Acquaintance, Knowledge, and Logic

Book excerpt: Bertrand Russell, the recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the most distinguished, influential, and prolific philosophers of the twentieth century. Part of his importance consists in the significant contributions he made to mathematical logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of science. But he is also widely recognized for his achievements as a public figure, social activist, and gifted popularizer who brought philosophy and science outside of the ivory tower with rare clarity and wit. Both of these elements harmoniously come together in his 1912 "The Problems of Philosophy," a deceptively short book originally intended for a mass-audience of working adults but which has since become a core reading in the philosophical canon. This volume brings together 10 new essays on "The Problems of Philosophy" by some of the foremost scholars of Russell s life and works. These essays reexamine Russell s famous distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, his developing views about our knowledge of physical reality, and his views about our knowledge of logic, mathematics, and other abstract matters. In addition, it includes an editors introduction, which summarizes Russell s book, highlights its continued significance for contemporary philosophy, and presents new biographical details about how and why Russell wrote it. "