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Recent advances in semantics have reopened certain ontological problems that have lain dormant since the heyday of logical atomism. More specifically, interest has been rekindled in the problem of facts, their nature and function, especially as related to theories of truth. For examples, see [1] and [2]. In the light of this, it seems very instructive to reconsider Bertrand Russell's views concerning facts from the viewpoint of modern semantic theory. The main things at issue, from a contemporary point of view, are, first, whether the semantic conception of truth, or any other aspects of modem semantics require a fact ontology at all, and second, if they do, what sort of facts are required. Russell had things to say on both points, but this paper will concern itself only with his views on the second. All of Russell's views considered here are to be found in, "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,"' and must be contrasted with both his earlier and later views. In short, he argued that in addition to the need for facts to correspond to true atomic sentences, special facts were also needed to correspond to negative, universal and existential sentences. The alleged existence of these three types of facts seemed objectionable to many at the time and caused considerable controversy. It seems likely that the failure of Russell and his followers to satisfactorily resolve this controversy was one of the main reasons why the ontological problems involved in logical atomism, particularly those concerning facts, fell slowly into disrespect. It was not so much that Russell's theory, or those of

Strawson, in Chapter 1 of Individuals,' had argued that physical objects are ontologically prior to all other particulars. I believe that there is some truth to the position that he advances, but that there are also many false aspects to it. I also believe that there are immense weaknesses in Strawson's argument for his position but that it is possible to construct an alternative argument for the true aspects of it. This paper will argue for these beliefs. What is meant by "ontological priority"? We shall say that an entity a is in a given person's ontology if and only if there is some object b identical with a such that that person believes that b exists and there is no object c identical with a such that that person believes that c does not exist.2 And we shall say that entities of type a are in a given person's ontology if and only if there is a type [ identical with a such that that person believes that entities of type [ exist and there is no type X identical with a such that that