The problems of philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The problems of philosophy - Essay Example Viewing the work in a general way of such philosophers as Russell, Descartes, Ayer, Wittgenstein, and James can provide good ideas on what philosophy is and its work.In The Problems of Philosophy Chapter XV: The Value of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell implies that philosophy may be difficult to understand in the material world. He presents the idea that if all of one's material needs were satisfied, if poverty and disease had been met, there are still some things for which one looks. These things are 'goods of the mind' and they are reached by the 'self' that is not limited to the prison of materiality. It is possible for the self to escape and to know things outside itself. The self can reach for a unity of knowledge which may constitute the highest good. It can find basic materials of the universe that do not need to be further analyzed and it is the goal of the philosopher to conduct such a search. Rene Descartes conducted this very search and he did it inside his mind. Outside the mind is the reality of the world, or so it seems. This reality is full of conflicts and contradictions. The role of the philosopher for Descartes was to use principles offered by mathematical reasoning to go inside the mind and to find or develop a system of knowledge that demonstrated, from within the mind, a unity from which all other knowledge could come. The way in which truth was derived from mathematics could also be applied to the world.