Reading Questions
Bertrand Russell - The Value of Philosophy

1. According to Russell, what is the difference between the kinds of goods that physical sciences achieve and the kinds that Philosophy achieves?
2. What does Russell think society would still need if we wiped out poverty and disease?  Do you agree?  Why or why not?
3. Russell says,

"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.  To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected."
How is the student of philosophy supposed to be better off than the sort of person Russell describes?  Do you agree?  Why or why not?