“Why value philosophy? The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given.“
— Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (1912), Ch. XV: The Value of Philosophy, p. 141
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Background: The Problems of Philosophy (1912) by Bertrand Russell
Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy has never been out of print and is often considered essential reading for philosophy students. Russell introduces philosophy as a repeating series of (failed) attempts to answer the same questions: Can we prove that there is an external world? Can we prove cause and effect? Can we validate any of our generalizations? Can we objectively justify morality?
Russell asserts that philosophy cannot answer any of these questions and that any value of philosophy must lie elsewhere than in offering proofs to such issues. Focusing on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics: If it is uncertain that external objects exist, how can we then have knowledge of them but by probability? Russell finds there is no reason to doubt the existence of external objects simply because of sense data.
Russell guides the reader through his famous 1910 distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. He introduces the theories of Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, David Hume, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and others to lay the foundation for philosophical inquiry all the while considering general readers and scholars alike.
“In the following pages I have confined myself in the main to those problems of philosophy in regard to which I thought it possible to say something positive and constructive, since merely negative criticism seemed out of place. For this reason, theory of knowledge occupies a larger space than metaphysics in the present volume, some topics much discussed by philosophers are treated very briefly, if at all.”
— Bertrand Russell, Preface of The Problems of Philosophy (1912)
Image right: Bertrand Russell (5 May 1912).
Image left: The Problems of Philosophy, 1912 title page. First edition.
In times as uncertain as these, returning to a classic book can be a balm. We’ve rounded up suggestions from the Books department and elsewhere in the newsroom, spanning everything from Henry James to Tolstoy, with plenty in between. (My suggestion? M.F.K. Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf.”)
Germany gives homeopathy a privileged legal status. A tincture of rationality would be welcome
Germany gives homeopathy a privileged legal status. A tincture of rationality would be welcome
Anyone, it seems, can get into the poet's head. When Samuel Taylor Coleridge died—on July 25th 1834—he left behind magnificently sprawling notebooks in which he recorded almost minute by minute his insights, raptures, conversations, longings and opium-tinctured dreams
The sweet smell of success? Today’s #MysteryObject is an incense burner from Iran. Incense was used to sweeten the smells of houses, temples, palaces and tombs. This magnificent object is cast from copper alloy and was used as a portable incense burner. It probably dates to about the 1st–3rd centuries AD http://ow.ly/4nuzcN
Really?
myrrh :植物名。橄欖科密兒拉屬。樹脂黏而有香味，多產於印度﹑阿拉伯及東非洲等地。可供做藥劑及香料。
紐約時報這首詩看不懂又有何妨
Myrrh
Now the water in the saucepan was off the boil
my mother would turn, spluttering, from the can of kaolin
she was about to apply to a boil
on the back of my neck to clean
the surrounding area. The icing on the cake. These tears of gum
on the Christmas tree the closest we'd as yet come to myrrh,
though tincture of myrrh was still prescribed for gum
and mouth disorders. Christmas Eve. A mere
two days till the hunters would raise the puss,
a pack of hounds starting it from its form
and following it through the surrounding area till, jingle-jangle,
its nozzle would fill with blood. As yet, a little bloody pus
on this morning's poultice-gauze the closest we'd come to the form
of a star halted in a sky of china-clay.
myrrh(mûr) 
━━ n. 没薬(もつやく) ((香料・薬剤にする熱帯樹脂)).n.- An aromatic gum resin obtained from several trees and shrubs of the genus Commiphora of India, Arabia, and eastern Africa, used in perfume and incense. Also called balm of Gilead.
- See sweet cicely (sense 2).
[Middle English mirre, from Old English myrrha, from Latin, from Greek murrha, of Semitic origin.]
balm
noun [C or U]
1 an oil that is obtained from particular tropical trees and used especially to treat injuries or reduce pain:
a new skin balm
2 something that gives comfort:
Her gentle words were a balm to me.
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