Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Russell, Bertrand
Mathematics; Philosophy; Science
By concentrating attention upon the investigation of logical forms, it
becomes possible at last for philosophy to deal with its problems
piecemeal, and to obtain, as the sciences do, such partial and
probably not wholly correct results as subsequent investigation can
utilise even while it supplements and improves them. Most
philosophies hitherto have been constructed all in one block, in such
a way that, if they were not wholly correct, they were wholly
incorrect, and could not be used as a basis for further
investigations. It is chiefly owing to this fact that philosophy,
unlike science, has hitherto been unprogressive, because each original
philosopher has had to begin the work again from the beginning,
without being able to accept anything definite from the work of his
predecessors. A scientific philosophy such as I wish to recommend will
be piecemeal and tentative like other sciences; above all, it will be
able to invent hypotheses which, even if they are not wholly true,
will yet remain fruitful after the necessary corrections have been
made. This possibility of successive approximations to the truth is,
more than anything else, the source of the triumphs of science, and to
transfer this possibility to philosophy is to ensure a progress in
method whose importance it would be almost impossible to exaggerate.
The essence of philosophy as thus conceived is analysis, not
synthesis. To build up systems of the world, like Heine's German
professor who knit together fragments of life and made an intelligible
system out of them, is not, I believe, any more feasible than the
discovery of the philosopher's stone. What is feasible is the
understanding of general forms, and the division of traditional
problems into a number of separate and less baffling questions.
"Divide and conquer" is the maxim of success here as elsewhere.
Let us illustrate these somewhat general maxims by examining their
application to the philosophy of space, for it is only in application
that the meaning or importance of a method can be understood. Suppose
we are confronted with the problem of space as presented in Kant's
Transcendental Æsthetic, and suppose we wish to discover what are the
elements of the problem and what hope there is of obtaining a solution
of them. It will soon appear that three entirely distinct problems,
belonging to different studies, and requiring different methods for
their solution, have been confusedly combined in the supposed single
problem with which Kant is concerned. There is a problem of logic, a
problem of physics, and a problem of theory of knowledge. Of these
three, the problem of logic can be solved exactly and perfectly; the
problem of physics can probably be solved with as great a degree of
certainty and as great an approach to exactness as can be hoped in an
empirical region; the problem of theory of knowledge, however, remains
very obscure and very difficult to deal with. Let us see how these
three problems arise.
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