Russell The Value Of Philosophy

Introduction

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was a British philosopher and social critic best known for his work in mathematical logic and as a popularizer of philosophy. In this passage from The Problems of Philosophy, Russell acknowledges that many men call up that philosophy is useless because it is unable to produce definite answers to the questions information technology addresses. He argues that the value of philosophy is to exist "sought largely in its very uncertainty". Those who do not report philosophy are "imprisoned by the prejudices" of the society in which they were raised and the written report of philosophy helps to remove dogmatism and keeps alive our sense of wonder.

Reading

The following excerpt is from Chapter 15 of Russell's The Problems of Philosophy. This work is in the public domain and can be read in full here.

[Grand]any men, under the influence of science or of applied affairs, are inclined to dubiety whether philosophy is annihilation better than innocent but useless trifling, pilus-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is incommunicable.

This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong formulation of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to reach. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of concrete scientific discipline is to be recommended, not just, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general. Thus utility does non belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, information technology must be just indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must exist primarily sought.

But further, if we are not to neglect in our effort to determine the value of philosophy, we must get-go complimentary our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the torso, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible bespeak, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing globe the goods of the mind are at least as important equally the appurtenances of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be institute; and only those who are not indifferent to these appurtenances tin exist persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of fourth dimension.

Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at cognition. The noesis it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and organization to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical test of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. Simply information technology cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very smashing mensurate of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If y'all enquire a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his respond will concluding as long as you are willing to listen. But if y'all put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is aboveboard, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as take been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as before long equally definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this bailiwick ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a dissever science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton'due south great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the report of the human listen, which was a role of philosophy, has at present been separated from philosophy and has go the science of psychology. Thus, to a swell extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more than apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those simply to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the balance which is called philosophy.

This is, however, only a part of the truth apropos the dubiety of philosophy. There are many questions—and amidst them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life—which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the homo intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the universe whatsoever unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or but to man? Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by diverse philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however slight may be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to proceed the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to proceed alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by circumscribed ourselves to definitely ascertainable cognition. …

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to exist sought largely in its very uncertainty. The human who has no tincture 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 which accept 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; mutual objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As shortly as we begin to philosophize, on the reverse, we find, as we saw in our opening capacity, that even the almost everyday things lead to problems to which but very incomplete answers can exist given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true respond to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which overstate our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty equally to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; information technology removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating dubiety, 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 upwards within the circle of his individual interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes inside the circumvolve of instinctive wishes. In such a life in that location is something feverish and confined, in comparing with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private globe of instinctive interests is a pocket-sized 1, set up in the midst of a not bad and powerful world which must, sooner or subsequently, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can and then 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 1 way or another, if our life is to exist great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife. …

Thus, to sum upwardly our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, non for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, exist known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but to a higher place all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the listen too is rendered not bad, and becomes capable of that spousal relationship with the universe which constitutes its highest adept.

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