display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
12 ideas
| 7290 | If Russell rejects innate ideas and direct a priori knowledge, he is left with a tabula rasa [Russell, by Thompson] |
| Full Idea: If Russell rejects innate ideas, and he even thinks the laws of thought must by triggered by experiences (e.g. of a beech tree), and he doesn't embrace associations, this implies that he thinks the mind begins as a tabula rasa. | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912]) by George Thompson - talk | |
| A reaction: This nice observation places Russell as (in my view) a rather old-fashioned empiricist, who ignores Hume and Kant, and is not willing to speculate about how the mind can turn acquaintances with sense-data into knowledge |
| 5357 | It is natural to begin from experience, and presumably that is the basis of knowledge [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In the search for certainty, it is natural to begin with our present experiences, and in some sense, no doubt, knowledge is to be derived from them. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: Is experience the 'natural' place to begin? It didn't seem to strike Descartes that way. It seems better to say that philosophy begins when we are not quite satisfied with experience, and the natural place to begin is 'dissatisfaction'. |
| 5382 | We are acquainted with outer and inner sensation, memory, Self, and universals [Russell, by PG] |
| Full Idea: We have acquaintance with outer senses, with inner sense (by introspection), with memory (of outer or inner sensations), with a Self (probably), and also with universals (general ideas). | |
| From: report of Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: The spectacular odd one out in a basic empiricist theory is, of course, universals, when one expects some sort of nominalist reduction of those into sense-data. I am very sympathetic to the Russell line, though it spells big ontological trouble. |
| 5389 | Knowledge by descriptions enables us to transcend private experience [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The chief importance of knowledge by descriptions is that it enables us to pass beyond the limits of our private experience. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: The most basic question for empiricism concerns how we can know things beyond immediate experience. Russell is right, though this doesn't tell us much. We need to know the rules for valid descriptions, explanation, speculations etc. |
| 16476 | For simple words, a single experience can show that they are true [Russell] |
| Full Idea: So long as a man avoids words which are condensed inductions (such as 'dog'), and confines himself to words that can describe a single experience, it is possible for a single experience to show that his words are true. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940], 5) | |
| A reaction: One might question whether a line can be drawn between the inductive and the non-inductive in this way. I'm inclined just to say that the simpler the proposition the less room there is for error in confirming it. |
| 6441 | Pragmatism judges by effects, but I judge truth by causes [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Pragmatism holds that a belief is to be judged if it has certain effects, whereas I hold that an empirical belief is to be judged true if it has certain kinds of causes. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.15) | |
| A reaction: I'm with Russell here, and this seems to me a convincing objection to pragmatism. The simple problem is that falsehoods can occasionally have very beneficial effects. Beliefs are made true by the facts, not by their consequences. |
| 12108 | All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte] |
| Full Idea: All competent thinkers agree with Bacon that there can be no real knowledge except that which rests upon observed facts. | |
| From: Auguste Comte (Intro to Positive Philosophy [1830], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Are there any unobservable facts? If so, can we know them? The only plausible route is to add 'best explanation' to the positivist armoury. With positivism, empiricism became - for a while - a quasi-religion. |
| 21532 | Full empiricism is not tenable, but empirical investigation is always essential [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Although empiricism as a philosophy does not appear to be tenable, there is an empirical manner of investigating, which should be applied in every subject-matter | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Meinong on Complexes and Assumptions [1904], p.22) | |
| A reaction: Given that early Russell loads his ontology with properties and propositions, this should come as no surprise, even if J.S. Mill was his godfather. |
| 5376 | I can know the existence of something with which nobody is acquainted [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is no reason why I should not know of the existence of something with which nobody is acquainted. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: This sort of realist claim (which he goes on to say results from inferences from descriptions) is needed to save empiricism from the absurdities of Berkeley and (dare I say it?) Quine. The Kantian Ego is a candidate. |
| 16485 | Perception can't prove universal generalisations, so abandon them, or abandon empiricism? [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Propositions about 'some' may be proved empirically, but propositions about 'all' are difficult to know, and can't be proved unless such propositions are in the premisses. These aren't in perception, so forgo general propositions, or abandon empiricism? | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously related to the difficulty empiricists have with induction. You could hardly persuade logicians to give up the universal quantifier, because it is needed in mathematics. Do we actually know any universal empirical truths? |
| 16488 | It is hard to explain how a sentence like 'it is not raining' can be found true by observation [Russell] |
| Full Idea: If 'it is not raining' means 'the sentence "it is raining" is false', that makes it almost impossible to understand how a sentence containing the word 'not' can be found true by observation. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Human Knowledge: its scope and limits [1948], 9) | |
| A reaction: Russell goes on to explore the general difficulty of deciding negative truths by observation. The same problem arises for truthmaker theory. Obviously I can observe that it isn't raining, but it seems parasitic on observing when it is raining. |
| 6431 | Empiricists seem unclear what they mean by 'experience' [Russell] |
| Full Idea: When I began to think about theory of knowledge, I found that none of the philosophers who emphasise 'experience' tells us what they mean by the word. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: A very significant comment about empiricism. Hume does not seem very clear about what an 'impression' is. Russell's problem has been dealt with intensively by modern empiricists, who discuss 'the given', and conceptualised perception. |