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OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE
EXTERNAL WORLD
AS A FIELD FOR SCIENTIFIC METHOD
IN PHILOSOPHY
OUR KNOWLEDGE OF
THE EXTERNAL WORLD
AS A FIELD FOR SCIENTIFIC METHOD
IN PHILOSOPHY
BY
BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1
First published in 1914 by
The Open Court Publishing Company
Reissued by George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
1922
PREFACE
The following lectures[1] are an attempt to show, by meansof examples, the nature, capacity, and limitations of thelogical-analytic method in philosophy. This method, ofwhich the first complete example is to be found in thewritings of Frege, has gradually, in the course of actualresearch, increasingly forced itself upon me as somethingperfectly definite, capable of embodiment in maxims, andadequate, in all branches of philosophy, to yield whateverobjective scientific knowledge it is possible to obtain.Most of the methods hitherto practised have professedto lead to more ambitious results than any that logicalanalysis can claim to reach, but unfortunately these resultshave always been such as many competent philosophersconsidered inadmissible. Regarded merely as hypothesesand as aids to imagination, the great systems of the pastserve a very useful purpose, and are abundantly worthyof study. But something different is required if philosophyis to become a science, and to aim at results independentof the tastes and temperament of the philosopherwho advocates them. In what follows, I have endeavouredto show, however imperfectly, the way by which I believethat this desideratum is to be found.
The central problem by which I have sought to illustratemethod is the pro