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

Bertrand Russell

Description

British philosopher Bertrand Russell made a number of significant contributions to the field, including helping to found the area of inquiry known as analytical philosophy and advancing the practice of logic. He also helped to influence the development of the philosophy of science by focusing on empiricism in new ways. The underpinnings of Russell's views on science and metaphysics are set forth in Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776584017
• Langue: English

Extrait

OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD AS A FIELD FOR SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY
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BERTRAND RUSSELL
 
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Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy First published in 1914 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-401-7 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-402-4 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface Lecture I - Current Tendencies Lecture II - Logic as the Essence of Philosophy Lecture III - On Our Knowledge of the External World Lecture IV - The World of Physics and the World of Sense Lecture V - The Theory of Continuity Lecture VI - The Problem of Infinity Considered Historically Lecture VII - The Positive Theory of Infinity Lecture VIII - On the Notion of Cause, with Applications to the Free-Will Problem Endnotes
Preface
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The following lectures [1] are an attempt to show, by means of examples,the nature, capacity, and limitations of the logical-analytic method inphilosophy. This method, of which the first complete example is to befound in the writings of Frege, has gradually, in the course of actualresearch, increasingly forced itself upon me as something perfectlydefinite, capable of embodiment in maxims, and adequate, in all branchesof philosophy, to yield whatever objective scientific knowledge it ispossible to obtain. Most of the methods hitherto practised haveprofessed to lead to more ambitious results than any that logicalanalysis can claim to reach, but unfortunately these results have alwaysbeen such as many competent philosophers considered inadmissible.Regarded merely as hypotheses and as aids to imagination, the greatsystems of the past serve a very useful purpose, and are abundantlyworthy of study. But something different is required if philosophy is tobecome a science, and to aim at results independent of the tastes andtemperament of the philosopher who advocates them. In what follows, Ihave endeavoured to show, however imperfectly, the way by which Ibelieve that this desideratum is to be found.
The central problem by which I have sought to illustrate method is theproblem of the relation between the crude data of sense and the space,time, and matter of mathematical physics. I have been made aware of theimportance of this problem by my friend and collaborator Dr Whitehead,to whom are due almost all the differences between the views advocatedhere and those suggested in The Problems of Philosophy . [2] I owe tohim the definition of points, the suggestion for the treatment ofinstants and "things," and the whole conception of the world of physicsas a construction rather than an inference . What is said on thesetopics here is, in fact, a rough preliminary account of the more preciseresults which he is giving in the fourth volume of our PrincipiaMathematica . [3] It will be seen that if his way of dealing with thesetopics is capable of being successfully carried through, a wholly newlight is thrown on the time-honoured controversies of realists andidealists, and a method is obtained of solving all that is soluble intheir problem.
The speculations of the past as to the reality or unreality of the worldof physics were baffled, at the outset, by the absence of anysatisfactory theory of the mathematical infinite. This difficulty hasbeen removed by the work of Georg Cantor. But the positive and detailedsolution of the problem by means of mathematical constructions basedupon sensible objects as data has only been rendered possible by thegrowth of mathematical logic, without which it is practically impossibleto manipulate ideas of the requisite abstractness and complexity. Thisaspect, which is somewhat obscured in a merely popular outline such asis contained in the following lectures, will become plain as soon as DrWhitehead's work is published. In pure logic, which, however, will bevery briefly discussed in these lectures, I have had the benefit ofvitally important discoveries, not yet published, by my friend Mr LudwigWittgenstein.
Since my purpose was to illustrate method, I have included much that istentative and incomplete, for it is not by the study of finishedstructures alone that the manner of construction can be learnt. Exceptin regard to such matters as Cantor's theory of infinity, no finality isclaimed for the theories suggested; but I believe that where they arefound to require modification, this will be discovered by substantiallythe same method as that which at present makes them appear probable, andit is on this ground that I ask the reader to be tolerant of theirincompleteness.
