| Bertrand Russell 18.5.1872 Chepstow, Monmouthshire – 2.2.1970 Penrhyndendraeth, Wales 
Bertrand Russell –
Agnostiker oder Atheist? Russell zu Gott und Religion
– The
shortest way to Winchester –
History of the World – Zitat
über Frege Werke
online (Auswahl) |
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| “Of those who survive many will be brutalized
and morally degraded by the fierce business of killing, which, however much it
may be the soldier's duty, must shock and often destroy the more humane
instincts. As every truthful record of war shows, fear and hate let loose the
wild beast in a not inconsiderable proportion of combatants, leading to strange
cruelties, which must be faced, but not dwelt upon if sanity is to be
preserved.” Russell, Bertrand (1915): "The Ethics of War". International Journal of Ethics 25:2, S. 127-142. Siehe dazu: Bellum Justum – Der Gerechte Krieg
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| “The precept of veracity, it
seems to me, is not such as James thinks. It is, I should say: »Give to
any hypothesis which is worth your while to consider just that degree of
credence which the evidence warrants.« And if the hypothesis is
sufficiently important there is the additional duty of seeking further
evidence.” S. 727, Russell, Bertrand (2004): „William James“. In: History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge. [1946] |
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| Ein bemerkenswertes Zitat über Bertrand
Russell, offensichtlich von einem Ignoranten: "... the world of analytical philosophy appears to me as so much bean-counting—or, rather, enumeration of the ways in which beans might be counted. Literary types tend to be drawn more to the poetic visions of a Heidegger or a Blanchot than to the logical conundrums of a Russell or an Ayer." Tom McCarthy in einer Besprechung des letzten, unvollendeten Romans von David Foster Wallace: The Pale King. Das Romanfragment wurde – als letztes Werk des früh aus dem Leben geschiedenen Autors – enorm hochgejubelt.  Tom McCarthy: "David Foster Wallace: The Last Audit", New York
Times, April 14, 2011 |
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| “I will not assert
dogmatically that there is no cosmic purpose, but I will say that there is no
shred of evidence in favor of there being one.” "Is There
a God?" (1952), in: The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell |
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 “Man is a rational animal – so at
least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for
evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune
to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three
continents.”So nüchtern leitet Russell den Essay »An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish« (1943) ein. Doch er gibt sofort einen Hoffnungssschimmer: “... folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived ...” (S. 69).
“As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are
content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our
troubles.” (S. 79) “In practice, people choose the book considered sacred by
the community in which they are born, and out of that book they choose the
parts they like, ignoring the others.” (S. 79)
“The importance of Man, which is the one indispensable dogma of the
theologians, receives no support from a scientific view of the future of the
solar system” (S. 82). “When one reads of the beliefs of savages, or of the
ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, they seem surprising by their capricious
absurdity. But beliefs that are just as absurd are still entertained by the
uneducated even in the most modem and civilized societies.” (S.
95) “The most savage controversies are
those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there
is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion.” (S.
101) “The only way I know of dealing with this general human
conceit is to remind ourselves that man is a brief episode in the life of a
small planet in a little corner of the universe, and that, for aught we know,
other parts of the cosmos may contain beings as superior to ourselves as we are
to jellyfish” (S. 103).»An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish«, in:
Unpopular Essays “... scientific progress
without a corresponding moral and political progress may only increase the
magnitude of the disaster that misdirected skill may bring about” (S.
131).»Ideas That Have Helped Mankind«, in: Unpopular
Essays “Belief in a
Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the
human race” (S. 157).»Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind«, in:
Unpopular Essays |
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| "We may define
“faith” as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence.
Where there is evidence, no one speaks of “faith.” We do not speak of
faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of
faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of
emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups
substitute different emotions. Christians have faith in the Resurrection,
communists have faith in Marx’s Theory of Value. Neither faith can be
defended rationally, and each therefore is defended by propaganda and, if
necessary, by war. The two are equal in this respect. If you think it immensely
important that people should believe something which cannot be rationally
defended, it makes no difference what the something is. Where you control the
government, you teach the something to the immature minds of children and you
burn or prohibit books which teach the contrary. Where you do not control the
government, you will, if you are strong enough, build up armed forces with a
view to conquest. All this is an inevitable consequence of any strongly held
faith unless, like the Quakers, you are content to remain forever a tiny
minority." Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954 |
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| "War does not determine who
is right, only who is left." Unbekannte
Quelle |
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| “My views on religion remain
those which I acquired at the age of sixteen. I consider all forms of religion
not only false but harmful. My published works record my views.” "Bertrand Russell on the Afterlife", The Humanist, 28:5 (Sept.- Oct. 1968) |
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| "Warum
sollte es mich sorgen, daß ich aufhöre zu leben. Die ganze Zeit vor
meiner Geburt habe ich doch auch nicht gelebt, ohne daß mir das Sorgen
bereitet." Zitiert nach Robert Spaemann: "Sein und Gewordensein. Was erklärt die Evolutionstheorie?" In: Spaemann, Robert, Peter Koslowski, Reinhard Löw, Hg.: Evolutionstheorie und menschliches Selbstverständnis. Zur philosophischen Kritik eines Paradigmas moderner Wissenschaft, S. 90 Hinzuweisen ist darauf, dass "bereitet" Gegenwart ist. Spaemann kommentiert wie folgt:
Vergleiche dazu J.L.
