Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy — John Shaqi
Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in PhilosophyRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy
Russell, Bertrand
Knowledge, Theory of; Logical atomism
(2) 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 really can give is
very rare. But if philosophy is to become scientific--and it is our
object to discover how this can be achieved--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.
The consideration that philosophy, if there is such a study, must
consist of propositions which could not occur in the other sciences, is
one which has very far-reaching consequences. All the questions which
have what is called a human interest--such, for example, as the question
of a future life--belong, at least in theory, to special sciences, and
are capable, at least in theory, of being decided by empirical evidence.
Philosophers have too often, in the past, permitted themselves to
pronounce on empirical questions, and found themselves, as a result, in
disastrous conflict with well-attested facts. We must, therefore,
renounce the hope that philosophy can promise satisfaction to our
mundane desires. What it can do, when it is purified from all practical
taint, is to help us to understand the general aspects of the world and
the logical analysis of familiar but complex things. Through this
achievement, by the suggestion of fruitful hypotheses, it may be
indirectly useful in other sciences, notably mathematics, physics, and
psychology. But a genuinely scientific philosophy cannot hope to appeal
to any except those who have the wish to understand, to escape from
intellectual bewilderment. It offers, in its own domain, the kind of
satisfaction which the other sciences offer. But it does not offer, or
attempt to offer, a solution of the problem of human destiny, or of the
destiny of the universe.
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