An Outline of Philosophy

Description

In his controversial book An Outline of Philosophy, first published in 1927, Bertrand Russell argues that humanity demands consideration solely as the instrument by which we acquire knowledge of the universe. From our inner-world to the outer-world, from our physical world to the universe, his argument separates modern scientific knowledge and our ‘seeming’ consciousness. These innovative perspectives on philosophy made a significant contribution to the discourse on the meaning, relevance and function of philosophy which continues to this day.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Philosophical Doubts 
3. Part 1: Man from Without
   1. Man and his Environment
   2. The Process of Learning in Animals and Infants
   3. Language
   4. Perception Objectively Regarded
   5. Memory Objectively Regarded
   6. Inference as Habit
4. Part 2: The Physical World
   1. The Structure of the Atom
   2. Relativity
   3. Causal Laws in Physics
   4. Physics and Perception
   5. Physical and Perceptual Space
   6. Perception and Physical Causal Laws
   7. The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics
5. Part 3: Man from Within
   1. Self-observation
   2. Images
   3. Imagination and Memory
   4. The Introspective Analysis of Perception
   5. Consciousness?
   6. Emotion, Desire, and Will
   7. Ethics
6. Part 4: The Universe
   1. Some Great Philosophers of the Past
   2. Truth and Falsehood
   3. The Validity of Inference
   4. Events, Matter, and Mind
   5. Man’s Place in the Universe Index

Reviews

‘A book which we cannot afford to miss if we think at all.’ – The Spectator

‘A book of real value…the writing is nearly always of the delightful clarity that we have learned to expect’ – The Times Literary Supplement

Author Biography

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). The leading British Philosopher of the twentieth century, who made major contributions to the area of logic and epistemology. Politically active and habitually outspoken, his ethical principles twice lead to imprisonment.