Chapter 19 Chapter 18 Several Replies to Criticism-2

It is not just about names and pseudonyms, etc. Mr. Strawson expresses his firm belief that there is an inalterable right way in the use of words, which, however convenient, cannot be changed.He thought the same thing about universal affirmative propositions—that is, sentences of the form "every A is B."Traditionally, such sentences imply A's, but mathematical logic discards this implication and considers it much more convenient that "every A is B" is still true even without the A's. It is all and only a matter of convenience.For some purposes one habit is more convenient, for others the other is more convenient.We make choices about habits according to the purpose we have in mind.But I agree with Mr. Strawson's statement (p. 52), that is, ordinary language has no strict logic.

In spite of his gift for logic, Mr. Strawson has a curious prejudice against logic.On page 43 he breaks out into a frenzy, and by saying that life is greater than logic, he gives a very wrong interpretation of my doctrine. Leaving aside the details, I think we can summarize Mr. Strawson's argument and my answer as follows: There are two problems: the narrative problem and the egocentric problem.Mr Strawson thought it was just a problem.But it is evident from his discussion that he does not take into account all the descriptive terms associated with the argument. After conflating the two problems, he asserted that it was only the egocentric problem that needed to be solved.He proposed a solution to this problem.He seemed to think that this was a new solution, but in fact it was a familiar one before he wrote the article.He thought he had come up with an appropriate narrative doctrine, and made public what he imagined to be his achievement with astonishing assertiveness.Maybe I wronged him, but I don't see where I wronged him.

What is heart? Professor Lyell's book "The Concept of Mind" has a claim that is quite original and, if correct, important.I don't think I can accept his claim.I would like to state my reasons below. But let me begin with a few points, on which I have expressed the same opinion as he, although he does not seem to feel it. The first point I agree with him is the denial of Cartesian dualism.His refutation of this dualism is stated in the first chapter of this book.I'm a little surprised he puts that emphasis on it.Cartesian dualism was rejected by Malebran, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hegel, and William James.Apart from Marxists and Catholic theologians who are obliged to hold back because of the rigidity of their creed, I cannot think of any contemporary philosopher of repute who admits this dualism.

However, I guess Professor Lyell will use one point as the reason why he focuses on refuting Cartesian dualism, that is, many people reject Cartesian theory in words, but retain a lot of logic with this theory. associated beliefs.I think that on this one important point, Professor Lyell himself is, as I shall prove in a moment. The second point that I agree with him is that there is no recognition of sense-data.I believed in this stuff for a while, but in 1921 I gave it up flat. A third thing of considerable importance is the denial of perception as a form of knowledge. Neither he nor I deny that sensation is an indispensable part of the cause of our knowledge of concrete things; what is denied is that sensation itself is knowledge.We must add what Professor Lyle calls "observation," which I call "attention."

Since we agree on these points, I will not mention them again. Now I come to Professor Lyle's main argument.I think his argument can be stated as follows: the adjective "heart" cannot be used for any special "material", but only for certain organizations and configurations. It is meaningless to say that these elements are "of the heart".He gives many examples of adjectives and nouns that come to mind.He points out that cricket is not another "thing" juxtaposed with individual games and individual players, but something logically superior.Another example is the British polity.As he said, the House of Representatives is one of the elements that constitute the British political system, but after you have looked at the House of Commons, the courts, Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, you have no other place to look at in the British political system.

He insists that the word "of the heart" can only be applied to things that have the logical status of cricket or the British constitution.As regards adjectives of a "heartlike" nature, his favorite examples are words like "clever," "lazy," "kind," and the like, which refer to disposition.I quote below an excerpt which I feel makes his argument clear: on the negative side, one of the main motives of the book is to show that "mental" does not denote a condition, as in We ask whether a thing belongs to the mind or to the thing, "in the mind" or "outside".Speaking of a person's heart does not mean that a warehouse can accommodate things that the "material world" cannot accommodate, but that a person's ability and tendency to do certain kinds of things or experience certain kinds of things are in the normal world. doing these things and experiencing these things.Indeed, it is meaningless to speak as if there were two or eleven worlds.Putting the word "jie" after various occupations can only cause confusion.Even the phrase "the material world" is as meaningless in philosophy as the phrases "the world of ancient money", "the world of clothing and miscellaneous goods" or "the world of botany". (p. 199).

I don't understand why Professor Lyle doesn't regard some other adjectives with similar logical qualifications as "heart". One of his favorite examples is the adjective "fragile."If you say that a piece of glass breaks easily, you don't mean that it will, but that it will under certain circumstances, just as, if a man shows intelligence under the right circumstances, you can say He was smart, even if he happened to be asleep at the time.But Professor Lyle never explains, or, so to speak, as if he does not think it necessary to explain, what is the difference between "fragile" and "intelligent" which makes the latter belong to the heart and the former Not of the heart.A common man tends to say that "fragile" is a quality of matter, and "intelligent" a quality of mind—in effect, these two adjectives are applied to different kinds of "stuff."But Professor Lyell doesn't say that openly, and I don't quite know what he's going to say.

Professor Lyle denies that, in principle, there is nothing a man can know about himself which he does not tell others.He takes this as a reason against all "matter" of mind.Of course, he does not mean that, in fact, no matter what, other people know it as clearly as I do.When you are alone in the desert and no one else is present, you may hear a thunder, but this can be regarded as an accidental event that only the person knows.What he means to deny is that some things are essentially known only to himself, and these things are known by one person, but no one else can know them except through his own narration.On this, as on many others, I find him astonishingly careless in his willingness to substitute dogmatic opinions for the refutation of contrary theories.Let me give you an obvious example: dreams.Except, it is admitted that we cannot know what dreams other people have unless they tell us.

