to convi nce others, they had a power given them to justifY the truth of their commission frOIll heaven, and by visible signs to assen the divine 3uthorityofa message theywereselltwith. Moses saw the bush burn without being consumed, and heard a voice out of it. This was something besides finding an impulse upon his mind to go to Pharaoh, that he might bring his brethren out of Egypt: And yet he thougbt not this enough to

authorize him [0 go with that message, till God, by another miracle ofbis rod turned into a ser­pent, had assured him of a power to testifY his mission, by the same miracle repeated before them, whom he was sent to. Gideon was sent by an angel to deliver Israel from the Midianites, and yet he desired a sign to convince him that this commission was from God. These, and several the like instances to be found among the prophets of o ld, are enough to show that they dlought not an inward seeing or persuasion of

For Further Reflection

Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy 27

their own minds, without any other proof, a suffi­cient evidence that it was fro m God; though the scripture does not every where mention their demandi.ng or having such proofs.

16. In what I have said I am fur from denying dlat God can, or doth sometimes enlighten men's Illinds in the apprehending of certain truths, or excite them to good actions by the immediate influ­ence and assistance of the holy spirit, without any extraordinary signs accompanying it. But in such cases too we have reason and .scripture, unerring mles to know whether it be from God.or no. VVhere the trudl embraced is consonant to the revelation in the written word of God, or the action conformable to the dictates of right reason or holy writ, we may be assured that we run no risk in entertaining it as such; because though perhaps it be not an immedi­ate revelation from God, extraordinarily operating on our minds, yet we are sure it is warranted by that revelation which he has given us of truth.

1. Examine: Locke's claim that the love: of truth entails "not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant." Do you agree with this?

2. Discuss dlesc questions: Do most people have a strong love of the Truth~ How much do yOll value Tnlth~

3. How docs Locke try to reconcile reason and revelation? Note how he thinks revelation was confirmed in the past. Is this the case today~ "What arc the implications of this feature (confirmation) for the relationship of reason and religious belief?

The Value of Philosophy

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Bertrand Russell ( 1872- 1970) is one of the mOSt important philosophers of the twen­tieth cenmry. His works cover almost every area of philosophy, from logic and phi­losophy of mathematics (Principia Mathematica [1910], written with Alfred North

1.4

28 I'ART ONE: WHAT rs PHILOSOPHY?

Whitehead) to philosophy of religion ("Mysticism" and "Why I Am Not a Christian") and ethics ("Science and Ethics"). Russell's concern to live out his philosophy in his life led him to found a special school on his philosophy o f education, become a leader in Britain's "Ban the Bomb" (the atom bomb) Movement, and speak out on moral and political issues, sometimes at personal risk.

In this reading, coming al lhe end of his brilliant essay The Problems of Philosophy (1912), Russell aq:,'1lCS that the value of philosophy is not in any ability to produce material goods ("philosophy bakes no bread") or arrive at definitive conclusions about dIe narure of reality, but is its effect upon the lives of those who take it seriously. In its contemplation of the perennial questions of life, rIus essay enlarges our under­standing of the task of philosophical reflection.

Study Ques#ons

]. What do many ~cientific and practical people think of philosophy? 2. What is Russell's assessment of their views of philosophy? Why docs he lhink that their

prejudice occun;? 3. What are the aims of philosophy? Has it been successful in attaining them? Explain. 4. Where does Russell think that the value of philosophy is to be sought? 5. What effect can philosophy have on the instinctive person? What are the fi-ults of philo­

sophical contemplation? 6. How does Russdl define knowledge? What docs he mean by this? 7. What does Russell think of the view that "man is the measure of all things"?

HAV1NG NOW COME TO THE EN D of our brief and very incomplete review of the problems of philosophy, it will be well [0 consider, in conclu­sion, what is the value of philosophy and why it ought to be studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view of the fuel that many men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on m:l.tters concerning which knowledge is impossible.

tions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or pri­marily, bec:l.usc of the effect on the student, but rather because afdle effect on mankind in gen­eral. Thus utility docs not belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only 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 be primarily sought.

