A History of Western Philosophy

by Bertrand Russell

New York: Touchtone, 1945 (1972)

ISBN 0-671-20158-1

23 June 2004 4:45pm

I've spent around a year reading A History of Western Philosophy, Russell's huge compendium of philosophical thought up until the mid 1900s. The work is comprehensive; not in the sense that it explores every aspect of every important western philosopher through the ages, nor that it provides references for its facts or even suggestions for further reading. Rather, the book is thorough in following the main streams of philosophical thought and showing how the work products of various philosophers interrelate—all this contextualized by Russell's personal commentary in typical Russellian prose. Think: Asimov on Philosophy, if such a book were to exist.

Russell's writing style has been heralded by many contemporary philosophers, and it succeeds if only in contrast to the indecipherable writings of other philosophers—Russell simply tells you what he wants to tell you. In many cases, what Russell wants to tell you is his personal opinion on the matter at hand:

The notion of essence is an intimate part of every philosophy subsequent to Aristotle, until we come to modern times. It is, in my opinion, a hopelessly muddle-headed notion, but its historical importance requires us to say something about it. (200).

Russell however manages to keep his opinions distinct from his explication of the philosopher being discussed, but Russell's opinions shouldn't be dismissed—he is himself one of the most influential philosopher of the Twentieth Century. Russell wrote this tome as World War II was being fought. (789). This has two implications. First, his tale of later philosophical doctrines are explained with an implied context of the war and in terms of Allied and Nazi ethical positions and propoganda. Secondly, more recent developments in philosophy (such as Gödel's blow to the project behind Russell's Principia Mathematica, and contemporary philosophers who have concentrated almost exclusively on the philosophy of language) are not covered in this volume.

But the book does guide one through philosophers from ancient Greece to World War II, and one could hardly ask for a better guide than Russell. At times one feels that, having passed through several generations, whatever was learned a few chapters back has been forever forgotten to make room for new material. In the end, this isn't the case—the farther one progresses through the book, one begins to see common threads appear and remember, if vaguely, how these threads run back to the earlier chapters (of the book and of human history).

Still, one cannot hope to remember in one pass everything Russell attempts to convey. The book is almost too much for an initial introduction to philosophy as well. Its place in philosophical studies therefore lies at two points: that at which one has a grasp on a general outline of what philosophy is, and wants to then find out what, why, and how philosphy is; and that at which one has read respective original materials of philosophers and wishes to remember and better understand how that work fits into the project which is Western Philosophy.

This book can be read alone, and also works well in conjunction with The Great Philosophers, which itself derives much of its background and attitude from Russell's work. It can be read early or late in one's study's of philosophy. What seems beyond dispute, however, is that it should be read; until another Russell comes along to update it, this work remains the best tying together of the strands of ideas that constitute modern Western thought.

Notes

"Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales." (xiv).
"Geometry, as established by the Greeks, starts with axioms which are (or are deemed to be) self-evident, and proceeds, by deductive reasoning, to arrive at theorems that are very far from self-evident. The axioms and theorems are held to be true of actual space, which is something given in experience. It thus appeared to be possible to discover things about the actual world by first noticing what is self-evident and then using deduction. This view influenced Plato and Kant, and most of the intermediate philosophers. When the Declaration of Independence says "we hold these truths to be selfevident," it is modelling itself on Euclid." (36). "Self-evident" was substituted by Franklin for Jefferson's "sacred and undeniable." (36 n. )
Pythagoras initiated the combination of mathematics and theology, although implicitly. This characterized religious philosophy down to Kant: that the eternal world can be conceptualized through the intellect, not the senses. It is because of Pythagoras that Christians think of Christ as the Word. (37).
Heraclitus believed that "there would be no unity if there were not opposites to combine: 'it is the opposite which is good for us.'" "This doctrine contains the germ of Hegel's philosophy, which proceeds by a synthesising of opposites." (44). He saw change everywhere (44-45).
Plutarch created a mythical view of Sparta, and over the years people remembered an ideal of Sparta, not the squabbles. "Of these [memories], Plato was the most important in early Christianity, Aristotle in the medieval Church; but when, after the Renaissance, men began to value political freedom, it was above all to Plutarch that they turned. He influenced profoundly the English and French liberals of the eighteenth century, and the founders of the United States; he influenced the romantic movement in Germany, and has continued, mainly by indirect channels, to influence German thought down to the present day." (101).
"Ethical theories may be divided into two classes, according as they regard virtue as an end or a means. Aristotle, on the whole, takes the view that virtues are means to an end, namely happiness. ... Christian moralists hold that, while the consequences of virtuous actions are in general good, they are not as good as the virtuous actions themselves, which are to be valued on their own account, and not on account of their effects." (178-179).
Aristotle: doctrine of the golden mean. (173).
"'Usury' means all lending money at interest, not only, as now, lending at an exorbitant rate. ... Greek philosophers belonged to, or were employed by, the landowning class; they therefore disapproved of interest. Mediaeval philosophers were churchmen, and the property of the Church was mainly in land; they therefore saw no reason to revise Aristotle's opinion. Their objection to usury was reinforced by anti-Semitism, for most fluid capital was Jewish. With the Reformation, the situation changed. Many of the most earnest Protestants were business men, to whom lending money at interest was essential. Consequently first Calvin, and then other Protestant divines, sanctioned interest." (187).
"Aristotle's most important work in logic is the doctrine of the syllogism." (196).
Aristotle blurred the distinction between particulars and universals in his logic. "One of the resulting confusions was to suppose that a class with only one member is identical with that one member. This made it impossible to have a correct theory of the number one, and led to endless bad metaphysics about unity." (198).
"All the important inferences outside logic and pure mathematics are inductive, not deductive; the only exceptions are law and theology, each of which derives its first principles from an unquestionable text, viz. the statute books or the scriptures." (199).
Typical Russell opinion: "The notion of essence is an intimate part of every philosophy subsequent to Aristotle, until we come to modern times. It is, in my opinion, a hopelessly muddle-headed notion, but its historical importance requires us to say something about it." (200).
Epicurus espoused static pleasure, the absence of pain rather that an active attempt at achieving a pleasurable experience. "Epicurus, it seems, would wish, if it were possible, to be always in the state of having eaten moderately, never in that of voracious desire to eat." (244). "[T]he Epicureans contributed pract'cally nothing to natural knowledge. They served a useful purpose by their protest against the increasing devotion of the later pagans to magic, astrology, and divination; but they remained, like their founder, dogmatic, limited, and without genuine interest in anything outside individual happiness. They learnt by heart the creed of Epicurus, and added nothing to it throughout the centuries during which the school survived." (247-248).
The Stoics believed in determinism and the value of virtue separate from any utilitarian result. (254).
"The hypothetical and disjunctive syllogism, as well as the word 'disjunction,' are due to the Stoics; so is the study of grammar and the invention of 'cases' in declension." (258).
