Philosophy

by Bertrand Russell

[CHAPTER II]
MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT

If our scientific knowledge were full and complete, we should understand ourselves and the world and our relation to the world. As it is, our understanding of all three is fragmentary. For the present, it is the third question, that of our relation to the world, that I wish to consider, because this brings us nearest to the problems of philosophy. We shall find that it will lead us back to the other two questions, as to the world and as to ourselves, but that we shall understand both these better if we have considered first how the world acts upon us and how we act upon the world.

There are a number of sciences which deal with Man. We may deal with him in natural history, as one among the animals, having a certain place in evolution, and related to other animals in ascertainable ways. We may deal with him in physiology, as a structure capable of performing certain functions, and reacting to the environment in ways of which some, at least, can be explained by chemistry. We may study him in sociology, as a unit in various organisms, such as the family and the state. And we may study him, in psychology, as he appears to himself. This last gives what we may call an internal view of man, as opposed to the other three, which give an external view. That is to say, in psychology we use data which can only be obtained when the observer and the observed are the same person, whereas in the other ways of studying Man all our data can be obtained by observing other people. There are different ways of interpreting this distinction, and different views of its importance, but there can be no doubt that there is such a distinction. We can remember our own dreams, whereas we cannot know the dreams of others unless they tell us about them. We know when we have toothache, when our food tastes too salty, when we are remembering some past occurrence, and so on. All these events in our lives other people cannot know in the same direct way. In this sense, we all have an inner life, open to our own inspection but to no one else’s. This is no doubt the source of the traditional distinction of mind and body: the body was supposed to be that part of us which others could observe, and the mind that part which was private to ourselves. The importance of the distinction has been called in question in recent times, and I do not myself believe that it has any fundamental philosophical significance. But historically it has played a dominant part in determining the conceptions from which men set out when they began to philosophise, and on this account, if on no other, it deserves to be borne in mind.

Knowledge, traditionally, has been viewed from within, as something which we observe in ourselves rather than as something which we can see others displaying. When I say that it has been so viewed, I mean that this has been the practice of philosophers; in ordinary life, people have been more objective. In ordinary life, knowledge is something which can be tested by examinations, that is to say, it consists in a certain kind of response to a certain kind of stimulus. This objective way of viewing knowledge is, to my mind, much more fruitful than the way which has been customary in philosophy. I mean that, if we wish to give a definition of “knowing”, we ought to define it as a manner of reacting to the environment, not as involving something (a “state of mind”) which only the person who has the knowledge can observe. It is because I hold this view that I think it best to begin with Man and his environment, rather than with those matters in which the observer and the observed must be the same person. Knowing, as I view it, is a characteristic which may be displayed in our reactions to our environment; it is therefore necessary first of all to consider the nature of these reactions as they appear in science.

Let us take some everyday situation. Suppose you are watching a race, and at the appropriate moment you say, “they’re off”. This exclamation is a reaction to the environment, and is taken to show knowledge if it is made at the same time as others make it. Now let us consider what has been really happening, according to science. The complication of what has happened is almost incredible. It may conveniently be divided into four stages: first, what happened in the outside world between the runners and your eyes; secondly, what happened in your body from your eyes to your brain; thirdly, what happened in your brain; fourthly, what happened in your body from your brain to the movements of your throat and tongue which constituted your exclamation. Of these four stages, the first belongs to physics, and is dealt with in the main by the theory of light; the second and fourth belong to physiology; the third, though it should theoretically also belong to physiology, belongs in fact rather to psychology, owing to our lack of knowledge as to the brain. The third stage embodies the results of experience and learning. It is responsible for the fact that you speak, which an animal would not do, and that you speak English, which a Frenchman would not do. This immensely complicated occurrence is, nevertheless, about the simplest example of knowledge that could possibly be given.

For the moment, let us leave on one side the part of this process which happens in the outside world and belongs to physics. I shall have much to say about it later, but what has to be said is not altogether easy, and we will take less abstruse matters first. I will merely observe that the event which we are said to perceive, namely the runners starting, is separated by a longer or shorter chain of events from the event which happens at the surface of our eyes. It is this last that is what is called the “stimulus”. Thus the event that we are said to perceive when we see is not the stimulus, but an anterior event related to it in a way that requires investigation. The same applies to hearing and smell, but not to touch or to perception of states of our own body. In these cases, the first of the above four stages is absent. It is clear that, in the case of sight, hearing and smell, there must be a certain relation between the stimulus and the event said to be perceived, but we will not now consider what this relation must be. We will consider, rather, the second, third, and fourth stages in an act of perceptive knowledge. This is the more legitimate as these stages always exist, whereas the first is confined to certain senses.

The second stage is that which proceeds from the sense-organ to the brain. It is not necessary for our purposes to consider exactly what goes on during this journey. A purely physical event—the stimulus—happens at the boundary of the body, and has a series of effects which travel along the afferent nerves to the brain. If the stimulus is light, it must fall on the eye to produce the characteristic effects; no doubt light falling on other parts of the body has effects, but they are not those that distinguish vision. Similarly, if the stimulus is sound, it must fall on the ear. A sense-organ, like a photographic plate, is responsive to stimuli of a certain sort: light falling on the eye has effects which are different for different wave-lengths, intensities, and directions. When the events in the eye due to incident light have taken place, they are followed by events in the optic nerve, leading at last to some occurrence in the brain—an occurrence which varies with the stimulus. The occurrence in the brain must be different for different stimuli in all cases where we can perceive differences. Red and yellow, for instance, are distinguishable in perception; therefore the occurrences along the optic nerve and in the brain must have a different character when caused by red light from what they have when caused by yellow light. But when two shades of colour are so similar that they can only be distinguished by delicate instruments, not by perception, we cannot be sure that they cause occurrences of different characters in the optic nerve and brain.

When the disturbance has reached the brain, it may or may not cause a characteristic set of events in the brain. If it does not, we shall not be what is called “conscious” of it. For to be “conscious” of seeing yellow, whatever else it may be, must certainly involve some kind of cerebral reaction to the message brought by the optic nerve. It may be assumed that the great majority of messages brought to the brain by the afferent nerves never secure any attention at all—they are like letters to a government office which remain unanswered. The things in the margin of the field of vision, unless they are in some way interesting, are usually unnoticed; if they are noticed, they are brought into the centre of the field of vision unless we make a deliberate effort to prevent this from occurring. These things are visible, in the sense that we could be aware of them if we chose, without any change in our physical environment or in our sense-organs; that is to say, only a cerebral change is required to enable them to cause a reaction. But usually they do not provoke any reaction; life would be altogether too wearing if we had to be always reacting to everything in the field of vision. Where there is no reaction, the second stage completes the process, and the third and fourth stages do not arise. In that case, there has been nothing that could be called “perception” connected with the stimulus in question.

To us, however, the interesting case is that in which the process continues. In this case there is first a process in the brain, of which the nature is as yet conjectural, which travels from the centre appropriate to the sense in question to a motor centre. From these there is a process which travels along an efferent nerve, and finally results in a muscular event causing some bodily movement. In our illustration of the man watching the beginning of a race, a process travels from the part of the brain concerned with sight to the part concerned with speech; this is what we called the third stage. Then a process travels along the efferent nerves and brings about the movements which constitute saying “they’re off”; this is what we called the fourth stage.

Unless all four stages exist, there is nothing that can be called “knowledge”. And even when they are all present, various further conditions must be satisfied if there is to be “knowledge”. But these observations are premature, and we must return to the analysis of our third and fourth stages.