Cambridge, June 1914.
Lecture I - Current Tendencies
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Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, andachieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning. Ever sinceThales said that all is water, philosophers have been ready with glibassertions about the sum-total of things; and equally glib denials havecome from other philosophers ever since Thales was contradicted byAnaximander. I believe that the time has now arrived when thisunsatisfactory state of things can be brought to an end. In thefollowing course of lectures I shall try, chiefly by taking certainspecial problems as examples, to indicate wherein the claims ofphilosophers have been excessive, and why their achievements have notbeen greater. The problems and the method of philosophy have, I believe,been misconceived by all schools, many of its traditional problems beinginsoluble with our means of knowledge, while other more neglected butnot less important problems can, by a more patient and more adequatemethod, be solved with all the precision and certainty to which the mostadvanced sciences have attained.
Among present-day philosophies, we may distinguish three principaltypes, often combined in varying proportions by a single philosopher,but in essence and tendency distinct. The first of these, which I shallcall the classical tradition, descends in the main from Kant and Hegel;it represents the attempt to adapt to present needs the methods andresults of the great constructive philosophers from Plato downwards. Thesecond type, which may be called evolutionism, derived its predominancefrom Darwin, and must be reckoned as having had Herbert Spencer for itsfirst philosophical representative; but in recent times it has become,chiefly through William James and M. Bergson, far bolder and far moresearching in its innovations than it was in the hands of HerbertSpencer. The third type, which may be called "logical atomism" for wantof a better name, has gradually crept into philosophy through thecritical scrutiny of mathematics. This type of philosophy, which is theone that I wish to advocate, has not as yet many whole-heartedadherents, but the "new realism" which owes its inception to Harvard isvery largely impregnated with its spirit. It represents, I believe, thesame kind of advance as was introduced into physics by Galileo: thesubstitution of piecemeal, detailed, and verifiable results for largeuntested generalities recommended only by a certain appeal toimagination. But before we can understand the changes advocated by thisnew philosophy, we must briefly examine and criticise the other twotypes with which it has to contend.
A. The Classical Tradition
Twenty years ago, the classical tradition, having vanquished theopposing tradition of the English empiricists, held almost unquestionedsway in all Anglo-Saxon universities. At the present day, though it islosing ground, many of the most prominent teachers still adhere to it.In academic France, in spite of M. Bergson, it is far stronger than allits opponents combined; and in Germany it has many vigorous advocates.Nevertheless, it represents on the whole a decaying force, and it hasfailed to adapt itself to the temper of the age. Its advocates are, inthe main, those whose extra-philosophical knowledge is literary, ratherthan those who have felt the inspiration of science. There are, apartfrom reasoned arguments, certain general intellectual forces againstit—the same general forces which are breaking down the other greatsyntheses of the past, and making our age one of bewildered gropingwhere our ancestors walked in the clear daylight of unquestioningcertainty.
The original impulse out of which the classical tradition developed wasthe naïve faith of the Greek philosophers in the omnipotence ofreasoning. The discovery of geometry had intoxicated them, and its apriori deductive method appeared capable of universal application. Theywould prove, for instance, that all reality is one, that there is nosuch thing as change, that the world of sense is a world of mereillusion; and the strangeness of their results gave them no qualmsbecause they believed in the correctness of their reasoning. Thus itcame to be thought that by mere thinking the most surprising andimportant truths concerning the whole of reality could be establishedwith a certainty which no contrary observations could shake. As thevital impulse of the early philosophers died away, its place was takenby authority and tradition, reinforced, in the Middle Ages and almost toour own day, by systematic theology. Modern philosophy, from Descartesonwards, though not bound by authority like that of the Middle Ages,still accepted more or less uncritically the Aristotelian logic.Moreover, it still believed, except in Great Britain, that a priori reasoning could reveal otherwise undiscoverable secrets about theuniverse, and could prove reality