Philosophical Essays

Six out of seven essays appearing here were reprinted from other publications; indeed, this 1910 collection went out of print, so that two of the essays occurring here were reprinted in Russell's 1917 "Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays". Nonetheless, this essay records Russell's thinking at a critical juncture, just before the publication of Volume I of the co-authored "Principia Mathematica" and just after the passing of the American pragmatist, William James. These essays record Russell's reactions to pragmatism and its theory of truth, as well as the ethical aspects of philosophy suitable for co-existing alongside the new logical method in philosophy, announced subsequently in the 1914 "Our Knowledge of the External World: as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy".

By : Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

00 - Preface 01 - The Elements of Ethics 02 - The Elements of Ethics 03 - The Free Man's Worship 04 - The Study of Mathematics 05 - Pragmatism-Part 1 06 - Pragmatism- Part 2 07 - William James' Conception of Truth 08 - The Monistic Theory of Truth 09 - On the Nature of Truth and Falsehood

The following essays, with the exception of the last, are reprints, with some alterations, of articles which have appeared in various periodicals. The first three essays are concerned with ethical subjects, while the last four are concerned with the nature of truth. I include among the ethical essays the one on 'The Study of Mathematics', because this essay is concerned rather with the value of mathematics than with an attempt to state what mathematics is. Of the four essays which are concerned with Truth, two deal with Pragmatism, whose chief novelty is a new definition of 'truth'. One deals with the conception of truth advocated by those philosophers who are more or less afiliated to Hegel, while the last endeavours to set forth briefly, without technicalities, the view of truth which commends itself to the author. All the essays, with the possible exception of the one on 'The Monistic Theory of Truth', are designed to appeal to those who take an interest in philosophical questions without having had a professional training in philosophy.

I have to thank the editor of The New Quarterly for permission to reprint 'The Study of Mathematics' and Sections I, II, 111, V and VI of the essay on 'The Elements of Ethics', and for Section IV I have to thank the editor of the Hibbert Journal. My acknowledgments are also due to the editors of The Independent Review, The Edinburgh Review, The Albany Review, and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, for permission to reprint the essays II, IV, V and VI respectively. In the sixth essay as originally printed, there was a third section, which is now replaced by the seventh essay.

Postscript. -The death of William James, which occurred when the printing of this book was already far advanced, makes me wish to express, what in the course of controversial writings does not adequately appear, the profound respect and personal esteem which I felt for him, as did all who knew him, and my deep sense of the public and private loss occasioned by his death. 　For readers trained in philosophy, no such assurance was required; but for those unaccustomed to the tone of a subject in which agreement is necessarily rarer than esteem, it seemed desirable to record what to others would be a matter of course.