Problems Of Philosophy By Bertrand Russell

In the first two chapters of his essay “Problems of Philosophy” Bertrand Russell explains an alternative solution to philosophical problems that many other philosophers have answered in many different but often similar ways. Problems such as is sense data a sign of physical objects, is there matter at all and if so, what is the nature of a physical object (Bertrand Russell 12-13)? From these questions he later asks: can we take other people’s perceptions into consideration, and are there other people at all (Bertrand Russell 21)? For the most part, he recognizes and acknowledges what other philosophers such as Berkeley and Descartes have worked out as un-absurd, but he claims that while there conclusions are completely possible there are …show more content…
He agrees with how Berkeley proves that things we sense are not inherent in the objects they appear to emerge from, no absurdities arise from that (Bertrand Russell 17-18). Because colour depends on light, both light and shape depend on perspective and our sense of touch depends on how much pressure is applied, we cannot know the true form of matter, clearly something is putting out the sense-data we form our perspective on, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the thing and the appearance are linked (Bertrand Russell 9-11). Because of this we cannot know the true nature of what we are looking at or feeling with our senses and we cannot know if it is truly there at all. However Russell disagrees with Berkeley when he says that an object cannot exist unless perceived, we are receiving no sense-data so there is no reason to suggest it is still there, unless of course, according to Berkeley, it is being seen by God, Russell later points out absurdities in this idea (Bertrand Russell 13-14). Most importantly, Russell calls Berkeley’s master argument, which he says “... has been very widely advanced in one form or another...” fallacious, although he doesn’t directly state why (Bertrand Russell 12). He argues that this argument started …show more content…
Because in Berkeley’s theory everything can be explained by the fact that we cannot know the world that is around us, we can point out many things about it that don’t make sense, but they won’t matter. Instead Russell seeks to create a theory that proves the world around us that, like Berkeley’s theory, cannot be shown to be completely false but also has reasoning behind it that makes it more likely than that of Berkeley’s. He starts out by saying “Although we are doubting the physical existence of the table, are not doubting the existence of the sense-data which made us think there was a table...”, meaning, there must be something causing us to have sensations of the table (Bertrand Russell 17). Russell next points out that it “... is not ‘I am seeing a brown colour’, but rather, ‘a brown object is being seen’” and he points this out because ‘the self’ is constantly changing and not the same person moment to moment (Bertrand Russell 19). What is important is that Descartes himself used the letter ‘I’ to represent himself and possibly did not even question it because as Russell puts it we have “...particular thoughts and feelings that have primitive certainty” (Bertrand Russell 19). Russell then applies this theory to other things, such as dreams. People in one very instant can convince themselves that they are not dreaming, it is another primitive certainty and so he concludes, “Thus the certainty