Our Knowledge of the External World: As a Field for Scientific Method in Philos…
Bertrand Russell
Read by Landon D. C. Elkind
Bertrand Russell gave the Lowell Lectures in March and April of 1914; these lectures produced 'Our Knowledge of the External World'. Russell attempts to analyze the relationship of the crude data of our senses to the notions of physics such as space, time, and matter. Russell takes his analysis to illustrate the method of logical analysis used to such wonderful effect by thinkers in the late nineteenth-century to the notions of continuity, infinity, and the infinitesimal. These analyses effected a new epoch of clarity in the philosophy of mathematics; Russell hopes that a similar new age of clarity can be effected in the rest of philosophy through logical analysis; here, he undertakes the first stages of this analysis in the philosophy of physics. Summary by Landon D. C. Elkind. (8 hr 12 min)
Chapters
Preface | 5:18 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
Current Tendencies | 1:00:55 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
Logic as the Essence of Philosophy | 57:00 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
On Our Knowledge of the External World | 1:12:13 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
The World of Physics and the World of Sense | 1:00:39 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
The Theory of Continuity | 51:13 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
The Problem of Infinity Considered Historically | 1:04:41 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
The Positive Theory of Infinity | 51:16 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
On the Notion of Cause, with Applications to the Free-Will Problem | 1:09:44 | Read by Landon D. C. Elkind |
Reviews
Excellent
mindscent
Thank you very much for undertaking this project. You've helped me enormously. I'm a graduate student in philosophy, a mother of the school-aged children and I have ADHD. Thanks to your efforts, I have been able to listen your various recordings of Russell's works as I drive around or complete other tasks rather than to have to devote all my attention to reading. I cannot overstate the extent to which this has improved my lives and as a result, the lives of my children. Your annuciation is clear and your intonation in no way obfuscatedls Russell's intended meaning. That is no small feat when it comes to any given piece of philosophy, let alone philosophy as prolix and technical as Russell's. Thank you again, truly.
Andy Mak
This reading is a link to civilization. Priceless.
Thanks
GeoffreyEdwards
Thanks Landon. Keep them coming.