Our Knowledge of the External World: As a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy

London: Prometheus Books/George Allen & Unwin, 1969. 5th Impression. Textbook Binding. Very Good/Good+. 1926 Not a textbook binding. In clipped dustjacket. Our photos depict the actual book offered. Tidy light green cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine; spine and upper board edges are a wee bit toned. Bottom edge of rear board has a little bump. Binding is sound. Owner's last name inked on FFEP. Inside, a moderate amount of neat underlining and marginalia in light black ink. Upper page edges especially are toned. Dustjacket is toned along spine and edges, with a 1-inch tear along upper edge, and the bottom front endflap has been cut (see photo). 8vo. Ships from US. BOOK INFO: See photos for Table of Contents. 'The following lectures are an attempt to show, by means of examples, the nature, capacity, and limitations of the logical-analytic method in philosophy. This method, of which the first complete example is to be found in the writings of Frege, has gradually, in the course of actual research, increasingly forced itself upon me as something perfectly definite, capable of embodiment in maxims, and adequate, in all branches of philosophy, to yield whatever objective scientific knowledge it is possible to obtain. Most of the methods hitherto practised have professed to lead to more ambitious results than any that logical analysis can claim to reach, but unfortunately these results have always been such as many competent philosophers considered inadmissible. Regarded merely as hypotheses and as aids to imagination, the great systems of the past serve a very useful pupose, and are abundantly worthy of study. But something different is required if philosophy is to become a science, and to aim at results independent of the tastes and temperament of the philosopher who advocates them. In what follows, I have endeavoured to show, however imperfectly, the way by which I believe that this desideratum is to be found. (-from the Preface). Includes index and terminal list and descriptions of some of Russell's other books.