The Problems of Philosophy

Is there any knowledge so certain that no reasonable person could doubt it? Bertrand Russell begins with the table in front of him, which looks different in colour and shape to every observer, and asks what we really know about it. In fifteen short chapters, written for general readers, he moves from appearance and reality to idealism, knowledge by acquaintance and by description, induction and truth, and ends with the value of philosophy, which lies, he argues, in its very uncertainty.

Russell (1872–1970), British mathematician, philosopher and campaigner for peace, wrote the book in 1912, while he and Alfred North Whitehead were publishing Principia Mathematica. It is still one of the best introductions to philosophy, and Russell received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. For an older classic on the same questions, see Hume's Enquiry.