display all the ideas for this combination of texts
9 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |