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Political Ideals
Bertrand Russell
其他書名
Unabridged Edition
出版CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015-03-25
主題Political Science / Political Ideologies / General
ISBN15114334509781511433457
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=_PdFrgEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋Support Struggle for Public Domain: like and share http://facebook.com/BookLiberationFrontBertrand Russell was a British mathematician, logician, philosopher, historian, pacifist and social critic. He possessed prodigious intellectual talents as can be surmised by the scope and quality of his activities. He is also a recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature for his various humanist writings.As someone who has a keen semi-professional interest in mathematics, and foundational issues of mathematics in particular, I have been familiar for a while with Russell's mathematical and logical works. His influence on those topics has been profound and enduring. Recently I have also read his short book The Problems of Philosophy. It is a short, pedagogical work that deals with some of the most enduring questions that have characterized philosophy. Russell is clearly an authority in the field, and this shows in his command of the topics that he discusses.Having these things in mind, I was expecting "Political Ideals" to be a very stimulating and intellectually sophisticated work worthy of the reputation of this great man. Unfortunately I was severely disappointed. This book is no enduring tract on political philosophy. I can think of many bright undergraduate students that I've known personally, from all parts of the political and ideological spectrum, who would have presented a much more coherent and persuasive account of their own political ideals. The tone of the book is polemical in the extreme, without much thought being given to any deep analysis. Russell makes many sweeping statements and complete generalizations without as much as hinting at demonstrating their validity. Despite his implied concern for the common man, Russell's overall attitude is that of a naïve elitist. He seems to believe that the highest ideal that human beings aspire fro is the unbridled creativity. This sounds grand in principle, but in reality most people would much prefer to spend their leisure time engaging in some form of passive or semi-passive entertainment. One gets an impression that in Russell's mind an ideal society is one filled with identical replicas of Bertrand Russell. As I mentioned earlier, I am a big fan of much of Russell's work, but I'd rather live in a world dominated by ordinary Joe Schmos than in one filled with brilliant geniuses. And for that kind of world political ideals of Bertrand Russell leave a lot to be desired.