Since I created this philosophical website ten years
ago, I have published more than 500 blogs. Nonetheless, if the reader wants to
know what the main themes in philosophy are, it has no sense to list the themes
of my blogs, since they don’t show what is important in philosophy but only what
my philosophical interests are. Moreover, since I am not a philosopher by
education but a sociologist who later became interested in philosophy, I even haven’t
a good overview of the field. So, I got the idea to browse a bit on the
Internet and to enter the words “problems in philosophy” in the Google search machines
and see what I would get. Well, what did I find? Pages and pages with entries
referring to Bertrand Russell’s book The
problems of philosophy. I could even download the book for free, which was
not necessary though, since I have it already. As such the result was not bad,
but the book is already from 1912. However, because I wanted to see what the
main philosophical problems were then according to Russell, I took my copy,
read the contents and thumbed it through. What was it that Russell considered the
major philosophical issues? I’ll spare you an enumeration of the fifteen
subjects he discussed but they concern all the nature of reality and matter
(ontological problems) and knowledge related problems (epistemological problems
like induction, intuition, truth, universals). Although I lack a good overview
of the field, as said, also for me it’s striking what Russell does not discuss in view of what is regarded
philosophically important today. It’s true that Russell wrote in the foreword
of his book that he had “confined [him]self in the main to those problems of
philosophy in regard to which [he] thought it possible to say something
positive and constructive ... For this reason, theory of knowledge occupies a
larger space than metaphysics ..., and some topics much discussed by
philosophers are treated very briefly, if at all.” And it’s also true that some
problems became important only after Russell had published the book. Even so,
it is useful to mention a few subjects that Russell ignored, albeit only for
illustrating what has changed in philosophy. So here are a few themes that are
absent in his book:
- Themes from ethical and moral philosophy. But didn’t
already the ancient Greek philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, talk about
questions of right and wrong and the best way of life and about what they meant
for us? These themes have always been present in philosophy since then, and
maybe they are now even more popular than before.
- What is consciousness and what does it mean for
human experience.
- The relationship between mind and body. The theme
has become important since Descartes made his famous statement “I think so I
am”. In Russell’s time it was still mainstream philosophy that mind and body
were different substances. How much has changed, especially since brain
research has started booming with all philosophical consequences involved like
whether there is a free will.
- If “we are our brain”, as some philosophers and
brain scientists say, what does remain then of the idea of the free will? Although
this theme has become especially important since the rise of modern brain
research, it was not new when Russell wrote his book.
- The philosophy of action, so questions about what
actions are, how we study them, what makes how we act and so on. Although action
philosophy developed as a special philosophical field not before the end of the
1950s, already in the 19th century there was a debate whether the humanities
need a method of their own which is different from the method of the natural
sciences. Although this discussion had many epistemological implications it was
ignored by Russell, as it was by most other main stream philosophers studying
epistemological themes.
- What is a person? What is personal identity? The question
was raised by John Locke in 1689 and again and again it attracted the attention
of philosophers, till today.
I am the first to admit that my list of problems of
philosophy is casual and incomplete, also as a supplement to Russell’s list.
Moreover, one cannot blame Russell for not mentioning problems that were not
relevant in his days or even did not yet exist. Nonetheless, his list was one-sided,
but what is more important, his choice shows that the main themes of philosophy
have changed. Epistemological problems have become less important; ontological
problems like the essence of matter and reality have become hobbies for
specialists. What are important now are questions in the philosophy of mind on
the consequences of brain research, for instance, like their effects on our
idea of free will. Or ethical questions about good life and how we give sense
to what we do. The times they are a-changin’,
and so is philosophy.
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