Renaissance Scientific Movement | Bertrand Russell (lecture date 1914)
Bertrand Russell (lecture date 1914)
SOURCE: A lecture delivered at The Museum on November 18, 1914, in Scientific Method in Philosophy: The Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1914, pp. 3–30.
[In the following lecture, Russell summarizes the course of science since Copernicus and asserts that philosophy can progress only by studying, adapting, and applying the methods of science.]
When we try to ascertain the motives which have led men to the investigation of philosophical questions, we find that, broadly speaking, they can be divided into two groups, often antagonistic, and leading to very divergent systems. These two groups of motives are, on the one hand, those derived from religion and ethics, and, on the other hand, those derived from science. Plato, Spinoza, and Hegel may be taken as typical of the philosophers whose interests are mainly religious and ethical, while Leibniz, Locke, and Hume may be taken as...
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