Bertrand Russell: Problems of Philosophy Chapter 1 Appearance and Reality

Summary: As we search for certain knowledge, we often start with listing statements about what we think our immediate experience absolutely shows us about the world. Such statements, such as claims of knowledge about the color of a nearby table, seem initially evident, but Russell thinks that methodical doubt can show that they are likely wrong. Russell notes the difference in color throughout the table, the change in color when lighting is removed or adjusted, the alteration of color as one moves, or the different color reported by a color-blind person. The same could be done with the claims about a table's texture. If one asserts the table is smooth, one could look through a microscope and see the hills and valleys in the grain. For Russell, as one digs down and tests these statements, one becomes aware of the difference between appearance (how things seemed) on the one hand, and reality (how things are discovered to be) on the other. As one continues to dig and discredit appearances, the questions arise is there a table at all, and if there is, what sort of object is it? Russell suggests that our common existential assertions about the table (its color, texture, etc.) are really about sense-data. Our immediate awareness of the data is sensation. While this data is sensed, we might honestly doubt whether there is something, a reality or "matter" behind the data. While the science of Russell's day views matter as "a vast collection of electric charges in violent motion," Russell treats matter as meaning something more general: anything that is "behind" the sense data.

For if matter is treated as something opposed to mind that occupies space, there have been several parties that historically have disagreed. Berkeley maintained that the sense-datum do stand for some outside reality, but this something is mental--minds or ideas entertained by the mind. He believed this is necessary to explain how we know the outside world: knowing the object is easy since qua idea it may inhabit the mind for a time. He supposed that if the reality of the table was drastically different from its appearance it could not be known. The ideas responsible for our sensation of sense-datum linger even when we are not present, sustained by the mind of God (where all ideas linger in its all-perceiving gaze). Russell observes that in absolute idealism Berkeley's concept of the all-perceiving mind of God is secularized into the collective mind of the universe. Russell summarizes the general idealist argument for an exclusively mental reality is: "'Whatever can be thought of is an idea in a thinker's mind; therefore nothing can be thought of except ideas in minds; therefore anything else is inconceivable, and what is inconceivable cannot exist." Russell rejects this argument, but also points out that idealism is not so radical about the question between appearance and reality. We can doubt the existence of a non-mental reality outside of appearance, but might we not also doubt any sort of reality altogether (matter in the more general sense)? We wonder, if reality is not the same as appearance, do we have any means of knowing whether there is any independent reality? And if we do, are there any means of knowing what that reality is like?