Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits

Author: Russell
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-02-01
Features: The main purpose of this book is to examine the relationship between personal experience and the whole of scientific knowledge. We generally assume that scientific knowledge is largely acceptable. Although skepticism is logically impeccable, from a psychological perspective it cannot be valid, because every philosophy that claims to advocate skepticism is inherently reckless and insincere. Furthermore, if skepticism were to hold theoretical ground, it would have to deny all inferences derived from experience. A half-hearted skepticism, such as denying the existence of physical events no one has experienced, or the solipsism that admits events in my future or in the past beyond my memory, lacks logical justification, because it must acknowledge the principles of inference that lead to the information it denies.