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I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Lord Russell was a British philosopher and logician, and an excellent writer. He was awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature. The quotation is from Russell's 1954 essay, "Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?"
"...deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive...."
ReplyDeleteI am surprised that this fellow would call himself atheist, and not agnostic. Was he atheist when he wrote the above? Did he actually then feel that the evidence was conclusive that there was no God? If not, when did he change his mind and for what reason?
Tom, Russell declared himself an atheist way before 1954 (when he was 82 years old), so if this passage implies that he was no longer an atheist, then I guess he must have changed his mind, but (if so) I know neither when nor why.
ReplyDeleteI suspect, however, that he continued to feel that the evidence was conclusive enough to take the atheist position, if only in the sense that he definitely did not believe in God, even if he didn't positively believe that there is none. You do admit that distinction, do you not?
That could well have been his thinking, I agree.
ReplyDeleteI remembered later that Russell subsequently wrote a preface for the 1957 book Why I Am Not a Christian (edited by Paul Weiss). He may there have said something about just what kind of atheist he considered himself to be at the more advanced age of 85. Alas, I don't have a copy, so I can't readily check this, but I mean to at some point.
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