A Brief Incursion into Epistemology (to be continued)
I walk my dog in the mornings while typically listening to a news podcast. Sometimes I get tired of the news and listen to music or search for some other type of podcast to accompany my walk. Recently I listened to a few episodes of one called “European Intellectual History since Nietzsche,” which consists essentially of recordings of a class given at Yale by an Associate Professor of History called Marci Shore. I enjoyed the first few classes but soon some things didn’t sound quite right to me – admittedly, based on my very limited knowledge – and these issues were enough to make me stop listening. No demerit to the professor, this may only reflect my own limitations and I won’t get into what those issues were because what matters is that it got me wanting to learn more about the epistemology of different philosophers.
Before jumping into epistemology, here is a brief summary of what I got out of Prof Shore’s first two episodes with a broad overview of the Enlightenment and Romanticism.
I next spent some time trying to pin down the epistemological view of different philosophers making use of a few introductory sources: the Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Honderich 1995), which I found in a used book store, Wikipedia and ChatGPT. Yes, I went there. However, I had very little confidence in what I was getting from those sources.
So I finally shifted my efforts and went to my go-to philosopher – Bertrand Russell – for, rather than a history of epistemological thought, at least his own views.
I should first clarify that epistemology can be defined in different ways, but it essentially refers to the branch of philosophy that addresses how we know. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy defines it differently in different entries written by different contributors. The entry for history of epistemology, written by Prof. D.W. Hamlyn of Birkbeck College, London, defines it as “the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge, its possibility, scope, and general basis” (Honderich 1995, p. 242). The entry for problems of epistemology, written by Prof. Jonathan Dancy of Keele University, defines it as the “study of our right to the beliefs we have” (Honderich 1995, p. 245). I take these definitions, in combination, to be sufficient to convey what the focus of this post (and my interest) is.
Bertrand Russell has a little book called “The Problems of Philosophy,” published in 1912, and that largely focuses on epistemology. The book is not exclusively about epistemology, however, and wonders into ontological questions about the nature of reality (e.g. addressing in several parts the issue of “idealism”). I try to focus on the epistemology parts, but I do understand how the two issues are intertwined.
Here is my understanding of Russell’s views, based on the book.
What we perceive through our senses is only indirectly a physical object. We perceive what he calls “sense-data,” which are signals of the actual physical object. “Sensation” is the awareness of things through sense-data. The collection of physical objects is “matter.”
Russell distinguishes between knowing truths (e.g. savoir in French, saber in Spanish and Portuguese) from knowing things (e.g. connaitre in French, conocer in Spanish, conhecer in Portuguese). He then turns to focus on the knowledge of things.
We can “know” things directly or indirectly. The former he will call “knowledge by acquaintance,” the latter “knowledge by description.”
Knowledge by acquaintance can happen in several ways, such as through sense-data, through memory or introspection (self-consciousness, knowledge of self).
Figure 2 below summarizes his thought so far.
Figure 2. Knowledge of Things
The fact that we are able to generate inferences from what we know about things means that we are drawing on some general principles to do so. Examples are:
- The principles of induction: the more two things are observed together, the more we expect them to be
- The principles of logic. E.g.: if it is know that: a) if this is true that is true; and b) this is true; then c) that is true
Principles of inference are examples of what he calls “a priori” knowledge. Other examples are mathematics and knowledge as to ethical value (or the intrinsic desirability of things). Russell argues that these principles (or a priori knowledge) cannot be proved by experience. This is an old debate between empiricists and rationalists, and key in defining an epistemological view. The debate often uses the terms “innate” knowledge rather than a priori. Russell prefers to use a priori to innate because, although a priori knowledge cannot be proved by experience, he considers it to be elicited and caused by experience. In the debate between empiricists (e.g. Locke, Berkeley, Hume) and rationalists (e.g. Descartes, Leibniz), Russell considers that the rationalists were correct in that a priori knowledge cannot be derived from experience. But he thinks rationalists were incorrect in thinking that they could deduce what they know from a priori knowledge since, as mentioned above, the a priori knowledge are elicited and caused by experience.
