Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Enjoy quick summaries of books that will help you lead a better life. These podcasts are AI generated with gentle, kind human guidance! These are part of the Healthspan360 collection, dedicated to enhancing wellness and longevity.
Welcome to the deep dive. Today we're, sort of taking reality apart and trying to rebuild it using just logic. We're diving into a real classic. Bertrand Russell's 1912 book, The Problems of Philosophy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's amazing. He wrote this like right after finishing the Principia Mathematica, this huge decade long slog. He apparently needed something different and this little book which he actually called his shilling shocker ended up being this incredibly clear but also quite unsettling intro to
Speaker 1:And it all kicks off with this one big question doesn't it? Is there anything we know for sure? Yeah. Something so certain that no reasonable person could actually doubt it?
Speaker 2:Exactly. And where does he start? Not with God or anything grand, nope. Chapter one, he just looks at his table. The most ordinary thing, we assume it's solid, brown, rectangular, whatever.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. But the second you really look at it philosophically, that simple table becomes, as he puts it, a problem full of surprising possibilities.
Speaker 1:Okay. Right. Let's unpack that then. So our mission here is to follow Russell's thinking. He's focusing mostly on epistemology basically.
Speaker 1:What can we know? What can we reasonably believe? And he tries to stick to areas where he feels he can be, you know, constructive.
Speaker 2:And the table is just perfect for that because it throws you straight into this divide between appearance and reality, what you see, the color, the shape, how it feels, that's all just sense data. It's subjective. It changes with the light, your angle, who's looking.
Speaker 1:So the actual physical object, the table itself.
Speaker 2:That's not something you directly know. It's inference you make based on all that shifting sense data.
Speaker 1:Hold on. So every time I look at, say, a tree, I'm not actually seeing the tree. I'm just seeing my own private little light show colors, shapes, and I just hope it matches up with a real tree out there. Yeah. That sounds, incredibly shaky.
Speaker 2:It does feel shaky. And that feeling is why Russell argues that all our knowledge ultimately has to rest on what he calls our instinctive beliefs. Things like, well, the belief that there is external world.
Speaker 1:So philosophy isn't about destroying those instincts.
Speaker 2:Not for Russell here. It's more about examining them critically, you know, organizing them, making them coherent, trying to weed out the errors.
Speaker 1:Right. So he's working within that sort of British empiricist tradition, take common sense seriously, but then hit it with some serious logical analysis. And he gives us tools for this, right? These two kinds of knowledge.
Speaker 2:That's it. Knowledge by acquaintance, what you know directly, and knowledge by description, what you know about something indirectly.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's see how these tools work. He starts with certainty, like Descartes. I think, therefore I am. But Russell thinks even that goes a bit too far.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he drills down even further. He argues the absolute rock bottom certainty isn't the existence of some permanent I that's doing the thinking, it's just the experience itself in that very moment.
Speaker 1:So not I am seeing brown, but
Speaker 2:just Yes, brown color is being seen. That momentary awareness. That's the bedrock, the eye, the continuous self. That's another inference. Like the table.
Speaker 2:You're certain of the feeling or the seeing, but the existence of a persistent soul or self. That's a step beyond immediate certainty.
Speaker 1:Okay. What about getting from that sense data to actual matter? If all we directly know are these private mental flickers, why believe in tables and chairs and, you know, the physical world at all? Could it all just be a dream?
Speaker 2:Logically speaking, yes. That's solipsism, the idea that maybe only your mind exists. But Russell argues against it. Not because it's logically impossible, but because believing in matter in an external world is just simpler. It provides a better, more coherent explanation for our experiences.
Speaker 1:Simpler. How's that work?
Speaker 2:He uses the example of a cat.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:If the cat was just your sense data, then when you look away, poof, it stops existing. Look back, and suddenly it just springs back into being, maybe in a totally different spot.
Speaker 1:Which is weird.
Speaker 2:And weirder still, if the cat is just your sense data, it can't actually be hungry because its hunger isn't the sense datum you are experiencing. Believing in a real independent cat that gets hungry and moves around even when you're not looking. That's just the simplest way to make sense of the pattern of your sense data.
