SUGGESTIONS FOR NOTES, WEEKS 5-8
(Remember that these are
merely suggestions: you needn’t write on any of these topics.)
1. Consider Russell’s initial question, p. 7.
2. How do we consider “ultimate questions…
carelessly and dogmatically” in everyday life?
3. What is the picture of philosophy that is
emerging from Russell’s discussions and uses of it?
4. Dow we normally believe contradictory
things? Is this a problem?
5. Talk about the “man who doubts whether I know
anything.” (p. 8)
6. Give an example like Russell’s table, but of
your own devising.
7. What is “the uncomfortable possibility”
mentioned on p. 17? What does Russell
conclude about it?
8. What is meant by a “fixed point” (p. 17)
from which our philosophy can start?
9. What are Russell’s criticisms of Descartes’
‘cogito ergo sum’?
10. What is the relation of “common sense” to Russell’s concerns?
11. How does Russell conclude that the external
world exists?
12. Discuss “light is a form of
wave-motion” (p. 28).
13. What is Idealism?
14. What are the two senses of “know” (p. 44) ?
15. Explain some of the differences between
knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Is this plausible?
16. Which of these two routes to knowledge is
more “fundamental”? Why?
17. What are universals?
18. What is a definite description?
19. Explain what is meant by ‘induction’.
20. Give examples of inductive reasoning in
everyday life.
21. Why is “our inductive principle… not capable
of being disproved by an appeal to experience?” (p. 68)
22. Why can’t the inductive principle be proved
by an appeal to experience?
23. What is a priori knowledge?
24. Talk about the “laws of thought.” (p. 72)
25. What is appealing about Rationalism? about Empiricism?
26. Discuss:
“All knowledge which asserts existence is empirical.” (pp. 74-5)
27. Discuss the claim (p. 76) that “all
judgments as to what is useful depend upon judgments as to what has value on
its own account.”
28. Discuss:
“All pure mathematics is a priori, like logic.”
29. Could “two and two make five?” (pp. 78-9)
30. Ought all our beliefs be capable of proof,
or at least of being shown to be highly probable (p. 111)?
31. Comment on Russell’s usage of
‘self-evidence’.
32. Why are “the actual sense-data… neither true
nor false” (p. 113)?
33. Is memory “…trustworthy in proportion to the
vividness of the experience and to its nearness in time” (p. 115) ?
34. Explain why “knowledge of things” has no
opposite.
35. Explain why there is an opposite for
“knowledge of truths.”
36. Why would a “world of mere matter” have no
truth or falsity (pp. 120-1) ?
37. Explain what is meant by “truth consists in
some form of a correspondence between belief and fact.” (p. 121)
38. What is meant by a “coherence theory of
truth?” (p. 122) What are Russell’s two
objections to it?
39. Does philosophy have a “utility” as physical
science does?
40. What might Russell mean when he says that
“the value of philosophy [lies]… largely in its very uncertainty?”
41. Say something about Russell’s discussion of
freedom and impartiality.