Bertrand Russell discusses philosophy

[Music] well Russell what is philosophy well that's a very controversial question I think no two philosophers would give you the same answer my own view would be that philosophy consists of speculations about matters where tech knowledge is not yet possible but that really be my answer not anybody else's what's the difference between philosophy and science well roughly you say science is what we know and philosophy is what we don't know that's a simple definition and for that reason Christians are perpetually passing over from philosophy into science as knowledge advances when something is established and discovered it ceases to be philosophy and becomes sence yes and all sorts of questions that used to be labeled philosophy are no longer so labeled what good is philosopher I think philosophy has two uses really one of them is to keep alive speculation about things that are not yet aable to scientific knowledge how after all scientific knowledge covers a very small part of the things that interest Mankind and ought to interest them there are a great many things of immense interest about which science at present at any has nothing to say and I don't want people's imaginations to be limited and enclosed within what can be now known and I think to enlarge your imaginative perview of the world into the hypothetical realm is one of the uses of philosophy but there's another use which I think is equally important which is to show that there are things we thought we knew and don't know on the one hand to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seemed like knowledge isn't knowledge could you give some illustrations of the sort of subject which have been speculated about and then produce some material result later yes it's quite easy to do so especially from Greek philosophy the Greeks invented a whole lot of hypotheses which turned out valuable later but which in their day couldn't be tested take for example the atomic hypothesis democratus invented the atomic hypothesis that matter consists of little atoms and after about 2,000 years rather more than that it turned out that this was the the right scientific view but in his day it was merely a suggestion but didn't Plato think that democracies' theory about atham was a lot of nonsense Pato was horrified by him said all his books ought to be burnt because Pato didn't like science he liked mathematics but he didn't take anything else that was scientific now in this way philosophy in a sense becomes a kind of servant of science well that's part of it but of course it isn't only a servant of science because there are a number of things that science can't deal with all questions of values for example science won't tell you what is good and what is bad tell you what is good or bad as an end not just as a means what change has there been over the years in the attitude of philosophers and the public to philosophy would is there well that depends upon the school of philosophy that you're thinking of in Plato and in Aristotle both of them there was the main thing was an attempt to understand the world and that I should say personally is what philosophy ought to be doing but then you come on to the stck and their emphasis was mainly on on morality that you ought to be sterical you ought to endure misfortunes patiently and that came to be the popular use of a philosopher would you say that Marx was a philosopher well he was in certainly in a sense a philosopher but now there you have an important division among philosophers there are some philosophers who exist to uphold the status quo and others who exist to upset it and Marx of course belongs to the second lot for my part I should reject both those as being not the true business of a philosopher and I should say the business of a philosopher is not to change the world but to understand it which is the exact opposite of what marks said what kind of a philosopher would you say you are well the only label I've is logical atomist but very keen on the label I've rather avoided labels mean a logical atom it means in my mind that the way to get at the nature of any subject matter you're looking at is analysis and that you can analyze until you get to things that can't be analyzed any further and those would be logical atoms I call them logical atoms because they're not little bits of matter they the so to speak ideas out of which the thing is built up what is the main trend of philosophy today well one would have to distinguish there between English speaking countries and Continental European countries the trends are much more separate than they used to be very much more in English speaking countries and especially in England there is a new philosophy which has arisen I think through the desire to find a separate field for philosophy in what I was saying a moment ago it would appear that philosophy is merely incomplete science and there are people who don't like that view they want to have science have a philosophy have a sphere to itself that has led them in to what you may call linguistic philosophy that the important thing for the philosopher is not to answer questions but to get the meaning of the questions quite clear I can't myself agree to that view but I could give an illustration I was once bicycling to Winchester and I lost my way and I went to a village shop and I said can you tell me the shortest way to Winchester and the man I asked called to a man in a back region whom I couldn't see gentleman want no shortest way to Winchester and the voice came back Winchester I way to Winchester I shortest way I don't know so I had to go on without getting an answer well that is what oord philosophy thinks one should do we get the question right never mind about the answer yes somebody else's business to give the answer how does this differ from the Continental approach the Continental approach is well it's more full-blooded I I don't agree with it anymore but in a sense it's much more full-blooded and much more like philosophies of earlier times there are various kinds there the philosophy that comes from Kar existentialism and then there's there are philosophies designed to to provide apologetics for traditional religion there are various things of that sort I don't think myself that there's anything very important in all that what practical use is your sort of philosophy to a man who wants to know how to conduct himself a great many people write to me saying they're now completely puzzled as to how they ought to conduct themselves because they've ceased to accept the traditional signpost to right action and don't know what others to adopt and I think that the sort of philosophy I believe in is useful in this way that it enables people to act with Vigor when they're not absolutely certain that that is the right action I think nobody should be certain of anything if you're certain you're certainly wrong because nothing deserves certainty and so one ought always to hold all one's beliefs with a certain element of doubt and one ought to be able to act vigorously in spite of the doubt after all this is what a general does when he's planning a battle he doesn't quite know what the enemy will do but if he's a good General he guess he right he's a bad General he cases wrong but one has in Practical life to act upon probabilities and what I should look to philosophy to do is to encourage people to act with Vigor without complete certainty yes but now how about this business though of um making people so uncertain about things they sort of believ and had faith in uh doesn't that rather disturb them when it does for a time of course and I think a certain amount of disturbance is an essential part of mental training but if they have any knowledge of science they get a ballast which enables them to avoid being completely upset by the doubts that they ought to feel what do you think is the future of philosophy I don't think philosophy can in the future have anything like the importance that it had either to the Greeks or in the Middle Ages I think the rise of science inevitably diminishes the importance of philosophy well would you summarize the value of philosopher first because as I say it keeps you realizing that there are very big and very important questions that science at any rate at present can't be deal with and that a scientific attitude by itself is not adequate and the second thing it does is to make people a little more modest intellectually and aware that great many things which have been thought certain turned out to be untrue and that there's no shortcut to knowledge that the understanding of the world which to my mind is the underlying purpose that every philosopher should have that that is a very long and difficult business about which we ought not to be dogmatic thank you Lord russle [Music]