But Professor Lyall said nothing about dreams.There is no such word in the index of the book, and there are several references to dreams, which are very sloppy.Oddly enough, despite his great admiration for Freud, he makes no mention of Freud's work on dreams, and we cannot even presume that he knew of it.He did talk a little bit about stomachaches, toothaches, etc., but he thought that such things would be known to others because of his own groans.It is obvious that none of his friends belonged to the Stoics who did not mind pain and pleasure. He denies material known only to himself.He did talk a little bit about some difficulties in this respect.He has a chapter devoted to imagination.But I could not understand at all how what he said could satisfy him.He said that imagination is the activity of the faculty of the mind, but what we imagine does not exist.Let's examine this a little bit.In a significant sense, this is of course self-evident.If I close my eyes and imagine a horse, there isn't a horse in the house.

But imagining a horse is one thing, imagining a hippopotamus is another.When I imagine one, one thing happens, and when I imagine the other, another thing happens.What exactly happened in both cases? Professor Lyle states plainly (p. 161) that psychic events do not exist.Regarding perception, he favors naive realism: I see a horse, and that horse is out there. That's not a "psychological" horse.But when I imagine a horse, the horse is not in an external place, but this is not the same thing as imagining a hippopotamus.I think it is extremely remarkable that there is something going on in my mind which no one else can know unless I express it, and let it be known what I am imagining.

I think the same is true of pleasure and unpleasure (Professor Lyell and most psychologists agree that "pain" is not the opposite of "pleasure").A man may show pleasure outwardly, but he may well hide it, as he is likely to do, for example, if he hears that something unfortunate has happened to a person whom he hates but pretends to love. It is hard to imagine that sticks and stones feel pleasant or unpleasant, but it would be absurd to suggest that the same is true for human beings. I think this is the most important distinction between the mind and the non-mind.I don't think the same can be said about intelligence, because computers are in some ways more intelligent than any human being.But I wouldn't vote for a computer because I don't believe computers are pleasant or unpleasant. Professor Lyle denies that knowledge can be obtained by introspection.This brought him into a relationship with the behaviorists.At the end of his book he discusses behaviorism.He said that the only point of difference between him and the behaviorists was their belief in mechanism. And he did not believe in mechanism.Mechanism was one of the things he discussed with heroic dogmatism.When he speaks of mechanism, he seems to have in mind the old-fashioned billiard-ball mechanism, and he seems to think that since physicists have abandoned this mechanism, they have abandoned mechanism. Argument.He gives no reason why he objected to mechanism in the new sense.The question worth discussing is this: Can the equations of physics, combined with the material distribution of energy at a given time, adequately determine what has and will happen to a number of substances not below a certain minimum size?To put this question in concrete terms: since speech involves the slightest movement of matter, can an ideal physicist with sufficient knowledge infer what so-and-so will say in his later life? I don't claim to know the answer to this question, but Professor Lyell thinks he can.I wish he bothered to give his reasons. Professor Lyell's attitude towards science is strange.He knew, no doubt, that scientists talked about things they believed to be relevant to the problems he was discussing, but he was quite convinced that philosophers need not pay attention to science.He seems to think that a philosopher's scientific knowledge does not need to exceed the knowledge of our ancestors when they dyed their bodies with big green.It was this attitude which convinced him that philosophers should pay attention to the way the ignorant speak, and should treat with contempt the pretentious language of scholars.In his view, however, there is one exception to this principle: the average person thinks that thoughts and ideas are in the human head.As Goldsmith said, things got weirder and weirder. Everything he knew was carried in one little head. On this point, Professor Lyle does not accept common practice.He cannot believe that thoughts and emotions are inside our heads.He tried to put things as they