Product Description

In this collection of essays, Russell surveys the social and political consequences of his beliefs with characteristic clarity and humour. In Praise of Idleness is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21483 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Review

'A book full of rich, stimulative thought, with plenty of scope for disagreement.' - The Guardian

'Invariably intelligent, stimulating and lucid.' - The Listener

'There is not ... a page which does not provoke argument or thought.' - The Sunday Times

From the Back Cover

With a new introduction by Anthony Gottlieb

‘There is not a page which does not provoke argument and thought.’ – The Sunday Times

Intolerance and bigotry lie at the heart of all human suffering. So claims Bertrand Russell at the outset of In Praise of Idleness, a collection of essays in which he espouses the virtues of cool reflection and free enquiry; a voice of calm in a world of maddening unreason. From a devastating critique of the ancestry of fascism to a vehement defence of ‘useless’ knowledge, with consideration given to everything from insect pests to the human soul, this is a tour de force that only Bertrand Russell could perform. First published: 1935.

About the Author
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). The leading British philosopher of the twentieth century, who made major contributions in the areas of logic and epistemology. Politically active and habitually outspoken, his ethical principles twice led to imprisonment.

Customer Reviews

Everybody should read this!
If only we could get a copy of the title essay from this volume into every home in the developed world.... Its true that there are a few holes in it, but most of these are understandable when you consider the era in which it was written, and the basic argument remains perfectly intact.

The fact that a man with Russell's aristocratic background was even vaguely thinking along these lines in the 1930s is just truly astonishing. And these ideas still haven't been absorbed, even into our more radical political circles! Bizarre!!!

Bertrand Russell really was a genius in the fullest and most genuine sense of the word. You wouldn't regret buying ten copies of this!

Eye opening if depressins
I bought this book on a whim and am glad I did. Many of the essays are from the 1930's and some of the ideas are dated and have been superseded by more modern ones, however the core of what Russell talks about is still incredibly relevant to modern life(if not more then when written). This book depressed me in the same way that Tressel's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists did, we are 70 years on from Russells essays and even further on from Tressel's book and very little, if anything, has changed. The problems with society discussed by Russell(& Tressell) still exist, yes conditions at the bottom of society may be somewhat better now but when compared to conditions at the top the problems are still there.
This book is well worth a read, as are Russell's other works, but don't expect an easy or happy read.

Progress is the work of a small group of individuals
Besides his praise of idleness, Bertrand Russell demolishes in these lectures the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and gives formidable comments on fascism and communism (`Scylla and Charybdis'), religion, politics and civilization.
The all important issue in his `literary' work was to save mankind from the suicidal disaster of (nuclear) war.

Fichte
B. Russell demonstrates clearly that Fichte's whole philosophy develops out of the proposition `I am I'. For Fichte, the Ego is both the agent and the result of the action. The Ego exists because it wills to exist. Or more generally, `the universe is myself'.
In his `Address to the German Nation', Fichte states that `the German is superior to all other moderns, because he alone has a pure language. If the German character is to be preserved, there must be a new kind of education, which must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys the freedom of the will' (!).

For B. Russell, civilization is a combination of knowledge and forethought. The degree of forethought involved in any act is measured by three factors: present pain, future pleasure and the length of the interval between them.

Religion is a conscious phenomenon, because `one doesn't find that believers in a future life are less afraid of illness. The reason for this apparent inconsistency is, of course, that religious belief exists only in the region of conscious thought and has not succeeded in modifying unconscious mechanisms.'

B. Russell is extremely cynical in his evaluation of modern governments: `In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilized governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a government is in the same position as that bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers.'

As one of the greatest philosophers of all time and as a true pacifist, Bertrand Russell's works are a must read for all those who want to understand (and change) the world we live in.