How Russell argues that the general principles cannot result from experience alone is central to his understanding of how we know. His main argument seems to be that any generalization from experience (induction) presupposes some general principle. Therefore, no general principle can be proven by experience. He gives the example of a chicken who expects food every time it sees the person who feeds it. Every day the expectation is confirmed….until the day the person breaks the chicken’s neck. There is no logical reason that simple repetition should guarantee its continuity, no matter how much we expect it to be so, unless we associate to that expectation some general principle (e.g. a logical principle). A note: Russell does not mention causality in his argumentation, but it is my understanding that all causal argumentation presupposes logical principles, so Russell’s argument is consistent with someone bringing causality into the discussions to justify expectations based on experience. The point made in this paragraph seems simple enough, but it is key to establishing an epistemological view and, as mentioned in the previous paragraph it addresses a long standing epistemological debate. On this point, Russel makes a lot of sense to me.
A consequence for scientific thought:
“The general principles of science […] are as completely dependent on the inductive principle as are the beliefs of daily life […]. Thus all knowledge which, on the basis of experience tells us something about what is not experienced, is based upon a belief which experience can neither confirm nor refute […].” (Russell 1912, p. 40)
Deduction then also plays a part in the building of our knowledge, because we can often know general principles without inferring it from its instances (e.g. 2+2=4). Deduction starts from the general to the general or to the particular; induction starts from the particular to the particular or to the general.
Russell then asks himself how a priori knowledge is possible. Here the discussion seems to veer again quite a bit into ontological questions, since it becomes not just how to “know” a priori principles but also about the nature of a priori principles.
He first explains Kant’s view, which states that a priori knowledge is generated from the interaction of ourselves and physical objects (the “things in themselves”), what he calls “phenomenon.” We cannot know a thing in itself, only to the extent that it conforms with our own nature. If I understood Russell’s explanation, according to Kant a priori knowledge would be a product of our interaction with physical objects. This view would not quite fit empirical views, because we are not just observers, but our own nature is part of what generates our knowledge, just as much as the things in themselves and the perception we have of them. Kant’s view on this makes a lot of sense to me.
Russell, however, proceeds to make a point that I find less immediately obvious and that I am still not sold on. He argues that we should not think of our part in this phenomenon as reflecting the nature of our minds but rather, that a priori knowledge must have a nature that is neither material nor an idea. He gives as an example the law of contradiction (nothing can both be and not be), which he argues is not just a statement about our beliefs (our minds) but of the things themselves. I do not see how this necessarily follows. Why would the law of contradiction not be something that we take for given because of the structure of our minds? How do we know that, in fact, this law must apply to things, if we cannot even perceive things directly? I do not follow Russell’s argument here. At the same time, this is an ontological question and, therefore, not of particular interest to me. Whether the law of contradiction is imposed on things by our minds or is something that exists beyond matter and ideas it does not seem to have immediate consequences for how we know, in any practical way. On this matter, for now, I will stick to Kant’s view, which is more intuitive to me.
Russell then goes on to discuss the nature of a priori knowledge as being neither material, nor a product of our minds. To do so, he reaches out to Plato. To avoid thinking of a priori knowledge as an “idea” he suggests using the term “universal,” and states that the essence of universals is that they do not arise from a given sensation. He goes on to discuss the nature of universals, which I will jump here, both because he lost me and because it seems like too much of a deep dive into ontological questions for this post.
Russel’s next step is to suggest that our knowledge of universals can also be acquired by acquaintance or by description, just like our knowledge of particulars. Through acquaintance, we come to many different types of universal knowledge, such as sensible qualities (e.g. “whiteness), relations (e.g. before and after, above or below, greater or smaller than) and he states that all a priori knowledge deals with relations of universals (Russell 1912, p. 63).
Figure 3 below modifies Figure 2 to include universals in the picture, the nature of which will remain a mystery to me for now. I must say, however, that there is more to be discussed regarding the knowledge of truths. Russell’s book contains a few more chapters on this, including on intuitive knowledge, truth and falsehood, probable opinion and the value and limits of philosophy. I stopped before these, however, since the discussion of the nature of universals already stumped me and is, in any case, as far as I am willing and have time to go at the moment.
Figure 3. Knowledge of Truths*
*There is more to discuss regarding the knowledge of truths based on Russell’s book. To be continued.
Sources
Russell, Bertrand. 1912. The Problems of Philosophy. Printed version of work in the public domain.
Honderich, Ted (Editor). 1995. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press
Shore, Marci. 2024. European Intellectual History since Nietzsche. Podcast with recording of classes offered at Yale in 2023. Available on Spotify. Accessed: January 2025
