Philosophy

Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell, is a concise but wide-ranging introduction to some of the central problems of modern philosophy. First published in 1927—and issued in Great Britain under the title An Outline of Philosophy—the book examines the nature and limits of human knowledge, perception, memory, inference, mind, matter, ethics, and humanity’s place in the universe. Russell approaches philosophy as a critical inquiry into what is commonly accepted as knowledge, emphasizing precision, logical analysis, and the need to question assumptions that appear certain but may be vague or self-contradictory. The book is organized into major sections on man and the external world, the physical world, inner experience, and the universe, with chapters on perception, memory, language, relativity, causation, consciousness, emotion, ethics, truth, inference, matter, and mind. It is especially valuable for readers interested in epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, logic, and twentieth-century analytic philosophy.