were, and on this point ordinary people agreed with him.He does not present any kind of argument that thought is not in the human head.I am afraid—although I venture to say this—that in this matter he was under the influence of a Cartesian dualism, which considers it absurd to assign what belongs to the mind to a place in space. .If it is admitted that he is right about the so-called structure of the mind, it follows, of course, that what belongs to the mind is not in space.Cricket is not in the cricket field, intelligence is not in the body of the wise.If this claim is denied (as I believe it cannot be), all that remains is a dualistic bias that prevents us from saying that events that are mental are in the mind. The problem of perception has long puzzled philosophers.My personal opinion is that this is a scientific issue, not a philosophical issue, or it can be said that it is no longer a philosophical issue.Many philosophical problems are actually scientific problems that science is not ready to deal with.Sensation and perception were formerly problems of this class, and in my opinion should now be studied by science.No discussion can be made of these questions by those who are willing to disregard scientific opinion. Professor Lyell has found himself in the throes of a struggle by advocating naive realism.He all but denies that a disc that slopes outward looks elliptical.He said: An atheoretic person is not disturbed when he says that a round plate may appear to be elliptical.He said that the round plate looked like an ellipse, and he didn't feel disturbed.But if he agrees that he sees the oval shape of a disc, he will feel uneasy (p. 216). I can't understand what exactly his claim is.In the case of the plate, you know it's round because it's made that way.But suppose it is an object in the sky that you cannot touch, and you don't know whether it is "really" round or elliptical, so you can only say what shape it "looks like".The main point is that one thing appears in different forms from different viewpoints, and different things appear in the same form from different viewpoints.Nay, the form that things take is of great importance to our knowledge of what those things "really" are, although form, for the reasons given above, is not in itself conclusive. When considering this issue, it is unnecessary to bring up the heart or feeling.This is entirely a matter of things. When several cameras are used to take pictures of one thing at the same time, the images they show are different, and the difference is the same as the difference seen by our vision. The points discussed above also apply to color.Professor Lyle said: When I say that an ordinary thing is green or bitter, I am not reporting the fact of how I feel, although I mean how the thing looks, or tastes. how.I mean, whoever sees or tastes something, if the situation or position is "right", that thing will look or taste like that.So although the field appears to me at the moment to be gray-blue, I am not contradicting myself if I say it is green (p. 220). I'm especially not sure what the word "right" means.A bird's eyes look in opposite directions. Birds probably see things quite differently from what we see.Flies have five eyes, and these five eyes belong to two different classes.Things must be different for the flies to see.The bird or the fly would probably say that it saw "rightly", that Professor Lyall had a strangely eccentric view.Because there are more flies than people in the world, the principles of democracy force us to admit that the flies are right. The disputes that Professor Lyell got into because he insisted on advocating naive realism reminded me of the disputes that those who advocated the theory of earthquakes had to get into because they opposed the theory of earthquakes.The theory of earthquakes requires people to have a lot of imagination, that is to say, people think that they can imagine that the earth, which appears to be completely motionless on the surface, is rotating and orbiting.With this preliminary imagination, astronomy is greatly simplified.The theory of perception can be similarly simplified if we can imagine that what is called "perception of an object" is the effect of that object at a distance.This effect is only approximate to that object, only similar in certain respects.It is only with regard to the everyday things in our neighbourhood that this doctrine strikes us as quite inconceivable.If you approached a star in the constellation Taurus, no one would think that the stars in that constellation would be the same as we see them.The difference between the stars of Taurus and the furniture in our houses is only a difference of degree. The school