Our Knowledge of the External World: As a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy

by Bertrand Russell

Our Knowledge of the External World is a compilation of lectures Bertrand Russell delivered in the US in which he questions the very relevance and legitimacy of philosophy. In it he investigates the relationship between ‘individual’ and ‘scientific’ knowledge and questions the means in which we have come to understand our physical world. This is an explosive and controversial work that illustrates instances where the claims of philosophers have been excessive, and examines why their achievements have not been greater.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Classics, Essays, Mathematics, Logic

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1914

About the author

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chapter 1 "Current Tendencies": Mr. Russell begins with the famous opening lines, "Philosophy, since the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning. Ever since Thales said that all is water, philosophers have been ready with glib assertions about the sum-total of things; and equally glib denials have come from other philosophers ever since Thales was contradicted by Anaximander. I believe that the time has now arrived when this unsatisfactory state of things can be brought to an end."

Alas, if only Russell succeeded. I'm filled with man-love for this guy, but he only adds his own mix to the pot of confusion called philosophy. The "truth" can only come from science and mathematics. Bertrand Russell, of all people, should have realized that.

In the first chapter, he points out what's wrong with all the other methodologies.

Chapter 2 "Logic as the Essence of Philosophy": Twentieth Century Philosophy wasted so much precious time on philosophical logic. Part of a steady stream that goes all the way back to Aristotle. I mean, how many times do we have to hear about Socrates and mortality. Dude's dead. I get it. We all die. Let's move on, shall we.

Russell explains all the details of logical statements. Things like, "Person A is my brother." Why not just, "See that dude over there? He's my fucking brother." Again, move on.

Chapter 3 "On Our Knowledge of the External World": Once again, philosophy beats a dead horse. Is the world out there really out there? Do the Red Sox really have Red Sox? Does anyone give a shit other than those having a good time in a philosophy class or discussion?

The funny thing about this one is that things are really NOT out there. I mean we could go the route of the Good Doctor Samuel Johnson who kicked a rock and said, "Thus I refute Berkeley!" His way of saying the rock was real. But the rockness of the rock comes from our senses. The tableness of a table comes from our senses and from our cultural upbringing. Put a table with a group of humans who lived in the jungle, and the table could be turned over and covered with an animal skin and used as a tent. It loses its tableness and gains some tentness.

But if we continue down this pass, nothing is real. We end up in a Slough of Despond. We fall into the Abyss of Nothingness. We must therefore stop and get a grip. We conclude with the two most important words ever: AS IF. We live life AS IF it had meaning. Because it really doesn't.

Chapter 4 "The World of Physics and the World of Sense": Physics seems to follow the belief of Parmenides that there must be something that never changes. This goes back to the atomists who believed there was something called atoms that could not be cut. Again, however, physics provides no such certainty.

Chapter 5 "The Theory of Continuity": In this chapter he takes on the paradoxes of Zeno. Is there such a thing as continuity in a line or in a succession of events in regards to time? Zeno tried to disprove all of this using his magnificent sophistic reasoning. Again, just a philosophical game.

Does an arrow actually move or is it just a succession of still moments put together to appear like movement as in flipping a notebook's pages to create a small video. My wild and crazy guess is that it probably is really moving.

Chapter 6 "The Problem of Infinity": In this chapter, Russell takes on the history of infinity. He criticizes Kant and Pythagoras in an effort to prove the existence of infinity. A useless gesture in my view.

Pythagoras was a great mathematician, but he also was part of a religious cult. Thus his followers believed eating beans was a sin. A bean resembles a fetus. It's like cannablism. Hippasus of Metapontion was killed by Pythagoreans for pointing out that the square root of two was an irrational number. That problem has been solved in modern math.

My favorite infinity story is by Cantor. He imagined an infinite number of hotel rooms filled by an infinite number of guests. What does the owner do if another person needs a room? Cantor's answer was to wake up the first person and send him to room two and so on for infinity. He would disrupt the sleep of an infinite number of people to make sure one person would have a room. Absolutely fucking brilliant!

Russell rightly criticizes Parmenides here. Parmenides said that whatever we can think of and speak of must necessarily exist. That's nonsense and led to the thinking of Plato and Hegel.

