYIT IS.

KARLSo does he get done for it or not?

STEVE(delighted) He gets done for it. He absolutely gets done for it. The instrument doesn't care who you are, that's the whole point of having one.

RICKY(defeated) Alfred North Whitehead: unwarranted-but-honest.

STEVE(writing) "Unwarranted-but-honest."

STEVESo. Two men, ten years, one book, and then two completely different pictures of what there IS. Russell says: break it down, get to the simples, be precise, say no more than you mean. Whitehead says: there are no simples, there are only happenings, and the biggest mistake available is to forget that your convenient simplifications were convenient.

RICKYAnd we've been running both, and calling it one thing.

STEVERussell is our method. Whitehead is our eyes. And when Karl is at his best - the ship, the purpose, the economy with a face on it - he's not doing analysis at all. He's doing the other one, without the vocabulary, and mostly he doesn't know he's doing anything.

KARLI still say it's rivers.

RICKY(tired but fond) It's a bit more than rivers, mate.

KARLIt's rivers an' flames.

RICKYRight, wrap it. Karl, ten years, one book, one and one is two. Was it worth it?

KARL(considering it seriously) ...depends what else were on.

RICKY(after a beat) That's a process answer.

KARLIs it?

RICKYIt is, actually. You've just said its value isn't a property of the book, it depends on what was going on around it.

KARL(pleased with himself) I'm gettin' good at this.

STEVE(not looking up) You've been good at it since March. We've just been calling it something else.