Hello, I'm Dr. Anadale and I teach philosophy at Mount St. Mary's Seminary and University in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Our text for today is "The Value of Philosophy," the final chapter of _The Problems of Philosophy_,
a book by the 20th century British philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Russell was a philosopher of logic and language, and a prominent atheist, author of this book: _Why I am Not a Christian_.
Now, I disagree with Russell on many many different topics but I like this short essay defending the value studying philosophy.
Some main points from the essay: Russell says that philosophy is valuable not for its products but for its effects on the people who study it.
So it's a matter of self-cultivation, not a matter of production. He also says philosophy is one of the goods of the mind, and practical minded people miss this.
Practical minded people may ask: where is the bread that philosophy bakes? where the robots it designs? where's the cure for polio philosophers came up with?
And I think Russell would respond that this is entirely to miss the point about the nature of philosophy. Its goods are internal and not external to the self.
So what are some of these positive effects; what are some of these goods of the mind that philosophy can give us?
Well, Russell says philosophy keeps alive that speculative interest in the universe which would die off if we were ever totally committed to questions that have proven answers.
If we ever resolved to know and use knowledge only of those things that can be proven or demonstrated decisively, we would be missing something.
Part of what we will be missing is what philosophy can provide us.
Russell also observes that philosophy
frees us from prejudices and from our
narrow personal aims. It helps to liberate
us and enlarge us, make us better people,
raise us up above our own personal interests.
One way, he says, of escaping
the strife of desire and will is what he
calls philosophic contemplation and this
is the most important concept in the essay.
Keep in mind here that Russell is not pushing
any kind of covert religious agenda.
He is a sincere and convinced atheist;
he dies in 1970 as a convinced atheist.
He's talking about a purely secular spiritual
benefit that can be gotten from studying
philosophy in the right way, from
organizing our minds in a certain way. So
philosophic contemplation according to Russell
is seeking knowledge for its own sake. It
is seeking to know the world, what he
calls the not-self, not for our own
selfish benefit but simply in order to
know it. When we encounter the world, he
says, we adapt our self to what we find
instead of trying to force the world to
fit our desires and needs. There's a kind
of relaxation of the self, a kind of
disinterestedness, an impartiality
which we confront the world in a proper
philosophical spirit. I would contrast
this with the rigidity and hardness of
the ideologue, the person committed to an
ideology, who has an idea up in their own
self and they take it to the world, to
the not-self, and when they compared the two
they decide that the world needs to be
smashed in order to make it fit the idea.
Russell is saying just the opposite: we
need to alter our ideas to accommodate and
respect what we find in the world and
there's something important, there's an
important element of personal and
spiritual growth involved in this
process. It's completely independent of any
kind of religious tradition or
metaphysical beliefs. Russell calls this
development an enlargement of the self.
It is a form of personal greatness; in it
we find peace, freedom, and resolution
with the world. Now the final paragraph
of this essay I would like to quote in
full and here it is.
That's the final paragraph of "The Value
of Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell, from his
book _The Problems of Philosophy_, first
published in 1912. It's about nine pages
long, about 2,400 words, and available for
free online. If you are in one of my
classes I look forward to discussing it with you soon.
Everyone please feel free to comment below.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.