Russell says, "An infinite number cannot be increased by adding one to it or by doubling it." Yet today we now know that we can have some infinities that are larger than others. Let's take Russell's statement. If we wrote out an infinite number so that it went on an infinite number of spaces to the left and to the right and we looked at it from any point, what would the digits be? Would they be all nines? All ones? All zeros? None of those digits work because you could add one to any of them.

To conclude, infinity exists only in math and even there it is only a theoretical infinity.

Chapter 7 "The Positive Theory of Infinity": In this chapter he discusses what a number is and what counting is all about. He also justifiably praises the work of Gottlob Frege.

My second favorite story about infinity is from the comedian Bob Newhart. He tells about the story that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters. Eventually, one of them would produce Hamlet. So he imagines workers checking on how the monkeys are doing. One worker picks up the paper of a monkey and reads, "Eflhughitsy worhllewwdi." Then he concludes, "This poor fool will never write anything."

Another worker checks on another monkey. He shouts out with excitement, "Hey, Joe, listen to this." Then he reads, "To be or not to be that is the flqurcvbits."

Russell claims infinity exists if you take it as a class of things. Like the foliage on a tree. But I respectfully disagree again. That's only in math.

Truth statement #1: All things have a beginning. Truth Statement #2: All things have an end. The universe. Everything in it. Including you and me.

Chapter 8 "On the Notion of Cause, With Applications to the Free-Will Problem": We have no free will. The answer comes from science and science alone. And that is the direction science is heading in. If you want to learn about free will, study the brain. Not the mind, but the brain. The so-called mind is only a function of the brain.

[Zay Min Htut Aung · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was reading of the very last part of this book, I had tried so hard not to watch the football match of Man United. I didn't go to watch that although Man Utd is my favourite team among others because this book took all of my attractiveness :3

[A. B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I began reading philosophy, Russell was my leading light, and for a number of years, the brightest one. His opinions became my opinions, his thoughts were internalised as mine. Now, with a couple more years of philosophy behind me, I at last begin to see Russell to be just one among many philosophical standpoints. And I begin to see some of the ways in which he was, with due deference... wrong. This book was an interesting visit to my past self to see what inspired me to begin studying philosophy; as well as to look back at the progress I have made since then.

[Skipped the middle three chapters on mathematical method.]

[Derek Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bertrand Russell had one of the clearest, as well as the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. The clarity certainly shows here, because I was reading a wretchedly OCRd version on my Kindle, and though every eighth word was mangled I was still able to follow and make sense of what's really a pretty abstruse bit of poking at—and with—logic.

Russell loved to show off that mind of his ("I'm smarter than you'll ever be"), but he made the process fun, in part because of his incredibly subtle sense of humor that followed him throughout his life—so subtle that you're sometimes not... quite... sure... it's supposed to be funny. But if you follow him for any length of time, you know it is. Making a logical argument funny? Yes.

This book (cut off about 3/4 of the way through in my version) is a series of early lectures, where you can easily picture Bertie standing ramrod straight at the lectern and letting his audience know, in no uncertain terms, that a new way of looking at both math and philosophy was afoot: "Here are the last 2,500 years of muddled mistakes and this is how we can rectify them." It must have been an enlivening, even shattering experience to listen to at the time, and they still resonate with solid force.

Every once in awhile, though, his clarity and his humor get lost in a dense bit of mental blather, as if he were searching for the right mate for his sock and had forgotten he was talking to you. Part of it comes from trying a little too hard to bring out every last subtly of his argument. Fortunately, that doesn't last long and we're soon back in for the ride. There was no one else quite like him.

[Lavleen Sharma]

The logic of Bertrand when he condemns philosophy to be a useless branch of knowledge is precise and actually resounding. The first few chapters are a treatise - I felt is was meta philosophy (the philosophy of philosophy). Even though Bertrand does not support a lot of classic and contemporary ways of how philosophy as a science has moved ahead - he gives a way, much subtly hidden in the complaints.

A valid point to make philosophy meet mathematics and then theorize stuff. Moving back and forth between philosophizing and mathematics. This is where I left the book, I haven't learnt this maths that he is talking about. Maybe after I learn more of calculus I get more in ways. A must read for those interested in philosophy who are good at mathematics.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked most of it except its criticism of evolutionary epistemology, which makes sense because this book was published before many of the breakthroughs in evolutionary biology, like the discovery of the structure of DNA.

