"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it"
- Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism.
Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 in Wales, England as a member of a famous British family. He received a degree from Trinity Cambridge College with honors in Mathematics and Moral Sciences. His most famous works included the subjects of logic and philosophy, which were deeply rooted in his mathematics background. In fact, Russell is probably the most highly regarded and most read English-speaking philosopher of our time. Russell was not merely an intellectual, but also a political and social activist, writing many papers and pamphlets speaking out against war, nuclear technology and Fascism. Russell was, in fact, jailed for writing a pacifist pamphlet speaking out against England's participation in the First World War. Russell was also known as often vehemently speaking out against organized religion, especially that of Christianity. He wrote papers such as, "Why I am not a Christian" and "A Free Man's Worship." He also regarded marriage and sex in way uncommon for those times, and proposed that there was really nothing wrong with college-aged adults having childless encounters before marriage, but still held that marriage is "the best and most important relation that can exist between human beings" . It seems that Russell's theories on marriage and sex may have caused the protest that led to be him being dismissed after an appointment to City College in New York City. Russell, along with his fellow Cambridge alumnus G. E. Moore, were at the forefront of the philosophical movement leading towards anal...
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...my views on perspective differ greatly from those of Russell, as you have seen. Russell believes that all things are open to be subjective to the experiences around them, much like the idea that we can never know the true reality of any object because as soon as you look or realize that the object exists, it changes because we have looked at it. I believe that certain things are as they will always be, and that the changes, if any, given by the subjectivity of certain items is so small as to not make any difference.
While Russell and I disagree on this aspect, there are others that we do agree on, such as his ideas on memory and how it affects our perspective on the present. I believe that this topic is far more difficult that basic metaphysical philosophy, and while the topic was difficult I found that it was an easier read than some metaphysical philosophers
Russell, Bertrand. “Why I Am Not a Christian,” in Introduction to Philosophy. 6th edition. Perry, Bratman, and Fischer. Oxford University Press. 2013, pp. 56-59.
Russell starts off by stating how polytheistic views turned into monotheistic views. Throughout his article, Russell considers theologians’ unaided reasoning and then refutes their arguments through rational means. In the end Russell concludes, on the basis of his response to many theological arguments, that he could not find any valid reason to believe in God’s existence.
The views which are put forward in this treatise derive from the doctrines of Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein.
He basically knew how a ship functioned and what would happen to it in a certain situation. This demonstrates that Robertson was very knowledgeable about the topic thereby he did not have a form of ESP known as precognition as skeptics would say. As a whole, this is a view seen by many skeptics about the nonexistence of ESP. Another example of the doubtfulness of the existence of ESP is the fact that on an unconscious level, our brain is handling information that our five senses pick up on. Therefore, people tend to make exceptionally right guesses by assembling pieces together and adapting to irrelevant information. In short, skeptics believe that ESP is not real.
In Chapter One Bertrand Russell basically wants to know the true meaning of “reality”. The truth is that “reality” can never truly be determined. I say this because there is a difference between believing and actually knowing. For example I know the desk in the front of the classroom is real. I know this because all of my senses concur. Now when I try to determine to color, the texture or even the shape of the desk I will run into a problem.
Russell has applied quantum theory thinking about cause to evolutionary biology (genetics/variation) and explored its implications for divine action in the natural world. Russell uses the backdrop As genetic mutations can be caused by quantum level processes, the quantum effect is demonstrated to have macroscopic consequences (cite) to postulate how a theistic evolution would work through such processes (cite primary Russel).. If occasionalism is taken absolutely into the quantum realm, with God strictly in control of all creation, its significance is intensified into what may be called quantum occasionalism. With increasing knowledge of the complexity of quantum relationships, such an occasionalism would clarify various otherwise inexplicable
In Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder teaches philosophy and it explains basic philosophical ideas better than any other reading book or textbook that I have ever read. The many philosophical lessons of the diversified thinkers of their own time were dexterously understood. The author has a wonderful knack for finding the heart of a concept and placing it on display. For example, he metamorphoses Democritus' atoms into Lego bricks and in a stroke makes the classical conception of the atom dexterously attainable. He relates all the abstract concepts about the world and what is real with straightforward everyday things that everyone can relate to which makes this whole philosophy course manageable. ''The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions: How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions? And most important, how ought we to live?'' (Gaarder, Jostein 15).
The first sentence of Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy expresses his skeptical roots: "Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?" (Russell 7). His answer to the question is clearly no, and before we come to the end of the second page he claims that "anything. . . may be reasonably doubted" (Russell 8). He questions everything from the existence of the table to whether other minds exist. He asserts that reality is not what it appears and that "even the strangest hypothesis may not be true" (Russell 16). Regardless of this fact, Russell proceeds to explain which things are self-evident truths for him; i.e. that which is certain knowledge for him. He claims that the most certain kind of self-evident truths are the "principles of logic" (Russell 112). The only other kinds of self-evident truths for Russell "are those which are immediately derived from sensation" (Russell 113). These are what Russell calls sense-data. Examples of sense data are things like "brown colour, oblong shape, smoothness, etc." all of which are associated with external objects (Russell 12). The immediate perception of a patch of blue is, therefore, intuitively certain according to Russell. Despite all this certain knowledge, Russell still admits that the possibility "that [the] outer world is nothing but a dream and that [I] alone exist…cannot be strictly proved to be false" (Russell 17). I find it astonishing that he concedes that all knowledge is ultimately uncertain and then goes on to proclaim some semblance of certainty for himself. Also, he concludes by saying that it is the process of asking skeptical questions that is important to philosophy, not whether an answer can be found. Thus, Russell’s doubt is not evidently driven by the sense of separateness that Cavell refers to. He is by no means despairing.
Bertrand Russell is a very influential writer within the realm of philosophy. His specific work titled, The Problems of Philosophy discusses the many things that he believes is wrong with the way people think, act towards, treat, and study philosophy as a whole. The one specific essay focused on was titled The Value of Philosophy in chapter xv. This essay focused on why he believes that philosophy was worth studying and why he believes that those who don’t see his vision are wrong and at a disadvantage. More specifically he addresses the “practical man”, which he defines specifically as “one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind”
The Problem people have with philosophy is the lack of definite answers. This is not to say that philosophy has never produced any. Russell
Some of the objections, such as the ones made by Edmund Gettier, claim that three conditions are not nearly enough to justify a true belief, and that at the very least a fourth must be added. Gettier presents a very valid criticism of the JTB theory of knowledge, and his counter examples highlight flaws in the JTB theory that make it an inadequate theory of knowledge. Gettier claims takes an issue with the third part of the JTB theory, which states that proposition P must be true. Gettier makes the interesting observation that person S may very well be justified in believing in proposition P even if P is false
Russell’s Theory of Definite Description has totally changed the way we view definite descriptions by solving the three logical paradoxes. It is undeniable that the theory itself is not yet perfect and there can be objections on this theory. Still, until now, Russell’s theory is the most logical explanation of definite description’s role.
The term “philosophy” means the love of wisdom, and those that study philosophy attempt to gain knowledge through rationality and reason. 1 Socrates, the father of ancient philosophy, once stated “the unexamined life is not worth living”. This is the most important part of life and it is need to find purpose and value in life. If a person chooses to live their life without examination, their life would lack value and they would be unhappy. They would also be ignorant to the effects of their choices on themselves and the people around them.
Wittgenstein remarked that the purpose of philosophy was to show "the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." Though not a fashionable definition this should satisfy the existentialist that we deal with problems upon whose issue much depends.
Socrates' argument backing up his claim, the statement makes a lot of sense. In order for Philosophers to