Our Knowledge of the External World (Routledge Classics) (Volume 18) 1st Edition

I love it. Thank you!!

Pages missed. Very poor quality.

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, in recognition of his many books such as A History of Western Philosophy,The Problems of Philosophy,Mysticism and Logic,Why I am Not a Christian,Religion and Science,The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,The Analysis of Mind,Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, etc. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 251-page Routledge paperback 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.

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, in recognition of his many books such as A History of Western Philosophy,The Problems of Philosophy,Mysticism and Logic,Why I am Not a Christian,Religion and Science,The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,The Analysis of Mind,Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, etc. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 251-page Routledge paperback 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.