Speaker 1:Okay. Occam's razor basically. The simplest explanation is usually the best. So if the physical world is an inference, what are we directly acquainted with? Let's nail down those two types of knowledge again.
Speaker 2:Right. Knowledge by acquaintance. This is the direct awareness. No inference needed. Russell lists a few things.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Our immediate sense data, the brownness, the hardness, memories though maybe less certain, introspection, knowing your own thoughts and feelings, and crucially universals. Universals. Yeah. Like concepts. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Abstract ideas like whiteness itself or equality or relations like bigger than or to the left of. These aren't things you bump into but you grasp them directly.
Speaker 1:And then the other kind.
Speaker 2:Knowledge by description. This is knowing that something is the case, usually via a unique description, like knowing who Bismarck was because you know him as the first chancellor of the German empire even though you never met him.
Speaker 1:So this is knowledge about things rather than direct contact with things.
Speaker 2:Precisely. And this is incredibly important because knowledge by description is what allows us, as Russell puts it, to pass beyond the limits of our private experience. It's how we can know about history, science, other people's minds, even physical objects as inferred entities.
Speaker 1:Okay. Speaking of things we rely on, but maybe can't strictly prove, let's talk about induction. You know, the assumption that the future will basically follow the same rules as the past, like the sun will rise tomorrow, bread will nourish us, not poison
Speaker 2:us. Yeah, induction is a big one. Russell points out quite starkly that you can't actually prove induction using experience. Why? Because that would be circular reasoning.
Speaker 2:You'd be using past experience to prove that past experience is a reliable guide to the future.
Speaker 1:It's like his famous chicken analogy.
Speaker 2:Exactly. The chicken gets fed every single morning by the farmer. It builds up a very strong inductive belief. Farmer appears, food follows. Until the morning, the farmer appears and wings its neck instead.
Speaker 1:Past performance is no guarantee of future results, as they say. What? Yeah. That's a bit chilling. Our whole scientific method, our daily expectations rest on something we can't actually prove.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. Russell concludes, We have to accept the principle of induction, the idea that if two things have been found associated frequently, they're likely to be associated in the next instance based on its intrinsic evidence. It just seems inherently reasonable. It's a necessary presupposition for us to function rationally, but it's not a demonstrable law of nature.
Speaker 1:Okay, but what about things that do seem absolutely certain, without needing experience, like maths (two plus two plus four) or logic. If empirical knowledge is wobbly because of induction, how does a priori knowledge work? This gets us to his idea of the world of being, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, this is a really fascinating kind of platonic idea. Russell argues that a priori knowledge deals exclusively with universals, those abstract qualities and relations we talked about.
Speaker 1:Semptunus or equality.
Speaker 2:Right. And he makes this crucial distinction. Universals don't exist in time and space like physical objects or minds do. They subsist. They have being.
Speaker 1:Okay. Exist versus subsist. So this world of being.
Speaker 2:Is unchangeable, rigid, exact, as he says. Our certainty about two plus two equals four comes from grasping the timeless necessary relationship between these subsisting universals. It doesn't depend on counting apples or anything in the messy changing world of existence.
Speaker 1:So stepping back from the specific arguments, what makes this book so enduring? People praise its clarity obviously.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. Absolutely. The style is just brilliant, clear, crisp, undogmatic, made really difficult philosophy accessible. But beyond style, its method is key. He practices what you might call constructive criticism.
Speaker 2:Meaning? He doesn't just tear everything down into total skepticism. He starts with our common sense, instinctive beliefs like in matter or induction, and tries to find the most rational logical justification for holding onto them, usually based on simplicity and coherence.
Speaker 1:And he also used logic to kinda open things Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's another highlight. He was really up on the latest developments in logic and mathematics like Georg Cantor's work on infinity. He showed how logic could demonstrate that concepts previously thought paradoxical or impossible like actual infinite collections were perfectly coherent. It sort of frees the mind from the limits of just everyday intuition or common sense.
Speaker 1:But it's not without his problems. Right? Where do people find issues with Russell's picture?
Speaker 2:Well, one big one goes right back at the start. The sense data problem. The whole idea that what we immediately perceive are these private mental things, sense data, has been heavily criticized.
