BERTRAND RUSSELL - s-f-walker.org.uk

1 BERTRAND RUSSELL A HISTORY OF WESTERN philosophy And Its Connection with Political and SocialCircumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day SIMON AND SCHUSTER, NEW YORK ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE ORIN PART IN ANY FORM COPYRIGHT, 1945 , BY BERTRAND RUSSELL PUBLISHED BYSIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 1230 SIXTH AVENUE NEWYORK 20, N. Y. Fourth Printing MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., N. Y. TABLE OF CONTENTSP reface by Author ix Introduction xiii BOOK ONE. ancient philosophy Part I. The Pre-Socratics 3 Chapter I. The Rise of Greek Civilization 3 Chapter II. The Milesian School 24 Chapter III. Pythagoras 29 Chapter IV. Heraclitus 38 Chapter V. Parmenides 48 Chapter VI.

2 Empedocles 53 Chapter VII. Athens in Relation to Culture 58 Chapter VIII. Anaxagoras 61 Chapter IX. The Atomists 64 Chapter X. Protagoras 73 Part II. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle 82 Chapter XI. Socrates 82 Chapter XII. The Influence of Sparta 94 Chapter XIII. The Sources of Plato's Opinions Chapter XXIII. Aristotle's Physics 203 Chapter XXIV. Early Greek Mathematics and Astronomy 208 Part III. ancient philosophy after Aristotle 218 Chapter XXV. The Hellenistic World 218 Chapter XXVI. Cynics and Sceptics 228 Chapter XXVII. The Epicureans 240 Chapter XXIX. Stoicism 252 Chapter XXIX. The Roman Empire in Relation to Culture 270 Chapter XXX. Plotinus 284 BOOK TWO. CATHOLIC philosophy Introduction 301 Part I. The Fathers 308 Chapter I.

3 The Religious Development of the Jews 308 Chapter II. Christianity During the First Four Centuries 324 Chapter III. Three Doctors of the Church 334 Chapter IV. Saint Augustine's philosophy and Theology 352 Chapter V. The Fifth and Sixth Centuries 366 Chapter VI. Saint Benedict and Gregory the Great 375 Part II. The Schoolmen 388 Chapter VII. The Papacy in the Dark Ages 388 Chapter VIII. John the Scot 400 Chapter IX. Ecclesiastical Reform in the Eleventh Century 407 Chapter X. Mohammedan Culture and philosophy 419 -vi- Chapter XI. The Twelfth Century 428 Chapter XII. The Thirteenth Century 441 Chapter XIII. Saint Thomas Aquinas 452 Chapter XIV. Franciscan Schoolmen 463 Chapter XV. The Eclipse of the Papacy 476 BOOK THREE. MODERN philosophy Part I.

4 From the Renaissance to Hume 491 Chapter I. General Characteristics 491 Chapter II. The Italian Renaissance 495 Chapter III. Machiavelli 504 Chapter IV. Erasmus and More 512 Chapter V. The Reformation and CounterReformation 522 Chapter VI. The Rise of Science 525 Chapter VII. Francis Bacon 541 Chapter VIII. Hobbes's Leviathan 546 Chapter IX. Descartes 557 Chapter X. Spinoza 569 Chapter XI. Leibniz 581 Chapter XII. Philosophical Liberalism 596 Chapter XIII. Locke's Theory of Knowledge 604 Chapter XIV. Locke's Political philosophy Chapter XXIV. Schopenhauer 753 Chapter XXV. Nietzsche 760 Chapter XXVI. The Utilitarians 773 Chapter XXVII. Karl Marx 782 Chapter XXVIII. Bergson 791 Chapter XXIX. William James 811 Chapter XXX.

5 John Dewey 819 Chapter XXXI. The philosophy of Logical Analysis 828 Index 837 PREFACEMANY histories of philosophy exist, and it has not been my purpose merely to add one to theirnumber. My purpose is to exhibit philosophy as an integral part of social and political life: not asthe isolated speculations of remarkable individuals, but as both an effect and a cause of thecharacter of the various communities in which different systems flourished. This purposedemands more account of general history than is usually given by historians of philosophy . I havefound this particularly necessary as regards periods with which the general reader cannot beassumed to be familiar. The great age of the scholastic philosophy was an outcome of the reformsof the eleventh century, and these, in turn, were a reaction against previous corruption.

6 Withoutsome knowledge of the centuries between the fall of Rome and the rise of the medieval Papacy,the intellectual atmosphere of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries can hardly be understood. Indealing with this period, as with others, I have aimed at giving only so much general history as Ithought necessary for the sympathetic comprehension of philosophers in relation to the times thatformed them and the times that they helped to form. One consequence of this point of view is that the importance which it gives to a philosopher isoften not that which he deserves on account of his philosophic merit. For my part, for example, Iconsider Spinoza a greater philosopher than Locke, but he was far less influential; I havetherefore treated him much more briefly than Locke. Some men--for example, Rousseau andByron-though not philosophers at all in the academic sense, have so profoundly affected theprevailing philosophic temper that the development of philosophy cannot be understood if theyare ignored.

7 Even pure men of action are sometimes of great importance in this respect; very fewphilosophers have influenced philosophy as much as Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, orNapoleon. Lycurgus, if only be had existed, would have been a still more notable example. In attempting to cover such a vast stretch of time, it is necessary to have very drastic principles ofselection. I have come to the conclusion, from reading standard histories of philosophy , that veryshort accounts convey nothing of value to the reader; I have therefore omitted altogether (withfew exceptions) men who did not seem to me to deserve a fairly full treatment. In the case of themen whom I have discussed, I have mentioned what seemed relevant as regards their lives andtheir social surroundings; I have even sometimes recorded intrinsically unimportant details whenI considered them illustrative of a man or of his times.

8 Finally, I owe a word of explanation and apology to specialists on any part of my enormoussubject. It is obviously impossible to know as much about every philosopher as can be knownabout him by a man whose field is less wide; I have no doubt that every single philosopher whomI have mentioned, with the exception of Leibniz, is better known to many men than to me. If,however, this were considered a sufficient reason for respectful silence, it would follow that noman should undertake to treat of more than some narrow strip of history. The influence of Spartaon Rousseau, of Plato on Christian philosophy until the thirteenth century, of the Nestorians onthe Arabs and thence on Aquinas, of Saint Ambrose on liberal political philosophy from the riseof the Lombard cities until the present day, are some among the themes of which only acomprehensive history can treat.

9 On such grounds I ask the indulgence of those readers who findmy knowledge of this or that portion of my subject less adequate than it would have been if there bad been no needto remember "time's winged chariot." This book owes its existence to Dr. Albert C. Barnes, having been originally designed and partlydelivered as lectures at the Barnes Foundation in Pennsylvania. As in most of my work during the last thirteen years, I have been greatly assisted, in research andin many other ways, by my wife, Patricia RUSSELL . BERTRAND RUSSELL INTRODUCTIONTHE conceptions of life and the world which we call "philosophical" are a product of two factors:one, inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the sort of investigation which may becalled "scientific," using this word in its broadest sense.

10 Individual philosophers have differedwidely in regard to the proportions in which these two factors entered into their systems, but it isthe presence of both, in some degree, that characterizes philosophy . " philosophy " is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I proposeto use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain. philosophy , as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology andscience. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has,so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority,whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge--so I should contend--belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology.