The Problems of Philosophy

Summary

The Problems of Philosophy is a short introduction to philosophy, chiefly to the theory of knowledge, written for a general reader. Russell opens by asking whether there is any knowledge so certain that no reasonable person could doubt it, and the fifteen chapters work toward a qualified answer. The first chapters take an ordinary table. Its colour, shape and texture vary with the light, the observer's position and the sense used, so what we directly know are sense-data, not the table itself. Is there a real, physical table behind them? Russell reviews Descartes's method of doubt and Berkeley's idealism, which holds that objects exist only as ideas in minds, and argues that although we cannot strictly prove that matter exists, the belief in independent physical objects is an instinctive belief that best explains our experience. Physical objects are known only by their structure, through correspondences with our sense-data, not by their intrinsic nature. Chapter V draws the book's best-known distinction: knowledge by acquaintance, the direct awareness of sense-data, memories, our own thoughts and universals, and knowledge by description, our knowledge of things such as Bismarck or Julius Caesar through definite descriptions built from what we are acquainted with. Every proposition we can understand, he holds, must be composed of constituents with which we are acquainted. The middle chapters turn to general principles. Our expectation that the sun will rise tomorrow rests on the principle of induction, which experience can neither prove nor disprove; the chicken fed daily until the day its neck is wrung shows the risk of crude expectations. Russell considers the laws of logic, the debate between empiricists and rationalists, and Kant's attempt to explain a priori knowledge, which he finds unsatisfactory. He then defends a realm of universals in the tradition of Plato, arguing that relations such as being north of are neither physical nor mental yet real, and that a priori knowledge concerns relations of universals. The later chapters treat intuitive and self-evident knowledge, truth as correspondence between belief and fact (illustrated by Othello's false belief that Desdemona loves Cassio), the difference between knowledge, error and probable opinion, and the limits of metaphysical systems such as Hegel's that claim to prove the nature of the universe as a whole. The last chapter, on the value of philosophy, argues that philosophy is valuable less for answers than for its questions, which free the mind from the tyranny of custom and enlarge it through contemplation of the universe. The book was written in 1911 and published in 1912 in the Home University Library series; Russell's preface acknowledges the unpublished work of G. E. Moore and J. M. Keynes.

Plot or Argument

• Chapters I–IV: Appearance, matter and idealism

  The table's shifting colours show that we perceive sense-data; Descartes's doubt and Berkeley's idealism are examined; Russell concludes that belief in independent matter is an instinctive belief we have good reason to keep, though the intrinsic nature of matter is unknown.

• Chapter V: Acquaintance and description

  Knowledge of things is divided into direct acquaintance and knowledge by description; all understanding of propositions rests ultimately on acquaintance.

• Chapters VI–VIII: Induction and a priori knowledge

  The principle of induction cannot be proved by experience; logical principles are known a priori; Kant's account of how such knowledge is possible is set out and criticized.

• Chapters IX–XI: Universals and intuitive knowledge

  Following Plato, Russell argues for real universals, especially relations, and explains that a priori knowledge concerns relations among universals; he then discusses self-evidence and intuitive knowledge of truths.

• Chapters XII–XIII: Truth, error and probable opinion

  Truth is defined as correspondence between belief and fact, with coherence rejected as a definition; knowledge is distinguished from true belief and from probable opinion.

• Chapters XIV–XV: The limits and the value of philosophy

  Grand metaphysical systems cannot prove what they claim; philosophy's worth lies in the questions it raises and in the enlargement of the mind that comes from contemplating the universe.

Lessons

• Starting from the ordinary

  Russell begins not with a grand theory but with the table in front of him, showing that the most familiar object raises hard questions about what we really perceive. Philosophy, on this view, begins in careful attention to the commonplace.

  • Why does Russell say that the table has no single colour?
  • What is a sense-datum, and how is it different from the table?
  • Does it matter for ordinary life whether the table exists apart from us?

• Knowing a thing and knowing about it

  Chapter V separates acquaintance, direct awareness, from description, knowledge reached through true statements about something. Most of what we know about people, places and the past is knowledge by description.

  • How does Russell's knowledge of Bismarck differ from Bismarck's knowledge of himself?
  • Which of your own beliefs rest on acquaintance and which on description?
  • Can we really know a person we have never met?

• The problem of induction

  Every expectation that the future will resemble the past, from the rising sun to the laws of science, rests on a principle that experience cannot prove. Russell's chicken makes the point memorably, and his answer is that the principle must be accepted on its intrinsic evidence or not at all.

  • What does the chicken expect, and why is it wrong?
  • Why can't we prove the principle of induction by pointing to its past success?
  • If induction cannot be proved, are we still reasonable to rely on it?

• Why philosophy matters

  In Chapter XV Russell answers the practical man who asks what philosophy is for. Its value, he argues, lies in freeing us from unexamined prejudice and in enlarging the self through contemplation of what is not the self.

  • What does Russell say the person with no tincture of philosophy is missing?
  • Why does he think the value of philosophy lies partly in its uncertainty?
  • Do you agree that the questions matter more than the answers?

Context

Russell wrote at a turning point in British philosophy. With G. E. Moore he had broken from the British idealism of F. H. Bradley and the Hegelians, and was developing a philosophy of logical analysis grounded in the new mathematical logic of Principia Mathematica. The book distills the epistemology he was working out in those years, including his 1905 theory of descriptions, into an accessible form.

Composition

The book was commissioned for the Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, a series of short introductory volumes for general readers, and written in 1911. It was published in London by Williams and Norgate and in New York by Henry Holt in 1912. Russell's preface dates it 1912 and thanks Moore and Keynes for unpublished work on sense-data and on probability and induction, and Gilbert Murray for criticism.

Reception

The book has remained in print continuously and has served for over a century as a standard first text in introductory philosophy courses. Russell himself later changed many of his views, and philosophers have criticized its reliance on sense-data and its theory of universals; its account of acquaintance and description and its treatment of induction remain points of reference. The final chapter on the value of philosophy is widely anthologized on its own.

Comparisons

• meditations-on-first-philosophy

  Russell reviews Descartes's method of doubt in Chapter II and accepts its value while denying that the cogito proves an enduring self.

• berkeley-principles-of-human-knowledge

  Chapter IV examines Berkeley's argument that to be is to be perceived and rejects it as resting on a confusion between the act of apprehension and the thing apprehended.

• an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding

  Hume's analysis of cause and custom lies behind Russell's problem of induction and his discussion of a priori knowledge in Chapters VI–VIII.

• the-republic

  Russell's defense of universals in Chapter IX explicitly follows Plato's theory of ideas, while stripping it of its mystical associations.

• an-essay-concerning-human-understanding

  Locke's empiricism, with its claim that all knowledge derives from experience, is the position Russell weighs against the rationalists in Chapter VII.

• wittgenstein-philosophical-investigations

  Wittgenstein, Russell's student at Cambridge from 1911, later attacked the picture of meaning and private acquaintance on which the Problems relies.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The table in Chapter I and how Russell uses it to separate appearance from reality.
• The distinction between acquaintance and description in Chapter V, with Bismarck as example.
• The chicken and the rising sun in Chapter VI.
• Othello and Desdemona in Chapter XII as an example of a false belief.
• The closing argument of Chapter XV about the enlargement of the self.

Key terms and names

Sense-data

Russell's name for what is immediately known in sensation, such as colours, sounds and hardness, as distinct from the physical object.

Idealism

The doctrine, examined in Chapter IV, that whatever exists must be in some sense mental; Russell associates it chiefly with Berkeley.

Knowledge by acquaintance

Direct awareness of something without the intermediary of inference or truths, as of a present sense-datum.

Knowledge by description

Knowledge of a thing as the object answering to a description, as of a historical person we have never met.

Principle of induction

The principle that repeated association of things makes their future association probable; Russell argues it cannot be proved from experience.

A priori

Known independently of experience, as the truths of logic and arithmetic are, according to Chapters VII–VIII.

Universals

Qualities and relations, such as whiteness or being north of, that many particulars can share; Russell holds they are real but neither physical nor mental.

Correspondence theory

The view, defended in Chapter XII, that a belief is true when it corresponds to a fact.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why does Russell conclude that the real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to us?
2. Comprehension What is the difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description?
3. Comprehension Why can't the principle of induction be proved by experience?
4. Interpretation Why does Russell think Berkeley's idealism rests on a confusion?
5. Interpretation How does the example of Othello help Russell explain what makes a belief false?
6. Interpretation Why does Russell consider the uncertainty of philosophy part of its value rather than a weakness?
7. Big Question If we cannot prove that the external world exists, are we still justified in believing it?
8. Big Question Is the contemplation of the universe the highest good of the mind, as Russell says, or does the mind have a higher object?

Faith Connections

• 1 Corinthians 13:12 (Scripture)

  Paul's seeing through a glass darkly, now knowing in part, offers a scriptural parallel to Russell's account of knowing physical objects only indirectly, though Paul looks forward to knowing face to face.

• Hebrews 11:1-3 (Scripture)

  Faith as the evidence of things not seen, and the world framed by the word of God, gives a Christian answer to the question Russell leaves open about what lies behind our sense-data.

• Augustine, City of God XI.26 (Church Fathers)

  Augustine argued that even if he is deceived, he exists, since one who does not exist cannot be deceived; Russell's treatment of Descartes in Chapter II engages the same line of argument.

• Aristotle, Metaphysics I.2 (Great Conversation)

  Aristotle held that philosophy begins in wonder; Russell's claim that philosophy shows the strangeness and wonder below the surface of the commonest things takes up the same theme.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: We cannot prove that physical objects exist or that induction is valid; yet our instinctive beliefs in them cohere and are not contradicted by experience, so it is reasonable to accept them while holding them open to revision; therefore philosophy yields not certainty but a disciplined, examined set of beliefs.

Rhetorical device: illustrative example (exemplum). Russell repeatedly grounds abstract arguments in homely cases, such as the chicken whose neck is wrung in Chapter VI and the table of Chapter I.

Debate: Resolved: that philosophy is more valuable for its questions than for its answers.

Memory Work

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Evaluate Russell's answer to the problem of induction in Chapter VI: is it reasonable to accept a principle that cannot be proved?

Comparison with Meditations on First Philosophy: Compare Descartes's search for certainty in the Meditations with Russell's more modest goal in The Problems of Philosophy: what does each think reason can achieve?

Medical Lens

The book is not about medicine, but its early chapters bear on the philosophy of perception that underlies psychiatry and neurology. Russell discusses how sense-data vary with the observer, including colour-blindness and spectacles, and in Chapter III mentions the physiological chain of light, nerves and brain between object and perception. In Chapter II he treats dreams and the possibility that all of life is a dream as the strongest form of skeptical doubt, concluding that it is logically possible but less simple than the common-sense hypothesis. These discussions offer a philosophical background for questions about hallucination and the reliability of perception, though Russell does not address clinical cases.

• Chapter I

  The table's appearance varying with light, position, colour-blindness and blue spectacles.

  Mind Body
• Chapter II

  Dreams and the hypothesis that the whole of life is a dream, weighed against belief in an external world.

  Dreams Nightmares
• Chapter III

  The physical and physiological causes of perception and the gap between physical space and the space of sense-data.

  Mind Body

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Explain Russell's distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, and apply it to your knowledge of a historical figure you admire.

• Dialogue

  Write a dialogue in which Russell and Bishop Berkeley sit at the same table and argue over whether it exists when no one perceives it.

• Classroom

  Bring a common object to class and have each student describe its colour and shape from a different position, then discuss Russell's Chapter I.

Further Reading

• Our Knowledge of the External World, Bertrand Russell

  Russell's 1914 Lowell Lectures, developing the ideas of the Problems further.

• A History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell

  Russell's popular 1945 survey of philosophers from the Presocratics to his own day.

• Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, Ray Monk

  First volume of a major biography, covering the years in which the book was written.

• Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, George Berkeley

  Berkeley's dialogues on idealism, which Russell cites in Chapter I.