"[The Stoic, Marcus Aurelius] ... learned (he says) ... from Alexander the grammarian, not to correct bad grammar in others, but to use the right expression shortly afterwards; from Alexander the Platonist, not to excuse tardiness in answering a letter by the plea of press of business ...." (265).
"There is, in fact, an element of sour grapes in Stoicism. We can't be happy, but we can be good; let us therefore pretend that, so long as we are good, it doesn't matter being unhappy. This doctrine is heroic, and, in a bad world, useful; but it is neither quite true nor, in a fundamental sense, quite sincere." (269). The Stoics did, however, come up with the idea of natural right and of all human beings being equal. (270).
"Their importance [of the Arabs] ... is that they, and not the Christians, were the immediate inheritors of those parts of the Greek tradition which only the Eastern Empire had kept alive. Contact with the Mohammedans, in Spain, and to a lesser extent in Sicily, made the West aware of Aristotle; also of Arabic numerals, algebra and chemistry. It was this contact that began the revival of learning in the eleventh century, leading to the Scholastic philosophy. It was much later, from the thirteenth century onward, that the study of Greek enabled men to go direct to the works of Plato and Aristotle and other Greek writers of antiquity. But if the Arabs had not preserved the tradition, the men of the Renaissance might not have suspected how much was to be gained by the revival of classical learning." (283).
"Plotinus (A.D. 204-270), the founder of Neoplatonism, is the last of the great philosophers of antiquity." (284).
"Christians put the Church in place of the Chosen People, but except in one respect this made little difference to the psychology of sin. … Originally, it was the Jewish nation that sinned, and that was collectively punished; but later sin became more personal, thus losing its political character. When the Church was substituted for the Jewish nation, this change became essential, since the Church, as a spiritual entity, could not sin, but the individual sinner could cease to be in communion with the Church. … It thus came about that Christian theology had two parts, one concerned with the Church, and one with the individual soul. In later times, the first of these was most emphasized by Catholics, and the second by Protestants, but in Saint Augustine both exist equally, without his having any sense of disharmony." (346).
Saint Augustine comes up with an impressively theory of time. God created time when God created the world, and is separate from and exempt from time. God did not precede this creation, because this would imply that God subject to time; God is instead outside the stream of time. All time is present to him at once. (353).
Saint Augustine has to decide between the Septuagint and the Vulgate. The former says that Methuselah survived the flood by 14 years, which is impossible because Methuselah was not on the ark. Saint Augustine side with Jerome's Vulgate which, following the Hebrew, has Methuselah dying the year of the flood. (360).
"It may seem odd that the damnation of unbaptized infants should not have been thought shocking, but should have been attributed to a good God. The conviction of sin … so dominated [St. Augustine] that he really believed new-born children to be limbs of Satan. A great deal of what is most ferocious in the medieval Church is traceable to his gloomy sense of universal guilt." (365)
"It is strange that the last men of intellectual eminence before the dark ages were concerned, not with saving civilization or expelling the barbarians or reforming the abuses of the administration, but with preaching the merit of virginity and the damnation of unbaptized infants. Seeing that these were the preoccupations that the Church handed on to the converted barbarians, it is no wonder that the succeeding age surpassed almost all other fully historical periods in cruelty and superstition." (366).
Our superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to political institutions slowly built up during the Middle Ages. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why this superiority should continue. In the present war, great military strength has been shown by Russia, China, and Japan. All these combine Western technique with Eastern ideology—Byzantine, Confucian, or Shinto. India, if liberated, will contribute another Oriental element. It seems not unlikely that, during the next few centuries, civilization, if it survives, will have greater diversity than it has had since the Renaissance. There is an imperialism of culture which is harder to overcome than the imperialism of power. Long after the Western Empire fell—indeed until the Reformation—all European culture retained a tincture of Roman imperialism. It now has, for us, a West-European imperialistic flavour. I think that, if we are to feel at home in the world after the present war, we shall have to admit Asia to equality in our thoughts, not only politically, but culturally. What changes this will bring about, I do not know, but I am convinced that they will be profound and of the greatest importance. (399-400).
Saint Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109), was the inventor of the "ontological argument" for the existence of God. (417).
Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be underrated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization—education, books, and learned leisure. (427).
There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times. (463).
"[T]he power conferred by [science as] technique[—that is, practical science rather than theoretical science—] is social, not individual; an average individual wrecked on a desert island could have achieved more in the seventeenth century than he could now." (494).
"The Renaissance was not a popular movement; it was a movement of a small number of scholars and artists, encouraged by liberal patrons, especially the Medici and the humanist popes." (501).
"Most of the humanists retained such superstitious beliefs as had fotind support in antiquity. … The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make men think rationally, but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense." (502).
The Neoplatonists, the Arabs, and the Schoolmen took a passionate interest in the metaphysics of Plato and Aristotle, but none at all in their political writings, because the political systems of the age of City States had completely disappeared. The growth of City States in Italy synchronized with the revival of learning, and made it possible for humanists to profit by the political theories of republican Greeks and Romans. The love of "liberty," and the theory of checks and balances, came to the Renaissance from antiquity, and to modern times largely from the Renaissance, though also directly from antiquity. This aspect of Machiarelli is at least as important as the more famous "immoral" doctrines of The Prince. (509).
The modern world, so far as mental outlook is concerned, begins in the seventeenth century. No Italian of1 the Renaissance would have been unintelligible to Plato or Aristotle; Luther would have horrified Thomas Aquinas, but would not have been difficult for him to understand. With the seventeenth century it is different: Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas and Occam, could not have made head or tail of Newton. (525).
Luther of Copernicus: "People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." (528).
[T]he conception of "force," which is prominent in the seventeenth century, has been found to be superfluous. … The modern physicist …merely states formulas which determine accelerations, and avoids the word "force" altogether. "Force" was the faint ghost of the vitalist view as to the causes of motions, and gradually the ghost has been exorcized. (539).
Bacon's inductive method is faulty through insufficient emphasis on hypothesis. He hoped that mere orderly arrangement of data would make the right hypothesis obvious, but this is seldom the case. … Usually some hypothesis is a necessary preliminary to the collection of facts, since the selection of facts demands some way of determining relevance. Without something of this kind, the mere multiplicity of facts is baffling. (544-545).
The merits of Hobbes appear most clearly when he is contrasted with earlier political theorists. He is completely free from superstition; he does not argue from what happened to Adam and Eve at the time of the Fall. He is clear and logical; his ethics, right or wrong, is completely intelligible, and does not involve the use of any dubious concepts. Apart from Machiavelli, who is much more limited, he is the first really modern writer on political theory. Where he is wrong, he is wrong from over-simplification, not because the basis of his thought is unreal and fantastic. (556).
"René Descartes (1596-1650) is usually considered the founder of modern philosophy, and, I think, rightly." (557).
The God of the Old Testament is a God of power, the God of the New Testament is also a God of love; but the God of the theologians, from Aristotle to Calvin, is one whose appeal is intellectual: His existence solves certain puzzles which otherwise would create argumentative difficulties in the understanding of the universe. This Deity who appears at the end of a piece of reasoning, like the proof of a proposition in geometry, did not satisfy Rousseau, who reverted to a conception of God more akin to that of the Gospels. In the main, modern theologians, especially such as are Protestant, have followed Rousseau in this respect. The philosophers have been more conservative; in Hegel, Lotze, and Bradley arguments of the metaphysical sort persist, in spite of the fact that Kant professed to have demolished such arguments once for all. (585).
In his popular philosophy, Leibniz put forth four arguments for the existence of God: (1) the ontological argument, (2) the cosmological argument, (3) the argument from the eternal truths, and (4) the argument from the pre-established harmony, "which may be generalized into the argument from design, or the physico-theological argument, as Kant calls it." (585). The latter argument gives rise to the doctrine of many possible worlds, in which God decided to create the best world possible. This world world contains evil because it makes the good better than in a world in which there was no contrasting evil. (589). "This argument apparently satisfied the queen of Prussia. Her serfs continued to suffer the evil, while she continued to enjoy the good, and it was comforting to be assured by a great philosopher that this was just and right. (590)."

