Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRSwas a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth18 May 1872
imagination heaven purpose
If life is to be fully human it must serve some end which seems, in some sense, outside human life, some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God or truth or beauty. Those who best promote life do not have life for their purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation, a bringing into our human existence of something eternal, something that appears to imagination to live in a heaven remote from strife and failure and the devouring jaws of Time.
plato purpose world
The atomists , unlike Socrates , Plato , and Aristotle , sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause.
purpose causes mathematics
Bacon not only despised the syllogism, but undervalued mathematics, presumably as insufficiently experimental. He was virulently hostile to Aristotle , but he thought very highly of Democritus , Although he did not deny that the course of nature exemplifies a Divine purpose, he objected to any admixture of teleological explanation in the actual investigation of phenomena; everything, he held, should be explained as following necessarily from efficient causes .
religion purpose world
The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
religion atheism purpose
Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.
purpose defense teach
The purpose of education is to teach a defense against eloquence.
apply arabian conception desires except house human labor mere natural purpose result rise time wish
The conception of purpose is a natural one to apply to a human artificer. A man who desires a house cannot, except in the Arabian Nights, have it rise before him as a result of his mere wish; time and labor must be expended before his wish can be gra
exact wish
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.
absurd adequate cruelty ground perfectly theory
Cruelty is in theory a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd
boredom caused fear half mankind problem since sins vital
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
beauty cold mathematics rightly supreme
Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
beauty cold rightly sculpture supreme
Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty; a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture
beauty mathematics possesses supreme
Mathematics possesses not only truth, but also supreme beauty
beat days easily former less male men others questioned reasonable respect swayed woman women
Male superiority in former days was easily demonstrated, because if a woman questioned her husband's he could beat her. From superiority in this respect others were thought to follow. Men were more reasonable than women, more inventive, less swayed b