What Bertrand Russell Actually Said About Action
All 6 Bertrand Russell passages on action, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
Bertrand Russell returns to action six times in thinkr's library — more often than to almost anything else. British logician, philosopher, and public intellectual. Co-author of Principia Mathematica, and later a passionate voice for peace and free thought.
What follows is every one of those passages, in full, with what each is actually claiming. The language is of its period, but the question underneath is not: what is action for, and what does it ask of you?
Every Bertrand Russell passage on action
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
“I may as well say at once that I do not distinguish between inference and deduction. What is called induction appears to me to be either disguised deduction or a mere method of making plausible guesses.”
“What does not exist must be something, or it would be meaningless to deny its existence; and hence we need the concept of being, as that which belongs even to the non-existent.”
“Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.”
“How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race.”
“The principal source of the harm done by the State is the fact that power is its chief end.”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. Bertrand Russell is not offering six opinions about action; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race” — is the version you can carry, and the longer ones are what it unpacks into.
Bertrand Russell applied to a real decision
Quotation is the easy part. The harder test is what the position actually does when it meets a situation where every option costs something. thinkr puts two such cases to Bertrand Russell.
Everyone in the room is avoiding the obvious problem.
Argued as socratic courage: You are choosing truth over group comfort. The danger is using truth as a way to dominate the room.
You have to decide before you feel certain.
Argued as methodic doubt: You are honoring the difference between confidence and knowledge. The risk is making doubt infinite.
Work through these yourself
- Everyone in the room is avoiding the obvious problem. — argued from socratic courage and several competing positions
- You have to decide before you feel certain. — argued from methodic doubt and several competing positions
Who disagrees
Plato, Seneca, Mahatma Gandhi and Lao Tzu all address action too, and they do not converge. Reading Bertrand Russell alone gives you a coherent position; reading Bertrand Russell against Plato shows you what the position is actually choosing against.