display all the ideas for this combination of texts
12 ideas
5431 | Knowledge cannot be precisely defined, as it merges into 'probable opinion' [Russell] |
Full Idea: 'Knowledge' is not a precise conception: it merges into 'probable opinion', and so a very precise definition should not be sought. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.13) | |
A reaction: This announcement comes as a relief, after endless attempts (mainly by American academics) to give watertight, carefully worded definitions. It seems to me undeniable that what we will accept as knowledge is partly a matter of social negotiation. |
5426 | Belief relates a mind to several things other than itself [Russell] |
Full Idea: A belief or judgement relates a mind to several things other than itself. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.12) | |
A reaction: Presumably we must say that if I believe that (say) 'x exists', this is relating x to the universal 'exists'. If so, Russell's point becomes a bit of a tautology. We believe propositions, which are combinations of concepts, so are multiple. |
5366 | We have an 'instinctive' belief in the external world, prior to all reflection [Russell] |
Full Idea: We find a belief in an independent external world ready in ourselves as soon as we begin to reflect: it is what may be called an 'instinctive' belief. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: Somewhere Hume calls this a 'natural belief', and it is fairly central to his idea that most of our beliefs are built up fairly mechanically by associations. I am tempted to ask whether such things even count as beliefs, if they are so uncritical. |
7154 | We can't use our own self to criticise our own capacity for knowledge! [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: A critique of our capacity to know is nonsensical: how should the tool be able to criticise itself when it can, precisely, only use itself for the critique? It can't even define itself! | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 02[87]) | |
A reaction: I am inclined to answer that it seems impossible, but it happens. Thinking about ourselves is the hardest part of philosophy, but phenomenologists and others (starting with Descartes) have had an impressive crack at it. Nietzsche was good at it. |
14768 | Infallibility in science is just a joke [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Infallibility in scientific matters seems to me irresistibly comical. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.3) |
5359 | Descartes showed that subjective things are the most certain [Russell] |
Full Idea: By showing that subjective things are the most certain, Descartes performed a great service to philosophy. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: This praise comes from an empiricist, who has just said that 'sense-data' are the most certain things. I presume that animals are more certain of the world than they are of subjective things. In fact, probably on philosophers agree with Russell. |
7146 | Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 40[15]) | |
A reaction: Compare Spinoza in Idea 4833. Hawking says he thinks better because he is largely paralysed. Externalism about mind makes it necessarily a part of the world and hence physical. I am inclined to agree with Nietzsche. |
5377 | 'Acquaintance' is direct awareness, without inferences or judgements [Russell] |
Full Idea: We shall say we have 'acquaintance' with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: Although Russell understands the difficulty of precise distinctions here, he implies that some knowledge is directly knowable, although truth only enters at the stage of judgement. Personally I would suggest that pure acquaintance is not knowledge. |
6510 | Russell (1912) said phenomena only resemble reality in abstract structure [Russell, by Robinson,H] |
Full Idea: Russell held in 'Problems of Philosophy' that the physical world resembles the phenomenal only in abstract structure. | |
From: report of Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912]) by Howard Robinson - Perception VII.5 | |
A reaction: Russell's problem is that he then requires full-blown and elaborate 'inferences' to get from the abstract structure to some sort of 'theory' of reality, but our experience seems much more direct, even if it isn't actually 'naïve'. |
5372 | There is no reason to think that objects have colours [Russell] |
Full Idea: It is quite gratuitous to suppose that physical objects have colours. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 3) | |
A reaction: This has always seemed to me self-evident, from the day I started to study philosophy. I cannot make sense of serious attempts to defend direct (naïve) realism. Colour is a brilliant trick of natural selection for extracting environmental information. |
5373 | 'Idealism' says that everything which exists is in some sense mental [Russell] |
Full Idea: We shall understand 'idealism' to be the doctrine that whatever exists, or at any rate whatever can be known to exist, must be in some sense mental. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 4) | |
A reaction: The interesting thing here is the phrase 'in some sense', which takes on a new light when we begin once against to take seriously ideas such as panpsychism. If the boundary between mind and brain is blurred, so is that between realism and idealism. |
5362 | It is not illogical to think that only myself and my mental events exist [Russell] |
Full Idea: No logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists of myself and my thoughts and feelings and sensations, and that everything else is mere fancy. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: The only real attempt to meet this challenge is Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument, which tried to show that it would be a logical impossibility to speak a language if there were no other minds. Personally, I am with Russell. |