to which Professor Lyell belongs is enhanced by his presence.Both he and the school were determined to give a linguistic form to the problems that occurred.For example, with regard to our perception of what we see, he says: That is, the questions are not the almost mechanical one "How do we see a robin?" A mockingbird' kind of narrative?" (p. 225). In my opinion, this inevitably loses important scientific knowledge and takes insignificant linguistic things. "How do we see robins?", to which a combination of physics and physiology has produced an answer that is interesting and important, with some rather strange consequences.It seems that there are actions in the optic nerve that cause you to "see the robin", even though the actions are not caused by something outside the perceiver (which is usually the case). I have been accused of saying that when a physiologist examines other people's brains, what he sees is in his own brain, not in that other person's brain.To prove that this is entirely true, the word "see" and the word "in" must be discussed in detail.In particular, the word "inside" is much more complicated and ambiguous than commonly imagined.But I don't want to deal with these issues here, because I have discussed them elsewhere. I think Professor Lyell will admit that the main purpose of his book is to give a new definition to the adjective "psychic".This is of course a language issue.So far as it is purely linguistic, it is justified to attach importance to ordinary usage for a definition.But the proper use of words changes with our knowledge.There was a time when it was inappropriate to speak of the earth as a planet, but since the introduction of the theory of earthquakes, it has become so.If there are two kinds of noumenon advocated by Descartes, one is roughly equivalent to the object in common sense, and the other is roughly equivalent to the mind in common sense, then mind and matter can be separated like Descartes, even though this is inevitably different from these The word runs counter to its previous usage in Descartes.But if there is no such fundamental dualism, as Professor Lyell maintains, and I admit, then if we still want to separate mind and matter, we have to find another basis for the distinction.Professor Lyell has discovered that the difference is in syntax: adjectives belonging to the mind are superior to those belonging to the so-called things.For the reasons given above, I don't think this usage is useful.I also don't think Professor Lyle made his point, because he didn't explain why he didn't use "fragile" as an adjective of the heart.My own opinion is that the difference between the mental and the physical does not lie in the inherent qualities of the two, but in the way in which we acquire knowledge about them.If someone can see something, or as Professor Lyle said, can notice it, I say that this thing belongs to the heart.I regard all events as belonging to things.But events which are known only by inference, I regard as belonging only to things.Although it may seem as if my differences of opinion with Professor Lyle were linguistic, this is only superficially so.The reason why Professor Lyell and I disagree about the most suitable definitions of the words "mental" and "material" is due to differences concerning the constitution of the universe. A general conclusion I got from reading Professor Lyell's book is that if philosophy and empirical science are out of touch, philosophy will not produce abundant fruits.What I mean by this is not only that a philosopher should "pick up" a science as a vacation thing to do, but I mean something much deeper: that the philosopher's imagination should be imbued with a scientific eye.He should feel that science has given us a new world, some new concepts, and new methods. These new things were previously unknown, but have been proven to be effective by experience.Where old concepts and methods fail, these new concepts and methods are empirically proven to be fruitful. The Development of My Philosophy Russell's Philosophy: A Study of Its Development by Alan Ude Query 64.Mathematicians are so careful about religious problems, are they really not sloppy in their own science?Are they really not subject to authority, credulous in things, and believe in unimaginable arguments?Are they really without their mysteries, and also, without their divergent opinions and contradictions? We were smoking cigars in our house on Baker Street that night in Berkeley. Holmes said: "This is such a case. We have to go backwards to find the cause from the effect." Conan Doyle Russell's writings involve so many disciplines, probably none of the existing people can master all these disciplines