Produced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [ Transcriber's Notes: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They are listed at the end of the text. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. ] OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD AS A FIELD FOR SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY BY THE SAME AUTHOR INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHY Second Edition. Demy 8vo, 12s. 6d. net. THE ANALYSIS OF MIND Demy 8vo, 16s. net. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION Seventh Impression. Cr. 8vo, 5s. net; Limp, 3s. 6d. net. ROADS TO FREEDOM: SOCIALISM, ANARCHISM AND SYNDICALISM Fourth Impression. Cr. 8vo, 5s. net; Limp, 3s. 6d. net. THE PRACTICE AND THEORY OF BOLSHEVISM Second Impression. Cr. 8vo, 6s. net. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD AS A FIELD FOR SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY BY BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 First published in 1914 by The Open Court Publishing Company Reissued by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1922 PREFACE The following lectures[1] are an attempt to show, by means of examples, the nature, capacity, and limitations of the logical-analytic method in philosophy. This method, of which the first complete example is to be found in the writings of Frege, has gradually, in the course of actual research, increasingly forced itself upon me as something perfectly definite, capable of embodiment in maxims, and adequate, in all branches of philosophy, to yield whatever objective scientific knowledge it is possible to obtain. Most of the methods hitherto practised have professed to lead to more ambitious results than any that logical analysis can claim to reach, but unfortunately these results have always been such as many competent philosophers considered inadmissible. Regarded merely as hypotheses and as aids to imagination, the great systems of the past serve a very useful purpose, and are abundantly worthy of study. But something different is required if philosophy is to become a science, and to aim at results independent of the tastes and temperament of the philosopher who advocates them. In what follows, I have endeavoured to show, however imperfectly, the way by which I believe that this _desideratum_ is to be found. [1] Delivered as Lowell Lectures in Boston, in March and April 1914.