Russell points out that one could just as easily say that the universe was created with good just to make the evil worse than if there were no contrasting good. "People wish to think the universe good, and will be lenient, to bad arguments proving that it is so, while bad arguments proving that it is bad are closely scanned. In fact, of course, the world is partly good and partly bad, and no 'problem of evil' arises unless this obvious fact is denied." (590)
[Leibniz] did work on mathematical logic which would have been enormously important if he had published it; he would, in that case, have been the founder of mathematical logic, which would have become known a century and a half sooner than it did in fact. He abstained from publishing, because he kept on finding evidence that Aristotle's doctrine of the syllogism was wrong on some points; respect for Aristotle made it impossible for him to believe this, so he mistakenly supposed that the errors must be his own. (591-592).
"Leibniz, in his private thinking, is the best example of a philosopher who uses logic as a key to metaphysics. … This kind of argumentation has fallen into disrepute owing to the growth of empiricism." (595).
"[Locke's] political doctrines, with the developments due to Montesquieu, are embedded in the American Constitution, and are to be seen at work whenever there is a dispute between President and Congress. The British Constitution was based upon his doctrines until about fifty years ago, and so was that which the French adopted in 1871." (605).
"Locke may be regarded as the founder of empiricism, which is the doctrine that all our knowledge (with the possible exception of logic and mathematics) is derived from experience." (609).
Locke believed that all knowledge comes either through intuition, reason, or by sensation. At another place, says that all knowledge is "the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas," which causes paradoxes in knowing things through perceptions, if one assumes those perceptions have external cause (an assumption Hume did not make). (612).
Russell claims that, "Almost all philosophers, in their ethical systems, first lay down a false doctrine, and then argue that wickedness consists in acting in a manner that proves it false, which would be impossible if the doctrine were true." (617).
Locke pointed out problems with the idea that political rule should follow family lines. At first this seems an easy proposition to refute. Russell points out, though, that:

