Published in 1945, philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russel’s masterpiece covers the evolution of western philosophy from the rise of Greek civilization (the sixth century BCE) until modern times (around 1945 at the time).
It is a special experience to watch your own species’ thought develop over millennia. One gets the sense that we were once an infant, and while it’s unclear how grown up we are now, we can see that everything we take for granted: the planet, galaxy, and universe we inhabit; ethics, morality, politics, conceptions of God, and our awareness of consciousness itself – all of these things we built up with a great deal of hard work.
This 2,500+ year story can be broken into a few important periods:
Ancient Philosophy
The birthplace of Western philosophy was Ancient Greece. They were a uniquely free-thinking culture, particularly the Athenians. This gave us many important philosophers and mathematicians, with Plato and Aristotle being the most influential by far.
Catholic Philosophy
As Catholicism gained popularity and political influence in the region through the Roman Empire, original philosophical thought was stifled for more than a thousand years. To put forward theories about the world that didn’t align with the views of the Church was dangerous. As a result, there were very few philosophical innovations during this time. The closest we got to innovative thought during this time was scholasticism – leading thinkers of the Church still had a great deal of respect for Plato and Aristotle, and made efforts to reconcile the views of those Greeks with scripture. This sometimes led to what could be called mental gymnastics.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, the political dynamics between popes and emperors was chaotic and led to many wars. Up until that point the papacy was enormously influential in the region, which was a major reason for the stifling of free-thinking philosophy. As a corrupt papacy continued to inflict chaos and conflict on the region, society in general grew tired of the pope’s influence, and the pope was eclipsed by emperors and kings.
The specific reasons for the declining influence of the pope varied by region, but in general “the papacy, which had become very worldly, appeared largely as a taxing agency, drawing to itself vast revenues which most countries which to retain at home. The popes no longer had or deserved the moral authority which had given them power”.
By the late 1300s there were two popes, each claiming ultimate authority. A general council was formed to choose the one true pope, but failed and actually ended up creating three popes. Finally one pope was selected in 1417 (Martin V).
Other developments also decreased the influence of the pope. “During the fifteenth century, various other causes were added to the decline of the papacy to produce a very rapid change, both political and cultural. Gunpowder strengthened central governments at the expense of feudal nobility...The new culture was essentially pagan, admiring Greece and Rome, and despising the Middle Ages…Vasco da Gamma and Columbus enlarged the world, and Copernicus enlarged the heavens...The long centuries of asceticism were forgotten in a riot of art and poetry and pleasure.”
So begins the Renaissance.
Modern Philosophy
This period is characterized by two main developments: the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of science.
The state replaces the Church as the main organizer of society. The French and American revolutions put democracy back in the forefront of political thought.
From the Italian renaissance onwards, philosophy seems to get both more abstract and more practical. Thinkers like Machiavelli were concerned with practical politics, while later modern philosophers went very deep in trying to construct a metaphysical system of thought.
Notes
I didn’t take great notes for the first two thirds of the book since I read it while traveling, but I will share my notes from the final third, which covers modern philosophy. The notes are somewhat disjointed and are mainly meant to serve as a trail to pick back up when trying to recollect what these philosophers contributed.
Hume
The Self: “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement”.
Skeptical doubt that we can know anything from empiricism. We can’t know that A causes B. Only that A is often followed by B in our experience.
“This skeptical doubt…is a malady…Carelessness and inattention alone can afford us any remedy.”
What I love about Hume is that he basically pushed philosophy so far to the point of nearly breaking it – and then basically said philosophy is a waste of time, we should just live our lives, and then subsequent philosopher spent years digesting and refuting (or developing) his claims.
From Russel: “There is no reason for studying philosophy–so Hume maintains–except that, to certain temperaments, this is an agreeable way of passing the time. ‘In all the incidents of life we ought still to preserve our skepticism. If we believe, that fire warms, or water refreshes, ‘tissue only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise. Nay if we are philosophers, it ought only to be upon skeptical principles, and from an inclination, which we feel to be employing ourselves after that manner.’ If he abandoned speculation, ‘I feel I should be a loser in point of pleasure; and this is the origin of my philosophy.