[Rory Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whether we can have a knowledge of the external world is ultimately impossible to prove, although it as also ‘as barren as it is irrefuable’ to assert that fact (Chp.3). Russell admits that he ‘does not know the solution in detail’ (Chp.4) of how we can get from our psychologically (subjectively) experienced sense-data to a knowledge of an objective reality, so what this book is essentially doing is exploring aspects of issues which are relevant to an eventual solution.

One of the things which is enjoyable in many of Russell’s works is that he is generally a clear thinker with an engaging and precise use of language which makes his books easily understandable.

However, in this book, his clarity sometimes veers towards an opinionated arrogance. For example, he attacks Hegel’s a priori views about the nature of the universe as being based on ‘stupid and trivial confusions’ (Chp.2). And he goes on in the same chapter to assert that almost everyone who has ever written anything on epistemology (prior to him) has been wrong because of a failure to appreciate that knowledge cannot be a two-part relation between a knower and a fact.

That same kind of over-confidence led Russell to state that ‘Philosophers must acquire (the) disinterested intellectual curiosity which characterizes the genuine man of science’ (Chp.1). It was left to philosophers in the 1960s and 70s to show that there is no such thing as a ‘dis-interested’ perspective!

Some of Russell’s analysis is also questionable. He states for example that ‘Georg Cantor has shown that the supposed contradictions (of infinity) are illusory’ (Chp.6). But was that really so? For example, critics reproved Cantor with the fact that his concept of infinity violated the principle that a whole is greater than its part. Cantor responded to that criticism not by showing that it was illusory. Instead, Cantor redefined the negation of that principle into the very definition of infinity.

And in any case, Cantor’s logic of infinity is an a priori set of principles and considerations which are entirely divorced from empirical considerations. Russell criticised Hegel for using a priori logic to make deductions about the empirical universe in chapter 2. So how can Cantor’s (a priori) work on infinity suddenly be an acceptable basis for Russell to draw his own conclusions about the nature of the universe, or the appropriateness of applying an (a priori) concept of infinity to it?

Overall, this text hasn’t weathered so well, and it is hard to see who its readership would be, other than historians of thought who are interested in Russell or in styles of thinking in the period around the first world war.

(Comments based on a reading of the 1922 edition)

[Laurent Dv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ce livre La méthode scientifique en philosophie (édition Payot) est une série de conférences du célèbre mathématicien et philosophe états-unien athée du XXème siècle Bertrand Russell un des grands pionniers de la théorie des ensemble avec son collègue Alfred North Whitehead. Il traite de divers sujets de la philosophie en général mais surtout de la philosophie des sciences et des mathématiques d’une manière introductive. Les deux premiers chapitres sont accessibles, les autres sont assez durs (je n'ai pas tout compris en première lecture), surtout pour ceux qui n'ont pas de formation scientifique et mathématique (utilisation de notions comme la continuité, des démonstrations mathématiques, des nombres rationnels, des relations réflexives, symétriques, asymétriques, les nombres finis et les nombres infinis, la réflexivité et l'inductivité des nombres, le raisonnement par induction avec l'initiation et l'hérédité). Niveau difficulté, Russell est très clair, mais demande beaucoup d'efforts et d'attention. Je ne sais pas si c'est dû à la traduction ou au texte lui-même.

Il aborde dans ces chapitres "difficiles" le problème de la connaissance du monde extérieur tel qu'il est formulé par Descartes et les Modernes (il dit en gros si j'ai bien compris qu'on peut savoir qu'il y a un monde extérieur en pratique), le lien entre le monde physique (ce qu'on mesure et étudie par la science) et le monde sensible (ce à quoi nous accédons par nos sensations), est-ce qu'il y a de la continuité au sens mathématique dans notre monde, les paradoxes liés à l'infini formulés par Zénon, le problème du déterminisme et du libre-arbitre (il semble être compatibiliste, avoir une définition compatibiliste du libre-arbitre = agir selon ses désirs sans contrainte au lieu du pouvoir de choisir entre plusieurs alternatives et accepte le déterminisme, qu'on peut prévoir le futur si on avait toutes les connaissances suffisantes à un instant donné).

