They seem to be complex systems bound together into some kind of a unity, that sort of a unity that leads to the bestowal of a single appellation. All the kinds of things to which we habitually give proper names are on the face of them complex entities: Socrates, Piccadilly, Rumania, Twelfth Night or anything you like to think of, to which you give a proper name, they are all apparently complex entities. Of course, all the ordinary objects of daily life are apparently complex entities: such things as tables and chairs, loaves and fishes, persons and principalities and powers – they are all on the face of it complex entities. What sort of things shall we regard as prima facie complex? There is another question which comes still earlier, namely: what shall we take as prima facie examples of logically complex entities? That really is the first question of all to start with. Each of these two questions, however, is capable of a precise meaning, and each is really important. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along. I do not think you can start with anything precise. I do not pretend to start with precise questions. Neither of these questions is, as it stands, a very precise question. The first question, whether they are really complex, is one that you have to consider at the start. The second question we can put off in fact, I shall not deal with it fully until my last lecture. Are the things that look like logically complex entities really complex? There are two other questions that one has to consider, and one of these at least is prior. But I do not think that is quite the first thing it is one of the early things, but not quite the first. In a philosophy of logical atomism one might suppose that the first thing to do would be to discover the kinds of atoms out of which logical structures are composed. I propose to begin today the analysis of facts and propositions, for in a way the chief thesis that I have to maintain is the legitimacy of analysis, because if one goes into what I call Logical Atomism that means that one does believe the world can be analyzed into a number of separate things with relations and so forth, and that the sort of arguments that many philosophers use against analysis are not justifiable.
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