Russell Bertrand
Список книг автора Russell BertrandPolitical Ideals - The Original Classic Edition
This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. <p> This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. <p> Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: <p> Those who realize the harm that can be done to others by any use of force against them, and the worthlessness of the goods that can be acquired by force, will be very full of respect for the liberty of others; they will not try to bind them or fetter them; they will be slow to judge and swift to sympathize; they will treat every human being with a kind of tenderness, because the principle of good in him is at once fragile and infinitely precious. <p> …Few men can succeed in being creative rather than possessive in a world which is wholly built on competition, where the great majority would fall into utter destitution if they became careless as to the acquisition of material goods, where honor and power and respect are given to wealth rather than to wisdom, where the law embodies and consecrates the injustice of those who have toward those who have not. <p> …In place of them we need a system which will hold in cheek mens predatory impulses, and will diminish the economic injustice that allows some to be rich in idleness while others are poor in spite of unremitting labor; but above all we need a system which will destroy the tyranny of the employer, by making men at the same time secure against destitution and able to find scope for individual initiative in the control of the industry by which they live. <p> …So long as it was necessary to the bare subsistence of the human race that most men should work very long hours for a pittance, so long no civilization was possible except an aristocratic one; if there were to be men with sufficient leisure for any mental life, there had to be others who were sacrificed for the good of the few. <p> …For these reasons, those who aim at an economic reconstruction which is not likely to be completed to-morrow must, if they are to have any hope of success, be able to approach their goal by degrees, through measures which are of some use in themselves, even if they should not ultimately lead to the desired end.
The Analysis of Mind - The Original Classic Edition
Formally this book doesnt contain groundbreaking insights, or better: it doesnt say anything that isnt already under your eyes. Its biggest accomplishment, however, is in the very act of showing how sometimes we dont see whats under our eyes for a sort of mental laziness. <p> Russell forces us to move away from this laziness and reconsider what we take for granted about ourselves, and does so with his enjoyable style. He seems to possess the rare skill of finding the minimum amount of words and concepts needed to explain (and solve) the problem clearly and accurately. He will never forget to define precisely all the terms needed in the discussion, or to question the limits of the premises in order to understand the scope of the conclusion. <p> In each chapter he considers a facet of what we call mind and explores it both from the point of introspection and of external analysis of observable behavior. Introspection gives use informations impossible to obtain with other methods, and it is what gives meaning to the problem of mind in the first place, but it has the intrinsic problem of an instrument trying to measure itself. So Russell keeps on correcting this view from the inside and the delusions it can create with the stick of behaviourism and objective observation. <p> On a less technical side, I highly appreciate the intellectual honesty of someone who can freely use the words contrary to what I once stated. <p> I suggest this book to everyone interested in the subject (anyone should be!)
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays - The Original Classic Edition
A contradictory sort of fellow – Will Durant, in his congenial The Story of Philosophy, describes Bertrand Russell as …resolved to be hard-headed because he knows he can not be. <p> This is a bit unfair, as it doesnt really take into account Russells philosophy, merely the man. But the two are so hard to separate! Basically, Russell believes that mysticism is the inspirer of what is best in man. But that it is absolutely muddle-headed and has lead mankind down numerous philosophic blind alleys in the past thousand or so years. <p> He was a mathematical genius, wrote prose that could cut like a razor blade concerning the most abstruse subjects in a manner understandable to most laymen, and was a profound skeptic in re matters religious. This latter got him into all kinds of trouble with womens societies and the like back in the earlier part of the century and actually got him fired from the City College of New York. So he packed his bags and went to teach at Harvard. <p> You see, he was a British aristocrat (an Earl) and all this rabble rousing by the hoi polloi was really a non-issue for him. In his autobiography, he recounts how his mother always told him, Never follow a crowd to do Evil. Russell never followed a crowd to do anything! <p> All this biographical elaboration is to help readers understand the man who wrote this book which, in a nutshell, praises the mystical impulse in its pure, unadulterated form while deploring the aforementioned philosophical muddles to which it leads, and, on the other hand, glorifies (justly) the English schools of empirical logic and the scientific progress to which they have lead. One can hardly look at this computer screen and deny this claim. <p> All this in a lucid and thoroughly enjoyable prose. Yes, Russell has seen his days of celebrity come and go (as well as his days in general, one might add,) but if you chance by a wizened looking professor loaded down with heavyweight tomes on metaphysical systems, you might get a rather surprising response if you mention Bertie Russell. <p> In his day, Russell was the Mick Jagger of Philosophy, and coeds used to quarrel over who got to bed down with him that night when he came to lecture that the stuff a good proportion of their professors were teaching was, quite literally, nonsense. <p> And just think, he got away with it all! What fun!
The Problems of Philosophy - The Original Classic Edition
This book is very often recommended for further reading in philosophy classes, where the students figure it is going to be a pure drag…you know, huge words, vague sentences, so on and so on. But none of that, this book is the complete opposite. Bertrand Russell brings the topics right down to earth and explains them in a way that the average person can understand. The last chapter, The Value of Philosophy is written with beautiful style and is an enjoyment to read. Here is a quote from this chapter: <p> Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never traveled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. <p> This book definitely will spark an interest in philosophy in you. If you are even remotely interested in the subject, I recommend you buy this now.