Il manifeste une bonne connaissance de l'histoire de la philosophie (en tout cas de ceux qu'il mentionne dans l'Antiquité comme Pythagore, Zénon, Aristote, des Modernes comme Bergson, Bradley, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, etc. et bien sûr de la science (Pythagore, Galilée, Gottlob Frege, Henri Poincaré, Georg Cantor etc.).

Son originalité (avec beaucoup de philosophes analytiques), c'est sa grande rigueur et l'utilisation de la logique (définitions des termes et expressions, analyse des arguments et de leurs prémisses, etc.), et l'utilisation de concepts mathématiques pour résoudre des problèmes jusqu'alors non résolus à son époque. Par exemple, il utilise les acquis des mathématiques récentes (ex : Cantor) pour résoudre les fameux paradoxes de Zénon (comme le paradoxe d'Achille et la tortue mentionné par Aristote dans sa Physique) qui prétendent montrer que le mouvement est impossible (que tout reste toujours pareil sans changement, comme son maître Parménide) car il repose sur la notion de l'infini qui est absurde.

Il est "humble", il n'a pas d'avis tranchés ni beaucoup certitudes, reste prudent avant de dire qu'il pense qu'une position est vraie ou fausse, ou juste qu'il ne sait pas. Il met l'importance sur se défaire de ses préjugés, être ouvert d'esprit, avoir une bonne imagination pour imaginer la bonne théorie à un problème.

La traduction est naturelle bien que non à certains extraits. Le livre (édition Petite Bibliothèque Payot) est pratique, se tient facilement dans les mains et le texte est imprimé en grands caractères. On trouve à la fin un index pratique avec pour chaque notion les différentes pages qui en parlent.

# Chapitre 1 : La philosophie officielle

Dans ce chapitre, Russell définit le champ d’application de la philosophie : la théorie, ce qui est abstrait et non pas ce qui est pratique, ce qui touche à la morale. Il réfute aussi les deux positions philosophes majeures en vogue au début du XXème siècle où il écrit : d’abord ce qu’il appelle la tradition classique et l’évolutionnisme.

# La tradition classique

La tradition classique utilise la raison et la logique pure pour atteindre des conclusions qui contredisent notre expérience sensible de la vie courante. Elle a pour représentants majeurs Platon, Kant et Hegel. Par exemple, Hegel confondant les relations de prédication sujet-prédicat et l’égalité, est poussé par la proposition “Socrate est un homme.” où Socrate est individuel mais homme universel à affirmer qu’universel et particulier se confondent donnant ainsi l’universel particulier, chose complètement contraire à l’expérience et au sens commun. De même, F. H. Bradley, un idéaliste britannique en vient à des conclusions à contre-courant du sens commun.

# L’évolutionnisme

L’évolutionnisme affirme la primauté du changement et de l’évolution vers le meilleur (en lien avec la théorie de l’évolution de Darwin). Il a pour défenseurs Herbert Spencer, Henri Bergson et des pragmatistes. Il rejette à la fois le mécanisme et le finalisme même si en réalité il se rapproche plus du finalisme. Il soutient que l’entendement est trompeur car tous nos raisonnements sont des résultats de l’évolution liés à notre survie (lier à Plantinga). L’autre mode de connaissance à privilégier est donc l’intuition par laquelle nous en obtenons d’une façon immédiate. En réalité c’est une mauvaise idée car l’intuition est certes très utile et efficace dans les domaines pratiques, mais en philosophie, le but est justement d’évaluer nos intuitions peuvent être fausses.

# Chapitre 2 : L’essence de la philosophie, la logique

Dans ce chapitre, Russell présente une troisième et la bonne alternative aux courants qu’il a réfuté avant (la tradition classique et l’évolutionnisme). Il s’agit de la tradition logique qui affirme en gros que tout problème philosophique se réduit à un problème de logique.

Il s’attaque à la logique aristotélicienne. Son principal argument, c’est que cette dernière en accordant trop d’importance au lien sujet-prédicat (x a une qualité y), elle omet les autres types de relations et est donc incapable d’expliquer un tas de phénomènes. Par exemple, elle n’a pas de place pour la relation asymétrique “x est plus grand que y” ou “y est plus grand que x”, elle peut juste dire “x et y ont des grandeurs différentes”, mais ce qui laisse totalement en suspens lequel de x ou y est le plus grand ou le plus petit.

