BERTRAND RUSSELL: DOUBTING EMPIRICIST
Glicksberg, Charles I.
WRITERS and WRITING THE NEW LEADER LITERARY SECTION Bertrand Russell: Doubting Empiricist Reviewed fey CHARLES I. GUCKSIERG HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: Its Scope and Limits. By Bertrand Russell. New York:...
...Though the solipsist argument cannot be disproved by deductive " log, it is psychologically impossible to* believe in solipsism...
...Science answers the first question for us well enough, but psychology comes to grips with the more elusive and puzzling second question, and endeavors to show how each of us, a private universe, separated from the past not only spatially but also temporally, can mirror the universe b^> the present contents of his mind...
...Russell will stop to consider the meaning of "of" and "in" in such expressions as "We think of so-nna-so" or "We believe in suchand-such...
...his hero would only have growled and chuckled contemptuously at so much naivete...
...Psychology is consequently justified in dealing scientifically with private facts, and with the private aspects of data which common sense regards as public...
...His faith in the scientific method remains unshaken...
...The point of the whole brilliant undertaking is to demonstrate th.it the concept of "knowledge" we on so confidently is not as precise ami definite as we had supposed...
...315 pages...
...By Wythe Williams...
...To this doctrine we have not found any limitation whatever...
...Human Knowledge should be required reading for all those who are convinced that whatever else may pass and fade, their truths will survive unharmed...
...to discover what are the basic asf< trip dons, anterior to experience, which are necessary before we can inf* laws from a bundle of data, and titer know that these assumptions are valid...
...That is why he maintains that sensations are the sole data for physics, ¦and why he sees no way out of Hume's skepticism...
...there is causal interconnectedness, and that is why our "private" experiences lead to the "public" experiences of science...
...The last part t...
...SINCE MAN IS AN integral part of the universe, whatever description he gives of it is dependent upon the way the universe affects him...
...But if all knowledge is more or less doubtful, then the concept of "uncertain knowledge" enters in, so that we have to determine is the degree of certainty to accord any bit of knowledge...
...But why believe the assertions of science even when these are not verified by present perception?* For perception does not give us much and the inferences by which we move from the perceived to the unperceived facts are often suspect and unreliable...
...What he undertakes to investigate is of paramount importance: How can human beings know what they know about the world they live .in...
...Set even when Russell has tracked oown the quest to its ultimate lair, he It by no means convinced that he has i iv*| the problem of human knowl• dge...
...He accepts the physical theory of perception even though this raises a number of serious complications...
...Russell is driven to the embarrassing conclusion, derived from the 1 -gic of probability, that scientific inference requires for its validation principles which experience cannot even reader probable...
...Part Three, which deals with 11 i uce and perception, seeks to disi 'i,iish between data and inferences...
...Thus we are brought back to the initial question: what do we know and how do we know it...
...Thus he conducts a detailed inquiry into the meaning of such pivotal terms as "belief," "truth," "fact," "knowledge," "causality," "induction," and "perception...
...Throughout he convincingly develops the central belief that philosophy, far from losing itself in the pursuit of terribly abstract, esoteric pursuits, deals with problems of vital concent to the general educated public...
...Tough empiricism has thus far proved less fallible than other theories of knowledge, it has its degree of inadequacy, and there is no point in closing our eys to this limitation...
...Nevertheless, Bertrand Russell possesses a style so clear and persuasive that he brilliantly clarifies many issues which are usually presented in a forbidding technical jargon...
...Even in normal perception, Russell contends, interpretation inevitably plays a considerable role, and it may often mislead us...
...private data), there is no reason why there should not be a science of such private data...
...He knows that science necessarily starts from generalizations which are only approximately true, but there is a difference between animal inference and scientific inference...
...Williams adds very little to our knowledge of Clemenceau, and nothing is gained by simply warming up all the pet biases and prejudices that the "Tiger" held...
...Russell demonstrates how and why there are many all-propositions in which we all believe, though it is practically or theoretically impossible to verify them by a process of complete enumeration...
...1949...
...Throughout, Russell accepts as valid any inference derived from the accepted body of scientific theory...
...5.00...
...Russell shatters the unconscious assumptions of common sense with regard to the solidity and permanence of the world of perception...
...Charles I. Glicksberg is a professor of English at Brooklyn College...
...What wojild go over better than the opening scene, dripping of so/itimentalism in which the "Father of Victory" visits with his faithful poilus is evoked by a soldier of the recent war, or the end, when the old man sits lonely on a bench in front of his country house,, looking out over the storm-swept dunes...
...Once the principle of inference is granted, it is then possible to argue validly from the existence of certain events to the existence of others—and that is all that is necessary...
...Conversations With Clemenceau Reviewed by LEWIS A. COSER .THE TIGER OF FRANCE...
...To what extent is such knowledge illusory, and how much of the knowledge we derive comes through channels other than through the senses...
...It is impossible in the restricted compass of a review to do more than barely suggest, the wealth and variety of fascinating material to be found in this book...
...I lit Four treats of scientific concepts a id analyses such fundamental concept' as physical space, historical -time, and: eausal laws...
