A History of Western Philosophy

In the beginning of Book 1, Part 1, Chapter 4, Russell outlines two common views of the ancient Greeks. One is overly adulatory of the Greeks’ achievements, and the other overly critical. Russell commits to taking a middle view. He concedes that the Greeks showed great “imaginative inventiveness” in conceiving theories and hypotheses about the world. Although “at first somewhat infantile,” these theories have “proved capable of surviving and developing throughout more than two thousand years” (38).

Russell implies that the most important thing about the process of philosophical inquiry is not getting philosophical views right at the first attempt. Rather, philosophical inquiry is a slow and gradual process that unfolds via many minds espousing different theories throughout history, in which errors are made and then corrected. Philosophical history is therefore a journey with many swerves and with periods of progress, decline, and recovery.

In dealing with a philosophical theory or idea, Russell says the proper attitude is “neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy” (39). He believes it is important to take ideas seriously and to examine them thoroughly before reaching a decision about their value. Russell exhibits this process throughout the book, as most chapters consist of a summary of a philosopher’s ideas followed by an analytical assessment of them that aims at balance.

In conducting this critical process, Russell asserts that it must be kept in mind that “no man is likely to have arrived at complete and final truth on any subject” (39). Exercising “historical and psychological imagination” (39) can help aid in understanding why people believed certain things at particular times in history, thus “enlarge[ing] the scope of our thinking” by putting such “prejudices” in perspective. Taking a momentary respite from the history which he is recounting, Russell pauses to espouse these liberal principles as guides for readers in evaluating ideas they may encounter in life and in history. In all things, Russell advocates taking a broad and balanced view of the history of thought and civilization.

Throughout his History, Russell depicts times when philosophers were restricted in their inquiries by the authorities, whether political or religious, or when freedom of thought was otherwise impeded. An early and famous example of this is Socrates, who was condemned to death by the leaders of Athens for his teaching. In the 6th century CE, the emperor Justinian closed the Athenian Academy in which Platonism was taught. Spinoza was excluded by the Jewish community because of his ideas about God, while in the Middle Ages philosophers could be censured for teachings that clashed with orthodox Christian beliefs. Leibniz tailored his published philosophical ideas so as to curry favor with his rulers. Galileo was tried by the Inquisition when his astronomical ideas proved controversial with ecclesiastical and scientific authorities.

Russell uses these instances to highlight the theme that free inquiry is a relative rarity in history. This is due to the fact that civil or ecclesiastical rulers often desire to control the beliefs that govern society so as to ensure social cohesion or set in place a form of orthodoxy that they favor. Philosophy, as an impartial search for truth, will at times clash with prevailing beliefs. As a “middleman” between theology and science, philosophy is vulnerable to attack from both sides. With the rise of liberalism in the 17th and 18th centuries—a movement shaped and reflected by Locke and the British empiricists—there was at last hope that tolerance toward free inquiry would become the norm. Russell recounts that, ironically, the forces of individualism and subjectivity that were unleashed by the new liberal movements eventually imperiled the cause of freedom itself by giving rise to new political tyrannies.

At the same time, Russell argues that philosophers themselves have occasionally been guilty of betraying the spirit of free inquiry. For example, he faults the Platonic Socrates for being “dishonest and sophistical in argument” and of using “intellect to prove conclusions that are to him agreeable, rather than [engaging] in a disinterested search for knowledge”—an approach that Russell claims is tantamount to “the worst of philosophic sins” (143). Similarly, Russell argues of St. Thomas Aquinas that, due to Aquinas’s strong Catholic beliefs, he “already knows the truth” (463) before he even begins making his inquires, which hinders him from pursuing the course of each argument objectively.

Throughout the book, Russell therefore presents himself as an advocate for the liberal values of free thought and inquiry, which he sees as fundamental to the philosophical process, and for philosophy as an impartial search for truth.