Il introduit les différents types de relations et des définitions basiques. Un fait est soit x, y et la relation qui les lie. (A compléter).

Il présente les propositions atomiques ( qui décrivent les faits atomiques (ceux auxquels elles sont liées). A partir de celles-ci et de ceux-ci, on peut construire des propositions et des faits moléculaires.

# Chapitre 3 : Le problème de notre connaissance du monde extérieur

Lors de cette conférence, Russell tente de répondre aux questions liées problème du scepticisme épistémologique tel qu’il est posé en gros depuis Descartes. Il s’agit de toutes les questions du genre : Comment se fier à nos sens ? Les rêves ne prouvent-ils pas que nos sens peuvent nous induire en erreur ? Comment savoir qu’il existe des choses indépendantes et à l’extérieur de nous ?

Russell prend une approche prudente, ne prétend pas résoudre définitivement ce problème. Il affirme cependant que le scepticisme universel est infructueux, qu’il ne peut produire aucune connaissance, et qu’il est impossible de lui donner ce qu’il demande : un critère externe à l’aide duquel on pourrait juger toutes nos connaissances. La seule chose possible, c’est évaluer nos propres connaissances de l’intérieur à l’aide d’autres de nos connaissances.

Il soutient qu’il existe bien des connaissances qui peuvent fonder toutes les autres : les faits sensibles particuliers et les connaissances logiques (qui ne dérivent pas des données des sens) avec la précision qu’il faut être rigoureux pour dire ce qu’on inclut dans la première catégorie liée aux sens.

Les rêves ne contredisent pas la fiabilité des sens car un rêve c’est essentiellement une connexion saugrenue entre deux faits mais les faits qui apparaissent le plus souvent dans nos rêves sont réels ou au moins reposent sur des choses réelles. Par exemple, je peux rêver que je suis en Angleterre alors que je suis en Amérique, le lien est saugrenu, mais ce sont bien des lieux et des situations qui existent dans la vie réelle.

Il reformule le problème de la connaissance du monde extérieur en analysant puis en excluant l’utilisation de termes équivoques et ambigus comme le “moi” et “indépendant” utilisés dans la formulation : Comment pouvons-nous avoir qu’il existe des choses qui ne sont pas le moi et qui en sont indépendantes ? En effet, il est dur de dire précisément ce qui n’est pas inclut dans le moi et quelles choses en sont vraiment indépendantes. Russell préfère pose le problème avec ses propres termes qu’il a définis méticuleusement : Comment pouvons-nous déduire l’existence de faits … ?

[ZaRi]

We are … led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call “hard” data and “soft” data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by “hard” data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by “soft” data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

[Husain Necklace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Students of philosophy will find this book intriguing as well as a dry read. The ideas portrayed by Russell and thought provoking although his writing isn't as lucid and comprehendible as his other books. Albeit, it's a decent read for whoever is interested in philosophy and with epistemology.

[Ady ZYN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended.

[AJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant is the standard for Russell.

[Ramzzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Physicists, ignorant and contemptuous of philosophy, have been content to assume their particles, points, and instants in practice, while conceding, with ironical politeness, that their concepts laid no claim to metaphysical validity. Metaphysicians, obsessed by the idealistic opinion that only mind is real, and the Parmenidean belief that the real is unchanging, repeated one after another the supposed contradictions in the notions of matter, space, and time, and therefore naturally made no endeavour to invent a tenable theory of particles, points, and instants. Psychologists, who have done invaluable work in bringing to light the chaotic nature of the crude materials supplied by unmanipulated sensation, have been ignorant of mathematics and modern logic, and have therefore been content to say that matter, space, and time are “intellectual constructions,” without making any attempt to show in detail either how the intellect can construct them, or what secures the practical validity which physics shows them to possess. Philosophers, it is to be hoped, will come to recognize that they cannot achieve any solid success in such problems without some slight knowledge of logic, mathematics, and physics […]

This is the sequel of The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. In my viewpoint, here is why this book, after reading so much of Russell’s works, is more important, more epic:

—A better introduction of logical analysis, as best conveyed through the application of it as a method.
—Encyclopedic and yet Russell’s immaculate prose and humor never compresses much of the discussions. The range begins in contemporary logic, mathematics, physics, psychology, physiology, and of course, philosophy.
—Russell’s neo-Leibnizian three-dimensional world of perspectives is staggeringly imaginative.
—Russell showing how logic is so crucial in foundational concerns of the special sciences, such as the establishment of methodology or scientific theory; and this is true—high level of logic is needed in doing sciences before the mathematical and empirical practice.
—Him, which, he is famously known, taking a clarifying stride on causality, that is on cause and causal laws.
—that “hard” and “soft” distinctions which would soon influence major developments in philosophy (i.e., David Chalmers’ “hard” and “soft” problems of consciousness).

Disagreements, of course, abide in me; like Russell being too ahistorical—he continued so much criticizing philosophers, even denying importance many of them, especially Kant and Bergson.

The scientism in the end amplifies this ahistoricism.

It is also hard of me to decide the discussion on infinity.

[LaShana Claude · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fourth argument is that concerning the two rows of bodies, each row being composed of an equal number of bodies of equal size, passing each other on a race-course as they proceed with equal velocity in opposite directions, the one row originally occupying the space between the goal and the middle point of the course, and the other that between the middle point and the starting-post. This, he thinks, involves the conclusion that half a given time is equal to double the time. The fallacy of the reasoning lies in the assumption that a body occupies an equal time in passing with equal velocity a body that is in motion and a body of equal size that is at rest, an assumption which is false. For instance (so runs the argument), let A A … be the stationary bodies of equal size, B B … the bodies, equal in number and in size to A A …, originally occupying the half of the course from the starting-post to the middle of the A's, and C C … those originally occupying the other half from the goal to the middle of the A's, equal in number, size, and velocity, to B B … Then three consequences follow. First, as the B's and C's pass one another, the first B reaches the last C at the same moment at which the first C reaches the last B. Secondly, at this moment the first C has passed all the A's, whereas the first B has passed only half the A's and has consequently occupied only half the time occupied by the first C, since each of the two occupies an equal time in passing each A. Thirdly, at the same moment all the B's have passed all the C's: for the first C and the first B will simultaneously reach the opposite ends of the course, since (so says Zeno) the time occupied by the first C in passing each of the B's is equal to that occupied by it in passing each of the A's, because an equal time is occupied by both the first B and the first C in passing all the A's. This is the argument: but it presupposes the aforesaid fallacious assumption.”

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

ONE OF RUSSELL’S MOST COMPREHENSIVE WORKS OF PHILOSOPHY

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872–1970) was an influential British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and political activist. In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 1956 310-page hardcover edition.]

This book contains the Lowell Lectures which Russell delivered in the spring of 1914. The editor notes in the introduction that “This topic was his second choice. His first, ‘the place of good and evil in the universe,’ was rejected by the [Lowell] Institute on the ground that the terms of the trust do not allow lecturers to question the authority of Scripture.” The editor also notes that the dramatic story Russell told in his 1956 book, 'Portraits from Memory,' about the composition of this book is “without any basis at all.”

Russell begins the first lecture with the statement, “Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning… I believe that the time has now arrived when this unsatisfactory state of things can be brought to an end. In the following course of lectures I shall try… to indicate wherein the claims of philosophers have been excessive, and why their achievements have not been greater… important problems can, by a more patient and more adequate method, be solved with all the precision and certainty to which the most advanced sciences have attained.” (Pg. 13)

He suggests, “The true function of logic is, in my opinion… analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of thitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world MAY be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world IS. This change, which has been brought about by an internal revolution in logic, has swept away the ambitious constructions of traditional metaphysics… Thus on all sides these systems have ceased to attract, and even the philosophical world tends more and more to pass them by.” (Pg. 18-19)

He adds, “while the older logic shut out possibilities and imprisoned imagination within the walls of the familiar, the newer logic shows rather what may happen, and refuses to decide as to what MUST happen.” (Pg. 20) He admits, however, that “Mathematical logic, even in its most modern forms, is not DIRECTLY of philosophical importance except in its beginnings. After the beginnings, it belongs rather to mathematics than to philosophy… its beginnings … are the only part of it that can properly be called PHILOSOPHICAL logic…” (Lect. II, pg. 50-51)

He observes, “Belief in the unreality of the world of sense arises … in certain moods which… have some simple physiological basis… The conviction born of these moods is the source of most mysticism and of most metaphysics. When the emotional intensity of such a mood subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical reasons in favour of the belief which he finds in himself… The paradoxes apparently proved by his logic are really the paradoxes of mysticism, and are the goal which he feels his logic must reach if it is to be in accordance with insight.

"It is in this way that logic has been pursued by those great philosophers who were mystics---Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel. But since they usually took for granted the supposed insight of the mystic emotion, their logical doctrines were presented with a certain dryness…” (Pg. 55) He concludes the second lecture on the note, “And where a solution appears possible, the new logic provides a method which enables us to obtain results that do not merely embody personal idiosyncrasies, but must command the assent of all who are competent to form an opinion.” (Pg. 69)

In the third lecture, he argues, “The hypothesis that other people have minds must, I think, be allowed to be not susceptible of any very strong support from the analogical argument. At the same time, it is a hypothesis which systematizes a vast body of facts and never leads to any consequences which there is reason to think false. There is therefore nothing to be said against its truth, and good reason to use it as a working hypothesis. When once it is admitted, it enables us to extend our knowledge of the sensible world by testimony, and thus leads to the system of private worlds which we assumed in our hypothetical construction.” (Pg. 103-104)

Then in the fifth lecture, he states, “The continuity of space and time, the infinite number of different shades in the spectrum, and so on, are all in the nature of unverifiable hypotheses---perfectly possible logically, perfectly consistent with the known facts, and simpler technically than any other tenable hypotheses, but not the sole hypotheses which are logically and empirically adequate.” (Pg. 155)

At the conclusion of Lecture VII, he explains, “If the theory that classes are merely symbolic is accepted, it follows that numbers are not actual entities, but that propositions in which numbers verbally occur have not really any constituents corresponding to numbers, but only a certain logical form which is not a part of propositions having this form. This is in fact the case with all the apparent objects of logic and mathematics…

"‘Logical constants,’ in short, are not entities; the words expressing them are not names, and cannot significantly be made into logical objects except when it is the words themselves, as opposed to their meanings, that are being discussed. This fact has a very important bearing on all logic and philosophy, since it shows how they differ from the special sciences. But the questions raised are so large and so difficult that it is impossible to pursue them further on this occasion.” (Pg. 212-213)

In the final lecture, he says, “Freedom… demands only that our volitions shall be, as they are, the result of our own desires, not of an outside force compelling us to will what we would rather not will. Everything else is confusion of thought, due to the feeling that knowledge COMPELS the happening of what it knows when this is future, though it is at once obvious that knowledge has no such power in regard to the past. Free will, therefore, is true in the only form which is important; and the desire for other forms is a mere effect of insufficient analysis.” (Pg. 239-240)

This book was obviously written (mostly in 1913) when Russell still thought of the 'Principia' as his crowning achievement, and before Wittgenstein’s 1916 criticisms had stung him so sharply. (See 'The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 1914-1944,' pg. 66-67.) It is fascinating reading for anyone studying his philosophical thought.

[A YOGAM · Rating 5 out of 5]

In diesem Werk unternimmt Bertrand Russell den ehrgeizigen Versuch, die Philosophie mithilfe der strengen Methoden der mathematischen Logik auf ein wissenschaftliches Fundament zu stellen. Er analysiert, wie wir von unseren privaten Sinnesdaten zu der Annahme einer objektiven Außenwelt gelangen, und ersetzt dabei traditionelle metaphysische Spekulationen durch präzise logische Konstruktionen. Mit seinem typischen Scharfsinn zeigt er, dass viele scheinbar unlösbare philosophische Probleme lediglich auf sprachlichen oder logischen Verwirrungen beruhen, die durch sorgfältige Analyse aufgelöst werden können.
Russell schreibt dabei mit einer Klarheit, die selbst abstrakte Konzepte wie die Struktur von Raum, Zeit und Kausalität greifbar macht, ohne an intellektueller Tiefe einzubüßen. Das Buch ist ein leidenschaftliches Plädoyer für den logischen Atomismus und markiert einen Wendepunkt in der modernen Philosophie, indem es die Brücke zwischen Mathematik und Erkenntnistheorie schlägt. Für den Leser bietet es nicht nur eine Einführung in Russells Denken, sondern auch ein faszinierendes Beispiel dafür, wie man mit logischer Strenge den „Nebel“ vager philosophischer Systeme durchdringen kann.

