რბილი

Hans Vaihinger (1852–1933) was an important and fascinating figure in German philosophy in the early twentieth century, founding the well-known journal Kant-Studien. Yet he was overshadowed by the burgeoning movements of phenomenology and analytical philosophy, as well as hostility towards his work because of his defense of Jewish scholars in a Germany controlled by Nazism.

However, it is widely acknowledged today that The Philosophy of ‘As If’ is a philosophical masterwork. Vaihinger argues that in the face of an overwhelmingly complex world, we produce a simpler set of ideas, or idealizations, that help us negotiate it. When cast as fictions, such ideas provide an easier and more useful way to think about certain subjects, from mathematics and physics to law and morality, than would the truth in all its complexity. Even in science, he wrote, we must proceed “as if ” a material world exists independently of perceiving subjects; in behaviour, we must act “as if ” ethical certainty were possible; in religion, we must believe “as if” there were a God. He also explores the role of fictions in the history of philosophy, going back to the ancient Greeks and the work of Leibniz, Adam Smith and Bentham.

The Philosophy of ‘As If’ was a powerful influence on the emerging philosophical movement of pragmatism and was groundbreaking in its anticipation of the central role that model-building and simulation would come to play in the human sciences.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by Michael A. Rosenthal, which provides a fascinating and important background to Vaihinger’s life and the legacy of The Philosophy of ‘As If’.

The Analysis of Matter is the product of thirty years of thinking by one of the twentieth century’s best-known philosophers. An inquiry into the philosophical foundations of physics, it was written against the background of stunning new developments in physics earlier in the century, above all relativity, as well as the excitement around quantum theory, which was just being developed.

Concerned to place physics on a stable footing at a time of great theoretical change, Russell argues that the concept of matter itself can be replaced by a logical construction whose basic foundations are events. He is careful to point out that this does not prove that matter does not exist, but it does show that physicists can get on with their work without assuming that matter does exist. Russell argues that fundamental bits of ”matter”, such as electrons and protons, are simply groups of events connected in a certain way and their properties are all that are required for physics.

This Routledge Classics edition includes the 1992 Introduction by John G. Slater.

Between 1931 and 1935, Bertrand Russell contributed some 156 essays to the literary pages of the American newspaper New York American. These were often fun, humorous observations on the very real issues of the day, such as the Depression, the rise of Nazism and Prohibition, to more perennial themes such as love, parenthood, education and friendship. Available for the first time in the Routledge Classics series in a single volume, this pithy, provocative and often-personal collection of essays brings together the very best of Russell’s many contributions to the New York American, and proves just as engaging for today’s readers as they were in the 1930s.

“The philosophy of mathematics will naturally be expected to deal with questions at the frontier of knowledge, as to which comparative certainty is not yet attained. But separation of such questions is hardly likely to be fruitful unless the more scientific parts of mathematics are known. A book dealing with those parts may, therefore, claim to be an introduction to mathematical philosophy…” – Bertrand Russell, from the Preface

First published in 1919, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy shows Russell drawing on his formidable knowledge of philosophy and mathematics to write a brilliant introduction to the subject. Russell explains that mathematics can be approached in two distinct directions: one that is driven by a mechanical kind of simplicity and builds towards complexity, from integers to fractions and real numbers to complex ones; and one that searches for abstractness and logical simplicity by asking what general principles underlie mathematics.

From here Russell introduces and explains, in his customary pellucid prose, the definition of numbers, finitude, correlation and relation, mathematical limits, infinity, propositional descriptions and classes. Russell concludes with a fascinating summary of the relationship between mathematics and logic, of which he states “logic is the youth of mathematics.”

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Michael Potter.

Written by one of the twentieth century’s most significant thinkers, Freedom and Organization, is considered to be Bertrand Russell’s major work on political history. It traces the main causes of political change during a period of one hundred years, which he argues were predominantly influenced by three major elements – economic technique, political theory and certain significant individuals. In the witty, approachable style that has made Bertrand Russell’s works so revered, he explores in detail the major forces and events that shaped the nineteenth century.

With a new Introduction by the author

‘An elegant and sane little book. – The New Statesman

Myths, as Mary Midgley argues in this powerful book, are everywhere. In political thought they sit at the heart of theories of human nature and the social contract; in economics in the pursuit of self interest; and in science the idea of human beings as machines, which originates in the seventeenth century, is a today a potent force. Far from being the opposite of science, however, Midgley argues that myth is a central part of it. Myths are neither lies nor mere stories but a network of powerful symbols for interpreting the world. Tackling a dazzling array of subjects such as philosophy, evolutionary psychology, animals, consciousness and the environment in her customary razor-sharp prose, The Myths We Live By reminds us of the powerful role of symbolism and the need to take our imaginative life seriously.

Mary Midgley is a moral philosopher and the author of many books including Wickedness, Evolution as a Religion, Beast and Man and Science and Poetry. All are published in Routledge Classics.

Science, according to the received wisdom of the day, can answer any question we choose to put to it – even the most fundamental about ourselves, our behaviour and our cultures. But for Mary Midgley it can never be the whole story, as it cannot truly explain what it means to be human.

In this typically crusading work, universally acclaimed as a classic on first publication, she powerfully asserts her corrective view that without poetry (or literature, or music, or history, or even theology) we cannot hope to understand our humanity. In this remarkable book, the reader is struck by both the simplicity and power of her argument and the sheer pleasure of reading one of our most accessible philosophers.

Hailed as the ‘Guru of the New Left’ and a leading figure of 1960s counterculture and liberation movements, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse is amongst the most renowned and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Eros and Civilization is one of his best-known books and brought him international fame.

Taking his cue from Freud’s view that repression of the instincts is a defining characteristic of the human mind, Marcuse fuses Freud’s insight with Marx’s theories of alienation and oppression. He argues that rather than our instincts turned in on themselves, it is modern capitalism itself that is preventing us from reaching the freedom we can find in a non-repressive society.

A sweeping indictment of modern capitalism and consumerism that remains fresh and insightful, Eros and Civilization is a classic of activist and radical thinking that continues to fire debate and controversy today.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Douglas Kellner.