3 Review(s)

The Problems Of Philosophy is Bertrand Russell’s effort at creating a brief and simple guide to the problems of philosophy, while concentrating more on knowledge than metaphysics. Summary Of The Book The question that The Problems Of Philosophy tries to answer is whether there is any knowledge on earth that is so certain that no man can doubt it. He enthusiastically delves into various aspects of an observer’s knowledge and perception in his search for an explanation and differentiates between the two using a combination of theories by Plato, John Locke, David Hume, other noted philosophers, real life examples and simple tests. Russell tries to explain the relationship between perception and reality through “sense-data”, a term he coined that refers to the data one collects when one perceives senses like sights, sounds, and smells. He goes on to talk about knowledge which is obtained by acquaintance and by description, from where he moves on to prior knowledge, and how all of this is required to make deductions. Thanks to the relevance of the book to our fundamental lives and the author’s style of writing, the book has become one of the most sought-after explanations on problems in philosophy for both beginners and the experienced. Russell tries to answer questions by being both the philosophical mediator and the questioner in The Problem Of Philosophy. His philosophy moves on to constructive realism and logical atomism while not completely letting go of Platonic realism that he first took to soon after rejecting the tradition of British idealism. About Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell was a British historian, philosopher, mathematician and logician who is also considered to be the founder of analytic philosophy. Principia Mathematica, The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell, Religion And Science, The Conquest Of Happiness and A History of Western Philosophy are some of his books. Aside from known books, The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell is a collection of unpublished works by Russell, published by McMaster University and the set now contains up to 16 volumes. Russell was born into a British aristocratic family and studied Mathematics Tripos at Cambridge University. He began his career teaching German social democracy at London School of Economics. He soon began studying Mathematics at Trinity College when he wrote On Denoting, which was published in Mind, a philosophical journal. He would then go on to write Principia Mathematica which would give him universal fame. He won several awards including the Order of Merit, 1949, and the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1950. Russell is said to be one of the greatest logicians of the 20th century.