This view of philosophy appears to result, parrly from a wrong conception of the ends of tifc, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inven-

But funher, ifwe arc not to fail in our ende:l.v­oW" to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free o ur minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called "practical" men. The "'practical" m:l.Il, as this word is often used, is one

Reprinuli from Bertrand Rumll, The Problems of Philosophy (New Y",.k: Oxj"",.d Univerrity l'nsJ, 1969), pp. 153-161, by ~isJjlm /lIthe publirhn.

who recognizes only material needs, who real­izes that men must have food tor the body, but is obliviolL'; of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men wen: well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind arc at least as important as the goods of lhe body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind thal the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who arc not indi,f}"erent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste oftirne.

Philosophy. like aU other studies, aims prima­rily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudiCt:s, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained tim philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man ofieaming, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he wili, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has nor achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is tnle that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any sub· ject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate sci­ence. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in phi­losophy; Newton's great worlc was called "the mathematical principles of natural philosophy." Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. TIlliS, to a great extent, the. uncer· tainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which arc already capable. of defi·

Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy 29

nite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

This is, however, only a part of the truth con· cerning the unccnainty of philosophy. There are many questions-and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life-which, so far as we can see, must fCmain insoluble to the human intellect unless its pow­ers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atomsr 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 only to man? Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by philosophy arc 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 con­tinue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confming ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental questions. They have supposed that what is of most importance in religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration to be true. In order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to talce a survey of human knowledge, and to form an opi nion as to

its methods and its limitations. On such a subject it would be unwise to pronounce dogmatically; but if the investigations of our previous chapters have not led us astray, we shall be compelled to

renounce the hope of finding philosophical

30 PART ONE: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

proofs of rdigiou<; beliefs. We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answt:rs to such questions. Hence, once morc, the value of philosophy musr not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncenaimy. The man who has no tincture of philosophy gOt.':s through life imprisont:d in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefS o f his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without t he coopera­tion or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world rends to become definite, fini te, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfumi l i~r pos."ibilities are contemptuously rejecn:d. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we .lind, as we saw in our opening chaprers, that even the most everyday dlings lead to problems to which only very incomplere answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the trlle 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 rhings 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 Qur sense of wonder by showing familiar t hings in an unfa­miliar aspect.

Apart from its mility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value-perhaps its chief value-through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the frec:dom 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 ollter world is not regarded except as it may help or hindcr

what eomcs within the circle of instinctive \'~shes. Ln such a lite there is something feverish and con · fined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private world ofinstinc­rive illlerests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner o r 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 belea­guen.":d fortn:ss, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, bur a constant strife betwec:n the insistence of desire and the power­lessness of will. In o ne way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must t!scape this prison and this strife:.

One way of escape is by philosophic contempla­tion. Philosophic contemplation docs not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps-friend~ and foes, helpful and hostile, good and bad-it views the whole impartiaUy. Philo· sophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at pro\mg that the rest of tIle universe is akin to man . All acquisi tion of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attain ed when it is not directly sought. I t is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a srudy which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects. This enlargement of Selfis not obtained when, taking theSelf as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to tlllS Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admis­sion of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-as.o;ertion, it is an ob~"tade to the growth of Self whidl it desires, and of which the Sclfknows that it is capable. Sclf­assertion, in philosophic speculation as elsewhere, views the world as a means to its own ends; thus it makes rhe world oflcss account than Self, and'the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self~ and through its greatness the boundaries

of Self arc enlarged ; through the infini ty of the uni~

verst! the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in inlinity.

For tllis reason greatness of soul is not fostered by those philosophies which assimilate the uni­verse to Man. Knowledge is a form of union of Se lf and not-Self; like all union , it is impaired by domitlion, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into conllmnity with what we find itl ourselves. There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which rells us that Man is the measure ofall things, that truth is man­made, that space and time and the world of uni­versals arc properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no acc()unt for us. This view, ifour previous discussions wcrc correct, is untrue; bur in addition to being untnlc, it has the eftectof robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, bur a set of prejudices, habits, and dtsires, making an impenetrable. "cil between us and the world beyond. The man who finds pleas­ure in such a theory ofknow1cdgc is like the Illan who never leaves the domcstk circle for fear llis word might not be law.