...Indeed, such inadequacies as we have seemed to find in empiricism have been discovered by strict adherence to a doctrine by which empiricist philosophy has been inspired: that all human knowledge is uncertain, inexact, and partial...
...Russell insists that there are many kinds of events which he is im-a position to observe when they happen to him, but not when they happen to anyone else...
...One trusts Mr...
...Part One is 'pvoted to describing some of the main : it-res of the universe which scientific ii, lysis has made probable...
...What he has been contending all along is that knowledge cannot be given any final precision...
...What is one to make of statements such as that on page 299, that in the twenties "Germany was arming while France disarmed" — so evidently contrary to the facts as a glance at French budgetary outlays for that period easily shows...
...xhis BOOK READS like a movie script...
...524 pages...
...Such knowledge as we obtain by analogy is obviously more or less doubtful, but even at that we must depend upon our own thoughts and feelings for believing that there are thoughts and feelings other than ouu own, and that takes us beyond the range of physics...
...In order to feel reasonably certain that other people have sensations and experience pleasure and pain as we do, we must resort to analogy...
...The book has a definite plot and principle of progression...
...Part Two, :< Kerned with the problem of lanM :i(,'e, attempts to make clear the t it uing of such terms as "fact" and ith...
...Russell forthrightly declares: "Whatever anybody, even I myself, may argue to the contrary, I shall continue to believe that I am not the whole universe, and in this everyone will in fact agree with me, if I am right in my conviction that other people exist...
...Williams' sincere admiration for Georges Clemenceau but wonders why he should have waited so many years before publishing the records of his conversations with him...
...THE FINAL CHAPTER on the limits of empiricism sums up Russell's conclusions and indicates the full natureof his argument...
...And in grappling with the difficult problem of the relation of mind and matter, Russell assumes that throughout the process from sense organ to muscle, there is an unbroken chain of purely physical causation, Russell, however, refuses to accept the limitations set on psychology by certain philosophers, namely, that knowledge concerning man can only be gained by studying his behavior in the same way as we study animal behavior, and that introspective knowledge is therefore to be rejected...
...Veto Yorlr...
...If we closely follow the thread of his argument, we find that the boundary lines we had assumed as fixed In our universe of discourse hecome vague and uncertain, and we become increasingly doubtful of much that we had hitherto taken for granted...
...There is no reason to suppose," he says, "living matter subject to any laws other than those to which inanimate matter is subject, and considerable reason to think that everything in the behavior of living matter is theoretically explicable in terms of physics and chemistry...
...Yet, he never loses sight of the factual premises of empirical knowledge...
...Russell willingly agrees that all particular facts that are known without inference are known by perception or memory, that is to say, through experience, and to that extent he aligns himself with the empiricists...
...In fact, the author probably had Hollywood in mind when he wrote it...
...i the very first chapter, for example, there is the examination of fife differences between individual and social knowledge, and also of the differences between the private and public function of language...
...New York: Simon & Schuster...
...FACH CHAPTER OFFERS its own nWinding insights and illuminations...
...Knowledge to this extent is inescapably anthropoeentric, but despite all these limitations how does man arrive at knowledge concerning the universe...
...Problems spring up on every other page, yet these problems, together with their analysis and provisional solution, are all part of a carefully organized plan...
...Even physics cannot dispense with certain inferences that go beyond the realm of observation...
...THOUGH NOT DESIGNED primarily for professional philosophers but for that portion of the literate public which is interested in philosophical analysis, Human Knowledge contains a number of sections which only a trained student of philosophy can read with any degree of enjoyment and profit...
...Part Five examines the nature of probability...
...Strictly naturalistic in his outlook, he accepts the theory of biological continuity and sees no reason why a living body cannot be produced artifically...
...Yet he also argues that we must rely on inferences not based on experiences, on principles which are "known" in a different sense from that in which particular facts are known...
...Lewis A. Coser is teaching at il>* University of Chicago...
...4.50...
...Inferences are valid because the world outside is not a mere chaos of fortuitlous events...
...By now the times are certainly ripe for something else than a sort of belated campaign biography...
...Clemenceau may have been the "Father of Victory" but be wis also the Father of Versailles -and that ugly offspring has wrought a havoc from which we still suffer today...
...By a process of analogy, based on inference and not direct observation, he is led to believe that other people have experiences similar to his...
...Duell Sloan and Pearce...
...Williams is in dead earnest when he writes that "at Yalta Georges Clemenceau was finally vindicated...
...In discussing knowledge transcending experience, Russell indicates in what way he believes some modern empiricists, particularly the majority of logical positivists, have gone .wrong in analyzing the relation of knowledge to experience...
...If there is knowledge of private data (and it is difficult to draw a precise distinction between public and...
...What is the relation of science to the crude material of experience...
...For Russell discloses what mysteries, unsuspected by naive common sense, lurk in the simplest propositions...
...After considering the world of physics, Russell turns to a conderution of biological evolution, trying to purify it of all its ethical adulterations, interpreting it, as distinguished from mere change, as increasing^ complexity and heterogeneity...
Vol. 32 • March 1949 • No. 11
