Bertrand Russell Quotes
The true function of logic ... as applied to matters of experience ... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is
Russell, Bertrand. Our Knowledge of the External World. Open Court Publishing, 1914, p. 8.
Much of Western society, even in the 21st century has tended to distrust logic, reasonng and emperical research unless there was some kind of philosophical, religious, ethical or idological corroberation. Often science is rejected or ignored if its results do not conform with Westrern society's traditional values. Climate change and evolution are two of the more dramatic example of the continuing influence of the transcendentalists and religious fundamentalists.
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS was a British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely known intellectual figures of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his “rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West.“
