An Outline of Philosophy (Book Review)
Nonetheless, reading An Outline of Philosophy was an uphill task. It slowed me down. It felt as if I had never read anything. A fiction novel with that page count would be a 3-day affair. I fancied what it would be like to punch much above my weight.
Reading a sentence over and over and then reading the paragraph over and over, carefully holding up a bunch of ideas in my immediate attention long enough for them to make sense so much so that a sneeze or a brisk movement could dissipate away sense, feeling anxious whether I would be able to follow Russell any further before my nerves give way—that was my experience with this book. After finishing a chapter, instead of getting caught up in self-congratulatory emotions, I began mustering courage to proceed to the next chapter.
Because philosophy is interesting, we assume, it must be also simple. No, it's not, at least, academic philosophy is not. People equate their simple unexamined beliefs with philosophy. Beliefs that cannot rise to the strength of statements and cannot be validated cannot pass for philosophy. People even call their religious views as philosophy. Religious philosophy is an oxymoron (unless it means philosophy of religion). What the religious called philosophy is actually dogma that's not very difficult to understand, although when you don't appreciate it, they say that you have not understood it and mandate certain competencies to be able to grasp the hidden meaning. One can read this book and then decide for himself whether one has any real interest in philosophy or philosophical thinking. Quantum mechanics sounds interesting but can only be committed to one's understanding through a lot of physics and mathematics. Philosophy demands a similar, perhaps more analytical, rigour.
I think, Russell was trying to communicate clearly to the extent that's possible when talking about subjects such as perception, language, knowledge, image and memory, space-time, belief, introspection, inference, induction, emotion, truth, matter vs. event. He compresses each of these topics into its respective chapter covering enough ground to make his excursions ahead intelligible. In writing the book, he had committed himself to a certain level of ease with his publisher—difficulty or ease being the function of reader's preparedness.
The book was published when neutrons weren't yet discovered. Neutrons were discovered in 1932 by James Chadwick and this book was published in 1927. Except for the chapter on the structure of atom and I believe some bits of the chapter on relativity, all other chapters are still relevant. Russell explains how physics, physiology and psychology come together to give us the knowledge of the world. The reality of the world as far as our perceptual knowledge is concerned is neither materialism nor mentalism but a neutral monism of which matter and mind are states. However, I want to convey that Russell, although an atheist, is not a dogged materialist. He is open to new ideas and new ways of thinking as long as they do not subvert the established structures of knowledge by making unverifiable claims.
I wanted to give the book a 3-star rating as I had just recovered from the debilitating challenges of keeping up with it. Now that I have waded past the sludge, I look back on it as testing philosophical waters; experiencing what it means to rake one's brains. I am still in disbelief that all that learning and incisive logic, all that perspicacity and range lodged for a time in my tiny head. Alas, such mental attainments have a very short half-life.
Four stars for the book. Yes, one star less for making it so difficult for me. I will never forget the intellectual humiliation that the book brought me. Also, it was more of a commentary on the field of human knowledge and, therefore it felt, Russell wasn't going anywhere with all those ideas. If I read it again and find it a smooth sailing, I would attribute the challenge of reading the book to my ill-health during this period.
Related Post
Comments