Borges,
Epikur,
Jonathan Franzen,
Palmerston und Wittgenstein |
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| „Philosophy, from the
earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any
other branch of learning“ (S.13). „The difference between man and the lower animals, which to our human conceit appears enormous, was shown to be a gradual achievement, ...“ (S. 22) „A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress—though whether the amoeba would agree with this optimism is not known“ (S. 22-23). „What I do wish to maintain—and it is here that the scientific attitude beomes imperative—is that insight, untested and unsupported, is an insufficient guarantee of truth, in spite of the fact that much of the most important truth is first suggested by its means“ (S. 31) „Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reasons confirms or confutes“ (S. 31) „Aristotle had spoken, and it was the part of humbler men merely to repeat the lesson after him“ (S. 42) „Philosophy cannot boast of having achieved such a degree of certainty that it can have authoritiy to condemn the facts of experience and the laws of science“ (S. 74) Our Knowledge of the External World As A Field For Scientific Method In Philosophy.1993 [1914] –
Rezension |
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| Zum Problem der Verallgemeinerung durch
Induktion: "... some world-governing Caligula, having made a complete census, might extirpate his subjects and then commit suicide, exclaiming with his last breath: »Now I know that all men are mortal«. But in the meantime we have to rely upon less conclusive Evidence.", S. 155 "The common-sense practice is to accept testimony unless there is a positive reason against doing so in the particular case concerned." S. 206 "Either, therefore, we know something independently of experience, or science is moonshine", S. 524 Human Knowledge. Its Scope and Limits. London 1951 [1948] – Rezension |
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| “Do not feel envious of the
happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness” A Liberal Decalogue,
1951 |
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| "Here, as usually in
philosophy, the first difficulty is to see that the problem is
difficult", S. 9 "As soon as we remember the possible fallibility of the observer, we have introduced the serpent into the behaviourist's paradise. The serpent whispers doubts, and has no difficulty in quoting scientific scripture for the purpose." S. 12-13 "Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows that naive realism is false", S. 13 "Since we cannot examine everything, we cannot know general propositions empirically", S. 44 "Practical convenience mainly determines what sensible qualities shall have names", S. 51 "The newspapers, at one time, said that I was dead, but after carefully examining the evidence I came to the conclusion that the statement was false", S. 75 "Facts are what they are, without ambiguity", S. 79 "There is no point in the growing precision of language beyond which we cannot go; our language can always be rendered less inexact, but can never become quite exact." S. 83 "... every empirical concept has the sort of vagueness that is obvious in such examples as »tall« or »bald«", S. 100 Über Leibniz, Malebranche u.a.: "In all these systems, however, there was felt to be something fantastic, and only philosophers with a long training in absurditiy could suceed in believing them", S. 110 "... a perceptive experience is a dogmatic belief in what physics and induction show to be probable", S. 116 "The purpose of words, though philosophers seem to forget this simple fact, is to deal with matters other than words", S. 141 "A sentence may signify a truth, or signify a falsehood, or signify nothing; but if a sentence signifies anything, then what it signifies must be true or false." S. 168 "... »correct« is a social concept, but »true« is not", S. 177 "Empiricists fail to realize that much of the knowledge they take for granted assumes events that are not experienced", S. 206 "Whether we accept or reject the words »true« and »false«, we are all agreed that assertions can be divided into two kinds, sheep and goats", S. 308 Alle obigen Zitate aus: An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth. London: Penguin, 1965 – Rezension |
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| "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly
strong, have governed my life: The longing for love, the search for knowledge,
and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great
winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean
of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair." S. 13 "Italy and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy", S. 125. "... one's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days", S. 125-26. "... what we have to do [...] is to treat the religious instinct with profound respect, but ot insiste that there is no shred or particle of truth in any of the metapyhsics it has suggested", Brief vom 16.7.1903, zitiert nach S. 186-87. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. Vol. I. [1967] 1971, (
Rezension) |
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Vladimir Nabokov über Bertrand Russell |
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| Bertrand Russell lehnte die Einladung zur
Krönung der englischen Königin in die Westminster-Abtei ab: "Ich habe
sehr viel andere Dinge zu tun. Ich bin ein vielbeschäftigter Mensch."
