{"id":1637,"date":"2009-08-28T10:02:48","date_gmt":"2009-08-28T08:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deleet.dk\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2009-08-28T10:02:48","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T08:02:48","slug":"quote-bertrand-russell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/2009\/08\/quote-bertrand-russell\/","title":{"rendered":"Quote: Bertrand Russell"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Philosophy, throughout its history, has consisted of two parts inharmoniously
\nblended; on the one hand a theory as to the nature of the world, on the other an
\nethical or political doctrine as to the best way of living. The failure to separate
\nthese two with sufficient clarity has been a source of much confused thinking.
\nPhilosophers, from Pla to to William James, have allowed their opinions as to the
\nconstitution of the universe to be influenced by the desire for edification: knowing,
\nas they supposed, what beliefs would make men virtuous, they have invented
\narguments, often very sophistical, to prove that these beliefs are true. For my part I
\nreprobate this kind of bias, both on moral and on intellectual grounds. Morally, a
\nphilosopher who uses his professional competency for anything except a
\ndisinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery. And when he assumes,
\nin advance of inquiry, that certain beliefs, whether true or false, are such as to
\npromote good behavior, he is so limiting the scope of philosophical speculation as
\nto make philosophy trivial; the true philosopher is prepared to examine\u00a0 all
\npreconceptions.<\/strong> When any limits are placed, consciously or unconsciously, upon
\nthe pursuit of truth, philosophy becomes paralyzed by fear, and the ground is
\nprepared for a government censorship punishing those who utter \u201cdangerous
\nthoughts\u201d\u00a0 – in fact, the philosopher has already places such a censorship over his
\nown investigations.”<\/p>\n

My emphasis. From The Philosophy of Logical Analysis<\/em>
\n(Chapter XXXI of \u201cA History of Western Philosophy\u201d)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Philosophy, throughout its history, has consisted of two parts inharmoniously blended; on the one hand a theory as to the nature of the world, on the other an ethical or political doctrine as to the best way of living. The failure to separate these two with sufficient clarity has been a source of much confused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[47,147,1277],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-a-history-of-western-philosophy","tag-bertrand-russell","tag-the-philosophy-of-logical-analysis","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilkirkegaard.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}