Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy"

I just finished Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy". It's a short book, but I found it a good review of the ideas of philosophers on what what we 'know' and what is 'true'. The in-depth discussion made it clear that 'absolute knowledge' of objects (vs. the sense-data that is our perception of things) is unknowable (or certainly unproveable). It is interesting that some philosophers take that as license to promote theories that involve those objects not even existing or being 'in the mind of God'... and they find a lot of believers out there. Of course Russell doesn't buy into any such crap. He promotes instead the idea of basing believe on an assessment of likelihood of the accuracy of knowledge... an approach that supports the existence of real objects behind the sense-data.

What I found most interesting was actually the last chapter where Russell talks about the value of Philosophy. Here's an out-take:

"The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no incture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions that have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize on the contrary, we find as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value -- perhaps its chief value - through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleagured fortress, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife between the insistence of desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife." Great words describing the motivation for a life as a free-thinker!

I also was excited to see that Russell seems to have felt something that I too have felt when he says "through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity". I've expressed to some of my friends the feeling I've gotten looking into the night sky... that its like a little piece of immortality, perhaps the only one we can have, to see what Carl Sagan described as "all that is, or ever was, or ever will be". We can lead our lives imagining the immortality of our imaginary "souls", or we can free ourselves from those "instinctive desires" (as Lord Russell stated it) in the serious pursuit of knowledge of the natural world and a little taste of what real immortality might entail.

The book now in progress: "Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice", edited by Joan Boykoff Bacon and Robert J. Sternberg.