“Hume’s philosophy, whether true or false, represents the bankruptcy of eighteenth-century reasonableness. He starts out, like Locke, with the intention of being sensible and empirical, taking nothing on trust, but seeking whatever instruction is to be obtained from experience and observation. But…he arrives at the disastrous conclusion that from experience and observation nothing is to be learnt. There is no such thing as a rational belief: ‘If we believe that fire warms, or water refreshes, ’tis only because it costs too much pains to think otherwise.’ We cannot help believing, but no belief can be grounded in reason. Nor can one line of action be more rational than another, since all alike are based upon irrational convictions. This last conclusion, however, Hume seems not to have drawn. Even in his most skeptical chapter…he says: ‘Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.’ He has no right to say this. ‘Dangerous’ is a causal word, and a skeptic as to causation cannot know that anything is ‘dangerous’.
The Romantic Movement
“Revolt of solitary instincts against social bands is the key to the philosophy, the politics, and the sentiments of the romantic movement.”
“The first great figure in the movement is Rousseau.”
“The romantics did not aim at peace and quiet, but at vigorous and passionate individual life. They had no sympathy with industrialism, because it was ugly, because money-grubbing seemed to them unworthy of an immortal soul, and because the growth of modern economic organizations interfered with individual liberty. In the post-revolutionary period they were led into politics, gradually, through nationalism: each nation was felt to have a corporate soul, which could not be free so long as the boundaries of States were different from those of nations. In the first half of the nineteenth century, nationalism was the most vigorous of revolutionary principles, and most romantics ardently favored it.”
“Egoism, at first, made men expect from others a parental tenderness; but when they discovered, with indignation, that others had their own Ego, the disappointed desire for tenderness turned to hatred and violence. Man is not a solitary animal, and so long as social life survives, self-realization cannot be the supreme principle of ethics.”
Rousseau
Ever since Rousseau, reformers have been divided into two groups: Lock or Rousseau.
Rousseau led to Hitler
Lock led to Roosevelt and Churchill
Rousseau was for Sparta, against Athens.
Everything that distinguishes civilized man from the untutored barbarian is evil. (“Noble savage”)
“Man is naturally good, and only by institutions is he made bad” - Rousseau. Note this is the antithesis of original sin and redemption through the church.
The Social Contract advocated democracy and denied divine right of kings.
“Sometimes in the privacy of my study, with my hands pressed tight over my eyes in the darkness of the night, I am of opinion that there is no God. But look yonder: the rising of the sun, as it scatters the mists that cover the earth, and lays bare the wondrous glittering scene of nature, disperses at the same moment all cloud from my soul”. - Rousseau
Our natural feelings lead us to serve the common interest. Reason urges selfishness. Follow feeling rather than reason to be virtuous.
Likes Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus
Democracy best for small states.
Aristocracy best for middle sized states.
Monarchy best for large states.
“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are”.
“Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect government is not for men.”
Descartes took philosophy down a very abstract and subject path when he said “cogito ergo sum”.
Kant
Prussian. Founder of German Idealism – a reaction against Hume’s agnosticism.
“Every man is to be regarded as an end in himself.”
“There can be nothing more dreadful than that the actions of a man should be subject to the will of another”. (How to reconcile this with democracy? He was a believer).
Act only according to a maxim by which you can at the same time will that it shall become general law.
After French reign of terror he became suspicious of democracy: “The ‘whole people’, so-called, who carry their measures are really not all, but only a majority: so that here the universal will is in contradiction with itself and with the principle of freedom.”
Thought in the 19th Century
Big intellectual changes:
World got bigger (U.S., Russia, India)
Science (Darwin)
Machine production
Revolt against established systems
2 types:
Romantic revolt: Byron -> Schopenhauer -> Nietzsche -> Hitler
Rationalistic revolt: French Revolution-> England -> Marx -> Soviet Russia
Romantic revolt: Will at the expense of the intellect. Glorification of violence.
