Epistemology

The Problems of Philosophy

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Bertrand Russell

1912

Written as an introduction to philosophy for a general audience, this short classic remains one of the most lucid entrances into epistemology ever written. Russell examines the grounds of our knowledge of the external world, the nature of matter, the distinction between appearance and reality, the existence of other minds, and the reliability of inductive reasoning. Moving from the apparently simple question of whether the table he is writing on really exists, he draws the reader into a sustained examination of what can and cannot be known — and why the uncertainty, properly understood, is a mark of philosophy's depth rather than its failure.