Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Russell, Bertrand
Mathematics; Philosophy; Science
Life, in this philosophy, is a continuous stream, in which all
divisions are artificial and unreal. Separate things, beginnings and
endings, are mere convenient fictions: there is only smooth unbroken
transition. The beliefs of to-day may count as true to-day, if they
carry us along the stream; but to-morrow they will be false, and must
be replaced by new beliefs to meet the new situation. All our thinking
consists of convenient fictions, imaginary congealings of the stream:
reality flows on in spite of all our fictions, and though it can be
lived, it cannot be conceived in thought. Somehow, without explicit
statement, the assurance is slipped in that the future, though we
cannot foresee it, will be better than the past or the present: the
reader is like the child which expects a sweet because it has been
told to open its mouth and shut its eyes. Logic, mathematics, physics
disappear in this philosophy, because they are too "static"; what is
real is no impulse and movement towards a goal which, like the
rainbow, recedes as we advance, and makes every place different when
it reaches it from what it appeared to be at a distance.
I do not propose to enter upon a technical examination of this
philosophy. I wish only to maintain that the motives and interests
which inspire it are so exclusively practical, and the problems with
which it deals are so special, that it can hardly be regarded as
touching any of the questions that, to my mind, constitute genuine
philosophy.
The predominant interest of evolutionism is in the question of human
destiny, or at least of the destiny of Life. It is more interested in
morality and happiness than in knowledge for its own sake. It must be
admitted that the same may be said of many other philosophies, and
that a desire for the kind of knowledge which philosophy can give is
very rare. But if philosophy is to attain truth, it is necessary first
and foremost that philosophers should acquire the disinterested
intellectual curiosity which characterises the genuine man of science.
Knowledge concerning the future--which is the kind of knowledge that
must be sought if we are to know about human destiny--is possible
within certain narrow limits. It is impossible to say how much the
limits may be enlarged with the progress of science. But what is
evident is that any proposition about the future belongs by its
subject-matter to some particular science, and is to be ascertained,
if at all, by the methods of that science. Philosophy is not a short
cut to the same kind of results as those of the other sciences: if it
is to be a genuine study, it must have a province of its own, and aim
at results which the other sciences can neither prove nor disprove.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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