Darwin had a big impact on political thought. Biological economics in a world of free competition. According to this application of Darwin’s thought to man: animals are not born equal, why would we be. (This was not Darwin’s theory, but an adaptation of his theories to the political and social realm by others).
Darwin’s theories led to a general belief in progress – nature is working toward something.
Machine production led to a big increase in the sense of human power.
People in power can think bigger. They can change generations of tradition (eg. Change generations of peasant pagan culture in a single generation through education).
“The power of rulers against the human beings whose believes and aspirations they seek to control by scientific propaganda, especially education.”
No change is impossible.
This whole outlook is new. Had already cause cataclysms.
“To frame a philosophy capable of coping with men intoxicated with the prospect of almost unlimited power and also with the apathy of the powerless is the most pressing task of our time.”
Hegel
Unreality of separateness. The whole as an organism, complex – The Absolute.
Thesis: “The Absolute is Pure Being”
Antithesis: “The Absolute is Nothing”
Synthesis: “The Absolute is Becoming”
Note: This is an example of thesis/antithesis/synthesis given by Russel, but I have seen it described as a part of Hegel’s dialectic (more or less the unfolding of history toward it’s ultimate goal) where each generation puts forward either a thesis, antithesis, or synthesis. So generation 1 puts forward a thesis about the world, then generation two refutes that with an antithesis, and then generation synthesizes the two, and so on.
The character of any portion of the universe is so profoundly affected by its relations to the other parts and to the whole, that no true statement can be made about any part except to assign its place in the whole.
There can be only one true statement. There is no truth except the whole truth.
The state (especially the German state) is The Absolute according to Hegel.
When the State imposes laws or even oppression on the people, according to Hegel, that is “freedom” because it is the will of the Absolute acting freely.
Byron
Poet, hugely influential in Europe.
Aristocratic rebel. Titanic self assertion. Satanism.
Blend of snobbery and rebellion.
“Like you will he live, or like you will he perish: when decay’d, may he mingle his dust with own.”
Felt himself a great sinner, almost the equal of Satan.
Nationalism, Satanism, hero-worship: the legacy of Byron -> the soul of Germany
Schopenhauer
Pessimist. Influence by Hinduism and Buddhism.
Began the emphasis on will. Will is evil to him.
One vast will.
The less we exercise will the less we will suffer.
When we pierce the veil, we behold not God, but Satan, the wicked omnipotent will, perpetually busied in weaving a web of suffering for the torture of its creatures.
Hypocrite. Mean person.
Will superior to knowledge. Makes him important historically.
Nietzsche
An ethic that aims at power and is anti-Christian.
Loved Napoleon.
The “bungled and botched” majority should only be means to the excellence of the few. No claim to happiness or well-being, according to Russel’s interpretation of Nietzsche.
“The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that is its justification. We ought to desire the anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilization if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon made nationalism possible” - Nietzsche
Very bitter towards women.
The Utilitarians
Jeremy Bentham – head of “philosophical radicals”.
Two principles:
Greatest happiness principle
Association principle
Association principle is the mental (not physiological) version of a Pavlovian response. It sought to prove determinism of thought. A+B thought always triggers C.
Bentham wanted to establish a code of laws and social system that would automatically make men virtuous.
To Bentham, the good is pleasure and happiness (synonyms to him).
He cared little for liberty. Admired benevolent autocrats like Catherine the Great.
Contempt for “rights of man”.
Philosophical Radicals gave birth to two other schools: Darwinism and Socialism.
Socialism began with Ricard’s idea of the labor theory of value.
Robert Own took this and ran with it. Bentham and the Philosophical Radicals did not like it. James Mill was horrified and said: “These opinions, if they were to spread, would be the subversion of civilized society.”
Bergson
Action is the good.