It is curious that the rejection of the hereditary principle in politics has had almost no effect in the economic sphere in democratic countries. … We still think it natural that a man should leave his property to his children; that is to say, we accept the hereditary principle as regards economic power while rejecting it as regards political power. … When you consider how natural it seems to us that the power over the lives of others resulting from great wealth should be hereditary, you will understand better how men like Sir Robert Filmer could take the same view as regards the power of kings, and how important was the innovation represented by men who thought as Locke did. (622).
When he comes to Berkeley (after which "the town of Berkeley in California" was named (648)), Russell begins to examine contemporary issues of philosophy more in depth, in his usual conversational style:
It remains to be asked whether any meaning can be attached"to the words "mind" and "matter." Every one knows that "mind" is what an idealist thinks there is nothing else but, and "matter" is what a materialist thinks the same about. The reader knows also, I hope, that idealists are virtuous and materialists are wicked. But perhaps there may be more than this to be said. (658).
"My own definition of 'matter' may seem unsatisfactory; I should define it as what satisfies the equations of physics. There may be nothing satisfying these equations; in that case either physics or the concept 'matter' is a mistake." (658). Indeed that does seem to be an unsatisfactory definition, for even in Russell's time it was becoming evident that what we refer to as "matter" do not satisfy exactly the equations of physics, although such equastions provide a very close approximation. The equations of quantum physics produce more accurate predictions—but does Russell really mean to say that there is therefore no matter? Perhaps the latter part is correct—in this case, physics is wrong. But is it of import that we now have a new set of equations to explain the same set of phenomena, and would Russell, upon reflection, say that, "I should define it as what satisfies the equations of quantum mechanics?" Infinitely extending this type of explanation, Russell's "definition" then becomes, "'matter' is the thing we try to predict with equations of physics, and if there is nothing there that we're trying to predict, then there is no matter." This is certainly true, and is moreover tautological. It is more of an identification than a definition, however, as there are many other ways to describe matter, similarly based upon human experiences and linguistics.
"[T]he modern philosophy of causation" begins with Hume. (664).
If Hume's objective doctrine is right, we have no better reason for expectations in psychology than in the physical world. Hume's theory might be caricatured as follows: "The proposition 'A causes B' means 'the impression of A causes the idea of B.' " As a definition, this is not a happy effort. (667).
What [Hume's] arguments prove—and I do not think the proof can be controverted— is that induction is an independent logical principle, incapable of being inferred either from experience or from other logical principles, and that without this principle science is impossible. (674).
Modern Protestants who urge us to believe in God, for the most part, despise the old "proofs," and base their faith upon some aspect of human nature—emotions of awe or mystery, the sense of right and wrong, the feeling of aspiration, and so on. This way of defending religious belief was invented by Rousseau. It has become so familiar that his originality may easily not be appreciated by a modern reader, unless he will take the trouble to compare Rousseau with (say) Descartes or Leibniz. (691).
The conception in Rousseau's mind [between the will of all and the general will] seems to be this: every man's political opinion is governed by self-interest, but self-interest consists of two parts, one of which is peculiar to the individual, while the other is common to all the members of the community. If the citizens have no opportunity of striking log-rolling bargains with each other, their individual interests, being divergent, will cancel out, and there will be left a resultant which will represent their common interest; this resultant is the general will. (698).
On Hegel's Philosophy of History: "It is odd that a process which is represented as cosmic should all have taken place on our planet, and most of it near the Mediterranean." (735).
Hegel's logic led him to believe that there is more reality or excellence (the two for him are synonyms) in wholes than in their parts, and that a whole increases in reality and excellence as it becomes more organized. This justified him in preferring a State to an anarchic collection of individuals, but it should equally have led him to prefer a world State to an anarchic collection of States. (742)
Historically, two things are important about Schopenhauer: his pessimism, and his doctrine that will is superior to knowledge. … More important than pessimism was the doctrine of the primacy of the will. … And in proportion as will has gone up in the scale, knowledge has gone down. This is, I think, the most notable change that has come over the temper of philosophy in our age. It was prepared by Rousseau and Kant, but was first proclaimed in its purity by Schopenhauer. For this reason, in spite of inconsistency and a certain shallowness, his philosophy has considerable importance as a stage in historical development. (758-759).
Russell sees much of Nietzsche's philosophy as stemming from Nietzsche's insecurities:
[T]here is a great deal in him that must be dismissed as merely megalomaniac. Speaking of Spinoza he says: "How much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!" Exactly the same may be said of him, with the less reluctance since he has not hesitated to say it of Spinoza. It is obvious that in his day-dreams he is a warrior, not a professor; all the men he admires were military. His opinion of women, like every man's, is an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. "Forget not thy whip"—but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks. … It never occurred to Nietzsche that the lust for power, with which he endows his superman, is itself an outcome of fear (767).
Surely speaking of World War II, Russell says, "Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end. (773).
Hegel believed in a mystical entity called "Spirit," which causes human history to develop according to the stages of the dialectic as set forth in Hegel's Logic. Why Spirit has to go through these stages is not clear. One is tempted to suppose that Spirit is trying to understand Hegel, and at each stage rashly objectifies what it has been reading." (784).
"I am writing in 1943." (789).
The classification of philosophies is effected, as a rule, either by their methods or by their results: "empirical" and "a priori" is a classification by methods, "realist" and "idealist" is a classification by results. (791)
In the rise of [practical] philosophy we may see, as Bergson himself does, the revolt of the modern man of action against the authority of Greece, and more particularly of Plato; or we may connect it, as Dr. Schiller apparently would, with imperialism and the motorcar. The modern world calls for such a philosophy, and the success which it has achieved is therefore not surprising. (792).
This hearkens to Lyotard's proposal that in modern times an emphasis is on efficiency and performativity rather than the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
From Frege's work it followed that arithmetic, and pure mathematics generally, is nothing but a prolongation of deductive logic. This disproved Kant's theory that arithmetical propositions are "synthetic" and involve a reference to time. The development of pure mathematics from logic was set forth in detail in Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and myself. (830)
Unfortunately, Gödel later showed that such a system eventually will run into some true mathematical statements that it cannot prove.

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