and write a decent review-of course, Russell himself is not an example.The author of this article does not presume to be so qualified. Therefore, to comment on Russell, we must choose some aspects to discuss some different special subjects with him.A single exhaustion of Russell's writings must be based on one's own direct knowledge of Russell's writings and, to some extent, on knowledge acquired through the transcriptions of others.Anyone who discusses Russell should clearly explain the scope of his research, so that his personal limitations will not be mistaken for the limitations of the subject he studied, and he should also explain clearly how many others are in this field. work available. I have used the title of this book as much as possible to indicate its limitations.What I am discussing is the source and development of Russell's unique thoughts, not about the inheritance of his thoughts by others.If this is not remembered, one may have a false idea of ​​Russell's genius; and I believe there is little of importance in philosophy today which did not come from him.People after Russell are all people who have roots in Russell's philosophy. (I give some of the reasons for my remark in the text.) No proper commentary on Russell's philosophy can fail to take into account his later influence; that is, it cannot be written for many centuries. For the purpose of this article, I explain "Russell's philosophy" in a narrow sense.Russell himself once said that logic is not part of philosophy.It is in this spirit that I interpret Russell's philosophy.Of course, he always believed that logic is the necessary foundation of philosophy; it is obvious that most of the foundations of his philosophical thinking are in "Principles of Mathematics" and "Principles of Mathematics".But I only deal with some aspects of these two books, which are very important for Russell as a philosopher, and thus leave a lot of the most important material to mathematicians and logic experts.For example, in discussing contradictions and the doctrine of types, I do not intend primarily to discuss some controversial issues that still exist about these things, but to discuss the indisputable fact that, thanks to his doctrine of types , Russell brought an extremely important concept to philosophy. My purpose is almost exclusively narrative, not criticism; for Russell's philosophy, I believe, is hardly open to criticism on orthodox lines.In Shaw's play, Napoleon says to the innkeeper: "You will not be hanged. It is unsatisfactory to hang a man who does not object to being hanged". The man who claims to be a critic of Russell has this difficulty. There are few errors and weaknesses in his work which he himself has not pointed out with great candor. but at every step he goes, he criticizes his previous claims. I have met few modern critics of Russell who did not unwittingly repeat Russell's own arguments, or show ignorance of Russell's real opinions. (It should be noted that his book has become a masterpiece, and a masterpiece can be said to be a book that everyone has not read and thinks they are familiar with.) Therefore, the current need is not to criticize Russell, but to understand Russell. This book is intended to serve this purpose An introduction. This book is like a guidebook for a cathedral, which represents many different architectural styles and eras; no matter which book Russell reads, it is important to know that it is in the development of his thought. position above. However, I hope that this book may also be helpful in understanding Russell in another way.Often the easiest way to illustrate Russell's claims is to trace in detail the steps by which he formed them.On this point, I don't have excessive hopes in my heart.Anyone who reads Russell for the first time has some obvious problems, which he finds difficult to solve.Why should a book on the principles of mathematics have a chapter on "Proper Names, Adjectives, and Verbs"?Why does an Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy spend two chapters on the word "this"?I do not know of a single book on Russell that addresses such simple questions as these.Clearly Russell considered his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy a book for "beginners"; but few beginners can honestly say they thought Russell was right.I thought it would be easiest to show how Russell followed his train of thought, starting with a problem in dynamics, and leading him sequentially to geometry, analysis, symbolic logic, and grammar.The order of his treatises in Principia Mathematica is the reverse; the reader reads logic first and dynamics last.The easiest way to understand this book, like Russell's other books, is to