[Socrate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filozofia, chiar de la începuturi, a emis pretenţii mai mari, dar a obţinut rezultate mai firave decât orice altă ramură de studiu. Încă de pe vremea când Thales a afirmat că totul este apă, filozofii nu au pregetat să emită aserţiuni categorice despre totalitatea lucrurilor; dar şi contestări la fel de categorice au venit din partea altor filozofi, încă de pe vremea când Anaximandru l-a contrazis pe Thales. Cred că acum a sosit momentul în care se poate pune capăt acestei stări de lucruri nesatisfăcătoare. În seria de prelegeri care urmează voi încerca, în principal luând ca exemple anumite probleme speciale, să arăt în ce privinţe pretenţiile filozofilor au fost exagerate şi de ce realizările lor nu au fost mai mari. Problemele şi metoda filozofiei au fost, cred eu, concepute greşit, multe dintre problemele ei tradiţionale fiind insolubile cu mijloacele noastre de cunoaştere, în timp ce alte probleme, mai neglijate, dar nu mai puţin importante, pot, printr-o metodă mai răbdătoare şi mai adecvată, să fie rezolvate cu toată precizia şi certitudinea la care au ajuns cele mai avansate discipline stiintifice.

[Animesh Mitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book on logic, mathematics, mathematical logic, scientific philosophy, how to acquire a scientific mind, methodological skepticism, Zeno's paradoxes, the end of race course, infinite instances exist in finite time, infinite points exists in finite space and in a line, Achilles and tortoise, bow and arrow-motionless-motion does not exist, Galileo-the number of non-square > the number of square, but the number of square=the number of roots=the number of numbers=infinity, and nothing could be greater than infinity, the number of infinite points in a greater line > the number of infinite points in a lesser line, but nothing could be greater than infinity, free will, does free will exist, is everything prefixed by causal laws, does causal laws determine everything, is it possible to know the future based on the causal laws and the knowledge of past, does the knowledge of future affects the course of future, is it possible to change the course of future, etc.

[Myat Thura Aung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wondrous book !
It presents very interesting lectures of the one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century,Bertrand Russell.In these lectures,Russell pointed out the defects of the classical logic and then with the aid of modern logic,he went out constructing a working hypothesis of the world given by physical science which is logically unobjectionable.Not only he fell for no personal idiosyncracies in contrast to those mystic philosophers,he also avoided making bold beliefs and presumptions of the physicists.And the discussions on continuity,infinity and the definition of the Number are rather exciting.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russell lays out some major problems of philosophy in this little gem. He starts with the primacy of logic and propositions and then builds from the sense data of an observer to build a world from consistent sense data. He then gets into problems like the mathematical continuum and infinity, and the problems around causality and the problem of induction. I always enjoyed Russell's writing, which was well done and clear, easy to grasp. He is a great entry point into Analytic Philosophy.

[T. Tokunaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fully enjoyed Russell as well as gaining knowledge about how we should think if we want to be scientific in the very meaning of the word, to which you should always pay attention when you read later works by him. As it is primarily a series of lectures, you don't have to be scared. You should dive in.

[John Badger · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second half discusses infinity, continuity, zenos paradoxes and the atomic theory to some extent. Very brilliant for this reason, despite some chapters at the start being a bit boring, having the crystal clear analysis of Russell on infinity was very welcome

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final lecture on causation and free will was good. Bertrand Russell had a gift for coming up with illustrations.

[Prakhar Verma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr Russell's magnum opus into the scope and limits of philosophy and like his every the other work- Refreshing.

[DeterminedStupor]

Status: have not read AT ALL.

[Patrick\ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not much distance from Locke or Hume. Repetition? Regurgitation?

[Thamrong]

Mind boggling...

[Alexandre Guay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une intéressante exploration du rapport philosophie/science.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Precise, clear, and stimulating discussions on the world of sense, infinity, the continuity of motion, and causation.

[Minh Nhật · Rating 4 out of 5]

cũng xong