British philosophy is more detailed and piecemeal than that of the Continent; when it allows itself some general principle, it sets to work to prove it inductively by examining its various applications. Thus Hume, after announcing that there is no idea without an antecedent impression, immediately proceeds to consider the following objection: suppose you are seeing two shades of colour which are similar but not identical, and suppose you have never seen a shade of colour intermediate between the two, can you nevertheless imagine such a shade? He does not decide the question, and considers that a decision adverse to his general principle would not be fatal to him, because his principle is not logical but empirical. When—to take a contrast—Leibniz wants to establish his monadology, he argues, roughly, as follows: Whatever is complex must be composed of simple parts; what is simple cannot be extended; therefore everything is composed of parts having no extension. But what is not extended is not matter. Therefore the ultimate constituents of things are not material, and, if not material, then mental. Consequently a table is really a colony of souls.
The difference of method, here, may be characterized as follows: In Locke or Hume, a comparatively modest conclusion is drawn from a broad survey of many facts, whereas in Leibniz a vast edifice of deduction is pyramided upon a pin-point of logical principle. In Leibniz, if the principle is completely true and the deductions are entirely valid, all is well; but the structure is unstable, and the slightest flaw anywhere brings it down in ruins. In Locke or Hume, on the contrary, the base of the pyramid is on the solid ground of observed fact, and the pyramid tapers upward, not downward; consequently the equilibrium is stable, and a flaw here or there can be rectified without total disaster.
--Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
I often find that I’m not well read enough or perhaps not smart enough to decipher the intricate language of these eminent philosophers. I’d like to know is Russell talking about something akin to scientific empiricism? Can someone enlighten me? From my shallow understanding though, it seems like what he is saying is almost common sense when it comes to building knowledge or beliefs about a problem domain.
The idea that one should not philosophize keeping close contact with empirical facts, instead of basing a long chain of arguments on abstract “logical” principles like Leibniz’s, may be almost common sense now, but it wasn’t in the early modern period of which Russell was talking about. And when Russell wrote this (1940s) he was old enough to remember that these kind of arguments were still prevalent in his youth (1880s-1890s) among absolute idealists like Bradley, as he describes in “Our Knowledge of the External World” (follow the link and do a Ctrl-F search for Bradley). So it did not seem to him a way of thinking that was so ancient and outdated as to be not worth arguing against.
ETA: I meant, “The idea that one should philosophize keeping...”, without not, obviously.
Russell gives too much credit to radical empiricism fails to warn against the dangers of going too far in the direction of radical empiricism, which is really just as bad as radical rationalism.
Philosophers came to be divided into two camps: those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts (the Rationalists)—and those who claimed that man obtains his knowledge from experience, which was held to mean: by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts (the Empiricists). To put it more simply: those who joined the mystics by abandoning reality—and those who clung to reality, by abandoning their mind.
I wasn’t trying to endorse the whole empiricist philosophy, and neither was Russell, at least in this quote. The rationality lesson it offers is not “radical empiricism good, radical rationalism bad” but more like “a wide base of principles with connections to experience good, a small base of abstract logical principles bad”.
er, I agree my comment was poorly phrased. Instead of accusing him of giving positive credit to radical empiricism I probably should have said, while he’s making a good point warning against the dangers of radical rationalism, he was failing to warn against the dangers of going too far in the direction of empiricism.
That’s why I prefer the quote I followed up with, it is more careful to reject both of these approaches.
--Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
I often find that I’m not well read enough or perhaps not smart enough to decipher the intricate language of these eminent philosophers. I’d like to know is Russell talking about something akin to scientific empiricism? Can someone enlighten me? From my shallow understanding though, it seems like what he is saying is almost common sense when it comes to building knowledge or beliefs about a problem domain.
The idea that one should not philosophize keeping close contact with empirical facts, instead of basing a long chain of arguments on abstract “logical” principles like Leibniz’s, may be almost common sense now, but it wasn’t in the early modern period of which Russell was talking about. And when Russell wrote this (1940s) he was old enough to remember that these kind of arguments were still prevalent in his youth (1880s-1890s) among absolute idealists like Bradley, as he describes in “Our Knowledge of the External World” (follow the link and do a Ctrl-F search for Bradley). So it did not seem to him a way of thinking that was so ancient and outdated as to be not worth arguing against.
ETA: I meant, “The idea that one should philosophize keeping...”, without not, obviously.
Ah very good, in that context it makes perfect sense.
Russell
gives too much credit to radical empiricismfails to warn against the dangers of going too far in the direction of radical empiricism, which is really just as bad as radical rationalism.FTNI, by Ayn Rand
I wasn’t trying to endorse the whole empiricist philosophy, and neither was Russell, at least in this quote. The rationality lesson it offers is not “radical empiricism good, radical rationalism bad” but more like “a wide base of principles with connections to experience good, a small base of abstract logical principles bad”.
er, I agree my comment was poorly phrased. Instead of accusing him of giving positive credit to radical empiricism I probably should have said, while he’s making a good point warning against the dangers of radical rationalism, he was failing to warn against the dangers of going too far in the direction of empiricism.
That’s why I prefer the quote I followed up with, it is more careful to reject both of these approaches.
Recognising the weaknesses inherent in human logical deductions?