understand it backwards; in the following, I use this method to briefly express the ideas of this book from the back to the front. Ⅰ Abstract and Introduction Bertrand Russell is a philosopher without a philosophical system.In other words, he was a philosopher of all schools of philosophy. There is hardly an important contemporary philosophical point of view that we cannot find expressed in his works of a certain period. Whitehead once described Russell as a dialogue incarnation of Plato.Leighton Strapp compares Russell's mind to a circular saw.This metaphor is particularly apt.The teeth on one side and the opposite side of a circular saw move in opposite directions; in fact the teeth move in different directions at the same time.But the saw itself cuts straight ahead. In all Russell's writings, despite seemingly contradictory words, and although he has different opinions at different times in some cases, he always has a consistent purpose, direction and method. When Russell later recalled, he wrote: "What I needed at that time was certainty, just like people need religious belief." ③I believe that there is a basic purpose behind Russell's work, that is, to seek the truth with a kind of religious zeal, to seek the truth beyond the world, a kind of truth that is independent of the human heart, and even independent of human existence. truth.Anyone who studies Russell has encountered a problem, that is, some of his words are contradictory.At the outset, we'd better recognize this problem.For we may also quote him from a popular article in which he invites us to "recognize that the non-human world is not worthy of worship." We are here to discuss the issue of motivation.I can therefore only appeal to the evidence of how strong Russell's feelings were in support of my assertion that, while he saw all sides of the matter, his chief motive was the desire for absolutely certain impersonal knowledge. We may cite, for example, his remarks on Kant's claim that there is a subjective element in mathematics.His tone can only be described as a disgusting tone, as if a fundamentalist believer heard someone say that the Ten Commandments were invented by Moses himself. "Kant makes me sick". He despises "the mean and short-sightedness of some philosophers who confine their attention to this insignificant planet and the humble critters that crawl on it."Dewey's "disrespect to the universe" Russell was quite displeased with this.In his later years, he criticized some Oxford philosophers for paying too much attention to studying "the various ways in which stupid people can say stupid things" instead of trying to understand the world. It is my own opinion that Russell can reconcile the apparent contradiction between his enthusiasm for mathematics and his sympathy for mysticism.Both fascinate him because both seek truth independent of man's changing experience. But the strongest evidence is in his letters.For example, he wrote in 1918: "Before I die, I must find a way of saying what I am, what I have never said before— —This is not love, not hate, not pity, not contempt, but the essence of life, something fierce in nature, coming from afar, and bringing to you the immensity and the terrible, relentless power of the unearthly. Come in life..." I have therefore made the following passage my subject: "When I was young I hoped to find religious satisfaction in philosophy; I adore something that is irrelevant... I feel reverence when I think of mathematics... "Some things that seem to be irrelevant and worthy of admiration are quite moving.I have always been passionately eager to find some reasons to be the basis for people to be moved...such as the star-studded sky...the vastness of the scientific universe...a system of truths that have nothing to do with individuals, this system is exactly the same as the mathematical system Again, not just describing the world that exists by accident. "There are people who want to turn humanism into a religion that only recognizes that man is the greatest. They can't satisfy me emotionally. But I can't believe that in this world as we know it , there is something besides human beings to which we can value... Truth without human beings seems an illusion. "In this way, I agree with the humanitarians intellectually, although I am extremely opposed emotionally." This contradiction is the main thread in the development of Russell's philosophy described below. We can roughly summarize his experience as a philosopher: from Kant to Kant.In "The Foundations of Geometry" published in 1897, he said that "it can be obtained by some restrictions and interpretations of Kant's famous argument" his point of view.In "Human Knowledge" published in 