What Bertrand Russell Actually Said About Time
All 4 Bertrand Russell passages on time, in full — what each one claims, what holds them together, and who argues the other way.
Bertrand Russell returns to time four 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 time for, and what does it ask of you?
Every Bertrand Russell passage on time
“Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don't know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.”
“The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.”
“Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.”
“Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.”
What holds these together
Read in sequence rather than one at a time, the passages stop being separate aphorisms. Bertrand Russell is not offering four opinions about time; the lines are facets of one position, and the repetition is the argument. The shortest of them — “Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom” — 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
Albert Camus, Henry David Thoreau, Immanuel Kant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all address time too, and they do not converge. Reading Bertrand Russell alone gives you a coherent position; reading Bertrand Russell against Albert Camus shows you what the position is actually choosing against.