"Bertrand Russell", Der Spiegel 10.06.1953, Seite 25 |
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| "A good point of philosophy is to start with
something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so
paradoxical that no one will believe it." – Quelle
unbekannt |
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| "In all
affairs, love, religion, politics or business, it's ahaelthy idea, now and
then, to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for
granted." "Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know" The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations, Ware, 1996 |
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| "A
theologian cannot change his mind an major issues of doctrine, for the
consequence of this is heresy. A scientist, however, can change his theories if
further investigations reveal his earlier formulations to be wrong. It is
Russell's hope that as philosophy comes closer to a scientific point of view,
the right of the philosopher to alter his opinions in the light of his later
thoughts will be accepted as a matter of course." Robert Charles Marsh, Chicago, Illinois, Herausgeber
von Bertrand Russell: Logic and Knowledge. Essays 1901-1950, in Logic
and Knowledge, S.283 |
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| "Reason has a perfectly clear
and concise meaning. It signifies the choice of the right means to an end that
you wish to achieve. It was nothing whatever to do with the choice of
ends." Human Society in Ethics and Politics, London 1954. S. viii. Vergleiche dazu John
R. Searle |
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| “I observe that a very
large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible
punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely
that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt
his existence.” – ? W.A. |
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| “The fundamental
cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while
the intelligent are full of doubt.” "The Triumph of Stupidity", 1933, in: Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935, Routledge, 1998, S. 28 |
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| “Change is one thing,
progress is another. »Change« is scientific, »progress«
is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of
controversy.” – Unpopular Essays
1950 |
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| “War does not
determine who is right - only who is left.” |
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| “But so long as men are not trained to
withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by
cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant
fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so
are most of the other virtues. For the learning of every virtue there is an
appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best
discipline is philosophy.” Unpopular Essays 1950 |
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| “Men are born
ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.” |
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| "Philosophy, if it
cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power
of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show
the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest
things of daily life". The Problems of Philosophy. 1998 [1912]. S. 6. Die Philosophie kann nicht so viele Fragen beantworten, wie wir gerne möchten; aber sie kann wenigstens Fragen stellen, die unser Interesse an der Welt vergrößern und uns zeigen, wie dicht unter der Oberfläche der alltäglichsten Dinge alles seltsam und erstaunlich wird. "... whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities." The Problems of Philosophy. 1998 [1912]. S. 9. |
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| "The process of sound philosophizing, to
my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous
things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precies, clear, definite,
which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we
start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a
sort of shadow." The Philosophy of Logical Atomism.1918, 1919. S.179-180. "Der Prozeß gültigen Philosophierens besteht nach meiner Meinung hautpsächlich darin, daß man von diesen offensichtlichen, vagen und mehrdeutigen Dingen, deren wir uns ganz sicher zu sein glauben, zu etwas Präzisem, Klarem und Bestimmtem übergeht, von dem wir durch Reflexion und Analyse feststellen, daß es in dem Vagen, von dem wir ausgehen, enthalten ist und so-zu-sagen die eigentliche Wahrheit ist, von der dieses Vage nur eine Art Schatten ist." |
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| "Presupposing has all the advantage over demonstrating that theft has over honest labor." | |
| Auch Tiere unterliegen dem
Trugschluß der Induktion. Dazu brachte Russell dieses schlagende
Beispiel. "The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken." The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford, 1998. S.35 |
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| "We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think — in fact they do so." The ABC of Relativity, 1925, S. 166 | |
| "I wish to propose for the reader's
favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly
paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is
undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for
supposing it true." Introduction: On the Value of
Scepticism, Sceptical Essays, London, 1928. |
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| “Religion is
based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.” Bertrand Russell Rede am 6. März, 1927 für die National Secular Society, South London Branch, in der Battersea Town Hall. In: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays, 1957. |
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| "Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, 'The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance.' You would say, 'Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment'; and that is really what a scientific person would say about the universe." Why I Am Not a Christian, London 1927 | |
| "Ich halte alle großen Religionen der Welt – Buddhismus, Hinduismus, Christentum, Islam und Kommunismus – sowohl für unwahr als auch für schädlich." Warum ich kein Christ bin, München 1963 (13) | |
© by Herbert Huber, Am Fröschlanger 15, 83512 Wasserburg, Germany, 18.8.2011