1948, he talked about some thoughts and terms similar to Kant's philosophy.But he is still glad that he can claim that the synthetic a priori of human knowledge is not subjective as Kant advocated, just as in "Foundations of Geometry" he is not as subjective as Kant. Russell's academic life is devoted to three main lines of research.He was seeking impersonal objective truth in religion, mathematics, and science. ? No? It is to seek such truths in philosophy. ④ In his mind, he often thought that compared with mathematics and science, the study of philosophy was inferior.One of the most frequently repeated lines in his writings is that he constantly ridicules "philosophers" for being too lazy to study mathematics, or too stupid to understand science.More than once (for example, to Beatrice Weber in 1936) he expressed regret that he was not a scientist but a philosopher. The key to understanding Russell's philosophy is that his philosophy was primarily a by-product.He who thinks that his aim is philosophy (although it is natural for philosophers to err) makes his philosophy meaningless.In fact, in a sense, any philosophy of value is a by-product.正如罗素自己所说：“一种哲学要有价值，应该建筑在一个宽大坚实的知识基础之上，这个知识基础不单是关乎哲学的”。 罗素主要的目的是建立宗教真理、数学真理和科学真理。 关于宗教和数学方面，他自己把这一点说得很明显。“我希望在哲学中找到宗教上的满足……”……“我之走到哲学是通过数学的，或者说得更恰当一点，是通过一种愿望想找到一些理由来相信数学的真理”。 对科学的感情也许不是那么强。到底，科学不过是对付“这个偶然存在的世界”。 但是，最能评论罗素的人之一威兹教授说：“在我看来，罗素的主要兴趣一向是想为科学找根据。”因此，在某种意义上可以说，罗素的事业是三重的失败。 （ａ）他不仅不得不放弃宗教，而且也不得不放弃客观的伦理知识。（ｂ）他对《数学原理》的系统不完全满意，并且维根斯坦使他确信（也可以说几乎使他确信），数学知识总不过是重言式的而已。（ｃ）在《人类的知识》中他为科学知识所作的辩护是不合乎他早先希望所达到的标准的。 所有的哲学家都是失败者。但是罗素是少数中的一个，坦白承认这件事。他的极度的重要性就在于此。我们可以象他称赞康德那样来说他：“一个坦白的哲学家应该承认，他已经得到了最后的真理这种可能不太大。但是由于人性中有一种不能改的脾气喜欢作别人的门徒，如果这位哲学家的失败弄得不是十分显著，他就被人认为已经得到最后的真理了。把这种情形弄得显而易见是一种应做的事。 康德的坦率使他做这件应做的事比大多数别的哲学家做得更好一些。”他的哲学思想是他寻求确实知识的副产品。这种寻求终于失败了。那么他的失败如何会那样有效果呢？ 大致说来，这是由于两种不同的情形：（ａ）证明一个哲学问题无法解决就是解决了这个哲学问题，这就正如林德曼证明了无法作等于圆的正方形，是在数学中进了一步。 （ｂ）罗素在他的探求中有了一个特殊的哲学方法，这个方法即使不能给人以确定性，却是丰富了知识。他说：“每一个真正的哲学问题是一个分析的问题；在分析问题中，最好的方法是从结果开始，然后及于前提。” 说得粗浅一点，罗素以为一个哲学家的任务正象一个侦探故事中的一个侦探一样。 这个侦探不能不从结局开始，借着分析证物，逆着进行。（这个比喻之容易使人误解到什么程度，到下文就会明白。）上边所说只是罗素对他的哲学方法说明的第一部分。通常大家把注意力集中在这一部分，也许是不幸的。大家一向是注重他的“分析”方法，选择“分析”这个字是最为适当；但是“分析”在不同的意义下被人使用和滥用，已经变得几乎失掉了意义。我以为说不定自结果到前提这种观念是先于“分析”的观念；它更能说明做罗素的工作的基本的那个统一体。他在《数学的原理》里是从结果走到前提。四十年后在《人类的知识》里，他照样是如此。在这本书里他对他的关于科学推理的“假设”所提的主要论证正和《数学原理》里他为可约性公理所作的辩护是一样的。他在认识论上所做的工作并不是对他的数理哲学的工作的一种补充，而是从一个工厂来的，是用相同的工具做的。 他说：“从结论推到前提是归纳法的本质；所以数学原理的研究方法其实是一种归纳方法，本质上正和在任何别的科学中发现一般法则的方法是一样的”。 他在一九二四年写文章说，在纯粹数学以及任何科学里都安排了一个演绎系统；“有些前提远不及它们的一些结论那么明显，其所以为人所信主要是由于它们的结论。” 为什么罗素采取这种哲学方法呢？为什么他想为某些知识找些前提呢？因为最初他是希望借着穷源竟委，他能得到一些绝对确实的前提。为什么他要把前提的数目减到最低限度呢？一个理由是为减少错误的机会。奥卡姆剃刀就是这么来的。分析的目的何在呢？为的是增加知识。我相信，当初罗素的动机如果不是想得到确实的知识，他的哲学方法是不会发生成长的。如果自始他就知道那种确实性是得不到的，说不定他早就放弃了哲学而从事于研究经济学或史学。这样说来，他的工作是一个典型的例子，想做无法做到的事其结果会有什么成就。 罗素以为正当的哲学方法不是自前提到结论的演绎法，而正是与此相反。这种意见就产生了几种结果。 在哲学的争论中有决定性的武器是矛盾证明法；所得到的前提可以证明是矛盾的。 的确在哲学中证明某种东西为伪是可能的，但证明什么东西为真是万万做不到的。所以，“严格说来，哲学的论证主要是力图使读者见到作者所已经见到的。总之，这种论证在性质上不是证明，而是劝说”。 把争论的问题弄清楚的方法是“把容易被人不知不觉地使用的前提更细心地检查一番，对基本的东西更加长期地注意”。然后，一个哲学上的论证只能采取这种形式来说：“你看，你见不到我所见到的东西吗？”（这不是罗素的原话）。在哲学上向前迈进一步不外是对于某种事物忽然有了一种新的看法。 哲学上的进步是由分析得来的，此外还须兼具一种东西，罗素用不同的名字称之为（ａ）“洞察”、（ｂ）“直觉”、（ｃ）“本能”、（ｄ）“眼光”。 虽然他常常强调“洞察”和“本能”是容易错误的，以致我们相信他这话是显而易见的，他却承认，我们的本能的信仰只能因为是和另一个本能的信仰相矛盾，才能在无可如何中加以否定。哲学所能希望达到的最高目的是，（１）把我们的本能的信仰按确实性的深浅排列成一个阶层体系；（２）得到一个内部不矛盾的信仰体系。 罗素关于哲学的这些意见是值得强调的。因为有时候他写文章似乎是说，他把求助于“直觉”和“本能”（以及许多别的东西）严格地排除于他的哲学之外，这并不是说他不知道它们的重要性。有许多东西是摈斥于他的哲学之外，一些批评家指斥，以为这就是缺乏“深度”的证据。这些东西是存在于他治哲学的方法之中（也存在于他治别的学科的方法之中）。 哲学的论证不外是“劝说”，这件事很能说明为什么他的著作里颇有些随便的味道，为什么他用种种通俗的例子来说明他的思想，在这些例证里批评家们找得到有矛盾的地方。好像罗素是说，“如果那样说不能说服你，也许这样说会使你相信。” 因为以上所说关于哲学的意见是罗素五十多年以前形成的，时间如此之长，他的意见是会被人遗忘的。近些年以来这些意见又被人提出来，好象这些意见是维根斯坦和他的学派的新发现。（例如，威斯曼博士在《现代英国哲学》最近的一个分册里说：“有一种想法，以为哲学问题可以用论证来解决，而且，如果只要知道怎么论证，就可以得到彻底的解决……我似乎有一种新而惊人的结论：这事是做不到的。从来没有一个哲学家证明了什么东西……（因为）哲学的论证不是演绎的。”）我在上边曾提到奥卡姆剃刀是罗素的哲学方法的一部分，应用剃刀是由他热衷寻求确实的知识而起的。罗素自己是这样说明应用奥卡姆剃刀之为正当的。（“奥卡姆剃刀可以减少差误的机会，这是它的长处”）。③但是其中并不只是如此。罗素往往用自贬之辞来谈他的工作，这是我们必须注意的。 关于他自己他所不肯说的话，他却用来称述爱因斯坦。他曾写过文章说道，相对论“具有一种伟观，凡用极少的材料而能得出广漠无垠，浩如烟海的结果的东西，都能予人以这种感觉”。他说这话的时候更能隐示他的真情实感。 奥卡姆剃刀并不只是哲学上的一种节约运动；那样说就象是说雕刻家是一个把用不着的大理石碎片去掉的人。它不是象维根斯坦所说，是使用符号的一种规则。它甚至不仅是一种规则，为的是在哲学的推算中可以有更多正确的机会。罗素之应用奥卡姆剃刀不只是达到目的的一种手段，也是某种东西的一部分，这种东西本质上是一种动机，是一种热情，这种热情在罗素的心中正和他寻求客观真理的热情有一样大的力量。 凡是从原稿中把不必要的字删削掉的作者都知道这股热情是什么；凡探求最好的证明和最普遍的法则的数学家和科学家也知道这种热情是什么。列举一些实例要比说明它是什么或给它下一个定义容易些。 罗素在一九○六年曾写文章说，为数理逻辑在原始命题的不同体系中随意选择的时候，“从美感上说，原始命题最少而且最有普遍性的那一个是比较胜一筹；这正和引力定律胜于开卜勒的三定律是一样的”（着重号是我加的）。他回忆道，他最初研究牛顿的自引力定律演绎出开普勒的第二定律的时候，他几乎有“一种陶醉之感”。他曾提到，他还是一个小孩子的时候，他自己发现了等差级数之和的公式，他是多么高兴。他也曾提到过他是多么喜欢Ｅｉｎ＝-１这样一个简明的公式。在这些实例中，他更能表明事情的真相。但是，举例来说，当他写文章的时候他说：“在数学中最高限度的概括其为正当并不是在于耗费我们的时间'把能概括证明的东西在一个特殊实例中加以证明。” 这里面所包含的或许可以用不同的话说成是爱精美、爱一贯、爱体系或深奥。（取我认为“深奥”这个字唯一能讲得通的意义）。这里面所包含的是一种热情，这种热情有一部分和寻求客观的确实真理的热情有关系，有一部分相抵触。这证明也是无法得到的。 