Russell: Value of Philosophy

Epistemological assumptions are...

-Increasing world population. -Scarce resources. -Violent people.

What is Philosophy?

-Aims at studying knowledge. -However, philosophy doesn't produce certainties. -Anytime certainty is arrived about knowledge, it is turned to science. For example, astronomy, psychology.

Questions remain...

-Indeed many philosophers sought the "Truth," coupled with sciences, Descartes, Kant, Hegel. -Is philosophy about the study of uncertainties? -Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose? 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?

Practical Man: Influence of science, utility and materials.

-Scientist -Empirical knowledge -Truths -Russell argues that feeding the body is not the only problem in society. We need to target problems that are not only material. Russell critiques the "practical man."

Epistemology :

-Translation: study of knowledge. Looking for underlying assumptions in a body of thought. In other words, it asks "how you know, what you know?" -Example: "the world population is increasing, there will be scarce resources as people violently compete and exploit resources." -What are the epistemological assumptions?

Ontology:

-Translation; the study of the subject; who is the major "actor" or entity in the body of thought. -Back to our example: The ontological assumption in the example is "violent people who compete and exploit."

Philosophic Contemplation:

-does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is akin (similar) to man. -does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character. -we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity. -contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man's true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears. -Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be 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 above all because, through 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.

The man 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 have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.

To such a man the world tends to become what?

definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected.

Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest what?

many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom

As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to what?

problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given.

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its what?.

very uncertainty

Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things 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 our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.