RUSSEL AS A PHILOSOPHER

Bertrand Russell is regarded as the greatest philosopher of the Age. His contribution to
philosophy is tremendous. He wrote for more than 65 years over a wide range of subjects
like mathematics, logic, philosophy, science, politics, religion, ethics, education and
sociology. He applied his mind to the multitude of fields of conquest. He viewed all things
with a philosophic trend and hence his influence will continue for years to come.

Russell does not believe in mysticism, revelation or intuition. He is a realist. To him

philosophy speculates about matters where exact knowledge is not yet possible. It is all
speculation. Philosophy has two uses. One of them is to speculate about things which do
not come under the head of scientific knowledge. Another use is to tell us that though we
know certain things, we actually do not know them perfectly well. In other words, what
seems like knowledge to us is not knowledge. There are two aims of philosophy: one is the
theoretical understanding of the structure of the world and the second is to discover and
inculcate the best possible way of life.

Will Durant mentions the branches of philosophy as logic, aesthetics, ethics, politics
and metaphysics. Russell’s philosophy can b e studied with the help of two groups out of
these five fields of philosophy----pure or academic philosophy comprising logic and
metaphysics and social philosophy containing aesthetics, ethics and politics.

Academic philosophy in the modern age is divided into three groups. The advocates
of the first group follow Kant and sometimes even Hegel. The second consists of
pragmatists and Bergson. In the third group fall those philosophers who attach themselves
to the science. Russell belongs to the third group. He believes in analysis and pluralism. The
new philosophy derived strength from three main sources—theory of knowledge, logic
and principles of mathematics.

Russell is a strong supporter of realistic school of though. He opines that all physical
objects exist independently of being perceived and that knowledge of physical objects is
direct. This school of philosophy conceives that all knowledge is scientific. Its sources of
inspiration are logic, principles of mathematics and physics. Russell made a significant
contribution to logic, mathematical philosophy, theory of knowledge , and the concepts of
matter and mind.

Russell adopted a new method for philosophy. He called it the logical-analytic or

logical atomism. He writes about logical atomism----“The way to get at nature of any
subject matter you are looking at is analysis and that you can analyze until you get to
things that can’t be analyzed any further and those would be logical atoms. I call them
logical atoms because they are not little bits of matter. They are the ideas, so to speak, out
of which a thing is built”.

The oldest philosophy concerned itself with the knowledge of the external world.
These idealist theories of perception maintained that the only entities are ideas in our
minds. Russell’s theory of perception is different. According to his theory, the appearance
of an object--- its colour, shape and size change as we move towards it or away from it or
around it. Russell calls these appearances ‘sense-data’. If we move around an object, the
sense -data changes and correlated with these changes are the bodily sensations

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associated with our movements. He defines a private world as an object seen from a
certain perspective.

Russell considered mind and matter. He forged a relation between psychology and
physics. Through common sense we see a world contains two different classes of
existence: matter which is known by mind and mind which knows matter. Scientists and
philosophers have tried to resolve this apparent duality into a more fundamental unity. For
this either mind or matter is to be eliminated. Scientists have tried to eliminate mind and
philosophers have discarded matter. Now physics is trying to make matter less material
and psychology makes mind lesser mental. Russell feels that both mind and matter are
merely convenient ways of grouping events.

Russell does not call his theories certain and final. Human intellect cannot find out
solution for every problem because as Hamlet says---

“There are more, things, in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Written and Composed By:

Prof. A. R. Somroo

M.A. English, M.A. Education

Cell: 03339971417