在早期的一篇文章里，他叙述如何在最伟大的数学著作里，“我们感觉到一贯性和必然性，正和在一出戏的展开里所感觉到的是一样的……爱体系、爱连贯……也许是心智冲动的最内在的要素”。后来他不得不得出这样的一个结论，就是，在哲学里，爱体系是诚实的思维的最大障碍；这正如他有这样的主张：“人要求确实性是很自然的，但仍不免是心智方面的一种恶习”。 他在一九三一年写文章说过下面的话，把他的结论用最极端的形式表示出来：“自巴门尼德的时候以来，学院式的哲学家们一直相信世界是一个统一体……我理智上最基本的信仰是，这种想法完全没有价值。我以为宇宙全是一些片断，没有统一性，没有连续、没有联络或秩序或女教师们所喜欢的任何别的性质。实在说，'有一个世界'这种见解只能说是偏见，是习惯……“客观世界是一种幻觉，但是如果这个世界是存在的，它是由一些短、小、偶然的事件构成的。秩序、统一和连续是人构想出来的，正如目录和百科全书是人构想出来的”。 为领略这一段话的真义，不可只把它看做是对大多数“学院式的哲学家”的彻底的攻击。这是对罗素自己曾经有过的主张的攻击；他的这种主张，在某种意义上说，他从前总想不放弃，以为在理智上来讲是可能的。 现在也许更容易了解为什么罗素的著作是那么复杂、精微和错综，为什么怀特海说罗素本身就是一个柏拉图的对话。 事实上，自柏拉图以来，再也没有一个伟大的哲学家的思想比罗素的思想更难用简短的篇幅加以概括了。他的哲学是一个战场，在这个战场上他对他自己打了一个无胜利希望的仗；有时候走的是这一个路线，有时候走的是另一个路线；他把整个范围都走到了才得到了结论，这些结论往往是正和他原来所希望得到的结论完全相反。 很不容易把罗素和他最早的哲学上的对手之间的主要争论之点总括起来，而不在某种意义上说使双方看起来好象都是对的。但是我以为罗素和布莱德雷关于内在关系的主要争论之点是布莱德雷的一种假设，以为一个实体必须有它所具有的那种关系。也许我们这样说最能把罗素进退维谷的情形概括起来，就是，他基本上是想相信充足理由律；他对学术的忠实迫使他不承认这个定律；因此就留给他了一个问题，就是解释科学知识如何能够成立。 听来好象很矛盾，罗素的一向很明晰的文章把他的论证中经常有的精微独到的地方弄得含混了。大家常常引用他的人人能懂的那些有争论的夸张的话和精警的句子；他惨澹经营从一种主张走到另一种主张或他和自己争论的那些书却常常没有人读。当代一位颇有些声誉的评论家说，罗素“即使讨论一些最难的论题也总是简单容易”；根据这一句话不难知道，这位评论家好象是从来没有读过《数学的原理》，甚至也没有读过《人类的知识》。 正如罗素批评桑塔耶拿时所说，流畅的文章很少和有创见的思想合得来。有创见的思想（至少是第一次表达的时候）多半是有“奇怪、莫明其妙的话”；罗素自己绝不说“奇怪、莫明其妙的话”；但是他的哲学却绝不“简单”。研究一个哲学家之前理应先有著者的声明作一个引端，这样读者就可以减少不自觉的偏见。 我的性情是一个神秘的柏格森主义者；我是不能满足于罗素的静的分析的方法的。 事实上我研究他的哲学的主要目的是寻求某种方法来回避他的结论；可是关于这一点，直到现在为止，我是完全失败了；我不相信有什么别人对于罗素的哲学已经作出了任何答覆，这种答覆可以使人心安理得地加以承认。 我已经说过，确实知道罗素和一元论者之间的争论之点究竟是什么，是不容易的。 布莱德雷说，“因为我事实上开始是如此，而分析所留给我的却是如彼，所以我不得不拒绝分析的结果，至少是一部分”。罗素是很难和布莱德雷的这话争辩的。“分析是不是曲解呢？”我以为对于这一个问题的唯一正确的回答是“是曲解，如果你不完全晓得你现在是在做什么”。如果一位物理学家把水分解以后，以为他仍然可以从分析的结果得到一口清凉的饮料，他显然是错误的；但是仍然不能否认，分析是增加我们对于水的知识的适当的方法。一个生理学家解剖一个活着的动物不能指望把这个动物再恢复原状，（我相信）也不能发现使这个动物生活与呼吸的究竟是什么。但是医学中大多数重要的突飞猛进是由于承认人体唯物论是一个有用的假设，虽然近年来有些医生有走错了路的倾向，把唯物论看成是完美不假外求的解释。同样，罗素把分析哲学当作一种增加知识的方法来竭力推行，我相信这是对的。他是反对分析哲学现今的最大限度。讲到伦理学说的时候，他对他的结论是不很满意的。 现在哲学家有两条路可走，一是竭力提倡精确的思想，同时承认在此以外另有别的领域；不然就是试作一种大的综合，哲学家的情绪和神秘的渴望都引到这个综合里来，把他的思想弄糟。罗素走的是第一条路。 简单地说，我相信，当作一种方法，分析是十分正当的。 但是如果竟然把它当作是一种形而上学，那就可以误人。罗素的著作暗中表露，他自己大概感到这一点。例如（着重点是我加的）：“大体说来，科学的进步是由分析和人为的隔离得来的”。 至少在一段里他强调了我心目中所想到的形而上学与方法的区别。关于麦农，他在一九○四年写道：“虽然经验论按一种哲学来说不见得能够成立，可是有一种经验研究法，这种研究法应该用之于每种题材。” Ⅱ应请注意的事在着手讨论罗素的思想的发展之前，有些开端的话不能不说一说。 我屡次写文章说，因为他想得到如此如此一个结论，他的思想是沿着某一个方向被推动前进的。这绝不可以为就是说，这个动机，自觉地或非自觉地，影响了他思维的结果。这个区别必须始终弄得清清楚楚。前面已经指出，他的思想的总趋向导致了正和他原来的希望相反的结果；但是这个区别也可以用于一些别的动机，这些动机我附带说一说。 在追寻罗素和他的前辈以及同时的人的思想之间的联系的时候，有危险给人一种印象，以为他的思想不是象实际上那样有创见。他过于豁达大度，承认他自别人得来的益处，说不定这也助成了这种印象。他曾写文章说，一个哲学家自称他是第一个作出一种发明的人，是降格到股票投机商的程度。 罗素大概比和他同时代的任何哲学家都渊博，怀特海或许是一个例外。他对于哲学最大的几种贡献是由于他有一种本领把来自很多来源的大量思想化合为一个完全精制的体系。这正和牛顿的《原理》是集合伽利略所创设的许多基本概念是一样的。但是即使有些思想是先由别人提出来的，罗素所写的无一不是他自己心灵的产品。最明显的证据就是有些情形（例如，中立一无论），他是经过一个长的时间才承认另一个哲学家的观点的。 还有许多情形完全是偶合。罗素得出了他的结论，不知道别人曾有过类似的结论。 这有类乎莱布尼茨和牛顿的发现微积分学，或魏尔第在《欧泰罗》中和古诺德在《罗米欧和朱丽叶》中的相同的四小节。至于罗素，当然最显著的例子是他和弗雷格完全不约而同所得到的数学学说。 还有可以注意的是，直到他比较晚期的时候他才获得了不少哲学上的知识，（这是就研究别的哲学家的著作这种读书人所用的普通意义来说）。他在剑桥的第四年级以前，他没有正式读过哲学，而且他在剑桥所学的课程是有重大的缺陷的。 罗素在儿童时代读笛卡尔之前就得出类乎笛卡尔的二元论的东西；他在读休谟以前就有休谟那样的怀疑。我以为他缺乏系统的哲学上的教育是一种便宜。人精熟以往的哲学家过早最足以蒙蔽有独创性的思维，因为这就使人知道，大部分自己想出的思想都是别人已经想过的，这就挫折了人的勇气。 （也许无知是便宜最好的例子是维根斯坦）。 略知罗素工作的方法对于了解他的著作是必须的。他连续有几个苦思力索的时期，每一个这样的时期所得到的结果是一本书。结局这本书是很快地写成。罗素几乎是从来不曾修改过他写的东西。一本书出版之后，他几乎是从来不再读它一遍。（他的书连续印行若干版，里面仍然有些小的排印错的地方，就是充分的证明）。每次他的思想开始有新的进展的时候，他的见解是清新的。他很少顾虑他的新思想和上次他所说过的话的关系。维根斯坦就是有这种顾虑的一个例子，他写他的《哲学研究》的时候，他总是把他的《逻辑哲学论》放在心里。 结果是给人一种印象，觉得早年和晚年之间是不一贯的，而实际上并不是那样。在表面上看好象是有些矛盾之处，这是因为他是从一个完全不同的观点来讨论一个问题，或是和一个不同的对手争论。罗素维护一种主张以反对来自不同方向的攻击的时候，他面对各方并没有不一贯之处。我相信罗素的著作的这种好争论的模样是十分重要的。不知道他的对手们说什么，往往是无法了解他的主张的。 罗素拒绝倒退着而行的另一结果是，在不同的书里他用字的意义略有不同，遂致看来有不一贯的地方，他没有说明这一个用法和另一个用法究竟有什么不同。无论哪一个有敌意的批评家都不难象这样收集很多字面上的前后不符。 我也未尝不可以说，一个批评家应该做一本字典，说明罗素在某一个时期对一个字的用法可以翻译成他在另一个时期对这个字的用法，这样来免除这种纯乎是字面上的混乱。自从穆尔的《伦理学原理》起，这种字典的编辑在关于哲学的学识上好象显然是走了第一步；而且罗素本人常常在讨论哲学时把他所用的辞先下一个定义。但是我并不以为这是避免在普通言语中不可避免的那种含糊笼统的最好的方法。罗素坚决主张这种含糊不明在普通的语言中无法避免，他的这种主张是不错的。 用字而不确知其意义显然是有危险的。但是想法给以严正的定义也有危险，虽然这种危险是不明显的。危险在于，我们也许认为这是完全有效的。 我不相信哲学中正确的办法是先有一套难下定义的东西，然后用它们来给别的字下定义。我相信在哲学里凡是关于难下定义的东西和定义所讲的话都必须放在末后，而不放在开头。在哲学这门学科中，我们用唯心论的与实在论的、先验的与经验的、必然的与偶然的、普遍的与特殊的这一类的字眼。我们很希望最后我们能晓得这一类的字的意义是什么。 也许我们必须指明在哪些地方罗素对于一些字的用法不同会引起误解。但是总的说来，如果我们想知道在某一个地方某一个字罗素是指什么，最好的办法是看上下文。 举例来说，我们可以考虑一下“哲学”这个字本身。罗素想给这个字下一个定义，后来终于断了念：“我不知道一个哲学家是什么。”大致说来，他对于哲学有两种不同的看法：（甲）“在特殊的科学里……是自简单走向复杂。②但是在哲学里……我们是凭借分析走向简单和抽象，设法在这一个过程中去掉了原来的题材的特殊性，把我们的注意力完全限于有关事实的逻辑形式”。 “新实在论……的目的只是在于把各种科学的基本观念弄清楚，并且把各科学综合为一个概括的看法。” （乙）“哲学……是一种介乎神学和科学之间的东西……是一个无人的地带。” “科学就是你所知道的东西，哲学就是你所不知道的东西。” 当他用第一种看法，（甲），来看哲学的时候，他写文章说逻辑是“哲学的精髓”。 他用另外那一种看法，（乙），看哲学的时候，他说出这样矛盾得令人吃惊的话来：“我认为逻辑不属于哲学”，和“大家所认为是哲学的其中十分之九是梦话。 那个唯一完全明确的部分是逻辑，而且那一部分既然是逻辑，它就不是哲学。 " 这个例子就会给我们一个绝好的初步的练习，练习一种技术，不为罗素的字面上的矛盾所误。在这些关于逻辑和哲学的表面上看来是抵触的话里，他所用的“哲学”有不同的意义；说不定他用“逻辑”也有不同的意义；而且文章的前后关系也不同。 的确，在某种意义上说，逻辑在罗素的晚期的哲学里并不象在一九一四年的时候那么重要。但是他并不象粗浅一看的那样一反从前的主张。我们可以悬想，有人在文字中的一个地方写道：“你若是不认识字母，你是不能读书的”，在另一个地方又说：“认识字母是和鉴赏文学毫不相干的”。 正如罗素本人有一次说道：“逻辑和数学……是自然这本书的字母，而不是这本书的本身”。 （艾兰乌德的这篇文章至此为止，未曾写完。）