The true philosophic contemplation, on the contrary, finds its satisfactio n in every enlarge­men t of the not-Self, in everything that magni ­fies the objects contemplated , and thereby the subject contemplating. Everything, in contem­plation , that is personal o r private, everything that depends upo n habit, self-in terest, or desire, distorts the object, and hence impairs the union which the intell ect seeks. By thus making a barrier between subject and object, sLlch personal and private things become a prison to the intellect. The free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now, with­out hopes and fears , without the trammels of cuStomary bel iefs and traditional prejudices, calmly, d ispassionately, in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge-knowledge as impersonal,

Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy 31

as pu rely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain . Hence also the free intellect will val ue more the abstract and universal knowledge into wllich the accidents of private history do not enter, than the knowledge brought by the senscs, and dependent, as such knowledge must be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view and a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.

The mind whidl has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic con­templation will preserve somed,ing of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, \vith tbe absence of insis­renee that result~ from seeing them as infinitesimal fu"tgments in a world of wllich all the rest is unaf­fected by anyone man's deeds. The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the vcry same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that un..iver­sal love which can be given to aU, and not only [0

those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of [he universe, not only of one walled city at war \vilh all the rest. ln this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thral­dom of narrow hopes and fears.

Thus, to sum up our discussio n of the value of philosophy; philosophy is to be studied , not for the sake of any defulite answers to its questions, since no defillite answers can, as a rule, be known to be: truc, but rather for the sake oftbe questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of wbat is possi ble, enrich our intel­lectu al inlagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against specula­tion; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe wllich philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great) and becomes capable of that union with the Ulliverse which constitutes its highest good.

32 PART ONE: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

For fltrther Reflection

1. Compare Russell's essay with Socratl:s ' thought. 2. Evaluate Russell's contention: "The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes

through life imprisoned in the prcjudic~ derived from common sense, from the habi tual bt:licfs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which ha\'c grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his dclibcr.lte reason. [T]hrough the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good."

3. A particub.rly poignanr vignette oEhis view of the significance o f philosophy is recorded in his autobiography, where he relates the experience of seeing Mrs. Whitt;:hcad in severe pain. (Sec the last article in Parr VIII. ) What sort of view of philosophy do you sec in tillS experi­ence: Is it identical with what you read in Russell's essay, or docs it 3dd a new dimension? If you think. it does bring in something new, what is that?

SIWestionr for FI~rther Reading

Audi, Robert. The Clunbridge Dicticmary of Philo!ophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Copleston, F. C. Hirrory of Philosophy. Westminster, MD: Newman , 1966. This ciglu-volumc SCt is the most comprehensive contemporary work in the his tory o f philosophy.

Cornman, James, and Keith Lc:hrer. Phi/0S6phicalProbkms and A Tgumrnts. New York: Macmillan , 1982. A contemporary paTldigm of the analytic method.

Edwards, Paul , cd. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan, 1967. MallY of the arti­cles in this eight-volume set are excellent introductions to various aspects of philosophy.

Jones, w. T . H istory ofWcstcrn Phj/OS()phy. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. A Jucid, accessi ­ble five-volume set.

Miller, Ed. Qjlemrms 1hat Matter. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Pojrnan, Louis. Philosophy: The Pursuit of Wisdom, 3rd cd. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001 . A

discussion of the topics included in this work. Rachels, James. Problemsfrom Philosophy. New York: McGraw-llill , 2005. Russell, Bertrand. The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19 12 .

Although the perspective is a little dated, this is a well-written, well-thought-out little book from which much can be learned.

Schick, Theodore, and Lewis Vaughn. Doing Philosophy: An Introduction Through Thought Experimems, 3rd cd. New Y()fk: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Woodhouse, Mark. A Preface to Philosophy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1984. This little gem is useful in discussing tile purposes and methods ofphilo~phical inquiry. It cont"ains lively discussions ofinfonnallogic, reading philosophy, and writing philosophical papers.