Speaker 1:Why is that such a sticking point?
Speaker 2:Because the perception is always indirect. If you're only ever directly aware of your own mental states, then you've immediately created this gap between your mind and the external world. How do you reliably bridge that gap? It's the very problem he was trying to solve. And some say his starting point actually bakes it in deeper.
Speaker 1:Okay. What else?
Speaker 2:There's also the mystery of instinctive authority. Russell relies heavily on instinctive beliefs that survive critical scrutiny. But as the chicken example shows, instincts can be wrong. So why exactly does an instinct just happening to survive our logical checks make it rationally trustworthy? He doesn't fully explain the basis of that authority.
Speaker 1:Right. It seems a bit like saying, well, we haven't found a reason to doubt it yet.
Speaker 2:Kind of. And then there's the gap between worlds. This sharp divide between the world of existence changing things in time and space and the world of being timeless, unchanging universals. How do these two worlds interact? How does a physical object participate in the universal redness?
Speaker 2:Russell himself admits this connection is a deep mystery with very serious difficulties.
Speaker 1:Okay, so some deep waters there. Since philosophy is about changing how we think, let's make this practical. You've got a couple of exercises based on the book people can try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two quick things to try. First, the subjective test. Just pick up any object near you, phone, pen, whatever. Now close one eye, then the other. Move it around in the light.
Speaker 2:Really notice how the appearance, the sense data, the color, the shape you see is constantly shift shifting and is unique to your perspective at that exact moment. Try saying to yourself, this isn't the pen itself, this is just the appearance of the pen to me right now. It helps reinforce that the real object is always one step removed in inference.
Speaker 1:Okay. Breaking down that common sense certainty. What's the second one?
Speaker 2:Second one, the proposition deconstruction. Take a simple obvious truth. Like, a triangle has three sides.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Now break it down. What are the core concepts? Triangle, three sides, and the relation has. These are all universals, They don't exist in space or time. Reflect on the fact that the truth of that statement is a priori.
Speaker 2:It depends entirely on the fixed logical relationships between these abstract concepts, not on you going out and counting the sides of physical triangles.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Getting a feel for that world of being. Yeah. So if folks liked digging into this kind of fundamental questioning of reality, what else might they check out?
Speaker 2:Well, if you want the deep dive into methodical doubt that really kicked a lot of this off, you have to go back to Rene Descartes' Meditations.
Speaker 1:Ah, the source code for I think, therefore I am.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Russell really uses Descartes' method as his starting point for analyzing certainty. Reading the meditations gives you that foundational exercise in systematically doubting everything possible to find what, if anything, is absolutely certain.
Speaker 1:Got it. Okay. To try and capture the essence of this deep dive, you've got a haiku for us.
Speaker 2:I do. Let's see. Mountain peaks ascend. Logic shows the unseen structure. Only facts depend.
Speaker 1:Nice. So after all this logical demolition and reconstruction, what's the takeaway? What's the point of doing philosophy like this? Russell talks about this at the end. Right?
Speaker 2:He does. In the final chapter, he argues the real value isn't about finding definite answers, philosophy really gives those. It's about the process itself. It frees the mind from, quote, the tyranny of custom and the prejudices derived from common sense.
Speaker 1:It shakes things up.
Speaker 2:Precisely. He talks about philosophic contemplation enlarging the self. Not by making everything about us, but the opposite by getting us to see the universe more impartially to consider the not self. It breaks us out of our narrow personal concern.
Speaker 1:And that leads to
Speaker 2:The kind of greatness of soul, he suggests, which in turn should lead to more fairness, more justice, even a kind of universal love in how we act because we're less wrapped up in just our own perspective.
Speaker 1:So trying to force the universe into our human shaped box is just ego.
Speaker 2:That's what he argues. Real intellectual freedom comes from accepting reality, however strange or external it seems, on its own terms. So the final thought for you listening is this: take a moment today and ask yourself, how much of what you feel absolutely certain about is genuinely rock solid, and how much is just comfortable habit? How much is just the path of least resistance? We'll leave you to ponder that.