|
Bertrand
Russell, Problems of Philosophy |
This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a
wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the
kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical science, through
the medium of inventions, 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, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of
the effect on mankind in general. Thus utility does 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.
But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must
first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical'
men. The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is 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. If all men were 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 are at least as important as
the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the
value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to
these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of
time.
Philosophy, like all 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, prejudices, and
beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that 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 of learning, 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 will, if he is candid, have to
confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been
achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the
fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject 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 work 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. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of
philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already
capable of definite 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 concerning the
uncertainty 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 remain 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 atoms? 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 are 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 confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.
[...]
The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be
sought largely in its very uncertainty. 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 definite, finite,
obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are
contemptuously rejected. 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 problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given.
Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true 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 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.
[...]
Thus, to sum up our discussion of the
value of philosophy; 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.
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