Curious theories on past, present, future, and memory.
In memory the past lives on into the present and interpenetrates it. Apart from mind, the world would be perpetually dying and being born again.
Bergson claims something akin to Zeno’s arrow: at any moment an arrow in flight is only in one place, therefore it is not in motion. (Cinematograph)
Russel has a beautiful description of why this is wrong: “A cinematograph in which there are infinite number of pictures, and in which there is never a next picture because an infinite number come between any two, will perfectly represent a continuous motion.”
William James
Leader of American philosophy at the time.
“Radical empiricism”.
Denied subject-object relation.
Before, philosophers thought “knowing” was one entity (subject) becoming aware of another (object).
Rejected this dualism.
“Consciousness is the name of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first principles.”
Thoughts are made of the same stuff as material things.
Knowing is a relation between two portions of pure experience.
A given undivided portion of experience can be in one context a knower, in another something known.
“‘Pure experience’ is the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection.”
What do we mean by experience? Think: What is the difference between an event which is not experienced and one which is?
Believe truth and shun error.
“An idea is ‘true’ so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives.”
He says this mainly to justify belief in God, but it has many nonsensical impacts on logic.
Also – God the architect of the cosmos is forgotten. All that is remembered is belief in God.
John Dewey
Leading living (at the time) philosopher of America. Russel was a big fan.
New England liberalism.
Criticism of the traditional notion of “truth”, which is embodied in the theory he calls “instrumentalism”.
Old model: truth is static
Dewey’s model: True/false is replaced with the dynamic process of “inquiry” – a kind of negotiation between organism and environment.
Dewey’s theory: the relations of an organism to its environment are sometimes satisfactory to the organism, sometimes unsatisfactory. When the are unsatisfactory, the situation may be improved through mutual adjustment.
Russel adds: attitudes of man to environment has changed over time:
Greeks: Dread of hubris
Middle Ages: Carried submission further. Humility toward God.
Renaissance: human pride. Let to anarchy and disaster.
Modern: sense of collective human power. “Man, formerly too humble, thinks of himself as almost a god.
Russel finishes the chapter with a quote worth quoting in full: “In all this I feel a grave danger, the danger of what might be called cosmic impiety. The concept of “Truth” as something dependent upon facts largely outside human control has been one of the ways in which philosophy hitherto has inculcated the necessary element of humility. When this check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road towards a certain kind of madness–the intoxication of power which invaded philosophy with Fichte, and to which modern men, whether philosophers or not, are prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contributes to it is increasing the danger of vast social disaster.”
Philosophy of Logical Analysis
Philosophy can be broken into:
Mathematical: Plato, Aquinas, Spinoza, Kant
Empiricist: Democritus, Aristotle, Lock onwards
“The number of finite whole numbers must be an infinite number. But now comes a curious fact: the number of even numbers must be the same as the number of all whole numbers.”
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, …
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, …
There is one entry in the lower row for every one in the top row. Therefore the number of terms in the two rows must be the same, although the lower row consists of only half the terms in the top row.
Moving on: suppose I say “the golden mountain does not exist”. You ask “what is it that does not exist?”
“I think both mind and matter are merely convenient ways of grouping events. If there is anything that can be called ‘perception’ it must be in some degree an effect of the object perceived, and it must more or less resemble the object if it is to be a source of knowledge of the object.”
“When [light waves from the sun] reach a human eye, all sorts of things happen which would not happen elsewhere, ending up with what we call ‘seeing the sun’.”
Philosophy throughout its history has consisted of two parts in-harmoniously blended:
A theory of the nature of the world (metaphysics)
An ethical or political doctrine as to the best way of living
“The habit of careful veracity acquired in the practice of this philosophical method can be extended to the whole sphere of human activity, producing, wherever it exists, a lessening of fanaticism with an increasing capacity of sympathy and mutual understanding. In abandoning a part of its dogmatic pretensions, philosophy does not cease to suggest and inspire a way of life.”